Buran.3796

I don't known now how I could counter necro with Renebow. Scorchrazor was already limited to 900 range, so landing Forced Engagement was an absolute MUST to try to combo vs Necros, due all of their Marks and most of their most dangerous cc's and attacks came from a 1200 range. Yes, their sustain and damage is now lower, but what I fear from necros isn't their raw damage nor their tankiness in shroud, but their perma-fear and perma-chilling and other disabling ccs. Having to reach 600 range to use Forced Engagement is absolute garbage and entirely disables the functionality of the ranged build. And let's be honest: there's no mele Revenant build in the universe using Jalis in PvP or roaming. The change also doesn't enhances Vindicator at all, since is not a viable class for PvP/roaming... Rev just went from two competitive builds to one and half...

I care two kittens about the change, but WASN'T A BUG. You known what's a bug? PAYING for template slots and NOT WORKING in the Revenant class. Anyway I'll feel sorry for the WvW/PvP variety: hybrid builds will fall apart and now only power Herald and Renebow remains (and Renebow heavily damaged by the Jalis change).

Black Desert Online and Last Ark do use different animation for most of their classes, weapons and specs, even if some of the wepons share a similar nature (longswords, katanas, sabers...). They look awesome and in combat every one of those classes look and feel distinctive. On the other hand, Eder Scrolls Online and New Word do use the same animations for each kind of weapon; the classes suffer for this: all looking the same while wielding the same weapon with the same skills. The combat feels boring and truly terrible in those games. Up to EoD GW2 was clearly in the first group: some autoattacks and a few skills had similar animations, but most of them and the animations were truly unique. EoD changes that streaks becoming a truly "budget expansion" in terms of polish... But we paid the same!

That can work with white creeps, yellow foes, red normal ones and maybe some bronze veterans in open world, but won't work against silver veterans, gold champs or purple legendary bosses from fractals. Remember that the power builds need three stats to maximize damage, so there's not much room to gain tankiness with a power Vindicator; you also don't get benefits in sustain from Tormenting runes, you have a single non stackable evade, which cost x2 the regular endurance, and each 20 seconds you can chose to pay 10 energy to get 50 endurance units (HALF of what a dodge now costs).

DP, sorry.

Played several AT for a month to get Trascendence at late of 2021, EU servers, exclusively in public games without premade members. I found the variant rewarding in terms of gold earnings x hour and exigent in terms of gameplay (I'm usually around gold II and III) so you have to play your best and use build that work. The cooperation and teamwork was better than what usually you find out in Conquest and the level of the rivals were higher, oftenly fighting vs plat and legendary players as underdog. Brief talks about the starting tactics and goals were common (which I din't saw in Conquest since HoT, probably). Got a couple of 2nd places in dailies and beating for small margins a team of better players due coordination was refreshing. My overall view of the AT is positive.

That nerfs will probably focus on alacrity in the Renegade and barriers in the Scourge. I don't think solo Renegade and Scourge do need those features: for a Renegade alone decreasing your own cooldown skills is irrelevant since the limiting factor to use them is the energy costs. Alacrity stats are used in fractals and raids due the benefits for other profesions, but going alone I find that boon duration is a waste (and anyway condition damage > strike damage in OW) so I run any combination of Viper and/or Trailblazer instead of Diviner. The same happens with condi Herald, which is tankier but a bit slower dealing damage (and mostly a pure mele fighter). So I don't think it would affect those classes too much, specially outside groups. I think that Rev, Ranger and Necro stillwould keep being the best OW classes based on their damage output, self sustain, mobility and mixup between single target and AoE damage in EoD.

Mirage's dodge costs 50% of what a Vindicator dodge costs (and can stack 2 in PvE), plus Blurred Inscriptions gives you 1 second of i-frames to damage x signet activation if needed. Of course V could be extremely good at Fractals, but there's already a ton of builds (including Renegade) which work extremely well at them.

Which isn't a surprise: ANet fired 1/3 of their work force a year after PoF to save costs, and their plans after that expansion didn't include to develop a new one. But their slow pace of content delivering and lack of hype post PoF while other MMOs kept building momentun trhough expansions forced them to turn 180º. But the reality is that EoD doesn't have behind the same amount of planification and work time has HoT or PoF. I would have expected EoD to have housing and a more interesting spec design; instead they are more or less iterations of gameplay already in use and the most shocking part is how much you have to give in exchange of a new spec: you lose virtues and team support to get a faster Guardian wich anyway is frail; you lose weapon swap to get a Warrior with slow charging big hits; you lose the kit belt to have acustomizable pet class; you lose clones and instant casting skills to get magical projectiles, etc. That doesn't mean that's terrible, since any nevelty would be wellcomed over no new content, but I'm not hyped about this budget expansion and I'm more interested into playing Cantha maps with HoT and PoF specs than with the terribly handicaped specs which the new expansion offers. Also, being released with almost no commercials just after Lost Ark and Elden Ring seems a problem. I think that the game will have a spike of players for a couple of months as happened with New World to then came back to the current numbers. And waiting for summer for new balance patches, lol!

The Specter seems to me the only new class mechanic worth of mention: his potential as healer focused in a single target is different from what we used to have until now (ASoE heals and support). I do see problems with the animations and fx, since ANet work in that regard in PoF was stellar, at least with some classes as Firebrand, Mirage, Weaver... Whereas here you have the Vindicator with a greatsword with 5 skills with animations from Ranger's gs and Reaper's gs. , and the fx looks just placeholders. And most of the new specs don't have new mechanics: Vindicator has a single ultraexpensive dodge; removing a dadge is not a new mechanic and anyway was "already done" with the mirage. Not having the ability to swap weapons with the Bladesworn isn't a new mechanic. Having a Guardian with mobility skills sin't a new mechanic. We already had pet classes, etc. I do understand the concept of fun: a class or spec can be fun to play and but weak compared to others, so you can use it (mostly in PvE). We already known that most of the new specs aren't competitive vs the previous ones. But if a class is played exactly as before, is less powerful and on top of that has new handicaps that didn't had, why to play it?

For PvE (at least OW PvE) The Alliance will be used, along Jalis mostly; due The Alliance provides quickness , fury and might, and without that the damage is screwed. That despite the Icon seems extracted from a Fisher Price toy... But that doesn't means that the spec will be used, only that from the available choices, The Alliance seems half decent for PvE. For PvP/WvW it won't be used (and probably neither the whole spec).

To be honest: some of the new specs do reuse tons of older animations from other professions while providing 0 new mechanics (and with large tradeoffs in exchange); so even if the numbers were amazing the bunch of them still would be felt as rushed and unimaginative.

I think that in PvP the Guardian has (had) clearly three different ways to be played: core (either support or burn dps, oftenly with either meditations or shouts, both instant casting abilities), Dragonhunter (focused in in ranged pressure, constant ccs and strategic placement of the traps) and Firebrand (no longer: is a defunct spec in PvP but used to be great due the constant change between regular skills, tome skills and stacks of mantras made it a very "piano play" elementalist kind of character). But the new Willbender is exactly the same as a core Guard: just more mobile and way less support, so ends being pretty much a dps fire guardian which is slanted towrads physical damage, instead. With the Rev is similar: you have a Herald melee-physical build which relies in mobility and bursts, and then a ranged Renegade build (which only works since the Feb 2019 balance patch + Sevenshot rework); the core builds are worse variants of both of those, and the condi Herald was killed the same as the Firebrand. The Vindicator is a core Rev with a single dosdge with x2 de cost and I don't see how could it replace (compete) vs power Shiro or Renebow in PvP. With the current meta of low damage in PvP the only thing that works is stacking cc on targets: Vindi has no ccs and is specially vulnerable to cc pressure due how limited is in terms of evasions. I disliked the initial presentation of the Vindi due not only lacked flavour in lore/design but mostly due the price of admision seemed brutal (another Mirage with no dodges); then the second beta came and I liked it due with the 50 endurance cost for the evade it could work as a bruiser (a role which the Revenant lacked in PvP), but the 4th beta buried that build since is now a Mirage with 100 endurance units x dodge and no acces to i-frames in signets (and Mirage isn't even meta in PvP)... Anyway, we will known in 4 days.

My point is that the best bets are the classes which currently work the best at OW PvE, because they won't be very afected for the EoD specs nor the balance changes. Necro will be great because has powerful variants of core, Reaper and Scourge, the same as Rager and Revenant (doesn't matter if they nerf Scourge or Soulbeast or Renegade since all of them have plenty in the pocket). Again, in OW PvE. I don't value too much the relevance of instanced metas (fractals, raids, strikes...) since they are as niche as PvP and WvW: most of the players doesn't bother too much about them and that's why ANet is constantly leaving that content behind. They seem to be now putting their effor in revitalizing strikes, but that doesn't mean that they would have success in that regard. So my advice for newcomers is: chose your fav character archetype (light, mid or heavy armor) and stay at Necro, Ranger or Rev; they work fantastic at OW; they are relatively simple to play and have viable options in each game mode.

Dude, your trolling has been funny for a while, but there's people which main a Warrior which aren't happy of being third class citizens absent from some content as automated monthly tournaments in PvP for what? 1-2 years? Or for being just boonbots with a single build in instanced PvE content for a lustrum. So no, I wouldn't recomend Warrior as a class choice to main for a beginner which is going to start to play the game or EoD in 2022.

I'm really only interested in builds with a potential to work in WvW (both roaming to small and large zerg scale) and PvP, since most of pure damage focused PvE builds trend to fail if you figth vs humans. So, those are the two variants I would try in the next weeks: Power: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmgAEZlxQHsOqhxROMP6hRSfMCKgl+VX8H-zVRYBR1GOsTJMJajKqMFC9KCU8JIg/WEeGA-w Fireworks runes could be replaced by Leadership ones, but since they provide the much needed 25% increase movement speed and Vindicator has lower mobility than core, herald or Renegade I think that FW fit better. Also, probably will need Energy sigils in both weapons and not in the staff alone. Diviner + zerker stats since I think that quickness is an absolute must for the greatsword; I don't see it working without that boon, and the duration of the quickness sources is too short. I don't have much faith in that because is too vulnerable to weaknes and to burst after the dodge, and also can't be translated to PvP, so I feel is doomed from the start, but whatever... Hybrid: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAElflxQHsOqhxROMP6hRSfMCKgjqSf8H-z1IY1o+/MiUVlpUVxngw9b5RzK-w Full celestial, again Fireworks runes; much better stats but worse sustain over time due the lack of Devastation. Also impossible to translate to PvP. For PvE none of them would beat condi Renegade/condi Herald, which are WAY easier to play compared to even full PvE dps Vindicator builds, which require complex rotations and have lower tankiness compared with previous condi builds with either Nightmare (more damage) or Torment (a bitless damage but more sustain) runes.

BANNERSLAVE, is the word you're seraching for and is used in GW2 to define the Warrior class.

I've installed recently Lost Ark and consumed a lot of videos about their classes, and even taking apart the greatsword animations from Vindicator (which are all boring clones of skills from Ranger and Reaper with worse fx) the way in which the "main new mechanic" (the jump dodge, which itself is not a new mechanic at all) is showcased pales entirely of how similar jumps are portrayed in LA in classes as the Gunlancer and the Paladin. FF XIV's Dragoon jump animations look like crap, tho. I known that capturing new animations and adding new fx (specially the former) can be quite expensive, but man: if after 4 years of drough you plan to not spent money in the developement of the new specs for your expansion how you could aspire to sell the product to the players? Instead of having entirely new visual designs, effects and mechanics to enrich and diferentiate the EoD specs we have a insane buch of recycled moves with muted, toned down effects... And don't talk me about "is just cosmetics": they have a plethora of bugs in the Revenant class which still remain unfixed, so is not like they aren't spending resources in visuals because they are instead fixing the fundamentals, they are not! And all of this AFTER a 6 months delay over the initial release date of summer 2021...

My main complaints about the FB in PvP at the moment are how bad are the healing options and how a lot of the tomes skills seems redundant. F1 skills are mostly fine, but half of the ones in F2 and F3 had almost no use for me due they are too weak for the effects they grant and the loss of damage we have remaining at them. I also don't buy the "don't buff FB, they were too "oppressive in the past"; FB lost damage (with tons of nerfs to the symbols in both radii, damage per pulse, burn ticks, etc. ...which collaterly affected other core and DH builds), they lost tons of sustain and they are also now a much weaker support spec than core Guard (which is ridiculous since they were conceived as the support focused spec for Guardians). So: EITHER buff sustain (heals -would be my choice-) or damage or support abilities (that would hurt support core Guardian, tho). Anyway, they should do anything, because in a week the support core Guard will be nerfed so that will make stealth DH the most pupular PvP build, with two entire specs (FB and WB) being mostly useless in a whole game mode.

Those were the times in which Impossible Odds provided quickness and Phase Traversal energy cost was 20, not 35, and didn't have a 5 seconds cooldown. Even then Revenant wasn't as mobile as Thief, Ranger or Warrior, and their two last specs are slow paced at moving and lack any kind of blink/teleport (albeit Vindicator has a couple of mid ranged gap closers). Sometimes Rev has been showcased as a "mix between Warrior and Thief", but in reality they are more a mixe between an Engineer and a Warrior: a mid HP class with a legend kit instead of a belt kit.

I you prefer ligth armor classes the best choice would probably be the Necro; is easy to use and very powerful; the new spec is more frail but in exchange has excellent mobility. If you like mid armor classes instead I would go Ranger: has excellent mobility and damage, and in their current specs have a lot of sustain. I think that the Untamed isn't as innovative as the Specter, but Thieves struggles at dealing AoE damage in OW so Ranger would be my choice. If you want to main a heavy armor class my recomendation would be Revenant: their condition Herald and Renegade builds do have insane sustain & damage ratios. Guardian has a magnificent damage output, but is slow moving and the base HP is crap, if you want to deliver strong dps. Warrior lacks versatility in builds: for PvE you are forced to run gs + axes almost everytime and in instanced content you're just a banner slave.

1) No. 2) https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Escape_(PvP) Also, some classes have traits that break inmobs when they perform movement skills (as Rev's https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggressive_Agility ). 3) Flamethrower Scrapper is low effort, but goes in both ways: you won't struggle to beat that build once you improve a bit your gameplay and build design.

EoD release in less than 2 weeks forces to reduce the duration of the season for fairness reasons (to avoid disruptions in the middle of a season due new specs) and a season so short would leave a lot of players unable to fill the required amount of matches.

I think that the changes would only affect to instanced PvE, which anyway is as niches as WvW/PvP (that's why they have been jumping from dungeons to fractals, to raids and to strike missions along this 9.5 years) and not OW PvE which is what most of the population does (and oftenly entirely alone). Alacrigade is only meta in 10 player content, since running boon duration to shave the cooldowns of the skills has a limited use for a Revenant which is capped by the energy cost of the skills compared to just buffing your ofensive stats to deal more damage while relying in alacrity.

That was in the second beta, when the dodge cost of Saint of zu Heltzer was 50 endurance units and provided that values. Then in the 4th beta the cost of the dodge was raised to 100 and the healing and barrier decreased in values. So good luck surviving once you wasted your only dodge until the next one arrives. You have a mele build which dosen't have shroud like a Necro, Infuse Light like a Herald, mobility like a Thief o stealth like a trapper build.