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Guild Wars 2 |OT| Buy Once, Sub Never, Fun Forever

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N

Nyx

Member
Got into the stress test last night and finally made a decision on which race I'm going to be with my Engineer, and it's a Charr Female.

Happy about that, but unfortunately the performance dissapointed me.
I've put all settings to medium, no shadows etc, and while standing still in the starting area I got 20ish FPS...

Hope this changes in retail, but tbh I don't think so.
Will have to upgrade sooner than later now. ;)
 
W

Wallach

Member
Billiechu said:
Did they buff the damage or something? I love the idea of the Grenade Kit but it always seemed too weak.
Click to expand...

It's pretty good right now in my opinion. I've been running this way w/ grenades: http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fcA...WnBSRe5XfewWpFEC;TsAA1CoowxgjAHLOOck4MI4QwsCA

You're capable of delivering serious burst when the toolbelts are up, and even when not the pressure is very high because of the high power, low rifle CDs and a grip of conditions that are duration based than damage based (which you have +30% of from Explosives). If you really want to slide into a burst/roamer position it's very easy with this setup and the alpha hit becomes absurd (like 12k minimum and 15-20 immediate Vulnerability stacks). The downside being you have a fair amount of CDs/actions to juggle on top of all the ground targeting, which you really need to learn how to hit consistently in reaction-size windows. That's exactly the kind of downside you want from a build though, in my opinion.
 
F

furfoots

Member
PewPewK said:
I haven't played one, but the people I talked to didn't like it because pet AI was retarded. Not sure if that's better yet.
Click to expand...

Drake pet was so overpowered for a while.

Ranger is a great class and extremely popular. You're encouraged to weapon swap, much like the elementalist swaps attunes, for some nice buffs.
 
E

etiolate

Banned
Pet survivalbility and AI was the only issue with Ranger. Otherwise, they're one of the most well made classes in the game.

If I was tiering the classes from Completeness to Needs Work, I'd go:

1: Eles, Warriors, Guardians
1.5: Engineers, Rangers
2. Necros
3. Thiefs, Mesmers

Necros need number tweakers. Thief and Mesmer have mechanic issues. Engineers just need weapon runes to apply to toolkit swaps. Rangers, like Necros, need better pet durability, but otherwise kick ass. The top three just work well with all aspects of the game and work well within the combat mechanics.
 
T

Teknopathetic

Member
"Did they buff the damage or something? I love the idea of the Grenade Kit but it always seemed too weak."

Significantly. All of the kits don't use your weapons for their base damage but some other predetermined number which was previously very low, so as you said, the damage was really, really low. Now they all use a base damage in the same range that you would expect a level 80 weapon to have (based on sPvP) and yeah, big damage boost. If you build for all power/precision/crit damage, landing all #1 3 grenades on the same target will get you roughly 1.5-4k combined AOE damage, depending on crits, while stacking a ton of vulnerability. The toolkit grenade ability does massive damage if you get lucky with crits, I saw numbers in the 10k+ range.
 
A

Arksy

Member
Piecake said:
I think its fun. You got a lot of mobility and some nice tricks like traps and what not. youre also not limited to just being a ranged nuker. I agree that shooting a bow from range gets boring pretty quick, but GW2 ranger spices things up because you can go all melee if you want, and traps, kiting, and other moves are pretty essential if you want to play from range. You cant just simply have your pet tank the mob while you sit there hitting it
Click to expand...

It feels more like a D&D ranger rather then the WoW conception of hunter to be honest. Sure you can go the pet and arcane bowman route if you so wish but there's so much more to this class then just that. You feel like an actual woodsman, with abilities to call on nature spirits and various traps. You also have the ability to get up close in melee combat with either a sword or greatsword (finally a greatsword ranger in an MMO, hurray!) - Whatever weapon you pick, you are a highly mobile and very agile fighter.
 
P

Proven

Member
Random pet peeve: In the last few stress tests, they've turned stability into an official boon. It's been given the fist symbol that retaliation used to have, while retaliation has been given a new star symbol. However, not only do I see the fist and think retaliation still, but half the time I see the star symbol I confuse it with the fury boon. This has made parsing PvP videos more difficult.
 
E

Emitan

Member
Teknopathetic said:
"Did they buff the damage or something? I love the idea of the Grenade Kit but it always seemed too weak."

Significantly. All of the kits don't use your weapons for their base damage but some other predetermined number which was previously very low, so as you said, the damage was really, really low. Now they all use a base damage in the same range that you would expect a level 80 weapon to have (based on sPvP) and yeah, big damage boost. If you build for all power/precision/crit damage, landing all #1 3 grenades on the same target will get you roughly 1.5-4k combined AOE damage, depending on crits, while stacking a ton of vulnerability. The toolkit grenade ability does massive damage if you get lucky with crits, I saw numbers in the 10k+ range.
Click to expand...

Oh jeeze. I'm excited about Engineers again. But Staff Ele is calling to me for my WvWvW AoE spam.
 
D

Doikor

Member
Arksy said:
It feels more like a D&D ranger rather then the WoW conception of hunter to be honest. Sure you can go the pet and arcane bowman route if you so wish but there's so much more to this class then just that. You feel like an actual woodsman, with abilities to call on nature spirits and various traps. You also have the ability to get up close in melee combat with either a sword or greatsword (finally a greatsword ranger in an MMO, hurray!) - Whatever weapon you pick, you are a highly mobile and very agile fighter.
Click to expand...

Yup Minsc in Baldurs gate with a greatsword was the best thing ever.
 
C

chualie

Member
Hawkian said:
Just buy it.


Sort of a silly way of looking at it, but here goes:
SPVP (hardcore-ish PvP): Auto-leveled, best gear, all skills unlocked
WvW: You keep your gear and your skills, but health and stats boosted to 80

Two items of note:
1. You can level up INSIDE WvW.
2. The "point" of leveling up in PvE/WvW is to play the game and have your character grow stronger. It doesn't "start" at level 80 in this game.


There is a gear progression in PvE statwise, but it will be relatively easy to find max stat gear by endgame. There are lots of prestige and comestic gear to work toward though.



1. It's a mixture, in that your personal story and dungeons are always instanced (though WoW is like this... so whatever)
2. The map question hinges entirely on whether or not the full map is interconnected on foot (there are portals in-universe all over the place).


Just buy it.
Click to expand...

Thanks.
Just bought the 3 day headstart access key from ebay to try it out, if I like it then I'll buy the full game.

Which server does Gaf play on? Can anyone join GAFGuild?
 
P

Piecake

Member
So wait, does this mean that all of the engineer kits got a damage buff? Like Flamethrower? Does flame blast not suck any more?
 
M

Mr. Luchador

Member
etiolate said:
Just as a warning to those interested in Mesmer: It's still the least polished class.

They've mode some needed changes, but there's still a lot more to do. Clones are mostly useless in PVE. The "die on target death" deal sucks when you're blowing through mobs in seconds. Since the clones no longer do any damage, using them in PVE can actually accomplish nothing.

I also expect that Mantras will get changed some time before the end of the year.
Click to expand...

I think it's dumb that they all the ctrl+left click target icon to remain forever on a Mesmer (should be copied on to clones too).
 
T

Teknopathetic

Member
"So wait, does this mean that all of the engineer kits got a damage buff? Like Flamethrower? Does flame blast not suck any more?"


Yes. Well, I dunno if that still sucks, but all of the kits I saw got a big damage buff, yes.
 
F

Ferrio

Banned
etiolate said:
Pet survivalbility and AI was the only issue with Ranger. Otherwise, they're one of the most well made classes in the game.

If I was tiering the classes from Completeness to Needs Work, I'd go:

1: Eles, Warriors, Guardians
1.5: Engineers, Rangers
2. Necros
3. Thiefs, Mesmers

Necros need number tweakers. Thief and Mesmer have mechanic issues. Engineers just need weapon runes to apply to toolkit swaps. Rangers, like Necros, need better pet durability, but otherwise kick ass. The top three just work well with all aspects of the game and work well within the combat mechanics.
Click to expand...

What's mechanically wrong with the thief?
 
P

Piecake

Member
sweet, i definitely loved the engineer, but felt that the kits were definitely weaker than the weapons. Glad they fixed that
 
A

ArtistDude88

Member
RZGfm.jpg
 
I

Item Box

Member
Hopefully they'll open the servers 3 hours early for us eastern timers. I don't mind staying up that late, but not having to adjust my sleep schedule for the weekend would be nice.
 
M

Mr. Luchador

Member
ZXSythe said:
Hey, they said it might happen, so why not?
Click to expand...

I was laughing at the overly self entitlement, which if this was another century would basically have been the same as saying 'The Universe revolves around the Earth - more specifically the Eastern Seaboard of North America.'. ;P
 
I

Item Box

Member
Chriswok said:
I was laughing at the overly self entitlement, which if this was another century would basically have been the same as saying 'The Universe revolves around the Earth - more specifically the Eastern Seaboard of North America.'. ;P
Click to expand...

Oh right, I forgot about the rest of the world. :p

East coast is best coast
 
E

etiolate

Banned
Ferrio said:
What's mechanically wrong with the thief?
Click to expand...

I only played the thief for three levels and then fooled around in the Mists. From reading forum comments, the mechanics issue is that steal is just kind of boring, and it doesn't work as well if you plan on staying ranged. The other half is initiative. Thief is the only class with a resource in a game without a standard resource. While a lot of weapon skills are designed around cooldowns, so you can have a skill with great utility but balance it with CD, the thief has skills with no cooldown but limited use through initiative. So all skills depend on initiative regen and that becomes its own cooldown. If one class uses a weapon skill for its CC or utility, they can go directly into a damage attack if its off of CD. If the thief uses a couple skills for CC or utility, they can be too initiative starved for their big damage attack. Of course, when other classes use up a bunch of CDs, they can switch weapons and have a fresh bar. When a thief weapons swaps, they still have the same amount of initiative as before.

So it's a matter of balancing out initiative regen, usefulness of the skill, and cost of the skill, and the rhythm between the three.

I've also heard complaints that utility skills other than venoms are rather meh.
 
V

Violet_0

Banned
soon

the Ranger is pretty neat - run a full spirit build and laugh at the Necromancer minion masters.

oh, the best thing about Engineer grenades is their ridicules range
 
F

Ferrio

Banned
etiolate said:
I only played the thief for three levels and then fooled around in the Mists. From reading forum comments, the mechanics issue is that steal is just kind of boring, and it doesn't work as well if you plan on staying ranged. The other half is initiative. Thief is the only class with a resource in a game without a standard resource. While a lot of weapon skills are designed around cooldowns, so you can have a skill with great utility but balance it with CD, the thief has skills with no cooldown but limited use through initiative. So all skills depend on initiative regen and that becomes its own cooldown. If one class uses a weapon skill for its CC or utility, they can go directly into a damage attack if its off of CD. If the thief uses a couple skills for CC or utility, they can be too initiative starved for their big damage attack. Of course, when other classes use up a bunch of CDs, they can switch weapons and have a fresh bar. When a thief weapons swaps, they still have the same amount of initiative as before.

So it's a matter of balancing out initiative regen, usefulness of the skill, and cost of the skill, and the rhythm between the three.

I've also heard complaints that utility skills other than venoms are rather meh.
Click to expand...

Hrm those were my thoughts as well, but I didn't think it made t he thief any worse. But hard to get a full picture with only weekends to play. As for steal I don't think it's boring, fuck can't be more boring than warrior's class mechanic.

I just wish thief had another weapon option, and some more interesting traits.
 
I

inky

Member
etiolate said:
I only played the thief for three levels and then fooled around in the Mists. From reading forum comments, the mechanics issue is that steal is just kind of boring, and it doesn't work as well if you plan on staying ranged. The other half is initiative. Thief is the only class with a resource in a game without a standard resource. While a lot of weapon skills are designed around cooldowns, so you can have a skill with great utility but balance it with CD, the thief has skills with no cooldown but limited use through initiative. So all skills depend on initiative regen and that becomes its own cooldown. If one class uses a weapon skill for its CC or utility, they can go directly into a damage attack if its off of CD. If the thief uses a couple skills for CC or utility, they can be too initiative starved for their big damage attack. Of course, when other classes use up a bunch of CDs, they can switch weapons and have a fresh bar. When a thief weapons swaps, they still have the same amount of initiative as before.

So it's a matter of balancing out initiative regen, usefulness of the skill, and cost of the skill, and the rhythm between the three.

I've also heard complaints that utility skills other than venoms are rather meh.
Click to expand...

This is an interesting point. I am making a thief solely (or mostly) for PvP, and while there is some sense to what you say I never felt like I was lacking initiative. Maybe it was due to the game being new, but I actually managed to win most of my games. I was playing in a way that lets you get up close, stack venoms, cloak and move away (most people were I would assume). Maybe it was they way I built my character that benefited from this short damage bursts, but it also could've been the way the resource works. I'm no min-maxer by any stretch, but I'll keep an eye out for this. In any case, I didn't find a major problem with it, and actually find it fun as to dedicate a full slot for it, but I didn't try PvE or WvW so the class could well suffer big in those areas.
 
F

Ferrio

Banned
inky said:
This is an interesting point. I am making a thief solely (or mostly) for PvP, and while there is some sense to what you say I never felt like I was lacking initiative. Maybe it was due to the game being new, but I actually managed to win most of my games. I was playing in a way that let's you get up close, stack venoms, cloak and move away (most people were I would assume). Maybe it was they way I built my character that benefited from this short damage bursts, but it also could've been the way the resource works. I'm no min-maxer by any stretch, but I'll keep an eye out for this. In any case, I didn't find a major problem with it, and actually find it fun as to dedicate a full slot for it, but I didn't try PvE or WvW so the class could well suffer big in those areas.
Click to expand...

I have two builds I'm going to be trying. One I've used in betas.. it's a poison + tons of initiative build. Works really well.

The other is a backstab build... which should be very minimal cost in initiative... and regain initiative fairly quickly.
 
I

inky

Member
That sounds good for Guardian. I really love all their weapon combinations (didn't try the improved scepter) and while I risked a greatsword in WvW a lot of times (I love chain pulling), the combination you listed is the best for support/cc/healing for sure.
 
I

Item Box

Member
It's crazy how much you can heal with a mace as a guardian.

I'm going sword/shield + Judge's/Merciful Intervention for lots of mobility(this is probably a bad idea), and a staff or hammer for offhand.
 
D

desverger

Member
Less that 24 hours. Starting to get excited.

First thing I'll probably do is to find a nice snowy peak to sit in Wayfarer Foothills and just lament the fact that the game is out for a good while or two :p
 
P

Proven

Member
etiolate said:
I only played the thief for three levels and then fooled around in the Mists. From reading forum comments, the mechanics issue is that steal is just kind of boring, and it doesn't work as well if you plan on staying ranged. The other half is initiative. Thief is the only class with a resource in a game without a standard resource. While a lot of weapon skills are designed around cooldowns, so you can have a skill with great utility but balance it with CD, the thief has skills with no cooldown but limited use through initiative. So all skills depend on initiative regen and that becomes its own cooldown. If one class uses a weapon skill for its CC or utility, they can go directly into a damage attack if its off of CD. If the thief uses a couple skills for CC or utility, they can be too initiative starved for their big damage attack. Of course, when other classes use up a bunch of CDs, they can switch weapons and have a fresh bar. When a thief weapons swaps, they still have the same amount of initiative as before.

So it's a matter of balancing out initiative regen, usefulness of the skill, and cost of the skill, and the rhythm between the three.

I've also heard complaints that utility skills other than venoms are rather meh.
Click to expand...
Have you played them much recently? I played a thief from level 1 in WvW in the stress tests after BWE3, and they felt like they were in a good spot. A lot of their traits and stats have been moved around, so their crit burst takes more than two hits to do, and it feels like they're mostly in a good spot. They do seem to need some more number tweaks as I've also heard that only venoms are viable in PvP.

As for steal, I was able to get in the rhythm of it more. It has a long cool down, but it's not meant to be spammed. You steal something, take a moment to see what it is, and prepare for its use later in the battle. Sometimes you don't need it, at which point you use it for the next fight. They've standardized things to the point where the 16 skills you can steal from the professions are the only skills you can ever get no matter if you're stealing from a player in WvW or a mob in PvE, or at least I didn't notice any differences.

I will agree with you that stealing doesn't really fit well for ranged thieves. You can get some use out of it, but you have to work for it, as much of the skills you can steal are melee attacks.
 
E

etiolate

Banned
Proven said:
Have you played them much recently? I played a thief from level 1 in WvW in the stress tests after BWE3, and they felt like they were in a good spot. A lot of their traits and stats have been moved around, so their crit burst takes more than two hits to do, and it feels like they're mostly in a good spot. They do seem to need some more number tweaks as I've also heard that only venoms are viable in PvP.

As for steal, I was able to get in the rhythm of it more. It has a long cool down, but it's not meant to be spammed. You steal something, take a moment to see what it is, and prepare for its use later in the battle. Sometimes you don't need it, at which point you use it for the next fight. They've standardized things to the point where the 16 skills you can steal from the professions are the only skills you can ever get no matter if you're stealing from a player in WvW or a mob in PvE, or at least I didn't notice any differences.

I will agree with you that stealing doesn't really fit well for ranged thieves. You can get some use out of it, but you have to work for it, as much of the skills you can steal are melee attacks.
Click to expand...

No, I haven't fiddled with the thief much during these past weeks. I am mostly basing this on forum polling and reading. Add in a dash of theory. If the class is better now then that's great, as its one of the classes I'm looking at after Mesmer and Engineer.
 
S

Sethos

Banned
Was just thinking, how does ranged weapons work on the Warrior? Can you fire some shots then move in for the kill with a melee weapon or do you equip a bow / rifle and then you are stuck with that and its abilities until you manually change weapon?
 
F

Ferrio

Banned
Proven said:
Have you played them much recently? I played a thief from level 1 in WvW in the stress tests after BWE3, and they felt like they were in a good spot. A lot of their traits and stats have been moved around, so their crit burst takes more than two hits to do, and it feels like they're mostly in a good spot. They do seem to need some more number tweaks as I've also heard that only venoms are viable in PvP.

As for steal, I was able to get in the rhythm of it more. It has a long cool down, but it's not meant to be spammed. You steal something, take a moment to see what it is, and prepare for its use later in the battle. Sometimes you don't need it, at which point you use it for the next fight. They've standardized things to the point where the 16 skills you can steal from the professions are the only skills you can ever get no matter if you're stealing from a player in WvW or a mob in PvE, or at least I didn't notice any differences.

I will agree with you that stealing doesn't really fit well for ranged thieves. You can get some use out of it, but you have to work for it, as much of the skills you can steal are melee attacks.
Click to expand...

The developers did say thief was one of the classes they wanted to take a hard look at after BWE3.
 
P

Proven

Member
While the Warrior would often want to weapon swap to keep his momentum going and get off as many burst skills as possible, the Thief played the opposite. Initiative allows you to do a powerful burst with just one or two skills. Because of this, all your other skills are utility skills, which is reinforced by the fact they almost all have 4+ initiative costs. So much of the time you're slowly wearing down your opponent, using a combination of poison, weakness, and cripples to keep their threat level low. Then, when you see an opening, your burst them down with what was usually your combination skill. Shortbow was different as it was a two hander and focused on AoE, so it's only real burst skill was Cluster Bomb on 2. You'd often switch to another weapon set for the burst.

It works, and has a flow in itself.
 
G

GrizzNKev

Banned
Sethos said:
Was just thinking, how does ranged weapons work on the Warrior? Can you fire some shots then move in for the kill with a melee weapon or do you equip a bow / rifle and then you are stuck with that and its abilities until you manually change weapon?
Click to expand...

Weapon swapping, same as I described with the Ranger. Rifle and sword/shield, perhaps. Stay far with your rifle and do some damage, then hit tilde and use the 3 skill on the sword to jump in close.
 
S

Sethos

Banned
GrizzNKev said:
Weapon swapping, same as I described with the Ranger. Rifle and sword/shield, perhaps. Stay far with your rifle and do some damage, then hit tilde and use the 3 skill on the sword to jump in close.
Click to expand...

Okay, that's okay. Was afraid it was a WoW system of not being able to change in combat, then it'd really suck.
 
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