[PC] Guild Wars 2 & GW:EotN

[Hooves]

I see, I came late on Guild Wars (right around when Nightfall released) so I never noticed the differences. Well, if they did these changes to Guild Wars. There's a better possibility of them nerfing it now. I'll have to try the game out when it releases to see how difficult it is.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

They nerfed a lot of things in GW. The first thing that came to mind was Thunderhead's Keep. It used to be nearly impossible to do with PUGs but now it's fairly easy to do with just about anyone (even full henchies).

There's also the DoA nerfs, allowing people to have 7 heroes, etc.

I played Guild Wars from its alpha, beta, release, all the way through Nightfall.
Then our guild kinda disbanded and I quit the game. We were progressing through the end-game Domain of Anguish Elite missions by then.
We were one of the first challengers to race to the end of DoA, and was down to the last half of the final mission when someone else snagged the "world first". So close!

I could solo all the main campaigns with henchmen, and in later expansions, hench + heroes. I got through Thunderhead Keep fine solo, within the first few weeks of launch.
However, I personally found it much harder to play with PUGs than with henchmen.
Simply put, vast majority of people who played that game utterly, and hopelessly sucked. They were terrible.
I saw all these complaints on how impossibly hard the missions were on forums, and was completely dumbfounded.

I was a leading guild officer in a Guild vs Guild pvp guild, and we always wandered back and forth from season to season from 100th place to 400th.
So I knew builds, skills, and positioning of characters fairly well. But still... players sucking worse than the dumb CPU AI of henchies was unbelievable.
Heck I was one of those people that went on figuring ways to solo farm (with no henchies) fairly early.
I had mountains of green uniques, and by the time the first expansion came, I quickly hit the gold cap limit. Too bad they nerfed the loot for that.

And when they introduced heros into the game in Nightfall, the game became extremely easy. You could finally customize AI with builds.
Yet the complaints on the difficulty still persisted. I guess a lot of players didn't have the time to research, or the brains to figure out the trading-card like aspect of team builds.

Now DoA, THAT was hard. The story missions were nothing compared to that challenge.
I quit the game long before that was nerfed, unfortunately.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Marina

To be honest, I didn't notice a markable difference between having perfect armor and damaged armor. The simple solution is to just not die, so you don't incur any penalties. I see more problems with the opponents themselves who just seemed overpowered and the funky dodging mechanics.

I realize the simplest solution is not to die, but given that Arenanet has tried so hard to make death part of this game rather than an annoyance, it's a jarring contrast. In a big group, the event enemies are going to be stomping you quite quickly and half the strategy becomes finding out ways to revive your downed allies without getting stomped. Which is fun. The durability penalty... not so much.

It just sounds counterproductive to the design intent.

On a different note, how are the GW1 mesmer veterans finding the GW2 mesmer?

[Paranoid Android]

There's a huge difference between broken and unbroken armor for my elementalist. He dies in one hit from anything when the armor is broken. That's when the game doesn't even feel fair. I mean die in one hit as instant defeat. There's not even a chance to recover or even dodge. It's impossible to play when I get killed by any stray arrow without warning.

I can usually take 5 or so hits before I die and that is more than enough time to notice I'm under attack and I can get out of the way with teleport, a movement skill or summon a minion to take the damage. But when I'm one hit, it just becomes too unforgiving.

I noticed this at the Norn crosswalk castle that constantly gets attacked by waves and waves of Son of Svanir that summon elementals that summon even more baby elementals.

[Eisdrache]

Does anyone know if resource nodes always respawn at the same place?

[Alaya]

Originally Posted by Eisdrache

Does anyone know if resource nodes always respawn at the same place?

Not sure but it should be at the same place or very near.

By the way guys, check this out (I was watching from far away and then from stream)

Basically, reddit took all of our keeps in our world and there's no way we could win. As a last battle, Team Legacy (off-shoot from Team Liquid) decided to take Dreaming Bay as a final WvWvW practice. This resulted in trebuchets and arrow carts line between two side keep firing together. Some of the TL members were assigned as a raiding team to block enemy's supply line. The rest are captured by the video above.

[-Sho-]

I finally found a good Engineer's player in PVP , i was thinking that they really suck in PVP but not :

He really knows what he's doing , he switchs kits very well , well he's skilled.
He even kills the monster alone..

[Keroko]

A lot of the people playing bad in PvP (or in general, really) with the less straightforward classes is just people getting used to the class. The mesmer is another case of this. A lot of people just don't know how to play the mesmer yet, while the few who do rake up kills like no tomorrow.

[Eisdrache]

Indeed I have quite a lot of trouble switching around my attunements at the right time as Elementalist.

Something else that gave me a hard time was making money. I hardly had more than 10 silver at any given point while others were up to 1+ gold or even more. Anyone has some pointers on how to get a solid income? It doesn't have to be super-profitable as long as it doesn't let me be broke all the time.

[Keroko]

Hmm, beta being the progress-erasing system it is I haven't really touched the economy yet. However, in many MMO's crafting can be surprisingly profitable early on. Few people focus on crafting while they're racing to the level-cap, leaving people who slow down to focus on crafting with an at times near-monopoly on the auction house.

[NorthernFallout]

I found the PvP to be.. chaotic, but fun. Though despite all I heard about Warriors being hard to take down, I died to everything. Couldn't figure out how to switch weapons (not referring to the mechanic itself), either, as it seemed I started with some kind of standard dual-wield axes, which isn't my thing. Then again, I'm not good at PvE yet even, as I'm still getting used to the mechanics. Dodging is hard...

PvP won't be a focus of mine when it comes out, though. I'm gonna focus on PvE and, perhaps, crafting as mentioned above, just to do something different. I really like coop more nowadays. I get enough PvP from other games. Then again, I have been tainted with PvP from EVE which makes everything else in the MMO genre pale...

[Paranoid Android]

Originally Posted by Eisdrache

Indeed I have quite a lot of trouble switching around my attunements at the right time as Elementalist.

Something else that gave me a hard time was making money. I hardly had more than 10 silver at any given point while others were up to 1+ gold or even more. Anyone has some pointers on how to get a solid income? It doesn't have to be super-profitable as long as it doesn't let me be broke all the time.

Don't you just hate it when you fat-finger your entire number keys? I play on a laptop so there's no gap between my function keys and number. I press like F2 F3 2 and 3 all at the same times by accident.

We should all share some combat specific discoveries/experiences for our class(es).

I'm a staff user, I used scepter, dagger and focus but it lacked mobility type skills.

Spoiler for Spell Sequence in 1v1 PvP or 1v1 against a boss.:

1. Earth: Conjure Earth Elemental (7) -> Conjure Snow Wurm (7) -> Shockwave (Immobilize) -> Unsteady Ground (Cripple AoE) in front of target -> Eruption (Dps AoE) right on top of Unsteady Ground -> Magnetic Aura (Reflect Arrows, Optional) -> Normal projectile attack
2. Water: Frozen Ground (Slow AoE) in front of target -> Healing Rain (Heal AoE) -> Ice Spike (Dps AoE) in front of yourself -> Normal Projectile Attack
3. Air: Windborne Speed (Speed buff) -> Static Field (Stun AoE) on top of target -> Gust (Knockback) to make them go through the static field again -> Lightning Surge (Blind) -> Normal Projectile Attack
4. Fire: Flame Burst (Auto-target Dps AoE) -> Meteor Shower (Dps AoE) on yourself or target depending on their class. -> Burning Retreat (back-dash Dps AoE) -> Lava Font (DoT AoE) So hard to aim this little thing but it does so much damage.
5. Spam Fireballs -> Lightning Flash(7) the description says you can cast this when stunned. I tried it and it doesn't work. I can't teleport when stunned.

My 4th utility skill is Glyph of Renewal (7). It's a two-edged resurrection spell. (As in win-win)
With earth attunement: Revive 3 people at range simultaneously. (PvE Event, WvW)
With water attunement: Revive 1 person at range and heal them to 100% HP. (MvP)
With air attunement: Revive 1 person at range and teleport them to you. (When retreating in WvW)
With fire attunement: Revive 1 person at range and auto-revive yourself next time you fall to the ground. (PvP, PvE) <- EPIIIIIIIIIIIIC

My fingers are so clumsy when I try to pull it off but if you pay attention and dodge when needed, all 1v1's I had become terribly one sided. I won a 1v3 in WvW when I was in my own land and ran into 3 random invaders in the middle of nowhere with this. Granted they were terrible players. The thing that annoys me is I have to aim my super-slow casting AoE's while archers don't have to aim like in C9.

Spoiler for My experience::

1v1 Warrior : Easy
1v1 Thief : Easy
1v1 Ranger: Hard
1v1 Engineer: Easy
1v1 Guardian: ? Don't know
1v1 Elementalist: Hard as shit if they know what they're doing. I'm terrible because I can't get my cast sequence out fluently. Keeps hitting wrong keys.
1v1 Mesmer: I feel this is gonna be terrifying but mesmers I played against were really bad.
1v1 Necromancer: Hard

WvW Warrior : Impossible
WvW Thief: Hard
WvW Ranger: Impossible
WvW Engineer: Hard
WvW Guardian: ?
WvW Elementalist: Hard
WvW Mesmer: Easy (their clones are terribly disorganized lol)
WvW Necromancer: Hard

WvW is when I exhaust all my higher tier skills and my enemies aren't dead.

The most terrifying thing imo is Warrior's Whirlwind when all your slow/cripple/stuns/backdash/teleport are on cool down. No problem in 1v1 but in WvW, all my skills are always on cooldown. Elementalist -sucks- when they only have their regular attack.

My personal advice to opponents is paying attention to my casts and cool downs. I think I win 100% if all my skills are ready to cast and you're a close range fighter. Teleport, and backdash + fire aoe are my second nature from playing so much action based RPG and fighter games. It's not that I want to be close ranged, but rather I my spells aren't as far as bow users and I cast AoE's on myself and use them as offensive shield.

All elementalists must have Glyph of Renewal and Lightning Flash as their utility skills. They're the most powerful skills for the class. Being able to resurrect 3 downed players (not defeated) at once is priceless in large events.

[Keroko]

On the subject of ranged combat, I don't particularly mind the advantage of ranged combat. Having played one too many MMO where it was pretty much melee or bust, I find the shift to a more ranged combat oriented one refreshing.

[Paranoid Android]

Random but has anyone played with underwater combat? I keep getting bored that I never unlocked any of my skills.

[FateAnomaly]

The game controls takes some getting use to.
I played a mesmer and there are some annoying parts like clones disappearing upon target death that i find annoying but it was still fun enough overall.
About making money, i don't find there is a need for excessive money yet. The only money i spend are for teleport, armor repair and the occasional salvage kit.

[Alaya]

Originally Posted by Paranoid Android

Random but has anyone played with underwater combat? I keep getting bored that I never unlocked any of my skills.

I've tried. There's still some bugs in the combat but everything else is good. Need to get used to fighting in 3D though, since most skills have the third dimension aspect.

[Paranoid Android]

Don't forget beta tomorrow (Jun 8th). 3:00pm EST (12:00 pm noon PDT)

I wonder how the game has changed. I forgot 95% of the last beta already. Probably can't tell the difference.

[NorthernFallout]

Here you have some of the new features and changes http://www.arena.net/blog/the-big-beta-weekend-preview

Looking forward to trying it again. Gonna continue my Guardian myself.

[Paranoid Android]

OMG kept characters. I want to try lvl 30 dungeon. I forgot my lvl already. I just remember I was very close to going to the dungeon. Wait wtf, it's lvl 35? I thought it's lvl 30

I'll try Archer/hunter/that-ranged-class if I have time.

Looking forward to:
"New Automated Player vs. Player Tournaments and More" (Not much first-hand experience needed, just the concept is good enough)

"Combat— “A Sense of Hitting”" <--- So important for action-based games.

"Improved Overflow Servers" <-- Almost an obligation TBH. It was frustrating when you are in the main (real) server, but can't move to the correct overflow server where your friends are .__. A mmorpg where you can't even choose to play with your friends when both of you are 'in the same server' was soooo BS.

"Tiers for Skills" <-- Being a mmorpg number cruncher, I like the sound of it. But they should be careful, the idea that every utility skill is accessible with a low level was a gem. If a skill can become insanely good with 30 levels worth of skill points put into it, it really ruins the game's unique PvP where everyone's on a equalized footing.

[NorthernFallout]

GW2 now has an official release date: 28th of August. Another beta event will also be held July 20-22.

http://www.arena.net/blog/announcing...-2-launch-date

Would have been nice to get it during July, but hey. At least it isn't 2013.