Guild Wars 2

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Heian

Molten Core Raider
753
587
I can't wait to try the new WvW BL.

One of my buddy came back after over 1 year and he was shocked with the removing of the lake in the middle of the borderlands. That was funny.


Skill wise the synergy between skills and class is much more important when you are in a 5-25 man GvG type of guild. We use all combo fields and we try to maximize our builds so that we get the best of our available composition. My only issue right now is how out of hand the AoE necro meta as been but we are getting used to deal with that and it's less of an issue.


New patch soon i think. Should be up in an hour.
 

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Gold Donor>
31,206
23,407
Yeah, literally the only synergy that matters in WvW is blasting combo fields. There really needs to be utility skills beyond that.
 

Rescorla_sl

shitlord
2,233
0
Most Guild Wars (1 and 2) players prefer PvE and avoid PvP like the plague, PvE is where the money is for them. That sucks for us who like PvP but it is the truth of things. GW2 has PvP because it adds additional value to the game and the owners like it. Besides the game's name requires it. But the main reason GW2 is successful (monetarily) is because they have leagons of PvE players who prefer the game style of GW. They hate the stat / gear grind of games like WoW (I agree with them there).

I would prefer they spend more time and resources making WvW something more than a zerg fest trading keeps, and maybe someday it will happen. We'll see.
Gotta completely disagree about GW1. That game was built from the ground up for guild team vs guild team battleground style PVP. The PVE in GW1 was atrocious and the only reason to do it was to complete the quests that gave you new class skills. The expansions may have been more focused on PVE but vanilla GW1 was all about PVP.

Of all the MMOs I've played, I've had the most fun PVPing in GW1. Not only did it require a synergistic individual build, to be competitive your team had to have synergy amongst the entire group. It's been a long time, but I remember skirmishes between two evenly balanced teams (they used an ELO style matchmaking system) sometimes lasting more than 10 minutes before one side gained enough of an advantage to claim a control point.

My biggest disappointment with GW2 is how they deviated from that core PVP design of GW1.
 

Grim1

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,903
6,889
Gotta completely disagree about GW1. That game was built from the ground up for guild team vs guild team battleground style PVP. The PVE in GW1 was atrocious and the only reason to do it was to complete the quests that gave you new class skills. The expansions may have been more focused on PVE but vanilla GW1 was all about PVP.

Of all the MMOs I've played, I've had the most fun PVPing in GW1. Not only did it require a synergistic individual build, to be competitive your team had to have synergy amongst the entire group. It's been a long time, but I remember skirmishes between two evenly balanced teams (they used an ELO style matchmaking system) sometimes lasting more than 10 minutes before one side gained enough of an advantage to claim a control point.

My biggest disappointment with GW2 is how they deviated from that core PVP design of GW1.
Agree about GW1 being built for PvP but in the end most of their players were PvE types. I tried many times over the years to get the dedicated PvE players in the various guilds I was in to try PvP, but it was for naught. Most PvE players just refuse to even try PvP, that's true in other mmo's also. I think it might be basic fear that keeps them away but most of them will never admit that.

Loved GW1 and in many ways prefer it to GW2. As you say, GW1's PvP was really well done. Really wanted GW2's WvW system to work, especially with the 3 server thing. WvW is fun in small doses, but they failed to get the realm pride that DAoC had. /shrug.. but both games have/had their positives and negatives.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,222
2,367
Well GW1 was definitely a PvP game at first, but as they added expansions they developped the PvE side a lot and it ended up being really good imo, though very different than most mmos since it was a bit like a real time baldur's gate or other party based RPGs. GW1 and Factions were very PvP oriented, Nightfall and Eye of the Storm were very PvE oriented. It was a nice game overall.
 

Needless

Toe Sucker
<Silver Donator>
9,402
3,423
They should bring back multiclassing like GW1 had
Warrior/Necro was fun as shit with all the bleeds/dots they could apply lol
 

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
<Silver Donator>
8,317
10,293
They should bring back multiclassing like GW1 had
I think that's the intent of those "masteries". Of course it's not open multi-classing like you had in GW1, it's main class+sub class, but it's their version of multiclassing.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
They should bring back multiclassing like GW1 had
Warrior/Necro was fun as shit with all the bleeds/dots they could apply lol
With how weak most of the utility skills are, I doubt it would change that much
frown.png
 

Miele

Lord Nagafen Raider
916
48
Agree about GW1 being built for PvP but in the end most of their players were PvE types. I tried many times over the years to get the dedicated PvE players in the various guilds I was in to try PvP, but it was for naught. Most PvE players just refuse to even try PvP, that's true in other mmo's also. I think it might be basic fear that keeps them away but most of them will never admit that.
I find PvP simply boring and see nothing special in it, in particular when instanced like BGs or arenas. I tried several times GW2 pvp and I just fall asleep, it gives me no sense of adventure, just boredom.
A different case could be made for the occasional world pvp, but in the end it becomes always pure griefing with massive levels or gear differences and I can't even wrap my head around the fact somebody gets enjoyment from that, to each their own I guess. The PvPers want the sheep to shear, I want my adventuring feeling, what kind of fear should I have by the way?
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
GW1 pvp was alright, I think I even won HoH in vanilla once or twice, but in the end it existed as completely different game and due to its nature, voice coms and premade groups gave you huge advantage, so if you dipped your feet in, you either ran into bots, or got your face smashed in by seasoned veterans.
 

Xenrauk

Trakanon Raider
1,246
914
Most Guild Wars (1 and 2) players prefer PvE and avoid PvP like the plague, PvE is where the money is for them. That sucks for us who like PvP but it is the truth of things. GW2 has PvP because it adds additional value to the game and the owners like it. Besides the game's name requires it. But the main reason GW2 is successful (monetarily) is because they have leagons of PvE players who prefer the game style of GW. They hate the stat / gear grind of games like WoW (I agree with them there).

I would prefer they spend more time and resources making WvW something more than a zerg fest trading keeps, and maybe someday it will happen. We'll see.
No doubt GW2 is and will always be a pve game first especially because of living story. But I've seen people join wvw after a year or two of just pveing and loving it, and end up playing that with the majority of their time. That includes my guild which is made up with a lot of those types, players who ran dungeons and fractals daily, did daily bosses, farmed for legendaries, but they got tired of that eventually and run wvw mostly, even living story doesn't manage to pull them away for more than a day or two. Hell of a lot more fun running with friends or the guild, which is mostly true for any pvp really.

Seasons did do it's part and lured players into wvw for the first time with the achievements, but they managed to even fumble their handling of seasons. Breaking balance with free transfers, messing with achievements too much or too little, screwing up on giving out rewards in season 1 and 2, handing out a shitty 6 hr boon for the winner of season 3 meanwhile spvp was enjoying a 72 hr boon for bonus exp and magic find because of their tournament.

They've got 4 teams for the living story, I just think they could have done better with wvw and spvp if they had even one full team working on them full time which would have been better for the game overall.
 

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
2,385
277
but they got tired of that eventually and run wvw mostly, even living story doesn't manage to pull them away for more than a day or two
That says as much about the living story content as it says about wvw/pvp.



They've got 4 teams for the living story, I just think they could have done better with wvw and spvp if they had even one full team working on them full time which would have been better for the game overall.
They keep saying that, but did we see the results? I sure didnt. Would be interesting to know how many actual people are on those 4 teams. Given the amount of content LS had per year the total of all 4 teams cant be much more then a dozen people. They are coming up on 3 years before the expansion launches (I guess). They havent really added THAT much for such a long time frame.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,222
2,367
They keep saying that, but did we see the results? I sure didnt. Would be interesting to know how many actual people are on those 4 teams. Given the amount of content LS had per year the total of all 4 teams cant be much more then a dozen people. They are coming up on 3 years before the expansion launches (I guess). They havent really added THAT much for such a long time frame.
Yeah seems like way less than what they added in any of the GW1 expansions, and EotN was only like 6-8months or something after Nightfall iirc. Obviously the content is of higher quality with voicing and shit, but most of it is still in engine cutscenes and stuff, so it's not like crazy new stuff. Sure they did new episodic content every 2weeks(well sometimes) but a lot of it was extremely short stuff, and then they took breaks every now and then for like a month and shit and the end result is they haven't really done much. It's not because they're doing poorly either from what I understand, they're making decent money out of the game selling all those keys and cosmetics and what not. Even assuming the expansion is massive, 3years for an expansion is fairly ridiculous even for Blizzard time, and the content over time was kinda lacking, they patched more often than others, but less overall content.
 

Zindan

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
7,008
4,672
Not sure how many separate zones the expansion will have covering the Maguuma Jungle, but each one will be small and tiered with underground, surface, canopy. Given what Anet has said about Dry Top, and then Silverwastes, I think those are the type of zones we'll see with this expansion. Nothing at all like the current open world zones, which are quite large, and spread out. These zones in Maguuma will be compact, and very active like Silverwastes, but being able to glide through them should be pretty fun.
 

Campa

Trakanon Raider
16
0
They've got 4 teams for the living story, I just think they could have done better with wvw and spvp if they had even one full team working on them full time which would have been better for the game overall.
They HAD 4 teams for Season 1 and it showed since they were able to keep to the 2 week schedule for most of the year and put out a shit load more content, temporary sure but in totality it was way more than Season 2. Season 2 they combined them into a single team so that there was a clear narrative focus & each release built upon the previous. Well that's what ANet said anyways but in reality I think they took a subset of those 4 teams had them focus solely on Living Story for Season 2 and the rest focused on the Expac.

But yeah in comparison the sPvP & WvW teams are minuscule in size. Not 100% sure but I seem to recall them saying each of the Season 1 LS teams was like 20 people in total.
 

Sinzar

Trakanon Raider
3,149
269
So I've now played to level 20ish a warrior, elementalist, and thief. I enjoy the gameplay of the thief most so far, and think that's who I'm going to use to go the distance. I only really care about PvE viability, dungeons and that kind of stuff. Will I regret my choice later when groups skip me for a warrior, or are thieves in a good spot at higher level PvE ?
 

bytes

Molten Core Raider
957
638
Thief is the best dps class in the game but it's not as easy to use as the warrior. If you're not a mouthbreather and are willing to put in a bit of effort, go with the thief.
 

Miele

Lord Nagafen Raider
916
48
Thief is very good, has the best ranged weapons in the game (imo, just for the fun factor it wins by miles), does monster dps on single target, but it's super squishy. Specced and geared as glass cannon you can be one shotted by most boss mechanics if you fail at dodging.
Their weaponset is varied and all fun and they have a mechanic which makes them a lot more fun than other classes right out of the box (initiative). For solo PvE, depending on mobs, it can be invincible or dead meat, sometimes it's on the player's skills to determine the outcome tho.

It has been my first level 80 and it provided me tons of enjoyable playing time, doing funny builds just because you can (for soloing only) is amazing and they can all be effective: sword/pistol to grind pve trash, dagger/dagger for backstab fun, condition based dagger/dagger (death blossom for the win) when played correctly and specced/geared correctly allows to kill a ton of shit otherwise unkillable for thieves, same goes for sword/dagger if you are a master of timing skills and have good ping ^^.
In the end tho, if you want to do dungeons/fractals, people want the deeps, so it's backstab dagger/dagger with shortbow in swap (got to stack those might buffs somehow).
It's not extremely easy, but if you can play at an above average level, you'll do very well.

Warriors are just more durable, have more armor and hp, regen more life, cleave better (2h sword, skill #2 "hundred blades" is quite cool), provide a shitton of party utilities and buffs and burst very nicely, but sustained damage they are not the top. The problem with the thief is that in the long run, learning when to dodge or die otherwise, can become annoying if you don't have a group willing to let you fuckup while you learn, on the other hand you can play dual pistols, do way less dps, but being you'll be awesome looking.

For me thief is good, warrior is good as well. Play both, you won't regret it and the world is so vast you won't do the same zone twice to level up if you pick a different race.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
Thief has an aoe stealth that let's you tag all skill points and world stuff guarded by veterans and other annoying mobs for free, so if you want to see the world, go with him. It's the only class I ran to 100% world completion