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Guild Wars 2 Second Expansion: Path of Fire - September 22
- Thread starter Ashodin
- Start date
Condition builds have actually been slightly more vogue than direct damage in the last year or so imo. And raid groups basically require support builds like druids and chronomancers.
Edit: though I'd guess that across the whole population of the game that berserker builds are still the most common
Nothing else that I know beyond that.
Here's the warrior class armor:
Are there images of the rest? Like maybe Soulbeast?
Which mastery is it for exalted portal? Just the first one?
Actually I'm not sure now there will be full sets... Maybe this is the armor set you can upgrade?
Nemesis121
Member
Rev already channels Mallyx and Shiro, if anybody getting Paragon spec it will be the Rev..
KiteGr
Member
Don't remember exactly as I did them once a lot time ago. You can go to the masteries in the hero panel and check the descriptions.
Try and save some mastery points for the living world maps. Thankfully there are plenty of open world easy mastery points to get in those.
Condi builds have climbed up, but the meta is still full DPS.
Occasionally a tanky or support build find some use in raids, but they are still very situational.
Dragon's Stand and Auric Basin metas worked great for me. See which masteries you need and in what order so you have as little delay as possible.
Oh okay. I like combining armor so maybe I got my hopes up.
I hope there is enough of a difference between the skins. Too many variations of the same set can be a bit sad if you don't like the armor set to begin with.
Luckily I love it. Those boots are stunning! There is another screenshot that shows that they are like open metal sandals - very FFXII!
I have an action plan of achievable things to do before PoF launches.
In order
Finish unlocking the HoT masteries I want. (Already have the points)
Grind out the XP for the remaining masteries in Pact Commander
Unlock all the S3 zones on one character (Probably my Necromancer for ease)
I'll probably finish the above three this weekend assuming Splatfest doesn't take up too much of my time.
Finish off all the elite specs on my characters (The only time consuming part of this is unlocking all the map areas and waiting for a train to show up)
That would be enough for me to be done (And shouldn't take that long).
Extras that would be nice
Finish LWS2 and 3 on one character
Finish Main story on one character
In order
Finish unlocking the HoT masteries I want. (Already have the points)
Grind out the XP for the remaining masteries in Pact Commander
Unlock all the S3 zones on one character (Probably my Necromancer for ease)
I'll probably finish the above three this weekend assuming Splatfest doesn't take up too much of my time.
Finish off all the elite specs on my characters (The only time consuming part of this is unlocking all the map areas and waiting for a train to show up)
That would be enough for me to be done (And shouldn't take that long).
Extras that would be nice
Finish LWS2 and 3 on one character
Finish Main story on one character
Nemesis121
Member
You will be entertain for a long time, by the time you done with those PoF is launching...
This is one of GW2's strengths... there's so much to do if you take a break and none of it is gated beyond masteries.
UltimateIke
Member
I'm so excited for Spellbreaker. I've wanted daggers on Warrior since long before HoT released.
It's not likely to be the Raid/Fractal spec of choice from what we know so far, but it's got a lot of fun traits, and I can think of a few uses for Full Counter to make otherwise impossible solo kills possible.
It's not likely to be the Raid/Fractal spec of choice from what we know so far, but it's got a lot of fun traits, and I can think of a few uses for Full Counter to make otherwise impossible solo kills possible.
Isaac Otherworld
Member
Same. Daggers weren't my first choice (that would be land spears) but I love everything about the class. The daggers look way cooler and more warrior like in execution that I thought they would be. The spell effects look great. Full counter looks hilariously fun.
The only thing I would have changed is spears, and making full counter do additional damage the higher damage attack you absorb.
I want to try an arms (For dual wielding trait), defense+Spellbreaker build with Berserker stats. See what kind of things I can solo with the solid dps from Berserker stats and the ridiculous self healing from Adrenal Health and Spellbreaker's Sun and Moon Style trait (7% Critical damage to healing). It is an absurd amount of self healing while having decent damage at the same time. It's going to be the ultimate soloing spec.
Also I can't wait to hit people with Full Counter in PvP. One of the grandmaster traits copies 5 condition from you onto whoever you hit with Full Counter (Maximum of 5 targets) and gives you resistance. Get fucked condispam.
Your first five skills are still determined by your weapons, yes.
^^^ Honestly, that's why after 3K+ hours of Guild Wars 1 (online and offline prep), I never could accept GW2. It noobified the process of creating builds. That was by far my favorite activity in the first game since it allowed so much freedom with the two-class-in-one option, and allowing any skill to be plugged into the eight slots.
Yes, some people would make terrible builds with no rez or self heals, etc. but that isn't a reason to nerf the ability of people who knew how to set themselves up properly.
I miss the old days of going into a 4v4 random arena with some crazy combination of skills to see how it worked vs. other players. To be honest, I wasn't into "guild wars" since it required more team structure, and the campaigns got boring to me since you were only fighting dumb A.I. However, I'll probably never play an online RPG action game again that has the same level of enjoyment I got from creating builds in GW1 and testing them in the arcade-like environment of arenas vs. random opponents.
Yes, some people would make terrible builds with no rez or self heals, etc. but that isn't a reason to nerf the ability of people who knew how to set themselves up properly.
I miss the old days of going into a 4v4 random arena with some crazy combination of skills to see how it worked vs. other players. To be honest, I wasn't into "guild wars" since it required more team structure, and the campaigns got boring to me since you were only fighting dumb A.I. However, I'll probably never play an online RPG action game again that has the same level of enjoyment I got from creating builds in GW1 and testing them in the arcade-like environment of arenas vs. random opponents.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
what? you can change builds in GW2
problem is that the stats are more tied into equipment
you could swap weapons to change skills though, the changeable ones are the utilities
problem is that the stats are more tied into equipment
you could swap weapons to change skills though, the changeable ones are the utilities
Vigilant Walrus
Member
EDIT:
The new faces, hairstyles and beards are fantastic!
If you play something like Elementalist you switch Atunements on the fly. F1, F2, F3, F4 - So your skillbar changes with the press of a button. That's 20 physical weapon skills at once. Then you have your heals, your 3 utlity and elites which you can also change on the fly.
That's 25 skills on the bar at any given time. And these skills change completely depending on what weapon you use. Daggers is some Avatar The Last Airbender type shit, while staff is all about classic Gandalf distanced fireballs and electric fields and water healing and so on; https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_skills
Secondly, a lot of players don't know about combo fields, which rewards knowing which skills work great together. If you're in the water atunement, you can make a water attack, and then change to the lightning atunement and do an electric shock attack, with the electricity piercing the water for extra damage. The game is full of combos like that. Fire arrows into a firefield, and the arrows catch fire and so on and so forth.
The problem is that many many players are totally ignorant to all of this gameplay depth because Guild Wars (both the first and the second game) was never good at explaining its gameplay systems, and because of this, a lot of players get into the game and think its a shallow experience with no tactical elements which is so far from the truth. More about combo fields and synergy between different classes skills; https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo
Engineer is another class that has a lot of skills. You equip kits on your toolbar. So pressing 7 could give you a flamethrower kit, that gives you 5 flamethrower skills. If you use kits for your heal, and your 3 utility skills, that brings your weapon skills up 20 as well, plus all the F skills which change also.
Then there is the spell specific combos, where you activate multiple skills with repeated presses; https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_engineer_skills
But look- the reality is, and this is the reason why most other MMOs including WoW, SWTOR and others have gotten serious skill bloat over the years, because just having lots of skills and buttons to press, doesn't in itself make a game more fun or more strategic. It might seem that way to a player whose enjoyment is based on button mashing and simply pressing keys, but that in itself is not complex or tactical.
Making something well designed is often simple, but making something simple is hard. It's easy to make endless amounts of skill and claim that, that is actual good choice that gives a lot of good gameplay, but this isn't true.
In GW1 a vast amount of skills were useless, copycats and lacked proper precense. It's really sad to see so many players in MMORPGs think that skill bloat is somehow fun. Fuck having 50-100 buttons on hotbars. That shit fucking sucks. Convoluted doesn't mean complex or fun.
It's like people advocating for more guns or a bigger open world or more quests just because they are completely sensitized to the idea that more is always better. It's just not true.
In GW2 there is a very powerful rune and stat systems that let every type of build or character be powered by every type of stats. That means you could min max a warrior with healing power. You wouldn't be able to kill anything effectively, but your self heals and AOE heals would be very powerful.
So lots of the complexity comes from the runesets and stats set.
And you can make a lot of really cool and strange builds. A lot more innovative possibilities than I have seen in many other MMORPGs. The problem is just that once again, this is totally lost on so many people as the game is not good at explaining itself.
GW has always been different and its always confused a shit ton of people. Its scaling is often really misunderstood too.
The biggest "build diversity" problem GW2 has in my opinion is that the game is build around doing damage, and because of that a lot of people mistakenly think that support, sustain, heals, cleanses and buff builds are unrewarding and not worth it.
In other MMOs you'd have healer characters so powerful that that is all they would do in a dungeon run. A healer will just heal and do nothing else. The problem is that that wouldn't work in GW2 where you have world bosses with 150-200 players. The game doesn't know how to scale itself effectively if you had 20-30 healers who healed everyone that powerfully. Then you'd have to design the game around that, and that would mean, that every time you didn't have that number of healers, the game would break and become a frustrating mess.
So among the meta, a virtue and sign of being a skilled player meant being able to clear the difficult content in your DPS gear. Being so 1337 you could walk around as a glass cannon, dodge enemy attacks and do lots of damage is what people consider a sign of being a good player.
And that is sad, because the game is so much fun if you play it the way you want. equipping various experimental builds based around other forms of damage or support is so much more rewarding than being a DPS berserker, but players have had the experience that going into a PUG dungeon or fractal and being told to be in DPS gear.
But I run around in bunker, healer, buff and sustain builds when I play open world, pvp or WvW and its so much more fun. And many guilds also get so much fun from that as well. Like other Multiplayer games, the fun you have is highly impacted by who you're playing with.
I highly recommend you to not go blindly into the meta. You'll see the game has a lot of viable and insane experimental ways to play just like GW1 had.
GW2 got a lot better after it condensed and further focused it's trait lines into its specializations. Every time a new specialization is added to a class, the strategic possibilities is vastly increased. Every weapon you equip represents its own sub class. And so, every time we get a new weapon for a class, it allows for further customization and synergy.
In GW2 you can use specializations to fold your character into what you want. You can have tanking casters, melee DPS ranged attackers, healing heavy armor character. because the stats and rune systems are completely free and independent from everything else, there is nothing you cannot do, as long as the class has gameplay attached to it.
It also makes every class play differently. A Support revernant that heals feels like curling. You use your staff to move this tablet on the ground move around to heal your allies. Meanwhile a ranger specced Druid beams, bubbles and glows heals into allies it touches. A healing Elementalist puts AOE water fields on allies, a warrior AOE shout heals to nearby allies, a guardian can bubble heal inside a protective dome. A mesmer or ranger can use pets to heal allies.
There is a lot of different ways to play that is lost on a lot of players unfortunately.
People kind of do themselves a disservice to go to reddit or some place like that and think that a meta approach is the only way to play effectively. Kind of rubs a person of all the creative ways to build a character. Runes are really really powerful to build a character in ever unique ways, and they keep adding them: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune
The new faces, hairstyles and beards are fantastic!
If you play something like Elementalist you switch Atunements on the fly. F1, F2, F3, F4 - So your skillbar changes with the press of a button. That's 20 physical weapon skills at once. Then you have your heals, your 3 utlity and elites which you can also change on the fly.
That's 25 skills on the bar at any given time. And these skills change completely depending on what weapon you use. Daggers is some Avatar The Last Airbender type shit, while staff is all about classic Gandalf distanced fireballs and electric fields and water healing and so on; https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_skills
Secondly, a lot of players don't know about combo fields, which rewards knowing which skills work great together. If you're in the water atunement, you can make a water attack, and then change to the lightning atunement and do an electric shock attack, with the electricity piercing the water for extra damage. The game is full of combos like that. Fire arrows into a firefield, and the arrows catch fire and so on and so forth.
The problem is that many many players are totally ignorant to all of this gameplay depth because Guild Wars (both the first and the second game) was never good at explaining its gameplay systems, and because of this, a lot of players get into the game and think its a shallow experience with no tactical elements which is so far from the truth. More about combo fields and synergy between different classes skills; https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo
Engineer is another class that has a lot of skills. You equip kits on your toolbar. So pressing 7 could give you a flamethrower kit, that gives you 5 flamethrower skills. If you use kits for your heal, and your 3 utility skills, that brings your weapon skills up 20 as well, plus all the F skills which change also.
Then there is the spell specific combos, where you activate multiple skills with repeated presses; https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_engineer_skills
But look- the reality is, and this is the reason why most other MMOs including WoW, SWTOR and others have gotten serious skill bloat over the years, because just having lots of skills and buttons to press, doesn't in itself make a game more fun or more strategic. It might seem that way to a player whose enjoyment is based on button mashing and simply pressing keys, but that in itself is not complex or tactical.
Making something well designed is often simple, but making something simple is hard. It's easy to make endless amounts of skill and claim that, that is actual good choice that gives a lot of good gameplay, but this isn't true.
In GW1 a vast amount of skills were useless, copycats and lacked proper precense. It's really sad to see so many players in MMORPGs think that skill bloat is somehow fun. Fuck having 50-100 buttons on hotbars. That shit fucking sucks. Convoluted doesn't mean complex or fun.
It's like people advocating for more guns or a bigger open world or more quests just because they are completely sensitized to the idea that more is always better. It's just not true.
In GW2 there is a very powerful rune and stat systems that let every type of build or character be powered by every type of stats. That means you could min max a warrior with healing power. You wouldn't be able to kill anything effectively, but your self heals and AOE heals would be very powerful.
So lots of the complexity comes from the runesets and stats set.
And you can make a lot of really cool and strange builds. A lot more innovative possibilities than I have seen in many other MMORPGs. The problem is just that once again, this is totally lost on so many people as the game is not good at explaining itself.
GW has always been different and its always confused a shit ton of people. Its scaling is often really misunderstood too.
The biggest "build diversity" problem GW2 has in my opinion is that the game is build around doing damage, and because of that a lot of people mistakenly think that support, sustain, heals, cleanses and buff builds are unrewarding and not worth it.
In other MMOs you'd have healer characters so powerful that that is all they would do in a dungeon run. A healer will just heal and do nothing else. The problem is that that wouldn't work in GW2 where you have world bosses with 150-200 players. The game doesn't know how to scale itself effectively if you had 20-30 healers who healed everyone that powerfully. Then you'd have to design the game around that, and that would mean, that every time you didn't have that number of healers, the game would break and become a frustrating mess.
So among the meta, a virtue and sign of being a skilled player meant being able to clear the difficult content in your DPS gear. Being so 1337 you could walk around as a glass cannon, dodge enemy attacks and do lots of damage is what people consider a sign of being a good player.
And that is sad, because the game is so much fun if you play it the way you want. equipping various experimental builds based around other forms of damage or support is so much more rewarding than being a DPS berserker, but players have had the experience that going into a PUG dungeon or fractal and being told to be in DPS gear.
But I run around in bunker, healer, buff and sustain builds when I play open world, pvp or WvW and its so much more fun. And many guilds also get so much fun from that as well. Like other Multiplayer games, the fun you have is highly impacted by who you're playing with.
I highly recommend you to not go blindly into the meta. You'll see the game has a lot of viable and insane experimental ways to play just like GW1 had.
GW2 got a lot better after it condensed and further focused it's trait lines into its specializations. Every time a new specialization is added to a class, the strategic possibilities is vastly increased. Every weapon you equip represents its own sub class. And so, every time we get a new weapon for a class, it allows for further customization and synergy.
In GW2 you can use specializations to fold your character into what you want. You can have tanking casters, melee DPS ranged attackers, healing heavy armor character. because the stats and rune systems are completely free and independent from everything else, there is nothing you cannot do, as long as the class has gameplay attached to it.
It also makes every class play differently. A Support revernant that heals feels like curling. You use your staff to move this tablet on the ground move around to heal your allies. Meanwhile a ranger specced Druid beams, bubbles and glows heals into allies it touches. A healing Elementalist puts AOE water fields on allies, a warrior AOE shout heals to nearby allies, a guardian can bubble heal inside a protective dome. A mesmer or ranger can use pets to heal allies.
There is a lot of different ways to play that is lost on a lot of players unfortunately.
People kind of do themselves a disservice to go to reddit or some place like that and think that a meta approach is the only way to play effectively. Kind of rubs a person of all the creative ways to build a character. Runes are really really powerful to build a character in ever unique ways, and they keep adding them: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
any new charr face
Dandy Lyin
Member
No. Just humans.
No, they just dumped most of the assets they used to create Elonian NPC's into character creation, they're not locked behind Makeover-kits you can create brand new characters with them.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
that's pretty lame
I agree with everything you said here, i loved the game year 1&2 but have not played the game in ages, i just jumped back in with HOTS a couple weeks ago. The main issue the game has is many old players giving new players bad advice. "Only run this build, only buy this gear, you can't join our raid/fractal as this set up etc."
The funny thing is as soon as someone experiments and a new build gets popular its the same old players that jump on the band wagon "oh this is the new meta you have to follow and its the only way you should play". MMO communities are their own worst enemy sometimes.
Those characters look great btw, i need to give a couple of mine a make over with the new styles.
When the content is new people tend to experiment more, nowadays Fractals and Raids are like Dungeons before the expansion, it's all about clearing them as fast as possible.
human meta is the biggest meta
I was referring to how GW1 allowed you to use any skill of any of the two classes you used on one character (except the secondary's Elite skill). That mix and match feature allowed for a ton of fun and innovation for me in random arenas. More than anything, that killed my interest in playing GW2 when it launched.
BTW, did the sequel ever get random arenas? I'm not referring to open world battles.