Guild Wars 2

[caladein]

I thought there were no healers in this game, wtf?!  Am I reading that weapon chart wrong somehow?  Please say yes.

This is a deckbuilding game that has heals and non-self-only defensive abilities, so by extension there are "healers".  But it's all around standardized AOE/PBAOE buffs, not clicking on unit frames to make the bars go up.

[Draegan]

I liked your chart, certainly a lot more than the top comment reply on Reddit where you posted this as well 

Question: So Rogues are the only prof. that bring damage-only to the table?

Thieves are a bit different.  Your OH skills vary depending on your MH weapon.  So your OH pistol will be different depending on whether you're pairing it with another pistol or dagger.  In this sense I have to evaluate all of their skills together and not just the OH in a vacuum.  There are certainly Rogue builds that offer Offense and Support (applying conditions or debuffs) and some offer different variations of damage like bleeds, cripples, DD etc.  The majority of the time you're in an offensive role, but you can spec out a Rogue for vulns and cripples if you want.  But instead of typing this all out on a chart, I just call it offense.

That guy on Reddit is retarded.  He's never played the game and is just going off on watching videos (which I don't think he has or if he did, he didn't pay attention) or reading the wiki.  I've played a similar build to the beta at PAX Prime for a few hours. 

I thought there were no healers in this game, wtf?!  Am I reading that weapon chart wrong somehow?  Please say yes.

There are no roles in this game, however some weapons have flavors to them.  Some lean towards defensive and control abilities, some lean to Offensive or Supportive abilities.    Any weapon set that had an effect that could heal other players (not just yourself) then I stuck it in a healing category just so you can see at a glance which classes can actually heal others.  A lot of the healing (with the exception of Water Staff of the Elementalist) is passive or comes with damage as well.

If you want to build a character towards taking more damage than others, you would look at the chart, find the shields and that is merely a starting point, it's not a definition.  You can gear/spec toons to lean in certain directions, or balance out across different builds.  The latest dev blog that discussed stats and traits you can really see what they are letting players do.

This chart does not take into account Healing, Utility or Elite skills at all, just weapon sets.



Ultimately some people think just because I labeled a weapon a certain "role" means that that is all they can do.  The majority of weapons have secondary effects that you can claim are defensive, support or anything else.  My categorization is merely a starting point.  There is a reason why I picked "Themes" rather than "Roles" in the description of the chart; it's supposed to be a bit ambiguous.  The categories are just there to point you in the right directions.

[Kageru]

A game without roles is a boring zergfest, experienced that directly in CO beta. On the other hand weakening roles so that you are not 100% dependent on a specialist, and the specialist is not just doing heals and can do other things without fear someone will suddenly die, is a very promising evolutionary step. The heals having long timers achieves this and is necessary for balance when all the players have a goodly number of personal heal / mitigation abilities.

The balancing will be fascinating to watch. But certain problems WoW failed to address, like how do you make healing limited without making it impossible for low geared healers and generally not fun for anybody, vanish automatically.

[Miasma]

I don't like the look of the playthough videos, especially that 45 minute one in the dungeon.  I'm not too excited about it anymore.

[EWSpider]

You also have to keep in mind that just looking at each classes skills is only scratching the surface.  There are dozens and dozens of skill combinations to be discovered.  Many of which will be game changers and one reason I believe that some of the beta group play footage doesn't look so hot.  These are people playing the game for the first time with very little coordination.  Since someone was picking on the Thief a bit I'll elaborate using them as an example.  If the Thief appeals to you and that's what you want to play, yet still want to be able to provide support to your group, than you'll want to quickly learn how to utilize your group mate's skills to fulfill that role.  For example:  you're in the middle of a big fight and the group has started sustaining pretty heavy AoE damage.  The Ranger in your group puts down a Healing Spring to provide some group heals.  On its own it's probably not enough to keep up with the AoE damage coming in, but in that moment you have the choice to drop back out of melee combat, switch to your pistols and start firing at a target through the Spring.  This causes your bullets to provide additional AoE healing as they pass through the Spring.  Not only are you still providing DPS, but you've now provided just enough healing to prevent a wipe.

[Sophismata]

I don't like the look of the playthough videos, especially that 45 minute one in the dungeon.  I'm not too excited about it anymore.

What, the one where dudeman spammed one button over and over again, ad nauseam?

[caladein]

For example:  you're in the middle of a big fight and the group has started sustaining pretty heavy AoE damage.  The Ranger in your group puts down a Healing Spring to provide some group heals.  On its own it's probably not enough to keep up with the AoE damage coming in, but in that moment you have the choice to drop back out of melee combat, switch to your pistols and start firing at a target through the Spring.  This causes your bullets to provide additional AoE healing as they pass through the Spring.  Not only are you still providing DPS, but you've now provided just enough healing to prevent a wipe.

Which sounds really cool until you realize a) positioning hilarity and b) "Please keep Fire Field on top of the boss (or vice versa)." is the new "Please redrop Windfury Totem."

[EWSpider]

For example:  you're in the middle of a big fight and the group has started sustaining pretty heavy AoE damage.  The Ranger in your group puts down a Healing Spring to provide some group heals.  On its own it's probably not enough to keep up with the AoE damage coming in, but in that moment you have the choice to drop back out of melee combat, switch to your pistols and start firing at a target through the Spring.  This causes your bullets to provide additional AoE healing as they pass through the Spring.  Not only are you still providing DPS, but you've now provided just enough healing to prevent a wipe.

Which sounds really cool until you realize a) positioning hilarity and b) "Please keep Fire Field on top of the boss (or vice versa)." is the new "Please redrop Windfury Totem."

I don't understand either one of your points, but I only played WoW to level 40ish (I assume that's where the reference is coming from).

[Zetor]

Windfury totems gave a shortish-range buff to party members that allowed them to proc a second swing from any melee attack. They were a staple of WOW raiding until WOTLK. Basically all shaman were expected to drop that totem in range of all the melee players in their group, and keep doing that every time they needed to move, the totem despawned, they had to use a different totem, etc. It wasn't very fun for obvious reasons, especially for caster shaman (2/3 shaman specs were casters).

I think the point is that - assuming the combinations are powerful enough to warrant it - players will be expected to use their "combo initiator" attack as much as possible so that everyone else in the group can benefit from their combos. This could potentially lead to unfun gameplay like the windfury totem example, especially if the attack in question has a casting time, needs the player to put a targeting circle down, has to be recast every ~10 sec, etc.

[Draegan]

For example:  you're in the middle of a big fight and the group has started sustaining pretty heavy AoE damage.  The Ranger in your group puts down a Healing Spring to provide some group heals.  On its own it's probably not enough to keep up with the AoE damage coming in, but in that moment you have the choice to drop back out of melee combat, switch to your pistols and start firing at a target through the Spring.  This causes your bullets to provide additional AoE healing as they pass through the Spring.  Not only are you still providing DPS, but you've now provided just enough healing to prevent a wipe.

Which sounds really cool until you realize a) positioning hilarity and b) "Please keep Fire Field on top of the boss (or vice versa)." is the new "Please redrop Windfury Totem."

Only difference is combos will be unique to your team builds.

[Miasma]

I don't like the look of the playthough videos, especially that 45 minute one in the dungeon.  I'm not too excited about it anymore.

What, the one where dudeman spammed one button over and over again, ad nauseam?

Yeah, even ignoring his terrible gameplay I still didn't like it though.

[EWSpider]

Windfury totems gave a shortish-range buff to party members that allowed them to proc a second swing from any melee attack. They were a staple of WOW raiding until WOTLK. Basically all shaman were expected to drop that totem in range of all the melee players in their group, and keep doing that every time they needed to move, the totem despawned, they had to use a different totem, etc. It wasn't very fun for obvious reasons, especially for caster shaman (2/3 shaman specs were casters).

I think the point is that - assuming the combinations are powerful enough to warrant it - players will be expected to use their "combo initiator" attack as much as possible so that everyone else in the group can benefit from their combos. This could potentially lead to unfun gameplay like the windfury totem example, especially if the attack in question has a casting time, needs the player to put a targeting circle down, has to be recast every ~10 sec, etc.

How is that any different from a particular class having some mission critical debuff?  I don't disagree with the point, just trying to understand how it's specific to the scenario.

[01101010]

I gotta say, I am more than interested in this simply because I can play a smaller stature race. I liked being a Taru in FFXI and Gnome in WoW and a Goblin in WAR. Seems the latest smattering of MMOs have had little in the way of smallish races - and Dorfs and I don't mix, so they are always off the table. Nice to get back to having a character I like.

[Lantyssa]

Most games you have two or three abilities up to level 10-ish.  Here you get double that almost off-the-bat and then you get to start working on building out combinations.  That doesn't even count grabbing different weapons which entirely change your skill set-up.

You're also looking at the first few hours of play, by people with no experience with the game.

[kildorn]

Obviously the solution to all this theorycrafting is for Arenanet to just release the fucking game already. SEE ANET? I SOLVED YOUR PROBLEMS!

.. damnit.

[Hawkbit]

http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:Team_-_7_Hero_Player_Support

I switched from a spirit/disco way to this and this feels a lot stronger.

I've blown all my cash buying skills and have 5 of 7 heroes built from this.  Even with only 5/7 I was able to pretty easily beat Nightfall over the weekend.  Working on EotN now, and only have four missions in Prophecies.  I should have this wrapped up soon.

Thanks for that link - I never thought it would change the game by that much, but it did.

EDIT:  The other thing I did was change from Dragon Slash warrior into Hundred Blades warrior.  If I can get enemies in a small area, they simply die when I get close. 

[Bungee]

Windfury totems gave a shortish-range buff to party members that allowed them to proc a second swing from any melee attack. They were a staple of WOW raiding until WOTLK. Basically all shaman were expected to drop that totem in range of all the melee players in their group, and keep doing that every time they needed to move, the totem despawned, they had to use a different totem, etc. It wasn't very fun for obvious reasons, especially for caster shaman (2/3 shaman specs were casters).

I think the point is that - assuming the combinations are powerful enough to warrant it - players will be expected to use their "combo initiator" attack as much as possible so that everyone else in the group can benefit from their combos. This could potentially lead to unfun gameplay like the windfury totem example, especially if the attack in question has a casting time, needs the player to put a targeting circle down, has to be recast every ~10 sec, etc.

How is that any different from a particular class having some mission critical debuff?  I don't disagree with the point, just trying to understand how it's specific to the scenario.

Those combofields certainly are very powerful as right now at least they seam to stack (?). In one of the casts posted on the previous site, the caster mentions how overpowered rangers are right now in pvp because of their long range and teams would just set up so that they put down a maximum of combo-circles and let the rangers shoot through them. So, I guess this is a valid concern given the short duration of most of those circles.

Edit: Warrior Vid out btw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA6TPoWWdV0

[Draegan]

Most games you have two or three abilities up to level 10-ish.  Here you get double that almost off-the-bat and then you get to start working on building out combinations.  That doesn't even count grabbing different weapons which entirely change your skill set-up.

You're also looking at the first few hours of play, by people with no experience with the game.

As soon as you get the associated weapon, you can unlock every single skill.

[Lantyssa]

I didn't play the media beta weekend.  I can't talk specifics.

[Typhon]

I thought there were no healers in this game, wtf?!  Am I reading that weapon chart wrong somehow?  Please say yes.

[talks Typhon off the ledge]

Thanks!

[trias_e]

I've watched every class video that the yogscast put out at this point.  Necro, Elementalist, and Thief just look mindblowingly awesome to me.  Thief especially:  I learned I really, really like temporary stealth abilities whilst playing my SWTOR marauder in PvP.  The thief is built entirely around them.  It'll be a blast to play.  My inner-hype level for this game is damn high at this point.

[Bungee]

This Yogscast is pretty amazing...
Dungeon Time:
http://youtu.be/pG3tEl9FF9s

[Redgiant]

I hear there is an open-world to GW2, instead of the lobby feel of GW1.

How about open world PvP? I mean true open-world, not something that resets every 2 weeks. Is true open world PvP supported at all, if people want to do it?

Are there any videos of open-world action (PvE or PvP), showing many people fighting out in the open world? Or do fights like what I see in Yogs video only occur in instances?

[Sky]

One of the devs says you've got to watch for the mob to hold his sword over his head because he's going to chain heal. With all the effects going off, I'm not sure how you'd even see that. Looked wicked chaotic to me.

[Ard]

EDIT:  The other thing I did was change from Dragon Slash warrior into Hundred Blades warrior.  If I can get enemies in a small area, they simply die when I get close. 

If you end up starting to do hard mode stuff after you finish the campaigns, you'll probably want to switch back to dragon slash.  I more or less did the same two builds as you, but in hard mode, the ai changes, and mobs tend to not clump up or will scatter once aoes start going off.  I tend to primarily use For Great Justice and alternate Dragon Slash with the EoTN dwarf sklil Brawling Headbutt to keep dangerous casters and healers on the ground.

[Hawkbit]

If you end up starting to do hard mode stuff after you finish the campaigns, you'll probably want to switch back to dragon slash.  I more or less did the same two builds as you, but in hard mode, the ai changes, and mobs tend to not clump up or will scatter once aoes start going off.  I tend to primarily use For Great Justice and alternate Dragon Slash with the EoTN dwarf sklil Brawling Headbutt to keep dangerous casters and healers on the ground.

Good to know.  The build is exactly the same, just switch Dragon Slash and Hundred Blades as needed. 

I beat EotN last night, working on Factions now.  2 of 4 down... and actually I think I only have three missions in Prophecies, so this will go fast. 

[caladein]

How about open world PvP? I mean true open-world, not something that resets every 2 weeks. Is true open world PvP supported at all, if people want to do it?

No.  Nothing like the out-in-the-world stuff of a WoW PvP server (or *insert hardcore FFA example here*) has even been broached.  It's either this



or this



or some minor stuff here or there.

[Spiff]

I imagine full on open pvp style servers might be difficult, with the huge amount of AoE skills + dynamic events anyone can join; you'd constantly be randomly killing anyone trying to join 'your' event.
Also anyone not teamed with you would presumably be unable to make use of your combo-field-thingamajigs or even worse get negatively affected by them, I can't see it working here.

I do wonder how feasible it would be to just spend the majority of your time in the WvWvW area, levelling and skill-collecting wise.
It's by far the most interesting feature of the whole game to me (will there finally be a game again that gets massive siege warfare right?  ).

[01101010]

I imagine full on open pvp style servers might be difficult, with the huge amount of AoE skills + dynamic events anyone can join; you'd constantly be randomly killing anyone trying to join 'your' event.
Also anyone not teamed with you would presumably be unable to make use of your combo-field-thingamajigs or even worse get negatively affected by them, I can't see it working here.

I would hope they'd implement some sort of auto-join group feature ah la WAR in the public quests. That would make things a bit easier to make use of the combo builders/effects.

[tazelbain]

I hear there is an open-world to GW2, instead of the lobby feel of GW1.

How about open world PvP? I mean true open-world, not something that resets every 2 weeks. Is true open world PvP supported at all, if people want to do it?

Are there any videos of open-world action (PvE or PvP), showing many people fighting out in the open world? Or do fights like what I see in Yogs video only occur in instances?

I hope not. A.net can't be all things to all people.  They have bitten off enough to chew.  

[Lantyssa]

I would hope they'd implement some sort of auto-join group feature ah la WAR in the public quests. That would make things a bit easier to make use of the combo builders/effects.

Fields are in the game world and not restricted to parties.  Anyone can make use of it while present.

[ashrik]

I hear there is an open-world to GW2, instead of the lobby feel of GW1.

How about open world PvP? I mean true open-world, not something that resets every 2 weeks. Is true open world PvP supported at all, if people want to do it?

Are there any videos of open-world action (PvE or PvP), showing many people fighting out in the open world? Or do fights like what I see in Yogs video only occur in instances?

Open-world PVP doesn't exist in this game, as per the information they've released, at least not in the way it does in other games. There are no factions so everyone on your server, outside of the instanced PVP matches, is on your side. The only thing even semi-analogous to open PVP are the server battlegrounds which are large PVP areas that apparently support 100+ of each server in which your guys compete against 2 other servers for keeps, towers, supply production places, NPC spawns, and the like.

So- the thing they're calling WvWvW is not instanced

[ashrik]

I do wonder how feasible it would be to just spend the majority of your time in the WvWvW area, levelling and skill-collecting wise.
It's by far the most interesting feature of the whole game to me (will there finally be a game again that gets massive siege warfare right?  ).

They said that it's just a massive PVE area that happens to have keeps and marauding enemy players. To that end, they said you can level to 80 in there and the players to kill will drop xp, gold, and loot just like a mob would.

[caladein]

So- the thing they're calling WvWvW is not instanced

It sort of is.  There are up to four WvW instances going at once for your trio of servers with a cap of 500 in each.  They're big instances, but they're still instances with caps and queues.

[Lantyssa]

What is technically an instance and what players think of when speaking of them are different things.  Technically, any game with multiple servers is instanced, too.