Upcoming Heart of Thorns closed beta tests

[carnifex2005]

I played around with the Revenant at lunch for a bit. Pretty fun class. Seemed like a Guardian on steroids. The bigger news though, there a significant increase in the condition cap on the bosses. The condition cap (for some conditions) is at least 100, if not more, an explanation mark shows up when hitting over 100. Here's a couple of pics from Reddit showing an example of this...



http://i.imgur.com/0XIBoIQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/YTadzao.jpg

Looks like I'll be going for that Sinister gear for my engineer after all.

[zito]

72 stacks of confusion what? I've never even seen 25 in zergs on live.

[Kazgrel]

I played around with the Revenant at lunch for a bit. Pretty fun class. Seemed like a Guardian on steroids. The bigger news though, there a significant increase in the condition cap on the bosses. The condition cap (for some conditions) is at least 100, if not more, an explanation mark shows up when hitting over 100. Here's a couple of pics from Reddit showing an example of this...



http://i.imgur.com/0XIBoIQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/YTadzao.jpg

Looks like I'll be going for that Sinister gear for my engineer after all.

Neato. Maybe with this being the case, they can remove the crit immunity from some bosses? Wishful thinking on my part, of course (I'm thinking of Teq and removing the crit immunity would probably make that fight a total joke). Crit immunity seemed to me to be the only way they could have condi builds compete with beserker in pve.

Sadly I did not get a beta invite also. Not a big deal, though. Time's been limited lately!

[zito]

Neato. Maybe with this being the case, they can remove the crit immunity from some bosses? Wishful thinking on my part, of course (I'm thinking of Teq and removing the crit immunity would probably make that fight a total joke). Crit immunity seemed to me to be the only way they could have condi builds compete with beserker in pve.

Sadly I did not get a beta invite also. Not a big deal, though. Time's been limited lately!

They didn't have a condition cap because they didn't want bosses to die too fast but it was a technical limitation before. Like I have said before Guild wars in general does significant changes during expansions with small content patches in between. This has forever been the case. So we shouldn't have treated content updates like other MMOs.

[carnifex2005]

Looks like these increased conditions stacks were part of the stress test and may not be final but certainly is in the plan...

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...leeding-Stacks

Hey Everyone,
As you may have noticed bleeding stacks go above 25 stacks when playing in the demo map. This is not a mistake, rather as we have said for a while now, we know that the current stack cap creates problems for condition players who want to work together. What you saw today was the first test in solving some of these problems. Keep in mind, it is not necessarily final and absolutely not the entire plan. I see many questions about how this will work and how it impacts other conditions, balance, etc. Rest assured that as soon as we have a final plan we will be revealing it and letting you all know exactly how it will work.
Jon

[Beefsquatch]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOFHcboSFp4

Revnant gameplay video of the closed Beta. Check it out. I'm still watching it, but thought I'd post it here before it gets removed or something.

Edit: So far, the story looks really interesting. The Revnant looks completely badass, also. It's pretty much a death knight. There's no weapon swap but it looks like there's some kind of stance swap. I noticed the bars go from blue to purple, and his abilities acted a bit differently.

So far, I like what I'm seeing.

[zito]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOFHcboSFp4

Revnant gameplay video of the closed Beta. Check it out. I'm still watching it, but thought I'd post it here before it gets removed or something.

Edit: So far, the story looks really interesting. The Revnant looks completely badass, also. It's pretty much a death knight. There's no weapon swap but it looks like there's some kind of stance swap. I noticed the bars go from blue to purple, and his abilities acted a bit differently.

So far, I like what I'm seeing.

First thing I noticed is our character has dialogue outside chat boxes now!

[Arlee]

First thing I noticed is our character has dialogue outside chat boxes now!

Yep, that's apparently the way they plan on doing it from here on out.

[zito]

Yep, that's apparently the way they plan on doing it from here on out.

yea for improvement! now add more voices. MORE VOICES

- - - Updated - - -

Revenant looks really good. Like something I would play. It's not exactly like ritualists (if specilization doesn't change that) so I wouldn't mind channeling spirits and then having a guardian alt summoning them (if they ever fucking buff them).

Mace/axe looks really good. Will probably main it in PvP or even PvE as a hybrid since the cond cap will be gone.

[Thelxi]

I played around with the Revenant at lunch for a bit. Pretty fun class. Seemed like a Guardian on steroids. The bigger news though, there a significant increase in the condition cap on the bosses. The condition cap (for some conditions) is at least 100, if not more, an explanation mark shows up when hitting over 100. Here's a couple of pics from Reddit showing an example of this...



http://i.imgur.com/0XIBoIQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/YTadzao.jpg

Looks like I'll be going for that Sinister gear for my engineer after all.

This change is HUGE. They said in a red post (https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...g-Stacks/first) that this is just the beginning of them fixing condition damage. I really, really hope they fix poison and burning too, make them tick for each person seperately or make them stack just like bleeds and confusion.

[zito]

Finished watching. How could the guy not like the class? He isn't even using half the mechanics of it. No legend swapping and he never touched his utility besides the elite.

- - - Updated - - -

This change is HUGE. They said in a red post (https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...g-Stacks/first) that this is just the beginning of them fixing condition damage. I really, really hope they fix poison and burning too, make them tick for each person seperately or make them stack just like bleeds and confusion.

they need to fix chilled in pve too. It does nothing. At least make it do something besides a clone of cripple.

- - - Updated - - -

eh just made my ritualists guardian build and pretty much reminds me of a ritualist. Well that was easy.

[thewallofsleep]

Is the Druid specialization for ranger active yet in the beta? I'm really curious about it. If it's awesome, that could be the deciding factor on continuing to main ranger or find another profession. Like my lowbie warrior or something.

Necros are cool, but seem really gimped in PvE. They should do something about them. Their lack of support makes most pugs deny them. Kind of lame.

[carnifex2005]

No specializations were available in the beta.

[PACOX]

Mace and Axe makes for some interesting might stacking scenarios. I easily hit 12 stacks on with a very sloppy rotation just casually seeing how well I could blast my own fire field.

For all the love I had for hammer before I actually got to play Rev, it felt like it was lacking something/a bit clunky. I didn't have that powerful feel that Warrior and Guardian hammer skills have. It could have been because its geared towards pvp (like the existing hammer skills), I was also in a hurry so I really didn't have time to try to make it work for me. Mace/Axe felt pretty nice, even with Cele gear that they gave you. It might be too easy to spam some skills (being able to stack might with any real cooldowns, CC on low CDs)?

The condi change (far from finalized but you can see that they're working on something) should allow for greater build diversity in pve. Those who with condi/hybrid builds will no longer have to worry about others less powerful conditions overriding/prevent theirs from being applied. For instance, a warrior can stack bleeds pretty high but probably doesn't have any +condi dmg gear, this limits the effectiveness of the necro who is also trying to apply his/her bleeds to a target but can't because the warrior keeps applying (not on purpose, its a trait) its weak bleeds.

[zito]

I hope the defiance changes go to the entire game bosses and dungeons and such, I wanna see how they interact with mesmer interrupt traits. Like if I triple daze during defiance with mantra of distraction do my interrupt traits work for all 3 hits? If so interrupt mesmer can finally be a thing in PvE

[rhandric]

They did say that defiance everywhere will work with at least the new basic defiance bar, while they'll customize the end result of defiance (when it's up, what happens when you break it) for some specific things.