Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Tackhisis]

I'm still waiting for concept of proper boss design without tanks. Just admit it's impossible. WoW and other games are using them because it is impossible to do other way without trivialing encounter.

And since when D&D had bosses? Encounters there are extremally primitive.

[Anthoren]

If I were you, I would try double daggers and a bow, here is a list of skills for a thief.

Leaping Death Blossom is the coolest weapon combo skill for a Thief (IMHO) coupled with the fact that daggers seem to be the strongest melee weapon for thieves. As for your secondary weapon set, I would choose a ranged weapon for more versatility. Pistols are definitely higher single target damage, but bows dominate at AoE for thieves.

Depending on what you prefer tho, you could go Pistol/Pistol instead of Dagger/Dagger. Sword is only Main-Hand and seems to be more geared towards PvP.

Please note, this only applies to what we have seen so far as skills may be changed out, or revised, and we also have very little info about Traits for most classes.

i was thinking of double daggers and pistol offhand daggers but again there is just...so so so much to think about. Funny I used to get this kind of feeling about specs in WoW a long(like super long) time ago, i miss it.

[Blznsmri]

I'm still waiting for concept of proper boss design without tanks. Just admit it's impossible. WoW and other games are using them because it is impossible to do other way without trivialing encounter.

And since when D&D had bosses? Encounters there are extremally primitive.

How would it trivialize the encounter? Are you simply thinking in terms that you know? I.e. WoW, Guild Wars 1 had NO TANKS WHAT SO EVER, yet it was a very successful MMO

[Anthoren]

How would it trivialize the encounter? Are you simply thinking in terms that you know? I.e. WoW, Guild Wars 1 had NO TANKS WHAT SO EVER, yet it was a very successful MMO

people are afraid of change, in all of aspects life, to politics, to medicine, religion, sexuality and on and on so of course people who play rpg games with the holy trinity as it is called would be likely to not understand how a similar fantasy mmo type of game work without it. As for me, my only mmo was WoW but after all i have learned of Guild Wars 2, it can and likely will be a major competitorin the newest cycle of mmo's

[jvbastel]

I'm still waiting for concept of proper boss design without tanks. Just admit it's impossible. WoW and other games are using them because it is impossible to do other way without trivialing encounter.

And since when D&D had bosses? Encounters there are extremally primitive.

The thing is, some bosses in WoW are also untankable (first that comes to mind is mimiron Ph2) these are just exceptions though, since blizz has based its game around the tank/dps/healer trinity, so they can't drop tanks for a large number of bosses. Give me 1 reason why you absolutely need a tank to make a boss encounter.

GW1 had some fun endbosses (The lich,Shiro,Abaddon) and neither of them required you to have a tank, yet, they were fairly challenging, especially on hard mode. They were also fun.

The fact that you've never seen an mmo without the trinity doesn't mean they don't exist, or are impossible to do.
As is said before, tanks are illogical, irl, noone would just stand still and let huge monsters hit him

[Blznsmri]

The thing is, some bosses in WoW are also untankable (first that comes to mind is mimiron Ph2) these are just exceptions though, since blizz has based its game around the tank/dps/healer trinity, so they can't drop tanks for a large number of bosses. Give me 1 reason why you absolutely need a tank to make a boss encounter.

GW1 had some fun endbosses (The lich,Shiro,Abaddon) and neither of them required you to have a tank, yet, they were fairly challenging, especially on hard mode. They were also fun.

The fact that you've never seen an mmo without the trinity doesn't mean they don't exist, or are impossible to do.
As is said before, tanks are illogical, irl, noone would just stand still and let huge monsters hit him

The Lich and Shiro fight, before Abaddon was the hardest fight I had ever done.

[Deleted]

arena.net/blog/an-introduction-to-the-environment-art-of-guild-wars-2

New blog post up

[MrSerious]

The thing is, some bosses in WoW are also untankable (first that comes to mind is mimiron Ph2) these are just exceptions though, since blizz has based its game around the tank/dps/healer trinity, so they can't drop tanks for a large number of bosses. Give me 1 reason why you absolutely need a tank to make a boss encounter.

GW1 had some fun endbosses (The lich,Shiro,Abaddon) and neither of them required you to have a tank, yet, they were fairly challenging, especially on hard mode. They were also fun.

The fact that you've never seen an mmo without the trinity doesn't mean they don't exist, or are impossible to do.
As is said before, tanks are illogical, irl, noone would just stand still and let huge monsters hit him

I seriously think you are wasting your time explaining to him unfortunately, some people refuse to see how something can work when they have such a fanboy tunnel vision opinion to anything that is different from their beloved WoW.

Not having the GW2 servers infected by Tackhisis is a good thing we should try and put him off the game as much as possible.

[Tackhisis]

I ... think you are wasting your time explaining to him..., some people refuse to see how something can work

And you wasting your time preaching that something will work omitting a little detail, how it would work.

Just put yourself in boss' cockpit and compare how would you act and what AI does, and realise why the tanks are always needed.

On unrelated note, Tackhisis is usually considered to be her.

[ManiaCCC]

I'm still waiting for concept of proper boss design without tanks. Just admit it's impossible. WoW and other games are using them because it is impossible to do other way without trivialing encounter.

And since when D&D had bosses? Encounters there are extremally primitive.

Fact that you don't realize boss fights are trivialized now because of trinity and agro system show that you never played anything without trinity system. Just wait and see.. you will understand.

And btw.. I wasn't talking about D&D video game.. I was talking about pen and paper version. Did you play it?

[Tackhisis]

Pen-and-paper? No, but I know that group there consisted from cleric, rogue, wizard and 5 warriors (with possible alterations). 5(!) tanks in one party, colliding with mobs, forming physical meatshield. It's a bad example.

[Blznsmri]

Pen-and-paper? No, but I know that group there consisted from cleric, rogue, wizard and 5 warriors (with possible alterations). 5(!) tanks in one party, colliding with mobs, forming physical meatshield. It's a bad example.

Where in your mind does it make sense that a boss would attack that one guy that just doesn't seem to die and does very little damage where as this fragile little caster is raping it's health?

The trinity system trivializes bosses because all the DPS and healers have to worry about is staying out of bad shit. THAT'S IT. That's pretty much every damn WoW boss wrapped up into one statement. Tank boss here. Melee stand here. Casters and Healers stand here. Fire spawns there. Move from it.

Removing the dedicated tank (which I repeat, Guild Wars 1 didn't have, I suggest you go try it out) makes it to where everyone has to watch out for themselves, avoid taking damage as much direct damage as possible (by using avoidance skills) and heal themselves. All while making sure the rest of the group is doing fine.

[ManiaCCC]

Pen-and-paper? No, but I know that group there consisted from cleric, rogue, wizard and 5 warriors (with possible alterations). 5(!) tanks in one party, colliding with mobs, forming physical meatshield. It's a bad example.

5 warriors? what?
Image you have group of Ranger, rogue, bard and wizard... Does this mean this group can't handle every situations just because they lack of dedicated healer or tank?

It's very different approach in designing encounters indeed. But no trinity system also allow more freedom for developers. These encounters are much more dynamic because you never know what will happen within seconds. You have to adapt. In trinity and agro system? 99% of fights are same.. Tank...grab mobs, healer..keep him alive..others..just burn them down.. over and over and over again. Boss fights are full of gimicks to make life of players a bit difficult, but core is same. I know you will argue that bosses fights are always different. It's okey. If you never played anything without trinity system, I understand it's hard to see how it works.

Just wait and see.

[Deleted]

IIRC, one of the devs mentioned running a dungeon with five warriors (or was it five rangers? Don't remember. The point is "bring the player, not the class") and they did just fine. So clearly, GW2 doesn't need tanks (or dedicated healers). GW1 didn't need tanks either, as people have been pointing out (I've done every area in the game and not once did I bring a tank when using heroes/henchies and not once were any of my live party members specced as a tank; GW players bring warriors and dervs for damage), though it did have dedicated healers. The reliance on healers, especially in Guild vs Guild matches, was what made ArenaNet take them out in GW2.

I'm looking forward to see how the game'll play without a dedicated healer class, but I'm not worried about not having tanks as that's pretty much the status quo for me. I've played GW1 for over five years and I still think tanks in WoW are weird

(I like parentheses.)

[Tackhisis]

Tried guildwars for 3 hours 15 minutes (bonus points for guessing how I knew it), then removed because it was boring as hell. And guess what, I had a dedicated tank hireling and dedicated healer hireling there.

So what will stop the boss from charging ranged players and killing them in 3 seconds when there are no tanks? Enlighten me, please.

[ManiaCCC]

Tried guildwars for 3 hours 15 minutes (bonus points for guessing how I knew it), then removed because it was boring as hell. And guess what, I had a dedicated tank hireling and dedicated healer hireling there.

So what will stop the boss from charging ranged players and killing them in 3 seconds when there are no tanks? Enlighten me, please.

first.. Boss wont probably one shoot ranger like in WoW ...
But anyway...Ranger can avoid damage altogether.. Even when ranger will be hit, he can heal himself. Also..there are other members. Maybe Warrior will just put himself into the charge, enable shield stance and eat charge damage for him? Or Guardian will create force wall to block boss movement? Or maybe elementalist will cast water geyser to knockback boss for few meters but just enough to give ranger second or two to react?

And even if Ranger will die, they can still Rally him during the combat if they can handle situation in some way. Or manually resurrecting. There is tons of options.

[Deleted]

Nobody's saying GW1 didn't have dedicated healers. But there weren't dedicated tanks and the warrior henchman you hired was probably Stefan*, who is most assuredly not a tank.

When you are soloing in GW2, you will be responsible for making sure you don't get stomped, like you are in WoW. When you're grouping in GW2, you will still be responsible for your own health, but your party members will also have skills that help mitigate incoming damage. Eles can put up Static Fields that stun enemies who try to pass through, Guardians will have block skills, Thieves and Eles and probably other classes have skills that blind the enemy, causing them to miss. Furthermore, you can dodge and use the terrain to your advantage. Bosses will probably work a lot like they did in GW1, i.e. they went after the target with the lowest armor or health, usually, although I doubt it'll work EXACTLY like it did in GW1 because of the lack of healers. Snares and cripples and launches and knockdowns and knockbacks will aid people in staying out of range temporarily so they can heal up a little before heading back into the fight. I don't see how this is a difficult concept to understand.

* wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Stefan

[Snowy]

Tried guildwars for 3 hours 15 minutes (bonus points for guessing how I knew it), then removed because it was boring as hell. And guess what, I had a dedicated tank hireling and dedicated healer hireling there.

So what will stop the boss from charging ranged players and killing them in 3 seconds when there are no tanks? Enlighten me, please.

They are called henchemen and none of them tanked. If you had made it past the starting area, you would have known that.

Well the ranger can stay and get hit or do the smarter thing and dodge it. They could use a defensive ability. If the ranger was low on health and mana, someone else could move into the path of the boss and take the hit, this means that a necro or elementalist could take the hit to help out the ranger if their health was up. Someone could cripple the boss to slow it down or blind the boss so that it's next attack misses. You know, make use of conditions. Someone could use a knock back on the boss to give the ranger another second or two to move. The ranger could have his/her pet get in the way of the boss. Or the ranger could die and need rezzed/rallied since neither the ranger nor his/her group made good use of their abilities.

[Blznsmri]

Tried guildwars for 3 hours 15 minutes (bonus points for guessing how I knew it), then removed because it was boring as hell. And guess what, I had a dedicated tank hireling and dedicated healer hireling there.

So what will stop the boss from charging ranged players and killing them in 3 seconds when there are no tanks? Enlighten me, please.

Are you equating anything with a shield as a tank? Cause you're so wrong... Riposte Swords warriors and Triple Attack Axe warriors were some of the highest DPS specs you could play.

As for keeping the boss from gimping the ranged, you're still thinking of an aggro system, which guild wars 2 wont have. What will happen is that caster will pop defensive ability (whirling defense, flame wall or earth ward, etc) and the boss will (most likely, haven't played its still in development you know) switch targets.

As for what Mid said about "tank" spec, the most prominent ones were W/ Me Signet Warriors that used skills that brought their health and mitigation up incredibly high (highest I've heard of was about 1000 hp or so which was major in a game that had everyone's max level health at 480) and had like one attack skill (a signet attack that caused damage based on the number of signets you had on cooldown).

And Tackhisis, I'm gonna call you out now. Enlighten me on how a Trinity system or tank system makes sense realisticly (which is what 90% of the games on the current market try to make) because I'm pretty sure that a big ass fucking dragon wouldn't care how much noise or what insult to its mother's honor a person could make as opposed to how much another person's damaging it.

[Snowy]

As for what Mid said about "tank" spec, the most prominent ones were W/ Me Signet Warriors that used skills that brought their health and mitigation up incredibly high (highest I've heard of was about 1000 hp or so which was major in a game that had everyone's max level health at 480) and had like one attack skill (a signet attack that caused damage based on the number of signets you had on cooldown).

I would like to point out that the big issue with getting your health that high means that when playing as a team, you aren't considered the primary target. Even in GW1, most enemies would rather go after the weaker characters (lower health/armor) or the healers. If the enemy is melee creature and you use a defensive skill that aides against melee, then that enemy will often seek another target when possible.