Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Zmagoslav]

Is there any news on any additional content releases?

Outside of feature packs and re-releases of older content it has been almost a year since we last got anything new AFAIK.

[PACOX]

I mean season 1 was new for most players. People who do organized instances spent a lot of time mastering CMs. Achievement hunters have been farming legendaries. If none of that applies then that's why it's a B2P game where you can don't miss out when take breaks


All we know about the next release so far is a balance patch that is being previewed on Friday.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Is there any news on any additional content releases?

Nope. We got was a roadmap to a roadmap a few days ago on twitter but it's just more rebalance patches.

- - - Updated - - -

I mean season 1 was new for most players.

Season 1 barely has any content with longevity. Episode 1, 2, and 3 have story instances you do once and never again. Episode 4 has the tower of nightmares, but it isn't very well designed and people aren't inclined to do it over and over. Episode 5 has the Battle for Lion's Arch meta but it is asset reuse of an old map and the meta isn't well designed. "Fight mobs continuously for 20-30 minutes without a break until every zone turns from red to blue and then fight three bosses" isn't very fun. Even Drizzlewood breaks up the monotony with chasing after chests and escorting caravans and using medical supplies on NPCs and the shooting minigame and so on. That functionally just leaves the strike but that's only going to interest a very small percentage of the population.

[Edge-]

Is there any news on any additional content releases?

Outside of feature packs and re-releases of older content it has been almost a year since we last got anything new AFAIK.

Last year was all about bringing back S1 after EoD. They've said there's a roadmap coming and we know they've already begun production on the next expansion but that's about it. We should be getting another LS season this year though, probably.

[PACOX]

Last year was all about bringing back S1 after EoD. They've said there's a roadmap coming and we know they've already begun production on the next expansion but that's about it. We should be getting another LS season this year though, probably.

They released a concept art tease for the upcoming season some time ago. Some people said they teased some more in this weeks gem store release. Can't confirm that myself but they've done that in the past. But if anything we know they are back from winter break and actual communication should pick back up. Someone posted on the subreddit where NCSoft finally giving Anet some praise for caring the NA division.

[Edge-]

Someone posted on the subreddit where NCSoft finally giving Anet some praise for caring the NA division.

They put out a sorta awkward end of year momentum release that feels like it was a last-minute rush job reading through it. I mean it's nice and all and I'm glad the expansion won a few awards, but that's a fairly low-effort/investment thing that's more aiming for low-hanging coverage from any poor news editors who were stuck working just before the holidays and needed some news to fill the day.

[Edge-]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topi...pdate-preview/

Balance patch preview, I really like that they are doing MUCH more frequent balance updates and are being WAY more communicative around it.

However...I'm not sure I fully understand the change to mantras in PvE but if I am then I kinda fuckin hate it. I never liked the way the initially functioned, at least on my FB, and felt that the change to make them "always active" and passively recharge, with the final charge being no different than the rest, made using them feel better. No longer needed to waste charges for the "big one" at a burst moment or do a long annoying cast to start building them back up mid-fight.

[PACOX]

They kind of reverted mantras to their original state but not all the way. You don't have to prep your mantras out of combat, they will enter the ready state on their own once they are off cooldown. If you use up all your mantra 'ammo' you will have to recharge them like before but you will gain a page for your tome as well, creating a bit of an incentive to use up your mantras. They are telling you to use your tome skills as well basically.


Mesmers mantras don't automatically enter the ready state but Mesmers mantras do 'something' while the mesmer channels them so that you want or won't feel bad for using the final charge or a mantra.


There's different arguments for or against the change/revert. Pvp did steer the change but mantras did become skeptical skills that were 'free' which I don't like Anet cared for when it came to balancing mantras in general. Believe it or not, some players even asked for mantras to be reverted because they felt like mantras had lost their identity.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Upc...res/2023-02-14

Upcoming changes with pictures with those of us who don't know skill names.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I dislike Ranger's cooldown reduction traits being rolled into baseline CDs. It raises your APM whether you like it or not. It should be a choice whether or not you want to opt into a higher APM style or if you are content with relaxing builds where you only press an ability once every 5 or 10 seconds.

Unnatural Traversal: This skill is no longer instant and now has a casting time of 0.25 seconds.

Does that mean that the artists at Anet finally created art and animation for Unnatural Traversal?

[Edge-]

They kind of reverted mantras to their original state but not all the way. You don't have to prep your mantras out of combat, they will enter the ready state on their own once they are off cooldown. If you use up all your mantra 'ammo' you will have to recharge them like before but you will gain a page for your tome as well, creating a bit of an incentive to use up your mantras. They are telling you to use your tome skills as well basically.


Mesmers mantras don't automatically enter the ready state but Mesmers mantras do 'something' while the mesmer channels them so that you want or won't feel bad for using the final charge or a mantra.


There's different arguments for or against the change/revert. Pvp did steer the change but mantras did become skeptical skills that were 'free' which I don't like Anet cared for when it came to balancing mantras in general. Believe it or not, some players even asked for mantras to be reverted because they felt like mantras had lost their identity.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Upc...res/2023-02-14

Upcoming changes with pictures with those of us who don't know skill names.

Yo, the link with pictures is the best thing because holy fuck I don't know a single actual name of my skills even a decade later.

I ended up watching the relevant bits of the stream and I get it now. Not a huge fan, but it makes sense.

I actually really liked the passive approach with charges all doing the same thing. I have a bad habit of always wanting to save my "big shit" for when I "really need it" and...never end up really needing it, and that final charge of mantras was like that for me. By having them all be the same there was no need to do advanced planning and you could play more reactively.

BUT, mechanically I can dig it. Autocast out of combat in PvE is solid handles the biggest part of the QoL, and beyond that they're just adding some actual skill back into them. I just need to git gud.

Might have to give WB another try since I've been tinkering with the updated DH recently. I do like DH overall since it has crazy burst and having a proper ranged option is very nice. Whether it's the rotation or not, blasting from a distance before leaping in with GS to drop traps/big damage and then fucking off to repeat the cycle is a ton of fun. WB was rad too and the mobility is very nice, maybe I'll nab another spec slot or something and just manually swap weapons since they're otherwise zerker builds.

[Edge-]

Apparently the game is kinda fucked.

Instanced content is borked and some disabled, CM's are apparently broken across all modes. WvW is similarly busted and was rewarding folks way too fast, also disabled.

Patch seems like a bit of a dumpster fire that will take a bit to clean up.

In other news, logged in to test out some of the randomized cosmetic features and it works well! Also, I really don't like the return of the old FB mantras. At. All. 30 second fucking cooldown if you blow the last charge is fucking trash and just makes me want to sit on the last charge forever rather than use it for the superpowered version. And I guess, at least with some expertise for longer condi duration, the burning condi debuff mantra applies burning that lasts for like 25 seconds which feels absolutely hilarious and broken. It's not big ticks since it's spread out over a long time, but it just feels dumb that it lasts so long.

[neik]

Imagine the universe where MMO exist that allows you to move and cast at the same time. Wait what.. I'm so conditioned to stupid hard cast restrictions that I forget that I'm free to move around as much as I fucking want in this game. One big fat ass kudos to developers for allowing such freedom.

I can't see those other oppressors of the world allowing you to enjoy yourself playing caster this much as GW does.

[Edge-]

Imagine the universe where MMO exist that allows you to move and cast at the same time. Wait what.. I'm so conditioned to stupid hard cast restrictions that I forget that I'm free to move around as much as I fucking want in this game. One big fat ass kudos to developers for allowing such freedom.

I can't see those other oppressors of the world allowing you to enjoy yourself playing caster this much as GW does.

There are a handful of skills that lock you in place while you channel them, but they're usually fairly obvious (and on the stronger end).

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Preview of the new map from GW2 twitter:



Looks like more underground, more hope that it is a completely underground zone.

Looks like the Void is back, even though the Dragonvoid was slain and all dragon magic has been absorbed into Aurene and Taimi said at Arborstone that Aurene would be able to contain it. So did Aurene explode or leak Void magic or something? I thought the whole point of EoD was that we were done with Elder Dragons and moving on to other things, like the vampires or the Purists that Minister Lee sent to open up Raisu Palace in Drowned Kaineng or the Deep Sea Monster.

Looks like the same legged mining mech that you can see in the Northern area of Dragon's End. I wonder if the new map is set underneath DE and there was a collapse that caused it to fall down? Or is this another mech?

They're keeping the weird green goo color of the "jade".

[Xilurm]

Gonna get back to the game. I stopped midway in Living World season 1. Going to buy the first two expansions after I finish it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Gonna get back to the game. I stopped midway in Living World season 1. Going to buy the first two expansions after I finish it.

Depending on what class you play, you may want to consider getting EoD too if it has an elite spec that appeals to you like Bladesworn or Mechanist. That way you can play as the spec you want to be for hundreds of hours, whereas if you wait until you reach EoD then you will only have a a dozen hours of story left and then that's it for PvE content unless you decide to stick around and go back and grind old maps for legendary trinkets or play SPvP or WvW.

[neik]

There are a handful of skills that lock you in place while you channel them, but they're usually fairly obvious (and on the stronger end).

Noticed that too on some charge abilities, still doesn't end up being a bad thing at the end.

[Edge-]

I'm starting to work again on my "Actually complete meta achievements for story shit" project on my engineer again. Anything combat-related is just way too fuckin easy as mechanist, even after the nerfs, and otherwise holosmith is a lot of fun for me (haven't tinkered around with scrapper much, but do kinda wanna toy around with a support build eventually). Realized I was working on HoT before I'd even finished S1/2 so I'm back to S1 and replaying through that again since I may as well knock them out chronologically.

A lot of it is kinda annoying and grindy, like completing a ton of events in Diessa Plateau but at the same time...it's kinda a nice change of pace to just be dicking around a map running from event to event. And seeing lots of low level players (seemingly new) in the process. I'm finding that I remember a lot of these events for the most part, but there are a fair few I very well may have simply never done.

Also seriously, I cannot gush enough about the noodle shop chair in the cash shop. I give zero fucks about the whole chair thing in this game but it's genuinely rad and results in all kinds of fun behaviors like little noodle districts spontaneously opening up. Absolutely worth the like $5 it costs or whatever.

[neik]

They definitely hit a sweet spot with a multitude of events scattered across the continent. I still haven't decided which are my favorites yet, but I find myself sinking time in Silverwastes more often than I should. Sometimes ending up looping in place for 5-7 hours straight without even noticing that the day passed by. There is something about power of cooperation whilst locking entire zone and working towards your culmination. I've picked up magical gathering tools so in between breaks running around and digging the place is another satisfying hobby.

Green mean killing machine is definitely one of my favorites in this game and my second main along low intensity scourge, I think I swapped shift and maybe something else for more sustain and healing when facing those brutes. I still wish that the 5 wouldn't force me into melee (hence ditching shift), but I guess the game want's you to share those melee goodies. There is always room for learning, so looking forward to it whatever it might be.

Living 2,3,4 and Dragons are still on my to-do list, and I should go and do that instead of clowning around in Silverwastes. By the way, the WTB market board function is legit, I suggested this option back in vanilla for WoW. Great to see GW2 is actually rocking it. I can sell my shit premium which by the way (depending from item) sometimes isn't even that far away from what is being sold. Even it isn't same with endgame economy, still it's pretty cool whilst you working way up.

[Edge-]

I gotta say...April Fool's fashion event was actually great. Fairly active and some nice community engagement and interaction. Just a shame you couldn't pop a noodle stand on the outskirts of the platform.

Been having some fun with some of the other cosmetic options they added with the random glider/outfit options, plus the fun random dye feature so you can recolor your stuff easily. Small things, but hey, it got me to drop a bit of cash on some more outfits and I finally went and bought all the cheap dyes that were under a gold that I didn't pick up yet.