Any new info on the (3) expansion?

[Triceron]

I find it odd that they're showcasing these new Elite Specs without the armor or looks shown in the concept art.

Perhaps the models aren't done? Or maybe they purposefully want to keep it secret? I feel like it's a bit inconsistent though to the presentation of the spec as a package, since they're talking about how the lore for them ties to Cantha. I find it very weird for them to say Willbenders protect the Cantha throne, and the Guardian model they use is completely adorned in western style knight armor

[qwerty123456]

It was guardian! Willbender, seems very acrobatic and fairly mobile. Can't tell if the MH sword abilities re replaced, but I'm kinda down with this theme for now. Just gotta wait to learn more to see if it's more suited for condie or power builds. Definitely seeing some fire in there but hoping it's another power option since FB is stupid strong for condie dps.

Looks kinda meh to me. Reminds of a less jumpy thief.

[PACOX]

If I had to compare the guardian to anything, it would be a Weaver. Looks like the are giving Guardian a melee (damage oriented) option that's not fricken greatsword, awesome. At the very least a physical off-hand. Physical utilities are cool too. This is what they mean by giving people alt ways to play a class.

- - - Updated - - -

Looks kinda meh to me. Reminds of a less jumpy thief.

Guardians were already jumpy, a lot of people don't play them like that though. Core Guardian has like 3 unblockable blinks.

[Lucavian]

I'm hoping Revenant gets a monk/ritualist flavored elite spec since they're already kind of a branch of that profession anyway. I'm not sure which character would be their legend, but as a revenant main I'm pretty excited for the possibilities.

[deenman]

Apparently, ESO is actually #7 (at least according to this site), and GW2 is #10. Either way, perfectly solid and stable player counts considering the age of the MMO genre.

I am intensely looking forward to the livestream tomorrow, though I dread scraping together the notes for my podcast on Saturday.

can you link?im rly curious what could posibily be considered as 9 mmo's better than gw2...i cant think of more than 3 max

[PACOX]

can you link?im rly curious what could posibily be considered as 9 mmo's better than gw2...i cant think of more than 3 max

Its not scientific.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn 2.92M 30.74M 10
2 World of Warcraft 3.32M 116.50M 3
3 Old School RuneScape 1.80M 31.58M 6
4 Destiny 2 1.01M 35.30M 3
5 World of Warcraft Classic 978.54K 25.75M 4
6 RuneScape 864.31K 15.16M 6
7 The Elder Scrolls Online 898.08K 18.91M 5
8 Guild Wars 2

MMO POPULATION TRACKING
It's difficult to track hidden MMO subscriber numbers, but we do our best!

By combining online social activity, sentiment tracking, public statistics, rankings and more MMO Populations estimates the total subscribers, players and active daily players for the top MMOs. Above is the total number of tracked players by the site.

[deenman]

Its not scientific.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn 2.92M 30.74M 10
2 World of Warcraft 3.32M 116.50M 3
3 Old School RuneScape 1.80M 31.58M 6
4 Destiny 2 1.01M 35.30M 3
5 World of Warcraft Classic 978.54K 25.75M 4
6 RuneScape 864.31K 15.16M 6
7 The Elder Scrolls Online 898.08K 18.91M 5
8 Guild Wars 2

Thanks,oh i see they count classic as different,yeah...the destiny 2 one is surprising

[qwerty123456]

Its not scientific.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn 2.92M 30.74M 10
2 World of Warcraft 3.32M 116.50M 3
3 Old School RuneScape 1.80M 31.58M 6
4 Destiny 2 1.01M 35.30M 3
5 World of Warcraft Classic 978.54K 25.75M 4
6 RuneScape 864.31K 15.16M 6
7 The Elder Scrolls Online 898.08K 18.91M 5
8 Guild Wars 2

I wonder how they get their numbers. From steam FF and Destiny 2 have around 40k active players atm, Warframe 50k, ESO 13k, and PSO2 5k. I know numbers vary by platform but I highly doubt ESO is that high from my experiences playing both pc and Xbox NA and Euro servers.

[Zmagoslav]

If I had to compare the guardian to anything, it would be a Weaver. Looks like the are giving Guardian a melee (damage oriented) option that's not fricken greatsword, awesome. At the very least a physical off-hand. Physical utilities are cool too. This is what they mean by giving people alt ways to play a class.

Let's see how it plays out.
Could also be another "dragonhunter" kind of situation, where they intended to give us a ranged dps spec, but ended up giving us another greatsword spec.

(ergo: they didn't just miss the mark on weapon choice, they missed the mark on the role alltogether)

I find it very weird for them to say Willbenders protect the Cantha throne, and the Guardian model they use is completely adorned in western style knight armor

Well, the armor on the art isn't strictly eastern either. It's practically just one of the pre-existing sets, with helmet-visor removed and a bit more spiky shoulder pads.

I'm hoping Revenant gets a monk/ritualist flavored elite spec since they're already kind of a branch of that profession anyway. I'm not sure which character would be their legend, but as a revenant main I'm pretty excited for the possibilities.

They can literally just pull one out of their arse, like with the ranger one (Pyre's granddaughter).
I don't remember much of the Factions story tho... it had a bit of a weird difficulty curve and felt pretty hectic.

[Cattleya]

Looking at the remaining elite icons now, I really really hope that the flame icon is thief like people are speculating, and not elementalist. The flame icon being the elementalist spec would feel very uninspired to me, not to mention having the focus on one element doesn't feel right.

Plus, if the flame icon is not the elementalist, that makes it all the more likely that the bullet is, and I've been wanting a bullet-infusing rifle or pistol elementalist since the beginning.

[Malthanis]

Didn't HP's grant like, 5 points or something in PoF? IIRC they granted more and you needed fewer of them through the zones. If they did something like that I'd be fine with it, this is the closest thing to a "level cap increase" that comes with an expansion I guess (outside of Mastery Points).

Hero point challenges from HoT onwards grant 10 points on first completion. Trains still happen, but they're more rare.

can you link?im rly curious what could posibily be considered as 9 mmo's better than gw2...i cant think of more than 3 max

The numbers in my post are links.

I'm hoping Revenant gets a monk/ritualist flavored elite spec since they're already kind of a branch of that profession anyway. I'm not sure which character would be their legend, but as a revenant main I'm pretty excited for the possibilities.

My personal wish is to get Abbaddon as a new Revenant spirit, but the odds are fairly low there.

[deenman]

The numbers in my post are links.

yeah sorry im blind >_< someone else linked it anyways

[ryanmahaffe]

Its not scientific.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn 2.92M 30.74M 10
2 World of Warcraft 3.32M 116.50M 3
3 Old School RuneScape 1.80M 31.58M 6
4 Destiny 2 1.01M 35.30M 3
5 World of Warcraft Classic 978.54K 25.75M 4
6 RuneScape 864.31K 15.16M 6
7 The Elder Scrolls Online 898.08K 18.91M 5
8 Guild Wars 2

Oh my god people with this fuckin site.
MMO-POPULATION is not an accurate player count, it is ENTIRELY based on reddit user numbers, please quit using it as any legitimate source.

Almost no mmo actually gives or has player numbers.

- - - Updated - - -

As for the livestream today. I think they all looked super fun, I would love to main Willbender but I guarantee I will be terrible at it.

[Edge-]

Watching the stream now, just skipping to the Willbender (since I mostly play guardian) -

- Keeps the MH sword skills from before
- Higher mobility, squishier, more damage. Like, a LOT more movement, holy shit mobility looks nuts.
- Virtues have no passive buffs, they're all mobility focused and still have elements of their OG versions (fire dmg, small heal, aegis), and apparently have somewhat lasting effects (leech etc.), they can't overlap so you can only be in one "stance" at a time. It's the "selfish" virtues folks thought they might be!
- Heal requires you to be hit to really matter, completely negates an attack even if it would be lethal and heals more if you actually "block" something
- OH sword skills aren't super exciting, a dash in and a bigger hit that applies vuln
- Secondary skills are very mobile, there's an engage -> disengage, there's also a stun break/disengage -> engage, largely just all straight damage
- Ulti is a big single target knockdown with a secondary AoE/knockback component
- 25% movement speed passive bonus from the trait line! (with swiftness when you swap virtues)
- Yeahhhhh, lots of "selfish" stuff, there's a trait to give you bonus concentration but it nerfs boon duration on allies by 50% and something similar for healing, another with a big power increase and a corresponding big toughness loss, glass cannony for sure.
- Oh damn, trait that's designed around swapping virtues often and giving you some of the cooldown back for the one you swap from
- Eyyy, some alacrity! Apparently...a pretty nutty amount of it, willbender looks like it might be fairly spammy which I'm down with.
- Uh...crazy trait that can potentially make you unkillable? Gets rid of Aegis from Courage, but lets you extend the buff each time you kill enemies and you're legit unkillable as long as the buff is up. It's capped at 8s (and drops the base duration down from 6s -> 4s). Will require constant killing to keep up, but might be kinda crazy for hilarious diving into groups of enemies/players, dropping some big damage, and peacing the fuck out while you can't be killed.

I'm not too sure how I feel about MH sword with this, the mobility seems a bit redundant and while the deflect from the third skill would be nice the ranged element isn't as necessary. I know it doesn't do as much damage, but I'm wondering how something like MH mace would work out with this. Some passive healing for yourself and your group (which you can buff) and access to a nice block skill on the third ability. And with the potential for a LOT of alacrity I could see it being up and helping make willbender with survivability given that most of their toolkit is very damage/mobility focused.

I'm into it, will try to jump into the beta to see how it feels to play. Not sure what traits would work well with it (Maybe Zeal and...I dunno, Virtues?), but it feels like it'll still be super strong with condi damage given how often it seems you can apply burning to enemies.

Dude was chugging water the whole time, seemed nervous as heck but he did great. Being in front of the camera is rough, would never want to do it myself. I guess he's become a bit of a meme within the community now, and is a certified hydrohomie.

[Svifnymr]

The Necromancer seems nice enough, not as tough as other necro's, but might be fun.

It's nice that they're going into so much detail but it's also a little pointless since I'll be getting the classes anyway so don't really care about learning what traits they have this far form launch.

[Shakadam]

IDK about Harbinger. It looks like a fun spec but I don't know if it really works in any kind of pvp setting. Take away the shroud HP (core/reaper) and the barrier (scourge) and you're left with a class that has no invulnerabilities, no blocks, no evades, just standard 2 dodges and on top of that the blight mechanics reducing max HP. Sounds like it'll just die instantly.

[PACOX]

Harbinger can pvp. It still has access to the core traits that make Necro tanking and provide a lo of sustain. What it does is turn necro more into a bursty class, more risk and reward. It has some nice CC as well. CC that will let it melt people with some planning since it can spam torment. It's float ability is a hard CC that guarantees big torment numbers.

[Edge-]

Beta event with the three revealed elite specs is live!

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/y...on-beta-event/

I'll likely jump in sometime this week and see what Willbender is like. Very curious about this insanely mobile version of Guardian.

[Svifnymr]

Beta event with the three revealed elite specs is live!

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/y...on-beta-event/

I'll likely jump in sometime this week and see what Willbender is like. Very curious about this insanely mobile version of Guardian.

I'll give them all a try, though I've already preordered the expac so not like it's a buying decision. I do think it best to manage expectations though, since you just know they're not like adding real new abilities. Sure the necromancer gains elixirs, but they're not new to the game, for instance.

Hopefully the new combo's produce some fun gameplay, but probably more important to not expect too much, eh?

[Edge-]

I'll give them all a try, though I've already preordered the expac so not like it's a buying decision. I do think it best to manage expectations though, since you just know they're not like adding real new abilities. Sure the necromancer gains elixirs, but they're not new to the game, for instance.

Hopefully the new combo's produce some fun gameplay, but probably more important to not expect too much, eh?

?? I'm confused by this, the abilities are very much new. The themes may overlap with some existing stuff, but there's a class-centric twist on all of them so far.