Secrets of the Obscure - Discussion Thread

[Edge-]

Weapon beta is live.

Need to tinker more, but tested pistols a bit on my guardian and I'm not super impressed. MH pistol should be pretty good as a replacement for scepter, but without proper trait support or anything I just don't see how OH can compete with Radiant Fire and its interaction with Zealot's Flame. Sure Torch 5 sucks, but Zealot's Flame is so damned good you don't need it.

Visuals are still pretty lackluster as well.

[PACOX]

Got some quick first impressions

Warrior staff - Good from a pvp/wve perspective but lacks some trait synergy in the current pve meta. People are divided one one particular skill, it's staff 3. It's an insanely powerful support ability but requires you to manually target an ally. Something that's not new to gw2 but there's valid arguments about clicking nameplates in the game as not being the most reliable.


Mesmer rifle - a very misunderstood weapon based on what Ive seen in map chat. I think people just assume dps. It's very strong support weapon that actually synergizes with Mesmer already has, mainly the chronomancer spec. Also has some of the most complete animations (none of the weapons are finished). Someone put a lot of work into it

Engi - I love engi, played all flavors of engi in every game mode. The weapon is trash. I don't like calling it trash you can tell what they were going for but it just doesn't work with a class that can only wield one weapon at a time. There's not reason to use the shortbow, really and it's cooldowns are too long. Using the 'ammo' system might fix some of the clunkiness


Ele pistol - Another divided one. Every time else gets something new people come out expecting, I think, something that will dull the complexity of the class and finally make it something for them. Pistol isn't it for that crowd. I saw people saying it was 'underwhelming' meanwhile I'm seeing people putting up 50k dps with it. A dev said they casually put up 40k. For reference the the current top dps specs are putting up 41-43k on training dummies. I liked going pew pew on it but didn't get to use it in a practical setting.


Rev scepter - I'm not the most versed on rev outside of 2 specific builds. The scepter was fun but don't know how well it translates into actual applications. It has a cool tether to ally that I assume would be good in small scale pvp situations of pve where your just running around with a buddy but idk.


Guardian pistol - I liked going pew pew but didn't spend time on it. Just want to shoot pistol 5, which looks like Rock Grimes executing someone, at least on Norn.

Necro swords - im definitely going to have to try this one for myself because I saw people saying, "it's not good", but I'm not seeing how. Of course the numbers are off, those need to be buffed, but people are saying it felt clunky but I didn't think so when I ran around with it.

Some of the weapons are definitely further in the production cycle than others so I reserve some judgement on some things I know are off.

[Lotus Victoria]

New weapons are visually underwhelming, but I understand that this is still a beta.

Can't say the same for mechanics though. Ele Pistol gotta be the most boring weapon in the entire game. "Shoot gun, shoot gun again with an extra effect". Come on! Where's the fun in that? I like my mechanics to be fun, and this one is kinda lame.

Without being biased (as I'm a Thief main since 2014), I gotta say that Axe is quite fun, and it has potential to be a good AoE weapon. Condi Thieves are going to love it!

I tested every weapon, and my top 3 are:

1 - Axe (Thieves)
2 - Rifle (Mesmer)
3 - Swords (Necro)

[Edge-]

Dungeon even is active, rewards a decent-ish looking cape.

Covers dungeons and DRM missions apparently, in case you have any DRM achieves you want to try to complete. Surprised they don't have a news post about it up on the site, yet.

[Edge-]

Second update is out.

Partially through it and did the new meta. Meta is fine, end boss is kinda cool but feels "same-y" to me to other metas for some reason. New weapons are nice, I do enjoy having a proper condi ranged option on my firebrand now.

I'm keeping things vague but some possible mini-spoilers for the early bits of the new story below -

But so far I continue to really not give a fuck about the story now that we've entered Nayos and basically abandoned all the characters we met and got to learn in the initial expansion, leaving me wondering why we even bothered with that if we were just gonna ditch them to go hang out with demons. We run into dead guy again and Dad got reunited with his daughter but like...yo I barely know these people still and largely do not care about them outside of Gladium and Rtchik or whatever. We reunite with Zojja and she becomes a wizard and then...peace out homeslice, nice seeing you again for a few but we got other shit to do! Maybe the story in this update will go somewhere more satisfying, but I'm really losing interest in this demon shit.

Overall still feel that the initial expansion release was aces and the post-expansion support continues to be underwhelming and disappointing. Not terribly optimistic for the next expansion based off this unless the final update changes something YUGE, but I'll buy it anyways and I know that. I just hope they have a lot of learnings that lead to improvements now that they'll have some experience with this new approach to expansions.

It continues to amuse and astound me that Anet continues to operate as a studio trying to find their identity and path and operates GW2 in a way that seems like they're continuing to try to find a sustainable path forward, despite the studio being over 20 years old and GW2 being over 10 years old by now.

[PACOX]

I didn't finish the the 2nd installment until a few hours before the patch most recent patch dropped. I think I did most of the current (3rd) installment. For me the issue, not to knock Anet for trying, are the demons and their dialogue. Didn't dawn on me until I had both installments to play back to back and there a lot more talking demons Anet obviously has "rules" for the way the demons behave and speech. It's very consistent. Interesting as a world building device, just not very interesting when there's a bunch of them speaking most of the time. Peitha was fine when it was just her and you were mostly interacting with the wizards, she was a change of pace. But if you key in the mannerism of the demons they speech in "word salad" to put it simply. Very long round about sentences to express simple ideas. Fine when it's one of them spaced between other characters, no so much now they take up most of the the voice lines. But again, I do respect Anet for at least developing "rules" for what's basically an alien race...its just dull compared to the dialogue we're used to. Reminds me of games that try to force an "epic" fantasy story...FF14. I know people like it, I get why, I can't stand it. Adhd brain can't handle it without spacing out.


Say someone make a comment on reddit that Anet is also trying to keep this story self contained, but as a player it's frustrating that we only have a very surface level view of the world. That leaves me not really carrying much about it. They keep taking about some complex social structure, a long civil war, but me as both the Commander/Wayfinder and player only cares about kicking whatever the hell the name of the big bad is and getting back to Tyria. All the demons monologuing are just getting in my way. Real life and lore perspective.


I do enjoy the new weapons. I have a legendary relic, will slowly do the legendary armor collection, played a decent of rifts and the strikes, like the updated skyscale and the Wizard Vault. Hell I even noticed some of the music. Could not care less about the story at this point. I'm not surprised. It's normal Anet jank.

[Edge-]

Protip for the Artisan of Arms achievement that you need for one of the special Wizard's Vault missions: As with weapon progress in general, it only counts killing blows from power/direct hits. As a result, despite probably killing at least 100+ enemies with my pistols on my guardian over the past few days I have 0/100 progress towards that achievement because if your condi's get the killing blow the game doesn't fucking care and will not count it.

I'm really trying to focus on the more positives, but damnit man there are just so many small things like this that are deeply frustrating. It's a small issue and we have like two and a half months to complete 100 kills and all, but this is the kind thing where the game is 12+ years old and why are the developers still making decisions like this despite the fact that they should know how kills are actually tracked and how it leads to a confusing and frustrating experience for classes that got condi or support weapons that aren't so good at the direct killing.

Especially hilarious to me because I checked my weapon mastery achievements and I still haven't even finished the 5K kills with an axe for this very reason. I've probably killed at least 50K enemies with it as firebrand by this point, conservatively. But because it only counts actual killing blows from hits I'm at 4900/5K. Meanwhile the only other weapons I haven't mastered are largely because I don't use them much (mace or hammer) or because I can only use it on other classes I don't play much (rifle or shortbow).

I was almost worried that this update would bring me back into the game bigly to farm legendary armor and the like, but after playing more of the story at lunch and getting to the final chapter of this update (again, short as hell which is disappointing) I'm fairly certain the bigger hurdle will be finding the motivation to keep logging in to do WV daily/weekly missions until I've collected everything I want.

- - - Updated - - -

Wrapped up this story, again feels like it could have been an email. Now to unlock access to legendary armor mastery (I haven't even started on the sets you need to earn before that) and see what's ahead of me. At least that's the only new mastery and it almost makes sense to make a mastery unlock, and it's not the garbage convergence mastery busywork all over again.

If this is the approach moving forward I'm gonna have a great 3 months playing the game after each expansion and then I'll barely play the tiny updates from there. I still love GW2 but damnit I'm just so fucking underwhelmed and annoyed I wish I could hate it and be mad at it and put it more permanently on the backburner. Gosh I hope they figure their shit out for the next expansion and their other projects actually see completion for once, I'm getting so tired of watching ArenaNet continually try to figure out a direction for their 20+ year old company and 10+ year old MMO.

[Edge-]

How do you unlock the new weapons? The old weapons regarding of spec was just talk to a guy.

I believe second step/chapter of the new story missions. You get sent around the new part of the zone to find 5 books and that earns you the achievement unlocking the weapons. Unsure if it's account-wide (I should check), but it shouldn't take too long to get to that point and only a few minutes to complete that step.

[vian]

Braham dead yet?

[Edge-]

Braham dead yet?

We left Braham and the most of old crew are in Tyria still. Braham hasn't been in since EoD even, I'm pretty sure he largely fucked off when IBS wrapped up (thankfully).

[PACOX]

I believe second step/chapter of the new story missions. You get sent around the new part of the zone to find 5 books and that earns you the achievement unlocking the weapons. Unsure if it's account-wide (I should check), but it shouldn't take too long to get to that point and only a few minutes to complete that step.

You can alsonjus buy them from WvW if you have the currency.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Braham's frustrations, inexperience, overconfidence, and lack of a family to rely on as a young man leading him to say rash things and get in over his head for a few episodes from midway through season 3 through midway into season 4 was understandable and didn't grate me much. Taimi being an insufferable know-it-all teenager who unjustifiably accomplishes anything and shows up older engineers ala Wesley crusher with a valley girl accent from beginning to end who never changes her attitude and who becomes egregiously sueish from season 4 onward makes her an unlikeable character.

[Edge-]

Braham's frustrations, inexperience, overconfidence, and lack of a family to rely on as a young man leading him to say rash things and get in over his head for a few episodes from midway through season 3 through midway into season 4 was understandable and didn't grate me much. Taimi being an insufferable know-it-all teenager who unjustifiably accomplishes anything and shows up older engineers ala Wesley crusher with a valley girl accent from beginning to end who never changes her attitude and who becomes egregiously sueish from season 4 onward makes her an unlikeable character.

I'm the reverse. I fully acknowledge Taimi is consistently the magical mcguffin that solves everything with her perfect brilliance and blah blah blah. But damnit man, she's fun and I like the way they write her personality. I'm more of a vibes kinda guy, and I dig Taimi's vibes while I do not vibe with Braham at all. It's why I'm pissed we already ditched half the Astral Ward buddies, I really vibed with Gladium and R'tchikk and wanted to adventure with them some more.

[vian]

We left Braham and the most of old crew are in Tyria still. Braham hasn't been in since EoD even, I'm pretty sure he largely fucked off when IBS wrapped up (thankfully).

I'll waiting for them to kill him off before I return to the game.

Absolutely detest that character.

[Edge-]

I'll waiting for them to kill him off before I return to the game.

Absolutely detest that character.

Considering he's Eir's kid, that's probably never, ever happening. I don't think they'd want to end that bloodline. But at the same time I'm sure we won't be palling around with him for quite a bit longer. Though watch the next expansion is following Braham into the afterlife to rescue his mom or some shit.

[PACOX]

Braham was annoying but I feel like he was one of the most complete characters. His actions make sense for a young adult who practically raised himself, has a lot of insecurities, but also pretty selfless when it comes to sticking his neck out for others. An idiot, emotionally immature, meant well even when he was a total dick. I liked the contrast between him and Ryland in season 5 even if it was poorly written in the end.

Taimi, absolutely hated her in the beginning, liked her a bit more when the adults in the story stopped letting her just be a child in the streets. Hated her in season 5, she throws all logic and reason out the window. EOD redeemed her for me, but I don't think it's because she is older and more mature by then.

And Anet better bring the wizards back. They were cool. Way better than the ho hum theater kids called the demons.

[vian]

Considering he's Eir's kid, that's probably never, ever happening. I don't think they'd want to end that bloodline. But at the same time I'm sure we won't be palling around with him for quite a bit longer. Though watch the next expansion is following Braham into the afterlife to rescue his mom or some shit.

I'm all for Eir, but I hated Braham the second when he was introduced.

I actually dropped the game when he went full on emo mode.

Not going to play a no progress game for its story, when I can't stand one of the characters.

Also WvWvW is dead

[Edge-]

I wasn't crazy and the new offhand pistol 5 for guardian hasn't been working properly, the secondary skill to assplode it wasn't appearing. It works now, so that's good!

I will say that as much as I miss having a new trait line and passives/heal/ult to go along with it, the new weapons are nice on my guardian. Actually feels worth swapping from torch to use and has some nice utility in it with its surprisingly strong built-in AoE with the pierce. I decided to try working them into my open world support/healing build and ended up realizing that my proper condi build was fucked in the process, which was annoying. Fixed that, fixed my open world support build (Virtues/Honor/Firebrand, PP/Staff with Solace/Potence/Flame/Liberation mantra, Signet of Wrath and Ritualist gear). Figure it makes a bit more sense to use pistols as a permanent ranged option since it's not a DPS focused build, and their damage seems quite good either way.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Also WvWvW is dead

Been dead since PoF.

[vian]

Been dead since PoF.

Which was when I quit, and Brahms character started to devolve.