Three roles available for every class?

[jaakkeli]

There will always be people who try and min/max but it's not likely it will succeed in this game.

This is of course nonsense. As long as there are significant traits you will never be competitive by just putting in points wherever you feel like putting them in. People who play by using whichever skills they find the coolest instead of tuning their builds for optimal combos will be slaughtered in competitive play.

It will be just like any other game, the hardcore people will figure out the optimal builds and skill combos to use, write up cookie cutter build guides and most people will follow. Those who don't will be stuck doing the easy mode RP content.

[zito]

jack.

Shows how much you actually know about the game.

[Armond]

Shows how much you actually know about the game.

It's easy to talk tough when you refuse to educate yourself, isn't it? There's already some traits that look ridiculously overpowered and some that look pretty weak.

[zito]

It's easy to talk tough when you refuse to educate yourself, isn't it? There's already some traits that look ridiculously overpowered and some that look pretty weak.

You are also forgetting the fact that every trait fills a niche, and from a recent interview some traits were removed and we were missing traits from the last beta.

But that's beside the point.

Point is, GW2 isn't about min/maxing. Even if you are trying to fit a specific role because the utility otherwise gained from something else could greatly help but it wouldn't be directly related to the build you are going for.

See what I'm saying? You can try and max out as much damage as possible on a character but you would be gimping yourself, your team, and your overall state of mind that's trying to get out of the WoW image.

[Cyclone Jack]

I do NOT think it will be required to "switch weapons" for this fight, nor do I think it will be a very common practice. When you choose a build, you choose your 2 weapons to work it it. (1 for ele/engineers). If a fight needs an interrupt/slow/knockback/defense then it will be in utility skills and if you really WANT to, then you can use a different weapon.

It will depend on the fight. A Warrior running with sword and board + greatsword will have to swap one of these out when fighting Master Ranger Nente, due to the mechanics of the fight. If they do not, then they are mostly useless for about half the fight.

To me, I see people who stick to their main weapon, occasionally doing a weapon swap, and rarely replacing a weapon, as those that will go through Story Mode dungeons and focus more on DEs. The players that are swapping weapons in and out, constantly changing during combat, and even swapping main traits around before a fight, as those that will be completing Explorable dungeons and at the forefront of Elite DEs.

[terrahero]

People can fill different roles on the fly. Altough in some specific cases it requieres you to do a little preparation before you get into the fight. But you are not forced into 1 single role based on your spec. And the fight dynamics will encourage, or even force, you to use different weapon styles. So to succeed you need to use your profession to its fullest. Running around going "im a big 2h user and thats all i use" will be a handicap for yourself and the groups you play with.

[jaakkeli]

You are also forgetting the fact that every trait fills a niche,

When they do it of course means that you'll be gimping yourself if you pick two traits that partially fill the same niche. You will want to fill as many niches as you can, that is min/maxing, and a lot of us are already min/maxing for this game.

The same with skills. For example, I'm drawn to the Elementalist since I tend to be drawn to slippery mage types. Lightning Flash, Mist Form, Armor of Earth and Cleansing Fire are all the kind of skills that I'll fall in love with... but these fill very similar niches. It will be a very weak build if I fill all my utility slots with these and have several skills that do basically the same thing. Taking several skills that do the same "escape out of stun and gain defense buffs" thing is not going to be optimal and I'll be better off picking up something else instead of just stacking the coolest skills.

Point is, GW2 isn't about min/maxing. Even if you are trying to fit a specific role

Minmaxing has nothing to do with "roles".

See what I'm saying? You can try and max out as much damage as possible on a character but you would be gimping yourself, your team, and your overall state of mind that's trying to get out of the WoW image.

WoW was, in fact, one of those games that *severely* limited min/maxing, especially compared to Blizzard's previous, most comparable release, Diablo 2 (where you'd be completely unable to play the last parts of the game without min/maxing or at least following a cookie cutter build). I in fact remember having the same discussion back in 2003 - lots of people were saying that the talent tree model would allow choice, cool builds and work against minmaxers, in fact that was *Blizzard's* intention with the talent trees. Basically the same discussion with a lot of people hailing WoW as the game that would end minmaxing and cookiecutterism forever... and look at how that worked out.

Sounds like you're the one who's stuck thinking of WoW. I'm not a WoW player, tried it, quit it. I never liked trinity games and I'm still a hardcore minmaxer. Guess what, minmaxing has absolutely nothing at all to do with trinity "roles". For example, that Diablo 2 didn't have tanks or healers and it was a minmaxers dream - you could take all sorts of funny oddball builds like melee sorceresses and still be fairly effective at hardest parts of the game as long as you minmaxed zealously and squeezed every bit of melee damage and defense you could get out of the character. There was no trinity, no roles, just damage and self-heals, yet the game beyond the easy mode levels was entirely about min/maxing.

[grandpab]

snip

I pretty much agree with you and I wrote something out earlier but idk, I decided to just delete it and not post it. The short version of it was basically, there still be min/maxers, it will be definitely viable, but it just won't be in the traditional sense that is attached to it.

It'll just be a lot more flexible in this game and builds won't be set in stone.

[Deleted]

Sounds like you're the one who's stuck thinking of WoW. I'm not a WoW player, tried it, quit it. I never liked trinity games and I'm still a hardcore minmaxer. Guess what, minmaxing has absolutely nothing at all to do with trinity "roles". For example, that Diablo 2 didn't have tanks or healers and it was a minmaxers dream - you could take all sorts of funny oddball builds like melee sorceresses and still be fairly effective at hardest parts of the game as long as you minmaxed zealously and squeezed every bit of melee damage and defense you could get out of the character. There was no trinity, no roles, just damage and self-heals, yet the game beyond the easy mode levels was entirely about min/maxing.

The problem might be that some people see min/maxing as you described above, while others have a "wow"-like picture in mind, where you, as for example a damage dealing Paladin, have to have basically the same talents and stat priorities as (so in pre-transmogrification-times look exactly like) every other DD Paladin. Or at least every other Paladin that wants to be taken to raids and perform at his best.

Maximizing the potential from your build ist surely necessary, otherwise traits and stuff wouldn't have much sense: If you could beat anything with randomly assigned points, why even bother?

So what I hope for is a system which ample room to experiment and to find new viable builds (like I believe it was in GW1 and might be what you decribed above for Diablo).
So that there is not one way to be a successful Warrior, but many different ones. And still with the potential to fail, if the build you tried just didn't work, because the traits you chose didn't complement the skills your weapons provides.

[Hockeyhacker]

...

Yeah of course there will people who will be min/maxing, I definitely agree with you there. But as you argued against the niche major traits saying they are a waist of trait you have to remember that major traits can be swapped out of combat at any point, so while min/maxers may have build xxx for most things, when they reach boss yy who has mechanic qq they may swap out talent tt for niche talent vv because it may be of more use for that specific fight, but then switch their major trait back after the boss.

But either way no matter how much you min/max if you don't dodge properly your less useful then someone who just tossed in random major traits who is staying alive so min/maxing would be lower on the que of priorities while as skill would matter a lot more.

[Hellspawnxxx]

The only thing I am really hoping for is not for min/maxers getting a way of telling every proffesion how to spec with the


"Thou shall play THAT cause it is more effective"

I really do not want to go to that end in GW2.

You hear me min/maxers? STAY AWAY from this game.

Im a Min/Max I enjoy Theorycrafting aswell as enjoy playing with skilled knowledgable players. I enjoy playing with people as passionate as I a about the game and its class mechanics. Just cause im a Min/Max and I discrimenate based on skill doesnt make me a bad person, it makes me a competitive person which is human nature.

Some people play baseball / golf / hockey or many other sports for fun, and arent concerned about reaching the pinnacle of perfection within the sport they enjoy. But People like Jordan, Gretzky, Woods they dont just play sports for fun they play to win they play for the challenge, too push themselves. Those people like myself dont enjoy playing with people who arent commited to learning thier craft. Could you Imagine The Chicago Bulls half Pro's and the other Half random joes off the street.

If I invite you to my group. I wont at the start tear your weapon set choices apart or tell you how to play your class. If you choose to play against the conventional wisdom of Min/Max and want to do your own thing and we still can achieve a boss kill them I am 100% satisfied.

But dont expect me to be none vocal if your constantly dieing because you not profficiant with your class. I will tell you what your doing wrong how to do it right and if you refuse to change for the better of the group then I will kick you out and replace you. Thats the hard reality of raiding, you show up you give your best you succeed or your go somewheres else.

Telling Min/Max not to come to Guildwars 2 wont stop us nore should it. Were usally the ones pushing the boundries of the game and helping developers balance the game.

[Durzlla]

I love how people say min/maxing is the end all be all in games, yet most the time everyone flocks to a handful of the "min/max" builds, which makes it VERY easy to counter and kill everyone in pvp...

@jack Correct me if i'm wrong, but are you just saying that min/maxing in GW2 will not be taking a bunch of skills/traits that essentially do the same thing? IE all defensive CD's and all your traits are things that activate when X happens etc. If so, i don't think -most- people view that as min/maxing...

[DrakeWurrum]

Im a Min/Max I enjoy Theorycrafting aswell as enjoy playing with skilled knowledgable players. I enjoy playing with people as passionate as I a about the game and its class mechanics. Just cause im a Min/Max and I discrimenate based on skill doesnt make me a bad person, it makes me a competitive person which is human nature.

Some people play baseball / golf / hockey or many other sports for fun, and arent concerned about reaching the pinnacle of perfection within the sport they enjoy. But People like Jordan, Gretzky, Woods they dont just play sports for fun they play to win they play for the challenge, too push themselves. Those people like myself dont enjoy playing with people who arent commited to learning thier craft. Could you Imagine The Chicago Bulls half Pro's and the other Half random joes off the street.

If I invite you to my group. I wont at the start tear your weapon set choices apart or tell you how to play your class. If you choose to play against the conventional wisdom of Min/Max and want to do your own thing and we still can achieve a boss kill them I am 100% satisfied.

But dont expect me to be none vocal if your constantly dieing because you not profficiant with your class. I will tell you what your doing wrong how to do it right and if you refuse to change for the better of the group then I will kick you out and replace you. Thats the hard reality of raiding, you show up you give your best you succeed or your go somewheres else.

Telling Min/Max not to come to Guildwars 2 wont stop us nore should it. Were usally the ones pushing the boundries of the game and helping developers balance the game.

Problem with your analogy: When a professional sports player plays their sport with some average joes from the street, they don't yell at the average joes for being terrible players or tell them to get on their level. They actually have the sportspmanship to go down to their level, relax, and just play for fun.

If you go into a random pick-up-group with random people you do not know, you are playing at the average street level, not at the professional level. If you are playing with a guild who publicly advertises themselves as being "for fun" "casual" or even "medium-core" instead of hardcore progression (or, god forbid, you check them out ahead of time and notice their skill for yourself before joining), then you are not playing at the professional level, and you knew ahead of time.

Michael Jordan isn't going to join a high school basketball team, and then spend the whole season yelling at every player who makes a mistake because he expected the team to be much more hardcore. First of all, he's not going to join that team to begin with.
Second of all, if he did join one, he'd know better than to expect more from them.

[Armond]

But as you argued against the niche major traits saying they are a waist of trait you have to remember that major traits can be swapped out of combat at any point, so while min/maxers may have build xxx for most things, when they reach boss yy who has mechanic qq they may swap out talent tt for niche talent vv because it may be of more use for that specific fight, but then switch their major trait back after the boss.

That's exactly how GW worked, yeah. You had generic build X (which may have involved, say, discordway or just a bunch of mesmers, hybrid healers, and a melee dps human), and when you went to various areas in hard mode, you had to adjust to what you were facing. Every time I do something with my friends, we load up the usual build, give it a shot, and if we run into problems, we rezone and change the build around. If you don't know what you're doing, you're more likely to load up the usual build, give it a shot, and if it fails, just complain that it's too hard.

Dodging is relevant, but someone who can't dodge significant amounts of damage is likely just loading up cookie cutter builds because they're cookie cutter.

[Durzlla]

That's exactly how GW worked, yeah. You had generic build X (which may have involved, say, discordway or just a bunch of mesmers, hybrid healers, and a melee dps human), and when you went to various areas in hard mode, you had to adjust to what you were facing. Every time I do something with my friends, we load up the usual build, give it a shot, and if we run into problems, we rezone and change the build around. If you don't know what you're doing, you're more likely to load up the usual build, give it a shot, and if it fails, just complain that it's too hard.

Dodging is relevant, but someone who can't dodge significant amounts of damage is likely just loading up cookie cutter builds because they're cookie cutter.

If GW2 is anything like GW1 they're going to force the "think outside of the box" thing on you pretty quickly, god going through those undead filled swamps as a condition ranger was AWFUL.... And i have a feeling a lot of people will learn to dodge pretty quickly, or at -least- by the time they hit lv 80.

[DrakeWurrum]

If GW2 is anything like GW1 they're going to force the "think outside of the box" thing on you pretty quickly, god going through those undead filled swamps as a condition ranger was AWFUL.... And i have a feeling a lot of people will learn to dodge pretty quickly, or at -least- by the time they hit lv 80.

Hopefully by level 30.

[Durzlla]

Hopefully by level 30.

I'd say by lv 40, lv 1-30 will probably be a little more forgiving, but once you go into an instance i have a feeling they're going to be like "Lawlz learn to dodge or GTFO!!"

[DrakeWurrum]

I'd say by lv 40, lv 1-30 will probably be a little more forgiving, but once you go into an instance i have a feeling they're going to be like "Lawlz learn to dodge or GTFO!!"

Did you see the video that IGN did of a level 13 Mesmer doing a Norn area event against an ice shaman? I wouldn't call that forgiving.

I'm hoping for level 30 because level 30 is the first dungeon. I want to play the game with people who learn before then... how to dodge.

[Durzlla]

Did you see the video that IGN did of a level 13 Mesmer doing a Norn area event against an ice shaman? I wouldn't call that forgiving.

I'm hoping for level 30 because level 30 is the first dungeon. I want to play the game with people who learn before then... how to dodge.

lol i have seen that, i did not realize that was a lv 13 event i thought that was much higher level xD... Oh Anet you silly rascals making low level stuff look amazing and not "Go kill 10 bunnies because you're not cool enough to do fun things"!!

[DrakeWurrum]

I believe a character's level is shown in the bottom left, if you ever wonder what a person's level is in footage. :P

If there's a number shown in brackets, that's the level they're scaled to.

Edit: Plus, he actually says he's level 13 at some point. (I actually thought he was 11 at first, but I can't increase the quality of the video :<)