then rebound their special power from f1 because lol at using f1 as a bind
Yea. I rebound Q, E and R to do my Utility skills. Kept my F1-F4, as I played an Elementalist the most and in WoW I play a Warrior where my stances are F1-F3 so it felt right at home for me.
I do ESDF and did think about keeping W and R as turn keys - though I normally wouldn't use them, sometimes I'm feeling lazy (or snacking or whatever) and want to game for a bit using just the one hand.
Insert dirty thoughts there.
The Great DAMNED STEAM SALES AND WII/U Backlog Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4 Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
You silly people and your non-WASD keybindings >.>.
Eh, really just shifting WASD over one key - it's useful for a few reasons - 1. more keyboard available to left of hand, so you free up some easy to access keys on both sides of movement keys (pinky rests on A rather than Capslock as well, which is prefferable) and 2. it's where you'd naturally land your hand anyways for typing - the F is where your index finger sits for typing (and where keyboards usually have a nub of some kind to make it findable by feel), so it's more natural to have that be where your movement hand rests as well.
Honestly don't know why ESDF didn't become the sort of default standard rather than WASD, just makes more sense to me.
steejee on
The Great DAMNED STEAM SALES AND WII/U Backlog Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4 Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
You silly people and your non-WASD keybindings >.>.
Eh, really just shifting WASD over one key - it's useful for a few reasons - 1. more keyboard available to left of hand, so you free up some easy to access keys on both sides of movement keys (pinky rests on A rather than Capslock as well, which is prefferable) and 2. it's where you'd naturally land your hand anyways for typing - the F is where your index finger sits for typing (and where keyboards usually have a nub of some kind to make it findable by feel), so it's more natural to have that be where your movement hand rests as well.
Honestly don't know why ESDF didn't become the sort of default standard rather than WASD, just makes more sense to me.
Because when WASD was becoming standard all you needed was movement and crouch/jump (ctrl/shift)
Mostly just huntin' monsters.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Because when WASD was becoming standard all you needed was movement and crouch/jump (ctrl/shift)
Maybe I just have splindly fingers (entirely possible, piano hands) but ctrl/shift with WASD always felt too cramped for me, and same deal with typing position - I already use SHIFT and CTRL when typing, so using them with a normal typing position was easier than adjusting to a different spot.
The typing thing plays in a lot in MMOs due to chat obviously, so I've found it a bigger deal than one would think.
Always sucks when a game gets consolitis and fails to properly deal with me not wanting to use WASD.
steejee on
The Great DAMNED STEAM SALES AND WII/U Backlog Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4 Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
You silly people and your non-WASD keybindings >.>.
Eh, really just shifting WASD over one key - it's useful for a few reasons - 1. more keyboard available to left of hand, so you free up some easy to access keys on both sides of movement keys (pinky rests on A rather than Capslock as well, which is prefferable) and 2. it's where you'd naturally land your hand anyways for typing - the F is where your index finger sits for typing (and where keyboards usually have a nub of some kind to make it findable by feel), so it's more natural to have that be where your movement hand rests as well.
Honestly don't know why ESDF didn't become the sort of default standard rather than WASD, just makes more sense to me.
Because when WASD was becoming standard all you needed was movement and crouch/jump (ctrl/shift)
Yea. I don't know how old you ESDFers are, but I've been using WASD for over 20 years now. I'm old, and I am not switching. Get off my lawn!
Also!!! Word on the street is that the Official Forums go Read Only today in 2 hours, 9:00AM PDT. Go to the Suggestion forum and bump the threads you feel should be bumped. My biggest suggestion is the Chat and Guild suggestions thread. Don't let the good suggestion get buried under "Charr females need Boobs" or "PLAYER HOUSING!" or "WE WANT FLYING MOUNTS!" or the many other terrible terrible suggestions spamming that forum.
Chat and Guild - PLEASE BUMP THIS Make Uglier Humans - My Norn characters all used the scared up ugly face. Making a fat ugly human isn't possible, and is a sad thing. Ugly people need wuvwuv too! DPS Meter
lol just kidding, please don't bump the DPS Meter suggestion
Yea. I don't know how old you ESDFers are, but I've been using WASD for over 20 years now. I'm old, and I am not switching. Get off my lawn!
Turning 30 this year (gah!), when I played Doom I used the arrow keys for movement... ah those were the days. WASD just never clicked for me for the listed reasons, it was like forcing my hand to do something that didn't feel right.
Also, ANet forums close to posting at 9AM PDT today so hop to it if you want to post something else.
steejee on
The Great DAMNED STEAM SALES AND WII/U Backlog Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4 Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
I use WASD for movement and I found Z,X,C,V worked well for class mechanics. I probably should have put my utilities on Q,E,R now that I think about it.
If they put shift modifier in I might use shift+1-4 for class mechanics. However, I am considering just using the above setup and having shift for dodging.
I think modifier keys for bindings are in the cards, just didn't make it in for BWE. GW1 supports them, and it's the same engine (GW2 having a much newer version obviously) so don't see a reason they wouldn't include it, especially with the structured PvP being touted as eSporty.
steejee on
The Great DAMNED STEAM SALES AND WII/U Backlog Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4 Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
<sarcasm>I'll bump up the DPS meter right after I get done with my diatribe on how great flying mounts would be. </sarcasm>
Seidkona on
Mostly just huntin' monsters.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
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DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
Someone that was complaining about the stories mentioned that they were like Disney stories...
Guess what? Some people like corny, campy, fun Disney stories. I am a grown adult and I still watch Disney movies with my girlfriend from time to time. GW2 may not have the greatest stories ever, but ya know what? Most games don't. But I still enjoy them for what they are. And plenty of the writing made me laugh and brought a smile to my face. So I'd say they are perfectly fine.
Remember.. different strokes and all that...
The internet makes me say that WAY too often...
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SarksusATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered Userregular
I don't mind the dialogue and acting, it's silly, but what they have me doing as objectives is kind of dull. I was about to attend a party before the beta ended, so maybe that would have been interesting.
reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited May 2012
The story is garbage. Disney cartoons are nowhere near that boring and poorly acted.
reVerse on
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DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
Another random point of note from the "community questions" earlier...
Why are people so dumb? Of course you aren't going to understand the entire story when you've just started it. Most books/movies/other games/tv shows are going to leave you with questions after you've only experienced the first 10% of it. What world do these people live in?!?!?!
I'm a total story geek (The Longest Journey = ), but I see MMOs as needing to be a world to experience, not a storyline to follow with a bunch of people running around doing the same thing. Give me an interesting game universe with lots of little stories rather than one or two big stories that feel like they should have just been done in an SP game.
TOR seems like it might have gotten too caught up in its attempt to bring an SP story exprience into an MMO. They tried to define the game universe by the player stories rather than focusing on everything else first and using story to expand on the game universe and give it added life.
The stories in GW2 not being hugely complex doesn't bother me - I'd rather play an SP game for a complex story, and most stories simply aren't complex, just well told (only seven types of stories after all), I just want them to be well incorporated into a broader game and well produced (VA, consistent writing, and *fun*).
steejee on
The Great DAMNED STEAM SALES AND WII/U Backlog Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4 Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
I think modifier keys for bindings are in the cards, just didn't make it in for BWE. GW1 supports them, and it's the same engine (GW2 having a much newer version obviously) so don't see a reason they wouldn't include it, especially with the structured PvP being touted as eSporty.
Is there anyone in this thread really looking forward to the sPvP and believe it will be successful as an "eSport"? I'd really like to hear from more people that did extensive testing in the sPvP, building many different builds for professions and testing them out to find out what works and doesn't work. In my experience this past BWE, the game is nowhere close to being able to release and have sPvP not turn into a joke. Through all of my friends and I we tested many different classes and builds, and I also did a lot more research after the fact scouring different forums and posts looking for people that did the same (and preferably more, as only one of my friends did extensive build tests and a lot of sPvP). We put together a little fighting games type Tier list for the different classes and it came out like so.
God Tier > Necromancer, Ranger
High Tier > Warrior, Thief, Mesmer
Mid Tier > Elementalist, Guardian
Low/Shit Tier > Engineer
Highest Burst/Single Hit > Dual Axe Warrior - capable of 20k Eviscerate crits on low armor targets
Highest sustained damage > Greatsword Ranger - Auto attacking for 1.5-3k all day. Don't need any skill other than '1' to decimate people
Highest survivability > Necromancer & Guardian
Best 1vX profession > Necromancer - will win any 1v1, most 2v1s and some 3v1s.
Some more thoughts on why we(I) placed the professions where they are Necromancer
The Necromancer is the best class for sPvP. At least from the BWE we got, as playing as a team was impossible so the weekend really rewarded players that were selfish. The Necromancer was by far the scariest class to fight 1v1. They had many viable builds from the dreaded Bleed build that killed people very quickly, to the Leech tank that had 10-20k more health than anyone else and seemed impossible to kill.
Ranger
The Ranger could output some crazy damage, with great options for survival. The Great Swords auto-attack seems to do just too much damage, their Axe Ricochet shreds people if it is able to bounce(and it can bounce of the wall). They have strong range attacks in the Longbow, and can play very well in a shortbow kite specced paired up with a sword+warhorn on swap for evading when people do get close. The only class we found that could consistently beat a Ranger 1v1 were Necromancers, as they didn't lose to anyone. Overall, a very solid class
Warrior
With support, their damage builds are devastating but on their own they aren't as effective as the Ranger or Necromancer. They are capable of some ridiculous damage output, but usually have to sacrifice survivability to get that damage. Decently well balanced I feel, and a solid profession to pick.
Thief
A few viable builds. The conditions build for leaping death blossom bleed stacking outputs some sick damage and can make quick work of people. Like the warrior though, their survivability must be balanced with their damage output. They can easily take out unsuspecting victims, but feel considerably more balanced/weaker in 1v1 situations or when people are dealing with you in group fights.
Mesmer
The mesmer offers some great damage output in their sword skills and mind wrack builds, with decent survivability. Not capable of some laughing riot damage that the Ranger, Warrior or Thief can output but does respectable damage. We place this class here only from experience fighting against them. The one person in our group that played a mesmer didn't do much sPvP testing, but from what I saw they were pretty well balanced.
Elementalist
The biggest problem with the elementalist is their base health. It is just way to low. You have to swap out the default build for Vit/Toughness. you just can't survive long enough to do your damage or offer support without it. but doing so gimps your damage. There isn't anything spectacular about their damage given their health and armor level. Rangers, warriors and thiefs kill elementalists way to easily.
Guardian
The guardian may deserve to be higher on the list. And I feel they will be once people are able to build 5v5 groups and incorporate them. They have some great support skills, but the selfish every man for himself gameplay that the last BWE produced they get a spot next to the elementalist. There is just something lacking in them, and seeing one in sPvP did not cause any concern or strategy changes. They felt like just meat shields, and were there to get in the way. A greatsword build is capable of doing respectable damage but needs good setup and is inconsistent compared to the more viable options of the better damage dealers above.
Engineer
Their kits were lack luster. The healing kit was pretty good, but the engineer was severely lacking in damage. It was the worst damage dealer out of all the classes we tested, and they didn't seem to have any better support options than any other class we tested out. For whatever the engineer can do, another class can do it better. I would not put one on a sPvP team, they would just be a waste of a spot in their current implementation.
Note that while we did a quite a bit of testing, I know for a fact there are people out there that are not only better than us at PvP but also did a lot more testing. There could be many builds we missed, but from our experiences this is the perception we have of the current balance in the game. Necromancers are too strong, and it would be dumb to not have any on your team, if not multiples of them. Rangers seem to do a little too much damage and need 0 to little setup to do that damage. Engineer and elementalist are too weak for what they bring to the table and guardians may be in a better spot when people work as a team better.
What are your thoughts? Are there things I missed? Do you think the balance will be better when people are able to work as a team, or will we see teams of Necro, Necro, Necro, Ranger, Thief?
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I wish you could use a paint tool to make your dyes. Why can't I go obsidian black or certain colors? I really don't like being limited like that.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
I wish you could use a paint tool to make your dyes. Why can't I go obsidian black or certain colors? I really don't like being limited like that.
Uh, if you find the "obsidian black" dye (or whatever it's called) then you can use it.... There will be hundreds of dye colors, though you have to unlock them through gameplay.
@Buddies Why on earth are you making a tier list? Especially based on beta?
I absolutely believe that structured PVP will do just fine, seeing as ArenaNet already has more experience with competitive PVP than any other MMO out there, and has the whole "eSport" thing down pat.
@Buddies Why on earth are you making a tier list? Especially based on beta?
I absolutely believe that structured PVP will do just fine, seeing as ArenaNet already has more experience with competitive PVP than any other MMO out there, and has the whole "eSport" thing down pat.
Because IMO there are only a few games (game franchises) that made it as an "eSport". Quake, Street Fighter and MvC2, Counter-Strike, and Starcraft 1&2. I'll go ahead and say Halo, Warcraft 3 and WoW Arena deserve spots in successful eSport games too. And all those games had/have their problems too. Problems that didn't stop them, even in some cases where I thought they would (MvC2, WC3) and I was proven terribly wrong.
As for the Tier list, if you disagree with the list please do so. If you take offense that I think some professions are leaps and bounds better than other professions then please disprove me. If you think I'm an idiot for basing this off a Beta, and that everything will be peachy keen fine and balanced come release then I think you are very naive. I experienced GW1 PvP at release, and it was anything but balanced. Hopefully they have some really good play testers that have access to the game 24/7 and are giving them solid feedback that is blocked by NDA and is not getting out.
I don't mean to offend anyone by my opinions on what I think is good, what works and what doesn't work. I put them out there so that people can debunk my impressions, and show me that there are options for builds that I didn't see or experience. Like I said, I didn't get to nearly test out as much as I'd liked. Mainly because the PvE and WvWvW was so much fun, and none of my concerns about sPvP carry over to the PvE and WvWvW aspect of the game.
It's not that everything will necessarily be fine at launch, but the balance will be different, so discussing the current "ranking" is not really practical. There's also the fact that there are almost certainly builds which have not been considered yet.
The devs have already responded to balance concerns on the official forums and said that it is ongoing. Obviously they want it to be an esport, and they know what they need to do to make that happen. What will be interesting to discuss is what they change between now and the next BWE.
@Buddies Why on earth are you making a tier list? Especially based on beta?
I absolutely believe that structured PVP will do just fine, seeing as ArenaNet already has more experience with competitive PVP than any other MMO out there, and has the whole "eSport" thing down pat.
Because IMO there are only a few games (game franchises) that made it as an "eSport". Quake, Street Fighter and MvC2, Counter-Strike, and Starcraft 1&2. I'll go ahead and say Halo, Warcraft 3 and WoW Arena deserve spots in successful eSport games too. And all those games had/have their problems too. Problems that didn't stop them, even in some cases where I thought they would (MvC2, WC3) and I was proven terribly wrong.
As for the Tier list, if you disagree with the list please do so. If you take offense that I think some professions are leaps and bounds better than other professions then please disprove me. If you think I'm an idiot for basing this off a Beta, and that everything will be peachy keen fine and balanced come release then I think you are very naive. I experienced GW1 PvP at release, and it was anything but balanced. Hopefully they have some really good play testers that have access to the game 24/7 and are giving them solid feedback that is blocked by NDA and is not getting out.
I don't mean to offend anyone by my opinions on what I think is good, what works and what doesn't work. I put them out there so that people can debunk my impressions, and show me that there are options for builds that I didn't see or experience. Like I said, I didn't get to nearly test out as much as I'd liked. Mainly because the PvE and WvWvW was so much fun, and none of my concerns about sPvP carry over to the PvE and WvWvW aspect of the game.
Which has been quite successful, to say the least. I understand that GW1 PVP may not have been balanced at the very start, but it ended up doing very well for itself.
The one thing that bugs me about the Norn character creation is that you can't really make some old dude like most of the male NPCs in GW1. The scarred face helps a bit but the 'white/grayish' hair looks silly. And almost all the beards sucked
I wanted to make a guy that looked like the Diablo 3 Barbarian
I almost entirely did sPvP during the BWE, and I played an engineer for most of it. I actually had a lot of success, whether that's because I'm just some sort of god among mere mortals, or because perhaps engineer was either hard to understand or oddly specific in its effective build choice, I do not know. And yes, this is coming from a person who is EXTREMELY excited for the esports aspect of sPvP.
I tried out a lot of engineer builds, from straight damage to mostly tanky, I tried out most of the kits, and left very few of the skills untouched. Here's an in-depth sort of analysis on what I thought of it.
Skills
First of all, I pretty much agree about the kits. The wrench was a little bit difficult for me to understand. The flame thrower seemed to deal almost no damage, the mines didn't do enough damage, neither did the grenades or bombs. The healing kit was alright at best, but I would much rather have a good heal than spend 10-15 seconds at a time throwing down med kits.
That being said, the healing elixir was amazing. Not only did it give you good heal and a nice boon, but its f1 was almost as good. All the buffs it promised were really great.
Turrets were a mixed bag. A turret based build seemed like the go-to choice for a point defender, but as it turned out that was really not the case. The cooldowns on most of the turrets were too long, and they were fairly easy to kill, so a determined team of two of basically anyone could quickly dismantle a turret engineer's point, leaving him basically defenseless.
That being said, turrets were actually incredibly useful as a support skill. I experimented a lot with a build which had just one turret (I chose rifle, because of its low cooldown) and I found it very effective. It would either be slow but steady damage, or it would tank for me and eat valuable cooldowns from my opponent. Either way, it's a win for the engineer dropping it. The net turret was pretty good but fired too infrequently. I could see it possibly. Rocket turret was awesome, but a 40s cooldown on dismantle is quite a bit. Also, the rocket turret's f1 was much better than basically any of the other turrets. Healing turret I felt like was a waste of time.
The elixirs were absolutely great. Elixir b, the might buff one, increased damage (somehow) by an absolute truckload. I'm still not sure where it all came from, and its f1 buff was AoE (like all the rest of them) and gave a part of the buff for just as long as the original elixir. This really let me put the hurt on people while I had them controlled around the field. The anti-cc elixir was cool, though I think it didn't properly break you out of stun all the time (but you were invulnerable the entire duration so oh well). Its f1 was absolutely crucial a lot of the fights.
The other skill I really liked on engineer were the personal ram. This thing was crowd control like whoa, throw a dude away and cripple him with the f1, pretty nice stuff. The ram allowed me a lot of potential for lockdown, and got me out of many sticky situations.
Supply crate was absolutely amazing. I don't know if I ever even tried the other one. It was 2 more heals without a cooldown, and a bunch of turrets to tank or stun or whatever i needed. Done and done.
I didn't take a liking to the rocket boots, or many of the other skills at all. Most of them were turrets that I didn't like, or other things like that. But I felt like my final skill build of Elixir H, Ram, Elixir B, Elixir (anti-cc?), and Supply Crate was pretty good.
Weapons
First of all, anyone that can wield a pistol and a shield at the same time is too cool for school.
The rifle weapon set was good for its range and had some decent skills in it. Rocket jump was ok, the knockback was good. Blunderbuss I felt like wasn't as effective as I wanted it to be, and I had a lot of trouble hitting with net shot for some reason. When rifle came together though, it really came together. This is a weapon for someone who is not planning to get close, but needs an escape when you do.
Pistol main hand was pretty great. Lower damage, but it had a low cooldown blind which was invaluable, and the poison was good sustained damage, and you couldn't avoid it with dodge roll. An assault or roaming engineer should definitely choose pistol main hand.
Pistol offhand I never really got the hang of. The glue was pretty cool, but blowtorch was really just not. And when you take into account what you get from shield offhand, the pistol offhand is absolutely the ugly stepsister.
Shield offhand: this is where the magic happens. You get one skill that reflects projectiles and knocks back foes on premature detonation, and one skill which blocks ranged attacks (even non projectiles) and stuns melee opponents for 2, maybe 3 seconds. Those two skills can basically lock a dude down if used correctly.
It would take a whole lot of convincing for me to change from pistol shield.
Traits
Tanky traits are pretty important, since maxing out your damage traits is of relatively little gain. You can't go too tanky or you'll never kill someone though. I think a balanced trait spread is the best idea for engineer, for at least this BWE. My final build was 15 power, 10 precision, 25 toughness, 20 vitality, i think. Something like that anyway. Over half my points in tanky, but I had at least a couple of traits in power and precision.
I took the traits that allowed me to solo well, since sPvP was rarely a coordinated team effort, and, let's be honest, good players play against the current game, not the one they anticipate. As far as this weekend's state, this worked really well.
I also took full armor sigils of the dolyak for extra living.
Strategies
Thieves: They usually come up to you before you can tell they're there. They'll lock you up and start dealing the damage. However, with the stun shield of the shield offhand, you stun them, poison them, and blind them. Allow them to use the blind and miss one attack, then push them away with the ram. When they get up, cripple them. Dodge roll to avoid their shadow steps, keep damaging. If they switch to range or outlast the cripple, use reflect-knockback shield to blow them away or use their damage against them. This combo usually resulted in them either dying or stealthing away, with me at at least half if not more health.
Rangers: Pop reflect shield immediately, since people tend to use their cooldowns all at once, then save the next one for when you're low. The ranger will often times kill himself just with this. If he gets close, stun shield. If he doesn't, just batter away at him using dodge roll to get out of the way of most of his stuff. In this matchup, for a range ranger, reflect shield will literally win you the fight more often than not, alone.
Mesmers: Ranged mesmers are a problem. Melee not so much, see: thief. They're essentially the same class, with the caveat that you gotta target the right one. Ranged though, not only do you have to target the right one, but most of your lockdown isn't going to be effective, and most of their damage isn't projectiles. That means it's mostly your damage vs. theirs, and -spoiler alert- yours is worse. This matchup more than any other had me using my supply crate when they had no need to use their elite.
Guardians/Warriors: So few ranged ones we might not even mention them, though they both fall into the reflect shield trap. See: thieves for these guys, except they're much better at sticking to you, and their damage is higher for longer than thieves. This is more of an endurance battle, they're harder to kill but you have some time to react. Kiting them around is key, don't go toe to toe if you can avoid it. Because of their resistance to damage, these are also difficult but very manageable matchups. At least your cc works on them, which is a huge advantage.
Elementalists: A real wild card. They're frail, they can deal a lot of damage but usually do not, I'm really not sure where they lie. For some reason elementalists really never did a whole lot to me, but I couldn't say why. Treat these like a ranged mesmer without the confusion element. I rarely lost a fight against an elementalist.
Necromancer: Too hard to kill as engineer, sometimes they literally just can't die. Due to low damage output, I tried to avoid these fights at all costs. Axe necro could kill me if they got the drop on me, none of the other ones could, but I rarely if ever killed a necromancer who did not stay in the fight explicitly to die. If they wanted to escape, they easily could, and often times, they would just fight indefinitely. This is really a draw, nobody dies.
Those were my experiences. I feel like if engineer got a significant damage buff I would have been almost unstoppable. I was often winning 2v1's and contesting the opponents' initial point 3v1 for 15-25 seconds at a time.
I'll agree on necros, incredibly difficult to kill. I will disagree on elementalist. You obviously played with/against bad eles; they have the MOST versatility of any class in PvP because of their 4 forms.
This is SIMILAR to what I ran and seems a bit more optimal than what I actually did (which was put the 10 that's in water into earth and use arcane shield instead of the teleport; this is just better IMO). I regularly was able to take out thieves 1v1 and contribute to team fights in a significant manner. This is a super fast, super elusive build that allows you to run around to keep away from melee classes and put a significant amount of blind out.
Also, passive signet skills always in effect so ALWAYS drop your signets without fear.
Posts
Yea. I rebound Q, E and R to do my Utility skills. Kept my F1-F4, as I played an Elementalist the most and in WoW I play a Warrior where my stances are F1-F3 so it felt right at home for me.
Insert dirty thoughts there.
Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4
Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles
On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts
Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Eh, really just shifting WASD over one key - it's useful for a few reasons - 1. more keyboard available to left of hand, so you free up some easy to access keys on both sides of movement keys (pinky rests on A rather than Capslock as well, which is prefferable) and 2. it's where you'd naturally land your hand anyways for typing - the F is where your index finger sits for typing (and where keyboards usually have a nub of some kind to make it findable by feel), so it's more natural to have that be where your movement hand rests as well.
Honestly don't know why ESDF didn't become the sort of default standard rather than WASD, just makes more sense to me.
Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4
Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles
On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts
Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
Because when WASD was becoming standard all you needed was movement and crouch/jump (ctrl/shift)
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Maybe I just have splindly fingers (entirely possible, piano hands) but ctrl/shift with WASD always felt too cramped for me, and same deal with typing position - I already use SHIFT and CTRL when typing, so using them with a normal typing position was easier than adjusting to a different spot.
The typing thing plays in a lot in MMOs due to chat obviously, so I've found it a bigger deal than one would think.
Always sucks when a game gets consolitis and fails to properly deal with me not wanting to use WASD.
Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4
Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles
On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts
Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
Yea. I don't know how old you ESDFers are, but I've been using WASD for over 20 years now. I'm old, and I am not switching. Get off my lawn!
Also!!! Word on the street is that the Official Forums go Read Only today in 2 hours, 9:00AM PDT. Go to the Suggestion forum and bump the threads you feel should be bumped. My biggest suggestion is the Chat and Guild suggestions thread. Don't let the good suggestion get buried under "Charr females need Boobs" or "PLAYER HOUSING!" or "WE WANT FLYING MOUNTS!" or the many other terrible terrible suggestions spamming that forum.
Chat and Guild - PLEASE BUMP THIS
Make Uglier Humans - My Norn characters all used the scared up ugly face. Making a fat ugly human isn't possible, and is a sad thing. Ugly people need wuvwuv too!
DPS Meter
Turning 30 this year (gah!), when I played Doom I used the arrow keys for movement... ah those were the days. WASD just never clicked for me for the listed reasons, it was like forcing my hand to do something that didn't feel right.
Also, ANet forums close to posting at 9AM PDT today so hop to it if you want to post something else.
Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4
Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles
On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts
Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
If they put shift modifier in I might use shift+1-4 for class mechanics. However, I am considering just using the above setup and having shift for dodging.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4
Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles
On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts
Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Guess what? Some people like corny, campy, fun Disney stories. I am a grown adult and I still watch Disney movies with my girlfriend from time to time. GW2 may not have the greatest stories ever, but ya know what? Most games don't. But I still enjoy them for what they are. And plenty of the writing made me laugh and brought a smile to my face. So I'd say they are perfectly fine.
Remember.. different strokes and all that...
The internet makes me say that WAY too often...
The trouble is the presentation, but even that is fine 90% of the time.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
Why are people so dumb? Of course you aren't going to understand the entire story when you've just started it. Most books/movies/other games/tv shows are going to leave you with questions after you've only experienced the first 10% of it. What world do these people live in?!?!?!
TOR seems like it might have gotten too caught up in its attempt to bring an SP story exprience into an MMO. They tried to define the game universe by the player stories rather than focusing on everything else first and using story to expand on the game universe and give it added life.
The stories in GW2 not being hugely complex doesn't bother me - I'd rather play an SP game for a complex story, and most stories simply aren't complex, just well told (only seven types of stories after all), I just want them to be well incorporated into a broader game and well produced (VA, consistent writing, and *fun*).
Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4
Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles
On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts
Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
Is there anyone in this thread really looking forward to the sPvP and believe it will be successful as an "eSport"? I'd really like to hear from more people that did extensive testing in the sPvP, building many different builds for professions and testing them out to find out what works and doesn't work. In my experience this past BWE, the game is nowhere close to being able to release and have sPvP not turn into a joke. Through all of my friends and I we tested many different classes and builds, and I also did a lot more research after the fact scouring different forums and posts looking for people that did the same (and preferably more, as only one of my friends did extensive build tests and a lot of sPvP). We put together a little fighting games type Tier list for the different classes and it came out like so.
High Tier > Warrior, Thief, Mesmer
Mid Tier > Elementalist, Guardian
Low/Shit Tier > Engineer
Highest Burst/Single Hit > Dual Axe Warrior - capable of 20k Eviscerate crits on low armor targets
Highest sustained damage > Greatsword Ranger - Auto attacking for 1.5-3k all day. Don't need any skill other than '1' to decimate people
Highest survivability > Necromancer & Guardian
Best 1vX profession > Necromancer - will win any 1v1, most 2v1s and some 3v1s.
Some more thoughts on why we(I) placed the professions where they are
Necromancer
Ranger
Warrior
Thief
Mesmer
Elementalist
Guardian
Engineer
Note that while we did a quite a bit of testing, I know for a fact there are people out there that are not only better than us at PvP but also did a lot more testing. There could be many builds we missed, but from our experiences this is the perception we have of the current balance in the game. Necromancers are too strong, and it would be dumb to not have any on your team, if not multiples of them. Rangers seem to do a little too much damage and need 0 to little setup to do that damage. Engineer and elementalist are too weak for what they bring to the table and guardians may be in a better spot when people work as a team better.
What are your thoughts? Are there things I missed? Do you think the balance will be better when people are able to work as a team, or will we see teams of Necro, Necro, Necro, Ranger, Thief?
They want you to discover the dyes.
Uh, if you find the "obsidian black" dye (or whatever it's called) then you can use it.... There will be hundreds of dye colors, though you have to unlock them through gameplay.
Edit: There's a nice blog post about it here: http://www.arena.net/blog/live-and-let-dye-kristen-perry-on-the-gw2-dye-system
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
I absolutely believe that structured PVP will do just fine, seeing as ArenaNet already has more experience with competitive PVP than any other MMO out there, and has the whole "eSport" thing down pat.
There are more dye colors in this game then the defaults we had. You can go obsidian black you just have to find it.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
The be(a)st filter
Because IMO there are only a few games (game franchises) that made it as an "eSport". Quake, Street Fighter and MvC2, Counter-Strike, and Starcraft 1&2. I'll go ahead and say Halo, Warcraft 3 and WoW Arena deserve spots in successful eSport games too. And all those games had/have their problems too. Problems that didn't stop them, even in some cases where I thought they would (MvC2, WC3) and I was proven terribly wrong.
As for the Tier list, if you disagree with the list please do so. If you take offense that I think some professions are leaps and bounds better than other professions then please disprove me. If you think I'm an idiot for basing this off a Beta, and that everything will be peachy keen fine and balanced come release then I think you are very naive. I experienced GW1 PvP at release, and it was anything but balanced. Hopefully they have some really good play testers that have access to the game 24/7 and are giving them solid feedback that is blocked by NDA and is not getting out.
I don't mean to offend anyone by my opinions on what I think is good, what works and what doesn't work. I put them out there so that people can debunk my impressions, and show me that there are options for builds that I didn't see or experience. Like I said, I didn't get to nearly test out as much as I'd liked. Mainly because the PvE and WvWvW was so much fun, and none of my concerns about sPvP carry over to the PvE and WvWvW aspect of the game.
On that note I want to make a Charr named Grytlock.
Because that's "pot lid" in Swedish.
The devs have already responded to balance concerns on the official forums and said that it is ongoing. Obviously they want it to be an esport, and they know what they need to do to make that happen. What will be interesting to discuss is what they change between now and the next BWE.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
You forgot LoL on your list of e-sports!
I would play the shit out of that.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
Which has been quite successful, to say the least. I understand that GW1 PVP may not have been balanced at the very start, but it ended up doing very well for itself.
I wanted to make a guy that looked like the Diablo 3 Barbarian
I tried out a lot of engineer builds, from straight damage to mostly tanky, I tried out most of the kits, and left very few of the skills untouched. Here's an in-depth sort of analysis on what I thought of it.
Skills
That being said, the healing elixir was amazing. Not only did it give you good heal and a nice boon, but its f1 was almost as good. All the buffs it promised were really great.
Turrets were a mixed bag. A turret based build seemed like the go-to choice for a point defender, but as it turned out that was really not the case. The cooldowns on most of the turrets were too long, and they were fairly easy to kill, so a determined team of two of basically anyone could quickly dismantle a turret engineer's point, leaving him basically defenseless.
That being said, turrets were actually incredibly useful as a support skill. I experimented a lot with a build which had just one turret (I chose rifle, because of its low cooldown) and I found it very effective. It would either be slow but steady damage, or it would tank for me and eat valuable cooldowns from my opponent. Either way, it's a win for the engineer dropping it. The net turret was pretty good but fired too infrequently. I could see it possibly. Rocket turret was awesome, but a 40s cooldown on dismantle is quite a bit. Also, the rocket turret's f1 was much better than basically any of the other turrets. Healing turret I felt like was a waste of time.
The elixirs were absolutely great. Elixir b, the might buff one, increased damage (somehow) by an absolute truckload. I'm still not sure where it all came from, and its f1 buff was AoE (like all the rest of them) and gave a part of the buff for just as long as the original elixir. This really let me put the hurt on people while I had them controlled around the field. The anti-cc elixir was cool, though I think it didn't properly break you out of stun all the time (but you were invulnerable the entire duration so oh well). Its f1 was absolutely crucial a lot of the fights.
The other skill I really liked on engineer were the personal ram. This thing was crowd control like whoa, throw a dude away and cripple him with the f1, pretty nice stuff. The ram allowed me a lot of potential for lockdown, and got me out of many sticky situations.
Supply crate was absolutely amazing. I don't know if I ever even tried the other one. It was 2 more heals without a cooldown, and a bunch of turrets to tank or stun or whatever i needed. Done and done.
I didn't take a liking to the rocket boots, or many of the other skills at all. Most of them were turrets that I didn't like, or other things like that. But I felt like my final skill build of Elixir H, Ram, Elixir B, Elixir (anti-cc?), and Supply Crate was pretty good.
The rifle weapon set was good for its range and had some decent skills in it. Rocket jump was ok, the knockback was good. Blunderbuss I felt like wasn't as effective as I wanted it to be, and I had a lot of trouble hitting with net shot for some reason. When rifle came together though, it really came together. This is a weapon for someone who is not planning to get close, but needs an escape when you do.
Pistol main hand was pretty great. Lower damage, but it had a low cooldown blind which was invaluable, and the poison was good sustained damage, and you couldn't avoid it with dodge roll. An assault or roaming engineer should definitely choose pistol main hand.
Pistol offhand I never really got the hang of. The glue was pretty cool, but blowtorch was really just not. And when you take into account what you get from shield offhand, the pistol offhand is absolutely the ugly stepsister.
Shield offhand: this is where the magic happens. You get one skill that reflects projectiles and knocks back foes on premature detonation, and one skill which blocks ranged attacks (even non projectiles) and stuns melee opponents for 2, maybe 3 seconds. Those two skills can basically lock a dude down if used correctly.
It would take a whole lot of convincing for me to change from pistol shield.
I took the traits that allowed me to solo well, since sPvP was rarely a coordinated team effort, and, let's be honest, good players play against the current game, not the one they anticipate. As far as this weekend's state, this worked really well.
I also took full armor sigils of the dolyak for extra living.
Rangers: Pop reflect shield immediately, since people tend to use their cooldowns all at once, then save the next one for when you're low. The ranger will often times kill himself just with this. If he gets close, stun shield. If he doesn't, just batter away at him using dodge roll to get out of the way of most of his stuff. In this matchup, for a range ranger, reflect shield will literally win you the fight more often than not, alone.
Mesmers: Ranged mesmers are a problem. Melee not so much, see: thief. They're essentially the same class, with the caveat that you gotta target the right one. Ranged though, not only do you have to target the right one, but most of your lockdown isn't going to be effective, and most of their damage isn't projectiles. That means it's mostly your damage vs. theirs, and -spoiler alert- yours is worse. This matchup more than any other had me using my supply crate when they had no need to use their elite.
Guardians/Warriors: So few ranged ones we might not even mention them, though they both fall into the reflect shield trap. See: thieves for these guys, except they're much better at sticking to you, and their damage is higher for longer than thieves. This is more of an endurance battle, they're harder to kill but you have some time to react. Kiting them around is key, don't go toe to toe if you can avoid it. Because of their resistance to damage, these are also difficult but very manageable matchups. At least your cc works on them, which is a huge advantage.
Elementalists: A real wild card. They're frail, they can deal a lot of damage but usually do not, I'm really not sure where they lie. For some reason elementalists really never did a whole lot to me, but I couldn't say why. Treat these like a ranged mesmer without the confusion element. I rarely lost a fight against an elementalist.
Necromancer: Too hard to kill as engineer, sometimes they literally just can't die. Due to low damage output, I tried to avoid these fights at all costs. Axe necro could kill me if they got the drop on me, none of the other ones could, but I rarely if ever killed a necromancer who did not stay in the fight explicitly to die. If they wanted to escape, they easily could, and often times, they would just fight indefinitely. This is really a draw, nobody dies.
Those were my experiences. I feel like if engineer got a significant damage buff I would have been almost unstoppable. I was often winning 2v1's and contesting the opponents' initial point 3v1 for 15-25 seconds at a time.
Yesssss, glorious GW2, you have been fully embraced
God yes, sweet merciful unicorns. I want this so bad.
I'll agree on necros, incredibly difficult to kill. I will disagree on elementalist. You obviously played with/against bad eles; they have the MOST versatility of any class in PvP because of their 4 forms.
This is SIMILAR to what I ran and seems a bit more optimal than what I actually did (which was put the 10 that's in water into earth and use arcane shield instead of the teleport; this is just better IMO). I regularly was able to take out thieves 1v1 and contribute to team fights in a significant manner. This is a super fast, super elusive build that allows you to run around to keep away from melee classes and put a significant amount of blind out.
Also, passive signet skills always in effect so ALWAYS drop your signets without fear.