Reply With QuoteI've never played GW, but I've always been a little curious about it...what are the system requirements, and are the expansions necesssary or can you get the gist from just the main game?
If you guys own Guild Wars, it just got a massive update. Loot now scales with party size, so more people are pugging again. There are a bunch of new items (like tomes that let you get new skills and lockpicks), and the game now massively rewards you just for clearing a zone. Finally, you can dropped scrolls that give you access to the elite missions.
However, all of this is only true in hard mode, and you have to have beaten the campaign you wish to play hard mode on at least once before you can play hard mode. As an experienced player, I'm going to say straight up that hard mode is, um, hard! Me and three guild mates (r4-r7 ha-ers) were getting consistently smacked around in the second mission in Prophecies until we hit on a workable build, after which it was merely rough.
The AI in hard mode is very intelligent, and the builds it uses are well thought out.
People have been going nuts with joy, and districts that are usually empty are packed. It really is very friggen awesome, so if you do own the game check it out.
The official site has a page with more details.
If you don't own the game, I wouldn't recommend buying it for this, as you'll be pretty far behind the learning curve and won't have the right to even enter hard mode yet. Picking it up for other stuff (like it being awesome) would probably work out okay though.
And no, I'm not affiliated with Anet or NCsoft in any way, despite pimping major updates and releases. I'm doing this for free because I like the game. I'm just sayin.
I've never played GW, but I've always been a little curious about it...what are the system requirements, and are the expansions necesssary or can you get the gist from just the main game?
I'm slowly playing through GW: Prophecies. It's hard to get into. The Asian look is a turn-off.
The total lack of any real loot is also lame -- that's what these games are about, after all. Levels and loot. And there's not really any loot, at least up to level 10. Supposedly it gets better, but I had given up on the game long before, and only started playing again because I hate not finishing games.
The run animation / movement feedback doesn't feel right to me.
The whole Pre-searing / Post-searing Ascalon thing was confusing as hell. I was reading the story in the manual and I had no clue wtf they were talking about.
You can buy any of the three GW titles, you don't need to own them all or anything like that, they are not expansions in the traditional sense (though each has their own unique content).
System requirements aren't too bad at all; boxes that are 2-3 years are able to run it (I think the requirements are slightly above WoW).
To counter Aeon221's statement, I am actually affiliated with NC so take that under advisement :)
--- Alan
GW is super awesome fun, but if you go in expecting Diablo II or WoW-for-free you're going to be really dissappointed.
This is not the game you are looking for, Guild Wars isn't about levels or loot.Originally Posted by Balasarius
Hard Mode is significantly harder than non-Hard Mode PvE.
I still thought it was too easy, but then again, I'm not your typical player. :)
It's not enough to make me PvE again, but I enjoyed destroying Hard Mode in Alpha. :)
Disclaimer, I don't work for ANet, but I am an Alpha Tester and hardcore PvP fanboi.
Based on my experience to level 10, I'd agree.
But then, what IS it about? Because I don't see it. That whole PvP aspect that I have no interest in...?
I'd say it's about skills. I tend to look at acquiring skills in GW to be akin to acquiring loot. It's all about making different builds. For me anyway. But then I used to PvP quite a bit before I burned out.
You know 20 is the level cap, right?
With a level cap of 20 and no loot, I think it's safe to conclude that the game isn't about loot or leveling. :) It's definitely about making different skill and build combinations. I have enjoyed the hell out of what I've played, but I actually never beat any of the campaigns and I've barely done any PvP. I own all 3 of the games and have played for hundreds of hours.
For me and my play style, the only classes in Prophecies that I enjoy AT ALL are combinations of Mesmer, Monk, and Necromancer. If you don't think the game is grabbing you, maybe you should try a different class type. If I had gotten the game and made a Warrior, I would have put it down after a night of playing and never picked it up again.
Sys reqs are modest, and you get a lot of payoff. I've got a p4 2.4, 1 gig and a 9800 pro and can play it at 1280x1024 with all bells and whistles. It's really beautiful, though the engine is a little 'floatier' than wow. And the chicks are hawt.
I really liked Guild Wars in beta but it changed for the worse in live imo, the PvE went from fun to tedium and I never ended up playing enough to bother coming back. Sounds like the PvE guys are winning the tug of war I hear goes on at that studio finally though.
Level ten is still newbie, and they are still training you, but there are green weapons (named loot dropped by bosses, generally perfect although some lower level bosses drop junk greens) and expensive armors (15k in all its various styles, and Obsidian Armor).
If farming and loot obsession is your thing, there is enough stuff to hunt down to keep you interested for months. Just not at level 10.
But yeah, pvp is where the fun is.
Actually, IMO, the game is about teamwork. You need to work out a viable build and then go forth and flatten the area. My guild spends a lot of time playing both PVE and PVP so we spend tons of time working out different team builds. We have a different build and skill set for different areas and for farming things like Green Items from a certain Nasty Dragon that we all love to kill.
No, if you want rinse, lather, repeat in the true sense of a RPG, go get NWN2. The fun in this game is getting a group of people together and pitting your limited skills that you are allowed to bring (8) against either the environment or other people.
There's something for everyone in GW. I like PVP and PVE so I jump back and forth within my Guild. I'll Monk a group trying to get through a tough part and then hop over to Random Arenas for some Adrenaline to wake up. There's so many different options for playing styles and one just needs to find something that interests them.
I'm not sure how you can get confused with the pre-searing. It's training, designed to teach the game and it's mechanics. The story line is simple and direct in the fact that it happens before the Charr get a foot hold on Ascalon and try to burn it down. That's why when you get in the game proper the place looks like it's been through a war.
The other 2 campaigns stand on their own. Factions has more of an Asian flavor while Nightfall hits me more of an African desert. In any case, if you're spending that much time analyzing the game, you're missing out on the subtleness. Most of the story lines are well written and there's a few surprises.
***Spoiler Alert***
Not to ruin it for anyone, but the amount of people running around in Factions infected with a green aura is hysterical. Two of my Guild mates "Caught" this and I had to put mending on them the whole time we were working on getting it removed. Hysterical and surprising in a good way (for me anyway, they weren't happy). There's still a bunch of n00bs running around infected so it obviously was a well placed "Gotcha" because people still fall for it.
Anyway, it's about the people and the team, not run and gun for treasure. You actually have to work together to get good stuff. What a pleasant surprise.
Edit: Hey Alan! One more skill slot! We'll give you our first born children for one more!
;)
Actually, there should be a fixed slot for a Res Only so that you can have 8 skills and a slot reserved only for a res. That sure would help in getting people to bring a res into random arenas. The fact that you have to go 10 wins is frustrating enough sometimes because you can't pick your group. The amount of times we've been caught flat-footed at 9 wins because the idiot playing the warrior didn't bring a res is astronomical. A reserved slot would be an interesting addition.
Last edited by FIDGAF; 04-22-2007 at 08:39 AM.
Amen! And combine pet res and charm animal into one skill! Honestly, that is such a no brainer!
There's a reason why charm and pet res aren't incorporated into one skill, and it's called PvP Balance. :)
Forcing people who use pets to use the extra skill slot is one of the few things that keeps R/X weapon+pet builds in check, especially since Nightfall with the skill Rampage As One.
Res animal and res\heal pet should be combined possibly. No one uses res animal because it's useless.
If you combined Charm Animal with the Res you would be giving the Ranger the ability to add something like a Healing Signet if the secondary was warrior. Using the Bunny Thumper as an example, if they had a self-heal, it would make it too tough to kill. As being on the receiving side of that build as an EL and a Monk, I'd rather that they had to take that extra skill and fill the slot.
If a slot was added for Res only it wouldn't really be a balance issue like this would be.
Ridiculous! Pet builds aren't used in HA because they are statistically underpowered, even with that extra slot. The only decent skills in Beast Mastery are the IAS skills, and they are only good because you can keep em up continuously (or, in the case of RaO because they provide a speed buff as well as an attack buff). If RaO was nerfed (which it still needs) and pet rez + charm animal was combined, you'd see rangers back to using Frenzy/Flurry + Ferocious Strike without having to choose between BM and IB, or possibly the inclusion of Otyguh's Cry (however you spell it) to ensure that BM isn't blocked. If RaO remains the same, they'll continue with the current skill set and just add Otyguh's Cry or IB.
None of these skills are cheap, and including more of them means spamming each individual skill less, reducing the efficiency of each included skill, and potentially reducing the pressure by increasing the cycle length.
An incorporated pet rez would mostly help out /R characters that want to bring a pet along, or R/ characters that want to play a pet build in Just for the halibut.
edit: I'd love it if they brought healsig. You can always hit someone with damage while they're standing around trying to use that skill.
A part of me hopes they scrap the monk class altogether. Each class has some sort of heal capability. That oughta shake things up.
Hell no! I couldn't stand to hear the girls, uh, my Guild cry if I couldn't come along and keep them from eating dirt!
;)
Hey, have you ever tried to Monk? It's actually one of the most demanding characters of the game because of the multi-tasking involved. I like a challenge so I like playing a Monk.
Let's see, he's got X amount of health, this takes 1 second to cast and will heal him for Y amount and the recharge time is Z seconds. That gives me A amount of time to take that hex off of player B and hit player C with a little love. You're doing it all in real time and in a blink of an eye.
Now try that with people over extending, standing in fire because they're not paying attention, with backfire on or an EL lighting you up and with a Bunny Thumper whacking you to the ground every now and then.
Come on! Good times! What's wrong with you?
If they took out the Monks I probably wouldn't bother to play the game anymore.
If there's any interest in it, I've got all guild wars expansions and would be happy to jump back in to play with other qt3'rs. My only decently levelled character is an elementalist, but I could use something to do in between gearing up for forthcoming kara runs with my wow guild.
My main is a monk, so I've monked it quite a bit in both PvE and PvP. I'm certainly not uber-l33t, but I'm alright. I think I know enough though, to say that it's a pretty thankless job, in PUG's anyway. I just think there can be more strategic options in PvP if there was no dedicated healing class. Just pondering.
I love me some Smiting Prayers though.
So is there a GW party happening in here? I'll take my Ritualist along if you guys want to rock some faces.
So I took my elem to do northern wall with heroes. Yeah didn't bring a running skill and didn't realize that on hard mode enemies run faster (and attack faster and recharge faster). Anyways I take my time and finish the bonus and get to the end with the running of the charr. Heh to my shock they caught up to me and beat me down like a little school girl.
I went back and pugged it. Drops are much nicer: 2 purples and 2 lock picks (worth 750g each at the merchant).
The loot scaling sucks. There goes my solo farming for some quick cash.
My monk is on the last mission in NF (should finish it tomorrow). Yeah it's pretty thankless job in a pug but once in a while you get a "good monking." I was in Gates of Madness and was the only human monk (short on monks that day) so I brought along my hero Lod Monk. We also had a healing rit. I've been going divert hexes. Anyways, they were a pretty bad bunch and at the portals they "accidentally" (how many times can I tell them to stick to the outside walls????) aggro'd a couple of titan mobs (how do you get to this stage of the game and NOT know to focus on ONE titan at a time), and I was able to keep them all alive. Of course it didn't help that they couldn't do enough damage to kill shiro at the end for like 10min!!!! Talk about energy problems. Anyways we did finally finish the mission but I'm not sure exactly how. All I can say is glyph of lesser energy is your friend (even after the nerf).
Last edited by ARogan; 04-23-2007 at 03:54 PM.
You don't get it.
Let's break this down little by little.
First off, RaO is not being further nerfed. The Devs don't seem to think it needs nerfing anymore. It just ain't happening, stupid as it is.
Secondly, pets in and of themselves do about as much DPS as a Warrior attacking stuff. If you think that's not significant, then I give up, and cede to your superior theorycrafting skills.
Third, I don't know what you're smoking when you say pet builds are "statistically underpowered". The combination of Expertise and a near-full spec into another weapon attribute (Bunny Thumpers and Bunny Reapers being the usual variants) is powerful enough to be worthy of balance considerations, but pet builds are just fine. Even post D-Lunge nerf, thank God ANet finally realized that. The problem with them in HA is not the damage, but rather the survivability of pets; they don't kite and have 60 armor, so they get squished by AoE Fire spells (which are beyond prevalent).
Pet builds also benefit from other synergies; because the pets die so much, they synergize perfectly with Death Necromancers using Rotting (spreading disease via the pets), Putrid Explosion, Death Nova, and Wells. They add another attacker for Barbs or Mark of Pain. They can bodyblock. They can interrupt, using D-Lunge, which even post-nerf is perfectly viable. And most of those things (dying, attacking) are accomplished with no more than two skill slots, one of which never needs to be cast, and those skill slots enable the best IAS in the game, which incidentally is also a 33% movement buff.
Then you start talking about running QZ, and it just gets silly, because of Expertise.
If you nerf RaO, people will go back to Enraged Lunge thumpers using Tiger's Fury to shut down enough skills to cap damage on Enraged, and spiking things with a 110-damage Enraged and the Hammer combo. Sounds balanced to me... and I'd prefer they not have another spot for, say, Run As One. Because then you get into the same basic problem of having an IAS + Movement Buff at the same time.
Also, this discussion of adding a 9th, dedicated-to-res slot seems just silly to me. Taking a res or taking an 8th skill is a tradeoff that teams have to make, and in higher levels of PvP it's a very real, very conscious tradeoff. GvG usually ends up being decided by who runs out of signets at the stand first, or who can interrupt the other's hard rezzer, or spike the Flesh of My Flesh character right after he resses. Taking a res sig would eliminate that tradeoff, and disproportionately increase the skill bars of offensive flagstand characters (who generally take res signets or a hard res) as opposed to split characters and Monks (who almost never take resses of any sort). Also, moving from teams with (generally) 4 sigs and a hard res to teams with 8 sigs would be ... a bad design decision, in my opinion. For one thing, it would prolong fights in an arena where two competent teams almost always go to VoD anyway, and for another, it would make Morale Boosts even more powerful than they are now, and I think they're just fine as is.
Whew. That was way too long.
I've mentioned this before, but I (under Embryo Pvpstyle) do a lot of PvP, mostly during the afternoon/night (during eveningtimes EST I GvG with my Guild, [TC]). If you guys like HA, or think you might like it, friends me and toss me a PM; the HA playerbase is stale, and always needs fresh blood!
And if you ever have any questions, Lord knows I've played this game enough to answer 'em.
I don't see the problem with making a slot for a res but you do. We agree to disagree there. If that slot was limited to Random and Team, not HA, it would go a long way into teaching some of these n00bs to bring a res when you're a warrior. Everyone looks to the Monk when someone dies. Hey, I'm busy keeping the team up on it's feet, someone else pick that fool up because there's 2 other people and then myself that I'm trying to keep alive. Besides, they usually over-extend and expect the Monk to do miracles for them. I can't tell you how many times I let Guild mates die because they didn't listen and over-extended. That taught them to pay a little more attention to the guy keeping them alive.
RaO is not such a big deal either. A good EL can shut down a Thumper. Play more Alliance Battles. A Thumper is a pressure build but so is an EL. Nothing pisses off a Thumper more than when you either take a Water build and slow them down, blur their vision or if you set them on fire and keep Mind Burning them to the ground. Cast Ward Against Melee for all the soft targets and shut the pet down. I use both types of builds with great sucess against most classes.
No matter how balanced ANet tries to get the game, someone will always find a unique combination of skills that give them an edge. It's the nature of the game.
Absolutely. I'd be happy to reserve the slot for RA and TA.If that slot was limited to Random and Team, not HA
By your logic, if the counters to thumpers were so powerful, people would run them successfully.RaO is not such a big deal either. A good EL can shut down a Thumper. Play more Alliance Battles. A Thumper is a pressure build but so is an EL. Nothing pisses off a Thumper more than when you either take a Water build and slow them down, blur their vision or if you set them on fire and keep Mind Burning them to the ground. Cast Ward Against Melee for all the soft targets and shut the pet down. I use both types of builds with great sucess against most classes.
However, out of your counters, one is trivial to interrupt and dependent on hexes, which can be removed (water snares), one is not that hard to interrupt and serves to clump teams for AoE (wards), and one is negated by any half-decent Monk (spamming Mind Burn on thumpers).
I don't care about Alliance Battles, or TA, or RA. All I do is GvG and HA. :) So any and all statements I make are limited to those two spheres unless specifically stated otherwise!
Doesn't mean you should make skills or skill combos that are already balanced or overpowered ... even better.No matter how balanced ANet tries to get the game, someone will always find a unique combination of skills that give them an edge. It's the nature of the game.
Actually, the Water Build I use doesn't use water snares or any of that crap. It stops most Melee characters dead in their tracks too and no, I don't care to share it's exact make-up.
Yes, you can counter an EL BUT the nature of the game is teamwork. A good team can kick a Thumper & a Monk to the ground through pressure. Again, teamwork being the key here. Pressure on the Monk from your ME like backfire and blackout shuts them down pretty quickly. It all depends on the team and it's build. We have an interupt ME player that we like around for obvious reasons.
I really don't look at RoA as such a big deal. Throw some water on the situation and you've just slowed them down 66% of their normal speed. What happens if you cast that on a regular warrior? Isn't then Water too powerful now? What about Water Trident? Should that be nerfed because the EL can knock down the Thumper? It's also great for interupting a Monk. Is that too powerful? Lightning & Earth have their uses too and are hard to counter with good builds.
RoA: For 3...13 seconds, both you and your animal companion attack 33% faster and run 25% faster. During that Max 13 seconds I can keep you slowed and then some. If the Monk removes the hex, you just dump a different one on, there's so many to use.
You seem to have been Thumped to death a few times and have a tender spot for this skill.
Not really. In fact, I can't remember the last time I lost to a team with thumpers on them. :) If anything, I'd say that the low armor vs physical of an unsmited thumper makes them spikebait in competitive play.
What you say is all well and good, but in the end, it doesn't play out in competitive play. It may work well in AB/RA/TA, but in GvG in the top 100? Where every team brings an interrupt Ranger or a Warmonger's Weapon'd Paragon, and most teams also bring a P-Block Mesmer with P-Leak and Enchant removal for your Attunements? Good luck. :)
Oh, and Water Trident definitionally cannot interrupt a Monk. If he is casting, he is not moving. :)
By the way, I know what Water skill you're using. And there's a reason why every build that uses physical damage brings Draw Conditions. :) Your build is in the end no better than a B-Surge spammer. *shrug*
Ironically, in GvG, Blackout is possibly one of the least-used Domination skills post-Distortion nerf. Why? Because a 60-armor Mesmer extending into someone's backline is just going to get spiked. Not to mention that as a touch skill, a good Water Ele will be snaring the Mesmer and the Monks will kite the Blackout.Pressure on the Monk from your ME like backfire and blackout shuts them down pretty quickly. It all depends on the team and it's build. We have an interupt ME player that we like around for obvious reasons.
Backfire, on the other hand, is simply not a good skill. The damage is reduced by Protective Spirit and triggers Spirit Bond; and as a hex, it'll be removed by some of the hex removal that's floating around; most teams are bringing two stack removals (convert or purge sigs) and two or three spot removals. Also, it's a slow cast; interrupt fodder.
The general way to shut down people with Dom Mesmers today is P-Block bars with four or so interrupts, Diversion, and some enchant removals. Diversion does have a long cast, but the utility of it in shutting down things like Blinding Surge (when you catch someone spamming on recharge) is simply too good to put down.
For those interested, I was at our local Sam's Club the other day and saw that they reduced the price of the original and both expansions all packaged together from $98 to $49.
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