Mesmer Unveiled

Earlier this week, a leaked video of the then unannounced 8th profession, the mesmer, was circulating around the internet.  It didn’t surprise me or any veteran Guild Wars players, since the mesmer is iconic to Guild Wars and is a unique to the Guild Wars world.

Here is the Video:

And here is the Official Information about the Mesmer:

The most  interesting aspect of the revealed mesmer is their weapon selection. Scepters and swords can be used as main handed weapons; focuses, pistols, swords, and torches can be used as off handed weapons; Greatswords and staves are their two-handed weapons.

This is by far one of the most interesting professions to chose from.  Its going to be a hard choice between Mesmer and Necromancer for me.  I’ll have to flip a coin to see which profession I will play.

Guild Wars 2 Development Update

Today Jon Peters released a blog post that gave a few juicy updates,  I wont go into too much detail; Engineers and Rangers received some updates to their profession mechanics,  as well as explaining the Cross-Profession combos (CPC) that was announce a while back but never elaborated on.

The Engineer update is all about the tool belt mechanic, which has been expended on.  23

Example of Tool Belt Skill icons

new skills have been designed for the Engineer’s tool belt.  The way the tool belt works is that the skill in the 6-9 slot skill on you bar will have a counterpart on your tool belt.  Example is having a Flamethrower on one of your utility slots, which will add Incendiary Ammo, this skill lets the next three attacks cause burning on your target.

For Ranger updates, it all about the pets; you may now hold two terrestrial and two aquatic pets slot in a quick slotted (amphibious pets can go into either slot)  .  Along with that, you may quick swap them out in the middle of battle (there is a cool-down), but if you pet is downed, and you have a longer cool-down between quick swaps.  Additionally pets no longer evolve, their level is based on the Ranger’s level;  pet stats and abilities are determined by Species and Family;  For example, Bear and Cat are the Species, while Polar bear and Snow Leopard are their respective Families.  Even in the same species different families have different abilities, for instance Polar bear have a icy roar that freezes enemies while Brown bears have a condition removing roar.  Also charming a pet unlocks it for you, which means no more stable limits or having to level it up as well.

 

The Last item on the blog was perhaps one of the more interesting bits of information, CPC’s.  The post mention that combos work in to parts, Initiator skill and Finisher skills.  Initiators are skills like Napalm, Reapers’ Mark, Flame wall, and Static Field;  basically any of the Area of Effect spells and skills. While Finishers are more projectile or active skills, Stomp, Barrage, Spread shot, Path of Scars, and Whirling Defense are example of Finisher skills.  There will also be a UI feature that informs you of when you have preformed a combo and which skills where used in the combo.  The CPCs are one of the feature that will make the game more interesting, and dynamic.

 

Holy Trinity-Support: Its all about teamwork

Let’s talk about one of the most underappreciated roles in the mmo genre, Healing.  If you’ve ever played a healer or a support class character in any mmorpg, then you know about the lack of recognition that support roles get;  no one notice, that clutch heal that saved the tank, or the background healing that keeps everyone from dying.

In my last article I briefly mention that the tanking aspect of the game is what I’m most excited about, mostly because tanking is what I’ve done since the Burning Crusades.  I should also disclose that I healed for a small period of time in Wrath of the Lich King and played as a healer in Aion, and found the “Healers hate” to be off putting even dehumanizing in some raid groups.  In particular I remember a raid leader chewing us, the healers, out for a brutal wipe feast in Ulduar, which was actually caused by low dps output.  Needless to say, I stopped raid healing and started to pvp a lot more after that.   Healers, in particular good healers, are some of the most underappreciated raider out there.

The solution that GW2 brings to the table is that there is no dedicated healer class or spec.  Everyone has some form of self-heal skill, which is very generous.  Along with self-heals, there are skills that do area wide effects like, giving offensive buffs like Might or Fury, defensive buffs like Swiftness or Regen, condition removing, and aoe healing.

Each profession has its own style of supporting, for instance a Necro can debuff, transfer buff from foes to allies, and transfer debuffs from allies to herself or to foes, while a Guardian can do some indirect aoe healing as well as buffing up allies.

The emphasis self-healing is a good move since it will not only remove the need to find a dedicated healer but also puts the burden of healing on each individual player.

Holy Trinity- Control: Tanking in the age of Guildwars 2

ANet talks a lot about shaking up the holy trinity, and i wanted to take a closer look at one of the play styles available: Control.

Much like the “tank” from more traditional MMO, i.e. WoW, the controller will be responsible  for mitigating damage.  The thing that set the controller from a “tanks” is that you don’t have to get smashed in the face to do your job.  For instance, a necromancer with two daggers can use, Dark Pact to bleed and immobilize a selected foe, then use Enfeebling Blood to blind, poison and weaken foes in an area. Dark pact makes a good single target control skill, that can be use in situations were you want to keep one target in place, like a Bloated Creeper, away from your allies.  While Enfeebling blood seems to be more of a area control skill that lets you blind a group of smaller, faster hitting foes.

There are a lot of conditions that can be placed on enemies, Cripples, Freezing, Immobilization, Sinking, Floating, Blinding, Dazing, Weakening, Fearing, Knockback, Knockdown, launch, pulls, stuns and traps.  Their are alot of ways to debuff enemies, and many skills have multiple effects, for instance Magnetic Grasp pulls a target to you and immobilizes them, or Fear Me, which both fears and weakens foes.

You don’t have to wield a sward and board to be a control, area control, debuffing and crippling your foes works just as effectively as getting smashed in the face.  But for those who love to feel like their more actively engaged in the controlling, you can always distracted the enemy.  ANet has said several times that their treat system is fairly straightforward:  The closest enemy is the target.

The Control play style looks to be my personal favorite; with a variety of debuffs, skills and a simplified threat system, tanking has never looks more appealing to me.

Dungeon Progression Discussion with the Hamstormers

So this one time, at band camp….im just kidding.  On a more topical note.  TigerFeet, an artist and good friend of mine, and I Had an exchange a while back.  We were talking about World of Warcraft, (mostly because we both played druids, specced as tanks(one of the most unpopular tanking classes for some reason)) and how some of the content was gated either directly or indirectly back in Vanilla, BC, WotLK, (not sure of Cata but im going to assume it is also gated)  allowing for a ease into the dungeon/raid.

Tiger mention who much she like the gating of some content to sort people out and allow for those we need to learn the fight form those who’ve master it.  I myself am neutral on the concept of gating, and have no problems with it was generally accept that gw2 didn’t have gating mechanics, much to Tiger’s ire.

I disagreed, the dungeon has two large mode, the story mode and the explorer-able mode.  It is widely know that the story mode is easier and meant to introduce the player into the lore and mechanics of the dungeon.  But by that logic, the story mode is a gating mechanic as well, since the game will not allow you into the harder and more rewarding explorer-able mode till you have beaten the Story mode.

After that exchange i changed my stance to pro-gating, with mild skepticism.  Gating will act as a sort of proving grounds, as well as highlight pug able content and content were you need to be more organized.

PvP discussion With the Hamstormers

Last night, on Vent, my clan-mates and I had a rather interesting discussion on PvP.  It Centered largely around balance, healing, burst/spike damage.

The discussion started while some of my guild mates, where waiting for AB to start.  Below is a rough summary of the things we discussed.

• PvP shouldn’t be a spike fest, example used: Aion PvP.
• Reason:  Aion forces players to use all defensive cooldowns just to say alive.  As well as having a rock, paper, scissors like class system.
• Counter argument:  The pvp demonstration at the ESL intel Extreme Master PvP exhibition match in Gamescom 2011.  The PvP demo, clearly showed a like of spiking and leaded more of tactics and teamplay over K/D

• What about the unstructured PvP, won’t a team of highly coordinated team or teams be able to wipe out an unorganized team?
• Unstructured PvP is meant to be unbalanced, not only that but, it would be logistically impossible to balance
• For example lets say that each world had a limited of 500 players, with three worlds that 1500 players for the max.  No amount of team work can stop 1000 other players.

What i loved about this discussion is that even with the relatively little amount of information that we have been given, my clan and I had a very interesting debate.  Hopefully more information will be released so that more of discussion and debates will surface.

Asura Week-Day 1 Art and story

ArenaNet’s Senior Concept artist Matt Barrett, gives us a looking his though process of how he makes some of the most brilliant and cunning creatures in Tyria, the Asura.

First let me say that Asura are my in tie for my second favorite race, and any kind of lore/art about them is always a plus for me, but  idea of an entire races of hyper intellect semi adorable tinkers has never been my cup of tea.  I have always found myself leaning toward the slightly evil races in mmos.

 

Asura

Thankfully the Asura walk a fine line between cute and evil that forced me to take a second

look at them.  And i found a races of that was quirky, ridiculous, and downright comical at times, but an undertone of supremacy and downright disdain for other lesser races gleams from their large catlike eyes.  In short Arrogant, magical, technological, and their allows right even when their not.

The original idea for the Asura were, dim, savage creatures that savaged artifacts from their more advanced neighbors, and tended to live in the outskirts of towns and cities.  This concept if far from the Asura as we see them now.

Link to original blog post by Matt can be found below:

http://www.arena.net/blog/matt-barrett-on-asura-design

 

Along with the art video; Jeff Grubb, Continuity and Lore Designer , post an early concept story that was made in 2008: Link to the story can be found below

http://www.arena.net/blog/mr-sparkles-a-tale-of-the-asura