Problems with Guild Wars

[xilsharn]

To original poster, sorry man, I don't agree at all.

Mesmer/necro owns all. Yeah, no major nukes but I have strong survivability (lifetaps and heal-on-ending dots) and never run out of mana (energy taps).

I didn't see any issues with mesmerizers in the time I played except a lack of DD, but you can sub elemental.

Ele attacks are too easy to dodge, get the eff out of the way. Plus their humongous casting animations (GIGANTIC RINGS OF FIRE WITH RUNES GLISTENING IN THE MIDDAY SUN OVER YOUR HEAD WITH YOUR HAIR ON FIRE) make them targets in PVP. No thanks, I'll snare, dot, dot, mana tap, dot dot dot, wash, rinse repeat.

I didn't play a ranger, tres tired of melee.

[Magnum PI]

When is this game supposed to go live?

[Darkmyst]

Originally posted by Doc
When is this game supposed to go live?

Feb 7, 2005 I believe

[soulfly24]

Last i heard it was coming out in Feb. About 1am est, I logged on and 2 or 3 devs where in the city chatting with players, answering questions and giving a little info on what they are working on. It was pretty nice to see 'em answer questions and such. It was mostly a BS session and nothing technical.

However, I really enjoyed playing this weekend, and I enjoyed the alpha test way back when as well.

Overall, i will probably pick this game up to goof around with during downtime in other games, or to log on and pvp a bit. I liked the 4v4 fights, but the 8v8 seemed to add too much lag for that area. There were some battles close to the end of the WPE that weren't laggy, so maybe they need to beef up the server that takes care of the battles. Peak time pvp was laggy, end time pvp was pretty smooth.

The henchmen additions is a nice touch. Being a necro/ele, it was a bit difficult to find a decent group. So i would grab henchmen and go. I almost finished the 5th mission with them, hehe, so they did pretty well on thier own.

Crafting system isn't too bad, but could use some work. Not sure how much more content they are gonna add, but i managed to make a full set of pagan armor with a little wheeling and dealing. One thing that was annoying, is buying craft items of a merchant. You had to buy 10 at a time and i couldn't figure a way to buy less than that. seems silly you can't buy less than 10, but again, maybe ya could, i didn't try and figure it out and no one else seemed to know.

spells seemed pretty decent. I didn't make it to the other town after the 5th PvE mission, but found the quest town in the explorable area and bought a few spells which was nice.

Overall, I think it's a pretty solid game. The best part was when they added xp gains for pvp'ing. After that, I hardly did a PvE mission. It's got potential. Nothing i would play hardcore, but something i would play on weekends for sure.

[0hz]

Overall, i will probably pick this game up to goof around with during downtime in other games, or to log on and pvp a bit. I liked the 4v4 fights, but the 8v8 seemed to add too much lag for that area. There were some battles close to the end of the WPE that weren't laggy, so maybe they need to beef up the server that takes care of the battles. Peak time pvp was laggy, end time pvp was pretty smooth.

I was doing the temple battles last night and things were lagless with 4-6 teams of 8 going at it. However, I got in to 8v8 battles that were horrible.

Overall, i will probably pick this game up to goof around with during downtime in other games, or to log on and pvp a bit.

It amazes me how many people say that. It must be nice to have all that time. This past weekend was the first time I had more than 2 hours to myself in over a month.

[Pest]

The only thing that pissed me off about this game was that the auto-rotating camera would make some pretty stupid choices and inevitably get me killed. I looked through the interface and all I could find was an option to hold it steady when pressing a key, not what I wanted. I deally there would be a toggle button for on and off, maybe there was and I couldn't find it.

I'm definetely ordering this one. I don't have the time to put into EQ2 or WoW. Even if I did I think this one might be better suited for me. The henchmen are an awesome idea although I heard a rumor that they may be going away during for the PVP missions, which is a mistake IMO. Being able to grab a monk henchman instead of waiting for an ungrouped healer that wasn't playing "battlemonk" was invaluable.

[Mazuli]

I played a level 20 monk/mesmer with a level 20 warrior/necro and level 20 ranger/elementalist and here's what I saw:

The warrior/necro was extremely self sufficient. He used a sword/shield combo for high defense and his dps came from necro life draining dots, which also helped keep him alive. The ranger/elementalist was very weak in the dps department. His only usefulness was the fire rain spell from the elementalist side and pin down from the Ranger side. The pet got to level 20 and still died faster than a level 15 elementalist henchman. The monk/mesmer was a good combo in THEORY. Here's some of the main issues:

Monk heals are much too weak. I never got healing breeze (I think you need signet of capture for it) so I'm speaking only from experience of buying spells from the two spell trainers. Orison of healing is very mana efficient and a nice small heal for people who just need a patch. However, the spell Heal Other is extremely mana inefficient (3x the mana cost for about a 50% improvement) so I never used it. Heal Area is useless because the radius is so small that I could never get more than 2 people at a time, though it is also the most mana efficient heal.

My monk healed by using enchantments. One enchantment heals a player whenever they get hit. Another healed a player whenever they attacked or cast a spell. These 2 combined on our warrior meant I never had to heal the warrior. These enchantments, orison, and resurrection were the only good spells for a monk who wants to be a primary healer.

My mesmer had a total of 2 good spells. The first (and best spell in the game, IMO) being Diversion. I had it stopping a spell from being recast for up to 58 seconds. This meant I could disable a monk from healing, I could disable an elementalist from doing big nukes, I could disable a warrior from knocking people down. 58 seconds was more than the average lifespan of any player in a small battle (unless they won). The other good spell was energy burn. This drained 10 energy and dealt 40 damage to the enemy, for only 10 energy. It is a fairly efficient nuke, fast cast, and drains their energy. Aside from these 2 spells, the rest had little to no use.


I didn't mind any of this. I thought my character was well balanced. I had some decent heals, good protection, great anti-caster capabilities. Unfortunately none of this means squat in Guild Wars. I spent the last day doing Guild Battles, I got our guild rating to about 1200, then just gave up. A team of 8 elementalists or a team of 8 warriors using hammers is unstoppable. 8 elementalists each using the fire rain spell (it stacks) will each be doing at least 15 damage per second, meaning you'll be able to kill everything in an area within 3 seconds. The area effect is pretty big so it would take the average player at least 2-3 seconds to react fast enough and get out. There are no tactics here and no skill. target a player, cast the spell, and watch them die.

A group of warriors is the same deal. Get 2 or 3 warriors on a single target, preferably a caster with low armor. Have them alternate the knockdown ability or earthshaker (which knocks down multiple targets if I'm not mistaken), hit them for more massive hammer damage, and win. Warriors can even outrun anyone, so chasing someone down and knocking them down is no problem. Warriors have incredibly high armor and paired with a monk secondary (or even monk primary and warrior secondary), they can use enough enchantments on themselves to never die. They can increase their hp, let themselves heal each time they hit someone, and so on. Again, this requires little to no tactics or skill. Just run up and knock down everyone till they die.


If you're familiar with guild battles, what you do is try to hold the flag in the middle to get a morale boost while taking over an enemy keep. You must kill their lord, who is protected by many archers, 2 clerics, the thief, and the 8 player team. Normally this is a difficult task (in fact a little too difficult considering it should be about the players, not the npcs) because 2 clerics can keep almost any target alive while many archers and the lord can kill anyone. A group of elementalists can just kill a couple archers and clerics before they can even get a spell off. The warriors can just charge in and kill the 2 clerics and win. This is what ruined Guild Wars for me. When we played, we had to actually think. We usually had to keep killing the enemies until their morale was so low they would not revive. Or we would make them hide inside their base, attack the archers and clerics while I disabled the clerics' healing, run away, and repeat until both clerics were dead. I loved doing this because it required skill and was definitely not an easy task. I'm still unsure as to whether or not I will preorder or buy Guild Wars, but I did have a lot of fun when I wasn't faced with imbalances.

[0hz]

The henchmen are an awesome idea although I heard a rumor that they may be going away during for the PVP missions, which is a mistake IMO.

Currently, there are problems with the way the game treats NPCs with regards to some of the more PVP oriented spells that make some rather lame exploits possible.

Furthermore, AI for those characters has got to cost something and how do you balance it? Should henchmen recognize not to cast when they are backfired? How should they behave when blinded? Should they track evading players or evade ae spells with 80, 90, 100% accuracy? In the event of dumb AI, what's to stop the "sacrificial" tactics that are possible by using an NPC in ways that a human player would never want to be used?

There are lots of complications.

[Merton]

Originally posted by Mazuli
A group of warriors is the same deal. Get 2 or 3 warriors on a single target, preferably a caster with low armor. Have them alternate the knockdown ability or earthshaker (which knocks down multiple targets if I'm not mistaken), hit them for more massive hammer damage, and win. Warriors can even outrun anyone, so chasing someone down and knocking them down is no problem. Warriors have incredibly high armor and paired with a monk secondary (or even monk primary and warrior secondary), they can use enough enchantments on themselves to never die. They can increase their hp, let themselves heal each time they hit someone, and so on. Again, this requires little to no tactics or skill. Just run up and knock down everyone till they die.

I loved it when hammer-wielding warriors rushed the monks/casters in my group. Switch out to sword, hamstring to reduce their movement speed, sever artery to get them bleeding and then gash to give them a deep wound (reduce max HP by 50, reduce healing effects by 20%). Chances are that they'll die before they manage to limp away from the onslaught. That's one thing I enjoy about GW PvP. There are so many strategies you can emplore both combat-wise or objective wise.

[Piriwi]

Originally posted by Mazuli

Monk heals are much too weak. I never got healing breeze (I think you need signet of capture for it) so I'm speaking only from experience of buying spells from the two spell trainers. Orison of healing is very mana efficient and a nice small heal for people who just need a patch. However, the spell Heal Other is extremely mana inefficient (3x the mana cost for about a 50% improvement) so I never used it. Heal Area is useless because the radius is so small that I could never get more than 2 people at a time, though it is also the most mana efficient heal.

My monk healed by using enchantments. One enchantment heals a player whenever they get hit. Another healed a player whenever they attacked or cast a spell. These 2 combined on our warrior meant I never had to heal the warrior. These enchantments, orison, and resurrection were the only good spells for a monk who wants to be a primary healer.

I played a elementalist/monk, and I had no problem with heals at all. Besides orison of healing there was also a spell that was exactly the same as orison, but it added like 45 hps to the heal if someone was under 50% health. Then I also had a spell that added something like 100 armor and regenerated 50 hps over 5 seconds (I believe this could be a lot more, but since I wasn't a primary monk I only got healing prayers and not protection prayers), great for casting on whoever is taking a heavy beating. Add the quick refreshing rune (5 energy) that reduces the cost of your next spell by 15 energy (and a manapool of atleast 70 energy if you have elementalist as primary) and I could heal many people for a very long time without running out of mana.

I think you just didn't take a look at the charms you could get by talking to that one merchant who required 25 gold to even look at her stuff or the secondary skill salesman outside of the regular town.

[0hz]

Originally posted by Mazuli
Monk heals are much too weak. I never got healing breeze (I think you need signet of capture for it) so I'm speaking only from experience of buying spells from the two spell trainers. Orison of healing is very mana efficient and a nice small heal for people who just need a patch. However, the spell Heal Other is extremely mana inefficient (3x the mana cost for about a 50% improvement) so I never used it. Heal Area is useless because the radius is so small that I could never get more than 2 people at a time, though it is also the most mana efficient heal.

My monk healed by using enchantments. One enchantment heals a player whenever they get hit. Another healed a player whenever they attacked or cast a spell. These 2 combined on our warrior meant I never had to heal the warrior. These enchantments, orison, and resurrection were the only good spells for a monk who wants to be a primary healer.

In addition to wat Piriwi said...

If you had spec'd Divine along with your healing you could stacked Divine Spirit (buff, doesn't count as an enchantment) with Divine Boon on yourself which would have Heal Other doing 94pts for 10nrg. It doesn't stop there either...

Originally posted by Mazuli

My mesmer had a total of 2 good spells. The first (and best spell in the game, IMO) being Diversion. I had it stopping a spell from being recast for up to 58 seconds. This meant I could disable a monk from healing, I could disable an elementalist from doing big nukes, I could disable a warrior from knocking people down. 58 seconds was more than the average lifespan of any player in a small battle (unless they won). The other good spell was energy burn. This drained 10 energy and dealt 40 damage to the enemy, for only 10 energy. It is a fairly efficient nuke, fast cast, and drains their energy. Aside from these 2 spells, the rest had little to no use.

I didn't mind any of this. I thought my character was well balanced. I had some decent heals, good protection, great anti-caster capabilities. Unfortunately none of this means squat in Guild Wars. I spent the last day doing Guild Battles, I got our guild rating to about 1200, then just gave up. A team of 8 elementalists or a team of 8 warriors using hammers is unstoppable. 8 elementalists each using the fire rain spell (it stacks) will each be doing at least 15 damage per second, meaning you'll be able to kill everything in an area within 3 seconds. The area effect is pretty big so it would take the average player at least 2-3 seconds to react fast enough and get out. There are no tactics here and no skill. target a player, cast the spell, and watch them die.

A group of warriors is the same deal. Get 2 or 3 warriors on a single target, preferably a caster with low armor. Have them alternate the knockdown ability or earthshaker (which knocks down multiple targets if I'm not mistaken), hit them for more massive hammer damage, and win. Warriors can even outrun anyone, so chasing someone down and knocking them down is no problem. Warriors have incredibly high armor and paired with a monk secondary (or even monk primary and warrior secondary), they can use enough enchantments on themselves to never die. They can increase their hp, let themselves heal each time they hit someone, and so on. Again, this requires little to no tactics or skill. Just run up and knock down everyone till they die.

If you're familiar with guild battles, what you do is try to hold the flag in the middle to get a morale boost while taking over an enemy keep. You must kill their lord, who is protected by many archers, 2 clerics, the thief, and the 8 player team. Normally this is a difficult task (in fact a little too difficult considering it should be about the players, not the npcs) because 2 clerics can keep almost any target alive while many archers and the lord can kill anyone. A group of elementalists can just kill a couple archers and clerics before they can even get a spell off. The warriors can just charge in and kill the 2 clerics and win. This is what ruined Guild Wars for me. When we played, we had to actually think. We usually had to keep killing the enemies until their morale was so low they would not revive. Or we would make them hide inside their base, attack the archers and clerics while I disabled the clerics' healing, run away, and repeat until both clerics were dead. I loved doing this because it required skill and was definitely not an easy task. I'm still unsure as to whether or not I will preorder or buy Guild Wars, but I did have a lot of fun when I wasn't faced with imbalances.

In short, you don't know what you're talking about. You're just plain wrong about almost everything you said there.