official Guild Wars 2

[trag3dy]

Having it on weekends only ensures that more people will be playing for longer when they won't have to worry about work days. If they left the servers up for longer the servers wouldn't be stressed nearly as much.

At least that's why I assume they did weekend only tests.

[Pupik]

Less stress test (a short one; only four hours one) before release is scheduled to start in ~6 hours and counting.

http://gw2status.com/

[Alera]

Having it on weekends only ensures that more people will be playing for longer when they won't have to worry about work days. If they left the servers up for longer the servers wouldn't be stressed nearly as much.

At least that's why I assume they did weekend only tests.

Yeah, the only tests that were weekdays are the stress tests which just pop up from time to time of course, but you're right that does make sense. They could probably catch more bugs (at least the ones that aren't server stress related) but I guess it would take too much manpower as well to keep things running for longer while still trying to get the game to release stage.

- Alera :shiftyninja:

[Nagisan]

I like Shortbow for the Trick Shot (1st skill) which is just generally good although it's annoying when you're killing one mob and it bounces and hits a non-hostile mob and before you know it, you're being chased by too much :D and the Infiltrator's Arrow (5th skill) which lets you teleport around for added mobility in getting to places is really awesome in PVE, PVP and even WvWvW. The Cluster Bomb ability (2nd skill) which does the AoE isn't very good in my opinion, it already does very little damage compared to some of the other weapon abilities and they are apparently nerfing the damage of the skill again. But yeah Shortbow is a very good weapon to have that you can switch to as a means of escape or kiting mobs with the cripple and jump back using Disabiling Shot.

I mainly run Pistols and with the right setup, Unload can do serious amounts of damage, much more than some people think. Overall, Pistols is quite good, the only thing that really breaks it is the Steal mechanic, which forces you to go into melee range which I really don't like when I'm trying to run around and dodge things. The other thing is Stealth in the game and I understand why it is so but I don't like the way it makes the mobs run away and reset. :( Especially considering I play solo and it's not like I'm just breaking aggro for it to go after someone else, there is no one else. :cry:

Other than that Sword / Dagger and Dagger / Pistol builds seem to be very popular at the moment on Thieves forums.

Sword/Dagger is currently really weak, I believe Anet themselves said Sword on Thiefs is the most in-need of weapon tweaks. I messed with dagger/pistol a little bit but wasn't impressed (sub level 5).

And while the initial damage of shortbow's cluster bomb is not as high as it could be, it also applies bleed stacks, so it does more damage overall than just the number that flashes when it hits. I know what you mean about Trick Shot though, it's a great skill when you're already fighting things, but you end up pulling more mobs than needed. It's not an issue on already hostile mobs because they join the battle if you or one of their allies get in range.....but for neutral mobs it does cause issues at times, same as with any other aoe. The mobility offered from shortbow is a great boon though, you can throw a poison field down, then teleport to the other side after the mobs get to you and keep them in it longer.

Definitely looking forward to trying out dual pistols though, will probably try dual daggers for aoe as well (though it only has 1 aoe, and it is at melee, increasing damage I will take compared to shortbow).

[Alera]

Sword/Dagger is currently really weak, I believe Anet themselves said Sword on Thiefs is the most in-need of weapon tweaks. I messed with dagger/pistol a little bit but wasn't impressed (sub level 5).

And while the initial damage of shortbow's cluster bomb is not as high as it could be, it also applies bleed stacks, so it does more damage overall than just the number that flashes when it hits. I know what you mean about Trick Shot though, it's a great skill when you're already fighting things, but you end up pulling more mobs than needed. It's not an issue on already hostile mobs because they join the battle if you or one of their allies get in range.....but for neutral mobs it does cause issues at times, same as with any other aoe. The mobility offered from shortbow is a great boon though, you can throw a poison field down, then teleport to the other side after the mobs get to you and keep them in it longer.

Definitely looking forward to trying out dual pistols though, will probably try dual daggers for aoe as well (though it only has 1 aoe, and it is at melee, increasing damage I will take compared to shortbow).

I haven't tried Sword/Dagger myself, I've just been reading threads of GuildWars2Guru and other places with people talking about builds and that seems to come up often, the thing I've noticed is that some builds are very weak at low levels and scale very well as you level up and get more stats.

Ahh yes! I completely forgot about the Poison field, the bleeds damage is quite good though those can be removed, I guess I just want more direct damage on Shortbow. :(

Dual daggers seemed fun but in PVE I ended up having to stealth or weapon switch at low levels because I was taking too much damage compared to the damage I was putting out at the mobs which was why I switched to ranged thief, that and I find dual pisols really fun! :laugh:

I have to say as well, Caltrops are awesome! :woot:

- Alera :shiftyninja:

[trag3dy]

There is a fairly big update to download so if you guys want to make the most of the stress test today you should get your client downloading asap.

[Nagisan]

I haven't tried Sword/Dagger myself, I've just been reading threads of GuildWars2Guru and other places with people talking about builds and that seems to come up often, the thing I've noticed is that some builds are very weak at low levels and scale very well as you level up and get more stats.

Ahh yes! I completely forgot about the Poison field, the bleeds damage is quite good though those can be removed, I guess I just want more direct damage on Shortbow. :(

I'm more of a PvE player (I do PvP, just not nearly as often as I mess around in PvE), so bleeds are never removed.

I also read that the main problem with thief, is it's either really crappy, or godly at something. Basically at low levels it's really weak. but at higher levels, trait-ed right, it can be more powerful at things than other classes.

Dual daggers seemed fun but in PVE I ended up having to stealth or weapon switch at low levels because I was taking too much damage compared to the damage I was putting out at the mobs which was why I switched to ranged thief, that and I find dual pisols really fun! :laugh:

I had the same problem with daggers, it felt too squishy to fight in melee as a thief (not specifically D/D, but all melee combos), but, like you, I was only playing it at low levels so it wasn't much of a comparison.

There is a fairly big update to download so if you guys want to make the most of the stress test today you should get your client downloading asap.

If you use http://gw2status.com/ it will tell you when the last update was, so you can sort of keep track on when you need to open the launcher if you want to keep your client updated, but I've been opening mine every few days anyway so it's no more than 1-2 small updates out of date for me (it's easily gone through 6-7 total updates since the end of BWE3, which would add up to quite a bit had I not kept it up-to-date).

[+ir0nw0lf Subscriber²]

Stress test is exactly that LOL. Keeps booting me out ~every 5-10 min. And yes, I know it's going to do that during a stress test, just can't see staying in any longer. I keep getting set back about 1-2 minutes worth of killing/crafting. But I did contribute to the stress test. :D

[Nagisan]

I had a heck of a time logging on (took about 20 minutes before I could get past the character select screen)...haven't had a problem since.

Though this does have me rethinking my characters, still going thief main with warrior alt (at the start), but I'm going to make my thief a female norn instead of female human (I like the cultural armor that humans have more than norn, but I like the general physique and overall looks of the female norns over humans). Don't want to make both my mains norn (was going to make female norn warrior before this), so I think I'm going to go with male asura warrior, just because their armors look different.....might make a charr and try on the heavy charr armors, the character creation charr heavy armor looks pretty awesome....but I don't think I will find them as interesting/funny as Asurans, and the heavy asura armor looks pretty good despite being tiny.

[Skin]

everytime I start a new character I feel completely lost for the first 20-30 minutes :laugh:

Exactly. I nearly canceled my pre-order on my first couple tries.

I grew up on games with no tutorials and way-points and help, but in GW2 I just felt lost and unsure of what to do but randomly run up to random NPCs and look around. First game I played in a couple decades that I was like 'umm what's the point here, where do I go, how do i fight with this class, OMG I feel like a new born baby, not an adult in this world'...

but then it faded and I was like oooook, I got this.

[Daedroth]

I have pre-purchased my copy from Amazon for ?35. Not fussed about the pre-order version which grants you access 2 or 3 days before official launch, not for an extra ?15 anyway.

[Blackhearted]

I had a heck of a time logging on (took about 20 minutes before I could get past the character select screen)...haven't had a problem since.

Though this does have me rethinking my characters, still going thief main with warrior alt (at the start), but I'm going to make my thief a female norn instead of female human (I like the cultural armor that humans have more than norn, but I like the general physique and overall looks of the female norns over humans). Don't want to make both my mains norn (was going to make female norn warrior before this), so I think I'm going to go with male asura warrior, just because their armors look different.....might make a charr and try on the heavy charr armors, the character creation charr heavy armor looks pretty awesome....but I don't think I will find them as interesting/funny as Asurans, and the heavy asura armor looks pretty good despite being tiny.

I think quite the opposite. As a whole i think the norn have the better racial sets than the humans. All the the human ones aside from the level 80 light and medium are quite dull and boring, while most of the norn ones are pretty good.

[Xilo]

I think quite the opposite. As a whole i think the norn have the better racial sets than the humans. All the the human ones aside from the level 80 light and medium are quite dull and boring, while most of the norn ones are pretty good.

Don't really care for the Norn Heavy sets though. Humans have better.

[Nagisan]

Don't really care for the Norn Heavy sets though. Humans have better.

I agree....Half of the Norn cultural armors look really unbalanced (armor on one side, exposed on the other, etc), I might go back to female human thief and female norn warrior like I originally decided. My favorite female thief armor I've seen so far, is the character creation screen armor, and it seems like any race can wear it.....so there's no reason to change based on that, and the female Norn warrior armor at the character creation screen is my favorite warrior armor so far. Despite not liking most of the norn cultural armor there are pieces from each I like, and my current overall favorite (without seeing all the armors in the game) is race independent (or at least independent of norn or human since they share character models). And it simply makes more sense for the bigger of the two to be the warrior.

That being said, after using D/D on my thief a bit, it seemed to have decent damage and utility (AoE condition applying among, shadowstep in and out of combat, and stealth when needed), and it also seemed if I moved around the entire fight I rarely got hit in pve(circle strafe the mobs).....but I think if I'm going to be moving around, I might as well be hitting everything whether I'm in melee range or not with a shortbow (aoe) or P/P (single-target). Without kiting, I was getting mobs my level down around halfway before they could get to me with P/P, from there it was a matter of kiting for a few seconds or going melee. But I could use Body Shot (vulnerable) + Unload then kite with autoattack, and by the time they died my initiative was just finishing regening to full, making kill 1 by 1 more fluid and sustainable with P/P than other combos, and faster than with Shortbow.

Also heard Cluster Bomb was nerfed again (though unconfirmed reports) but I forced myself to stay away from shortbow this time to try out some different things. Still prefer it over melee for aoe though.

[spacer]

I haven't been paying attention to the thread, but can we patch the beta client for launch? Or do we have to download a new client from scratch?

[]SK[]

You use the beta client.

[Pupik]

Well, I'm ready for the launch. Just found out I'm off of work during 22th until Sept. second.

Would have been nicer if the free time started on the 25th, but I'm not really complaining. Still a good amount of free time to dive into the game :D

[trag3dy]

http://www.reddit.co..._youve_noticed/

List of things that people noticed that have changed from bwe3 to the stress test yesterday.

[Yogurth]

The biggest change that I have noticed in Stress test 4 was that the lighting quality in the graphics engine has gone up considerably, and the performance seemed better, but I can't vouch for it since the stress test 4 was empty compared to Beta weekend 3 and performance improvements could have come up from the lack of players.

Anyway GW2 feels like a finished product and I'm having a feeling that the weakest point of the game..Personal Story(IMHO) will be much much more important and larger in later missions than what we were allowed to see in Beta tests, since they felt isolated and too small and short so far.

Currently where GW2 has no real competition in MMORPG genre is the gameplay(much about that was said about it) and Art Direction. Concept artist have just like in the GW1 moved the bar up by several levels. Guys like Daniel Dociu and Jamie Jones imagined the incredible environments and characters and 3D artists completely pushed these concepts into 3D and made the game on a whole different level.

Looking forward to 25th.

[trag3dy]

The personal story missions will take you all the way to level 80. I assume they will lead us all the way to Orr, which is the "end game" area where the level 80 dungeons will be. Personal Story missions are far from the weakest part of GW2, I think.

The only concern I have is melee combat...but we'll see how that goes in about 3 short weeks.

[Blackhearted]

The only real concern i have with melee is how overpowered my guardian was in terms of survivability in normal world map pve.

[trag3dy]

The only real concern i have with melee is how overpowered my guardian was in terms of survivability in normal world map pve.

Well if Guardians are over powered then warriors are severely underpowered in terms of taking a hit. It feels like heavy armor is really made out of paper.

[Yogurth]

I wouldn't expect that all balance issues like those You mentioned will be resolved by the launch. It will probably take maybe a month to solve them after the data has been gathered on a massive scale..however balancing is not a game breaking issue and it should be easily solvable and it does not concern me as much.

[Wakers]

Well if Guardians are over powered then warriors are severely underpowered in terms of taking a hit. It feels like heavy armor is really made out of paper.

Guardians are much more survivable because they have block / retaliate / evade skills, coupled with the virtues that they can fire off that give healing / block / fury. There's only really two warrior weapon that have this kind of use (shield and sword)

[sdyaris]

Does anyone happen to know the go live time for August 25th?