Guild Wars 2 Thief – How traits effect skill tooltips

No matter which MMO I play, I always end up with a rogue-like class. The fragility, agility and trickiness of this class-archetype is what I enjoy playing the most! I may by far not have the skill to play them flawlessly but I love that you can theorycraft and plan so much with this archetype. So it comes as no surprise that I absolutely love the thief in Guild Wars 2.

During the beta weekend event, I recorded a video of the thief’s traits and how each of them effects the tooltips when you put 30 points into them. I put together a picture of all the weapon skills’ tooltips comparing 0 and 30 points in the traits accordingly. I stopped after that because it would’ve been too time-consuming for me to do the same for the utility skills… especially considering traits and skills can change between every beta event and release.

If you prefer, you can also just watch the video that shows all that but, of course, not at once. ;)

Now that the mesmer’s out: Which class do you want to play?

Guild Wars 2 has finally revealed its 8th class which, I’m sure, most of you already know by now. :) In case you missed it, here’s the mesmer on the official GW2 website (and they also posted a link roundup for the mesmer to see all the reactions and interviews they did!).

Now we know that Guild Wars 2 will allow us to play the engineer, thief, guardian, warrior, elementalist, necromancer, ranger and mesmer.

Did the reveal of the mesmer change your mind about which class you want to play first? Were you hoping for another class or is the mesmer all you ever wanted? Or are you now hoping your favourite class will make a return in an expansion? ;) In my case, I’d at some point hoped that the dervish will be introduced again but I knew this wouldn’t happen because the scythe wasn’t listed as weapon in the game (we did know which weapons will be in the game before we knew about all of the classes).

But my favourite class in Guild Wars is the warrior and there’s always some kind of warrior in games like these. ;) Besides, warrior was one of the first classes that were announced. By now, I’m just not sure anymore this is the class I actually want to play. My main concern is that the class is “too easy”. They did say that it’s the least complex class to play and since there are no tanks in this game, I guess its primary role is DPS.

I know that I don’t like the sneaky classes that first have to get into the back of the enemy before they attack – I definitely lack the patience for such a playstyle. And I get bored when all a class can do is deal damage. *yawn* I want to be useful to the group besides having a high DPS. I want to have some kind of support. I don’t, however, like the guardian too much. Don’t ask me why! ;)

Maybe a ranger would be nice as well? I tend to prefer ranged classes for having a better overview of the battle, especially in PvP. Then again, having a pet that needs to be micromanaged can get quite distracting. I’ll have to see how it works here in Guild Wars 2. Pet pathing is always an issue as well. I hope they can do it well. So far, I’ve been the least annoyed with it in WoW (well, once they made them able to jump down cliffs with my hunter instead of slowly and happily running down the paths we’d just tried to avoid… helloooo, Wailing Caverns). Warhammer was… ugh. Not too well. But I played an engineer and her turrets never moved, so I didn’t have a problem with that there. ;) I deleted my first loremaster in Lotro pretty quickly when after running around in the meadow and frolicking, my bear was gone. There had been no obstacles, nothing. It hadn’t been stuck. I now know that when your character gets a movement bonus (passively on items, so it’s always there), your pet apparently doesn’t get it. So after a while, it’s so far behind you that the game ‘puts it away’. And ArenaNet did write that you need your pet (That was in the Q&A on Reddit – which you can see in a nice-to-read-version here).
I quote:
Q: I it possible to play a ranger without the pet and manage on par with other classes?
A: No, as soon as you enter combat your pet comes out. Trust me, you will want them. :)

So I have to see for myself whether they did a good job with the pets or not. ;) But the part about “your pet comes out” when you enter combat sounds like it’s usually not there? Or maybe you can, if you want, put it away but never during combat. Either way, if it works automatically, then there’s no need to worry about your pet following you around all the time. On the other hand, not having it out is also a bit sad. I know I was sad when WoW changed it because I loved having my troll hunter on her raptor mount with her raptor pet next to her and now you can’t have your pet out anymore when you’re mounted. Anyway, WoW was also when I tried PvP with such a pet class and I had so much fun in Warsong! The crowd control and micromanagement – despite disliking it during PvE settings – was great in PvP.

The third class that’s now on my list is the mesmer. I like what I’ve seen so far and the utility this class brings sounds like fun. The teleporting from place A to B especially. Being able to play aggro ping-pong with yourself? Yes, please! ^^

Rift vs. LotRO vs. World of Warcraft – a closer look at all three MMOs (all entries in one)

This is the full version of entries that have been published in the last week! I just thought it might be nicer to have everything in one huge entry instead of in separate ones (either way: You can find all entries in the category labelled “rift vs. lotro vs. wow” on the right).

The topic I wrote some time ago about “Rift vs. LotRO” is still getting readers almost every day. Unfortunately, it is probably not the kind of topic they were looking for. So, since I’ve played both games (at least for a little while), I thought I would make an elaborate posting about those games. I’m also going to throw in World of Warcraft because, apart from playing it as well, the big majority of MMO gamers have played the game or know something about the game, at least. :) (After starting to write this, I realised how long this entry would be in the end and decided to split it into different topics to be posted separately. So expect a posting every day for the next few days!)

Before I start, a warning of sorts: This will be a biased review of those games! I can only judge what I have experienced myself or what other people told me. And no matter how hard I would try, I could not write an objective review because my own taste/preference will always play a role in how I view games. So please, keep that in mind. I also do not claim that this overview is complete. I might have forgotten something here and there.

Before I start, a short gaming history: I have started playing WoW in December 2005. I raided during Burning Crusade and have stopped with that part of game content before Wrath of the Lich King was relased. In fact, I quit the game for a long time (came back shortly before Cataclysm was released). I quit again at the beginning of this year because I had my diploma exams and had no time for gaming. I am now back in WoW for 60 days to experience the new low level content.

I started with LotRO in 2009. I am now an officer in a social/casual kinship. I have done a few raids but they were mostly lower level content (which is not as easy to run through as in WoW but still easier than when it’s at the matching level). I mostly play solo or do the small-group-content.

When Rift was released, I started playing that game. I had my account active for two months, then I quit. I have the least experience with this game as my character only reached level 20-something.

I am going to sort several aspects of the games into categories. Of course, the content sometimes overlaps, so please bear with me here while I am trying to sort it somehow logically. ;)

Race and class combinations

So it seems that Guild Wars 2 will allow every race-class combination which is great from a playability standpoint. No class will be underrepresented just because people don’t like the race it’s associated with.

I usually really love playing unusual combinations. I don’t absolutely need to have an unusual combination but so far, I seem to have fallen in love with the them quite often and I like that.

(Seen in picture on the left: My female dwarf rogue in WoW – most unusual combination? At least the runner-up, I’m sure ^^)

I’ve been thinking what I want to play when Guild Wars 2 released. I’m currently playing a warrior in Guild Wars and would really love to play that class as my main again. But I want an Asura! And I’m sure that it’ll not be the most popular combination (not with Norn and Charr around). So it could be perfect… except that this time and with this game, I’ve actually read more about the lore than I have about other games and it seems so unfitting to choose an Asura warrior. Wouldn’t it be an affront to my future Asura to make her a warrior? Wouldn’t she rather use her brain instead of her muscles?

There’s only one solution to it: The two unrevealed classes just have to be so great that I’ll toss the warrior aside and want to have one of those as my main (and, of course, it’ll be a class that uses spells or… anything tricky? instead of pure muscles).

And I’m sure all of this sounds totally irrelevant to those people who just play whichever combination is best and don’t care about the way their character looks. To be honest, I never understood why those people even play MMORPGs which are, at least for me, virtual worlds in which I virtually live and breathe. But that’s a different topic and to each their own. ;) I’d just like to end my little dilemma and either know that in the lore there are great Asuran warriors who care more about pure muscle power or that the next two classes are going to be great ones for my future little Asura girl. ;)