Welcome to the sixth and final part of the State of the Game for Guild Wars 2 for the month of May!
Phantaram’s Thoughts
Phantaram started by drawing attention to the several of the most dominant ways of winning a fight. The first is the mesmer focus skill (focus four) which pulls targets. It is an instant skill, with virtually no way of predicting or avoiding it, making shatter combos and the like effectively guaranteed.
The second is mass stealth openers, with the surprise having multiple players suddenly appear in the midst of burst skills and heavy crowd control being effectively an ensured first teamfight victor. Stealth openers also fit in perfectly with the third thing he brought up, the moa elite skill for mesmers, especially when cast through stealth so it cannot be interrupted or dodged, allowing them to drop a guardian from full without the guardian having any real chance to fight back.
Sharp was nodding along as Phantaram spoke about the moa skill. He commented how Arenanet had watched the recent tournaments and seen just how incredibly widespread the use of moa was, a realization which has definitely prompted them to look at the skill again, particularly with noticing a few potentially unintended effects (such as removing all of a minion master necromancer’s summoned minions).
Phantaram’s Fixes
Phantaram’s suggestion for making the focus four skill easier to deal with would simply be to add a delay between when the wall is placed and when the mesmer can break it to pull his enemies. It would give players a chance to dodge and force the mesmer to actually use the ability tactically instead of just drop and pop.
Regarding the mass stealth fight openings he noted simply shortening the duration an entire team can be stealthed would go a long way to correcting the imbalance. Having an entire team stealthed for 15 seconds can be hard to deal with or counter, but reducing the time to eight or ten seconds greatly reduces the overall trickier possible.
Replays?
Phantaram was very interested in whether or not Guild Wars 2 would introduce an actual replay mode to allow players to take time studying their mistakes. Sharp said he could not comment on it, but that something along the lines might be coming soon. Evan clarified the technology as being very different from the spectator mode they already have, making it a much more complicated prospect than it initially sounds like.
In Closing
The last thing anyone wanted the viewers to know was Jonathan Sharp telling everyone that he and the other Arenanet developers do, in fact, watch the forums. Just because they are not able to take the time to properly respond, they still see the complaints and conclusions and ideas people discuss.
We will be back with the State of the Game again in a few weeks. Until then, keep playing and mind the mists!
Part 6
