Guild Chat - Episode 51

The following is an unofficial, player-written transcript of the episode. The accuracy of this transcription has not been verified by ArenaNet.
The 51st episode of Guild Chat aired on August 17, 2017. Join Rubi Bayer and her developer guests Robert Gee and Irenio Calmon-Huang for Guild Chat, where they’ll discuss the nine new elite specializations coming with Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire™!
Transcription[edit]

Note: The text below hasn't yet been converted from raw subtitle text into pretty print like above.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhBf1Q6gTnY
we're offering nine new elite
specializations one for each of the
classes it's another way to customize
your play style you get to choose how
your character exists what they do how
they do it character progression means
having new options it's another way to
play
[Music]
hi everybody and welcome to a Thursday
guild chat that it's just really really
throwing me off it's super weird to be
doing this on a Thursday
I'm your host Ruby and we are getting
close to the end of elite specialization
week for path of fire you guys are going
to get your hands on the elite
specializations for the first time
tomorrow so we thought we'd take a look
at it a day early here on guild chat say
hi to our two dev guests but first we
need to talk about the awesome shirts
we're wearing because we love lying did
us an awesome favor and gave us a couple
of t-shirts to wear they've added path
of fire merchandise to the WeLoveFine
store in the Guild Wars 2 store it's
kind of a long it's kind of a long name
and I'm always like wait okay it's go
horse too and Pat the fire but they've
got a lot of people I know we're asking
about t-shirts and stuff
so they have the elite spec t-shirts
like we have and some mouse pads art
prints the commander tag like I added to
my shirt if you want people to follow
you around it hasn't worked yet but I'm
very excited so you can go to I think
Mark's got the URL on their divorce to
dot WeLoveFine comm for the merchandise
store and check out the path of fire
merchandise along with all of the rest
so thank you guys
at WeLoveFine for giving us some goodies
we very much appreciate that because I
was pretty much gonna go get them all
anyway so this saved me a few yeah so I
will let you guys introduce yourselves
and let's start looking at the elite
specs Robert your closest suit all right
I'm Robert G I'm one of the skills and
balance designers I'm a rainy along I'm
skills and balance designer a systems
designer in particular on the scales and
balance team all right well let's get
right into it and see what we're looking
at first
dancing Safari ii or a hollow smith what
did you guys have in mind when you were
building the hollow smith how did how
did this start out uh well the hollow
smith really started out as this kind of
we kind of explored a lot of different
types of tech
originally the scrapper was kind of a I
guess dirty tech Chara tech kind of
specialization so we wanted how to go in
the opposite direction with this one
make it more of a clean technology you
know like the guys in the white suits
who work on you know circuit boards all
day and the clean rooms so we try to get
a much cleaner feel for this guy and it
ended up being kind of more like light
based and it ended really helping that
theme which are like where the scrapper
was kind of more char tech based is a
little more in the asura tech type line
possibly with some overtones of like the
Zephyr right magics like they're very
clean okay and the treat line the treat
lines are different on these aren't they
just a little the hollow Smith is unique
from a lot of the elite specializations
I think we talked about this the last
time I was on the stream with the Reaper
that we kind of designed a lot of the
specializations so that they had themes
horizontally along the trait lines but
the whole Smith is unique in that he
kind of designs his treat his treatments
are designed vertically um each of the
vertical lines in the trade lines have a
particular theme and the theme is kind
of like build your own Forge it
originally started out as kind of build
your own lightsaber okay this is pretty
early on before we decided on the forge
the photon Forge systematic um but it
was really kind of like build your own
lightsaber so what are the parts of IC
well there's the emitter there's the the
crystal or the lens and then there's the
power source so the hollow Smith kind of
mirrors that and that he has these three
lines and they kind of represent the
projector the crystal and the is that's
only the power source it's more of the
battery but that it's the battery it's
the it's the heat it's the heat okay
yeah all right so what I'm really liking
the look of whatever you've done here so
Carl's kind of putting her through her
paces here and I'll let you guys talk
about builds and what players can do
when they start playing around with this
tomorrow
yes so I think with the the core
gameplay pattern that we've kind of
worked in with the Hollow Smith is the
heat mechanic when you're in your photon
forge mode you build heat and a lot of
actually pretty much all of your non
photon Forge skills gain bonuses when
you're above 50% heat so the general
gameplay loop is that you go into the
photon forge mode you fight for a little
while the skills are very powerful that
but they generate heat you kind of want
to heat your heat your Forge up a little
bit don't go too hot because you'll blow
up basically and then switch out use
your other skills and now they have
these cool bonuses and then once you've
cooled off a little go back into forge
mode and start will start that all over
again
but the traits are ways that you can
modify that behavior one interesting
thing about the trait lines for the holo
Smith is that the Halsman does not have
any traits that affect either its weapon
or its utility skills because those are
all built into the core the core
mechanic of the heat system so you won't
find any like 20% recharge on sword
skills or you know all of your utility
skills last 20% longer traits there
they're all kind of built-in so of like
one of his utility skills reduces is a
sun break and it has 50% reduced
recharge I think it's 50% if you are
above the heat threshold okay so that's
kind of just built we did we just kind
of rolled that in which let us really
heavily themed all the traits around the
forge that's that's the other unique
thing about the Kalos most
specializations that it's very heavily
themed around the forge and around the
special mechanic even more so than all
of the other specializations I don't
think there's a single trait that
doesn't affect the forge in any way in
some way that's right so yeah it's a
particularly entertaining mechanic
because some of the modifications that
you can make they they push things a
little bit further with the mechanic
then we tend to do like with other
professions in this case like the Grand
Master traits in particular the ones
that affect the battery since that's
your actual heat part and some of them
will well one of them increases the max
heat that you can have
others have change the functionality for
when you would otherwise blow up there
we did design this character with a
trait that allows you to intentionally
blow up to deal damage to your enemies
it reduces some of the penalty for
blowing up the penalty of which is you
do a fair amount of yourself I believe
it's about 50% of your base health that
you take your base help by the way so if
you take vitality it'll actually take
off less than 50% of your total health
this time kinda wants to run with a bit
of vitality in addition to more
offensive stats yeah
I'm really hoping that someone will
during the PvP weekend will come up with
a really cool ad build and just
intentionally blow themselves up
constantly yeah try to do a bunch of
damage that way I'm pretty sure it's
viable yeah you're pretty played around
I'm pretty sure can we get a house
what's the over-under here on we looking
and seventy seventy four or five percent
right around there that's how sure he is
all right
you only look a little bit nervous so I
watch these people are like
theorycrafting right now going alright
can explode myself yeah pretty much
alright uh you guys want to move on and
take a look at the firebrand
care for newspapers
big magnifying glass
it works alright so firebrand crazed
librarian yeah the sets and I think was
what from the dev Diaries earlier than
the book nerd gone mad
so yeah the the firebrand is the the
Guardians incarnation in the desert
region they pick up tomes which replace
their virtues and they start to use an
accent it's pretty cool they get access
to effectively a whole whole new set of
skills with each of their tomes that
deal massive damage they get to kind of
choose which role they want based upon
the tome that they go into and they gain
a set of mantras on the right or as
utility options that they can play
around with and we've tried to make the
the mantras feel significantly different
from the Mesmer mantras which many
players will be used to in indesign with
a firebrand we wanted to make sure that
mantras felt distinct between like a
heavy armor wielding class casting
mantras and you know a light armor
caster class using mantras one of the
big differences you'll notice with
Guardian mantras is that they cast in a
cone in front of you
whereas Mesmer mantris can traditionally
be cast like point yeah AO is either
centered on yourself or centered on the
enemy parents they're all a cone right
yeah they're all I think all of them are
cones right Americans so all all number
cones which means it really emphasizes
his role as a melee character yeah yeah
that's something that it's going to
require slight rejiggering of players
wave thoughts on playing in in close
range because they may want to take a
quick step back we're trying to weave
these additional instant abilities in so
that they can actually target their
allies in addition to just their enemies
well firebrand managers need they need a
little more preparation it's not just oh
yeah they have slightly longer cast
times and I think pretty long recharges
if you use the last charge
Mesmer managers by contrast have short
recharges and after you've used the last
charge it doesn't take too long for them
to come back online yeah yeah the
trade-off is the mesma or the the
firebrands mantras that they're all
instant cast once you've actually
charged them
and the rate at which you get them back
is much faster than the Mesmer's I also
get a measure to charge down they also
get a third charge it is more powerful
and so you can kind of choose whether or
not to sit on that final charge and then
just use it when you can you use it to
either save yourself or close out a
fight and then not have to worry about
it or you know continue to gain the
ammunition over time and just keep using
it every so often okay do you just want
to talk about ammunition a little bit is
this a good place better oh I think it's
an okay place to talk about it we built
the a munitions system partly because of
the mantras mandra's are really kind of
the ideal use case for that one of the
reasons we built it was because with
best the old best versions of Mesmer
mantras if you use that like one of the
mantras you had one manager left and the
fight ended your choices were really
kind of bad it was well I could use the
last manager on nothing and then wait
for it to recharge where I could go into
the next fight with one less mantra' so
the ammo system allowed us to have
restocking for example so that when you
were down a couple mantras and you were
at the end of a fight while you're
walking to the next fight the managers
would come back and you didn't have to
pay the large upfront casting costs
unless you really wanted to you're not
stuck with two not great choices yeah
effectively it also let us also give us
basically another kind of knob that we
can tweak with regards to power like in
addition to just the cooldowns you also
have the recharge times and the initial
cast being a major like a major
component of what you're paying into for
mantras with three kind of things that
we can tweak we can kind of spread them
out and in this case we couldn't do that
before we had a restock like you give my
mantras to another profession without
making them feel really really similar
so this kind of lets us do that what it
allows those allows to make skills that
you can use in succession but not
necessarily just spam them all the time
yeah you have to stop and think a little
bit yeah yeah yeah so what are you
hoping to see people do with fire in
this weekend I am hoping to see that
them experiment the living hell out of
all of the tomes I expect that they will
find quite a few things particularly
entertaining there
fifteen new skills off of your
professional mechanic is a lot of skills
and there's gonna be a fair amount of
experimentation I expect in particular
the more powerful skills towards the
four and five skills there you've got
large AOE effects I hope that players
pick up that the first like each of the
skills for that you gain from tomes they
actually kind of carry over mechanically
how they target between each Tom's so
all of the one skills target in a cone
all of the two skills target in an AoE
all over three skills target in an AoE
all the four skills leave a field that
affects you and your allies or enemies
in the case of justice and the five
skills all provide like a large AoE buff
to your allies so while there are 15 new
skills like there are five mechanical
deliveries that you can learn and if you
learn them in one tome you kind of get
that carry over with the other tomes
there's a lot to play around with yeah
yeah I feel like you're just gonna be
sitting there at your monitor with
popcorn I hope so
also the way and this is an honest
question and I don't know the answer the
way you said some of that makes it sound
like you've got things that you hid in
there you're hoping for people to find
maybe
okay I know that look for you I know
that I know that face I adore seen our
players discover new things and be like
wow okay that's cool yes interesting
what's wrong what you're thinking of
that you want people to find okay so how
about spell breaker let's take a look at
that one
that's gonna be that penalty
anyone spell birthday they don't care
about your magic they'll mess you up
yeah this is a complete departure from
like the Berserker that warrior had
before
yeah again we talked about this a little
bit with the Hollis myth where we try to
kind of go in the opposite the Matic
direction from the the heart of thorns
spec the in contrast to the part of
thorns warrior spec the berserker the
spell breaker is more of a calm and
collected warrior words as opposed like
in the wild and crazy' berserker just
goes in and mess people up the spell
breaker why are everywhere yeah the the
spell breaker by contrast is themed more
of you know instead of the raging
berserker kind of the calm and collected
like an ascetic like yeah the Hermit the
person that basically focused sound of
the blade master who studied their whole
life and has really mastered the use of
the of their weapons and things like
that so that was that that's kind of
reflected in the mechanics that's why
the stole because a counter that's why
the smoker doesn't have as many
adrenaline bars as a regular warrior oh
you wouldn't if hear that joke yeah if
you're if you're not you're not going to
go rage on everyone right you don't need
that much adrenaline that's a character
that has like playing into it the the
counter mechanic that they gain it's
it's all about timing it's about timing
focus yeah observing your opponent and
knowing exactly when to use your
abilities because you become that that
n'sync yeah a lot of players of that
I've seen on the force picked up on this
a little bit but he's the the War of the
spell breakers themed in kind of a
classic duel duel class method of kind
of a warrior Mesmer from classic classic
Guild Wars 1 we some some of some of the
elite special H kind of theme in this
kind of duel class man looks like it's
it's Mesmer through the lens of warrior
that may if that makes sense it does
yeah I just didn't thinking about that
it's like how would how would a warrior
do mesmera things basically like the he
does it differently than a Mesmer like
he does it make clone he doesn't make
illusions of himself but you know
instead instead of I guess instead of
creating illusions to deceive other
people he sees through deceptions
I feel like we missed the boat on the
tagline of how would a warrior do Mesmer
things it was somewhere that needed to
be so you guys and give it mention to me
that you've wanted warriors to be able
to remove boons for a while
well tradition okay I have a note here
that says blame Hugh but I don't
remember what it just says blame Hugh
that's Olly yeah well you he was our
resident warrior advocate certainly at
the company
but yeah warriors Trisha Lee didn't have
that many ways to deal with booze they
had one trade destruction of the
Empowered which gave them more damage
against foes with spoons but you know if
you're fighting a guy with a whole bunch
of boon cereal isn't really a whole lot
of responses you could have in that in
that in that regard
um and spell burg kind of gives them a
lot of interesting options to deal with
those types of enemies yeah there's an
entire the entire top line is about like
making sure the enemy doesn't have any
booze the middle line is about
countering improving your counter and
the the third line is kind of a kind of
catch-all line for I kind of theme it as
the the no escape line it's for home
it's for pates for putting down slippery
targets like these or Mesmer's who try
to run away from you yeah it's the
caster killer yeah some of it some of
the thematics from the spell breaker
actually came a little bit from
nightfall in Guild Wars one nightfall
there were a couple skills called what
was it
its main killer yeah mage killers yeah
no mate major it was if there was a
major strike and may-treanor smash and
so that was cut and those were warrior
skills in nightfall so we kind of took
that theme and kind of ran with it like
what would what would a war who's very
good at fighting mages look like and you
kind of see that that carry over in
language as well on the Grand Master
trait for the spell breaker the mage
main tether that one that we just saw a
moment ago
so that's that's kind of your your way
to ensure that anyone seeking to escape
from you can't quite actually get away
mm-hmm I'm sure watching I could of
watching reduced rates on here I can't
tell from where I'm sitting what he's at
dagger dagger yeah yeah we ended up
going with dagger dagger for warrior
partly cuz it's like you know warriors
kind of a weapon master kind of expert
like I mean yeah if you ask me I suppose
we just because I thought 1 dagger
wasn't quite cool enough all right that
it works for me this sounds this sounds
like partly blamed Robert well the other
reason was because it allowed for some
some of the interesting combos we were
going for like is the core duel dagger
combo is to jump in with the to skill
which slows the enemy and then while
they're slowed you can interrupt them
three skill which if it interrupts will
stun the target for a longer duration
and then while they're stun you can use
the four skill which does twice as much
damage if they're not using any skills
that make sense yes I need to get in
there and do it and they don't make more
sense but it was a really fun and
rewarding combo so yeah there are ways
that you can break out of it but yeah
you actually have to spend some
resources to break out it like you can
try and dodge out of it like that that's
always a potential fallback but it's
like the recognition of hey look this is
what's starting to happen I need to
probably need to get out of this before
that fourth that fourth skill comes in
on me because that's gonna be the big
payoff for them and so like you can try
and like early if you if you dodge at
the wrong time like you're still gonna
get hit by the latter parts of the combo
yeah that's me over there swearing and
banging on the V key so what do you see
happening with this one this weekend I'm
expecting to see this guy in world view
world a little bit um
the elite really little bit yeah
the elite covers a large area and really
denies a lot of the booth and basically
just it shuts off all boons in that area
so it's a very effective tool for
dealing with jerks
has a very high target count too should
be very interesting like means by which
they essentially it's some some places
the battlefield control yeah you can
block off you can block off areas that
seem like that if you can for if as
herbs running through a Canyon or
something like that for example you can
drop that barren it's like well if they
run through the canyon they lose all
their boons basically yeah and not just
necessarily lose to all their boons but
like you there are traits that will
inflict damage based upon brew removal
or boon denial so you really actually
want to wait it's not like you just get
stripped of all your your your cool and
nifty tools but it sucks a whole lot
more than yeah yeah all right
well do you guys want to see what we
have next sure okay sure we're dealers
okay so the scourge is the Beckerman
necromancer's a new elite specialization
and it's kind of what what do
necromancer's do in the desert there's
you know a particular set of undead type
of creatures that exist in the desert
you get like the ideas of mummies and
things of that of that nature and style
and I was like you can't say mummy it's
yeah so like the scourge gets a whole
new set of abilities trading off their
shroud for it typically they've had been
like kind of individuals that move
around and then do significant amounts
of condition damage largely with the
necromancer they gain like more of the
ability to become battlefield commanders
they get the ability to control
different areas of the battlefield and
not just written near where they are but
at places where they put out sand shades
in this case so as Carl's demonstrating
there he's got sand shades at each of
the golems and like in an area around
them that's that's where his abilities
are going to affect things each of his f
skills plays off at every location for
each of the shades kind of giving him
ranged control but also firing from the
necromancer themselves yes it's the
skirt is also kind of a extension of
what we were looking forward to see
other interesting ways for necromancer
to support their their allies the blow I
have few support abilities in it and
we've particularly after their recent
yeah that we put out yeah and like as we
and as we've kind of developed the
necromancer over the years we've added
some small other ways for a necromancer
to support like I mean they always had
wells but we like I think at some point
blood its power changed to be an ally
buffing skills so we've kind of slowly
been experiment different ways to add
support to the necromancer which is it
was kind of a selfish class I think on
launch at least its Anisha they've kind
of always missed but we couldn't just
give it to them straight out
well it would be pretty hefty power
creep so there's a little bit of a
trade-off there like they they lose some
of their their personal defenses and
trade that offer group support which
also can support them so but I really
like how the the barrier mechanic works
so well for the necromancer because it
kind of it's kind of like you're giving
that shroud which is basically a hit
point buffer on you to out to your
allies so like it ended up being very
thematic for the necromancer in that one
that way yeah I do want to talk about
development of the scourge a little bit
because this kind of this went in a
couple of different directions sand
shades were bone piles for a little
while the skills weren't punishments you
were looking at life force yeah there
was a lot before we got here it's true
so previously they were yeah as you
point out bone bone piles instead of
like these kind of disembodied souls and
that it didn't work super well like
visually it was felt cluttered you
didn't get this sense of like this was
something that you were in viewing it
was just kind of there's something
physical there cool here's this thing
yeah like oh okay I was just randomly
appear in different places Oh still have
some skeletal stuff I think on the fear
the fear ability though yeah if the F
for garish pillar is it it kind of
raises a disembodied skeleton that fuse
yeah enemies around you and around each
of your sand shades so it's pretty
awesome
there's also the as you alluded to the
sacrifices skills that we used to kind
of have as utilities the idea behind
some of those in early prototyping was
that they would consume some of your
life force as part of your utility
skills we pulled back on that because it
didn't feel cohesive like typically life
force gets used by the necromancer
through their shared stuff so we kind of
took that initial idea and from the
utilities and put them back on to the
shroud skills themselves
kind of better unifying the theme and
instead we put in punishments which
there are a couple traits that you can
interplay with to gain life force from
them the fundamental component of
punishments that's kind of cool is that
each of those skills whenever they
affect an enemy they corrupt a boon and
the corruptor boon not just into a
single condition but two specific
conditions of torment and cripple which
are two conditions that play really well
with each other since you move at a
slower speed and you take increased
damage when you move so you need to move
further to actually do that so it hurts
more exactly yeah
one thing I wanted to point out with
what Carl was doing here is that um you
can get a very large area of control
um see in a little earlier he was
hitting like like nearly every single
one of the goals with the same yeah you
get a very large area control but one
thing to remember is that um just if
you're hitting with multiple sand shades
or if a foe is in the area of more than
once and shaded they'll only take the
damage once I believe yeah that's right
it's because we didn't we wanted to
avoid the potential behavior of a person
literally just putting all three cities
on the exact same spot and just standing
there because that's that's frankly a
really boring way to play yeah we want
you to spread the sand shades out so
they cover so that that's why they it's
about battlefield Country share the love
yeah yeah yeah this is also something
that because not all of these shroud
abilities are just offensive being able
to do things like cover multiple groups
of allies with your sand shades become
something that's a lot more interesting
and viable um so you don't have to
necessarily be with your allies you can
you can be with a ranged group and you
can put a SAN shade in with the melee
group end effect both of them so you're
not just helpful within this one little
area yeah precisely dropping all the
sand shades in one place yeah gives you
presents in other places yeah which is
kind of devastating it seems like it
could be a little devastating anyway so
yeah like I'm curious to see how well
players pick that pick up on this and
start dropping sand shades in various
choke points and control areas in
worldly world in PvP
yeah like Carl just a little earlier was
demonstrating one of the grandmaster
traits that trent that coalesce is
normal you can have up to three shades
in the world and they affect small areas
you can also summon like a much larger
shade that affects a much greater area
and that also empowers you
so when whenever you fire one of your
skills it affects up to ten targets and
in a much greater area what did I ever
do to you yeah standing here you're
hurting us so much but that was gonna be
my next question was what are we gonna
see happening with these this weekend
yeah I think we're gonna see hopefully
some controlling components going on in
worldly world and in PvP
yeah with life blast whatever yeah okay
all right well so life blast has come up
yeah so the Shroud skill of one is
actually going to trigger the traits
that are based off of that that fire
from each of the traits that affect that
slot of your shroud skills same with all
of the others because in the core
necromancer profession that each special
is well each of the shroud skills has a
trick that can affect them like a
transfusion affects your shroud force
skill pulling allies to you and that'll
work off of this scourge is a shroud for
skill well not their shroud skill per se
but it'll work off of their profession
for skill so like the profession that
each of the shroud skill traits affects
the profession skill of the scourge I'm
interested to see sin shades everywhere
I I'm curious to see them as well and
the skill that Carl just used is one
that I look forward to seeing players
play around with a fair bit as well it's
called sans swell and it creates a
portal between you and a targeted
location that other allies can use and
whenever an ally uses it they also gain
a barrier passing through it so it's
kind of like we could port you into
potentially dangerous area but you get a
little bit of like mitigation for that
it also allows room like in combat fast
Travel it doesn't go as far as the best
report although so they really do still
have different uses
yes reporting as my shirt obviously he's
got to expound upon are actually
obligated to say that but yeah so you'll
see things like the Mesmer portal being
used still to port people from one
location to another largely out of
combat but occasionally in like like
combat mitigating situations where as
the scourge is one is is much more of a
in combat like we need to get from point
to point really quickly how do I get my
group over here and out of this
potential danger zone oh here we can I
can do this without having to drop a
portal and then run over there I can
make it happen
I believe internally we've seen some
some folks try some interesting things
on some of the raid bosses to to move
around I quit I think so like so like
for example I think I think it was I
think was course appalled yeah
it allows people to stay dpsing course
of all for a lot longer before they run
over to the wall to jump to jump to the
gliding portion you know duly noted
yeah buy a few extra seconds whenever
necessary or potentially safe as someone
who might not have a safe you can like
drop a portal out to them and then they
can immediately use it you'll appear
there but then you can port back to
safety as well so running there drag
mount real quick kind of yeah you guys
pacifiers almost here so no no that was
that was excitement okay we are so close
to you guys so that's your assignment
yes I mean specifically because we're
talking about necromancer lots of terror
there right there yeah all right let's
look at the Dead Eye cuz this one's
super fun to me the other okay the other
kind of scary call this the other kind
of scary
[Music]
tell me about this long-range scary
shoot you have nowhere class so I think
cover us a little bit than one of the
dev Diaries but the the main goal is
that you know thief's really didn't have
a long-range weapon per se so we wanted
to like really explore that with the
Deadeye
we had a smack and stick yeah and again
again and again this is another another
situation where we try to go in kind of
the opposite direction of the hearth
Lauren's class um the the daredevil is a
very dodgy melee focused up close and
personal yeah vision whereas the den is
a little bit the opposite it's a very
long range but it actually sacrifices
some of its mobility to get some of that
damage at that range normally um one of
our balance concerns is that a ranged
character can't really do as much damage
as I melee cared we try to make sure
that their damage is a little lower
it'll increase safety that they get from
being a train having them potentially a
little more mobility like that has to
come off of something and yeah damage is
usually one of the better places to do
that's a trade-off yeah so so they did
AI is an interesting case because the I
can't actually do as much damage at
range as he doesn't melee range on some
of his skills but the conceit though is
that you have to be kneeling for that on
the rifle and the rifle has a skill v
which changes basically changes your
changes your combat stance I prevents
you from moving which means you're very
vulnerable to attack from such as like
people dropping a ohi's on you can't
immediately get out of it you have to
either cancel the skill we do allow you
to roll but because you don't get three
dodges like the daredevil you're
repositioning abilities are limited he
doesn't have very many ways to configure
so if you really do want those extra
dodges while you're kneeling you'll need
to spec into things that like acrobatics
to give you a little bit of extra
endurance it seems like it's a trade-off
for that patience and yeah being out of
one of the courts of the Dead Eye when
we were building it was this idea of
patience I think that was actually one
of the names of the traits early on was
was patience which we ended up changing
the name later but it was in order for
us to really allow you to do the
incredible amount of damage that we want
this character to do thematically I
think thematically wanted you know the
rifle to do a lot of damage at range but
I think balance wise that was a bit of a
struggle because as soon as you let a
range weapon do an incredible incredibly
high amount of damage like what's the
point of the melee weapon right yeah so
our way of kind of balancing that was
this new mechanic that he has called
malice and the way it works is when
you've after you've marked a character
you slowly generate malice over time and
by time gating things like that like
malice isn't really a resource although
some skills will benefit from some
skills do benefit from malice and they
stay scale with malice you can't really
consume malice like it's not it's not
it's not a resource like initiative
where you build it up and then consume
it yeah it's something that just kind of
builds up over time there are a few ways
there then there are very few ways to
increase it there's like well they're
like one trait there's like one or two
traits that can actually increase your
malice rate gain but the main way to
increase your malice raking is just to
attack yeah and that was done
specifically because if it wasn't done
the the other type of gameplay that we
wanted to avoid would happen of you're
just standing it up at a far distance
building up a bunch of stealth and then
just waiting there and then just
eventually popping out someone yeah we
went shopping at Target we did have
about some of our our testers actually
do that it was it was it was very it was
a little too easy for them to do that so
requiring the attack allows us to make
sure that if you don't if you don't
attack and just want to stay in stealth
that is a valid way to play but I don't
think it's very effective it takes like
20 plus setting up to build Alice
packing it's like that less than half
that time I think okay yeah so but but
still there is a build up before you can
unload your real art your large damage
packets but there are also other rewards
for being patient one of the one of the
miners perfectionist gives you like
about over half the boot lights like 75%
of the boons in the game if you've
reached five stacks of malice so it's
very powerful in that regard because
you'll get a large boost he's a lot of
he has a lot of modifiers you can use
right right when you need it yes so the
the core gameplay is you Mark you Mark a
target you use your other rifle skills
to kind of build yourself up there's a
rifle skill
it's for nobility on your targets you
want to try and stack 25 stacks
vulnerability on them there's a rifle
skill that gives you might so you want
to try and get your might as high as
possible before you before you release
your desk judgment which is the kneeling
skill for which is kind of where all the
damage comes from yeah very expensive
but pretty hefty yeah dead eyes dead
eyes I think looks still on large single
target enemies because you can sometimes
get two or three deaths judgments off
before the mark wears off but if you but
we know that there's a lot of players
you like to play you know open-world
with a lot of smaller smaller moves he's
not concerned yeah and and i don't i
don't while i don't think he's as
effective against like large Zergs like
a daredevil that's kind of the point of
the specialization system but we did
give him tools to deal with the
situations where you kill an enemy too
fast for the mark to really really build
up yeah there's a trait for example that
refreshes your mark whenever the target
dies and since the market Herot steel
you can basically just proc all of your
steel traits on a guy kill them off
really quick change the next guy it's
instantly recharged fire it fired off
again all your traits looks prog and you
get you you get your mug you get your
serpents touch you get bountiful theft
you get all those all of those cool cool
steel traits can just proc one after the
other one a lot of different guys so
it's still fairly effective yeah it's
really you split but he's still more
single target focus where do we play I'm
gonna run in swing my staff everywhere
world is more about take this guy out
quick switch targets take this guy out
what your targets take this guy out yeah
and you can kind of do that if you're
particularly like high APM's you can
pull that off like as things are dying
in a large mob or at a large group of
mom but yeah you're gonna have to really
pinpoint about such things
it also has can trips which do help to
deal with some of those components and
they're I think they're pretty cool for
what they do if some of them help with
positioning some of them help with
situations where an enemy gets gets on
you and other ones are there to help set
up a kill but even even even in those
situations on like a lot of the can
trips are based around you know being
patient
those kind of things there's a can trip
which takes it which you which activates
fairly quickly but takes a few seconds
to actually hit hit the enemy and during
that time you have to make sure that
it's ready for them it's ready for the
enemy to be hit but that but that can
allow you to set up like other delayed
attacks in that regard or the heal
scales better the more malice you have
so it's it so if you're finding a lot of
small mobs you might want to use a
befriending a big boss it becomes a very
effective heal so this probably isn't a
let's take our dead I am run it to the
Zerg in world versus world this weekend
oh I think I I think
a lot of people are expecting good eyes
to be really really interesting world
works you can use them to pick off
people yeah there's there's somewhat
more interesting viable as a scout as a
roamer
yes Zerg like you could still play some
of them but I think you have to change
some of the way that they were that off
yeah I think I think I think I heard a
lot of really excited about trying to
shoot shoot people out of the sky yeah I
think the thing that about will be world
that I think is gonna help a lot is that
it is a 1200 range weapon for the--
absolutely so if you are deserting
you're running around I don't think
you're gonna get as many benefits
because at least from the the high
damage aspect but you'll definitely get
benefits out of the range aspect because
thieves I don't think it ever stay at
this range in a zerg when they were
fighting yeah they tend to go swish so
you have there's an extra affordance of
safety basically but you probably give
it how much is always move around I'm
not expecting them to need to kneel too
much unless there's like a keep defense
or something like that so people gliding
in world versus world just thing I'm
I've heard I've heard gliding in world
versus world is a thing and I am
suddenly delighted at the prospect of
dead eyes just picking them off I think
there will be some fun gameplay that it
starts to exist that was not very nice
of me I'm sorry let's talk about the
renegade so I don't feel so bad
moving right along
anything I said
hydras great I love I love the hydrants
off I killed it
yeah but the capitation let's start with
the ring renegade and our new legend
okay so if the legend is of Kalos Court
razor and she was a ridiculously badass
female char a long time ago who united
the leap well United female char to help
the legions in their fight against the
flame region and when the United legions
were basically getting their asses
handed to them she busted out her secret
army and kind of turned the tide of the
war ocala yeah so she was basically an
ambush commander and we tried to bring a
lot of that cross in the way that she
plays with the red with the revenant
like her short bow strikes from odd
angles like she she can fire things into
the mists and have portals appear in
different locations she works really
well off of the colors fervor buff that
you gain whenever you flanking you
strike an enemy from the flank or behind
or when you critically strike them so
it's possible you could actually gain
two buffs with one strike if you are
both flanking and critically strike
don't get in the right way and her to
skill on but really helps with it
because it fires the arrows from
multiple different angles yeah
so it's it's a chance for you to if
you're not behind them you can actually
like potentially strike them from behind
so that's pretty cool I I'm a big fan of
seven shot we've put a lot of skills
into the game that have been like a kind
of shotgun based where you want to stand
really really close to someone even if
you're using a range weapon because you
might hit them you know more times I
don't think that's super healthy
necessarily because it makes range
characters basically stand with melee
this one kind of does the opposite and
you actually want to standing it like at
a bit of a distance and if you do it
right you'll strike them with a whole
bunch more missiles the
you would have otherwise so that's kind
of cool
she has tools that kind of with her
short bow skills let her keep foes at
range in particular the five skill is
like a cascading AoE knockdown that kind
of sets her up to take them down with
their other with her other short bow
skills there's one thing I wanted to
clarify quickly which was on some of the
utility skills I've seen some people
speculating about summoning her warband
allies and the ward and alleys are
killable they don't particularly use AI
like a lot of the other creatures that
you might see in the game like gyros and
such there are a lot more like Ranger
spirits in that you summon them and they
do a particular thing so this kind of
gives you the ability to put them out
into an area that you kind of now get to
affect in a special way depending upon
which Ally you summon some of them pop
up your allies others disrupt your
enemies so you kind of get to pick and
choose which parts of those like you
need in the moment one of the goals I
think we had early on with kala was this
idea of an offensive support character
and like the the the war band members
are ways to support your allies through
offense rather than with the help
discourage puts barriers on you for
example not which is the more defensive
a defensive oriented type of support
yeah kind of playing up once again the
comparison to previous lead
specializations because they're an
exclusive choice the glint Herald
specialization that you had previously
was a very defensive supporting kind of
passive ally Kali is meant to be much
more of an active offensive ally you
need to stay in that area in order to
maintain the benefits so positioning
positioning your war band members
appropriately is actually really
important for this character I'm curious
about the development we had talked
about how many of these skills and how
the traits fit in with the actual lore
of this character who did you how did
this all come together so well I mean
did you have to just go to narrative and
be like so I need a thing we week well
coordinated pretty heftily with some
some narrative on this rien particular
adorns the character of kala so we were
closely coordinating with her about it
so the trade lines themselves the the
top middle and bottom tiers they're
intended to be slightly they're
basically reminiscent in each ways for
the ash legion blood legion and iron
legion so the top line like one of the
first traits that you can acquire is a
ashen demeanor which is based off of
kind of disabling since the ash Legion
is about being kind of more stealthy
like a disruptive type of characters the
bloodline Legion is
of stuff so they're much more damage
centric much more to the fore and iron
Legion is more about a bit defense
supporting your allies in that kind of
fashion
even though Colin's overall a pretty
offensive character we wanted to give
her an option to play a bit more
defensive and so kind of similar till
the hollow Smith with some of the
verticality of the lines with the
renegade your first three your atom
traits the options there are kind of
exclusive but they all well they are
flat-out exclusive but they give you
options that all kind of have the same
trigger like each of them gives you a
bonus by giving fight giving you another
way to gain collars forever but the
trigger for it is themed according to
each of the legions effectively so when
you disable a foe you gain collars
forever when you gain Fury you gain
College forever when you evade an attack
you gain collars forever like those are
those are three potential options you
get to choose from like which type of
style of play which of those things do
you expect it you're going to be having
happen most frequently yeah and it's not
just call this forever you also get
another benefit that's kind of thematic
at each of those lines accordingly
another thing that I hope the players
will pick up and certainly those missing
of the stream will is that each of the
grandmasters she gains wealth the
revenant gains the three new profession
abilities there are three op skills two
or three out of four and each of the
grandmasters effects one of those skills
so it kind of upgrades each of those
skills according to which one you select
so that's what currently showed you is
pretty much my favorite abilities
it was initially something that was
looking at some of the design for the
holo Smith when I stated the holo
special hold on to his weapons yeah was
this fits really really well for kala
because and the revenant in particular
because your portal is opening up into
the MIS opening up into different parts
of time and space and belief in
particular
and so some of the conceit behind the f3
skill Citadel bombardment is that you're
opening a portal to a time when the
regions were actually united and you
know you've got this like gigantic char
army and they're firing missiles and
you're just opening a portal there and
just some of those are passing through
into your neighborhood if you have a
legendary by the way yes
try try using that skill with a
legendary yeah all of the missiles will
get replaced with legendary effects so
if you're if you're running around with
the dreamer you can open up a portal to
basically the entire charge which are
shooting unicorn it doesn't have to be a
short boat you know that skill is a
profession skill so you can do it while
you're equipped with like yeah
since the revenant can have access to
like I say never more
you can like equip a staff and fired
like Ravens ghostly Ravens out of the
portal thank you
we're Tigers yes supervisors there
they're running to can you have a yeah
portals to the tiger dimension a couple
times oh yeah I think so that should be
plenty of fun I think that the I
understand that's awesome whose idea was
that during work during work actually
not quite I had to make sure that that
happened but yes like it was pretty good
it was pretty sweet
I thought that was something we couldn't
leave out yeah that's amazing
oh yeah I think it was because we were
doing the a lot of the other skills like
the the missiles that come out of the
pores from around the enemies are doing
that but the they don't want barment
wasn't so we yeah anyone that needs to
do that I wish I could have seen
whoever's face the first time that
happened and I think it's like the first
are you doing that thing like all of our
testers try it's they have access to all
the legendaries yeah yeah they were like
oh oh god how does this look with oh my
gosh so it's pretty cool that's
incredible I love it yeah alright I
think that's probably a good time it's
not gonna get better than that
so it's probably a good time to go to
the Mirage
we shortbow right now open the only
legendary I have it
[Music]
Robert would you like to talk about yeah
so I the wrong car first elite
specialization that we really really
fleshed out I think yeah there's always
first death that's the rule right
chronic was first part born I'm waiting
for Stephane to like kick the door and
be like yeah yeah but this was I think
we mentioned again this is something
else we've mentioned one of the
developer Diaries I think or maybe it
was in the video but the Mirage early
came about when we were just kind of
spitballing named loosely we knew we
want we wanted to go to Alona
we said yeah what's the name of Italy
special ation and someone in the room
said Mirage and that basically defined
the rest of dignity yeah we were we we
had the name from the beginning in the
name really drove a lot of development
and what the class did Mike his heel for
example some was a little oasis kind of
the classic classic Mirage that you see
in the distance all his abilities have
these kind of kind of misty San Sam
themes where the blur effect is the
channels of sand like yeah the blur
effect allows you to you know just let
attacks pass through you just like a
mirage you see in the distance so like
that really drove a lot of the theming
it was a really it was a really strong
way to keep it to keep everything
cohesive as a as we developed this guy
well and a big push for this too the
thing that was interesting to me was
that you had the mirror tech from a
concept artist yes and that was like a
big driver yes oh the mirror thing you
know the mirror thing wasn't really a
design inspired thing that it came from
a different source what ended up
happening was one of our concept artists
was looking for concept pieces to kind
of get the Mirage theme pulled together
and they pulled it I think an image of
like a desert kaleidoscope kind of thing
and one of our effects artists saw that
concept art and built this mirror which
I don't think it's actually changed
since he originally built it know if you
want you can summon the mirror really
quick that I don't believe it changed
significantly I think you got a little
sandier and I think he's got a little
brighter but overall it didn't change
from the original development he said
hey he came to me and said hey I made
this effect I thought it would be cool
yeah any place you can use it that'd be
cool and we did started developing with
that particular aesthetic and image in
mind it's like what do you do with a
mirror well mirror can shatter and we
kind of built a lot of his mechanics out
around that around around the mirror
system yeah bad luck for them good luck
for you yes very much so
what do you see the Mirage doing this
weekend uh I think the more I kind of
seen the Mirage frustrating a lot of
people this weekend it's super happy
about this yeah what we're doing with
Mirage I think we've given people Mesmer
players some tech that I think which is
this is also new tech that we've
developed specifically for the Mirage
you can retarget your illusions on with
a couple that with a few of his skills
so it allows and when you retarget your
illusions you you briefly become
untargetable so what it does is if if
enemy has you targeted when you use an
either of these skills they lose their
targeting which means it allows you to
shuffle amongst your illusions specific
loans because it is incredibly annoying
yeah yeah I just FYI oh yeah so it
allows my designs to shuffle amongst
your clones we also allow clones to
perform the special ambush attacks that
that you can do if it wasn't obvious I
think from the idea of the ambush tax
and the deception skills this is kind of
a mess for thief yeah automatically now
he has deception skills which are all
about confusing the enemy they're all
stuff that kind of same defense a lot of
have like a similar defensive feel to a
lot of the themes like the deceptions
are generally defensive so it's like a
lot because you his deceptions are also
defensive in that way let's see and then
discuss the ambush skills as well as in
particularly a more skills are basically
kind of themed a little bit after the
whole idea this the thief's stealth
attacks like if you're still you get a
special attack on your one skill whereas
with the Mirage every time you blur you
get it your one skill becomes a special
attack for each of the weapons and then
you wield hmm so
yeah so a set of new skills that like
each of the base weapons also gets if
you're running as a mirage yeah so so we
ended up at so they're actually I think
seven or eight new attacks basically
because it's only four main hand weapons
you don't get you don't get a new
ambushed check for your offhand since
only in the one skill but um there's a
whole new skills experiment with they
kind of provide different options for
for the Mesmer in those situations where
you can dodge an attack basically it's
kind of a it's an interesting way to
like you know avoid an attack and then
also counter-attack at the same time the
idea of the Mesmer thief is interesting
I haven't looked at it like that until
you said that they went have yeah
they're very good at like short-range
mobility effectively like in particular
their elite skill plays into that like a
multi charge skill that just kind of
jumps you to a nearby place and also
yeah it allows you to basically
reposition yourself you lose a little
bit of mobility with the new mechanics
and you don't dodge role anymore but
what you lose in mobility you gain and I
guess flexibility you it allows you to
basically hold on if you want to use
that ambush if you'll need to use it a
crowd of guys it's bet that one's better
in a group of guys yeah the training
component yeah well there was a place
where there were like 40 golems yeah it
looks a little better when you use it
use it in large groups but like I was
saying sorry I lost it well there's
there's the blurring component yeah and
the actual the the loss of mobility
there you you get the flexibility which
is one particular thing that people are
looking forward to out from what I've
seen yes so it allows you to do two
things the first is that it allows you
to cast skills while dodging so normally
if an enemy is winding up a large TAC
like you know like one of those world
bosses or just one of those champions me
out in the world you see them yes you
know you see they'll wait for the windup
yeah I've got to stop attacking the
mirage doesn't have to he can keep
firing yeah you just attack right
straight to the other thing that's
really fun about this dodge is it allows
you to dodge when you're otherwise
incapacitated if you're getting there
you may be I mean occure down he's
wanting a fall attack you can dodge that
you know you can dodge that even though
you're knocking down yeah bore yourself
while you're
so it's very strong but it does make it
a little tougher to get out of those
those large AO ease since you can't just
dodge roll out of it right
so yeah the elite gives you a little bit
more ability not yeah not everything
that you need hopefully the only allows
for some interesting interesting play
patterns like one thing I like to do is
um he's got a he has a stun break that
dodges and backwards and leaves a mirror
behind so what you can do is you can
dodge backwards leave the mirror behind
and then immediately use the elite to
jump back right jump back onto the
mirror shattering it giving yourself the
Mirage cloak yeah then also potentially
like striking someone else from the
shattering of the mirror that when you
were in melee before yeah nice
all right to left so beast okay let's do
it
[Music]
this pet mechanic it's just a thing I
did not expect I'm super surprised when
I first saw it well I think a lot of
people did it was something that we had
been contemplating for quite a long time
the development of the sole beast was
the result of a lot of different things
like we do up a lot of tech for it that
we just didn't have I think it hard a
thorn there like the like you we just
couldn't get really cured if your pet
easily back then yeah there was no way
to there there the tech just didn't
exist we we couldn't even fake it
so like tech wise this guy spent
probably one of the more competent
complex care this is certainly one of
the more intense ones to have developed
not and not just you know from just the
whole athletes were hiding your pet but
there were a lot of other small things
that went into this guy like just the
stuff that effective where your pet
disappears and like kind of flows into
you that took a lot of development to
get that to look right really yeah like
because you know I had to get rid of
your pet had to play an effect that kind
of traveled from where your pet was even
though your pet wasn't there anymore I'm
traveling for you then hadn't released
your pet afterwards yeah so like just
getting just getting a lot just even
like a lot of visual effects on this guy
like we're very large challenges from a
technical standpoint they weren't doing
really good oh no they are amazing
alright so how exactly does this work so
the way that this plays out is that you
essentially can take on some of the
archetypes of a particular family of
pets when this happens you get two parts
to it you get a component that is family
centric which is the family skills for
that type of pet so if you you go if you
merge with a Jaguar you get like the
feline family bonuses and you get access
to the the two feline skills that
normally you never get access to usually
you just have access to your f2 and then
in addition based upon which pet it was
in the family we tried to theme them
according to like the particular pets
you get an additional bonus the
archetypes are like
kind of support e-power offensive damage
condition damage versatility and
defensive so their five archetypes and
you get the one that's kind of fits that
particular pet within the family the
best
so you there are a lot of pets in the
game by the way turns out so and a lot
of people think that we also just kind
of took namby-pamby the the skills that
the pets have and just gave them to the
character and that took a lot more work
than people may realize because there
there there are a lot of pet skills well
and like translating those into player
animation layer animation scaling that
was a lot of work to try and retain some
of the feel of those abilities but you
know give them a more human vent so one
other thing that's very human but yeah
human noise yeah player character yeah
you know I think some of them you know
you know making sure that the effects
looked right things like that we're also
pretty tricky to kind of get convey that
same theme like what does a tailwhip
look like human a human yes right I
think the other thing you should
probably mention is how we kind of had a
role in some of the stats from the the
pet yeah yeah that's that's the
archetype component ever that I was
mentioning the different the five
different types like based upon which
type you merge with you get a few
hundred stats of the appropriate ones
are like the deadly type is the the kind
of condition offensive one and you get
some condition damage and you get some
expertise to go with it so it kind of
just gives you a little bit more kick on
on the pet management panel there's a
new section to it on the bottom right
section that covers like each of those
this was another thing that had to be
developed specifically for the sole base
yeah so the pet management you I got a
bit of an overhaul we clean up a lot of
things from the base Ranger as well and
this also gave us the option to you know
display any what each pet would would be
granting you yeah that was really
important for us to do since Rangers the
core Ranger is really balanced around
the extra damage from his pet so his
skill his individual skills without the
had extra damage would probably you know
fall a little short on the DPS sale
yeah pretty other class but with the
stat bonus we can kind of even that out
a little bit more yeah it helps with it
like I think the probably more so than
any other attributes it's the actual
control that you have over those
abilities because some of those were
really powerful abilities that players
have long wanted to have access to have
control over we frankly we could never
give those to you because they were
really damn powerful but this was a way
that we could actually do that while not
just be having it be purely additive to
in addition to you having your pet so
that's kind of a pretty cool trade-off
that they were we were able to make I'm
hoping to see players realizing that
it's not just okay I'm gonna camp soul
beast mode or beast mode and just never
see my pet again I think some of the
most interesting gameplay that people
are going to discover is weaving in and
out of beast mode and swapping pets
because like they are separate cooldowns
when you use an ability that was granted
to you by your pet it doesn't set your
pets ability on cooldown like so you can
use it then bring your pet back out then
they'll use those abilities and then you
can swap to your other pet and they'll
come in and use their family abilities
and then you can merge with that pet
then use that same and then use that
same again yes okay so I think it it
opens up a world of possibilities like I
think this brings some of the the pets
that have existed in core really into
question like do you want now to run
those pets in order to gain their family
abilities which you could never have
done before
this is so much more it's not just a
mechanic to get rid of the pet to hide
to hide your pet forever is so much more
going on here yeah that's and then
something I'm looking forward to and
kind of in keeping with the theme like
you also gain access to stances as the
utility type so in each of the stances
is kind of named after a creature it was
kind of a martial arts type thing you
know you have like mantis form and crane
for things like that yeah Eagle stance
we kind of did similarly with this one
like your heel is bare stance Carl's
mousing over it there and these give you
like temporary unique buffs that grant
you kind of an aspect of what that that
creature does like personal Carl the
effects are really cool too yeah yeah
you seem like a brief vision of the
spirit of that creature type oh yeah
it's pretty cool like the bear the heel
is just a quick example your bear pets
have a shake it off which kind of gets
rid of conditions and the bear stance
kind of does similarly you heal yourself
and conditions on you actually get
consumed to heal you so and if you trait
for its you can actually kind of share
stances with nearby allies for a brief
time so that's that's something I'm kind
of really looking forward to seeing it's
it's the Grandmaster middle line yeah a
leader of the pack so that should be
pretty cool to see there's there's a lot
to play with there how good did it feel
to finally figure out to make all this
work leave at that point it was it was
brilliant and a relief it was both I
can't say it wasn't I mean one of them
went home and slept for 18 hours
didn't get to do that fun as an
interesting kind of developer story on
this side story on this one the elite
skill for the sole beast was originally
a spell breaker skill yes a lot of it
allowed the league
yeah the illegal double strike it was
originally something that we did for the
spell breaker we were kind of exploring
his different types of themes but we
ended up putting it on the sole beast
just because like it made more sense for
double strikes to come from a character
who's purging with their pet yeah I
didn't really make much sense on the
spell breaker and the smoker I think
benefited a lot more from having his
like big boom destruction area yeah
right yeah and that one in particular I
think continuing a little bit on that
play is particularly route well with
some of the abilities that you gain
access to as a ranger both in core and
with the soul beasts like being able to
strike twice it's not just it's not
duplicating the
attack that you create but it's a
separate strike it can critically strike
it and proc a bunch of things that the
Ranger has a lot of procs for so like
vulture stance makes all of your strikes
do something extra based upon the health
of your opponent like like vultures when
you're when when you're weak that's when
they come in again yeah like maybe they
keep you down though so in this case was
striking Oh who's at low health
like in flicks poison and like the
double strike that means you every time
you're striking that's that's two stacks
of poison to a low health foe
so like sharpening stones core Ranger
just like you put out the bleeding from
every strike that much faster so it
creates a lot of opportunities I think
that it's one of those skills that's
like you're gonna really use to spike
down an enemy alright so I have one more
question before we move on to the next
one and you guys have answered this and
I forgot the answer who named that who
named the skill richest girl who names
the beast mode skill don't when that
first happened it was pretty meta
considering where we are yeah name that
one yeah there was a lot of debate and
I'm yeah I checked it with these guys
and yeah so now what like basically I
figured that one way or another
players were gonna call it beast mode so
we just say let's just let's just call
it what's gonna get cold
is exactly like so yeah that's that's
all that there was to it it felt a
little weird at first but little bit it
grew on me are you know I was
complaining I was just very curious fair
enough alright Carl are you ready to
play piano Weaver
oh okay alright let's start over the mo
is with us
[Music]
you have a cool shirt on irineu oh thank
you I yeah haven't even noticed that
they actually wasn't just like yeah that
wasn't that it was just like hey Weaver
oh yes okay I would say the same but now
we're past this whole beast um so the
Weaver oh gosh pretty much everyone's
reaction to the Weaver is the leader
line right the Weaver has been in the
works for ever it's been a concept
that's been around since free heart of
thorns yeah it was it was one of the
when we were trying to decide which one
to focus on for her yeah like it wasn't
called the Weaver back then we didn't
call it the Weaver until fairly fairly
close to the end of development
yeah but this was a contender for a
heart of thorns was in yeah I guess
contender for the tempest technically
yeah exactly the the the tech to make it
really work wasn't quite in place and
honestly the amount of stuff that had to
be done for the Weaver is it was huge we
needed we needed a situation where we
can really focus development on him
specifically rather than because I think
at the time heart of thorns were also
doing a lot of the we'd also done like
the trade the entire trait rework a lot
of the systems implementation just like
the elites mechs in general they didn't
exist that was the first time we were
doing them so yeah putting them in and
also doing something like one of this
level of complexity would have been
would it wouldn't have come out as well
as I think it has all right so what's
the idea behind the Weaver
besides oh gosh yes oh so the Weaver's
core mechanic is this idea of two
elements um I think I I don't know
exactly where the idea came from but
like I think there might have been a
little bit of inspiration from things
like you know Avatar living multiple
elements together and gaining and
potentially increased versatility in a
place where I'm not being particularly
versatile for desert gets you killed we
really wanted to have some skills that
just really kind of combine two elements
together I think you saw a little bit of
that in Guild Wars 1 where you had
skills like steam which is fire fire and
water yeah and like similarly this guy
actually does have a steam steam ball
skill I believe I don't remember which
combination it was
but yes I think you think it's been
renamed since yeah I'm not sure that I
found all the combinations yet so yeah
so the way it works is every combination
of elements has its own unique skill 3
but it doesn't matter which order though
so fire earth is the same as earth fire
the difference but however that still
matters because if you're a fire earth
it means your first two skills are
firing your last two skills are earth
but if you're but five years
yeah then your earth your first two
skills are earth kills your last killer
part and this is on all of the weapons
so there's there's a dagger double
attack there's sword duel attack their
staff duel attacks and it's we told Carl
he was crazy when he proposed this and
he said I know and then he kept going
and he built it anyway yeah like read
yeah it was it was pretty awesome like
there was a lot of a lot of time just in
designing which skills should go where
sure how yes charts
there were also charts though you list
the elements on ones and other elements
like main hand element off hand element
and then like what what does the
combination become for every then you do
that for everything for every weapon
yeah and then chart of that type for
every weapon that you're going to do
that with those were some long meetings
worth it though totally worth it yeah
I'm amazed those meetings are over
stunned we definitely don't in that we
did we definitely did argue about a
couple things like which one is like
where where we put we wanted to put
plasma or where which one will be steam
attacks which will be met attacks right
things like that yeah which weapons
should get the appropriate ones like
some of the effects that were built for
these duel attacks are just pretty
freaking fabulous yeah
for example my personal favorite I think
it's any of the plasma attacks like all
them lies might actually have a fire
lightning I really I really like a lot
of the fire lightning attacks but yeah
the flies looks really good yeah I'm a
fan of couple of a couple of the the
water earth ones like just the the
grinding stone kind of components
they're pretty cool but maybe I'm brutal
like that maybe a little bit amazing I
think we're gonna have to watch out for
with this class though is you'll notice
is Carl switching between elements
there's a cool-down on all of his
elements that's a big departure from the
way traditional MLS works where you can
go to you can Emilio fire water air
earth in quick succession yeah it's not
a great idea but there's no cooldown on
switching to a new element there's only
a cool down on the last element you want
to worry but this guy there's always a
cool-down on all the elements so you
have to kind of know you have to what
skills you want really really in about
three seconds from now kind of at all
times
yeah you have to plan wait not quite all
of them but you need to know like which
off hands guess you're gonna need you're
gonna want you have to be anything you
can get to your main hand skills pretty
quickly but if you if you want if you're
gonna want like basic the more powerful
skills the offhand skills the ones that
are longer cooldown
you got a plan ahead and yeah put the
players that can do that are probably
the ones that will face some of the
bigger successes with laver
I think Carl right now is on air offhand
so like if you want if you want that
retreat skill or the knock back you need
to know that okay I'm gonna need to jump
back in a little in three three seconds
from me so I can switch the switch to
another element then yes but you and you
also have to know okay what am I going
to need in my main hand at this point
yeah but there's a lot of really fun
combos that Carl's kind of demonstrating
right now we on you can jump in with one
skill and then attack for a little while
yeah first switch elements back up with
a different skill fire some range
attacks at them and then jump back and
then switch switch a third time jump
back in with a new a new gap closer
pretty sweet yeah my expectation is that
people my patient probably
recommendation is that people starting
with Weaver is to equip unravel this is
my question where do you even begin
yeah I recommend I recommend people who
are just starting with us to to take
unravel it's definitely there if you
absolutely if you really need that fire
that fire off hand skill you can just
tap that once it's gotta accept charges
so you can yeah it's all of the new
stances that you gain as a weaver our
ammunition based so you can use use one
way too short while use it again if you
need to
I think that they work really well in
particular some of the stances play off
of which elements that you're attuned to
that so when you go into a particular
stance if you are erth erth like you
gain the you gain double the earth bonus
but you could also kind of mix and match
effectively with whichever attunements
you have I probably clarify I guess for
there's probably some questions about
this is if your doula tuned and you use
an attack if you can use one of your
utilities like one of the core utilities
like the elemental summons aura like
this lifts of storms it does take your
main hand yeah
attuma in that situation I'm sure the
Republican question would yeah that way
you can like we did that because it's
you you want to be able to basically
cast those as the element that you can
get to a little more quickly yeah well
there is a fun Weaver skill that allow
that does take into account both of your
elements it's these it's a PBA we attack
that kind of pulses around you Evan as
you change your elements it changes what
it's pulsing as well so the pulses
actually change based on which elements
you're in so you can do like double
earth or you can do earth water or then
go fire water and so on and you know
it's moment-to-moment what do you need
it just develop really press because the
effects will change as your yes you're
swapping to I believe you know that's
true pretty sweet alright so where do
you see this this weekend what do you
see everybody doing with it aside from
just trying to figure how it works I
think a lot of people are going to spend
some of this time figuring out how it
works and how it works for them in
particular like what their preferred
play style is are they gonna stay in
like two elements and just kind of
continually swap between them like going
double fire fire earth double earth back
to fire or are they gonna try and weave
like all of the elements together which
is kind of encouraged also by the elite
skill the elite skill pays off if you
can get through all four of the
attunements by giving you a flip over
skill that like just is huge CC my
brother
the church it's got it's got all the
elements at once basically yes it's a
little hard to get the Earth's at the
bottom the last you can see a lot of the
head over time he picked up like he's
each of the each of the weaves from the
different attunements and then massive
AOE CC and it's really damn cool because
literally while you're doing that you're
picking up a new thread a new element
and kind of adding it to your spell's
and then eventually kind of kept skating
those onto your foot yeah I don't want
to call it like give a good nice call
out to our effects artist who did really
well and the thing you were saying about
people figuring out how it works for
them that's the thing about this I mean
we laugh about how it's complicated and
there's a lot going on but that's
because it seems incredibly versatile
and customizable yeah so it just takes
some getting used to you have to play
around with a little bit more yeah I am
expecting couple people to just to get
kilts as the elementalists has pretty
low health we do the Weaver does
actually which is a good segue to talk
about how the Weaver does have some
traits that give you a little extra
vitality or the electrode if any on some
situations to kind of mitigate that but
I am expected like because he's kind of
the strongest I think in melee there's
definitely other people people who are
gonna get spiked out probably not not
really how how swishing very heavy
offense this character and unlike unlike
dagger with elementalist this character
is it's not like as much a OE focused
it's more target based so it'd be pretty
close for a while yeah exactly where
dagger dagger is like a kind of a small
area around you like a couple hundred
radius like 300 radius this is the first
time we've been able to been kind of the
true melee I guess for our 4 elementos
before you couldn't really go melee yeah
it was too dangerous to like get in
there do damage and get out yeah like
you have the abilities to do that like
to weave in and out of combat but yeah
I think it's gonna be a really fun kind
of entering and closing
how combat with this character we also
tried to make it more rewarding to
unlike dagger just be in the right place
this character you also need to actually
like land your attacks to get back into
full benefits of them so like if you
actually strike with your sword attacks
then you get this extra cool effect
where dagger it's more like if I'm in
put in the right position it it has this
effect in an area around me one thing I
like to call out on the sword a little
bit is what's what's actually what the
sword is how its structured for each
different element for all for every one
of the auto attacks on sword it's it's
kind of themed elements like the water
the water a third hit of the auto attack
will heal and the fire a third hit of
that I have a burn but also the to skill
is always based around some kind of
movement all of the movement that you
get from the two skill varies based on
the element you're in like water water
is more defensive it lets you retreat a
little bit earth is also defensive but
it doesn't retreat you it you actually
you you actually dodge and play is you
innovate
whereas lightning and fire the more
offensive elements will get you get you
in yeah so you have to know like okay I
need to go in now
to make sure I have fire or lightning
but now I need to retreat mask to make
sure I have water earth to do that it's
a constant exercise in thinking ahead
yeah I have I have definitely when
playing this like you switch to the
wrong element and jumped it when I was
marrying a couple times yet this takes
not mess that up yeah again you are
still in elemental sin you are very
squishy you have a couple options for
defense but yes you're only get you only
get so many chances yes basically it's
really important to keep track of which
elements you're in and which elements
are going into next I think it's
probably an assumption you're gonna
learn the hard way a couple times yeah I
think I think it's definitely just plan
on it maybe a little bit of that School
of Hard Rock's sorry that was awful
there it is alright you know what I
think on that note that was our ninth
elite specialization we're gonna call it
school card rocks
nothing you had that and it was good
okay
otterby thank you guys very much for
coming in and showing off and giving us
a little preview of what we're all gonna
see tomorrow when elite specialization
preview weekend begins we're really
looking forward to see what people come
up with I mean we've definitely come
we've given some interesting suggestions
today but I'm expecting our players to
really have it's really just our players
are grossly active and they will find
all sorts of things that we had not
planned that hopefully are amazing
suggestions there's more yeah there's
definitely there's just a lot of ways
than time to see what players come up
with that we hadn't even expected yeah
all right we'll go show us we will see
you in-game starting tomorrow bye
everybody we'll see you next time
External links[edit]

Guild Chat Episode 51, Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire™ Elite Specializations
Guild Chat - Episode 51

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