Post PAX Perceptions

Run Away!!!

After reading interview after interview, watching video after video, reading article after article, and stuffing myself on all of the new knowledge  from PAX, I must say, I’m exhausted. While Hunter and Nicholas and others continue to analyze the information from PAX, I am content to wait for people to update the wiki with new info about skills and traits and such. I’m also a short skip away from speculating further about professions 7 (mesmer) and 8 (who knows). I do have some thoughts on all of the PAX info though. FYI, I did not visit PAX. I sat at home and hit F5 on the GW2Guru thread like everyone else.

First of all, I am tired of watching guardian and thief videos. They are fantastic to watch and I’m excited to try out the guardian now that I’ve seen more of what they can do. I’m also up to the challenge of playing a thief. I’m just tired of watching essentially the same two videos. I know these guys are the new kids on the block, but there was some interesting information about the other 4 professions that was overlooked due to the zeal with which people created and posted videos of these two professions.

I got to see the warrior wield a greatsword for a little while, which was nice. It looks like a devastating weapon for sure. I also got to see a ranger video that  was well done, though for some reason the player wasn’t using a pet. Both of these videos can be seen on GuildWars2Live.com.

What really disappointed me was I never found a clear video of a necro wielding a staff or of the elementalist using air attunement. These are two of the professions I am most interested in playing and I was hoping to get more info about them. Also, apparently there have been changes made to the necro’s death shroud skills (namely, Shadow Fiend was removed). Thankfully, I found the new skill for that on the wiki (Dark Path if you’re interested). Only a handful of the air spells have been posted on wiki and I haven’t seen any video of them in action. /pout

Crafting UI from GW2

As for crafting, I saw several videos that included people acquiring materials during play. It really was as simple as walking up to the resource, interacting with it for about 5 seconds, and moving on with your business. The crafting UI was available for interaction and viewing, but actual trufax crafting wasn’t available due to the lack of workbenches in the demo. Still, I’m excited about the crafting system as a whole and it looks pretty user friendly and non-punishing. I have zero experience with crafting from other games, so I’m really looking forward to exploring it.

On a final note, or should I say ANet teaser: Aquatic Weapons.

That pretty much sums up my take from PAX East. I’m looking forward to hearing what Izzie at Talk Tyria and Ravious at Kill Ten Rats have to say about their experiences at PAX. If you haven’t seen them, you can watch a video of them with several other GW Fans and bloggers at the meet and greet on GW2Live.

EDIT: New gameplay videos were added for ele, necro, ranger, and warrior on the PAX thread. My evening is planned out for me!

Quick, get behind my Aegis!

The guardian was revealed today, as promised. There is a lot of information about it on a number of other sites and blogs here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here (forgive me if I missed one or two or half-dozen reviews). After a dearth of ooey gooey GW2 info goodness, we are blessed with a new profession and lots of answered questions about it. And still, after reading all of the reviews I could find, I (and I’m sure many of you) still have lots of questions about it.

I’m assuming you’ve read at least one article about the guardian by now. I’m also assuming you know what a Blue Mace Lady (BML) or Blue Mace Dude (BMD) is. If none of this is ringing a bell, please click on any of the links above and get better acquainted with the profession of Logan Thackeray.

Blue Mace Lady

I must say I am impressed by this new profession. There was a lot of discussion leading up to what it would ultimately be, but I like the result. I’ve called it paragon 2.0 and monk 2.0 in the past, but it truly has aspects of several GW professions, including ritualist. I am actually very excited about the Spirit Weapons and how much they function like GW1 spirits. A lot of people are comparing them to rit’s weapon spells, but I honestly see them more as spirits or minions, at least as far as functionality is concerned.

I am also very excited about the crowd control capability of this profession. It functions a lot like a necromancer through strategic use of offensive and defensive spells that frequently do little more than upset a foe’s tactics. Wards are great for this. What can I say, I like a tactical profession.

I’m not sure who won the bet on the unique quality of the guardian. Someone was talking about stances and I’d love to give him/her credit for coming the closest (to my knowledge) of predicting it. Virtues are what separate a guardian from others. I think they are great because they are natural buffs that help with solo play and they are party buffs/boons/etc that do not take up a skill slot. I think we will see that, while on paper (on screen?) these appear to be weak or have long cool downs, but in practice they will be more helpful than we think. It’s like carrying a 10% mod on a weapon in GW. You equip it and it helps you in the background.

I plan on making a charr guardian character.

Overall, I’m happy with this new profession. It has aspects of several GW professions that I have had less experience playing, but it is also a strong melee character in its own right. I like the crowd control ability of this profession and its similarities to the GW ele/necro regarding wards, wells, and symbols. I’m also very excited to explore the two-handed melee combat possibilities and like how much this profession is a cross between melee and caster. It is a nice blend for my taste.

I’m curious about how the monk/paragon/ritualist became the guardian as far as lore is concerned. Perhaps I’ll explore this idea in another post.