Guild Wars - Third Edition

[DrSpike]

Have they announced a release date?

[Jamski]

2nd Quarter...

Ok, I'm loving the beta Ritualist - a really interesting class which has some great possiblities. About the same healing potential as monks, and the damage output looks like it could be nice too.

Assassin seems to be a very vunerable melee spiker, and I'm not sure I'm really into that kind of character - has the potential to do massive damage really quickly, but very easy to shut down - even easier than shutting down warriors. The combo moves look great, but if one of the attacks is blocked, evaded, misses or is interrupted the whole chain fails.

Kudos to ANet for the open beta event

[Kassiopeia]

I heard March 1st in the UK.

I looked at the Ritualist and thought "oh man, it's the Shaman".

Personally I created a Prot monk/Assassin build that focuses on Shadow Arts. The Shadow Arts are used to dodge and evade attacks whilst running the usual Guardian/ROF/Shielding Hands/whatnot prot combo with DF for healing. All my skills except Sig of Devotion cost only 5 mana apiece to cast, so I didn't need actual mana management either. It worked fine, but it probably had more to do with the flood of newbies than the build. I first had a go at it with my Mesmer, and she destroyed a whole slew of Monks. Poor monkies.

[Barinthus]

Jamski - agreed. Ritualist looks like it could be a lot of fun to play.

Timing your spirits so you can use that skill (forgot the name) to rend them apart into a blast of lightning

[Jamski]

I unlocked the skill Consume Soul (E) and absolutely raped all the spirit spamming noob ritualists with it. Instantly kills touched spirit, heals the party for 212, and only costs 5 mana? Oh, and a 4 second recharge! Bye bye spirit farmer

In a similar vein, its been great fun blinding and crippling noob assassins

[Barinthus]

Now that I've been playing the Assassin some more today - I've concluded that if used properly an Assassin can be lethal.

For instance - in PvP combat, the other group wouldn't attack ours so I activated Shadow Step and waited few seconds. Then I charged toward them alone (with Shadow Refuge activated). They'd gang up on me and few seconds later I teleport back to the spot where I activated Shadow Step due to the skill expiring and they wind up running toward my group bent on killing me (or did not realize what was happening). My group along with the ritualist's spirits just destroyed them. I've used this tactic many times with success. I see potential there - traps and so on.

I've also gotten better at using attack skills and when laid out correctly - I've achieved a spike dmg in which a player's at half health to dead.

Oh I forgot to mention I've been using zealous daggers so energy wasn't that much of an issue for me especially that I get energy from critical hits as well.

EDIT: After some more pondering - I believe Assassins are designed for 'hit and run' attacks as opposite as primarily melee combat which warriors are designed for. For instance - Shadow Step, zero onto a target (preferred weakened or hexed since some skills cause additional damage on hexed foes) and launch an attack combination then retreat or teleport out. Rinse and repeat.

[DrSpike]

/me drools.

And I have 1.4 mill left to spend.

[Barinthus]

A ritualist. May I direct you to the outfit

[Barinthus]

Slim yet deadly assassin

[DrSpike]

I took a peek tonight on a whim.

What happened to tombs? Is it now that new temple thing? I played around for a bit but it just wanted me to play with 3 AI henchman in 'PvP'.

[DrSpike]

Oh ok, this is something they added along with the beta weekend update it seems. What happens if you win them all?

[Jamski]

You unlock some PvE challenge matches in the style of 4v4 PvP, which give faction and xp. Great for testing 4v4 stuff against bots.

Tombs is now a rather hard PvE area, and the new path to the Hall of Heros is through Hero's Ascent.

[DrSpike]

Yeah I've heard about the new PvE area - it sounds cool, and a good chance to test my uberbuilds.

I also heard they nerfed aoe a bit though, so my ele might need a tweak or 2. Probably a good thing though, when problems are better solved by adding an ele than adding a ranger or a mesmer no matter what the problem is then something is wrong.

[Jamski]

They didn't nerf AoE so much as they improved the AI. Monsters will not simply stand in a Firestorm untill they die now. You need to bring a way to keep them there.

...or...

Use AoE spells to drive monsters away from your "softies" !

[Barinthus]

Yeah I was working on my elementalist and I don't see anything wrong with AoE spells. It's just the matter of adjusting your strageties.