Yesterday Arenanet took to Reddit and IRC to host an open forum. They answered a wide variety of questions all about Guild Wars 2, and really made everyone more excited than they already were. Unfortunately you guys are lazy and probably missed it, so I have summarized all the facts below.
1. Closed Beta testing starts Friday 12/16.
2. They will determine the next phases of the beta as they progress, it will be invite only, but they hint that it won’t just be a Friends & Family ordeal.
3. How you play your profession and the skills you use are more important than what weapons you bring.
4. Weapon choice is almost as important as profession choice.
5. Once you hit around level 30 the time to level is almost identical, approximately 90 minutes for a decent player.
6. All skills can be set to autoattack. Different professions use this in different ways, some use it on skill 1, while others may set apply poison or sharpening stone to auto cast.
7. Heal and dodge will help you avoid death from focused attacks. As well as using crowd control to stop if from happening. block, blind, reflect, etc.
8. The combat is more about dodging attacks, moving while casting, and managing use of skills based on situations rather than min-maxing energy costs.
9. Some professions are better at making things to combo with (Elementalist) and some professions are better at capitalizing on them (Warrior).
10. Timing is a huge part of being a good Guild Wars 2 player. Spamming skills will get you killed against good players. Calling targets, interlacing stuns, stacking conditions, and controlling spaces are all a huge part of being good.
11. You cannot destroy an engineer’s mines.
12. There is no limit other than the number of turrets one characters can bring, but turrets downside is they can’t move so in PvP you may have to adjust strategy.
13. Tome of Wrath is an elite skill for the Guardian, it locks the Guardian in place for its duration and gives them access to 5 new skills. One of those skills is called Judgement which knocks down all targets for 5 seconds.
14. Mesmers will have close quarters attacks as well as ranged abilities.
15. Mesmers portal skill can also be used by non-NPC allies.
16. Mesmer portals can be set a maximum of 208 feet apart.
17. Mesmers have an elite skill that turns your target into a Moa bird for a short period of time giving them Moa skills like Peck, Kick, Screech.
18. You are still capable of having a minion army as a Necromancer.
19. There are 12 families of pets each with different variety inside of them for Rangers to choose from.
20. A blog is coming out Tuesday that details the steal ability of the Thief.
21. You can steal at anytime.
22. You can play as a warrior with your main weapon as a rifle, and still be effective.
23. Warrior and Necromancer have the most health. Ranger, Engineer, and Guardian have medium health. Thief, Mesmer, and Elementalist have the least amount of health.
24. World vs World (PvP) servers hold about 650 players and contains persistent battles and objective gameplay. This includes such actions as you and your friends destroying a castle with trebuchets.
25. There is a score system based on which objectives you hold in WorldvWorld PvP. Score happens every so often and you gain points for each objective, based on how big it is. At the end of the two weeks the team with the highest score ‘wins.’ As you gain these points you pass thresholds that give your server worldwide bonuses, so really everyone wins.
26. The average length of a PvP match is about 8-12 minutes.
27. Competitive PvP will in fact be a much more organized structure where players form teams and earn points playing in 5v5 tournaments to qualify for larger and larger tournaments. The goal is to create much more of an e-sport feel this time around.
28. You can level up playing WorldvWorld PvP but not competitive PvP.
