Guild Wars 2 - Beta 2 Weekend Coverage 23-25 March

[Gorani]

And how is the combat system when you are solo'ing? Is it how people described it, that its just wait until the cooldown is finished and mindlessly use the skill again? What was your experience in small (friend) groups? And how did highend compared to lowend combat?

My experience on that subject:

Mindless spamming will not get you far, when you are alone, or at least it will slow you down (either by having to fight longer or spending some time in downed state or having to re-portal to a way point). You will use your skills #1 on auto attack (kiting repositioning, if you play well), your skill #2 probably on recharge and #3-#5 wisely.
e.g. Fire/Staff #1 Fireball - #2 Lava Font (you have to know where to put that small AoE spell, if displaced it is useless) - #3 Flame Burst on really dangerous groups of enemies (just blasting an area can be useless or less effective) - #4 Burning Retreat is wasted on recharge, as it is your get away from melee foes skill (& kill them if done correctly) and finally #5 Meteor Shower with its huge AoE radius can be wasted if put into the wrong spot. After that you have to wait 30 sec for the recharge.
Clever swapping of attunements on my Ele worked very well adventuring alone. Having a partner was better in a few situations, because someone could always fall back and revive.
I had the impression that some "wildlife" needs a little tweaking with their respawn times. There was a cave filled with spiders & a skill point challenge I could not master, because I got overwhelmed by the fast respawns, no matter how fast and efficient I had become at killing them

[Alaris]

Most places where there is a skill point are actually quite challenging. I think it's intentional. Three spots come to mind, one in the wall invaded by ghosts, one nearby spot underwater, and lastly one single foe that was much higher level in the middle of an outpost.

Each of those killed me a few times.

[teina]

And how is the combat system when you are solo'ing? Is it how people described it, that its just wait until the cooldown is finished and mindlessly use the skill again? What was your experience in small (friend) groups? And how did highend compared to lowend combat?

I think it depends on your profession too. Softer professions will get rewarded more for skilled play while soloing, in the form of dying less. Heartier professions, like the Guardian, can get away with mindless spamming while soloing. I'll address the Guardian play more in a write-up.

Low end combat (really low end), you really don't have a choice. You get one skill to start with (other than self heal), and you pretty much spam that till they die and until you unlock other skills. Sure, you can dodge and kite, but as far as skill activation is concerned, there just isn't much choice till you've unlocked more skills. Once you've unlocked the skills for your weapons and offhands, as well as weapon switching, then things get more interesting. Utility skills add more dimension to the gameplay, but again, those slots are unlocked later. I wonder if some of those people just didn't play up very high. If they just tasted levels 1-10 on various professions, I can see why they would come away with the impression of button mashing on recharge is the way to go.

With regards to Gorani's point about respawn rate, it would be nice if the respawn rate is scaled, like events. I've been on the other end of the respawn rate where we had a large group of people just standing around, waiting for things to pop, then killing them before you even have time to activate a second skill.

-T

[Nohjo]

Its good to hear some positive remarks on the combat too. Do you guys think the combat system is really innovative? And apart from the combat, how good do you think GW2 is overall?

Better or worse than you expected? How is the voice acting for instance? And the NPC/player/environment detail?

[Alaris]

I disagree that it depends on the profession, Teina, but I'd love to hear your opinion.

When I did play the guardian, I found he was pretty solid so survival was not an issue (at least, not as much as softer professions). But, it was also pretty easy to waste skills by using them badly. In my experience anyway.

@Nohjo: innovative is a big word, and people will disagree on what counts. I will say this though, Guild Wars 2 is a clear and solid step forward, and will be the next model that people will clone. And I say that not necessarily because the game is awesome or anything, but really because they did a really good job of improving the genre by more than polish.

I can't say that the game is perfect, but it is the only MMORPG I'll be playing in the next few years, and I will have lots of fun playing it.

[teina]

I disagree that it depends on the profession, Teina, but I'd love to hear your opinion.

When I did play the guardian, I found he was pretty solid so survival was not an issue (at least, not as much as softer professions). But, it was also pretty easy to waste skills by using them badly. In my experience anyway.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I didn't say button mashing is the most efficient way to go. I'm just pointing out that they are more resilient, so wasting a skill is not as bad as, say, on a mesmer. If I wanted to, I can probably button mash my Guardian, solo, through most if not all level 1-20 content without really suffering for it. Sure, I might burn a shield here or an AoE there without them doing anything, but overall, I'm less likely to die from bad play than a softer profession. With my mesmer, I had to put more efforts into watching what I was doing while soloing.

Nohjo, overall I think the combat system is fine. I didn't really have a chance to purposely setup cross-professions combo in real battles, since my play time was mostly solo or large group events and WvW. The only gripe I can think of is the weapons skills unlock. While I understand the theory and was ok with it with the first (and even the second) weapon, by the time I was working on my final weapon skills unlock, I was in the teens, and having only one skill on that weapon just wasn't cutting it (2-handed at that, so no offhand skills either). It would be nice if there's a way to unlock weapon skills after level 10, or after you've already unlocked a weapon or two through combat, or something. If this stays the same in release, then unlocking all my weapons skills will be top priority, even if I have to buy generic weapons to do so.

-T

[Alaris]

so wasting a skill is not as bad as, say, on a mesmer

Glad to hear about your experience.

I thought the mesmer was surprisingly resilient, I expected to be quite squishy but with a few clones around, surviving was not that difficult. I didn't play it in the harder parts though, but I did some PvP with it.

It would be nice if there's a way to unlock weapon skills after level 10

Yeah, starting with one-handed weapons that often were not even something I wanted (sword on mesmer?) and unlocking was not my idea of fun. I wish they make that faster.

[ZNoble]

Rubi can be seen talking in the vid from total biscuit. RUBI!
So upset I didn't get picked.

[Lady Rhonwyn]

Nohjo, overall I think the combat system is fine. I didn't really have a chance to purposely setup cross-professions combo in real battles, since my play time was mostly solo or large group events and WvW. The only gripe I can think of is the weapons skills unlock. While I understand the theory and was ok with it with the first (and even the second) weapon, by the time I was working on my final weapon skills unlock, I was in the teens, and having only one skill on that weapon just wasn't cutting it (2-handed at that, so no offhand skills either). It would be nice if there's a way to unlock weapon skills after level 10, or after you've already unlocked a weapon or two through combat, or something. If this stays the same in release, then unlocking all my weapons skills will be top priority, even if I have to buy generic weapons to do so.
-T

The way I worked at it was by adding a fully unlocked weapon set as my secondary set. At the start of the battle, I'd switch to the unlocking one, in the middle of the battle I'd switch to the unlocked one and at clean up, back to the unlocking one.

[Alaris]

Using your autoattack on an locked weapon is a brilliant idea.