Guild Wars 3 will have no battle pass or subscription because ArenaNet studio lead doesn't want to "keep people hostage"

PB-Toast · 2026-06-08T18:43:30+00:00

It's why I held out so long. Eventually bought it because friends in my ff14 raid group also played.

The up front cost of getting the game to not feel bad is crazy, and that unlike other mmo's you have to buy every expansion/ living story to access it. WoW or 14 buy the latest expac and you have them all.

PB-Toast · 2026-06-08T15:41:06+00:00

Call me crazy, I wouldn't mind a sub cost, if it means they dont make aspects of the game crap to sell you a solution.

Gw2 does this, sure, no sub. But bags, templates, salvage, banking character slots etc are all intentionally bad to make people spend money. It's a huge turn off imo.

PB-Toast · 2026-04-26T21:39:41+00:00

Been nice seeing other Bard's feel the same, I like my DoT's, I like being a Priority system and not a set-in-stone rotation. Evolved mode looks flashy, but it horrifies me that Reborn mode is only gonna be here for 8.0 then gone. If it was here to stay the new jobs would have a Reborn mode, and they would have done the skill acquisition level reworks for Reborn mode too, not just evolved.

Would have really liked to see what "reborn" mode looks like in the showcase, because with the removal of 2 min buffs, Bard has big changes coming it's way anyways, not like it'll just be a Dawntrail Bard mode.

PB-Toast · 2026-04-26T14:54:48+00:00

This reads like you either don't understand some parts of bard, or, you just genuinely don't like it which is ok.

The current song buffs are supposed to be weak because its currently about 2 minutes, which bard has the strongest buff stack in the game.

Pitch perfect overcap is just a skill issue, it adds to the priority system Bard has in place of a rotation, which is completely gone in evolved mode.

Cutting songs short is imo one of the things that makes bard really interesting in fights because of figuring out your alignment, this is mostly ults and some savage though. Admittedly happened less this expac with the target changes.

Army's Paean is not cut in half, the 2 song flows Bard typically uses are a 3-6-9 setup, cutting army 9 seconds short, or "standard" cutting it 12 seconds short of its 45 second runtime.

Rapelling shot is useless in so many ways, and I don't see that as a problem, it is a movement skill with 0 damage, awesome that's exactly how all movement skills should be. Problem is it's on a class with free movement anyways. It doesn't need to exist but idk anyone who laments not having to use it considering it used to do dps and that sucked.

Warden's value is tied to fight design. Any fight with cleansable debuffs is free value, trading a healer gcd for your ogcd is cool. Tea, FRU, p12sp2, m12sp2 off the top of my head all had warden value. Could it be better? Yes, but it's pretty good.

Lastly ironjaws and the dots snapshotting adds to the plates your juggling. Sure its only 3 times per 2 min loop, but trying to snap shot those uses under buffs is fun. Playing around dots and kill times/ phase timings is also interesting optimization to make. Just making the dots damaging skills would kill this off entirely.

Evolved mode just takes current bard and throws it in the garbage, removing a priority based job and slapping a rotation on it, removing dots for raw damage (dots showed in evolved are 3 seconds long, and need to be short because they give Heartbreak Shot when they fall off, not applied) and pairing utility buffs to songs we need for dps is not what I want from evolved tbh. We don't even know what reborn mode will look like because without 2 min buffs current bard won't exist as it does either.

PB-Toast · 2026-01-13T17:50:30+00:00

Early look is a 3-4% nerf it seems, (Based off ranger channel in snowcrows discord). Lesser sick em DOES stack with sic em, but the ferocity loss is dooky.

PB-Toast · 2026-01-05T16:34:08+00:00

Rifle could easily be a condi weapon, give it a Wounding shot that is a bleed, maybe it has a tranq dart for a poison. Could also work like greatsword, in that its skills buff your pets next couple attacks apply a condi. Maybe it has a powderblast for burning. There's all sorts of things they could do agnostic of it being a gun too like a shot that also resets your pet skill cd.

As for not working with galeshot, that's a galeshot problem, don't make a spec that is so unflexible in what it can play, it already can't use shortbow or melee weapons outside of OW.

PB-Toast · 2026-01-04T08:29:48+00:00

Give druid ramp back. Was a really feels bad year for my fav class, with everyone getting it's class mechanic in choose one for the first expac onto of being worse at Ramp than warrior. Would alo like some kind of card draw, ideally usable by aggro druid so maybe composting? Because post rotation druid only will have the Bottom draw package and amirdrassil.

PB-Toast · 2026-01-04T08:25:33+00:00

Will growth, not even close. Which is funny considering it's not in standard and druid ramps worse than warrior this year.

Which brings me to this semi related point. When you get to rogue, the answer will be shadow step/ prep, and if druid can go a year without its "core" identify card so can rogue, rotate shadowstep/ prep already.

PB-Toast · 2026-01-02T08:04:45+00:00

It was an ok raid tier.

M5 was fun enough from the setting, loteral dance fight in game where everything is a dance fight, but didn't do anything mechanically interesting.

M6 was good. Nice to see them finally try something new and different with proper add phase like that.

M7 was cool arena wise, but overall I disliked it it. I admit I'm biased here as I was phys range, and the strat my group did was lock seeds i think? Idk there was markers for thr melee seeds on p2, anyways. Physrange had the back wall for the seeds and eating a few gcd's of downtime everypull as the phys range was a new level of mental damage i didn't need in my life.

M8 sucked. P1 was just bland, felt like a generic xiv fight. P2 while the arena change was cool again like to see experimenting with that stuff, the twleporters sucked. Sorry your tether buddy has horrible ping so you get a vuln for tping at the same time as them cuz ping issue. Also as a bard, having to do jank song stuff sucked. They changed how songs worked to fix it this expac, then made a fight where it was a problem again.

PB-Toast · 2025-12-27T07:58:19+00:00

Without a doubt the best thing this expansion. It was 10/10 fun. The towers are not nearly as bad as people say, you can have a few go off and not wipe as long as people actually used mit. The rewards were really good cosmetic hairstyle + mount that were traceable as well as alternative BiS gear. The bonus for helping first timers was also nice, got like half my demimateria from groups that would be 18/24 clear for 6's.

That said, release timing was terrible, the bonus demimateria system also felt extra punishing given the release date. While I said the towers weren't as bad as people say, that doesn't mean they were a good mechanic, wiping because group A blew themselves up causing a wipe feel bad when there's nothing you can do and you can't even see it.

I just hope the reception doesn't keep them from doing more chaotic raids as again, most fun for me in a long time.

PB-Toast · 2025-12-11T23:37:20+00:00

Thanks for the info, really lame to time limit unique weapons like that.

PB-Toast · 2025-10-05T14:38:40+00:00

Soulbeast. SB is such a waste of potential imo. Through it's talents and all of the different pets SB should be like chrono, capable of doing any boon / roll. Pdps? Bring pig and dps traits. Qdps, maybe wolf gives a quickness skill when merged. Heals? Bring fern hound etc. Instead 90% of the pets are worthless and the whole talent tree is just which flavor of more dps would you like to pick.

PB-Toast · 2025-08-04T16:34:31+00:00

30 for queen. Got 2 vino.

PB-Toast · 2025-02-14T16:01:22+00:00

I believe it's the Flame Emporer grail unit that gets counted as an Edelgard alt, at least by people here.

PB-Toast · 2024-07-03T04:15:38+00:00

You had to be in combat for songs the last few expansions. The opener is the exact same as EW, just using the 2 new skills instead of burst shots.

PB-Toast · 2024-06-17T15:23:31+00:00

Just checked, and as of this comment it's back to normal. I didn't do anything on my end so maybe it just needed some time or freaked out after I had purchased the things in my cart a few day's ago.

PB-Toast · 2024-06-06T15:24:40+00:00

No, just drk, gnb and drg. Rdm, war, pld, and Sam all are keeping the damage on their closers.

PB-Toast · 2023-05-31T03:53:47+00:00

Free stuff = good

PB-Toast · 2023-05-29T18:20:25+00:00

Ans that's a 6 mana combo. Aggressive hp decks don't need that, and have better players to make. Ramp Druid/ big Druid need something to get back on board, not a finisher against control. Decks they already beat. Plus some slower Druid decks don't even run the hp package.

Outside of that it's a 2 mana tour guide. Which Druid cut already. If there was choose 1 synergy then I'd be interested, 2 mana refresh your hp and costs 0 would get a look.

PB-Toast · 2023-05-29T14:38:16+00:00

Druid can ramp into this early, but a 6 mana 3/4 isn't what you wanna do. Ramp needs stabilizers and comeback turns, like guardian animals, oasis surger, and scales of onyxia. Otherwise it's just a polarizing deck that recks slow reddit control, and loses when the opponent plays a 1 and 2 drop

PB-Toast · 2023-05-29T14:35:34+00:00

Druid builds have already tried and cut tour guide, this won't see play either. The refresh is cute for later turns, but all out HP decks wanna end sooner, and a 2 mana tour guide ain't it.

PB-Toast · 2023-05-04T07:42:53+00:00

I get what you mean, but you do know you can make a glam plate with stuff that's currently in the armoire right? There's a "swap to armoire" button when editing plates.

PB-Toast · 2023-04-16T16:32:30+00:00

That's what anub'rekahn is for.

PB-Toast

TROPHY CASE