Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns Beta Impressions .

Recently I was able to participate in a closed beta for the upcoming expansion for Guild Wars 2, Heart of Thorns. Heart of Thorns looks to up the ante bringing in new content, new ways to travel, new horizontal character progression along with tweaking and revamping existing mechanics and systems. If you recall my past article where I was able to sit down with the developers as they walked me through an introduction to the new content, the beta starts off the exact same way the demo did at Pax East. Mordremoth, an elder dragon and the main protagonist for this expansion has dealt a crushing blow the Pact Fleet and it’s up to the player character and allies to piece everything back up and reverse the situation.

The stories continues after you establish a base of operations in Verdant Brink when you complete the demo story event. There is plenty to do and I found myself in awe of the vertically of the new area. Initially everyone will start out on the top layer of the jungle as players progress they will venture deeper and deeper into the jungle. With the unique challenges presented the mastery system will help alleviate some of the hurdles we will face as well as learn and adept to the jungle. Players will be able to learn new languages and get to know the local residents of the Maguuma Jungle and utilize new gadgets and environmental items.

Some of the new masteries allow you to gain new skills. For example I trained the ability to deploy a glider when I jump. It allowed me to jump from a high place and glide across the map. Without it, I would simply fall to my death but with it I could get around the map quicker and reach otherwise hidden or inaccessible places. Once I got the hang of it, traveling around was extremely fun. A good tip to those who plan to play the expansion, it is a lot easier to hold the jump key to expand your glider than it is to hit it twice; once to jump and another to deploy the glider.

Another part of the mastery system is learning about the local residents and learning about the jungle through them. Some of the reward tracks are simple, while you are training certain tracks you can unlock additional NPC vendors, or access otherwise restricted areas. Others allow you to interact with items in game. You can learn how to jump on bouncing mushrooms to take you to new levels, or interact with signs that reveal unknown treasure or secret paths. Looking through the mastery system it will give players something to look forward to because it all seems like we will be needing those skills at one point or another as we traverse through Verdant Brink.

Although they added a bit more story to the closed beta, what impressed me the most was the NPC and player character interactions during instance story areas and outside in the open world. I personally felt a bit more involved in what was going on around me when NPCs would call out to my character for help and my character would respond back. The simple act of my character responding back reminded me that I’m playing a character within a game instead of being a cardboard cutout to play within a world.  When I went to help the Pale Reavers, a Sylvari only task force one of the Reavers breath a sigh of relief and welcomed our help with renewed vigor to complete the task at hand. My character responded to him  saying they are more than happy to help. It was a small exchange but it made a huge impact on me since I’m so use to having my character be the quiet mouse in the room while the world around them reacted to everything. Another example that stood out to me, was when I was exploring and entered a Itzel village while the mordrem was preparing to attack. They spoke of their plight and once again my character responded by encouraging them to give it their all and to not lose hope. Those small interactions left a deep positive impression on me.

Once again I played as a Human Revenant class but this time around I could really dig deep and try to figure out the class beyond just the theory. I mentioned before the Revenant will launch with two stances, a dwarf stance and a demon stance. Dwarf stance is meant to allow the Revenant to stand in the front lines, be a bit of a bruiser. In turn it provides utility skills to reflect that philosophy. For instance, a skill called  Inspiring Reinforcement laid down a wide path in front of me, granting me stability so I could resist being affected by crowd control effects as long as I stood in it while on the same front weakening enemies reducing the potential damage they could deal to me. To compliment that move, I  had access to another ability called Vengeful Hammers that surrounded me with hammers that dealt damage to enemies close to me. It was a sustained ability that would last as long as I had the resources to sustain it. That ability combined with auto attacks and the boons I received from Inspiring Reinforcement I was a sturdy frontline fighter.

The Demon stance revolves around manipulating conditions. Taking them from allies and putting them on foes or harnessing conditions to empower your attack. Admittedly I wasn’t able to put myself in a situation where the stance would shine but regardless I still tried to play with it and see what it was all about. One of the abilities you have access to is called Pain Absorption. It acts as a group cleanse. You pull conditions from your allies onto yourself in addition to granting yourself and other Resistance, a new boon that negates the effects of conditions while it is active. That skill is a great starter to use with the other abilities in demon stance since they are empowered when you have a certain amount of conditions on you. Banish Enchantment removes boons from an enemy and applies confusion. If I have three or more conditions present on me the skill would apply even more stacks of confusion. Along the same lines, Unyielding Torment an AoE skill that allowed me to leap to the enemy, apply torment; bonus torment if I had three or more conditions on me and warping them a random location a short distance around me.

I noticed that while playing with this stance, a lot of the utility skills as well as the healing skill provided you Resistance allowing a brief window to manipulate conditions without them affecting you. A nice touch since otherwise I think It would be too troublesome for players to suck in conditions only to be hampered even when said conditions are suppose to increase their effective power. I can see the Revenant really shining as they continue to polish the stances and add more down the line well after the expansion.

All and all, I enjoyed having a chance to play Heart of Thorns again to better understand what ArenaNet is trying to do with the expansion. Although, the beta was short and I could only scratch the surface I’m still looking forward to trying it again in the future. Hopefully then I can get some hand-on time with some of the newer content or dig a bit deeper into the new systems being introduced. Going forward I hope ArenaNet continues to pay attention to the small details, having your NPC talk and converse with NPCs in the open world and in story instances goes a long way in bringing a personal touch to the player experience that I find Guild Wars 2 lacking.