Hands on with Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns (Close Beta)

Hands on with Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns (Close Beta)

We recently had the opportunity to test the Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns closed beta, which allowed us to get a firsthand idea of where the shots are going to go with this expansion, as well as test its new playable class: The Return.
Regarding the latter, The Return with which we could play was level 80, which took us messing with its abilities to learn about its functioning while, because as you can imagine, we had so much to choose from that we did not know where to start, but after a while killing monsters in the initial area expansion, Maguuma heart, and began to move quite easily.
It is a class that melee that has a very interesting feature compared to other professions cannot be equipped with two builds of weapons, so we can only wear a fitted. Yes, fill a special meter and pressing F1 (or key that you choose to do so) you will change combat style between one another purely offensive and defensive.
This we changed all the skills available, including secondary, final and healing, which makes this an extremely versatile class, so we could try, very fun to play, with many different attacks, both body, midway in area, with movements of our character to place in more advantageous positions, and so on.
In fact, we offer many options and possibilities, we have to wait to see how it works in competitive matches to check if it is well balanced or not, although it seems that entry will give many headaches for more than one when you cope with hit.
In the beta we were able to play with two sets of arms. On the one hand, we had a great club two powerful and slow hands as own that at experienced seems to be more oriented to what are the work of "tank" (ie, attract the attention of enemies to set their attacks on us), while on the other our disposal an ax for each hand, offering a style of play much more offensive and intended to do much damage as possible.
Turning now to what the content we've been able to play, have only allowed us to perform the first mission of history and move a little in the starting area, so for all practical purposes we have seen between little and nothing. Of course, we found some very interesting improvements in the way of telling its script, because now the narrative is more dynamic and entertaining, without resorting to such anodyne conversation screens that we suffered in the history of the main game. In addition, returning the decisions for these missions take either way.
Highlight the entire contents of Heart of Thorns is intended for top level players, so you'll have to go up first to level 80 if you want to step into Maguuma. This also means that developers take for granted that we can play, so the enemies and the types of situations that we will not be just a walk, just as many things as we have seen in our first steps occur screen that can not sit still for even a second because of the attacks we have to avoid not to kill us. Obviously, no one will move, but also to use our skills properly and head.
In fact, to the design of the scenarios will test us. After the story mission, we reached a village of terraced houses in the trees where everything is connected by narrow bridges. Here there are many enemies, some of them quite hard, and we were surprised how easily we could end up falling into the void if we took care of our steps and our position in the battle. But of course, with such a limited space, our mobility was very low, so this was easier said than done.
Not that it is an impossible challenge, let alone simply is demanding, but it is also true that for certain objectives need to have several players in the area dividing the tasks. For example, one of them had to fill baskets of food with worms, but monsters constantly tried to approach them to eat what we collected, forcing us to defend while others were engaged in search for grubs and bring to them.
Another interesting detail is the domain points, which will use the experience we get (a priori, useless at level 80). These will get them fulfilling certain objectives, missions or finding them on the stage, and are linked to the areas where we get them. The more we have, the more skills we can "train" in a special list that will have. To this end, we simply select the one we want and keep playing, which turned back on our experience bar. When we fill, rather than go up a level, we get that skill.
Contrary to what might seem, these are not intended for combat, but exploration. Thanks to them we can use specific elements of the scenarios that will give us access to new areas, will allow us to take shortcuts and even discover the most interesting information. There are many possibilities offered and we are convinced that they will give much play in the final version, so we are looking forward to testing this system in depth.

May Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns will not increase the maximum limit, but apparently so far, promises to give us every reason to thank them, a lot of very well organized and raised content. Furthermore, seen here we must add its new and fun competitive game mode, the mode Fortaleza, plus everything we still have to discover, so now we just have to wait for its release to see if these initial good feelings they are just moving into the final version.