GuildWars2Hub was in attendence at Pax East and managed to get a very good interview with ArenaNet’s Jon Peters. The focus of part 1 of the interview was about traits and builds in Guild Wars 2 and contains some pretty hefty responses. Players will find much of this article to be chuck full of information that really is enjoyable to read. For example:

About Necro Weapons…

What we did is we went through and looked at things like what are the playstyles we want them to have, which weapons does the necro have, and where are we going to put those different tools based on what makes the most sense.

The off-hand focus is much more support oriented, so it now has Spinal Shivers for the chill, and a skill that used to be on the scepter – the swarm skill that blinds – that one moved to the off-hand dagger, because the dagger is going a bit more defensive. The main-hand dagger is already about getting into melee range, so the dagger/dagger set ended up going much more defensive, so now you’ll have both the enfeeble and the blind.

Another example is the warhorn that had the cone daze. We were like, that skill is cool, so let’s focus that weapon on being controlling. The other skill that had been on it was the swarm which was more of a life force gaining thing, and it didn’t really tie in with control, so that swarm now gives you swiftness and cripples enemies. So now you can just stick on a guy with it, and you have your movement control and your skill control both on that same weapon.

Changes Made From Beta Lessons 

And you played in the last beta event, and in that one we found that the damage formulas for creatures was way off, so we remapped the entire curve between that last beta weekend and the next open one. I’m sure you noticed things in that last one where it was like, “I’m level 10 and I’m fighting three level 17s”, so there’s no more of that. We tightened everything in so you feel like there’s some challenge there.

Now it’s like that guy is three levels above me, let me see what skill counters I’m going to use to get through him because he’s also got his different things with skills that he’s doing. You actually feel like you’re making those choices that we set out to have you make in the first place. So people who played in both events will be able to tell a difference with that stuff I think.

For the rest of this great interview, click here.