Guild Wars 2!

[LightWraith]

US Central time here.

[Morty]

I have to say, the reward for 100% completion of Metrica Province was far better than I'd thought it would be. 10 silver, 50 leather squares, a good staff and good shoes? Yes please.

[maratek]

You get a Reward for finishing maps? i didn't know that time for some back tracking me thinks,

Oh and Euro GMT.

[JSSheridan]

You get a Reward for finishing maps? i didn't know that time for some back tracking me thinks,

Oh and Euro GMT.

I think the rewards scale to your level. So I'm holding off on 100% for each region until I'm 80.

[Astrella]

They don't scale.

[Shadow]

NA here.
Once Guesting gets implemented I'll head over there once in a while. I have a high school friend on TC that I was planning on visiting once in a while anyway.

[Togath]

I have to say, the reward for 100% completion of Metrica Province was far better than I'd thought it would be. 10 silver, 50 leather squares, a good staff and good shoes? Yes please.

honestly sounds better then the reward for snowden drifts(a mace, three transmutation stones and 40 wool)

also; after watching the most recent yogscast guildwars video, where they do the final dragon dungeon, it made me wonder; do you think when they add more dragons, that they will let us kill at least one of them ourselves?, rather then having to wait for dmpcs to do the job for us.

[Xefas]

Just hit level 80 with my Warrior a few minutes ago. Guess it's time to start figuring out what build and gear and appearance I want, and working towards that.

Or just starting my Elementalist. Those look fun.

Also, I'm still not sure what the pros/cons of having one character have all of your crafting professions are, versus having them spread across multiple characters. Anyone have some insight on why you would want to do one or the other?

[mucco]

honestly sounds better then the reward for snowden drifts(a mace, three transmutation stones and 40 wool)

also; after watching the most recent yogscast guildwars video, where they do the final dragon dungeon, it made me wonder; do you think when they add more dragons, that they will let us kill at least one of them ourselves?, rather then having to wait for dmpcs to do the job for us.

There is a reason why I think that the worst part of GW2 is the storyline! But I bet we'll have a fair fight with a dragon once we hit L100.

[Penguinizer]

It depends what you mean by "ourselves". There are a couple of world events that involve players vs. dragons.

[Chen]

Just hit level 80 with my Warrior a few minutes ago. Guess it's time to start figuring out what build and gear and appearance I want, and working towards that.

Or just starting my Elementalist. Those look fun.

Also, I'm still not sure what the pros/cons of having one character have all of your crafting professions are, versus having them spread across multiple characters. Anyone have some insight on why you would want to do one or the other?

Well you get more XP/skill points if you do it all on one char. But the fee to change professions is pretty expensive I heard. From what I've seen regarding Legendary weapons, the craftable components are account bound so it doesn't seem necessary to have the crafting skill on the char you want to make the weapon for either.

Speaking of Legendary weapons some posts on reddit and guildwars2guru seem to imply upwards of 2 million karma needed for some of the components at least with the current understanding. Seems like a pretty absurd amount to me, but I guess if its true they really want these things to be rare.

[mucco]

IIRC, the cost to change profession is 10c times the level of the profession you're picking up. So, if you level Jeweler to 400 and then switch to Huntsman at 0, you don't pay anything. When you return to jeweler, you pay 40s.

[Cikomyr]

There is a reason why I think that the worst part of GW2 is the storyline! But I bet we'll have a fair fight with a dragon once we hit L100.

Care to elaborate on that thought? So far, I felt the story wasnt bad at all. There seems to be a focus regarding the previous members of Destiny's Edge (?), the last group of heroes who broke up. But so far (lvl 35) they have proved to be somewha subdued and not really relevant in my missions; they spend 5x my time on the ground, and are somewhat... Un-remarkable in fights. Especially in the Catacombs. Or the battle to Defend the Priory (Vigil-Norn).

They are good flavah' so far.

[JSSheridan]

They don't scale.

I went back last night to get a skill point in Plains of Ashford that got me to 100%. I was level 38. I got 35 silver, 40 wool scraps (tailoring was active and I'm on wool), a black lion key, and a couple level 26 masterwork items.

Are you sure map completion rewards don't scale? Do you have a source?

[Tono]

So, for people who are crafting, how do you get all the items to make the insignias? Have you just happened to find them as you were playing, farming, or just buy them? It is getting increasingly annoying to try to keep my crafting with my level. (As in, this character is about to hit 40, so I want my two mains, huntsman/leatherworking to be at that 3rd teir as I hit it) I spent a couple hours in Gendarran(Sp?) Fields last night farming venom sacs/Thin bloods to discovery with, and now I have to do it again tonight to get my LW up to 150 aswell. Im tempted to just say screw it and level up normally, but at the same time I -really- want my crafting to stay relevant. Doing it so far I've been able to have what I craft to be just as good or better then what I am finding as loot. Has anyone else been trying to keep crafting at about their level, or is it generally better to just level and then use money/what you've randomly found to get crafting up in the later levels?

[Togath]

Care to elaborate on that thought? So far, I felt the story wasnt bad at all. There seems to be a focus regarding the previous members of Destiny's Edge (?), the last group of heroes who broke up. But so far (lvl 35) they have proved to be somewha subdued and not really relevant in my missions; they spend 5x my time on the ground, and are somewhat... Un-remarkable in fights. Especially in the Catacombs. Or the battle to Defend the Priory (Vigil-Norn).

They are good flavah' so far.

what I meant was just that the final, currently highest level dungeon(or at least it was when the yogscast video featuring it was made), has the final boss as a battle where you only ever fight his minions, rather then him himself(he gets slain by your airship's automatic cannons), which seem somewhat lackluster compared to most other boss battles in guildwars, or compared to the death wing raid in WoW(and the guildwars dragon is basically a combination of Deathwing and Arthas from my understanding so far, though I suppose they could have been going for something like the Arthas fight, which from what I've heard is mostly killing his uber mooks, which has never sounded as fun as the other ice crown citadel fights)

[JSSheridan]

So, for people who are crafting, how do you get all the items to make the insignias? Have you just happened to find them as you were playing, farming, or just buy them? It is getting increasingly annoying to try to keep my crafting with my level. (As in, this character is about to hit 40, so I want my two mains, huntsman/leatherworking to be at that 3rd teir as I hit it) I spent a couple hours in Gendarran(Sp?) Fields last night farming venom sacs/Thin bloods to discovery with, and now I have to do it again tonight to get my LW up to 150 aswell. Im tempted to just say screw it and level up normally, but at the same time I -really- want my crafting to stay relevant. Doing it so far I've been able to have what I craft to be just as good or better then what I am finding as loot. Has anyone else been trying to keep crafting at about their level, or is it generally better to just level and then use money/what you've randomly found to get crafting up in the later levels?

I'm not worrying about it. While the crafting XP is a nice perk, there enough sources of it to get to the cap without it. I don't need the gear so badly for PvE content, so I just take the upgrades as they come along.

I only see the professions as an easy way to acquire good gear at the level cap. They game only really starts to get interesting at that point.

I'm saving all the discovering after I get bored with the game. Then I'll farm all the materials I need to discover all the recipes for all the professions. Have fun with it while it's fresh. Grind later.

[Chen]

So, for people who are crafting, how do you get all the items to make the insignias? Have you just happened to find them as you were playing, farming, or just buy them? It is getting increasingly annoying to try to keep my crafting with my level. (As in, this character is about to hit 40, so I want my two mains, huntsman/leatherworking to be at that 3rd teir as I hit it) I spent a couple hours in Gendarran(Sp?) Fields last night farming venom sacs/Thin bloods to discovery with, and now I have to do it again tonight to get my LW up to 150 aswell. Im tempted to just say screw it and level up normally, but at the same time I -really- want my crafting to stay relevant. Doing it so far I've been able to have what I craft to be just as good or better then what I am finding as loot. Has anyone else been trying to keep crafting at about their level, or is it generally better to just level and then use money/what you've randomly found to get crafting up in the later levels?

Easiest and cheapest way I've found is to buy the Insignias off the TP. Why people sell the insignias at a MASSIVE loss I don't know, but they do. The insignia's that take 3 of the lowest tier fine material cost something like 5-6cp on the TP when the mats to make them cost on the order of 1-3 sp. The rare insignias are more expensive but still pretty much cheaper than mat cost in a lot of cases. Right now the fine materials around tier 2-3 are extremely high in cost and the others are low. I'd buy some of the higher level mats now while they're cheap and save them until later. I got a bunch of Ancient Bones (used to make the level 80 exotic Carrion pieces) at something like 20cp each. I can't imagine those will stay at that value for very long.

[Neftren]

I went back last night to get a skill point in Plains of Ashford that got me to 100%. I was level 38. I got 35 silver, 40 wool scraps (tailoring was active and I'm on wool), a black lion key, and a couple level 26 masterwork items.

Are you sure map completion rewards don't scale? Do you have a source?

They don't scale. The fact that you're level 38 and getting level 26 masterwork items is proof, but as a level 80 Ranger with about 51% Map Completion, I can certifiably say that map rewards don't scale. :smallsmile:


honestly sounds better then the reward for snowden drifts(a mace, three transmutation stones and 40 wool)

also; after watching the most recent yogscast guildwars video, where they do the final dragon dungeon, it made me wonder; do you think when they add more dragons, that they will let us kill at least one of them ourselves?, rather then having to wait for dmpcs to do the job for us.

The final dungeon is incredibly boring. Actually most of the dungeons are incredibly boring, alternating between zerging the boss, or just a simple tank and spank.

[mucco]

Alright, my rant on the storyline. Spoilered for, well, spoilers:
The storyline of GW2 has its good points, this is undeniable. The first ten levels, and their many different storylines, are very well crafted and make your character feel alive and important in a living world. You are doing all the stuff, moving up the ranks, finding fun things along the way. It's great. You have this mentor, the character of DE, above you. Which is... sort of fine. The storyline progresses well until DE characters, the so-called iconics, start taking a bigger role. Here you can see all the shortcomings of the ANet writers - most iconics are terrible.

They all have two things in common: they act in a Mary Sue-ish sort of way when they're alone, but they behave exactly like 7 y/o kids when they're together, with the men and the asura insulting each other while the girls cry and complain. This is absolutely on purpose, which is worrying to say the least. They are supposed to be the greatest adventurers of their time, yet they are completely clueless. I know this is supposed to be the starting situation, but it's really horribly done - because those five characters basically behave the same way, they're copycats; the only difference being the gender differentiation. Could you picture Logan reacting differently than Rytlock or Zojja, had he been in that situation? Of course not. Zojja would have made the same mistake Logan made and she showed it. Eir and Caithe are really echoing each other's words, too.

So: problem 1 is that among five iconics we get two personalities and they're both either childish or Mary Sue. Heck, Cynn alone has more personality than the 5 combined and is childish in a less stupid way.

Then it gets to your storyline, after 30, which is composed of two parts. The first one is you meeting the only well written character in the storyline, your order mentor, and seeing him/her die at Claw Island for no reason whatsoever other than dramatic tension and DM fiat. Thanks for that. The second part of your storyline is executing what the DMPC says you have to do. Said DMPC is, of course, Trahearne.

Trahearne deserves a paragraph on his own because of his uncanny ability to detroy all that is good in a storyline. He is Mary Sue, and he is the classic bad DMPC we all encountered once in our DnD experiences. On top of that, he is in the top 3 of worst written characters I've ever seen - apathetic, never showcasing any strong character trait, condescending. He just feels so indifferent and bland, you really do forget about him. And yet occasionally he goes and uses 3 elites at the same time, or does DM-fiat tricks. You could forgive him if he had some good writing, like having a flamboyant/extra depressed/always furious/hectic/mad scholar/sardonic/badass serious personality. There, I listed seven personalities he could have had, it took me three minutes, and I'm not even a pro writer. They chose to make him this bad. Why? To make up for the fact they couldn't write epic lines for our character, most likely - so they decided to make the DMPC even blander, so our character wouldn't get overshadowed.

At the end of a series of fully linear quests without plot twist whatsoever, you kill the dragon. Woo. I could see it coming 50 levels ago, thanks Trahearne. Now die in a fire, I want my order mentor back.

There, end rant. :smallsigh: ANet is really great at writing secondary characters, I find. Too bad they blow completely the big ones. Even Gwen was better in pre-searing...

[JSSheridan]

They don't scale. The fact that you're level 38 and getting level 26 masterwork items is proof, but as a level 80 Ranger with about 51% Map Completion, I can certifiably say that map rewards don't scale. :smallsmile:


Plains of Ashford is a 1-15 zone. It's not proof rewards don't scale.

Also, please cite a source.

[Tono]

Easiest and cheapest way I've found is to buy the Insignias off the TP. Why people sell the insignias at a MASSIVE loss I don't know, but they do. The insignia's that take 3 of the lowest tier fine material cost something like 5-6cp on the TP when the mats to make them cost on the order of 1-3 sp. The rare insignias are more expensive but still pretty much cheaper than mat cost in a lot of cases. Right now the fine materials around tier 2-3 are extremely high in cost and the others are low. I'd buy some of the higher level mats now while they're cheap and save them until later. I got a bunch of Ancient Bones (used to make the level 80 exotic Carrion pieces) at something like 20cp each. I can't imagine those will stay at that value for very long.

Wow, thank you. I don't know why but it did not occur to me to just buy the isignias. I've bought a few of the already refined goods knowing that it was cheaper but for some reason it never clicked I could do the same for isignias. Wont even set me back that much either, isignias don't give near as much exp. as the discoveries.

And I think they are selling them cheaper then they cost because they just used them to level up/made too many and now they just want it out of their inventory at what ever profit they can scrounge up.

[Neftren]

Plains of Ashford is a 1-15 zone. It's not proof rewards don't scale.

Also, please cite a source.

At level 80, I completed a significantly lower level zone (the name slips me at the moment, but I can find it once I get online) and didn't receive loot anywhere close to level 80.

Even completing Straits of Devastation, Malchor's Leap, and Cursed Shore only yielded level 70/76/78 Exotics, and a bunch of Silk, despite being level 80 and a Huntsman, at that.

What kind of source are you looking for? A research paper? I'm merely presenting empirical evidence as a level 80 that loot does not scale, or at the very least, does not scale appropriately or at a rate that would be remotely useful to my character.

[Eloel]

Chances are (and this is complete random guessing), completing your #Xth map yields similar loot, be it a city or a 55-65 zone.

[illyrus]

The final dungeon is incredibly boring. Actually most of the dungeons are incredibly boring, alternating between zerging the boss, or just a simple tank and spank.

I have yet to do a dungeon (just reached 30 with my engineer). Can you actually just play a defensive character with defensive traits and gear and just melee the bosses down like in most MMOs? I've read that it was more of the kiting around stuff you see everywhere else. Or is it one of those cases where once you have all your traits/gear/etc you can E-Z mode through them?

[Karoht]

Alright, my rant on the storyline. Spoilered for, well, spoilers:
The storyline of GW2 has its good points, this is undeniable. The first ten levels, and their many different storylines, are very well crafted and make your character feel alive and important in a living world. You are doing all the stuff, moving up the ranks, finding fun things along the way. It's great. You have this mentor, the character of DE, above you. Which is... sort of fine. The storyline progresses well until DE characters, the so-called iconics, start taking a bigger role. Here you can see all the shortcomings of the ANet writers - most iconics are terrible.

They all have two things in common: they act in a Mary Sue-ish sort of way when they're alone, but they behave exactly like 7 y/o kids when they're together, with the men and the asura insulting each other while the girls cry and complain. This is absolutely on purpose, which is worrying to say the least. They are supposed to be the greatest adventurers of their time, yet they are completely clueless. I know this is supposed to be the starting situation, but it's really horribly done - because those five characters basically behave the same way, they're copycats; the only difference being the gender differentiation. Could you picture Logan reacting differently than Rytlock or Zojja, had he been in that situation? Of course not. Zojja would have made the same mistake Logan made and she showed it. Eir and Caithe are really echoing each other's words, too.

So: problem 1 is that among five iconics we get two personalities and they're both either childish or Mary Sue. Heck, Cynn alone has more personality than the 5 combined and is childish in a less stupid way.

Then it gets to your storyline, after 30, which is composed of two parts. The first one is you meeting the only well written character in the storyline, your order mentor, and seeing him/her die at Claw Island for no reason whatsoever other than dramatic tension and DM fiat. Thanks for that. The second part of your storyline is executing what the DMPC says you have to do. Said DMPC is, of course, Trahearne.

Trahearne deserves a paragraph on his own because of his uncanny ability to detroy all that is good in a storyline. He is Mary Sue, and he is the classic bad DMPC we all encountered once in our DnD experiences. On top of that, he is in the top 3 of worst written characters I've ever seen - apathetic, never showcasing any strong character trait, condescending. He just feels so indifferent and bland, you really do forget about him. And yet occasionally he goes and uses 3 elites at the same time, or does DM-fiat tricks. You could forgive him if he had some good writing, like having a flamboyant/extra depressed/always furious/hectic/mad scholar/sardonic/badass serious personality. There, I listed seven personalities he could have had, it took me three minutes, and I'm not even a pro writer. They chose to make him this bad. Why? To make up for the fact they couldn't write epic lines for our character, most likely - so they decided to make the DMPC even blander, so our character wouldn't get overshadowed.

At the end of a series of fully linear quests without plot twist whatsoever, you kill the dragon. Woo. I could see it coming 50 levels ago, thanks Trahearne. Now die in a fire, I want my order mentor back.

There, end rant. :smallsigh: ANet is really great at writing secondary characters, I find. Too bad they blow completely the big ones. Even Gwen was better in pre-searing...
Your rant has a lot in common with a rant I wrote years ago regarding the story in Aion.

[Neftren]

Chances are (and this is complete random guessing), completing your #Xth map yields similar loot, be it a city or a 55-65 zone.

I don't recall exactly, but I believe you don't actually get exotic items for completing a city. Just gold, XP, some crafting materials, and perhaps a key? This one is a bit easier to verify. I'll go complete another city and get back to you on this one.


I have yet to do a dungeon (just reached 30 with my engineer). Can you actually just play a defensive character with defensive traits and gear and just melee the bosses down like in most MMOs? I've read that it was more of the kiting around stuff you see everywhere else. Or is it one of those cases where once you have all your traits/gear/etc you can E-Z mode through them?

It depends on the instance. There's a little bit of dodging involved, though a fair bit of it is just "don't stand in red circles" and the general common sense involved with that piece of advice.

I'm sure you could play a defensive character with defensive traits and gear and do just fine. You might have to step out every once in a while and heal yourself (I haven't played any melee classes other than Thief so far), but other than that... most bosses are pretty straightforward with the "whack them until dead" approach.

[Shadow]

IIRC, the cost to change profession is 10c times the level of the profession you're picking up. So, if you level Jeweler to 400 and then switch to Huntsman at 0, you don't pay anything. When you return to jeweler, you pay 40s.

This is correct.

[Togath]

Is there any way to re-train skill points?, I made an elementalist earlier, and got the glyph that can be used to make your spells deal various conidtion effects, but it doesn't look very powerful now that I realise how it works(I had thought it was like a signet, and thought it was an always active thing).
Or is it better then it seems?

[Xefas]

Is there any way to re-train skill points?

I don't think so, but don't worry. You can get way more skill points per character than are required to learn all of their skills. Not just from skill challenges, but also because every "level" you get after 80 also gives you a bonus skill point.

[mucco]

Correct - skill points are theoretically infinite, as you get one for each level up, even after 80. They need to be that way, due to how legendary recipes work. It is also correct that you cannot retrain them.

Suggestion: try to save your skill points early. Elite skills cost 10 points at the first tier, and 30 at the second. You might want a tier 2 elite (I know I want both Druid Spirit and Lich Form), so there's 50 skill points just to get it because you need two T1 elites to unlock T2.

On the glyph, is it the one that gives like weakness on air, burning on fire etc? I thought it was a decent choice. I would use it to get a condition on demand, by glyphing up and swapping to the right attunement.

[Shadow]

From another forum:


<snip>
I'm eagerly getting ready for my first dungeon soon.

Ascalonian Catacombs story mode [L30] was tough, but fun. Of the three that I've run, this one was the hardest, which I find strange as it's the first dungeon available. Explorable mode [L35] was ROCK HARD. Punitively so in certain parts.
Caudecus Manor story mode [L40] was fairly easy, and really fast and short in comparison.
Twilight Arbor story mode [L50] is what we just ran a moment ago. Four guildies and a fairly competent pugger. Difficulty between AC and CM, and my favorite dungeon so far. Tough as nails until you figure out what is happening, and why, and how, and when. And then after you figure that out it's fun without being quite so tough. Just the way that a story mode dungeon should be in my opinion. I really think they nailed TA for story mode.

[Morty]

In your experience, what can be called the right rate of advancing crafting professions? My mesmer is currently level 21 - I'm slow, I know - and his jewelry is on 40 and tailoring on 25. But I keep recieving materials as loot that are far beyond those levels.

[Chen]

I don't recall exactly, but I believe you don't actually get exotic items for completing a city. Just gold, XP, some crafting materials, and perhaps a key? This one is a bit easier to verify. I'll go complete another city and get back to you on this one.


Completing a city gives transmute stones, gold and xp. I don't think I even got crafting material from it. There does seem to be SOME scaling involved in the XP and gold reward though. Completing cities even at higher levels seems worthwhile.

[Shadow]

In your experience, what can be called the right rate of advancing crafting professions? My mesmer is currently level 21 - I'm slow, I know - and his jewelry is on 40 and tailoring on 25. But I keep recieving materials as loot that are far beyond those levels.

I haven't done much crafting, so I can't be sure (too busy exploring the world, crafting will come latet for me), but there are 400 crafting levels and 80 character levels, so 5 crafting levels per character level feels lime it should keep your crafting relevant to me. At least that's what the math says.

[Morty]

If that's so, then it means I've been advancing it too slowly. But how on Earth am I suppose to advance it more quickly? This is why I hate crafting in games and wish it would die in a fire. :smallsigh:

[Chen]

Crafting doesn't really follow that 5*level I found. I need 225 LW to make the level 55 gear I want. But at level 55 following the 5* rule would be 275. Which makes things that I can't USE at level 55. I hit the same problem at the lower levels where I made a fancy set of armor and then realized I couldn't use it since it had a level 35 req.

Without grinding/buying you'd probably need to be salvaging everything you find to keep your crafting on par. Of course that's highly inefficient since goods on the TP sell for much cheaper in a lot of cases then the vendor value of the gear you'd be salvaging. I've been vendoring most gear, salvaging cheap pieces that give cloth/leather and just buying completed inscriptions/insignias for my Weaponsmithing/Leatherworking. Its significantly cheaper than trying to buy the fine materials to make the insignias yourself and discovery gives MUCH higher exp than creating the insignias in the first place.

People say crafting is a waste of time now since prices are high. I think they're wrong though. Yes the initial prices are high (for copper/jute) but after that the prices start dropping again. I think people haven't been leveling crafting and therefore the mid tier crafting mats are cheap as hell. Once things "stabilize" with many people at 80 I suspect the low end mats will drop somewhat but the mid tier mats are going to skyrocket. If you can afford to push past the initial cost now I suspect it'll be cheaper overall to level your craft skills now rather than later.

[Togath]

Correct - skill points are theoretically infinite, as you get one for each level up, even after 80. They need to be that way, due to how legendary recipes work. It is also correct that you cannot retrain them.

Suggestion: try to save your skill points early. Elite skills cost 10 points at the first tier, and 30 at the second. You might want a tier 2 elite (I know I want both Druid Spirit and Lich Form), so there's 50 skill points just to get it because you need two T1 elites to unlock T2.

On the glyph, is it the one that gives like weakness on air, burning on fire etc? I thought it was a decent choice. I would use it to get a condition on demand, by glyphing up and swapping to the right attunement.

Ah, it applies it on demand, I think that was the part I was missing, I had thought it meant it makes it so your ability might give a condition, if it's on demand, then it's a lot like the abilities I use on my guardian and enjoy the playstyle of using then.
(and sorry if my previous post was a bit hard to understand, I went to bed shortly after writing it due to having been too tired to stay up.)

[Neftren]

Completing a city gives transmute stones, gold and xp. I don't think I even got crafting material from it. There does seem to be SOME scaling involved in the XP and gold reward though. Completing cities even at higher levels seems worthwhile.

Hmmm... that would make sense.

Did you get regular Transmute Stones, or Fine ones?



1


On an unrelated note, I have the entire soundtrack in FLAC (78 Tracks), as well as the "Best Of" collection that shipped with the Collector's Edition (6 Tracks). I'm not sure if the latter is included in the former, but I'll run it through a waveform analyzer later and compare versions I suppose. Does anyone happen to know the answer to this specifically though?

[Togath]

anyone want to try grouping for ascalon catacombs later today?, I should be able to be online sometime around 5pm pdt, and my guardian is now level 36(he mostly uses sword+torch or greatsword, but I do have a staff, and a shield if it would be better for me to use multiple weapon sets for catacombs).

[HamHam]

Alright, my rant on the storyline. Spoilered for, well, spoilers:
The storyline of GW2 has its good points, this is undeniable. The first ten levels, and their many different storylines, are very well crafted and make your character feel alive and important in a living world. You are doing all the stuff, moving up the ranks, finding fun things along the way. It's great. You have this mentor, the character of DE, above you. Which is... sort of fine. The storyline progresses well until DE characters, the so-called iconics, start taking a bigger role. Here you can see all the shortcomings of the ANet writers - most iconics are terrible.

They all have two things in common: they act in a Mary Sue-ish sort of way when they're alone, but they behave exactly like 7 y/o kids when they're together, with the men and the asura insulting each other while the girls cry and complain. This is absolutely on purpose, which is worrying to say the least. They are supposed to be the greatest adventurers of their time, yet they are completely clueless. I know this is supposed to be the starting situation, but it's really horribly done - because those five characters basically behave the same way, they're copycats; the only difference being the gender differentiation. Could you picture Logan reacting differently than Rytlock or Zojja, had he been in that situation? Of course not. Zojja would have made the same mistake Logan made and she showed it. Eir and Caithe are really echoing each other's words, too.

So: problem 1 is that among five iconics we get two personalities and they're both either childish or Mary Sue. Heck, Cynn alone has more personality than the 5 combined and is childish in a less stupid way.

Then it gets to your storyline, after 30, which is composed of two parts. The first one is you meeting the only well written character in the storyline, your order mentor, and seeing him/her die at Claw Island for no reason whatsoever other than dramatic tension and DM fiat. Thanks for that. The second part of your storyline is executing what the DMPC says you have to do. Said DMPC is, of course, Trahearne.

Trahearne deserves a paragraph on his own because of his uncanny ability to detroy all that is good in a storyline. He is Mary Sue, and he is the classic bad DMPC we all encountered once in our DnD experiences. On top of that, he is in the top 3 of worst written characters I've ever seen - apathetic, never showcasing any strong character trait, condescending. He just feels so indifferent and bland, you really do forget about him. And yet occasionally he goes and uses 3 elites at the same time, or does DM-fiat tricks. You could forgive him if he had some good writing, like having a flamboyant/extra depressed/always furious/hectic/mad scholar/sardonic/badass serious personality. There, I listed seven personalities he could have had, it took me three minutes, and I'm not even a pro writer. They chose to make him this bad. Why? To make up for the fact they couldn't write epic lines for our character, most likely - so they decided to make the DMPC even blander, so our character wouldn't get overshadowed.

At the end of a series of fully linear quests without plot twist whatsoever, you kill the dragon. Woo. I could see it coming 50 levels ago, thanks Trahearne. Now die in a fire, I want my order mentor back.

There, end rant. :smallsigh: ANet is really great at writing secondary characters, I find. Too bad they blow completely the big ones. Even Gwen was better in pre-searing...

I disagree. I've only done AC, CM, and TA and I'm in the mid 70s on my personal story, but:

The members of DE act like they do because they are broken. Their disagreement is not based on logic, but emotions. Their arguments are justifications for their feelings more than anything. Now, that can get real old real fast. But since it's spaced out, once every ten levels you get to see DE yelling at each other, it's not too bad.

As for Trahearne, maybe it's just because I played a Sylvari and he was a big part of my race story as well, but his transformation from scholar to Marshal of the Pact was pretty neat.

[Togath]

with regards to the personal storyline thing, and storyline in general, it seems like it could have been done better if they had made it a bit more like world of warcraft, with the players being the heroes(in world of warcraft, you end up being able to slay deity power level things, in guildwars 2....you have npcs slay the final boss for you.....and not even nesasarlarally named npcs....just some random mooks controlling cannons)
Hopefully, when they add more dungeons they'll make more classic style mmo raid and dungeon bosses, as it be more fun(WoW and ddo for example have great dungeons and raids, though one thing to avoid would be something like eq2)

[MeatShield#236]

anyone want to try grouping for ascalon catacombs later today?, I should be able to be online sometime around 5pm pdt, and my guardian is now level 36(he mostly uses sword+torch or greatsword, but I do have a staff, and a shield if it would be better for me to use multiple weapon sets for catacombs).

I just got my Thief up to level 31, so I'm willing to do it anytime. I currently run dual pistols and focus on condition damage (I have a ton of bleeds, cripples, blinds, and poisons.)

[Togath]

ok, if I see you online I'll send an invite on my guardian(he isn't very sturdy currently, and mainly focuses on damage over time, so we probably will need a few more people

[Shadow]

ok, if I see you online I'll send an invite on my guardian(he isn't very sturdy currently, and mainly focuses on damage over time, so we probably will need a few more people

This is an understatement. Don't even *think* about stepping foot in there without a full party for your first run. Or for your fifth run, for that matter.

My first run through there was with two guildies that had run it prior [so we had strats set up instead of going in blind] and three guildies [myself included] that hadn't run it yet. We lost one player to a DC. He never returned. Losing that one player made an extremely noticeable difference, even with knowledgeable leadership and competent players.

I'm not saying that it can't be shortmanned on your first run. I'm saying that I'm not sure it would be worth the time and effort [and repair bills] required to do so. Learn it with full groups. Then go ahead and try to shortman it.

[Cikomyr]

with regards to the personal storyline thing, and storyline in general, it seems like it could have been done better if they had made it a bit more like world of warcraft, with the players being the heroes(in world of warcraft, you end up being able to slay deity power level things, in guildwars 2....you have npcs slay the final boss for you.....and not even nesasarlarally named npcs....just some random mooks controlling cannons)
Hopefully, when they add more dungeons they'll make more classic style mmo raid and dungeon bosses, as it be more fun(WoW and ddo for example have great dungeons and raids, though one thing to avoid would be something like eq2)

Disagreed. While I agree with the idea of you personally taking out a Elder Dragon is epic in theory, I find it silly that a single hero can actually do it. It cheapens the strenght of the enemy, and simply takes your own char's power scale to a ridiculous level. Who could potentially challenge you for rulership of your faction?!

The idea that it takes careful planning, geo advantage, massive armament and a bit of luck to be able to defeat them allows for the Dragon's defeat without cheapening their threat. Kinda like how we defeated Sovereign at the end of Mass Effect.

NOT like we defeated the Reapers.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Disagreed. While I agree with the idea of you personally taking out a Elder Dragon is epic in theory, I find it silly that a single hero can actually do it. It cheapens the strenght of the enemy, and simply takes your own char's power scale to a ridiculous level. Who could potentially challenge you for rulership of your faction?!

...The final boss is the boss of a dungeon, right? One that you're supposed to go through with a group of players?

[Cikomyr]

...The final boss is the boss of a dungeon, right? One that you're supposed to go through with a group of players?

I thought we were talking about My Story?

[Hiro Protagonest]

I thought we were talking about My Story?

I read an article by ArenaNet that said that you can get up to the penultimate step without having to deal with other players, but not the ultimate because you can't take down an elder dragon alone. Maybe they changed it before the launch for guys who want only solo for PvE?

[mucco]

The last story step is the Story mode of the dungeon Arah. However, before that you get an important last instanced story step.

So, yes, you have to play in a group to complete the story.

I sort of agree with Cikomyr's point that solo killing a dragon cheapens the whole story. I have no quibbles with the way that particular fight is handled. On the contrary, I think it's very scenographic and cool. The story part I think is written worse than what my housecat could do is from 30 to 79.

[Togath]

I didn't mean one-man it, i meant let a group handle it, like any other dungeon or raid boss in any other mmo.(then again, it sort of annoys me that they don't have raid instances yet, or a dungeon finder)
I also don't see how having players have huge amounts of power is a bad thing, the god of war games for example are fine, and wow ends up just fine while still letting groups of players kill even deathwing.

[Karoht]

I didn't mean one-man it, i meant let a group handle it, like any other dungeon or raid boss in any other mmo.(then again, it sort of annoys me that they don't have raid instances yet, or a dungeon finder)
I also don't see how having players have huge amounts of power is a bad thing, the god of war games for example are fine, and wow ends up just fine while still letting groups of players kill even deathwing.
To be fair, Deathwing is killed by a party of 10 or 25 people, with the full backing of the four remaining Aspects or head dragons. They don't kill him for us, they actually do a pretty good job of having the heroes work WITH the Aspects, not just stand back and watch them do all the work.

[mucco]

Well, one has to consider exactly what Zhaitan is. He is one of the five dragons which, as tvtropes says, are closer to being eldritch horrors than your usual dragons. Take their commanders: there are two that I know of in the game, the Shatterer and Tequatl. You can't expect to kill them without tons of people, in game. That's because they're just too much. DE supposedly became good at killing similarly powerful dragons, but they should be the five strongest characters in the setting. And yet they couldn't kill one of those dragons even with the help of Glint.

No, killing a dragon is out of the question for a small group of individuals.

[Togath]

10-25:smallconfused: people isn't that small.

[Cikomyr]

10-25:smallconfused: people isn't that small.

It rather is in the grand scheme of things. It's the population of a small dredge outpos that I wiped single-handily to finish my lvl 18 story mission

[Chen]

Hmmm... that would make sense.

Did you get regular Transmute Stones, or Fine ones?


Regular but I'm only level 50ish.


This is an understatement. Don't even *think* about stepping foot in there without a full party for your first run. Or for your fifth run, for that matter.

My first run through there was with two guildies that had run it prior [so we had strats set up instead of going in blind] and three guildies [myself included] that hadn't run it yet. We lost one player to a DC. He never returned. Losing that one player made an extremely noticeable difference, even with knowledgeable leadership and competent players.

I'm not saying that it can't be shortmanned on your first run. I'm saying that I'm not sure it would be worth the time and effort [and repair bills] required to do so. Learn it with full groups. Then go ahead and try to shortman it.

Its not that bad if your group has decent players. We lost someone to a DC on my first run through and only one other person had gone through it before. The only thing that gave us trouble was the Lovers but from what I hear they're WAY out of tune compared to the rest of the dungeon anyway.

[Shadow]

The Lovers fight was actually my favorite part of that dungeon. But yeah, that's where we lost one as well.
I was simply saying that the two of them had never done it, and he was like "well,maybe we should get a few more...."
Maybe is an understatement.

[Hullabaloo]

I didn't mean one-man it, i meant let a group handle it, like any other dungeon or raid boss in any other mmo.(

If you have not noticed yet, ANet looks at what other MMOs did, and changed it. For the better.

That being said in WoW people complained about BBE fatigue. Oh this guy is going to end the world. Oh you beat him. This Lich is gonig to kill the world. Oh you cleaned that up. This Darkwing is going to kill the world. Oh you managed that too? Alot of people were happy that MoP was more a "look at new area to explore and enjoy"

Likewise there were alot of issues when DDO announced its expansion. You are going to her (a goddess's) realm, and going to kill her? Right. Not going to happen. Hence their escort raid, which is widely considered a failure.

Realistically though, you character is 2 weeks old. And you thought you could kill something big and strong? No thanks. You are a minor player in this world (see WvWvW). Maybe in the future, when you have shown your power and refined your skills you will be worthy to fight something on your own. Until then, training wheels.

[Cikomyr]

The Lovers fight was actually my favorite part of that dungeon. But yeah, that's where we lost one as well.
I was simply saying that the two of them had never done it, and he was like "well,maybe we should get a few more...."
Maybe is an understatement.

Thing is, the Lovers are really hard to beat (They should give 2x treasure chests). But they are also the bosses who actually require some thought, coordination and teamwork to defeat. It's not about who is experienced in the run, it's about who can stick to a plan well enough.

It really is a 5-men job.

You need 1 to solo the Male Lover and keep him busy.
You need 1 to throw rocks at both lovers to keep them as far appart as possible and throw them on the ground, which buys anyone about 4 seconds.
You need 1 (ranged) to take out the ghosts as they come up. It's high priority, for these can really ruin your day.
You need 2 to take on the Female lover and kill her as quickly as possible.

You definitely need a crew who can stick to the job at hand and act disciplined in the face of chaos. We succeeded it at our 5th attempt with a bunch of 4 newbies and 1 guy who did it once, but had terrible lag problem who couldn't actually do anything (but he was an engineer, so he just created turrets and still helped a lot).

And the reason it needed us 5 tries was merely because in the first 3, we tried to take down the guy, and on the 4th, there was a bug that got both lovers stuck in a location close to each other so we couldn't do anything.

[Hullabaloo]

It really is a 5-men job.

You need 1 to solo the Male Lover and keep him busy.
You need 1 to throw rocks at both lovers to keep them as far appart as possible and throw them on the ground, which buys anyone about 4 seconds.
You need 1 (ranged) to take out the ghosts as they come up. It's high priority, for these can really ruin your day.
You need 2 to take on the Female lover and kill her as quickly as possible.


The first guy you mention (keeping the male busy) should also be focusing on DPSing the Female lover. I (Mesmer condition staff build) take the male over by the fire brazzers (The word is escaping me, sorry, but you know what I'm talking about :) ) and kite him using line of sight with the fire things. using my illusions to keep him off me, I can keep DPSing on the women using the '1' and '5' staff skills, keeping boons up on my allies. This opens up The rock thrower to focus on throwing rocks at the woman so she stays up on the stairs on the other side of the room, and can help DPS as well. Worked well for us, but it was a guild (of casual players) with mumble.

Also, before any of the "there are no agro mechanics". This is not true.
True statements would be "There is no taunt" "There is no lock down tank" "Agro is a bit random". But it is fairly predictable. Play with it, learn about it, makes stuff alot easier.

[Cikomyr]

Hey, it's no rocket science. The formula I gave should be a rough suggestion, but it's a good basis for role redistribution. If you can succeed to manage the male and DPS the female, do it!

I am a pretty DPS heavy warrior (just like in WoW!), and we managed to bring her down pretty quickly. I died in the process, obviously, but not before she was eliminated.

I am wondering if I should have taken the Strenght traits instead of Defense or Discipline. Better movement and dodge skills would be great for my playstyle. I am so happy I can play the Warcraft III Blademaster :smallbiggrin: That's all I ever wanted in an MMO. In WoW, I kept the Whirlwind Axe (lvl 40 weapon) up until Lvl 55 just because of the whirlwind ability it gave me.

[Chen]

The randomness of the agro mechanic is a bit of a pain though especially for this fight. Since we only had 4 taking down the woman was longer and as a result we had times when the male, for some reason would just run over and start attacking someone who was attacking the woman (probably buffs or something). Once he gets close you're kind of screwed since aside from the rocks its pretty damn hard to move the woman.

I think they probably need to tweak that fight a bit in terms of output damage. For the first dungeon you're going to run its way out of proportion. I'd have no problem if this was in a mid level or endgame dungeon but it doesn't make sense in the first one.

[Neftren]

Regular but I'm only level 50ish.

Hmm, I think you only get Fine Transmute Stones from Gem Store or Black Lion Chests actually. I keep getting regular Transmute Stones for finishing areas, so...

[Chen]

Hmm, I think you only get Fine Transmute Stones from Gem Store or Black Lion Chests actually. I keep getting regular Transmute Stones for finishing areas, so...

Yeah I think that's the case too. The fact you can buy gems with gold makes it so that this doesn't really bother me that much. I suspect I'll create the appropriate exotic set at 80 (I think its Carrion for Pow, Vit, Cond dmg) and then transmute it into the Order of Whispers armor for my female thief. The only issue is that Order of Whispers armor is pretty pricey at a couple of gold per piece.

[Cikomyr]

Okay, I wanna talk to the guy who thought it would be a good idea to sell the material and buy the insignias!

BECAUSE HE'S A FREAKING GENIUS!! :smallbiggrin: I can craft five times as much stuff with that philosophy!!!

[Togath]

If you have not noticed yet, ANet looks at what other MMOs did, and changed it. For the better.

That being said in WoW people complained about BBE fatigue. Oh this guy is going to end the world. Oh you beat him. This Lich is gonig to kill the world. Oh you cleaned that up. This Darkwing is going to kill the world. Oh you managed that too? Alot of people were happy that MoP was more a "look at new area to explore and enjoy"

Likewise there were alot of issues when DDO announced its expansion. You are going to her (a goddess's) realm, and going to kill her? Right. Not going to happen. Hence their escort raid, which is widely considered a failure.

Realistically though, you character is 2 weeks old. And you thought you could kill something big and strong? No thanks. You are a minor player in this world (see WvWvW). Maybe in the future, when you have shown your power and refined your skills you will be worthy to fight something on your own. Until then, training wheels.

first of all, while maybe on some backwards server, some moron though that the lich king and deathwings things were bad, the majority of people are sane and enjoy fun and having the heroes be heroes in a plot.
second, who the h*** cares how long your character is a hero, have you never even read a story. or played an rpg before?, most start with the hero suddenly becoming one, and then over comign some world threatening evil.

[Suichimo]

Going back to the dungeons bit, what server are you guys on? I'm on Stormbluff and have been looking to get into a group to do the first dungeon.

[Neftren]

Going back to the dungeons bit, what server are you guys on? I'm on Stormbluff and have been looking to get into a group to do the first dungeon.

I'm on Tarnished Coast, but you can run dungeons cross-server. They borked it a few days ago, but it's fixed as of yesterday, so...


Feel free to add me and I'll run dungeons with you guys anytime.

[Chen]

Okay, I wanna talk to the guy who thought it would be a good idea to sell the material and buy the insignias!

BECAUSE HE'S A FREAKING GENIUS!! :smallbiggrin: I can craft five times as much stuff with that philosophy!!!

You're welcome :)

But really you need to thank the people who are throwing insignia's up on the TP for absurdly low prices.

[Icezin]

Could i join the GitP guild too? If possible, my id is IceBK.2897. Thanks in advance!

[Hiro Protagonest]

Realistically though, you character is 2 weeks old. And you thought you could kill something big and strong? No thanks. You are a minor player in this world (see WvWvW). Maybe in the future, when you have shown your power and refined your skills you will be worthy to fight something on your own. Until then, training wheels.

...No. Do you really want a server limit of like, thirty people, and to spend five years of time getting to level 80?

[Dante & Vergil]

Ok, so I've watched Angry Joe's review of this game, seeing how it's improved over traditional MMOs (i.e. stuff that really kept from playing games like WoW), and I'd like to ask you guys to hear your peoples' opinion of this game over others.

[Togath]

The gameplay is decent, though dungeons and raids are a bit weak currently(no tank classes[there are healer classes though] means it's hard to organize tactics, and some of the higher level ones are a bit grindy, compared to something like WoW[WoW had better questing and dungeons, and currently, more balanced pvp, but guildwars is still fairly fun])

[Toastkart]

The gameplay is decent, though dungeons and raids are a bit weak currently(no tank classes[there are healer classes though] means it's hard to organize tactics

I think this is a bit of a misrepresentation. There's no holy trinity, so that means no tanks, no taunts, no healers, and no rigid class roles. There are class roles (damage, control, and support), but those three roles can be accomplished by all classes, and each class can switch through roles rather fluidly.



Ok, so I've watched Angry Joe's review of this game, seeing how it's improved over traditional MMOs (i.e. stuff that really kept from playing games like WoW), and I'd like to ask you guys to hear your peoples' opinion of this game over others.

Guild Wars 2 is a cooperative mmo, which means no fighting with other players for mobs, loot drops, resource nodes, etc. There are two forms of pvp, but they're separate from the pve part of the game, and they're really not my forte so I'll let someone else talk about them.

There aren't traditional quests, though renown hearts come close. Most, if not all, hearts have multiple ways to complete them. In addition to hearts there are dynamic events, which are group quests that occur at intervals and sometimes in chains and often involve conflict between the various groups in an area (i.e. seraph vs. centaurs).

Exploration is also encouraged. If you travel to a lower level zone, you'll be downscaled to a roughly equivalent level so that the content won't become trivial. You'll actually want to do this from time to time. Not only is it interesting to see areas of the game you haven't been to before, but there are skill challenges, vistas, dynamic events, and the story of the world to see.

[Shadow]

Togath and I disagree apparently.
There are no healers as he stated. Nothing has felt grindy to me at all yet. Quite the opposite in fact. There is no bloody way on Earth that WoW's PvP is more balanced. That's just rubbish. I also disagree about WoW's questing being better. The dungeons are debatable as well.
Gw2 is hands down the most fun I've had playing an MMO in years. Literally.

[Astrella]

I'm not sure about quests being better in WoW; dynamic events just make the game so much more immersive. A friend of mine reached lvl 80 really quickly. When zie told me that travelling waypoints in the high level zones was heard because there weren't any players to defend them I knew I liked this game. I love how areas of the map can change ownership and how that has actual consequences on what you can access. And the best part is that failure just means you have to deal with the consequences; but there's alsway something you can do.

[mucco]

The gameplay is decent, though dungeons and raids are a bit weak currently(no tank classes[there are healer classes though] means it's hard to organize tactics, and some of the higher level ones are a bit grindy, compared to something like WoW[WoW had better questing and dungeons, and currently, more balanced pvp, but guildwars is still fairly fun])

This pretty much sums up what WoWers think about the game.


Togath and I disagree apparently.
There are no healers as he stated. Nothing has felt grindy to me at all yet. Quite the opposite in fact. There is no bloody way on Earth that WoW's PvP is more balanced. That's just rubbish. I also disagree about WoW's questing being better. The dungeons are debatable as well.
Gw2 is hands down the most fun I've had playing an MMO in years. Literally.

This pretty much sums up what most other people think.

It's nothing groundbreaking, but if you get it with the expectation of finding a merely OK game, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

[Emmerask]

Ok, so I've watched Angry Joe's review of this game, seeing how it's improved over traditional MMOs (i.e. stuff that really kept from playing games like WoW), and I'd like to ask you guys to hear your peoples' opinion of this game over others.

It is a very good game but a 10/10 score is a bit overboard in my opinion, 9/10 maybe.
The main problem I have is that the traditional questing is still there in the form of hearts, the only difference is that you have multiple ways to do them and that you don´t have to collect the quest or have to deliver it after finishing.
There are some very fun heart quests and sometimes they do feel more dynamic, especially if an event happens at that time with similar goals but then there are still the collect and or kill xyz hearts which feels very grindy.

The personal story though is extremely well done and much better then what swtor had imo, kind of sad for swtor when this was one of their main selling points ^^

Then you have a ton of other stuff to do on top of that, exploring, jumping puzzles (which sometimes are REALLY hard, Asura area first one if you don´t "cheat" with abilities like leap of faith or windform for example^^), events which range from very fun to mediocre, and you even have some puzzles to solve.

Overall gw2 only rarely feels like a grind, if you take part in the other activities offered, which is a huge improvement over other big mmos before.



The gameplay is decent, though dungeons and raids are a bit weak currently(no tank classes[there are healer classes though] means it's hard to organize tactics, and some of the higher level ones are a bit grindy, compared to something like WoW[WoW had better questing and dungeons, and currently, more balanced pvp, but guildwars is still fairly fun])

I agree with the dungeons, wow has a ton of fun dungeons with cool mechanics and the first few months atleast a decent difficulty.
I don´t particularly care about raids so I have no opinion about that.

As for the quests, you are kidding right? Wow was one of the driving forces behind the collect 100 of x then return quests that all mmo players have to suffer through nowadays, it was and is a huge grind and you felt every second of this soul sucking activity you had to endure to get to the fun parts.

Pvp balance in wow, well the bgs you either had the equip or you had to endure days if not weeks of being completely useless until you had it, they changed it a bit for the better but it is still very much there.

As for balance in the arena, you mostly see the exact same setups and some classes you will very very rarely encounter, and if you are new to the arena without equip... grind.
Then there are the fun pendulum balance swings...:smallfurious:
So no wows pvp balance is and most likely always will be abysmal.

Also a thing gw2 does very much right, there are no I win items which you have to grind in countless hours of having no fun, most of what you do in lategame is for cosmetic reasons and a very very minor increase in effectivity, which is how it should be, no I win gear that makes you more or less unkillable only because you play a lot.

[Togath]

if it helps any, I was counting the hearts, crafting, exploration, ect.(the unique features of guildwars) as separate, and I do enjoy the new features in it, I just sort of wish there were either quests, or more hearts per zone(events are random, I think[I'm beginning to wonder if there are patterns to when they occur, after spending an hour in the crossroads the wayfinder foothills and killing the corrupted wolfmaster about once every ten minutes], though they are fun when I do mange to find one).
Also with regards to the no healers thing, aren't staff wielding guardians, medipack+elixer gun+healing turret engineers, and water attuned staff using elementalists, healers?(at least in a similar style to the disc priests in wow, in that they both attack and heal) along with a few more traditional mmo things in addition to the unique features(also, what do you mean bout the high level rare stuff being cosmetic?, isn't the point of being high level in most mmos to get rarer and better gear?).

[Toastkart]

Also with regards to the no healers thing, aren't staff wielding guardians, medipack+elixer gun+healing turret engineers, and water attuned staff using elementalists, healers?(at least in a similar style to the disc priests in wow, in that they both attack and heal)

For the most part, no. The amount of healing those setups that you mentioned have will not keep a team alive in the same way that a dedicated healer from most other mmos will.



also, what do you mean bout the high level rare stuff being cosmetic?, isn't the point of being high level in most mmos to get rarer and better gear?).

It may be the point of most mmos, but not GW2. There's a power plateau for lvl 80 exotics. Once you reach that, what you can optionally grind for is cosmetic rewards. You don't have to, and I would imagine that the grind isn't nearly as bad as the gear treadmill of other games. But I haven't gotten that far to have firsthand knowledge.

[Emmerask]

(also, what do you mean bout the high level rare stuff being cosmetic?, isn't the point of being high level in most mmos to get rarer and better gear?).

Yes it is what most mmos do, the problem is that exactly this item spiral in most mmos renders previous content completely obsolete and makes pvp balance pretty much impossible.
Also with every new expansion all you have done so far becomes meaningless, you beat the last dungeon of the game and got a nice super rare weapon, too bad the expansion came out next week and the first weapon that drops is better then the sword you spend days to get...

In short I think that item power spiral is the worst thing that ever happened to mmos, its a carrot on a stick that is used because the game is not fun enough to play without and introduces a billion new problems to the game.

I get why raiders want it, they want a progression you have to go through and thats perfectly fine but there are a lot of ways to do this that don´t have all these issues attached to it.
For example one could have a raid only alternative progression wher you get abilities that only work in raids, inventory items dropped that gives you the ability to pass a fire wall to even get to dungeon #2 etcetc

[Shadow]

if it helps any, I was counting the hearts, crafting, exploration, ect.(the unique features of guildwars) as separate, and I do enjoy the new features in it, I just sort of wish there were either quests, or more hearts per zone(events are random, I think[I'm beginning to wonder if there are patterns to when they occur, after spending an hour in the crossroads the wayfinder foothills and killing the corrupted wolfmaster about once every ten minutes], though they are fun when I do mange to find one).
Most events are not random at all. Many of them are started by speaking to someone that has *no* icon over their heads indicating that they are of any importance at all. The others are usually on a timer. There usually isn't any randomness to them, although it certainly might seem that way until you figure out what it is that triggers them to start.
The fact that many [or even most] people immediately run off after completing an event only makes this harder to figure out. If you hang around after an event and watch/read/listen to the NPCs, often you'll catch on that the event is about to chain, and you will then have to follow that NPC somewhere else to the next portion. But when everyone runs off after an event, and no one follows the conversation or the NPCs to the next part, if you happen to be at the next point where the event continues all you'll see is a lone NPC walk up and seemingly randomly start an event. But that event came from SOMEWHERE, only no one stuck around after the previous event long enough to see that it was leading somewhere else in a moment.

As far as wanting more Hearts per zone: Hearts were an afterthought. They never initially existed. Alpha testers were feeling a bit lost and without direction, so Hearts were added [to the map] to existing quests so that people had an idea where to go next. With this in mind, Hearts should not be your focus. Exploration and experiencing the world should be the focus. Also with this in mind, the reason that many events have no obvious trigger point [no neon sign that says "Event starts here!"] should be clear.


Also with regards to the no healers thing, aren't staff wielding guardians, medipack+elixer gun+healing turret engineers, and water attuned staff using elementalists, healers?(at least in a similar style to the disc priests in wow, in that they both attack and heal) along with a few more traditional mmo things in addition to the unique features(also, what do you mean bout the high level rare stuff being cosmetic?, isn't the point of being high level in most mmos to get rarer and better gear?).
Having one or possibly two abilities to help toss a little HP at your team =/= Healer. No profession, and no certain builds within any profession, is capable of "healing" the party in any traditional sense that any MMOer is used to.
I actually spent the entirety of one of the BWEs specifically trying to build a healer type capable of sustaining a party. I was trying to see if the lack of the trinity could be broken by replicating one of the individual roles of the trinity independently. I failed miserably for the entire weekend. The closest thing that I could get was a DPS gimped support focused Guardian, and even then it wasn't nearly enough support to call him a "healer," nor was the pinpoint focus on that aspect worth creating a toon that could barely fight it's way out of a paper bag.
There are no healers in Gw2.

[Octopus Jack]

So after a few days of owning Guild Wars I've decided to focus on an Engineer, specifically using the grenade kit as opposed to being a turret-y engineer like one of my friends has. I think I've gotten the hang of landing grenades quite happily and switch between weapons and the kit fairly easily.
Any advice on playing this style of engineer in dungeons an pvp later in the game?

In more general terms I am enjoying the events and personal story far more than running through any other MMO's with the possible exception of some dungeons on DDO but that was mainly due to playing whilst voice chatting with party members I knew whilst doing ridiculous things.

[Togath]

With this in mind, Hearts should not be your focus. Exploration and experiencing the world should be the focus. Also with this in mind, the reason that many events have no obvious trigger point [no neon sign that says "Event starts here!"] should be clear.


why do you view it as obvious why there isn't a sign telling you which npcs start events? I personally can't think of any reason not to add them.

[Morty]

I think I might just give up on crafting. I try, but I can't level it up quickly enough for it to be useful and I really don't feel like grinding it.

[Togath]

I think I might just give up on crafting. I try, but I can't level it up quickly enough for it to be useful and I really don't feel like grinding it.

Which one are you trying to level?, cooking seems to be the fastest currently(it can also make most dyes, which is fun), followed by tailoring.

[Astrella]

There are indicators for event starts though. The little orange star can indicate quest points and NPCs call for your attention for escort events and such.

[Togath]

ah, so that's what those mean

[Morty]

Which one are you trying to level?, cooking seems to be the fastest currently(it can also make most dyes, which is fun), followed by tailoring.

I'm trying to level jeweling and tailoring. I'm level 25 on that character and I have jeweling on level 40 and tailoring slightly above level 25.

[Togath]

Which areas are you leveling in?, Areas with a lot of humanoid enemies are best for cloth(you could also buy cloth items from the trading post), and mountainous areas(such as many norn zones) are probably easiest for gem(ores seem to be more common in caves and mountains)

[Shadow]

why do you view it as obvious why there isn't a sign telling you which npcs start events? I personally can't think of any reason not to add them.

What I'm saying is that originally there weren't *any* indicators for where *anything* started, and that some of these things were added later to some of the people.
The concept here is exploration and interacting with the world. Leading you around by the nose was never intended, and that's exactly what adding things to the map does.
It's counter productive to the way the game was designed.


There are indicators for event starts though. The little orange star can indicate quest points and NPCs call for your attention for escort events and such.

Not all of them do though.
And this is exactly my point about icons. Se Tog? They aren't on the map, and so you had no idea what they were because you ignored them. Because they aren't on the map.

If you want to experience everything, talk to everyone. If an NPC has a name, stop and talk to them. Don't run from Hear5t to Heart and Vista to Vista on your map. Stop and listen/read/watch interactions of NPCs before/during/after events.
Experience the world. That's the way it was designed to be played, and if you aren't doing that then you are missing a huge portion of the game.
This is exactly the reason that people are claiming that they aren't leveling enough within a region to stay relevant to the content within that region. They are complaining that they're too low level for xXx, but they are playing the game as if it should be leading them around by the nose, and it isn't going to do that. If you slow don and experience the environment, you'll probably actually level faster than content can keep up with.

[Togath]

Do you think AN is likely to change it to make it make more sense?(the npcs starting events thingy), people wont go talk to every npcs because that's not normal.
Running around talking to random npcs just doesn't work out in mmos as a way of giving thigns to players.

[Toastkart]

Do you think AN is likely to change it to make it make more sense?(the npcs starting events thingy), people wont go talk to every npcs Because We Want To Play An Mmorpg, not go around talking to npcs.

I doubt it, and I wouldn't want them to. If you don't talk to npcs you're not missing out on anything that you don't miss out on by choosing one dynamic event over another when there's more than one going on.

It's part of exploring the world. You're going to miss things. I've completed the queensdale zone on three different characters, but I haven't fought the shadow behemoth since one of the beta events.

[Togath]

that does reminds me; what is the respawn timer on the shadow behemoth?

[Astrella]

Do you think AN is likely to change it to make it make more sense?(the npcs starting events thingy), people wont go talk to every npcs because that's not normal.
Running around talking to random npcs just doesn't work out in mmos as a way of giving thigns to players.

It is in pokemon games. :P

Iunno, I don't really mind it that much. Even just talking to the scouts gives you a ton of hints about possible events and things to do in a zone. Like, Snowden Drifts for example is basically a big trade route; the scouts talk about protecting traders so checking out yaks and such standing next to the road is helpful.

And active events pop up on your map, so I'm not really seeing the issue? And it's not talking to every random NPC cause not all of them have a speech balloon text option. (You can still talk to them, they just won't have any speech options you can do.) And I don't think it's far of a stretch to talk to the captain of fort when you enter it.

[Morty]

Which areas are you leveling in?, Areas with a lot of humanoid enemies are best for cloth(you could also buy cloth items from the trading post), and mountainous areas(such as many norn zones) are probably easiest for gem(ores seem to be more common in caves and mountains)

I'm going through the Asura starting areas. I gather all the ores I run across and salvage things as much as I can. I still don't have enough materials to properly level crafting. And I refuse to grind.

[Astrella]

Trade with friends who do other professions?

[Penguinizer]

The problem is that the claws/scales/poison sacs/blood are used by just about every crafting profession outside of Cooking or Jewelcrafting. It creates a rather annoying chokepoint.

EDIT: Also, my opinions: It's pretty good but flawed.

The hearts are a different take on quests however the cynisist in me says that they're not that different. Instead of talking to an npc you walk into an area and then do the same tasks (Just about all the hearts I've seen fall into the following categories: Kill mob X, collect item Y or destroy use object in world Z/pick up kit and use on place X (counting the transformations into this category) or kill enemy Y) for a tiny reward. What they did well was make them fit into the world. The dynamic events are a nice addition but they can sometimes get a bit frustrating when they lock you out of waypoints or merchants and whatnot.

The dungeon balance needs a lot of tweaking since it appears that their idea of challenge was to have aoes with barely any startup that kill you within 1-2 seconds. This also makes tanks rather pointless as the only way to not die is to not get hit. It is also rather nonsensical when the 2nd dungeon is significantly easier than the first. This is something that is fixeable with some tweaking though.

The price of the pre-tier 3 faction/race weapons is also rather strange. They are more expensive than what you could have functionally earned by that point and are visually identical to items you can otherwise find (at least the ones I've seen so far). Once again, something that can be fixed with tweaks.

There are also some various issues I have with bugs or badly worded skill or trait explanations. Things such as "Sword skills" and "Illusion summoning skills" are rather badly defined because the traits actually only affect very specific skills. I don't know about the other professions but this is something that annoys me about the Mesmer traits. There are also some weird visual bugs (Swindler pants are skill gloves, Asura fingers/toes still clip through gloves/shoes). Another tweakable thing.

The visuals and overall aesthetic are really nice though and while there are a lot of things that could be improved on the game is still a lot of fun. Just about every problem with the game is something that can be ironed out over time. A lot of it feels like the usual rough-around-the-edgeness you have with new MMOs.

[Morty]

Trade with friends who do other professions?

I've bought some materials from the trading post, but I really don't want to have to sink money into crafting on top of everything else. The only real way for me to level it now would be to go back to the low-level areas and grind for materials that I can actually use.

[Neftren]

Proof That Rewards Don't Scale:http://i.imgur.com/apPAq.jpg



1


Morty, you probably collected a lot of materials for other professions that you aren't going to use. For instance, I have no plans to level cooking whatsoever, so you could try trading your cooking materials for whatever profession you are.

[Shadow]

Proof That Rewards Don't Scale:http://i.imgur.com/apPAq.jpg


Actually, that's proof that they do indeed scale.
25k xp, 10s 2c, and a level 14 weapon is certainly not what you'd get if you completed a zone at level 5. Want to test it? Roll a new toon and get 100% completion in your hub city.
So they absolutely do scale. They just don't scale as well as you'd like.

[Cikomyr]

Actually, that's proof that they do indeed scale.
25k xp, 10s 2c, and a level 14 weapon is certainly not what you'd get if you completed a zone at level 5. Want to test it? Roll a new toon and get 100% completion in your hub city.
So they absolutely do scale. They just don't scale as well as you'd like.

There is no Lvl 5 zones. Starting zones are all 1-15

[Shadow]

There is no Lvl 5 zones. Starting zones are all 1-15

...and if you complete your starter hub city at level two, you certainly aren't getting over twenty five thousand XP and over 10 silver for it.
Notice that completion was for Metrica Province. Roll a new Asuran character and complete that zone before you leave it. Come back here and tell us what you got, because I can guarantee you that it won't be that much at level 15.
So the rewards do scale. They just don't scale the included weapons/items appropriately.
And why would they? Why would completing a level 1-15 zone grant a level 80 item? That doesn't make sense.
We should be happy that the XP and monetary rewards scale and leave it at that.

The debate was whether or not the rewards scale. They do. Just not the ones that he wanted to scale.

[Neftren]

Actually, that's proof that they do indeed scale.
25k xp, 10s 2c, and a level 14 weapon is certainly not what you'd get if you completed a zone at level 5. Want to test it? Roll a new toon and get 100% completion in your hub city.
So they absolutely do scale. They just don't scale as well as you'd like.

So you call getting two level 14 items, and 40 Jute ... scaling? That was Metrica Province... 1-15 area. Items don't scale, only Gold and XP apparently. 10 silver is nothing. I make that in ten minutes or less just killing stuff on the ground. 25k XP is also laughable, considering it's 252k per level 80 to level up. It took roughly three hours to finish Metrica Province over two days. I can run Citadel of Flame six times in that same time frame and earn ... I dunno, close to ten gold in the same time frame?

If your idea of scaling is "get a little bit more gold and XP" then we have very different definitions of scaling, because what I just got there was effectively worthless.

[Cikomyr]

...and if you complete your starter hub city at level two, you certainly aren't getting over twenty five thousand XP and over 10 silver for it.

Started hub city? You mean, the capital? I just did it, and I was given 1 copper and a few conversion runes at lvl 40. Hardly scalable.


Notice that completion was for Metrica Province. Roll a new Asuran character and complete that zone before you leave it. Come back here and tell us what you got, because I can guarantee you that it won't be that much at level 15.

Tell me. Is Metrica Province a Lvl 1-15 zone?



So the rewards do scale. They just don't scale the included weapons/items appropriately.
And why would they? Why would completing a level 1-15 zone grant a level 80 item? That doesn't make sense.
We should be happy that the XP and monetary rewards scale and leave it at that.

The debate was whether or not the rewards scale. They do. Just not the ones that he wanted to scale.

The EXP always scales, no matter what. Always. That's a constant of this game.

However, the money reward doesn't in that case. 10s for a lvl 15 character is worth it. For a lvl 60? Not so much.

[Astrella]

It makes sense for it to not scale outside of XP. Otherwise that would encourage you to wait with completing regions until you hit level 80.

Random loot scales; story rewards and dungeon rewards don't either.

[mucco]

wikiwikiwikiwiki (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Map_completion) :smallbiggrin:

XP scales, rest doesn't.

[Cikomyr]

But XP scales EVERYWHERE, so it's not like it's worth noticing.

FYI, starting levels material is worth its weight in gold on the Black Company, so don't diss the reward even if you are past using 40x threads of jute.

[Chen]

So I got to level 76 this weekend. Raised LW to 400 and still have about 6g left. Now I need to find a good way to make money so I can make my level 80 exotics when I hit 80. Looking at the TP the mat cost is somewhere around 2g each (though I bought all the ancient bones I needed when they were super cheap at 20c each).

I cleared the Mount Maelstrom map and was pleasantly surprised by getting 2 exotics as the rewards for it. They were ****ty of course but they sold for 50s each which was nice. I assume people are making slight profit by buying up cheap exotics and salvaging but I figured I wouldn't gamble and take the sure money instead (since I'm gambling on any unid dyes I find ever since I got an Abyss dye and some other 1.5g one when I started).

There's also some weird thing in Mount Maelstrom where getting into the Volcano insta downs you. I got through by using my teleport once I was down and then ressing but otherwise I couldn't figure out how to actually get through that area. Not sure if its a bug or some sort of intended block but any way into the volcano at a certain point just kills you instantly. I was fighting elementals and couldn't figure out how I insta died. Combat log doesn't even show anything.

[Ogremindes]

I cleared the Mount Maelstrom map...

Lucky you. The Infinity Coil skill point has been broken for days on Tarnished Coast.

[JSSheridan]

But XP scales EVERYWHERE, so it's not like it's worth noticing.

FYI, starting levels material is worth its weight in gold on the Black Company, so don't diss the reward even if you are past using 40x threads of jute.

Are we still arguing about this? I don't really care if anyone else is convinced or not by now, just play the game like you want to.

[Morty]

Hm. At quite an expense (since I had to buy all the jute), I managed to get my Tailoring up to 50. That's a start, I guess.

[Cikomyr]

Are we still arguing about this? I don't really care if anyone else is convinced or not by now, just play the game like you want to.

Just wanted make my point against Shadow's snarky comment earlier in the thread. No worries :smallbiggrin:

[Neftren]

But XP scales EVERYWHERE, so it's not like it's worth noticing.

FYI, starting levels material is worth its weight in gold on the Black Company, so don't diss the reward even if you are past using 40x threads of jute.

Sadly, gold is functionally useless to me. There are only three things of use at level 80, once you've got full Exotic armor (which is 25g tops, less if you're smart on the Trading Post).

1) Skill Points -- Crafting Legendary Weaponry (which incidentally, the Legendary Shortbow is straight out of My Little Pony and shoots rainbows, and the Longbow is a bunch of vines that shoots flowers as the special particle effect).

2) Dungeon Tokens

3) Karma


The latter two are used to get Exotic Armor with the stats you might actually want on some classes. Ranger does not have this problem, so I really have no use for anything at this point really... Just completing the entire world map for now and then I'll probably craft a legendary weapon and switch characters after that.


Lucky you. The Infinity Coil skill point has been broken for days on Tarnished Coast.

Is the golem not spawning/activating/flagging as an enemy? Or is the clickable just not working (i.e. his graphic is glitched and he isn't where the game shows him to be)?

CoE Explore Mode is actually a rather profitable farm, but nobody's been able to get inside for days now. :smallfurious:

[Cikomyr]

Sadly, gold is functionally useless to me. There are only three things of use at level 80, once you've got full Exotic armor (which is 25g tops, less if you're smart on the Trading Post).

1) Skill Points -- Crafting Legendary Weaponry (which incidentally, the Legendary Shortbow is straight out of My Little Pony and shoots rainbows, and the Longbow is a bunch of vines that shoots flowers as the special particle effect).

2) Dungeon Tokens

3) Karma


The latter two are used to get Exotic Armor with the stats you might actually want on some classes. Ranger does not have this problem, so I really have no use for anything at this point really... Just completing the entire world map for now and then I'll probably craft a legendary weapon and switch characters after that.


I don't know for Dungeon tokens, but aren't Karma and XP (which keeps giving skill points as you level up above 80) scale for any events? You could potentially roam the earth in search of events :smallbiggrin:

[nhbdy]

Quick question for those of you who are technically inclined, I saw a few reviews of this game, and it looks stellar, but it raises a concern for me and my (not optimized for gaming) laptop. So I took a quick look at the system requirements, and to my joy it seems I meet all of them, save the video card. I have no idea what the text on video card requirements actually means, and seeing as this is a recent game that looks impressive on higher settings (I'm assuming it'll look less impressive for me, assuming I can run it) I wanted to be clear if I can run it before buying it, or if I should simply wait until after I upgrade laptops. My card is listed as "mobile intel 4 series express chipset family" and if you'd need more information then that to help me I'd be happy to provide it, but lack the knowledge to locate it, so instructions would be appreciated.

[Chen]

Sadly, gold is functionally useless to me. There are only three things of use at level 80, once you've got full Exotic armor (which is 25g tops, less if you're smart on the Trading Post).

Since you mentioned Legendary weapons, gold is needed for that. You need 100 Icy Runestones which cost 1g each from a vendor after you finish the Frost Dragon/Worm event.

Not to mention farming all the items for a Legendary without buying them is going to take FAR longer than just farming gold would, I imagine.

[Cikomyr]

I was wondering something.

I have received many special coins. It says it's used to forge some items or something. Anybody knows where to use them?

[Chen]

I was wondering something.

I have received many special coins. It says it's used to forge some items or something. Anybody knows where to use them?

There are numerous recipes that use Mystic Coins using the Mystic Forge. They're used for mystic weapons (exotics) and components for Legendaries. I imagine they're probably used for other recipes too. The wiki page has some of them included I believe.

[Togath]

Quick question for those of you who are technically inclined, I saw a few reviews of this game, and it looks stellar, but it raises a concern for me and my (not optimized for gaming) laptop. So I took a quick look at the system requirements, and to my joy it seems I meet all of them, save the video card. I have no idea what the text on video card requirements actually means, and seeing as this is a recent game that looks impressive on higher settings (I'm assuming it'll look less impressive for me, assuming I can run it) I wanted to be clear if I can run it before buying it, or if I should simply wait until after I upgrade laptops. My card is listed as "mobile intel 4 series express chipset family" and if you'd need more information then that to help me I'd be happy to provide it, but lack the knowledge to locate it, so instructions would be appreciated.

The game seems to mainly need the video card, as I found out when i put it on my laptop, which can only get about 4fps despite exceeding everythign other then the video card.

[illyrus]

Quick question for those of you who are technically inclined, I saw a few reviews of this game, and it looks stellar, but it raises a concern for me and my (not optimized for gaming) laptop.

I did some reading on what you listed and some video card performance reports for GW2. It looks like the game would run poorly on your machine (lowest settings and even then not good fps values) so I'd suggest you wait if you're getting a better machine soonish.
---

Did my first run through of AC with the engineer with originally 4 people who had never done a dungeon before, later gained a fifth. Many downs, many deaths. The 5th person was a guardian and knew what they were about though they died a couple of times too. Spoke to them after the dungeon was over a bit about how they were able to do such a good job staying alive next to bosses. Took that info as well as a post on how armor works for DR purposes and decided to run with it.

I rebuilt my Mesmer as a "tank" and leveled up to 30 to run AC and see the difference. Was the only one who had no deaths for the entire run and was "tanking" the bosses without much issue. Probably not much of an accomplishment to most of the veteran GW2 players but it made me feel good to take what had been my most fragile character and turn them into my most survivable character.

[Neftren]

I don't know for Dungeon tokens, but aren't Karma and XP (which keeps giving skill points as you level up above 80) scale for any events? You could potentially roam the earth in search of events :smallbiggrin:

Actually, event scaling isn't all that great either. I think completing one of the Cathedral events awards some 1000-1400 karma (e.g. Cathedral of Melandru, in Cursed Shore), while completing an event in the lower level zones only gives me around 200 karma. I don't recall the exact numbers off the top of my head, but there is a bit of scaling involved.

Regarding XP, the fastest rate of return on XP is completing dungeons, hands down. I get minimum one level per run of Citadel of Flame. I hear Coil of Eternity and Honor of the Waves are even faster, but I haven't devoted nearly as much time farming those to have any opinion on them yet.

I am currently completing the map to get enough skill points to craft my legendary weapons, yes. :smallbiggrin:


Since you mentioned Legendary weapons, gold is needed for that. You need 100 Icy Runestones which cost 1g each from a vendor after you finish the Frost Dragon/Worm event.

Not to mention farming all the items for a Legendary without buying them is going to take FAR longer than just farming gold would, I imagine.

Exactly, by the time I get all the other items for the Legendary, I will have made enough gold to afford any other parts that I would need.


There are numerous recipes that use Mystic Coins using the Mystic Forge. They're used for mystic weapons (exotics) and components for Legendaries. I imagine they're probably used for other recipes too. The wiki page has some of them included I believe.

I don't believe Mystic Coins are used in crafting Legendary weapons, but I haven't looked too in-depth into these. I know they're not directly used to make them (a la the Wiki), but maybe they're used to craft the Gifts or other base components.

[Tono]

According to this (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/zwpl6/for_those_having_trouble_piecing_together_the/c69cfzy) you will need 250 Mystic Coins to make something that goes into it.

>> Personally, I don't think Ill ever have the patience to do all that.

[Shadow]

Just wanted make my point against Shadow's snarky comment earlier in the thread. No worries :smallbiggrin:

The comment wasn't snarky. The comment was factual. If they did not scale, then you'd get the exact same reward at level 2 as you do at level 80, which is obviously not the case.
As to the snarkyness: I can't control how you interpret what I write. I can only control what I write.

[Ogremindes]

Is the golem not spawning/activating/flagging as an enemy? Or is the clickable just not working (i.e. his graphic is glitched and he isn't where the game shows him to be)?

Seems like the golem's stuck underground. The fist icon is there and I can read its says, but I can't see or hear it.

[nhbdy]

I did some reading on what you listed and some video card performance reports for GW2. It looks like the game would run poorly on your machine (lowest settings and even then not good fps values) so I'd suggest you wait if you're getting a better machine soonish.


Thanks for the tip, I was planning on getting a new computer, and now I have more motivation to do so, will likely have it within a month or two.

[IonDragon]

Does anyone have a list of who's where worked out? Sorry, I haven't really been following the thread. I ended up on Ehmry Bay and I was wondering if anyone else was there with me.

P.S. I'm not subscribed to the thread so a PM would also work <3

[Cikomyr]

The comment wasn't snarky. The comment was factual. If they did not scale, then you'd get the exact same reward at level 2 as you do at level 80, which is obviously not the case.
As to the snarkyness: I can't control how you interpret what I write. I can only control what I write.

"It doesn't scale as much as you'd like"? That's snarky dude.

Let it go :smallbiggrin:

[Shadow]

{{scrubbed}}

[Tychris1]

Just ordered GW2 online, should be here by the weekend. In the meantime I must ask, how long does it take to get to level 30 (On average)? I want to play a Minion Master Charr and a Flesh Golem will help immensely with that so I'm interested in knowing how long I have to grind with my friend (Who will be rolling a Charr Warrior until I can meet up with his Norn Guardian and we can wreck face).

[Dire Ferret]

Just ordered GW2 online, should be here by the weekend. In the meantime I must ask, how long does it take to get to level 30 (On average)? I want to play a Minion Master Charr and a Flesh Golem will help immensely with that so I'm interested in knowing how long I have to grind with my friend (Who will be rolling a Charr Warrior until I can meet up with his Norn Guardian and we can wreck face).

Leveling goes pretty quickly. And you don't need to wait to meet his Norn, the cities are all connected so you can group up as soon as you finish the starter instance.

[Shadow]

Leveling goes pretty quickly. And you don't need to wait to meet his Norn, the cities are all connected so you can group up as soon as you finish the starter instance.

This.
But to elaborate on it, depending on how many hours you put in per session, it can be done in two day or two weeks. It's really hard to answer that question when no one but you knows your play style or the amount of time you set aside when you sit down to play.
To give you one example, I rolled new characters [at least one] for each beta weekend. By the end of the weekend I had at least one level 20 every time. Remember that was trying out multiple characters. So if you really wanted to power level it can be done in two or three days.
I wouldn't count on that for your first character, nor would I recommend it in a general sense because you'll miss out on a ton of the fun in the game. But it can be done without too much trouble if that's really what you wanted.

[mucco]

By playing nonstop, you usually gain one level every 30 to 60 minutes. The first 5-10 levels are much faster though.

[The Succubus]

Do we actually have a guild anywhere? European would be nice but I'm willing to transfer to a US server.

Just finding the game very lonely at the moment.

[Penguinizer]

Our unofficial official guild The Charrdians (at least the one for the people on mumble) is on Piken Square. That silly server that always loses in WvWvW.

[mucco]

We do have a guild. What's your IGN? I'll send you an invite, if I can. If I can't, Ogremindes will do it.

[Hullabaloo]

By playing nonstop, you usually gain one level every 30 to 60 minutes. The first 5-10 levels are much faster though.

I found it actually gets quicker again as you get up around 50. Might just be mental, but that bar seems to fly up just running across a map. CM is pretty quick and gives pretty good XP/min compared to AC imo. Have not done any instances after that point

*EDIT*
XP Graph and info (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Experience). Seems it gots more linear after 50 or so. I think that combined with I've stopped trying to clear all areas and just going to new areas that are level appropriate is making it seem like the levels are going quicker. Leaving an area at 75% is killing my minor OCD, but I'll get back there. /shakefist

[mucco]

My OCD seems to be stronger then. I must not have more than one area, at any time, with some hearts done and some to do. 100%ing Lornar's Pass was quite long, but it's such a beautiful area! The vistas there are awesome.

[Chen]

Xp gains get pretty spiky too right after the dailies reset. From what I've seen every step in a daily gives 3% of your exp bar and I believe there are 13 steps + final reward which is nearly 50% of a bar just for doing things you're normally doing anyway. Not sure how much the monthly gives. I should get that done tonight (just need the WvW kills).

[Cikomyr]

Oh god.. the Dredgehaunt Area's vista were such a FREAKKIN' PAIN

I never, ever will step a foot into the area again, except maybe for the instance. I got my 100% completion, I'm outta here! :smallbiggrin:

[thugthrasher]

My OCD seems to be stronger then. I must not have more than one area, at any time, with some hearts done and some to do. 100%ing Lornar's Pass was quite long, but it's such a beautiful area! The vistas there are awesome.

That's me with one exception of why I might allow it to happen. If I'm going somewhere in a zone I haven't been to because of my story quest, I'll usually do hearts on my way through. These areas I will leave for the times when I decide I want a change of scenery from whatever zone I'm currently trying to complete (particularly if that area has a lot of bugged events...Gendarran Fields, I'm looking at you).

[Togath]

Our unofficial official guild The Charrdians (at least the one for the people on mumble) is on Piken Square. That silly server that always loses in WvWvW.

I may take a look at Piken square then, as I've been ponderin switching servers(wandering around on tarnished coast is starting to get a bit creepy, as it feels like moonguard, but with most of divinity's reach acting as the goldshire inn)

[Morty]

I've managed to get my Mesmer's Jewelmaking and Tailoring to 100. Not bad. Now I'm wondering about the crafting professions for my Warrior, though. Initially I took Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, but I don't think it's such a good idea now because they use the same resources. Maybe I'll take Huntsman, since he uses a bow as a backup weapon.

[Chen]

I've managed to get my Mesmer's Jewelmaking and Tailoring to 100. Not bad. Now I'm wondering about the crafting professions for my Warrior, though. Initially I took Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing, but I don't think it's such a good idea now because they use the same resources. Maybe I'll take Huntsman, since he uses a bow as a backup weapon.

The real bottleneck in those two craftings is not the ore its the fine materials. Things like teeth, fangs etc. And you'll have that same conflict with Huntsman. For least conflict you'd want one of the Fine Material skills (Armorsmith, Leatherworking, Tailoring, Huntsman, Weaponsmithing, Artificing) and one of the non-fine material ones (Cooking, Jewelcrafting)

[Morty]

Hmm. Well, there's always plenty of cooking ingredients everywhere, so I guess I'll try that.

[The Succubus]

Okey smokey, my ID is DocMesa.8016 . Guildy invitey goodness would be appreciated...

[Hullabaloo]

I did Artificer and Tailor on my Mesmer main, ignoring Tailor pretty much.
Then Armorsmith and Jewelry on my main alt. SInce Jewelry uses different mats then most professions.

Then my alt alt is doing cooking, and suppling everyone else with tasty stuff, while getting whole levels per crafting sessions. Distpite not really playing him, he is 13 from crafting.

Also

You can now discover with items straight out of the collectibles tab - chefs rejoice!"

[Togath]

just found the great wall of....whatever the tengu lands are. Is the area accessable yet?, or is it an empty space like gilneas was in wow?

[Neftren]

just found the great wall of....whatever the tengu lands are. Is the area accessable yet?, or is it an empty space like gilneas was in wow?

I don't think you can get in there. I tried to get in via the west side of Lion's Arch, thinking it was another area, but it's just closed off.

[Astrella]

It's closed off right now. (Just like the Crystal Desert for which there is an access in Fields of Ruin already.) I'm expecting one of the expansions will add it (probably the one involving Cantha if there is going to be one.)

Oh, and for anyone who happens to hang around on Piken Square; we've got a guild on there with quite a few gitp folks in case anyone's interested. (The Charrdians)

[Octopus Jack]

So I've been gradually leveling my engineer up whilst also trying to get into crafting (chosen leatherwork and huntsman as they seemed like the obvious choice) a quick question on crafting: is crafting your own gear rather than relying on drops and shops good enough to spend all that time leveling it up?

Otherwise I've gotten into switching between rifle, grenades and mines fairly fluidly and am working through my personal story quests having just dealt with some awfully nasty grizwhirls.

If anyone else is on Whiteside Ridge my name is Thalric.2135

[Togath]

So I've been gradually leveling my engineer up whilst also trying to get into crafting (chosen leatherwork and huntsman as they seemed like the obvious choice) a quick question on crafting: is crafting your own gear rather than relying on drops and shops good enough to spend all that time leveling it up?

Otherwise I've gotten into switching between rifle, grenades and mines fairly fluidly and am working through my personal story quests having just dealt with some awfully nasty grizwhirls.

If anyone else is on Whiteside Ridge my name is Thalric.2135

I'm not sure if all armour and weapon crafting professions are fast enough with leveling(until you reach level 70-80 stuff anyway) to keep relevant most of the time, but the non-weapon/armour based ones seem good(cooking[the food increases xp gain, sometimes magic find, and you can also make most dyes with it] and jewel crafting[jewels and jewelry are very rare], and maybe artificing[not sure what this one makes]), also, after helping someone(may have been you, it was an engineer doing the carnival story quests, and he was in the tarnished coast guild nvm, he was mostly using pistols and flamethrower, so probably not you, though it is funny how many humans choose the carnival storyline[I also chose it on my humans]) run some of their story quests, I may give them a try, as they look like a lot more fun then I expected(the human ones at least).

[Tono]

IIRC the Tengu were supposed to be a playable race, but canceled/delayed/whatever for reasons I cannot remember.

Based on the script thats in their for voices/emotes/armour and such, and the mention of an Asura Gate being made/connected between lions arch and The Dominion of Winds, they are expected to come out at some point. Most likely giving us more information about Cantha and the Elder Dragons.
(I think at some point a Tengu also mentions Choosing sides and doing it soon or something like that, but that bit I do not remember exactly and the wiki is no help.)

[Togath]

I wonder if they had planned for the tengu as you said, but cancelled it due to wow releasing pandaria around the same time as guildwars launching?(hopefully they will eventually add them, as they look neat and seem like they could be a fun race to play, and I can't think of many, or any mmos with a bird people race)

[Chen]

So my thief is around level 78 now and I'm not sure if I want to stick with my P/D build for level 80. Also I realized that the executioner trait doesn't seem to work with condition damage which really means I need to change that trait line.

Currently have 10 points in the first line (so my steal poisons and deals damage). I'm also almost complete the Shadow line so I gain 2 initiative when I stealth, blind people around me and gain regen. Finally I have the full 30 points in the precision line but it really seems pointless since I'm mainly power/condition damage/vitality geared and I mainly use bleeds. I suspect I should probably ditch the whole Precision Line and go into the bottom trait line for condition damage and more initiative.

Also I just started a guardian. I like the greatsword, but does anyone have any suggestions on my secondary weapon set? And what traits to build towards (only level 11 now though).

[Shadow]

My guard uses melee greatsword or sword /focus depending on the situation and ranged scepter/shield or staff depending on the situation.
As to traits, no one can answer that but you. Everyone's play style differs, so everyone's trait choices will differ as well.

[Treayn]

...Is it just me, or are guardians a must in any higher-level dungeon run?

I've not seen a class that can tank and control/hold aggro as well as them, and a party that seems not to have one wipes significantly more often. I mean, I guess necro makes for a soft tank, but still.

(...Also Neftren, mind showing me the ropes for the CoE run? Really would like that Inquest greatsword :smallsmile:)

[Neftren]

So I've been gradually leveling my engineer up whilst also trying to get into crafting (chosen leatherwork and huntsman as they seemed like the obvious choice) a quick question on crafting: is crafting your own gear rather than relying on drops and shops good enough to spend all that time leveling it up?

Otherwise I've gotten into switching between rifle, grenades and mines fairly fluidly and am working through my personal story quests having just dealt with some awfully nasty grizwhirls.

If anyone else is on Whiteside Ridge my name is Thalric.2135

It really depends on how fast you level, but the short answer is "no". By the time I could craft level 40 Huntsman gear (and without using my mats on a second profession either), I was already level 65 or so. To get from 375 to 400 of any profession takes a reasonably moderate grind (mostly just getting enough mithril and the fine crafting materials). Granted, you could buy the mats and craft, but that just begs the question "Why not just buy the gear off the TP, since it's dirt cheap already?"

I mostly used crafting as a means to get a few quick levels to catch up to the next zone's level bracket, since you don't always get to the next level bracket for finishing a zone.


So my thief is around level 78 now and I'm not sure if I want to stick with my P/D build for level 80. Also I realized that the executioner trait doesn't seem to work with condition damage which really means I need to change that trait line.

Currently have 10 points in the first line (so my steal poisons and deals damage). I'm also almost complete the Shadow line so I gain 2 initiative when I stealth, blind people around me and gain regen. Finally I have the full 30 points in the precision line but it really seems pointless since I'm mainly power/condition damage/vitality geared and I mainly use bleeds. I suspect I should probably ditch the whole Precision Line and go into the bottom trait line for condition damage and more initiative.

Also I just started a guardian. I like the greatsword, but does anyone have any suggestions on my secondary weapon set? And what traits to build towards (only level 11 now though).

Condition damage is really lousy in the end-game right now, at least in dynamic events and such. It's so easy to stack bleeds and vulnerability, and there's a hard cap of 25 stacks, so it's hard maintain good uptime on your bleeds on top of everybody else's.

As for the Guardian, make sure that one of your weapons is ranged. A ranged weapon is practically mandatory for sections of the high-level dungeons.


...Is it just me, or are guardians a must in any higher-level dungeon run?

I've not seen a class that can tank and control/hold aggro as well as them, and a party that seems not to have one wipes significantly more often. I mean, I guess necro makes for a soft tank, but still.

(...Also Neftren, mind showing me the ropes for the CoE run? Really would like that Inquest greatsword :smallsmile:)

Guardians aren't necessarily a must-have, but there should be at least one or two of the heavy armor classes in the party. Or as a rough rule of thumb, there should be more beefy types than squishy types.


And I'd be happy to do CoE with you anytime. If you're on Tarnished Coast though, the entrance has been bugged for a few days, so we'll have to cross-server with someone else (not too hard if we spam Lion's Arch Overflow for people).

[Hullabaloo]

...Is it just me, or are guardians a must in any higher-level dungeon run?ridiculous statement imo

Ive seen to many shouts with that (ie some guy shouting for 20 min 'LF1M must be guardian'). While I have not complicated anything above 50, I dont see any requirement remotely saying you NEED a guardian. They do seem to be the OPed class right now, but there is nothing that they can do that a party with any talent cannot do.

This is not saying that they do not help, or cant make it easier. But there is no way that they are a Must.

[Decatus]

after helping someone(may have been you, it was an engineer doing the carnival story quests, and he was in the tarnished coast guild nvm, he was mostly using pistols and flamethrower, so probably not you, though it is funny how many humans choose the carnival storyline

That was me, actually. And yeah, it seems that the overwhelming choice is circus for humans.

Also, I've got to agree with the poster above about using one Fine demanding craft and one that doesn't need them. Leveling Leatherwork and Jewler is pretty easy, and the gear is all useful - I don't grind at all, by the way, all of my crafting mats are easily found in normal play.

[Chen]

It really depends on how fast you level, but the short answer is "no". By the time I could craft level 40 Huntsman gear (and without using my mats on a second profession either), I was already level 65 or so. To get from 375 to 400 of any profession takes a reasonably moderate grind (mostly just getting enough mithril and the fine crafting materials). Granted, you could buy the mats and craft, but that just begs the question "Why not just buy the gear off the TP, since it's dirt cheap already?"


I made 6 things and went from 379-400 LW. If you make the cheap ones (Carrion gear that requires heavy bones which are less than 1s each) and avoid the ones that needed cloth (since cloth was MUCH more expensive than leather) it was pretty damn cheap to do. I did need to buy a recipe for the rare insignias from the LW vendor though (that was ~1k karma).

[Togath]

A quick question; are server transfers bugged for everyone or just me?, I tried to re-transfer to piken square or fissure of woe bug was unable to.

[Neftren]

I made 6 things and went from 379-400 LW. If you make the cheap ones (Carrion gear that requires heavy bones which are less than 1s each) and avoid the ones that needed cloth (since cloth was MUCH more expensive than leather) it was pretty damn cheap to do. I did need to buy a recipe for the rare insignias from the LW vendor though (that was ~1k karma).

Hmm, good to know. I'll be farming my crafting professions up to 400/400 once I finish world completion. I'm at about 66% right now.

If anyone wants help completing zones, let me know. I've either done the zone already, or am in the process of doing it, and soloing areas gets rather boring sometimes.


A quick question; are server transfers bugged for everyone or just me?, I tried to re-transfer to piken square or fissure of woe bug was unable to.

Account servers were down earlier today. Try again today?

Also as a warning, Piken Square is an EU server. I'd be over there myself, if it weren't for the latency problems I have at home.

[Treayn]

Sorry but:


ridiculous statement imo

While I have not complicated anything above 50

I hate to cherry-pick, but going through higher-level dungeon speedruns, It really pays to have a guardian in my group. Yes, it's doable without one. Yes, it'll take a massively longer amount of time (and money for repairs) to complete. Citadel of Flames is a nightmare now without good tanks. Probably Honor of the Waves as well (though I've not tested that one since the patch).


In Neftren's case, I have seen warriors in dungeons that contributed to the group, but in more of a support role with banners and such. Certainly better than warriors running the 100-blades nuke build against a silver-coloured boss :smallfrown:

[Karoht]

Sorry but:
I hate to cherry-pick, but going through higher-level dungeon speedruns, It really pays to have a guardian in my group. Yes, it's doable without one. Yes, it'll take a massively longer amount of time (and money for repairs) to complete. Citadel of Flames is a nightmare now without good tanks. Probably Honor of the Waves as well (though I've not tested that one since the patch).

In Neftren's case, I have seen warriors in dungeons that contributed to the group, but in more of a support role with banners and such. Certainly better than warriors running the 100-blades nuke build against a silver-coloured boss :smallfrown:Good to know that Holy Trinity is gone for good.

[Neftren]

Good to know that Holy Trinity is gone for good.

It doesn't work as well as you'd think. Holy Trinity existed for a reason.

[Karoht]

It doesn't work as well as you'd think. Holy Trinity existed for a reason.Thanks for making my point for me.
I'm not critical, merely amused. Arenanet devs sounded so bitter/angry about the Holy Trinity in quite a few interviews, and I'm sure they worked tirelessly to try and innovate the system into something different, but here it is again.
They could probably use a pat on the back, I'm sure of it.

[Togath]

wait, the devs didn't want it? I assumed it was a vocal minority that caused them not to include tanks, dps, and healers.
Does this mean they are less likely to overhaul the game to add dps, tanks, and healers like in all other fantasy mmos?

[Karoht]

wait, the devs didn't want it? I assumed it was a vocal minority that caused them not to include tanks, dps, and healers.
Does this mean they are less likely to overhaul the game to add dps, tanks, and healers like in all other fantasy mmos?
It was a design choice from the onset.
If they stick to their guns, yes, they are less likely to do so.
If they cave, no.

Point of interest, ensuring the game would have a place in eSports was also a design choice stated from the get-go. No, it was not just diatribe to make their investors happy. It's part of why many people assumed (right or wrong) that the game was a PvP focused game, not a PvE focus.

[Shadow]

They will not do so.
The game was conceptualized, designed, and balanced with the removal of the trinity as a focus.
"The Trinity is Dead" was a catchphrase for them. Changing it will not happen, because the ENTIRE game will have to be overhauled and rebalanced in order to do so.

[Toastkart]

Sorry but:I hate to cherry-pick, but going through higher-level dungeon speedruns,


Speedruns aren't exactly how the game is 'meant' to be played, nor do I think, at least at this point in time, that the majority of the player base is doing speedruns.



It doesn't work as well as you'd think. Holy Trinity existed for a reason.

That doesn't mean it needs to continue to exist. I think the game does an admirable job of not requiring some kind of trinity style gameplay in order to complete content.

If the intent was for the vast majority of the playerbase to be able to relatively easily group up and complete content, then I think they've succeeded.



Thanks for making my point for me.
I'm not critical, merely amused. Arenanet devs sounded so bitter/angry about the Holy Trinity in quite a few interviews, and I'm sure they worked tirelessly to try and innovate the system into something different, but here it is again.
They could probably use a pat on the back, I'm sure of it.

Even if the most efficient way to farm dungeons is using a trinity style setup, I think one thing that Anet did very well was break the rigidity of class roles. Most, if not all of the classes, are not locked into a single role.



wait, the devs didn't want it? I assumed it was a vocal minority that caused them not to include tanks, dps, and healers.
Does this mean they are less likely to overhaul the game to add dps, tanks, and healers like in all other fantasy mmos?

You are aware that GW1 didn't have a strict trinity either, right? There were a lot of skills that allowed you to tank, and to be a dedicated healer, but there was no taunting, and healing skills were a relatively inefficient way of keeping your team alive compared to proting.

Honestly, I'm just not sure what you expected out of the game. There are no raids, there are no taunts, there are no rigid class roles, heck, there aren't even any ally targeting skills.

How many mmos have risen and fallen over the past 10 years? Most of them were all very similar games. Guild Wars 2 is a cooperative mmo, even though it isn't this completely innovative or revolutionary game, as some were thinking it was. In my opinion, it does almost everything it does do, right. And that means it's a step in the right direction. In a few years, the next game will take another step. And the next game another, and the genre will evolve. Hopefully, it will evolve beyond the idea that a trinity is a necessary mechanic.

Technically speaking, we should be there already, because it is not necessary to have a certain set of classes to complete dungeons. It may not be the best or most efficient way to go about it, but it can be done.

[Togath]

I wish I had known that about the game before I bought the game.
edit: huh...well, at least a several mmos I thought were dead(final fantasy 14, warhammer online, and rift) are apparently still alive, I may try those for now then, warhammer online even runs on the computer I always have access to.

[Astrella]

I wish I had known that about the game before I bought the game.
at least It was only 60$

Known what? :smallconfused:

[Togath]

The lack of the trinity thing, I've gotten used to things like WoW, where you are either a tank, dps or healer(and can have 2-3 roles that you can switch between via some form of multispec), sometimes with a support role added in.
even ddo has a tank ability in the form of the intimidate skill.

[Karoht]

I wish I had known that about the game before I bought the game.
at least It was only 60$
They had open beta running every weekend, there were numerous fansites, plenty of people streaming beta footage and sharing their opinions if one didn't actually want to play the beta, gamebreaker.tv has had a weekly show about GW2 since it first entered beta, and plenty of streamers since launch.
They're supposed to have a free trial coming up soon.

Oh well. Buyer beware and all that jazz.

[Togath]

aye.
admittedly, I hadn't known the beta was an open thing, so I never looked into that bit, and I hadn't known there were places streaming footage other then the yogscast(which mostly dealt with pvp, and non dungeon things, with some misc wandering around as well)

[Ogremindes]

Updates on the Order of the Green Hilt

We now have a Guild Stash on Tarnished Coast, along with the Guild Emblem and Guild Armorer. I honestly have no idea where to spend Influence next. Suggestions welcome.


I'm not aware of who's on what sever apart from Tarnished Coast, and certainly can't do anything with Influence on those servers. If you're a member not on Tarnished Coast and have built up a meaningful amount of Influence you could volunteer for the rank of 'Master' to lead the guild on that server.


Along the same lines, volunteers for admin ranks on Tarnished Coast are still sought. Ranks range from recruiter (Knight) to full admin (Seneschal).

[Neftren]

That doesn't mean it needs to continue to exist. I think the game does an admirable job of not requiring some kind of trinity style gameplay in order to complete content.

Sure, I can accept that the Trinity is perhaps obsolete at this point, but if from a design perspective, the goal was to replace the Trinity, substituting "everybody does a little bit of everything" has performed poorly thus far in Guild Wars 2. I don't have a problem with the "Everybody is Everything" approach, but if that is the case, then the game needs to have encounters that are more than mindless tank and spanks. What little encounters that aren't "zerg boss mob until dead" are basically copies of mechanics found in the boss fights of other games. I suspect this is one of the reasons why there is no PvE content involving more than five players.


If the intent was for the vast majority of the playerbase to be able to relatively easily group up and complete content, then I think they've succeeded.

I would agree with your statement for the most part, except for the caveat that some groups tend to end up spamming "LF Guardian for ____ Explore Mode" or similar statements. I've heard arguments that this is a zero tank game, and similarly is a zero healer game. Personally, I'm leaning towards the latter, since everyone can self heal.

I heard some people justifying why there is no "LFG tool" in map chat earlier today, with the primary reason being "guilds exist, go find one and do content with them." I'd probably disagree with that statement. A group finder tool would be immensely helpful, and I don't think it would detract from the overall game in terms of making it easier for players to find groups.

One aspect that could use improvement is finding ways to encourage players to group up to complete entire zones...


Honestly, I'm just not sure what you expected out of the game. There are no raids, there are no taunts, there are no rigid class roles, heck, there aren't even any ally targeting skills.

Well, there are the area-heals I suppose. I don't think anyone really knew what to expect out of this game. That's one thing I do thing ArenaNet has done a good job of, which is trying new things (even if their implementation was relatively poor, I think there is room for improvement within the game here).


The lack of the trinity thing, I've gotten used to things like WoW, where you are either a tank, dps or healer(and can have 2-3 roles that you can switch between via some form of multispec), sometimes with a support role added in.
even ddo has a tank ability in the form of the intimidate skill.

As I noted above, I think a tank role still exists, though healing is largely the responsibility of each player now. Also, the "downed, fight to survive!" mechanic is rather interesting in that players can Rally, so dying (or going down) isn't all that big a deal.


Updates on the Order of the Green Hilt

We now have a Guild Stash on Tarnished Coast, along with the Guild Emblem and Guild Armorer. I honestly have no idea where to spend Influence next. Suggestions welcome.


I'm not aware of who's on what sever apart from Tarnished Coast, and certainly can't do anything with Influence on those servers. If you're a member not on Tarnished Coast and have built up a meaningful amount of Influence you could volunteer for the rank of 'Master' to lead the guild on that server.


Along the same lines, volunteers for admin ranks on Tarnished Coast are still sought. Ranks range from recruiter (Knight) to full admin (Seneschal).


I'd be more than happy to help with running the guild. Just let me know what needs to be done (big picture scope that is).

As for Influence, I think maybe Guild Weaponsmith is a nice touch? Just to get all the upgrades anyways. If we're short on Influence, I've got both my Letters still, so that's 1400 Influence right there.

[Togath]

Aye, I like the downed mechanics, and more what I meant by the "I wish this game had a tank role" is more even something like ddo(where the tanking taunt ability is an optional feature) still an "everyone can fill any role" thing, but with the ability to force an enemy to focus on you instead of an ally(such as one close to death, or one ressing downed players), guardians have one ability which does that(greatsword sword throw thingy), but it doesn't work on all enemies.
Having a taunt or something would also make shields more useful, as currently they are, oddly, more for pvp then pve.

[Decatus]

Shields are actually pretty darn useful in PvE if you've got the timing down. Warriors and guardians each have a skill that completely blocks for like 3 seconds. That's plenty of time if you're watching the boss and expecting to get hit. The Guardian also gets a skill that deals aoe damage and grants protection to his allies, while the warrior gets a short ranged leap + interrupt, if I remember right. All four of those skills are very useful in the right situation.

Engineers have a skill that reflects all projectiles for 3 seconds, and they can release it for a pretty good knock back effect. Ive managed to kill several mobs with my projectile reflection - but I do have to be watching the animations fairly carefully. Then we've got the electro-shield that we can block with or throw. If you choose to throw it, you can daze (and thus interrupt) the mob twice. Very handy. All in all, I've liked shields on the classes that can use them. I just wish their ability cool downs weren't so much longer than a comparable weapon. (offhand pistols for engi have a 15 sec and 25 sec cool downs, while shield is like 30 sec and 40 sec)

Edit: I'd also be cool with helping to run the guild. I'm having a blast with the game and don't intend to be leaving any time soon, so yeah. I'm trying to be more active on the forums as well, seeing as I can be here while I'm stuck at college but on break from class.

[illyrus]

I think its more that people are used to the "holy trinity" and plate=tank and so try to emulate it. I never liked it as I always interpreted it as "holy duo and a bunch of people that speed up the foregone conclusion while crowing about dps meters".

I'm liking what I've seen so far of dungeons and class design. For example I rebuilt my mesmer to be very sturdy as an experiment and have tanked dungeons just fine with it. I've also been in groups where everyone has sufficient survival to not need a formal tank and its gone smoothly as well.

So far its felt much closer to a pen-and-paper RPG experience than MMOs like EQ and WoW which is a plus to me. Its far from perfect but then again I can remember when WoW raiding was warrior=only tank class, 1 valid PvE spec for most classes, and some bosses being simple fire resistance checks.

[Toastkart]

Sure, I can accept that the Trinity is perhaps obsolete at this point, but if from a design perspective, the goal was to replace the Trinity, substituting "everybody does a little bit of everything" has performed poorly thus far in Guild Wars 2. I don't have a problem with the "Everybody is Everything" approach, but if that is the case, then the game needs to have encounters that are more than mindless tank and spanks. What little encounters that aren't "zerg boss mob until dead" are basically copies of mechanics found in the boss fights of other games. I suspect this is one of the reasons why there is no PvE content involving more than five players.

I would agree with you that there should be some more complex encounters. However, from my admittedly limited experience, aren't trinity-based encounters zerg boss mob until dead, with the caveat that if the tank or healer fails, then the whole party fails? That's a gross oversimplification, I'm sure, but you get the idea.

As for why there are no raids (because there is plenty of content that involves more than 5 players), I think it was a design goal from the start for several reasons. One, it's a significant departure in gameplay experience from anything that comes before it, and Anet has stated that they want the entire game to feel like 'end game'. Two, raids are associated with a gear treadmill and elitism that has no place in the rest of the game's design philosophy. Three, I think Anet would rather design content for almost all of their players rather than the small subset of hardcore raiders.




I would agree with your statement for the most part, except for the caveat that some groups tend to end up spamming "LF Guardian for ____ Explore Mode" or similar statements. I've heard arguments that this is a zero tank game, and similarly is a zero healer game. Personally, I'm leaning towards the latter, since everyone can self heal.

I've seen a few people asking for particular professions too, but not always guardians. Usually they are ridiculed pretty quickly. I don't think that's particularly necessary, but I have also seen people doing their best to explain that you don't need certain classes to complete the dungeon.



One aspect that could use improvement is finding ways to encourage players to group up to complete entire zones...
See, I'm not sure I agree. I think the grouping and socializing of players should be a fluid, natural thing. Nothing's stopping you from talking to other players and getting a group going.



Well, there are the area-heals I suppose. I don't think anyone really knew what to expect out of this game. That's one thing I do thing ArenaNet has done a good job of, which is trying new things (even if their implementation was relatively poor, I think there is room for improvement within the game here).
Certainly. I also think there is plenty of room for improvement. I think the tiering of utility skills and traits was a bad idea, but they're not going to change it now.

[Shadow]

I think the tiering of utility skills and traits was a bad idea, but they're not going to change it now.

I disagree. I think the tiering of traits and utilities was needed.
Making the utilities tiered is a non-issue because of the extremely vast amount of skill points available in the game.
With traits it's a bit more complicated. With untiered traits, you could essentially cherry pick the traits that you wanted without any real investment into a certain discipline. Certain traits are far, far more powerful than others, and should require a bit of "prep and know how" to get them. Getting these traits with only ten points spent into any given line was a mistake. Being able to build 10/10/10/20/20 [or whatever variation] and having all of the most powerful traits in the game was a mistake. It was a fun mistake, but it was a mistake none the less. Now the issue is getting more balance into the trees.

[Toastkart]

I disagree. I think the tiering of traits and utilities was needed.
Making the utilities tiered is a non-issue because of the extremely vast amount of skill points available in the game.

I don't disagree with your point, but I also don't see the sense in it. Tier 3 utility skills aren't more powerful, and most of the time not more complicated than lower tier skills. The placement of skills in the tier that they're in seems largely arbitrary, and since that is the case, why have tiers?

Then you have the issue of players seeing a tier system and assuming that higher tiers are more powerful skills when they aren't necessarily. That can be a problem if they're less willing to change skills to suit the situation.



With traits it's a bit more complicated. With untiered traits, you could essentially cherry pick the traits that you wanted without any real investment into a certain discipline. Certain traits are far, far more powerful than others, and should require a bit of "prep and know how" to get them.

I think this would be a valid point if the third tier traits were more powerful than others, because plenty of them aren't. Or rather, if lower tier traits weren't utter crap. Or if certain traits weren't in lines that make no sense whatsoever.



Getting these traits with only ten points spent into any given line was a mistake. Being able to build 10/10/10/20/20 [or whatever variation] and having all of the most powerful traits in the game was a mistake. It was a fun mistake, but it was a mistake none the less. Now the issue is getting more balance into the trees.

This wouldn't have been a problem if, again, the vast majority of traits weren't crap. If there's only 1-2 powerful traits per line, then you've got a problem that tiering doesn't fix, and I don't think it has.

Personally, I liked the trait system that they were developing prior to the betas. In it, each weapon had its own series of traits. They didn't conflict with each other and were only active when you had that weapon equipped. There were also two non-weapon based traitlines for each class. It wasn't perfect at the time, but I think it would have turned out better in the end if they'd have stuck with it.

[Hullabaloo]

Oh Jute, why do you hate me?

[Neftren]

I would agree with you that there should be some more complex encounters. However, from my admittedly limited experience, aren't trinity-based encounters zerg boss mob until dead, with the caveat that if the tank or healer fails, then the whole party fails? That's a gross oversimplification, I'm sure, but you get the idea.

This is hardly the case. Near the end, WoW turned into a lot of zerg bosses, but the original set of encounters (looking primarily at Naxxramas-40), there were many bosses with interesting mechanics. I think my favorite encounter is Heigan the Destroyer's floor puzzle (YouTube it if you're interested), and there are a great number of jokes and lines floating around the internet regarding Naxxramas boss encounters.


As for why there are no raids (because there is plenty of content that involves more than 5 players), I think it was a design goal from the start for several reasons. One, it's a significant departure in gameplay experience from anything that comes before it, and Anet has stated that they want the entire game to feel like 'end game'. Two, raids are associated with a gear treadmill and elitism that has no place in the rest of the game's design philosophy. Three, I think Anet would rather design content for almost all of their players rather than the small subset of hardcore raiders.

Maybe that's so, but "endgame" typically involves more than "running around the map by myself for little or no worthwhile reward" at the end. Raids don't necessarily have to be part of a gear treadmill or elitism. It could just reward Exotics with more skins, because as it stands, there aren't enough interesting or cool armor sets out there right now (at least, not for medium armor).

Also, dungeon finder can help with putting raid groups together. Or just make the raids be open world bosses or boss events, instead of having all the "large group PvE content == tank and spank Cathedral boss for crappy Karma Vendor at the end" type of fight.

As it stands, there is no endgame. The "Endgame reimagined" post is just a set of excuses (in my opinion) for why there isn't anything meaningful to do at level 80. I present to you ... a majority of level 80 players farming karma and gold in Orr as the primary evidence. I thought the intention was to make this a no-grind (or lessened grind) game? I don't want to turn to carrot on a stick or anything, but in terms of motivating players to go to other zones and do the lower level content... the rewards really aren't there. I'm making relatively little money exploring, compared to my friend, who made something like 80g in a week just farming Orr for events.


See, I'm not sure I agree. I think the grouping and socializing of players should be a fluid, natural thing. Nothing's stopping you from talking to other players and getting a group going.

There is no story or map completion reason for why we should do dungeons. It's almost as if ArenaNet made all their maps and went "oh we should put in some dungeons" and then plopped some across the map. Mount Maelstrom has a quarter of the map devoted to the Coil of Eternity, yet at no time whatsoever is there a story quest or heart that sends you there. Only a dynamic event that fails more than half the time because it's semi-bugged. So on this front, finding a group and socializing isn't exactly fluid. Most groups I've been in have been more interested in either completing the story quest (i.e. for Arah), or farming the instance (e.g. Citadel of Flame, Twilight Arbor, etc.).

The second problem? There's a huge problem stopping me from talking to other players and getting a group going, and that's the fact that there are simply no other players in the zone, or more specifically, no other level appropriate players in the zone. How many level 80s are running around in Queensdale looking for a Caudecus Manor Explore Mode group? This is why CM Explore is never run unless you find a guild (which defeats the point of making it easy for casual players to find a group, and returns to the adage of "go find a guild you noob"). Some zones I've been in have been almost empty at times too...


I don't disagree with your point, but I also don't see the sense in it. Tier 3 utility skills aren't more powerful, and most of the time not more complicated than lower tier skills. The placement of skills in the tier that they're in seems largely arbitrary, and since that is the case, why have tiers?

Then you have the issue of players seeing a tier system and assuming that higher tiers are more powerful skills when they aren't necessarily. That can be a problem if they're less willing to change skills to suit the situation.

I don't know which class you're playing, but I can assure you, Ranger Tier 2 and Tier 3 skills are much more powerful than Tier 1 skills. I think ArenaNet did a reasonably good job, to the extent at which I have to consider whether I want to trade out 100 Precision and 10% Crit Damage for a 20% reduction in Greatsword/Sword cooldowns. It's an interesting trade off and I think there's some degree of thought into builds. I do agree that it could use some improvement though.


1

I don't want to seem like I'm harping against this game or anything. I just think there are a certain set of problems that ArenaNet hasn't addressed (and this is a problem common to many game developers, in that they fail to fully consider their endgame, and to that end, player motivations for playing their version of "endgame").

[Treayn]

Speedruns aren't exactly how the game is 'meant' to be played, nor do I think, at least at this point in time, that the majority of the player base is doing speedruns.

Doesn't have to be a majority, just a sizeable portion. And I would contend that yes, there is a large enough speedrun group that ArenaNet actually had to take action by patching some dungeons up to a higher difficulty. Also, once you hit 80, all there is to do in PvE is farm, especially if you want dungeon armour sets. So yes, there is a sizeable group of farmers out there.


And again I say, dungeons are not impossible to run without a guardian, but you'll shave off a lot of time running a competent one.


I wish I had known that about the game before I bought the game.

Why exactly do you want WoW-like mechanics in a game that is trying to get away from precisely those sorts of mechanics?


I rebuilt my mesmer to be very sturdy as an experiment and have tanked dungeons just fine with it.

Do share.



As it stands, there is no endgame. The "Endgame reimagined" post is just a set of excuses (in my opinion) for why there isn't anything meaningful to do at level 80. I present to you ... a majority of level 80 players farming karma and gold in Orr as the primary evidence. I thought the intention was to make this a no-grind (or lessened grind) game?

I don't know which class you're playing, but I can assure you, Ranger Tier 2 and Tier 3 skills are much more powerful than Tier 1 skills. I think ArenaNet did a reasonably good job, to the extent at which I have to consider whether I want to trade out 100 Precision and 10% Crit Damage for a 20% reduction in Greatsword/Sword cooldowns. It's an interesting trade off and I think there's some degree of thought into builds. I do agree that it could use some improvement though.

Welp, they have to keep people playing somehow :smallfrown: . At this point it's about farming cosmetics, since that's really the main attraction.

Personally, ANet are disappointing me with a lack of a proper tournament system. Free tourneys are treated like 8v8 pubs, with ragers and afkers everywhere. Before anyone says 'paid tourneys', I'd like to get in a bit of proper practice before moving up to that, but...

As for traits, they vary wildly from profession. I can say that mesmer traits are functional, but are awkwardly placed all over. Mantra traits are high up in opposite trees, shatters are deep in Power and Condition, the critical tree really only serves as 'bleeding for more condition damage' (Sharper Images). So it's not so straightforward.

[Penguinizer]

I find that the mesmer traits are overall rather disappointing. They're all either incredible niche, very weapon/build specific or outright awful.

Not to mention they're rather confusingly worded since they never really make it clear what is an illusion, what is a clone and what is a phantasm and more specifically which trait affects what.:smallannoyed:

[illyrus]

Eh... I don't think raiding has to be the "endgame". Its been my experience from raiding seriously in EQ and vanilla WoW (and less serious raiding since then) that when you're working on that first kill (especially if its a server or world first) everyone's goal is to beat the boss. After you've done it once or twice then its just farming things in a raid as the mechanics are all old hat now.

Personally I'd rather see the dynamic events take more of an epic scale affecting multiple zones over the course of a week. Maybe one week a month every month they have some huge dynamic event chain like that. Create four or five and just cycle through them over the year.

Throw in some cool boss mechanics and have a few of the boss events place a huge area into contested to prevent people from graveyard zerging easily.

[Tono]

I personally hope(and think, but mostly hope) that the dungeon nerfs were more of a gut reaction to dungeon farming that will later be changed. I really don't think they expected that amount of people to be farming the dungeons like they were. I hope after they take care of all the Trait/skill/balance issues, they'll be able to look at the dungeons and balance them out for a decent farm/time ratio, but not to the point were it is the number one thing you do, unless you want to get the armours. Edit again, appearently there is this aswell. (https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/dungeons/Dungeon-Updates/page/16#post190414) And I forgot about this one. (https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/dungeons/2-6-Silver-and-17-7k-XP/first#post190257) Dungeons will be given much better loot.

IMO its a bigger problem that the Diminshing Returns for farming mobs, and doing a lot of events back to back that are in place. I haven't hit the DE cap to date, but loot drying up confused me for a while until I found out why. -.-

I saw a post on the offical forums about PvP and some changes coming (including ladders, i think) that Ill try to fish out, things should be on the way. Ill try to find after I post this. What we know about the future of PvP (https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/pvp/Ladder-ranking-custom-tournaments-waiting-for-Anet-response/page/2#post188369)
Honestly, as someone who has fallen in love with my ele, and think ill be maining it, I would rather they do somthing to buff us in some way, even if its just fixing some of the movement skills (mostly ride the lighting) before anything. Thats just me being greedy though.

[illyrus]

Do share.


I'll give the bare bones to it. Mesmers have 2 blocks and 1 distortion from weapons (sword 2 for distortion, scepter 2 and sword 4 for blocks). I normally pick 2 of those. I really like the sword 2 as your dishing out damage while you're evading and scepter 2 can be cut short to throw out a blind. Sword 3 saves the spot the clone charged to so you can use it as a shadowstep out of melee to avoid a big hit on a mobile fight if you like.

For traits Phantasmal Healing has phantasms grant regen to allies, Illusionary Membrane grants you protection for 2 seconds whenever you gain regen. iDuelist grants regen twice as fast as the other phantasms and gives you about 80% up-time for protection with 1 out. A single other phantasm of any type will give you 100% and you can start moving towards the protection time cap. Illusionary Defense gives you 3% DR per illusion out. Persisting Images gives your phantasms 20% more health (to be used with the Signet of Illusions). Finally Illusionists Celerity lets your illusions recharge 20% faster. So Chaos 15, Inspiration 15, and Illusions 5 are the minimum traits. Rest are up to you for how you want to dish out damage.

Prioritize toughness as from what I've read and seen it is given to illusions (vitality does not appear to be) with vitality and whatever damage stats you like coming in tied for 2nd place. What I originally used was sword/focus and scepter/pistol. Focus more so for Into the Void pulling things off team mates with knockdown than iWarden though for certain things iWarden is amazing.

On AE super heavy fights you're not going to have 100% phantasm up time of course but you should be able to keep up protection 50% of the time without too much issue. With all the ways to generate clones you should be fine keeping up the 9% DR. Utilities varied for me fight to fight, one thing I need to test is if Signet of Inspiration would let me copy a 20 second protection/regen to my party at that duration. Keep in mind that any source of regen will trigger the protection so you can get some good synergy with other classes.

Don't be afraid to shatter when it it seems like a good time. You have a quick enough refresh rate on your illusions that it shouldn't be much of an issue. If the situation calls for it of course step back and let your illusions eat some hits and die so you can go revive someone or simply take a breather.

[Treayn]

Ahh ok, so it hinges on Illusionary Membrane and getting as many sources of regen as possible. If not up, churn out illusions for a 9% damage reduction.

I'm assuming you cast sword 3 on another mob to 'shadowstep' out. As for blocks, they seem only to work if it was an attack targeted specifically at you. Ergo, blocking AoE attacks don't seem to work very well. Scepter blind is brilliant though.

Ever consider running Phantasmal Defender to boost that resilience even further?


One thing that irks me about off-hand sword is sword 5. It's a phastasm (so it's meant to do damage and be offensive), yet it uses a leap finisher (which is mostly defensive). Would've been better as a blast/projectile finisher.

And yes, signet of inspiration acts as a transmitter, if say your guardian has cast 5 boons on you, you can transmit all those boons (including your randomly generated one) to your allies for their remaining duration. Very good for team fights.

[nhbdy]

Hello again! Seems my attempts to get a machine capable of running this game have hit a bit of a roadblock, and I could use some advice for a video card that would get reliable performance (low settings are fine), would the min spec. cards do? Or are the really min specs (meaning sketchy performance at times)? Of the ones they list (here: http://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1119/session/L3RpbWUvMTM0ODIwMDUyNy9zaWQvNTlQa0ZNNmw%3D ) do any offer any advantages? Does anyone have any recommendations for video cards that offer a lot of bang for their buck? (it seems that building a PC is my best bet right now)

[Shadow]

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/bill-freist-talks-optimization-and-performance/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=0As6JzAgBwEesdHlTdk90MjltaURaTGdLdHAwQktkbkE&single=true&gid=0&output=html

Note in the last link, the GeForce GT 520 is listed at Low performance at 1366x768.
That's what I had during the first two betas, and I ran at the lowest possible settings. I built a new system because the game was almost unplayable in any sort of group event on my Dinosaur, so I'd go with something listed at Medium at the absolute minimum.
As to your question regarding best bang for your buck, somewhere around these [HD 4770, GT 545 (DDR3) HD 4830, HD 5670, HD 6670] is probably going to be the most cost effective. But going with a lesser rig will mean that you'll have to upgrade sooner, so if you're building a new rig then I'd suggest spending a couple hundred more and future proofing a bit.

I built a rig which can run at max settings with multiple programs running in the background, while recording, and never drop below 40 fps [usually above 60] for around $800.
{MSI z77a-g45 MoBo, i5 2500k CPU, GTX 560 GPU, 12gb RAM, mid tower case, 1tb HD, optical drive, etc etc etc}

If you really shop around, you can build a system that will run it decently for half of that. As long as you're getting 15-20 fps in large group events [which will mean around 30+ in low pop areas] the game is playable. Some people boast about their Hero Rig getting 90+ fps, but the refresh rate of most low end monitors is 60 so anything above that is usually wasted unless you spend a lot on your monitor as well.... which almost no one does.
But again, going with a lower end build will mean upgrades need to happen earlier.
I suggest building the absolute best system that you can afford to build, with the addendum that anything above $1k total is usually wasted. You can get a LOT of computer for $600-$700 if you know what to look for.
Compare that with purchasing a "gaming rig" pre-built for $2500 and you'll see why gamers build rather than buy.

[Emmerask]

Hello again! Seems my attempts to get a machine capable of running this game have hit a bit of a roadblock, and I could use some advice for a video card that would get reliable performance (low settings are fine), would the min spec. cards do? Or are the really min specs (meaning sketchy performance at times)? Of the ones they list (here: http://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1119/session/L3RpbWUvMTM0ODIwMDUyNy9zaWQvNTlQa0ZNNmw%3D ) do any offer any advantages? Does anyone have any recommendations for video cards that offer a lot of bang for their buck? (it seems that building a PC is my best bet right now)

Overall the graphics card is not of that much importance, get a gtx460 (very old model but only costs ~100€) or gtx 560 (starts at 150€) duno the us pricing.
The most important thing for mmos is the cpu,
get either a i5 2500k or an amd fx4170 but not below this, especially during wvw or pve events you will need the cpu power.

[Shadow]

Overall the graphics card is not of that much importance, get a gtx460 (very old model but only costs ~100€) or gtx 560 (starts at 150€) duno the us pricing.
The most important thing for mmos is the cpu,
get either a i5 2500k or an amd fx4170 but not below this, especially during wvw or pve events you will need the cpu power.

This hardware will allow him to run at max settings. They're not top tier any more, but they are certainly higher end. If he's looking for cost effective, these may be out of his range.
And while they are nice, they certainly aren't needed for the game to perform adequately. So while I, too, would suggest this, I wouldn't go so far as to say that he should not go "below this".

[Neftren]

Treayn, I did another CoE run last night. The entrance is fixed on Tarnished Coast, so we can run it whenever now.

[Chen]

The skill point in Sparkfly Fen is still bugged which is annoying me since I can't finish it. Hopefully that'll be fixed soon.

Also purchased all the gossamer, leather and bones I need to make my level 80 exotic set. Also purchased enough ectos to make the chest and pants. Only 20 more ectos before I can get the whole set.

Unfortunately the runes I want to put in it (scavenging) are 3g each at the moment. Any idea how these runes are crafted? Or do they only come from existing gear?

[Neftren]

The skill point in Sparkfly Fen is still bugged which is annoying me since I can't finish it. Hopefully that'll be fixed soon.

Also purchased all the gossamer, leather and bones I need to make my level 80 exotic set. Also purchased enough ectos to make the chest and pants. Only 20 more ectos before I can get the whole set.

Unfortunately the runes I want to put in it (scavenging) are 3g each at the moment. Any idea how these runes are crafted? Or do they only come from existing gear?

Try zoning into an Overflow server to get the Sparkfly Fen skill point.


Wow, buying Gossamer is incredibly expensive. I'd have gone and farmed/salvaged it instead. :smalltongue:


Which runes are you looking for?

[Chen]

Try zoning into an Overflow server to get the Sparkfly Fen skill point.

There's no way to manually do this though is there? Doesn't the zone just need to be overpopulated?



Wow, buying Gossamer is incredibly expensive. I'd have gone and farmed/salvaged it instead. :smalltongue:

I farmed and sold gear to buy gossamer. Same thing really. Farming your own mats is only more efficient if you can't farm the equivalent gold in the same amount of time.



Which runes are you looking for?

The Runes of Scavenging. I currently have 4 of the major ones in my gear. They give condition damage and magic find. But the superior ones are close to 3g each. So either someone is marking them up absurdly after crafting them OR they can only be found in existing gear and salvaged out of them.

[Neftren]

There's no way to manually do this though is there? Doesn't the zone just need to be overpopulated?

There's no manual way to do it as far as I know. You could try server transfer maybe? I dunno.


I farmed and sold gear to buy gossamer. Same thing really. Farming your own mats is only more efficient if you can't farm the equivalent gold in the same amount of time.

I think it depends on your magic find really. I get so many drops now, I salvage all the cloth since Gossamer sells ridiculously well on the TP, and then I vendor the rest (or sell to TP).

Also, salvaging contributes towards the monthly, which is something to consider.


The Runes of Scavenging. I currently have 4 of the major ones in my gear. They give condition damage and magic find. But the superior ones are close to 3g each. So either someone is marking them up absurdly after crafting them OR they can only be found in existing gear and salvaged out of them.

Hmm... I'll ask around.

I personally went for the Traveler runes instead, since it gives a bit more Magic Find and a huge chunk of health (I'm a squishy ranger), plus a 5% movement speed bonus that may or may not stack with all the other passives.

[Turalisj]

I went for Rune of the Pirate >.>

Arrrr

Oh, and my chest piece is exotic armor, self-crafted. Plus my main hand dagger is also a self-crafted exotic. :smallbiggrin:

Level 400 Leatherworker and Weaponsmith. It might have bankrupted me, but it is worth looking badass.

[Chen]

There's no manual way to do it as far as I know. You could try server transfer maybe? I dunno.

I considered this but the server I'm on is full and I don't want to risk not being able to come back. I guess it can wait til they fix it.



I think it depends on your magic find really. I get so many drops now, I salvage all the cloth since Gossamer sells ridiculously well on the TP, and then I vendor the rest (or sell to TP).

Also, salvaging contributes towards the monthly, which is something to consider.

Don't get me wrong I salvage light scraps and light armor up to blue level because Gossamer is so expensive. Heavy armor I also salvage most of the time. Medium armor gets vendored since leather is super cheap. Green and up I try on the TP first otherwise green gets vendored and yellow/orange are salvaged with a Mystic salvage kit.




Hmm... I'll ask around.

I personally went for the Traveler runes instead, since it gives a bit more Magic Find and a huge chunk of health (I'm a squishy ranger), plus a 5% movement speed bonus that may or may not stack with all the other passives.

Hmm I didn't realize Scavenger was less magic find. I see that pirate runes also give Magic find in the same amount as travellers and they're cheaper too. Maybe I'll go with those instead. I figure with Magic find runes and consumables its probably enough. No sense in getting magic find gear since you trade so many stats for 3% MF on each piece.

[Turalisj]

I'm sitting very near to 100% magic find right now, maybe more. I'll have to check. It hasn't seemed to help though, I can never find any rares :smallannoyed:

[Neftren]

I considered this but the server I'm on is full and I don't want to risk not being able to come back. I guess it can wait til they fix it.

Understandable. What server are you on anyways?


Don't get me wrong I salvage light scraps and light armor up to blue level because Gossamer is so expensive. Heavy armor I also salvage most of the time. Medium armor gets vendored since leather is super cheap. Green and up I try on the TP first otherwise green gets vendored and yellow/orange are salvaged with a Mystic salvage kit.

I actually would sell the Yellow/Orange on the TP, since you typically get 30-80s for a rare, and 1-3g for an Exotic, which you can then turn around and buy the Ecto with the money you just made.


Hmm I didn't realize Scavenger was less magic find. I see that pirate runes also give Magic find in the same amount as travellers and they're cheaper too. Maybe I'll go with those instead. I figure with Magic find runes and consumables its probably enough. No sense in getting magic find gear since you trade so many stats for 3% MF on each piece.

People want Scavenger for more gold, but I figure +Movement Speed means I can traverse the world faster, which means I can kill stuff more quickly, and complete hearts more quickly, and so on.

I'm not a big fan of the Pirate set, since I'm not super into Condition damage. Health is always useful though. I'm lucky and bought a full set of Traveler runes for 60s each, and now they go for over 1g. :smallbiggrin:


I'm sitting very near to 100% magic find right now, maybe more. I'll have to check. It hasn't seemed to help though, I can never find any rares :smallannoyed:

It doesn't necessarily help you find more rares, but I certainly noticed an increase in blue and green drops, and you get a lot more of the Fine crafting materials.

[Togath]

posting pics of that weird bug i found in queensdale;

http://imageshack.us/a/img840/2104/gw017m.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img826/6934/gw018w.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img138/4094/gw019v.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img809/3245/gw020qx.jpg

It has invisible walls separating it from the basement area visible in the pictures, but it does seem odd that it exists in the first place.

[Treayn]

posting pics of that weird bug i found in queensdale;

Try mesmer downed state, that always happens :(

As for Gossamer, I would recommend stockpiling it. IF it's expensive now it'll just go up in price.

[Togath]

Try mesmer downed state, that always happens :(.

Mesmers fall through the ground into caves when downed?

[Hullabaloo]

Ive submitted at least 5 individual bug reports about it. Typically end up under water underground. Some times the battle won't end so I can't even warp out. Typically from skill 2 with the staff in my mesmer

[Togath]

wow, aye, thats one heck of a bug

[Treayn]

Yes.

I've bugged through the world using mesmer downed 2 (Teleports you and creates a clone), mesmer staff 2, and even the utility blink skill.

Really irritating when you're in a dungeon and fighting a boss, because you remain in combat mode and can't teleport to a waypoint at all.

[Eloel]

Yes.

I've bugged through the world using mesmer downed 2 (Teleports you and creates a clone), mesmer staff 2, and even the utility blink skill.

Really irritating when you're in a dungeon and fighting a boss, because you remain in combat mode and can't teleport to a waypoint at all.

You should be able to die and thus not care about battle when downed, right?

[Treayn]

Yes when downed, no to the other two skills which bug you out as well.

Also, there's always the chance that your team kills a small minion and not the boss, causing you to rally.

[Octopus Jack]

I've hit 20 on my Engineer and have some queries if any engineer players can answer I would be very grateful. I'm struggling to decide what to put in my 4th utility slot. So far running healing elixer-y thing, grenades and mines.

I've been putting all my trait points into Explosives and am also having trouble deciding between Shrapnel and Forceful Explosives in the trait tree. Is the additional area on explosives worth giving up a small chance to drop bleeds on people?

One more engineer related question. Which weapon set would be best to compliment a grenades and mines play style. So far I'm running a rifle but would two pistols or pistol shields be more useful to this build?


Thanks to anyone who can answer these.

[Tychris1]

Just hit level 5-6 on my Necromancer Charr and and man leveling up my staff/death shroud is SO HARD. yeesh, I have to swap to death shroud at the end of a fight just to start leveling it.

[Mattarias, King.]

:smallsmile: Almost to 40! Maaan, this game is great. The Vigil are my kind of faction! :smallbiggrin:

Speaking of which, can we please institute a rule wherein we have to spoiler tag any lore stuff? I think we can all agree that surprises are fun.

[Togath]

How are they fun?(keeping lore secret), it's a game not a mystery novel.

[Mattarias, King.]

I just think it's more fun discovering things on your own. I assume that's how the game designers planned everything out. Besides, spoiler tags still allow for discussion. Some of us don't want to know how the story ends before we get there. :smallannoyed:

[mucco]

Don't worry, it only prepares you for the forthcoming let-downs. :smallbiggrin:

I agree however, storyline stuff should be spoilered. I think I did it on my previous posts.

[Mattarias, King.]

:smallsigh: BLUUHHHH.. Just hit 40, jumped into Caudecus' Manor... I gotta say, that was a lot harder than some endgame WoW raids... Sheesh. :smalleek:

I DID skip Ascalon Catacombs, so that mighta had something to do with it..

[Chen]

Understandable. What server are you on anyways?

Eredon (sp?) Terrace



I actually would sell the Yellow/Orange on the TP, since you typically get 30-80s for a rare, and 1-3g for an Exotic, which you can then turn around and buy the Ecto with the money you just made.

Yeah I've noticed this lately. Check the TP first for rare/exotic before salvaging. There was a post on reddit also mentioning that they weren't sure if you needed to use a master's kit to get Ectos. The rare chance being the chance to get the tier 6 ore/cloth/leather rather than the chance to get ectos. Haven't had a chance to try this yet.



People want Scavenger for more gold, but I figure +Movement Speed means I can traverse the world faster, which means I can kill stuff more quickly, and complete hearts more quickly, and so on.

I'm not a big fan of the Pirate set, since I'm not super into Condition damage. Health is always useful though. I'm lucky and bought a full set of Traveler runes for 60s each, and now they go for over 1g. :smallbiggrin:

Yeah the magic find sets are only going up in value. Im wondering how much killing power is worth sacrificing for magic find though. I suspect runes + food is probably sufficient. In which case I guess you'd want the best runes available for max magic find. I think that ends up being Noble runes, but you need TONS of tokens from CM (I think) for those.
[/QUOTE]


:smallsigh: BLUUHHHH.. Just hit 40, jumped into Caudecus' Manor... I gotta say, that was a lot harder than some endgame WoW raids... Sheesh. :smalleek:

I DID skip Ascalon Catacombs, so that mighta had something to do with it..

There was a big buff to the Manor recently but the Catacombs I find are still more difficult. The Lover's fight is pretty bad if your team isn't very coordinated.

[Turalisj]

They ramped the difficulty to stupid hard on the dungeons.

[Emmerask]

There was a big buff to the Manor recently but the Catacombs I find are still more difficult. The Lover's fight is pretty bad if your team isn't very coordinated.

Hm the explore catacombs where a lot harder imo, especially the dps check in the third path where every 10sec a new burrow spawns and with movement you have about 6 to 8 secs to bring each one down. It took us about 9 tries to finally get it, we did it as soon as available though, with lvl 80s and all the traits it might be considerably more easy.
We had to put every last bit towards damage, had to use combo finishers for might stacks and there was pretty much no room for even the slightest error ^^


As for the manor it was kind of a let down, the bosses where extremely easy while the trash packs where really hard especially the snipers who oneshotted our wizard over and over again (not moving sometimes is not really an option^^).

One thing that was very apparent with all the dungeons is also the one major mistake with the current game, you are supposed to avoid damage as much as possible instead of healing but a lot of the super high damage abilities come completely out of the blue with no time to react especially as a meele.

As a ranged char you can avoid these a lot more easily (because a lot of them are pbaoe), as a meele your only real chance is to jump in get a few hits and jump away which completely removes the one big advantage of it, the slightly higher damage output.

They really need to give better indicators when one of those instant one shot pbaoe skills is starting, they did a good job in the catacombs dungeon, but in the manor they didn´t bother with it at all it seems.


They ramped the difficulty to stupid hard on the dungeons.

If its not a dps check, get at least 3 of your people with instant rezz abilities (from downed state), this will help you quite a lot ^^

We did the lovers fight on the first try with none dead, only downed (a lot) with this ^^

[Chen]

One thing that was very apparent with all the dungeons is also the one major mistake with the current game, you are supposed to avoid damage as much as possible instead of healing but a lot of the super high damage abilities come completely out of the blue with no time to react especially as a meele.


I agree 100% with this. Even as ranged, if there's a ton of stuff going on (like the mob is on fire because of some guardian skill), its nearly impossible to see the cue that they're preparing an attack. Not to mention the timing on some things doesn't really match much of the cues at all.

For example, the normal worm type enemies throw a rock of ice/stone whatever aoe at you. They make a sound, and then a sort of spark type thing appears on them. Then the spark disappears and a good 1.5 - 2 sec later they throw the stone which you then need to dodge. There's no way to intuitively know its going to get thrown AFTER the spark disappears so the first instinct is to dodge when that spark goes away. But that's too early and will almost certainly get you hit with the projectile. Things like that on bosses in dungeons will just one shot you instead which is even worse.

Is there any way to turn down the visual effects on what hit mobs? I know in WoW as a melee char you pretty much had to turn off particle effects otherwise you were just standing in a giant explosion for the whole boss fight. This game seems similar except I'm not sure what you need to turn off to get rid of it (if you even can).

[Astrella]

Hmm, so I bought a random recipe for artificer that turns me into a ghost. And now I'm stuck being a ghost for 30 minutes. >.> I even tried looking for similar recipes but they apparently aren't around on the wiki at all. D:

[Emmerask]

Are you sure you can´t just exit this morph with 1 or ^ ?
Otherwise just jump off of a cliff or somesuch after death it should be gone ^^

[mucco]

I agree 100% with this. Even as ranged, if there's a ton of stuff going on (like the mob is on fire because of some guardian skill), its nearly impossible to see the cue that they're preparing an attack. Not to mention the timing on some things doesn't really match much of the cues at all.

Actually, once you learn a few tricks, it gets easier. This is when I understood that dungeons were a lot about skill, and knowledge of the monsters of course. I like the "stupid hard" difficulty, I think that is should be that way for dungeons. I personally find Caudecus to be too easy for a dungeon.

[Chen]

Actually, once you learn a few tricks, it gets easier. This is when I understood that dungeons were a lot about skill, and knowledge of the monsters of course. I like the "stupid hard" difficulty, I think that is should be that way for dungeons. I personally find Caudecus to be too easy for a dungeon.

And those tricks would be what exactly? Some of the mobs had no cue at all before they unleashed some sort of horrible PBAoE so if you're in melee you're kinda screwed. Some mobs also do have some sort of visual indicator except when they're on fire and being hit by meteors and whatever other ranged effect it makes it impossible to see and, once again, you get wrecked as melee.

[Shadow]

Sorry Chen, but mucco's right. They all have Tells and/or Telegraphs before these attacks. You just have to watch them to figure out what those are and then dodge at the appropriate moment.
For example:
Lt Killer throws a scorpion wire like pull ability similar to the thief skill at every member of the party, then does an immediate whirlwind attack that will literally kill everyone he hit with the pull.
Just before the pull, he "powers up" for this attack.
If you were watching him it's blatantly obvious. You were probably watching your UI when you should have been watching the environment/boss.
A three hour run through ACe on the first try was down to just shy of an hour the second time because we knew what we were doing that time.

And yes, CM is far easier than AC on story mode.

[Hullabaloo]

Actually, once you learn a few tricks, it gets easier.

I fully agree with this. I think if anything story mode should be turned up a bit, and explor should be turned up more. The fact that AC can be beaten so easily in such a young game surprised me. That people complain that they cant faceroll an instance, and dont like that they cant beat something their first time in, sadly, did not surprise me.

Outside of the basic tells ect, I think some 'tricks' people need to learn is gear and building. going into a 30 instance with grey gear of minimum level 15 is leaving alot out there. Also, I think people are in the WoW mindset of stacking their favorite stat. Vit and Toughness can be useful for everyone, similar to stats. Taking magic find on gear is fine, but you are trading usefulness to your party for better loot. Dont be surprised if you cant fully preform. Slotting all your gear makes a huge difference too.

Most groups I run instances with that have issues have players that are "DPS Builds" so focus fully on Power, with low level gear. Those that I do good runs with, most people say they are "support". Just the mind set between the two seems to make a huge difference.

[Morty]

The adventures of the Asura Mesmer continue. I'm level 39 and joined the Order of Whispers. I'm doing pretty well, but getting my crafting skills to 150 looks like it'll be tough... and I need them on 150 to use the materials found in the areas I'm about to start exploring.

[Emmerask]

Sorry Chen, but mucco's right. They all have Tells and/or Telegraphs before these attacks. You just have to watch them to figure out what those are and then dodge at the appropriate moment.
For example:
Lt Killer throws a scorpion wire like pull ability similar to the thief skill at every member of the party, then does an immediate whirlwind attack that will literally kill everyone he hit with the pull.
Just before the pull, he "powers up" for this attack.
If you were watching him it's blatantly obvious. You were probably watching your UI when you should have been watching the environment/boss.
A three hour run through ACe on the first try was down to just shy of an hour the second time because we knew what we were doing that time.

And yes, CM is far easier than AC on story mode.

Actually before all this he powers up with glowing hands...
but then again he is one of the few who actually has this tell, later on there are numerous bosses who either don´t have it at all or who maybe have bugged animations when certain abilities hit.

And once those pbaoes (small aoe around the boss) hit you will go down even if you wear yellow gear of your level and have protection up (-33% dmg) he will one hit you as a meele, yes even if you specced all the defensive lines to get max toughness and health :smallwink:

As a ranged as I said its not as bad because all the pull or ranged abilities I´ve seen so far have tells, well except the snipers ability to deal more damage when running around (more meaning one shot on cloth wearers).

[mucco]

I don't remember ever being one-shotted in a dungeon. I recall I was brought to 10% health in a single hit sometimes however, and I play one of the tank professions (N). I can see how a guardian or ele, unprotected, would go downed on a single attack.

I found that melee is viable, but not for any extended period on bosses. I usually play Dagger/Focus and Staff, and I do get into melee with the dagger, but only for a few seconds. Everyone should bring a ranged weapon for bosses, or spend half their time chasing spawns and secondary targets. 100% melee on a boss is certainly deadly.

[Chen]

Sorry Chen, but mucco's right. They all have Tells and/or Telegraphs before these attacks. You just have to watch them to figure out what those are and then dodge at the appropriate moment.
For example:
Lt Killer throws a scorpion wire like pull ability similar to the thief skill at every member of the party, then does an immediate whirlwind attack that will literally kill everyone he hit with the pull.
Just before the pull, he "powers up" for this attack.
If you were watching him it's blatantly obvious. You were probably watching your UI when you should have been watching the environment/boss.
A three hour run through ACe on the first try was down to just shy of an hour the second time because we knew what we were doing that time.

And yes, CM is far easier than AC on story mode.

The bosses tend to be less of an issue than some of the absurd trash actually. And I didn't just mean dungeons. Champions from events in the world are more of an issue. There's a Centaur chieftan who has some sort of PBAoE but god knows what triggers it since there's always a HUGE zerg around him. He may very well have some sort of glowing thing appear when he's about to cast, but there's no way to see it through the other effects that are hitting him.

Really its much more of an issue outside of dungeons. In there with only 5 people its rare you completely obscure the boss (though there is some guardian ability that makes the whole mob appear on fire which seems different than regular burning and really makes it hard to see glowing cues).

[Morty]

Hmmm. Say, is there anyone around here who has a character successfully using both Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing? I decided to drop the latter on my Warrior because it seems to me like I'd be constantly short on ingredients, but I'm not sure if it's necessary.

[Neftren]

The adventures of the Asura Mesmer continue. I'm level 39 and joined the Order of Whispers. I'm doing pretty well, but getting my crafting skills to 150 looks like it'll be tough... and I need them on 150 to use the materials found in the areas I'm about to start exploring.

If you, or anyone else for that matter, needs crafting materials, let me know. I've been giving away most of my stash recently, since I don't really need the money at the moment.

[Turalisj]

I need materials of all level.

[Hullabaloo]

If you, or anyone else for that matter, needs crafting materials, let me know. I've been giving away most of my stash recently, since I don't really need the money at the moment.

Do Chili peppers or Vanilla beans exist :)? I was messing around on my chef and those were the only two mats in the first 4 lines I was missing. 4 or 5 of each would help me to discover any missing recipes I would think.


Hmmm. Say, is there anyone around here who has a character successfully using both Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing? I decided to drop the latter on my Warrior because it seems to me like I'd be constantly short on ingredients, but I'm not sure if it's necessary.
I think you will be short (unless you farm a fair bit) if you do things that require like mats. I, for example, have Artificer on my Main Mesmer (Tailor as a placeholder and not leveling now) Jeweler and Armorsmith on my Guardian alt and Chef on my Engineer Alt. Bit of over lap with Artificer and Armorsmith, but my Arti is about 150 levels higher, so there actually is no overlap.

In short, trying to level like crafts can leave you very short, making it hard to discover recipes, the most efficient way to level a craft.

[Neftren]

Do Chili peppers or Vanilla beans exist :)? I was messing around on my chef and those were the only two mats in the first 4 lines I was missing. 4 or 5 of each would help me to discover any missing recipes I would think.

Character name?

[Hullabaloo]

Drchaos.1469

Thank you very much!

[Neftren]

Drchaos.1469

Thank you very much!

Sent you some vanilla beans. I don't remember what I did with my chili peppers though.

[Emmerask]

Hmmm. Say, is there anyone around here who has a character successfully using both Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing? I decided to drop the latter on my Warrior because it seems to me like I'd be constantly short on ingredients, but I'm not sure if it's necessary.

If you don´t want to spend time farming additional ingredients (especially the fine stuff [tiny claws etc) and you don´t have a lot of alts in the same level range who can supply you with those then you should drop one or the other.

Even with 1 of those fine crafting materials using professions you can be short on mats really fast.

So if you don´t want to farm additional mats go with Jeweler or Chef as your second profession (if you want a second profession)

[Morty]

That's what I thought. I'll stick with Chef for my Warrior's secondary crafting profession.
As for Neftren's offer... I could use Tailoring materials in the 100-150 range so I can get it to 150. But I won't log on until tomorrow.

[tensai_oni]

If you don´t want to spend time farming additional ingredients (especially the fine stuff [tiny claws etc) and you don´t have a lot of alts in the same level range who can supply you with those then you should drop one or the other.

Even with 1 of those fine crafting materials using professions you can be short on mats really fast.

So if you don´t want to farm additional mats go with Jeweler or Chef as your second profession (if you want a second profession)

I disagree. Lack materials for trade skills? Don't grind - buy more on the trade company. Or just buy ready insignias/inscriptions, they are often cheaper than materials. Find things you don't need? Sell on the trade company. Just don't undercut other people - go with the lowest listed price, but not lower.

You will make a lot of money that way.

Jeweler and Chef are easiest to level, but they also offer worst rewards for your trouble. Huntsman weapons tend to be cheaper in the trade company than their material cost, too. But armor crafting of all kinds is a worthy investment.

[Tychris1]

So, me and two friends (Plus a random guy) an into the Ascalonian Catacombs.

:smalleek:

DAAAAMN. Those freaking lovers, and the minions at the start felt like bosses all their own. And we have to do it all over again cause one of use had to leave. :smallsigh:

Ah well, hopefully I can drag a few Guildies along to just swarm the battlefield with OP boulders.

[Neftren]

That's what I thought. I'll stick with Chef for my Warrior's secondary crafting profession.
As for Neftren's offer... I could use Tailoring materials in the 100-150 range so I can get it to 150. But I won't log on until tomorrow.

Drop me a line sometime tomorrow then and I'll send some stuff over. I don't really know what I have in the bank right now. I rarely visit Lion's Arch. Mostly just wandering around the world completing zones. I'm at about 71% right now, after taking a brief hiatus while they fixed Sparkfly Fen.


So, me and two friends (Plus a random guy) an into the Ascalonian Catacombs.

:smalleek:

DAAAAMN. Those freaking lovers, and the minions at the start felt like bosses all their own. And we have to do it all over again cause one of use had to leave. :smallsigh:

Ah well, hopefully I can drag a few Guildies along to just swarm the battlefield with OP boulders.

I'd be more than happy to come along and do this with you.




Also, would anyone be interested in running some Explore Mode dungeons?

[Tychris1]

Well that depends, are you on Eredon Terrace? And do you have steam (Purely for convenience, not a necessity).

[Chen]

So after hitting 80 and crafting an exotic set I'm starting to wonder what to actually work towards in the game. I bought the order of the Whispers chest piece for my female thief and transmuted it onto my Carrion exotic coat. So I have the best armor available and I have a look I like. I'm sitting at around 8g so I can buy the best weapons if I wanted to as well and considering I'm mainly running pistol/dagger the skin on the weapons is almost irrelevant since both weapons are pretty tiny to begin with (doesn't help I choose the smallest size for the character too).

That alone is one of the main things that dissuaded me from even thinking about working on a Legendary weapon since daggers and pistols are hard to see regardless. Maybe if the Legendary pistol shot cool looking projectiles or something it'd be worth it. Of course the actual Legendary grind seems a little crazy at the roughly 1 million karma and 300-500g requirement anyway. I don't imagine I'd stay interested long enough to get there.

So is it basically just time to try an alt instead? I don't really see what else I can do with my thief at the moment and its somewhat bad for my motivation to keep playing (having Borderlands 2 sitting on my comp isn't helping that either of course :P)

[Morty]

Drop me a line sometime tomorrow then and I'll send some stuff over. I don't really know what I have in the bank right now. I rarely visit Lion's Arch. Mostly just wandering around the world completing zones. I'm at about 71% right now, after taking a brief hiatus while they fixed Sparkfly Fen.


My handle is Morty.4721. I'm in the GiantITP guild, but I'm not sure if you are.

[Tengu_temp]

So after hitting 80 and crafting an exotic set I'm starting to wonder what to actually work towards in the game.

Are your accessories and weapons exotic level too? Also, some things you can do on level 80:

1. World completion - explore all the areas fully! I know that's what I'm doing.
2. Do all the dungeons to see their plotline and get armor pieces you like.
3. Finish your storyline.
4. Make a legendary weapon (I know you said you're discouraged from doing it, but it's something).
5. Organized PvP.
6. World vs World PvP (I find it much more fun than the above).
7. Work towards buying more upgrades for your guild and help out your guild members.

And yeah, alting is always a valid option. Just like GW1, this game encourages it.