Guild Wars 2

I had the pleasure of doing two Dragon’s Stand maps back to back this evening, after having a wander with my Rev and seeing that it really is quite a beautiful map and the one I have explored the least. The first play through was with an organized guild running the show, so it was by the numbers. The second was random players including a few from the first map that were inexplicably telefragged by Mordy once the timer ran out. This run was really chaotic, and nearly ended in catastrophe with Mordy on a sliver of health suddenly going on an island munching spree. I really enjoyed the mechanics on the map, and the 20 minute ‘aftermath’ of equal parts jubilation and mad scramble for noxious pods was a neat way to end it. I suppose what I’m saying is, that despite having only set foot in the map a total of four times, it is really quite epic. That just leaves Auric Basin as the red headed stepchild of HoT. Get it together, Auric.

Hello there, I just wanted to ask you, when did you have the guild run?
Our orga guild called DDS was organizing a map at 9.30pm cet yesterday evening, and you may have been a part of it. (Commanders: Mewjo Top, Silviniza Mid, X Poiison X (me) Bot)

In case anyone was interested since we already ran into each other in Auric – yes, I believe it was, and cheers for the sub 20 minute kill

What’s wrong with Auric Basin? DS is fun, but I really like AB more. The outpost event chains tell really good stories, the boss fight feels loks a decent all-points siege, and the treasure vault lootsplosion at the end of it all feels like an amazing payoff.

The only thing I could really complain about with AB is that the boss event is supposed to be breaking a siege on Tarir, but it feels inverted, as if its the players that are sieging the place rather than the other way around. They could literally just reverse the direction of the octovines and have everyone enter the battle from the center of Tarir, with perhaps a few more small mobs coming in through the gates.

DS is my favorite, but AB is amazing when you have people doing events. The ambiance, the lore, the cool music…the only thing I don’t care for is the huge amount of relatively dead time during the build up to Octovine.

Also, I feel like the de-incentivization of the zerging strat has done wonders for the Octovine event. People still AFK during the desliming portions, but the zerg strat seemed much more prone to critical failure due to people not spreading out for the final burns.

TD gets my vote for worst overall meta. There are parts of it that are interesting, but the map is a nightmare to traverse even if you have all the transportation tricks unlocked. Of course, I’ve only seen the meta succeed once- all the other times one lane is understaffed and nobody cares until it’s too late. Then the people in that lane get blamed for the entire map failing, no matter how early they started asking for assistance. That might be another reason why I have a hard time getting into it. :/

AB is more fun than DS for me though.

I’ve been running DS a lot this past week to level masteries for the Order backpiece collection and it eventually becomes tedious, ploughing through the countless mobs. AB on the other hand feels more easygoing and fun with the variety of events that go on.

The other extremely annoying things with DS are the insane amount of bags and green/blue gear that accumulates in your inventory… salvaging and opening all that rubbish is by far the worst thing in the game. I absolutely hate this bags within bags and drown players in kitten gear to salvage all the time. To make things worse, MouseKeys decided not to work when I has to open around 200 bags yesterday and salvage all the kitten that is inside. >:(
It’s utterly bullkitten design to have to sort through that much kitten in your inventory.

I do not intend to touch DS ever again beyond the final hero point I need after finishing Ley Line Gliding, unless there’s some gear/stat locked behind it that I would lime in the future.

At least with AB the chests are a lot more user friendly and the the environment more pleasing to look at/interact with.