Guild Wars 2

Want to add my voice to this thread after trying this fractal for the first time.

Context:
1) 1 month after release of the fractal
2) Tier 1 daily, level 25
3) Sunday morning, pugging (probably the worst time to pub, but oh well)
4) My first attempt
5) Party of 5 experienced fractal puggers
6) I have all the fractal goodies … legendary back, ascended omnipotion, etc. I do fractals a lot.

Party wiped twice on the final boss and split up. The mechanics of the final boss fight are horrible considering the context given above. This fight is over-tuned.

Later, I check the LFG tool to try and get it finished and the only level 25 groups were “experienced people only”. Easily 3-4 such groups out of 10 posts in the T1 fractal LFG tool at the time. Sure this is toxic behaviour in the community, that nobody will condone, but the fractal designers have brought this on the community by designing content that is too difficult for the average fractal runner. This was not tier 4, level 100 or 100 challenge mode. This was level 25, T1, done by experienced fractal pugs.

This kind of disconnect between the content designers and the player base is not helpful on the verge of an expansion release.

Please remember that only a very small portion of the player base have fighter-pilot reflexes and that the majority of us are human beings with illness, weaknesses, disabilities, and all sorts of other problems (including computer problems).

One of the things I dislike most about ranger|druid is that neither is suitable for zerg play in WvW, except by perhaps the top 1-5% of the ranger/druid player base. From my preliminary testing, Soulbeast looks to continue this sad trend.

It would be nice to have a ranger spec that is good at dealing AoE damage, so that it can be useful and meta or at least acceptable in zerg play. Sadly, if you show up to a WvW zerg with a ranger or druid, you are not likely to be contributing very much to the zerg, and in some cases are likely to get kicked or asked to bring something more acceptable/useful.

Anet, please give us a ranger spec that is going to be suitable for more than just roaming in WvW.

Also, Incinerator does not have nice/cool effects on Soulbeast. It looks actually like the Incinerator effects are disabled.

One additional grumble … Legendary dagger (Incinerator) visuals are not at all legendary on Spellbreaker. In fact, they appear to be disabled, if that is even possible.

Thanks for the answer. I guess I missed the significance of this at the time.

I guess the only question in my mind now is … why did they do this?

The permanent Unbound Magic Gathering Tools are not giving the intermittent extra chops/swings that I used to get with my Watchwork Mining Pick + Consortium Harvesting Sickle + Chop-it-All Logging Axe. And this is not just hidden in the 4-4-2 versus 3-3-3-1 (rich node basis) gathering mechanism.

Why is this so?

For example, I would often get 4 or sometimes 5 and on rare occasions even 6 elder wood logs from an elder wood node. For months now I have gotten only 3 … without any variation.

What has Anet done to Ember Bay? This place used to be fun and rewarding. Now it is a mostly-empty map.

The drop rate of Petrified Wood seems to have been nerfed to Blood Ruby level. I have been farming here for the past 2 days and managed only 38+38 petrified wood total (this includes all 5 hearts each day and every single node I can find + guild gathering boost).

The Jade Construct is an impossible or unrewarding fight now. Either there are not enough people to take it down, or you die and do not get Heart-credit for the kill.

This now looks to be the least played map of LWS3. Attention is needed here.

I am actually wondering if the guild gathering boost has been nerfed also. This “boost” (actually looks like a non-boost) plus Unbound Magic Gathering tools NEVER gives extra swings/chops anymore … for months now. Might have to make a separate thread for this separate issue.

Very surprised to see that demo characters are on the live WvW servers.

But do I gain claim tickets and pips for my live-account? I guess this would ensure there is a reasonable reward for testing.

Are we going to have a new “scan” of our banks today?

Should we be banking legendary gear before this (a second time) if we want the skins for the demo weekend?

How will WvW and PvP work in the demo? Will they be “live WvW” and “live PvP” with the new elites (somehow)? Seems unlikely, but the real answer is not clear. Or will they be demo-WvW and demo-PvP, separate from live-WvW and live-PvP?

1) Loved the map design. Very immersive. The skybox (especially night time) was amazing, and the reflection on the water blew me away.

2) Mounts were generally awesome, except the motion sickness thing brought up in another thread. I added my comments there so won’t repeat.

3) The first instance/boss seemed a bit over-tuned to me. Perhaps part of this is going in with “not my choice of gear or build”.

4) Perhaps irrelevant, but server stability was poor. DCs or crashes every 30ish minutes would be nuts in a live server. But maybe not an issue worthy of attention.

5) Rather sad that no elite specs were available. As such, the demo needs only about 4 hours, rather than occupying my whole weekend.

6) Masteries in general were fun, except the Sous-Chef one. Maybe this needs a few minor tweaks to timings … At the start, there are 5 seconds of “timer count-down” where you can do exactly nothing because it takes him this long to tell you what he wants you to collect as the first ingredient. So if the event lasts for 30 seconds, you only have 25 seconds in which to get it done. Please consider a minor change here. Secondly, if he moves at an awkward moment and you miss him with the toss, you are screwed for the rest of the mini-game. Maybe this is by design, but it seems a bit harsh that there is no chance to recover.

Overall, I was quite happy with the 4 hours I spent inside the demo. I might go back today for a while.

As someone who has minor issues with motion sickness (i.e. reading in a moving vehicle makes me nauseous) I was left feeling uneasy with one particular aspect of the mounts … the turning speed.

When I control the mount with my mouse, everything is fine and comfortable. When I control it with WASD keys, the turning speed is uncomfortably fast, difficult to control and generates a certain uneasiness in my eyes and stomach, probably due to the extreme fast reactions needed and the tendency to overcompensate and “oscillate”.

Having read through some of the posts above, I also agree that the delay in movements is a bit problematic.

I really liked all other aspects of the mounts, and am hoping that a few minor tweaks from the feedback in this thread can address these minor but high impact issues.

I am not having that problem. I got back into the demo instance and finished it. I had to relog a few times, though.

Update: I have been able to get back in, but I have had to restart from scratch. Oh well.

1) Instance crashed, right before the 2 warhounds. Cannot get back in, cannot get my Raptor.

Will add more as I see them,

Oh wait, this is a “revenant speaking to it’s legends” thing.

Cool.

Glint: Everything has unfolded as I knew it would.
My character: Yes, well … sadly, the world remains a dangerous place.

Voiced acted and everything.

What is this?!

Breadcrumbs for Current Events?! I got the 2 new mastery points and found the new POI in Lion’s Arch.

It has been mentioned on Reddit, but maybe nobody has seen it …

The meeting time for the Gamescom event is set for 8pm PST which is like 5am in Germany. That must be a bug, lol.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Adzekul.3104:

Alek Seven.2374:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/path-of-fire/ theres the infos

Sadly that is just a repeat of the video where they did not mention the names of the three missing weapons.

Here is the direct link to the info on elite specs and what weapons each profession gets by clicking the icon for the profession.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/path-of-fire/#specializations

Thank you for trying, but it does not work either. The page seems to have issues. No icons are showing up for me. I will try again in a few hours or a few days or something.

Durzlla.6295:

Adzekul.3104:

Yeah, I am a Revenant player and I would like an official confirmation on whether it will be shortbow or longbow.

On the expansion page it says shorbow

I’ll take your word for it. The page is not working so well for me. It looks poorly formatted. Maybe it needs to be reloaded in an hour or so.

Alek Seven.2374:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/path-of-fire/ theres the infos

Sadly that is just a repeat of the video where they did not mention the names of the three missing weapons.

Yeah, I am a Revenant player and I would like an official confirmation on whether it will be shortbow or longbow.

In the announcement, we were told the weapons for 6 of the nine classes. We did not get Mirage/Mesmer, Renegade/Revenant or Holosmith/Engineer.

May I ask please that we have an official answer for those of us who love 1 or more of these 3 classes? Some of us will want to work on legendary weapon skins for some of these weapons.

Thanks in advance.

The final fight in LWS3E6 cannot be done because the Eye of Janthir remains permanently invulnerable to damage, CC and everything. Phase 1 never triggers. Why is this happening now?

I was doing the fight on my power-guardian. I have completed it already on my condi-reaper and power-revenant without any problems. Why is it broken now?

1) Did not like the story. I thought is was unengaging, irrelevant, added nothing of any value to address anyt ongoing “paths” and made no sense as part of the LWS3 story. What kind of egomaniac would bring back the real Lazarus in order to kill him or die trying? This is the kind of bad writing you guys need to replace. Look to SW:TOR (and please, not WoW, their writing is horrible) for engaging story content, if your writing staff need inspiration.

2) I liked most of the other additions in the patch, but have not done the JP on the new map (not normally my thing, anyway) or the new Fractal. I normally hate the new fractals because the difficulty levels are absurd and even 3 months after the addition, it is difficult to find pugs able to do the content. But we shall see. I am hoping you have made some design changes after the last 3 mistakes.

3) I liked the new map. The design was up to the usually high standards (i.e. the awesome Ember Bay map). The content was engaging in terms of events, exploration and gathering opportunities, although I am mystified by the absurd addition of so many single-chop ancient sapling nodes.

4) The “Legendary Trinkets” are a bit of a sore point for me. All indications are there is only one, not a matched pair. This is not common sense. Please consider your decisions carefully when reviewing/approving content like this in the future. For example, a collection for a single legendary ring? → Pointless. Rings are used in pairs.

Overall summary : my feelings on the patch content are decidedly mixed. The story was not up to the LWS3 standard in my humble opinion. The new map and material storage additions were clearly the positives in my opinion.

So we have collection for Legendary Trinkets, and someone has crafted them. But in the video it looked like there was only one of them. Can that really be right?

My biggest fear/grumble is that this is for a single “accessory” rather than a matched pair. Who in their right mind would invest in a Mystic Tribute for a single accessory?

Surely a matched pair makes a lot more sense.

What a waste of an evening. Lazarus despawned before I could finish him.

Not only was I disconnected in the White Mantle Hideout, but I cannot reload Brisbane Wildlands on that character.

If it matters, I killed the Kig Crab and was about to get to the Shining Blade Exemplar.

EDIT: After logging in a different character, I was able to reload the character in Brisbane Wildlands.

EDIT 2: Crash protection in instances?! I reloaded the instance and I was back in the hideout, after the “jumping puzzle”. Seems the game was keeping track of my progress.

EDIT 3: Logging in another character does not help. It seems to be based upon time.

How long will the shadow skins be available for the 5 ticket price? Will the sale be ending in a few hours, or will it last until the big patch next week?

How are we to know how long the sale will be available?

3.8 KDR and +14 jump in WvW rank (from 15 to 1 in one single skirmish) and a rating of over 633 000.

http://mos.millenium.org/matchups (scroll down to predicted rankings).

An update …. I checked many, many things and eventually gave up and updated to the latest driver: 382.33 and it seemed fine for a day and a half, and then the spam crashing started again Monday evening, just in time for guild activities, despite being fine in the game for almost 10 hours.

I am going to try previous drivers, working backwards one-at-a-time, which is what I did 1.5 years ago.

I suppose there might be a hardware issue, but this would not seem to make much sense, given the temporary stability that a driver update seems to impart.

Happy to consider helpful and detailed suggestions.

EDIT: Tried driver 382.05 and no changes to the crashing. Makes me wonder about hardware a bit more, but when logging in again, I noticed the sound was mucking up. Maybe it’s not about the graphics driver at all, but the sound driver. Could this be?

I have used the “old” 368.69 driver for ages because it works (well, see below …) and the newer ones are a minefield with Guildwars 2.

Yesterday I started having display driver crashes (only 2, in short succession, and they went away after a reset). But today it seems I cannot load the game wihout immediate display driver crashes as soon as I log a character in. And restarting my PC does not make the problem go away.

So it would seem I need a display driver update, however …

I do not necessarily trust that Arenanet and NVidia speak every time NVidia update their drivers, so how do I know which driver I should be using? Which drivers work, and which should I avoid?

Currently using Windows 7 and 64-bit version of Guildwars.

A thought occurred to me … since I play both Edge of the Mists and The Mist War … does all of this only apply to The Mist War, or does it apply to Edge of the Mists also?

Admin edit: Adding link to today’s full blog post. (Thank you Adzekul.)

“If you’ve been playing on the same world for at least three weeks”

Respect

Hope this has a positive impact on the game mode. My feelings on the other 4 points are mixed, but the weekly reset idea might simply overrule those concerns. Let’s see how it works.

Legendary back item from WvW. Looks good in principle, but will wait until full details of all tiers are posted. Some bright spark in team chat said you had to be in Tier 1 to get it, but I see no evidence for this.

The pressure to win skirmishes might be a problem, though. Will wait for more details before I decide if I like or dislike this aspect.

I really, really, really want this to be good. If it’s not, I fear the game mode will die quite suddenly and spectacularly, and I am concerned about collateral damage to the rest of the game.

I wish I could be more positive, but I can only be hopeful. The WvW team has, with the exception of some not-so-terribly-effective surveys, operated in silence as far as the community is concerned. So we have no inkling of how good or bad it’s going to be until it goes live. This is unmitigatable risk, in project management terms.

The thought of Skirmishes becoming meaningful does not sit so well with me, if I am candid. Right now, the WvW game mode is quite toxic, and it will only get worse, not better, if “skirmish winners” get significantly better rewards (presumably ascended armor + crafting from Fractals and PvP is what they will be giving us …?) than “skirmish losers” and “skirmish also-rans”. There are so many “server communities” (bad choice of words, probably) who feel helpless and like they have no chance to get good rewards if they become available. There is not a single EU matchup this week that is not lob-sided in terms of first place skirmish finishing. NA looks even worse, except for the close-ish match that is going on in T1 (two out of three ain’t bad, as the song goes, right?).

So the only thing I can do is hope it doesn’t fail. Hope I can be proven wrong, somehow.

The brand new perma-UBM gathering tools do not work under water. Mining pick confirmed, other tests pending.

EDIT: Gathering sickle also does not work underwater. Logging tool has no issues though :P Just to be clear, this is because there are no trees underwater.

The breakbar on the Legendary Wyverns. I can accept the argument it might be a perception rather than a true bug, however. I have never seen any group prevent his island-smashing attack.

Some of the (intended?) multiple tubes in the map are not very well chained together and can break (extremely nit-picky on my part, perhaps, and hardly a game-breaker).

Update: This has NOT been fixed in the patch. In fact, it seems very few of the numerous Draconis Mons bugs have been fixed.

I tried it without Master of Corruption and I still had the problem.

Have seen several posts on Reddit … want to make it known on these forums too … the new Epidemic skill seems to hurt friendly targets also.

Cannot be certain if this is intended or not, but my guess is it is a bug.

More detailed testing underway …

Preliminary details … I cast Epidemic, get 3 stacks of vulnerability and 1 stack of weakness on me, then transfer to target with dagger 4 (Deathly Swarm) and get a totally random number of condi stacks on me. One time, I had 18 bleeds plus 1 stack each of 2 different conditions on me. Another time I had 8 bleeds and nothing else. Seems totally random.

All testing done in the Special Forces traning area on a buffless golem.

Yes, I did. It is the same dragon that I see, but I have never really noticed the red claws at the start of the animation. That does not mean it’s not the mail carrier that I have been seeing all along, though.

Many thanks for the responses …

Yes, this often happens at the TP and bank in Divinity’s Reach (this is where I park my characters). I am trying to think how often I see it elsewhere, but a part of the issue is I rarely stand still away from DR.

There is no way the animation could be from my mail carrier … I have 9 characters and only 6 of them have passed their first birthday.

I guess it can only be this mail carrier people have mentioned. But I am certain it started during the Anomalies Current Event. Did the fourth anniversary happen at the same time? Maybe it doesn’t matter. And it seems I am almost certainly not “bugged” ankitten ot likely to be blocked when the next Current Events finally go come around.

Thanks all.

EDIT: Somehow a.n.kitten .o.t. comes out as “an kitten ot” … how strange.
EDIT EDIT: Well, even that got filtered. Not going to bother with fixing it now, I guess.

So a long time ago, during the Current Events where you chose between the Priory (Shadowstone) or the Consortium (Krait Oil), I could not decide right away, so I put my Shadowstone into my bank and waited a week or two.

When I finally decided who to chose (The Priory) I spoke to the NPC but I forgot my Shadowstone in the bank. The conversation happened and I was “cured”, but I still continue to see, during quiet moments, the ethereal purple dragon coming through a ripple in reality. I no longer see the sad Anomalies after I was “cured”. Speaking again to the Priory NPC (with the Shadowstone in my inventory) does not give me any helpful dialog.

To be honest, I was expecting “the cure” to remove both apparitions, but it seems to only have removed one. Is this a bug due to my oversight (leaving the Shadowstone in the bank)? Does everyone else still continue to see the purple dragon apparition when their characters are idle?

Am I going to need to have someone fix my account in order to advance as and when the next Current Events are added?

I have to say, after completing the story and getting map completion, I really liked this episode.

The new travel-mastery is very cool and nicely implemented.

The story is … shocking in its implications. I saw some of the leaks (or should I say “leaks”) and was not expecting the Lazarus identity. Will discuss after a few days, maybe, but not today. Do not want to ruin it for anyone … but it looks like we are in for a wild ride in Episode 6 and the assumed expansion.

The final fight in the story was very nicely implemented, and nowhere near as rough as the analogous Episode 4 fight. I rather liked the way it was done.

My first impressions are this is my favourite episode from Living World Season 3, and I have not disliked any of them so far, it’s just that this one is really well done in my opinion.

If you wish to discuss, please no spoilers until the weekend.

Excellent news! I have suffered a small number of blocking/bugs in the instance and have friends/guildies/know others who have also. Not wanting to overstate, but they are rather maddening. I look forward to the results of your work.

So not so long ago, the costs for ascended gear from fractals were changed. What does everyone think about the new system?

As someone who plays fractals every day, and wants to be able to gear up alts in ascended gear, I like that I can get ascended gear from fractals. Some observations and thoughts from me. I am interested in what others have to say:

1) I have seen exactly zero ascended boxes drop from the daily fractal chests since the change. I can accept this is just RNG, but I would be curious to know if others also have a perception (perception =/= reality) of low or lower ascended box drops after the change.

2) I find the cost of a full set of armour in the new system to be quite high, and we have already seen the market for silk scrap increase rather significantly since the change. I suspect the same may also be true for thick leather and mithril. In fact, the leather farm has done nothing to alter the price of leather, but this is a side topic. I say only that cost of the base materials is only going up, so ascended gear from fractals will only become more and more expensive. I am not certain they have achieved the publicly stated aim to make it cheaper.

For example, if you want to purchase a full set of ascended armour through Bling-9009, you need:
2a) 10k mithril ore, 6k silk scrap and 4k thick leather sections for heavy armour
2b) 2k mithril ore, 6k silk scrap and 9.2k thick leather sections for medium armour
2c) 2k mithril ore, 21k silk scrap and 4k thick leather sections for light armour

It almost seems like the whole plan along was to boost the market price of base materials, and that the “publicly stated intentions” were the bait for us to bite on.

Current market prices for 20 Grandmaster Marks are, according to the wiki:
2d) 378g 26s 40c for 20 armoursmith marks
2e) 416g 68s 00c for 20 leatherworker marks
2f) 421g 92s 00c for 20 tailor marks

These prices are out of line with simple crafting. For example, GW2efficiency says a full set of Ferratus’s heavy armour is 363g 63s 20c and to this one must add 30 ectos and 6 insignias (75g 71s 58c for Berserker’s) and we see the “savings” is disturbingly small.

This is based upon current pricing, but we can see easily that the markets for the 3 base materials are only going up. So the new option actually seems like a bad option.

I would be happy to see other detailed explanations, using market prices, either to refute my concerns, or to support them.

I have the legendary fractal backpack and I am wondering what dye colour or colours people use on their armour to match or compliment the colours of the backpack.

I have searched through the various dyes and not really found what I am looking for.

I am thinking specifically of my female Asura Tempest (light armour, of course), who is wearing Minstrel gear and will be used as a supporter/healer in fractals. Currently using Incinerator and Northwind weapon skins.

Suggestions welcome.

I am sorry to be pedantic, but this is NOT difficult to reproduce. This statement from the devs is either a cop-out, or bad grammar. You just load up the story instance, progress through it and try to fight the boss. It is very repeatable and reproducable. It may very well be difficult to pinpoint in the complex AI code, but that is another issue.

So I am building a collection of ascended trinkets (back item, amulet, 2x accessories and 2x attuned and infused rings) for future use and I am trying to think of how many sets I should have, and what they should be. I have one of every class and am inclined to keep it that way for a while.

Of course, some sets are more useful that others, and bank space does not allow me, for example to have 3-5x berserker, or every possible stat in my collection.

I have, so far, in no particular order of importance or usefulness:
1) Berserker (multiples, actually)
2) Sinister
3) Viper
4) Knight
5) Cavalier
6) Soldier
7) Apothecary
8) Selectable (not yet “locked in”)

I also have partial sets:
9) Cleric
10) Captain
11) Celestial

Which other sets do you think are useful/popular enough to add to my collection? A few come to mind, but I would like to read what others think.

It seems like nobody has noticed, or maybe people have accepted it as “working as intended”, but I noticed recently that you do not get progress towards the various weaponmaster achivements when you use condition damage.

I have seen this when comparing my condi necro (sceptre + dagger) versus my power guardian (sceptre + torch). I get slightly more than zero progress towards Sceptre Master on my condi necro and I get good progress towards it on my power Guardian. I also noticed this with Trident, again comparing condi necro versus power guardian (and also power elementalist).

It seems like when a condition kills a mob, a condition you applied with your weapon, it gives no credit towards the killing blow.

Is this intended behaviour? Is this a massive oversight? I would offer the opinion that conditions applied by me, which deliver the killing blow to a mob, should give me credit towards the appropriate weaponmaster achievement.

The new episode has added a new inscription and insignia to the game: Seraph (Condition damage + Precision as primary and Concentration + Healing Power as secondary stats).

For those of us like me who might be a bit thick … under what circumstances would these stats be useful or best-in-slot (or not far off)? I am honestly struggling to see the value. I certainly do not wish to question the addition of this stat combo, I am simply trying to understand.

Forgot to add … Please fix …

Flux Bombs are invisible again during the final boss fight, at least at 97 they are.