Guild Wars 2

Thanks for the kind words. Someone contacted me in-game today to say thanks for my post and that was really kind and surprising. Quite a few of us can see the problem and I hope ArenaNet has a go at a solution.

I guess I’ve already offered up my ideas. Issues like story bloat are inevitable in an MMO as they age so at some point ArenaNet is going to have to tackle it. I guess I am a bit surprised they didn’t see this coming as it wasn’t an issue for Guild Wars, but then maybe the game’s being driven by different people and they fell into this particular trap.

Core guardian feels like an elite right now. I’ve been hooked on meditations and symbols for ages as it is, so Valor and Honour, with the 3rd slot being Dragonhunter for a while.

Now though, Radiance feels amazing in that 3rd slot for RHS, the torch trait and Perfect Inscriptions for the elite. So I basically take 4 meditations + the signet elite (1200 radius full heal for 5, nice after rezzing an ally or two to top them back up, or to heal npcs for 50,000 health, plus the passive is ticking otherwise).

The other things with that is it’s so trivial to hit 100% critical chance solo. Marauder gear (55% say for laziness), Fury from your meditations (20%), RHS (15%), burning foe (+10%), and there you are at 100%. Sword or scepter are both good with RHS.

Of course the hammer is also amazing even untraited.

I was hoping for some other traits to move around. Mainly Burning Arrows to leave Tactics and enter Arms for sword/longbow to be in the same (condi) line.

Actually the changes to Tactics minors were quite interesting. The flat damage reduction while rezzing and the heal aoe on rez make the line even more group friendly than ever. Perhps if forceful greatsword were in Tactics at master level and the banner trait were at adept you could have the core of a party friendly greatsword/banner warrior in a single line.

Still, my dream is to get Burning Arrows into an Arms/Defense/Berserker setup for the ultimate heavy-duty conditions beast ;o)

My “filthy casual” setup is unaffected by the changes.

Ascended trailblazer with dire gloves and a ring sits me on 37.00%. Traveler runes add 10%. Burn and bleed traits and sigils add 33% and 20%. That gets me to exactly 100.00% before any food or utility, so they can be whatever.

Maybe you want boon duration food & oil utility now, with 100% condi duration just from your gear. Traveler runes are also +15% boon duration so there is that angle if you’re looking for versatility.

It would be trivial to replace my heavy gear for glass viper/sinister if you want that. Then again there’s so many permutations of runes/consumables that grant 100% so it depends what you want. You can lean more DPS, more tankiness, more versatility… whatever.

Those 26,000-27,000 Mithril and Elder Wood sinks, haha wow.

Well I’m working on The Shining Blade and a second Frenzy so it’s interesting to compare the crafting experiences. Trading for some of the bulk mats has always been a must.

Speaking of Rytlock, I bet he has a big part in why Kalla Scorchrazor is the new revenant legend. There’s a metal statue of her in the Black Citadel with a plaque explaining her backstory and demise at the hands of the Flame Legion.

Hopefully Rytlock’s arrest will tie into the Kalla Scorchrazor angle, otherwise that’ll be yet another revenant backstory plothole for us to grumble about. Yes, here’s hoping.

My first attempt at posting was over 7,000 characters apparently and there’s a 6,000 limit, so I’m posting some bullet pointed thoughts here that I couldn’t fit in the previous post.

Add some ways to ditch the player’s “commander” identity

• Create story buy-in points for new players who don’t have a history, other than a bit of basic background. Don’t just dump every new player at the start of the Zhaitan story, give them options for a fresh start.
• Create identity reset points for characters of previous campaigns, allowing them to be “quite famous” for unspecified reasons.
• Have membership of Dragon’s Watch be optional; make it so there’s a more anonymous path so that players can either be free agents of their Order or completely unaffiliated.
• More story unfolding in the open world. Mimimal use of instances (Hidden Arcana levels of greatness or forget it). Think, do you really need an instance to force the story awkwardly on or can you do it naturally in the open world?

Slice up the existing personal story

• Separate the “Racial”, “Order” and “Pact” stories into independent packages that do not rely on each other to be completed. The initial level 1 instance gives the character enough fame to join an Order and/or the Pact when they are high enough level. They can join the Pact as a famous hero without joining an Order just as Trahearne does.
• Automatic access to the first Order mission is at level 20, the Pact at level 40, by the existing mail.
• All racial story quests should be available. Players should be able to revise their character’s story, effectively retconning their initial choices. Rewards only happen once.
• All order story quests should also be available, offering progression through their chosen order. Defecting to another order should also be possible, wiping their previous identity and effectively retconning the character to another order. Rewards only happen once.
• Players would be free to neglect any package, remaining as “blank slate” as they see fit.
• Players would also be able to replay packages as much as they wanted, just like they can with Season 2 onwards. There’s scope for achievements, maybe.

TL;DR

The challenge for ArenaNet today is to allow new players with blank slate characters a way to join the story without needing to have played the last 5 years worth of content. We need more entry points and possibilities for our identity.

Also, there’s scope to chop up the old content and make it replayable like the Bonus Missions Pack from Guild Wars. That, was excellent. I’d love to take my norn and play every single norn racial mission over and over for fun, especially if it added the associated NPCs to my Home Instance.

Vyrulisse.1246:

They write every “commander” from a Human perspective and it’s truly annoying if you don’t play Human, I agree.

Sylvari Commander actually. The writers even told us to play Heart of Thorns as a sylvari to get the best experience. Up until we complete the reforging of Caladbolg (another sylvari tale), the whole story is sylvari centric. Only the sylvari PC is fated to slay Zaitan and Mordremoth by their wyld hunt, and only they get the full picture of the story by being so intimately tied to the most important story elements from the very start.

Only a sylvari commander is immune to the influence of Zhaitan, only they get the full Trahearne story. Only a sylvari commander is so keenly affected by Mordremoth and the events of Season 1 and 2. I’m playing through Season 2 again right now, and I’ll tell you, it’s a much more intimate story as a sylvari then it was on my initial playthrough on a norn. There are lots of subtle changes that are not there for any other race. It’s all about sylvari wyld hunts and being fated characters, and that includes the wyld hunts of Trahearne and Caithe.

Certain plot devices in Season 2 make more sense as a sylvari and even beating Mordremoth from inside its own mind makes more sense as 3 sylvari (you, Canach, Caithe) because of Mordremoth’s link to sylvari minds in particular. Even the way you’re treated as a naive child all the time as the commander makes sense as a sylvari, because you are quite literally only a few years old.

Every time Taimi pulls a new plot device out of thin air or talks about how amazing she is, well, maybe that’s how she looks to a 5 year old – which is what the sylvari commander actually is. To an Asura? The SNAFF SAVANT?! Pfft, hey the Snaff Savant is wondering what the hell they’re doing being a kid’s mook. The Snaff Savant is wondering why they’re putting out fires in the PoF demo with a fire extinguisher instead of getting their golem to do that for them. Oh right, no golem, because the role isn’t really meant for an asuran Snaff Savant.

Humans are likewise just random mooks in this game. You’re a no-name noble, commoner or street urchin, possibly with ties to the Shining Blade and the White Mantle storyline but certainly without any dragon-slaying destiny from the get-go. The human PC ties in very well with Season 3 and PoF’s Balthazar angle, which makes me think the story needs some sort of reset with respect to the player character’s identity.

Charr and norn are total side-shows, much like the asura. Those sorts of player characters would be better of as no-name Warmasters, Magisters and Lightbringers of the Pact army (if even that). What the “commander” really needed to do was step back into their order at the end of Heart of Thorns and more or less vanish from the script.

What really bugs new players is having all this stuff their characters are supposed to have done, when they haven’t done any of it. In Guild Wars 1 there were fresh starts for character identities with each release. Maybe your character was Ascalonian, but later you could start as a Canthan, or an Elonian. There was space for characters to be the individuals their players imagined them to be. Not so in Guild Wars 2 the way the story is written, and it suffers for it.

The current player character’s identity as imagined by the writers is way too straight-jacketed. It made sense to be sylvari up until the reforging of Caladbolg, but now with the human-centric White Mantle arc and Balthazar, it makes no sense to make an oath to the Shining Blade and pledge yourself to defend Kryta if you’re also a charr centurion of the Ash Legion.

Personally my main character is a norn who’s wondering why Braham (of all norn) is off doing the very things that I would rather be doing. And what’s this Dragon’s Watch guild? Again, being the sylvari of the group makes sense, but my norn does not care one iota for these people. My norn would rather be back at the Priory off on Lara Croft-type adventures for ancient scrolls and magical bows so I can finally slay Jormag and be the hero of my people… ohhh, like Braham is doing!

The most stark difference I’ve seen in Guild Wars 2 is the difference between the emergent storytelling of the open world vs. the instanced personal story. The story that manifests naturally in the open world is 10/10 in Heart of Thorns in particular. Just brilliant, from Laranthir and the Pale Reavers being right there after you liberated them all the way up to the massive battle through Dragon’s Stand. But freeing Laranthir is the only personal story step I can recommend. It sets the scene for the rest of the story to emerge beautifully like an Elder Scrolls game. Just great.

The HoT personal story was awful 3/10 level drivel and terrible single player gameplay that will NEVER match a bespoke single player game such as The Witcher or at least a dozen other games I could mention. GW2 is a great MMO but a terrible (with a few well made exeptions) single player instanced experience. It’s dated, tired and outshone.

Almost all of the story in Guild Wars 2 could be better told in the open world with client-side storytelling (tech well deployed in Heart of Thorns), with a more inclusive, open ended identity for the player to occupy. The emergent story in HoT’s open world was Elder Scrolls-level of excellence, and ArenaNet would do well to stick to what they’re genuinely strong at there going forward.

TL;DR: Well, that was a bit more than 2c worth. Maybe I’m a bit too passionate about a game that has 10/10 elements right next to 1/10 elements and the contrast is just… well it’s enough to make me write a really long post on the forums apparently.

edited a typo :o)

I think the demo is going to see a lot of players salvage things they don’t mean to because of the lack of invisible bags.

I did the demo mission on a base guardian in marauder gear, seemed ok. Just a meditation guard with sword/focus, scepter/torch trying radiance in the 3rd trait slot along with my usual valor and honor lines.

Funny thing is, once I did the fights and the raptor part I strayed out-of-bounds on my mount and got kicked from the instance… RIP.

But I got put in amnoon so it was ok. I mean putting out fires with an extinguisher… yawn. Not like I want to do that again.

So, a charr, norn, asura and sylvari walk into Amnoon Oasis. Or even the burning village part before that. The locals look at these strange creatures for the first time, ever.

Local: “Well howdie stranger!”

Non-humans: “Wait what that’s it?! Not even a tiny bit of surprise?”

Yeah, I was a bit disappointed at how my norn was recieved. And the charr npc behind me. We just stroll in and… nothing. Just nothing. It’s like we were human. Seems odd.

I’ve not tried on a sylvari or asura yet. Considering this place was cut off for so long, I was expecting some shock, surprise, bemusement… y’know, anything.

Not a sausage. ¯\(?)/¯

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Cirian, Livia doesn’t join the heroes of GW1 until Eye of the North. So she’s not present for Khilbron/Shiro (killed 1072 AE), or Varesh/Abaddon (killed 1075 AE). She only helped with killing the Great Destroyer and the War in Kryta, in terms of canon lore. We could bring her for the rest but that isn’t really canon lore.

dusanyu.4057:

Cirian.8917:

I think it should be current NPCs too. Dead ones don’t count.

Necromancer: Livia. She’s a ~280 year old ascended god-killer. During the GW1 Nightfall campain she joins the player to slay Vizier Khilbron (aka The Lich), Shiro Tagachi AND Abaddon in the Realm of Torment. She witnesses Kormir ascend to godhood. As a Guild Wars 1 character she is omniclass (necromancer primary + access to every other class). Wearing heavy armour is of course new, and that sword & focus fighting style makes one think of guardians and mesmers.

rBy timeline of lore the only one of these things Livia dis in GW1 eas help fell the Great destryer. you Technicly as a Player charachter did not know her untill the time of Eye of the north. so one could argue that livia was just a henchmen in any events you used her in for any of the events before the EOTN occured.

so i would argue that the strongest Necromancer of Guild wars lore was probably Desmina the first priestess of grenth

as far as warriors one could stongly largue for Saint Viktor zu Heltzer of th Kirzicks or Archemorus of the Luxons.

Ah! Of course you’re both right. Regardless of Livia missing out on Nightfall then, since she actually joins in during EotN, she still manages the ~280 year lifespan in part thanks to the Sceptre of Orr.

Then there’s the matter of Livia possessing the general competence at actually staying alive over that ~280 years or so, which is not trivial for the dangerous life of a Shining Blade Exemplar.

I’d prefer to go with current characters over past ones, who I’d say are out of the game. Palawa Joko is going to be tempting to pick for a necromancer but I’m not sure if an immortal lich should be conflated with necromancers as a class.

I think Bria is quite powerful too (the foefire ghost kitten-incarnates herself all the time), but, out of the current crop of living necromancers I’d have to stick with Livia, regardless of me getting her story entry point wrong. The rest of her story still warrants it.

Still no strong feeling about rangers, warriors or revenants, although there might be some candidates in Path of Fire?

I think it should be current NPCs too. Dead ones don’t count.

Necromancer: Livia. She’s a ~280 year old ascended god-killer. During the GW1 Nightfall campain she joins the player to slay Vizier Khilbron (aka The Lich), Shiro Tagachi AND Abaddon in the Realm of Torment. She witnesses Kormir ascend to godhood. As a Guild Wars 1 character she is omniclass (necromancer primary + access to every other class). Wearing heavy armour is of course new, and that sword & focus fighting style makes one think of guardians and mesmers.

Mesmer: Queen Jenna, as the OP said. Appearently she’s super-powered by her throne or something, or rather the stone artifact behind it.

Engineer: Taimi. Scarlet’s prodigy, need I say more. She has a gadget for anything, and can apparently rewire Omadd’s machine to put two elder dragons to sleep. Jormag was thousands of miles away from that box.

Guardian: Logan Thackeray. The current Marshal of the Pact, took part in 2 successful elder dragon campaigns without dying (just about). Back on his feet although… changed; possibly mutated by Mordremoth’s blighting pod. The only other contender I can think of is Suriel the Blazing Light, still running around Lion’s Arch training for the Next Guantlet.

Thief: Caithe. She became playable in Season 2 and… yeah. OP as hell. Did even better than Logan at dragonslaying by participating in the Mordremoth kill in addition to the Zhaitan kill.

Elementalist: Isgarren. The mysterious occupant of the Wizard’s Tower in Kessex Hills. There are not many really good candidates for top elementalist, so a guy in a flying tower seems as good as any. He’s the guy who controls all the charmed elementals protecting the town of Garenhoff.

Warrior, Ranger, Revenant… no strong feelings.

Yeah it’s nice to see this mystery answered. Livia made a good comeback. One of my Guild Wars 2 characters is supposed to be one of my Guild Wars 1 characters from way back then, so it’s great to see a canon character who’s also pretty old :P

Junundu multi-person mount speculation had me experiencing flashbacks of certain FPSs… these may be a real thing in the Sulphur Wastes assuming that zone makes a return.

I saw Livia using Fragility in the story insances. That’s an old Guild Wars 1 mesmer hex, which is interesting because she’s dressed like a guardian, casting mesmer spells, while was originally a necromancer. She’s just that pro.

I like the danger.

Just be glad they don’t have a 3-way multishot fireball… yet.

I’ve seen that puzzle before in another game and it’s just a straight logic puzzle. You flip 3 nodes with every move so your last move is to deactivate 3 nodes. Yeah, maybe it takes a bit more thought at first but once you see it it’s easy.

The return of Guild Wars 1 characters is just one of those things that’s going to delight old players and mystify new players I guess. Livia has an acidic personality and it didn’t take me too long to suspect “Is this Livia?!” long before her reveal. Quite a few old timers have been waiting for this moment :o)

That bombshell Livia dropped that she still has the Sceptre of Orr… well now, I wonder how that’s going to play with Palawa Joko or if there’s any titans left to enslave… that’s a very powerful staff!

edit: and just in case anyone doesn’t realise, Livia is a ~280 year old necromancer. Wearing heavy armour and wielding a sword/focus like a guardian is new.

Well it could be worse. Oh wait, no it couldn’t. I really have to wonder why an accessory with yet-another-disco-effect is remotely worth the mats but, Chalice of Tears?!

That’s all a bit “mesmer service or GTFO” for a lot of people. I wonder if ArenaNet understands just how obnoxious that JP is. Not one I’d play for fun, unlike most.

I recently retconned my main character out of being “the commander” to “companion of the commander” because of such identity complications and paradoxes. I then promoted an alt to “canon commander”, so I have them be the protagonist and my other characters are just occasional invisible party members for story purposes.

There was one particular paradox that stuck in my mind at the Mordremoth fight, because we have “the commander” going into the story instance while the “pact army” is fighting the mouth of mordremoth. Well, this was perfect retcon material.

• My main (a norn) was retconned into the “pact army” as a lightbringer/magister/warmaster. The only personal story that applied to them now was their racial story and order story up to the Battle of Claw Island. Past that point they become a close companion of the real commander, a party member who participates in the Orr campaign and the slaying of Zhaitan etc.
• My sylvari character, made just for Heart of Thorns, became my nominated “canon commander” character. My main character would be in this character’s close circle of companions and share certain merits, like “slayer of Zhaitan”.

The thing that really made me do the retcon was that “the commander” does things and says things, and has things said to them, that just doesn’t fit my norn character at all. The sylvari, sure. So I did the retcon in my mind and I ironed out how my sylvari and norn relate to each other (which is quite like the Vilnia Shadowsong and Noxia pairing I suppose).

I’m sure that all the asura players will have the same feeling every time Taimi opens her mouth to them. Fine if she’s talking to a naive sylvari, but the Snaff Savant?!

And of course a sylvari “commander” makes perfect lore sense. They have their Zhaitan-slaying destiny given to them in a dream and are naturally immune to Zhaitan’s zombie making powers. The perfect warrior to lead the Pact. And of course Trahearne is right there from the start in their racial story instances and Caithe, your racial mentor has the exact same Zhaitan-slaying quest as you do.

Every other race has other preoccupations. My norn is 100% focussed on Jormag – what the hell is this Zhaitan distraction anyway? And as an aside, I was really annoyed not to be adventuring with Braham to get that scroll and make the fire bow that cracks Jormag’s Tooth – why would my norn be doing anything else? Totally out of character.

Likewise the Charr have their eyes on the Flame Legion and Kralkatorrik, the asura on Primordus, the humans on the centaurs and bandits that would ultimately lead to confronting the White Mantle. And of course the humans have no such Zhaitan-slaying destiny awaiting them – you’re just a street urchin, commoner or noble with other concerns entirely. Like, where the hell are the gods? Oh – there’s one!! (Hi Balth!)

The latest story with the Shining Blade has rightly got a lot of players a bit miffed. Confuzzled even. One guy was an Ash Legion Centurion… being inducted into a human spy organisation. Riiiiiight. See, there are some great stories to be told that one single canon character can’t really fit into. It’s like ArenaNet need to split this character up or something and get some branching back in so that things can make sense again.

The “commander” is wearing too many hats.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Well, it was added to the Hero UI, under Achievements – Collections.

It probably could have been added to the patch notes. Maybe it will show up as a ‘late note’, as other things do, sometimes.

Aha, thanks I’ll check that out. Yeah maybe with everything else happening it just got missed.

Siren’s Landing, great new zone. Key points:

• Well done on the Unchained AI boost mechanic (the Intelligence buff from kingpins). Those zombies suddenly get a lot more interesting and players can look for those fights or avoid them quite easily. The kingpins are really easy to spot.
• Coffer merchant is interesting the way the limit replenishes with activity. I keep checking back. Enjoying this feature.
• Shrine “waypoints” are great for doing hearts, well placed, easy to unlock.
• The hearts are actually really fun, among the best of the LWS3 maps. Some really great mechanics at them.
• The ley-line organs are very thought provoking for exploration, especially the 1-shot nature of them. And of course they’re useful at hearts. Taming reclaimed wraiths was fun, I saw them following me and others around at Grenth.
• Plenty of foraging and exploration to do. Some of the scavenger hunt stuff was a bit nuts but hey, Dulfy exists.

Personal Story notes:

• Great! Overall I enjoyed this release so much more than the last. On par with the Lake Doric release, which I also loved.
• Being a long time Guild Wars player I knew exactly who Livia is and her voice lines were perfect. It seems like players unfamiliar with her were giving a lot of flak and I put that down to them not knowing that yup, that’s Livia!
• A major concern that I have is that this story is a very strong one. It won’t “fit” many characters because it’s so strongly defined. This “commander” we’re playing should be several characters with entirely separate identities.

Did this get any official release info? I can’t see anything in the patch notes and it seems to be a stealth release.

To me it feels like there’s a bubble of well informed insiders getting on with things while other players are just hearing about it and thinking “What? There’s legendary trinkets?! When did that happen and where’s the info?” and y’know, otherwise feeling completely in the dark.

A part of me suspects a conversation in the bowels of Reddit being the only release info about this… I mean it’s already spread to the wiki and YouTube but where is it on the official site?

Astralporing.1957:

The solutions would be to use those as mats for some sort of consumable buffs.

Oh! Good idea. Craftable magic find utility buffs perhaps. (“Utility” as in the spanner/wrench icon type buffs.)

I’d give this crafting to jewellers. Remember doubloons? Copper, silver, gold, platinum. There could be a parallel series of utilities using the same metals and blue, green, yellow and orange luck. Thus the recipes would look along the lines of:

• Copper + Blue Luck = Tier 1 Luck Utility Buff
• Silver + Green Luck = Tier 2 Luck Utility Buff
• Gold + Yellow Luck = Tier 3 Luck Utility Buff
• Platinum + Orange Luck = Tier 4 Luck Utility Buff

So that’s a rough outline without any quantities or numbers, but enough detail to demonstrate the principal.

Luck is already refinable into higher tiers by the way, so that people can push blue luck into orange for the highest tier buff if that’s what they want.

Edit for clarity: the precious metals would be in the form of ore or ingots, not doubloons. The luck buff could give magic find, gold find, extra karma, xp, or whatever the designers wanted.

Heyas, I just bought this and the effects are amazing. It could be even better though:

I was expecting animations for moving forward and back like you get on the broom, and of course we all know there are animations in-game for this from Gliding: Lean Techniques and even anims for side-to-side movement.

Any chance of these being added to the ascender to make it even more awesome?

Thanks!

Amaimon.7823:

Cirian.8917:

Bauer double-crossed Caudecus and resurrected the real Lazarus.

I just had this pointed out to me – it’s in Bauer’s Memoirs, supported by Grand Savant Valis the Learned’s Reasearch Journal. The whole “it’s not Lazarus” is a feint… it IS the real Lazarus the Dire.

Genius trick, but someone spotted it!

Can you pinpoint it, please, I read the whole thing but I don’t see anything that makes me think the same as you. They way I read it, he’s just a grumpy devotee who worships the Unseen Ones, but prioritizes the armament for Caudecus over Project Rebirth.

Okay so I just have a few moments but here’s the part containing Bauer’s double-cross of Caudecus:

Justiciar Bauer’s Memoirs, 75 Zephyr 1325 AE part 3 reads “I hate to be dishonest about our true intentions, but I am sure a faithful servant of the Unseen Ones such as the confessor will be forgiven when face-to-face with our god!”

Valis’ Journal records the secretive acts of Bauer concerning the resurrection of Lazarus the Dire towards the end.

I don’t mind the standard chain of #2, except I’d prefer the flip-over to happen every time as with the #1 so that the interrupt comes out reliably without fail. The failure of the flip-over doesn’t really add anything interesting for me so I’d just ditch it.

It takes some work to get good results from but the Revenant is gradually evolving into a decently interesting class. That said there’s plenty of room for improvement.

The most robust stances (imho) at this point are Shiro & Mallyx, the most interesting weapons being staff and hammer, and the strongest trait lines being Devastation, Invocation and Herald. The sequences, combos and synergies of that lot are very interesting, not quite as complex as the engineer but certainly moderate and with a lot to discover.

The main powers the Herald class has over others is the god-tier cc, condi draw, boon strip and access to resistance. It feels like a fighting priest, if that makes sense. Like a dark magic themed Guardian, it can perform a lot of damage mitigation through skills and combos like blasted area blind.

Go via the peach tree and keep climbing.

It takes a while to learn the way up the final bit of scree up to a platform with powerful centaurs on it, but once there you can string some tricks together for the last dash to the tower. Make sure you go to the right, to the south side of the tower because that’s the way in. The only real threat is the sharpshooters of elite or champion variety, everything else you can dodge or weave past. The poi is right in the middle of the tower and you might get shot to death once you’re there so don’t hang about.

Bauer double-crossed Caudecus and resurrected the real Lazarus.

I just had this pointed out to me – it’s in Bauer’s Memoirs, supported by Grand Savant Valis the Learned’s Reasearch Journal. The whole “it’s not Lazarus” is a feint… it IS the real Lazarus the Dire.

Genius trick, but someone spotted it!

I had a very fun time with this fight but I was on quite a resilient character, not a glass cannon type.

The whole instance does seem to demand a well balanced character and maybe people are running too much on the DPS side.

Indeed, Bauer double-crossed Caudecus and resurrected the real Lazarus. Good thing I saved all those lore books… wow, interesting catch Lahmia!

Can these be changed to the hammer auto and shield #4, pretty please?

It’s been bugging me for a while that Braham’s fighting style is probably best described as “flailing around”, what with the random regen symbols that he uses without any enemies around, which he then runs out of so as not to get any healing, and of course the amazing shield bubbles that knock the enemies out of the aoe you just put down. Such a troll fighting style.

What I would like as a player is for my companions to at least look the part of competent heroes. If they used useful skills that fit their class then so much the better, which is why I recommend the hammer auto chain for Braham’s mace – have him put down a symbol that pulses protection and use a shield skill that likewise applies protection and aegis so that as a guardian he is actually providing some sort of defensive battlefield presence.

That’s about it. Just make him look like he knows what he’s doing for immersion sake, because right now… “random flailing” is being generous. Rox could use more traps and boons too.

Albert’s probably meeting some shady art dealer Cin set him up with and now he doesn’t want to be disturbed. Just a theory.

Or it could be a bug. Sorry, I mean “feature”. He’s talking to his dealer.

Story Instances
I very much enjoyed the story instances this time. Here are my highlights:

• Challenging fights for maxed-out characters. Loved the boss difficulty, compulsary encounters and optional encounters throughout Caudacus’s Manor. Interesting environment mechanics and bonus class mechanics during the fighting too.
• A ton of humour in the final mission – loved Canach and the Lord Faren illusion.
• Fun puzzles and riddles.
• 9/10 overall for me – much higher than normal, well done.

Lake Doric
The map looks fantastic, well done artists & designers.

• Overall most of this map came off very well with great encounters and a lot of fun mechanics all over the place.
• Most things work great. A few areas need a little more attention to wrap them up but overall I’ve been very impressed with this one.
• 9/10 again, higher than normal – seems like the practice on these LWS3 maps is paying off.

I was pretty surprised to see a new quad stat combo go in with Condition Damage & Precision primaries with Healing Power & Boon Duration secondaries under the Seraph name. Were you surprised by this particular combo?

Maybe whoever came up with that combo was thinking about condi druids or engineers or something but I didn’t see how the stat combo was supposed to tie in with the Seraph or Logan Thakeray. Is there a link?

The quad stat that I have been quietly hoping to see, is the fusion of Zealot & Cleric into a quad stat with Power & Healing Power primaries with Precision & Toughness for secondaries. It would be right between the two. When I fist saw the name “Seraph” as a quad stat I was hoping i might be this one but… nope! :o)

Patched once more. I can now log the character into the game again – thanks for the fix heroes. Game on.

Gaile Gray.6029:

We just updated the game. Please let us know if you continue to have isssues, but several crash issues were resolved with the patch, and we’re hoping your experience will greatly improve now.

I put my issue in another thread since it’s more than just a disconnect and some lost progress. Still can’t play a particular character after patching and I’m not the only one. Broken and unplayable characters are pretty serious.

Edit: this is now fixed. Thank you all.

It just occured to me but… that cinematic of Braham shooting the Fang of Jormag would have been a lot funnier if he was shouting “FUS RO DAH!!!” at the time. Also if the arrow had bounced back and struck him in the knee.

Ayrilana.1396:

He’s the new Traherne.

He could be the new Kormir and troll us forever, but I will forgive him if he shouts FUS RO DAH!!! at every opportunity.

I completely glazed over what the scroll was that Braham wanted for Eir’s bow or how he discovered that it existed or anything.

However, now that he’s used the scroll on the bow I want to know if we can mass produce “flaming bows of jormagslaying” to arm the warriors of Hoelbrak – and I don’t just mean the Wolfborn I mean the whole town. “Let’s go people!”

Oh hey now there’s a job for Beigarth… and all the other norn smiths for that matter.

What would be really funny – and I mean completely hilarious as a norn player – is if we go and kill Jormag with our own Shiverpeak magic and Taimi is rendered completely irrelevant for this dragon. That would wind her up a right treat.

Braham has gone completely off the rails into self-absorbed obnoxiousness.

To put this into context, he’s 18 or so and acts his age.

I enjoyed this release very much.

Okay so I can’t log one of my characters in right now due to a server crash / disconnect completely breaking that character (100% crash to desktop if I try to play that one), but I did get through all the story and I did map completion.

The kodan & quaggan add really interesting lore and I love the gameplay of the map. I also like the grawl village in the cave, the svanir enemies, heck I like all the enemies. I play the underwater area a bit too for fun but there isn’t a lot to do beyond the welcome caches of magic and the ambient enemies. What’s there is still quite fun.

One of the events seem a bit hard to win at, which is where you defend the hot spring for the quaggan bathers and lose every time – a couple of random players can’t seem to counter the extreme aggression of the invaders.

The story missions had a nice difficulty level for my reaper. I got through fine first time, no downs or deaths, but it wasn’t faceroll easy either. Some interesting mechanics that I managed to figure out just by paying attention.

Braham will get a lot of hate for being an obnoxious, self-absorbed headstrong idiot but at this point that seems to be his character. As a norn player myself the one redeeming feature Braham managed to show was tracking down the means to make the flaming bow and crack the tooth – and in norn culture, legendary feats like that will smooth over a lot of personality defects.

I’m liking the map rewards too. I have one last ascended accessory to get to complete my full set and after that I will take a look at those aquabreathers to see if I need something like a viper’s or a trailblazer’s. I can see plenty of other stuff to look at if I want to do more later.

One last point in the transit around the map. Some like lots of waypoints, others like less. The map isn’t huge so I think what’s there is perfect, it’s a beautiful map (congratulations artists for a job well done) and I like running through it, swimming in it and flying above it. Once I can actually play my broken character I will go and enjoy it again.

You definitely want to line the stack up with the accept button. Takes a few attempts getting the window into the right spot but at least you don’t have to move your mouse any more. Don’t click too fast either or the salvage option goes away.

Likewise I have characters with skills missing on login. I just put them back and carry on but it’s disconcerting to say the least.

I wondered if skills are being worked on behind the scenes. Maybe it’s gremlins.

I just patched. The problematic character still crashed the client to desktop.

The client is usually extremely stable on my system.

edit: just to clarify, the crash is still the one in spoiler tags on my original post.

That’s a 100% crash to desktop bug for my character after I was disconnected from Bitterfrost Frontier. After 4 years this character is now unplayable. GG.

Much like other players I’ve been having the periodic disconnects from the server followed by lost progress. Now I can’t get beyond the character select screen for that character.

My other characters are okay. I won’t be going back to this zone until I can log that character back in.

Shield is a lot better than it used to be. Works great with the sceptre, which has also been improved.

I hear the main trouble is the 5 target buff/heal limit that forces mirror comp.

If the limit was 10 targets then roles wouldn’t need such duplication.

I agree about the 4th utility, it would be useful.

A couple of the stances could do with a stun break for a start, thinking Mallyx and Ventari. Mallyx doesn’t even have a condi cleanse so I was thinking about a stun break + condi conversion into resistance, a bit like Contemplation of Purity but in the Mallyx resistance theme.

Actually giving players a tantalising choice is a good thing and I get that when running a full bar of shouts on my reaper as well as a full bar of meditations on my dragonhunter. Rev should be throwing that choice at players too: what 1 utility do you drop?

An extra utility per legend would also give the ArenaNet designers a chance to shore up any glaring gaps they may have spotted since the rev released. I’m sure they must have some ideas.