Guild Wars 2

I would LOVE swimsuits/bikinis, especially if they were dye-able so I could have a red one.

Unfortunately, I think the “hip/trendy/progressive” masses would decry it as being offensive in some way, or otherwise demeaning to women.

I am a woman and I am glad that I do not share THAT opinion. I love the skimpy clothing for my elementalist and would enjoy swimsuits, too.

I’m impressed that the “story” ended. Scarlet was lame, the NPC heroes were worse, and the writing overall was terrible.

While I can appreciate what this guide is trying to do, I believe that new players need to be cautioned against the faulty belief that you can “build to your own playstyle” and be effective.

Frankly, that is nonsense in the current game (as of June 2014). As Death & Taxes and countless other top guilds in PvE have noted countless times, there are specific, high-powered builds for PvE content which are simply better than any other alternatives. Furthermore, the overall most effective gear in PvE is Berserker’s. Nobody “balances stats” unless that person for some inane reason wants to weaken himself. Of course, all PvE content IS VERY EASY in this game right now, so technically, yes, Random “Totally Unique Playstyle” Guy could clunk his way through it. Good luck, though, with getting into high-tier fractals (without being carried).

Furthermore, new players need to take the videos posted on this guide with a HEAVY GRAIN OF SALT. The videos indicate that the author was BELOW RANK 10 in sPvP while making those videos (and the videos are not even that old!). Based on the low rank, you should safely assume that, despite the guide writer’s best intentions, he is not really qualified to be steering people in the direction of builds in sPvP, given his low amount of time spent playing sPvP. The proof for this is that if you speak to ANY high-tier sPvP or WvW player, that player will say anything OTHER than “pick your own playstyle!” Rather, the advice you’ll likely receive is, “FOLLOW THE CURRENT META.”

The “meta” exists for a glaringly obvious reason: because the game is not perfectly balanced. If it was, then sure, we could be out there choosing builds based according to nothing more than, “Oh, I need to balance my stats out! And this ability looks fun!” Realistically, though, that is NOT EFFECTIVE and INEFFICIENT in PvE, sPvP, and WvW as of June 2014. Can you still do this, and ignore the meta-game and the “cookie cutter / flavor of the month” builds? Yes, BUT you will not be terribly effective or efficient, and frankly you will not be accepted by any high-tier guild. Maybe you do not care about that, though, and that is 100% FINE—-just realize that the advice given by this guide is unrealistic and illogical given the current game.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a superbly-skillful sPvP player myself, as my leaderboard ranking indicates, although I do have a fairly high LEVEL rank (i.e., I’ve played sPvP fairly frequently). I do, however, have MANY, MANY hours of WvW experience, have completed all dungeons multiple times (Dungeon Master title) and have completed high-level fractals even prior to their recent nerfs/level readjustment; therefore I am fully aware of the current state of PvE in GW2.

I dont like to stress the fact that the elementalist rocks, but he jus does,So, for all you staff users out there, feel free to come in and post, my staff is a good one, but here is how it goes
1. post message in the room
2. LOOK IT OVER
3. dont report anything, i might get in trouble
and 4. Have fun!!!

Kralnor

SpyderArachnid.5619:

The point is, they would highly clash with the game. Do you really think Anet wants people in dungeons or WvW in Swimsuits? It doesn’t matter that they can be outfits or tonics. It is the fact that they would clash way too much.

No one wants to run a dungeon with a Warrior in a bikini or a schoolgirl outfit. And I can take a guess and say Anet doesn’t want us doing that as well. So it’s not a matter of if it can be an outfit or not, it’s a matter of it destroying the atmosphere of the game to have a bunch of swimsuit clad warriors fighting monsters in GW2.

You are exaggerating when you say that “no one” wants to run a dungeon with someone in a bikini. Do not attempt to speak as though your opinion is that of all others. On the contrary, many players would not care, judging from the evidence of many characters dressed in “ridiculous” outfits. I certainly would be one of the people who would remain perfectly blissful if I saw others in stupid outfits.

Perhaps that would not be the case if this game were one which took itself seriously; frankly, the “lore” is absurd and already quite childlike. If this game featured a serious, gritty setting, then yes, I would agree with your perspective. However, that is not the case.

Opinions differ. The fact that they do is fine. Every person has different perspectives. Please have the courtesy and sense to avoid exaggerating and playing off your ideas to be those of everybody else.

I would buy a hot bikini so fast, like unbelievably fast, from the gem store. Yes, I am that vain.

While I appreciate the complexity, I wish this game was not opaque in regards to builds and stats. I wish GW2 was designed to be “easy to learn, hard to master”, rather than what it seems to me: “randomly choose stats and hope that you find the right combination”.

Figuring out the math behind stats may be an exercise in the theoretical, but I find that infinitely more useful than randomly slapping different gear on and hoping for the best. Believe me, I have tried to do that, since release in fact. A few times, I’ve had some success. Then a patch comes along and I have to reevaluate everything. This is a problem because, frankly, if you want the best gear, you have to spend many hours acquiring it (i.e., ascended gear for WvW). It’s not like I can just cycle through different gear options in WvW on the fly.

Grinding out 40 laurels and 50 globs of ectoplasm per accessory, only to discover that, hey, sorry, those accessory stats are “not quite right”, is disappointing.

I just want a basic guideline to follow for gear that will be “good” with a build that will at least be able to hold its own against other classes…but I don’t really want to have to do intense calculations before buying a new piece of gear. Stats could stand to be simplified a bit, or at least made more obvious.

This guide is excellent, because of its in-depth explanations and attention to detail.

DEKeyz, if you play WvW and SPvP, I would love to see your suggestions for builds and gear in those areas of gameplay.

I don’t care for the personal story at all. It’s boring and poorly written. In general, the “NPCs” in GW2 are uninteresting and corny.

Suggestion: Make ability stats MUCH MORE OBVIOUS and TRANSPARENT for the sole purpose of choosing effective gear to match a build.

I believe that one of the single, greatest reasons why so many players argue that the elementalist or whatever other class is “underpowered” is because these players have NO IDEA about what stats to use for gear. Because of the vast array of different stat combinations on gear, finding a suitable stat combination through purely trial-and-error takes forever and is confounding.

Seriously: look at the elementalist forum, for example. It is chock-full of well-meaning individuals giving various suggestions for gear. The advice from even supposedly “good/famous” elementalists is poor (full celestial, anyone?!).

Since we lack the capability to measure what ability scores are more effective for certain traits, we cannot do the math (as Elitist Jerks did in World of Warcraft, for example) to provide guidance and clear statistics for a given stat combination. Everyone is just shooting in the dark, hoping that their chosen gear selection is good.

This turned me off when I first began playing at release; choosing a gear setup was UTTERLY FRUSTRATING to me because I could not see much tangible, mathematical difference between Gear Set A and Gear Set B.

Hopefully the revised combat log will help in this regard.

Frankly, however, I believe the confusion regarding gear selection causes the following problems for this game:

1. Since players have sub-optimal gear, due to incorrect or even no guidance in their choices, they believe that certain classes are weak or useless.

2. The above players either: A, complain; B, quit playing. I myself quit for a while purely out of frustration with choosing gear to suit what I wanted to do.

No one but Anet knows. /thread

VOLKON.1290:

This won’t end well.

Nope.

I dislike the kiddy stuff too (the same BIG reason why I hated WoW, especially as the expansions progressed and it got ever-increasingly ridiculous; I stopped playing after Cataclysm, as there was no way I wanted to see pandas running around).

GW2 has a lot of stupidity here and there. I don’t mind light-hearted stuff now and then, but the focus ought to be on making things that are more on the mature side.

Of course, this is pretty much par for the course for a teen-rated game. If only there was an M-rated MMO that was any good.

“Jumping puzzle”.

This behaviour is annoying and pathetic, but unsurprising, given the low skill level of some players.

Remember Crab Toss? The skilled players—-the ones who earned all the achievements legitimately—-had no trouble winning. Meanwhile, the low-skill players were constantly whining about “trading off achievements” and “helping” each other in what was intended to be a competitive game, some going so far as to curse out those players who attempted to enjoy the game as intended!

It’s amusing to me how the players who are the worst at this game are so often also the ones so obsessive about “looking good” with achievements, skins, weapons, etc. It’s a lot like a guy in real life who makes minimum wage, with no further aspirations or work ethic, yet takes out massive loans in order to “look good” driving around in a fancy car/truck. It’s all about appearances to these types of people, and entitlement. Oh well.

VOLKON.1290:

Instead of an outnumbered buff at all they should have Asura posted at the exits to the spawn area that say “You really don’t want to go out there right now.”

But would they be male or female asura?

The new achievement UI is pretty, but it is harder to navigate and less user-friendly than the old one. The main problem is that the achievements take up too much space in the window. There is no reason to have such a massive, square-shaped box for each achievement.

I would prefer a hybrid design: the colours and extra features of the new UI, with the simple list-style of the old one.

I enjoy completing achievements. I always have, even prior to receiving any sort of tangible reward for them. However, the leaderboard means nothing to me. I do not care whether it stays or goes.

Frankly, the leaderboard does not mean much. Doing brain-dead-easy PvE dailies is at least 10 achievement points each day. That is 300 a month. In order to get close to the top of the leaderboard, someone would have to play each day, every day, and complete all of the dailies (PvE and PvP) for that day. Since few to none of these dailies require skill, their points are meaningless.

Some of the non-daily achievements are definitely more meaningful and skill-based, but since there is a limited number of these (and theoretically an infinite number of dailies), someone could eventually outpace on the leaderboard a player who had completed all of the non-daily achievements but not the daily ones.

Hence, the leaderboard does not measure skill. I do not see the point in having a “leaderboard” which does not measure skill. (Arguably, the PvP leaderboard is broken and all out of whack, too.) That said, its existence does not bother me, either. Since it is meaningless, I do not care whether it stays or whether it goes, and frankly do not understand why so many players seem to attribute their sense of self-worth to a collection of meaningless numbers.

Vol.5241:

Gambling is not a scam

This. Exactly.

Sylvari thief: Waterfelon.

I would like bikinis and dye-able underwear. (Seriously)

Vayne.8563:

Emperor.1360:

Vayne.8563:

Paul.4081:

WTS – Honeymoon photos

Some of us have been playing since launch and still feel this is the best MMO available now (and in some cases available ever).

It’s not all about the honeymoon.

Yeah, I have been playing since beta. My CE Rytlock statue says hi.

I got one of those. My wife calls it a dust collector. lol

Tell her it’s a dust collector that will totally be worth $1,000,000……someday.

Paul.4081:

Vayne.8563:

Paul.4081:

WTS – Honeymoon photos

Some of us have been playing since launch and still feel this is the best MMO available now (and in some cases available ever).

It’s not all about the honeymoon.

Ok, 20% off but thats as low as I’ll go

OMG DEAL!

Vayne.8563:

Paul.4081:

WTS – Honeymoon photos

Some of us have been playing since launch and still feel this is the best MMO available now (and in some cases available ever).

It’s not all about the honeymoon.

Yeah, I have been playing since beta. My CE Rytlock statue says hi.

Esplen.3940:

Emperor.1360:

Great post. I agree. The updates have been hit or miss for the most part, but some (like Super Adventure Box) have been outstanding. Either way, each update is still more exciting content than anything I ever saw in previous MMOs.

I think the best part is that if you look back, even just one patch to the next, you can easily see the improvement that they’ve made, be it from feedback received or just intuition improvements. It’s quite amazing and they don’t get enough credit. Too many naysayers on the forums.

I think they should bring back that Event Completion Survey in the BWE.

Yes, I agree with you; the updates have mostly gotten better as time goes on. I am not too keen on the Dragon Bash and Sky Pirates updates, though (for stylistic reasons, mostly; I thought these updates were dull). SAB was great and the Southsun events were pretty good, too.

Great post. I agree. The updates have been hit or miss for the most part, but some (like Super Adventure Box) have been outstanding. Either way, each update is still more exciting content than anything I ever saw in previous MMOs.

This is definitely one of the best MMOs I have played. Dark Age of Camelot (pre-Atlantis) is my favourite, but it’s nothing in comparison technically (obviously).

We have received event-based skins for weapons, helms, and other bits of gear, too. I would not mind seeing more back skins; I would especially like angel and/or devil wings as a back piece. More skin options for other gear would be appreciated too, though.

Cloaks would be great.

Great post. The personal story is amateurish. I wish that in future patches and “living story” content, the actual content is stressed, and the story—-such as it is—-simply fades away. I do not care about ANY of the NPCs in this game, and I am tired of not feeling like a hero because all of the NPCs get the attention.

The underwear technically doesn’t look the same. Kasmeer’s bikini is clearly a bikini.

There’s a difference, I tell you!

Kasmeer is wearing one. We all should be able to wear one. Bikinis—-especially hot red ones—-are a must for new town clothes.

Make it so!

I wish the developers would please tell us about diminishing returns. I use a full magic find set in PvE, and I’m not sure whether diminishing returns affects me or not while I am farming solo. I would like to know about how many things can I kill before I need to switch to killing different monsters, or if I need to switch areas instead of just switching monsters, and whether I need to actually go to a different zone or a different region in the same zone.

There’s just no information about diminishing returns at all. I’m sure the reason for the lack of info is because the developers don’t want to give botters and gold sellers any advantage in circumventing diminishing returns. But, as a regular player, I really want to know whether, and how, diminishing returns affects me when I’m wearing my full magic find set.

Magic find works by increasing your chances of finding an item of a higher rarity. Take the following example:

You kill a monster. The monster has the following “loot table”, like rolling dice:
1-80 to drop nothing
81-90 to drop white
91-100 to drop blue/green/rare/exotic

Let’s say you have 100% magic find. Now, instead of rolling 91-100 to drop blue/green/rare/exotic, you would get the magic item on a roll of 81-100.

Of course, this example is using imaginary numbers just for edification. I bet that the loot tables in the game are far different, probably with much lower chances for most creatures to drop items. So, you might be doubling a roll of 1 (for a rare) to a 1-2 with 100% magic find.

Skimpy armor is my favorite.

Heavy, light, medium—-that doesn’t matter. Skimpy armor trumps everything.