Guild Wars 2

I don’t come to these forums often anymore, so sorry if this is has been asked already, but has anyone compiled a list of items/events/etc. for the legendary weapon collections by location rather than by weapon? In other words, something like this:

Southsun Cove:
*Meteorlogicus I: sleep on the beach at night
*Kamohoali’i Kotaki I: drop from sharks
*The Moot I: Reef Drake broodmother

Fields of Ruin:
*The Juggernaut I: /ponder at memorial in center of Ebonhawke
*Sunrise I: save villagers in event in NE corner of map

etc.

Same problem here. I was exploring around Jetsam Island in Lornar’s Pass and found a pair of goggles, but my level 80 character got an error message saying the goggles couldn’t be used.

PsiKann.9853:

I am a elementalist, in the Earth trait line, “Earth Embrace” has the following attribute: “Gain armor of earth when your health drops below the threshold”.

Do I need to have the skill “Armour of Earth” for this gain to happen?

Thanks in advance

When traits trigger skill-like abilities when certain conditions are met, the effects of those skills appear regardless of whether you have them equipped or even unlocked. For example, the trait “Lava Tomb” in Fire Magic crates a Lava Font (fire attunement staff skill 2) when you’re downed, even if you don’t have a staff equipped or don’t even have that weapon skill unlocked. Note that these trait-activated skill-like effects often have a cooldown, which is noted in the trait information.

Khisanth.2948:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

How does Plains of Ashford compare with an Edge of the Mists Karma train ?

Probably not as good if it is for the monthly.

The plus side is that it’s a low-level area. People who don’t have a lot of skills unlocked, who have equipment below their level, or who aren’t familiar with WVW should probably stick to a PVE zone.

If you want to be good at any class, you need to know every option your class has and how to choose options that synergize well. You have to be familiar with every trait and every skill, and create a build where your traits don’t just provide bonuses, they provide cumulative bonuses to certain aspects of your class that make you very, very good at one or two specific things. You also need to know, as oxtred said, how enemies will behave and what to expect in a given area, and learn how to adjust your build to counter whatever you’re up against. Never changing your skills, weapons, or traits is extremely stupid. The game designers have given us the flexibility to swap things out whenever we’re not in combat, so use that to your advantage.

My main character is a thief, and I’ve been playing since the betas. In my experience, the most important part of being a thief is knowing when to attack and when to run, hide, or evade. Time your evades for maximum effect—this takes a lot of practice, but once you get good at it, you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble. I’ve gotten to the point where I can run straight through an area in PVE without attacking anything and dodge virtually every enemy attack without having to look for or listen to cues; I know the timing on projectiles and AI reaction speed so well that I know precisely when to dodge to avoid everything. I would recommend going to an area suited to your current level and fighting single enemies to practice. First, fight the enemy as usual and pay attention to a) the variety of attacks it has and b) the timing of those attacks. Generally, enemies will have 2-3 attacks in PVE, and like us players, their skills have cooldowns. Many enemies use their “big” attack first (like spiders spitting poison or immobilizing webs as soon as they see you, or hyenas delivering a crippling lunge right off the bat). Then they switch to basic melee or ranged attacks, depending on the enemy. It’s important to know what ranges an enemy is capable of. After you’ve analyzed the enemy’s patterns, try getting through a whole fight without getting hit even once. Thieves have the advantage of evades in addition to the dodge ability everyone has, so use them wisely. Also, try using cripple/immobilize and run away while attacking (this is called kiting). The enemy can’t hit you, but you can hit it while you retreat. Finally, know when to use stealth. If nothing else, it’s an excellent “get out of jail free” option for when you’re overwhelmed or need to bypass a group of inconvenient or dangerous enemies. Shadow Refuge is your friend, so you should definitely have a thorough understanding of how it works.

Let me know if you have more specific questions and I will gladly answer them for you.

Plains of Ashford (Charr starter zone) has a ton right near the entrance to the Black Citadel. Every 10 minutes or so, there’s a two-part chain at the scrapyards, there’s a veteran skale behind the waterfall to the east of Devourer’s Mouth, to the north there’s a cannonball collection event in the skritt cave, and once in a while there’s also a defense event at the smelting station and a cow-herding event at the cow pens right by the ramp up to the Black Citadel.

There’s also a ton of events around Krennak’s Homestead in Wayfarer Foothills (Norn starting area). Further to the south, at Victor’s Point in the Taigan Groves, there’s a three-part chain that repeats pretty often.

Hope this helps, but in the future, ALWAYS get your monthly done ASAP. You never know whether you’ll have enough time later on.

Right offhand, I know the following are from GW1:

*The Charr and The Great Northern Wall—played in the Ascalonian Catacombs, these were explorable zone themes in post-searing Ascalon
*Over the Shiverpeaks—obviously played in Norn areas, from the Northern Shiverpeaks zones in Prophecies
*Eye of the Storm—pre-searing music, found in Krytan zones
*GW2 main theme is almost exactly like the original Prophecies login theme
*Heritage of Humanity (human character creation cinematic theme) is based off of A Warrior’s Heart from Prophecies, and the Norn theme is the same from the one in EOTN
*Abaddon’s Mouth and The Door of Khomalie (music from the Ring of Fire and the Fissure of Woe) plays in some later Charr areas
*Hall of Heroes plays in Maguuma zones, which is also where it was played in GW1
*The Rift (secondary Maguuma theme in Proph) plays in Dry Top, which is appropriate
*Temple of Tolerance is THE GW1 Kryta theme. It always played in Old Lion’s Arch and the Krytan explorable zones.
*Echovald Forest (Kurzick theme) plays in some dark areas and in the Fractals
*Horns of Gunnar’s Hold (Far Shiverpeaks theme in EOTN) and Darkness Beneath (dungeon theme from EOTN) both play in Norn areas
*Kathandrax (unused in EOTN as far as I know, but part of the soundtrack) is used for the Lornarr Dragonseeker and Mai Trin fights
*The Great Bear’s Roar (one of the EOTN battle themes) is the WVW theme, and the intro and outro play after you kill a dragon lieutenant
*The Doomlore Flame, originally played in the Charr Homelands, plays in Shiverpeaks zones
*Legacy of the Gods (EOTN) is the theme for the Vigil Priory instance down the stairs from the main hall
*Through the Asura Gates and Ballad of Ice and Snow, both originally played in the Tarnished Coast in EOTN, are played in Maguuma zones
*In the song The Great Wall Has Fallen in the GW2 soundtrack (Charr zones), there’s a brief musical reference to Ascension Song (Crystal Desert/Ashford Catacombs) from Prophecies, as you might be able to tell from listening to this link.

That’s all I can think of for now. As you can see, a lot of GW1 music was reused in GW2, but I think it was used for good effect all around. The songs they chose to reuse mesh well with the new tracks.

EDIT: I’m not sure if you were asking for all those tracks, but there they are

Omar Aschi Popp.7496:

Shadowbane.7109:

Sad Swordfish.9743:

It’s the most majestic and beautiful weapon ever created

:/

That was pretty good.
That was the face I made.

Even if it’s “the most majestic and beautiful” weapon, it’s most certainly not the most effective, practical, or versatile :/ :\ :|

I finally got it! A warrior rifle build with stances, adrenal health, and Healing Signet were all I needed. I discovered that slow and steady wins the race, and that trying to frantically outrun Liadri just gets you killed. Keep circling around, crippling her and using the rifle butt when needed, and it’s not too bad.

I don’t do 25-30 minute key farm runs. I actually take the time to level my keyrunner to level 8 or so, doing events, killing enemies, and gathering materials along the way. By selling low-level items on the TP, I can easily get 1 to 1.5 gold per character, as even really basic items can sell for a lot. (Some weapons with low level requirements can sell for 20 or even 50 silver each on the TP—equivalent to your average rare level 80 item!) Selling or promoting basic materials can also earn you some good income. So it’s not just the tickets, dyes, or other BLTC items; I can actually get some money while I’m at it.

Wanderer.3248:

As far as I can remember I’ve never see a double headed axe IRL. I’ve owned a few hatchets, axes and log splitters, and all of them have been single headed.

These days they are, but back before metallurgy was an exact science and tools were crude, they did use double-bitted felling axes for the reasons stated above. It’s a product of older times though, and these days there’s really no point.

I’m not even sure that real world war axes were double headed. I suspect that the standard fantasy axe is about as realistic as horned helmets.

Exactly my point. There were virtually never any double-bitted combat axes; it’s a fantasy appeal to the “Rule of Cool.” The only such axes that did historically exist were mostly for totally ceremonial purposes, like the Cretan labrys axe.

Danikat.8537:

I think the important point some people are missing is that there will be more WvW Tournaments later and these will also award Tournament tokens that can be exchanged for the same prizes.

Therefore this method gives players a range of choices:

• They can save their tickets and spend them later,
• Get 1 Mistforged weapon now,
• Get 2 or more Hero weapons now and keep them like that forever,
• Get 2 or more Hero weapons now and upgrade them later on with gifts bought after future tournaments

For some people that choice doesn’t matter because they just want the Mistforged weapon, but for other people it’s important. For example some people always want a matching set of weapons. This way they can get 2 Hero weapons and use them now, then upgrade both together later on.

Or they might not like the Mistforged weapons (some players don’t like particle effects) but change their minds later, and this gives them an option to upgrade instead of buying a whole new weapon for another 100 tickets.

Or some people just like having more stuff, so they can buy a whole bunch of weapons and then upgrade them gradually instead of having to get one at a time.

It’s a choice. For some people one choice will be obviously better than the others, but that doesn’t mean everyone will feel the same way or that they should be restricted to the same option.

And why not give us the choice to put in our own efforts outside of WVW, even if it would be very difficult, rather than time-gating rewards? I’m not looking forward to having to keep lucking out on my server’s performance, over the course of months or maybe even years, to get multiple Mistforged weapons. I really don’t understand why we can’t put individual effort into the mix if we want better results.

Horst Hortensie.5420:

Not all.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dreamcleaver_Logging_Axe

First: I’m only referring to the “standard” logging axes you get from vendors. The special ones dont’ count, because 1) they’re by definition unbreakable, and 2) they were intentionally made to stand out visually from regular tools.

Second: I’m referring to the axe your character uses during the chopping animation, not the inventory icon. Grab a vendor axe, go to the nearest tree node, and chop away. You’ll notice the implement in your character’s hands is double-bitted. (Note: I did this myself right before posting this thread to make sure that I wasn’t just remembering things incorrectly.)

eekzie.5640:

The 250 badges was never designed as an alternative method of getting the Gift of Heroes. It was an additional cost that was removed. This was mentioned in a livestream.

As already said, it’s for people who can’t afford a mistforge weapon but wish to get a hero’s weapon now and to upgrade it later for a small cost. Not necesarily only that though, what about those who wish to follow a different path (i.e. buy 4 hero weapons now to upgrade later).

I still think this is absurd. Why should it cost us more to get the exact same thing? At this rate, how will anyone be able to get more than one mistforged weapon at a time? I thought that buying gifts with badges was a perfectly fine solution, but instead, we have EXTRA costs to get something that costs 300 tickets anyway. Ridiculous.

AudioCG.2674:

pdavis.8031:

AudioCG.2674:

pdavis.8031:

AudioCG.2674:

Great advice Equinox! And I am all about experimentation and trying stuff out myself, I usually “work within the system” in games to find a balance between the meta game and my own personal flair.

And hey!

Another complete “noob” question here:

So, season 1 “living story”….. Do I still have full access to this content until Season 2 drops? I have been having trouble figuring this one out.

Currently you do not have access to ANY season 1 events, with the exception of the current events going on now. (The queens pavillion and the Bazaar). However Anet has expressed that they would like to be able to add season 1 to the new journal system to be replayed, but it won’t be available at launch of season 2, and may not even be implemented due to technical and mechanical issues and the way that the season worked.

Season 1 content was all temporary. If you were not there for that episode, you missed it forever. Thus the change with season 2 and the Journal.

Thats what I feared, that is unfortunate, I hope that the Season 1 content makes its way to becoming available to late adopters such as myself at some point .

You weren’t really missing much. You can read the story if thats really what you are after, but as far as the events, most were awful zerg fests. Although I did like the story, the villian was lacking at best, and most of the events I did, I only did them to figure out the story line and then left, because I didn’t find them fun. Many people agree that the whole season 1 was badly designed and horribly flawed.

I suppose so, I just feel like I missed out on some pretty signifigant events pertaining to the story and overall lore of the world, I am a nerd, and enjoy experiencing these things first hand.

Ah well, I should be leveled up by the time Season 2 hits anyways, looking forward to the new goodies then!

Don’t worry, eventually it should be available to everyone (probably for a small price) via the Story Journal. But that won’t be for a while.

The whole reason I bought the plain Hero’s weapons was because I was under the impression that it would take 250 badges to get a Gift of Heroes. But under the current system, players are punished for trying to craft the Mistforged Hero’s weapons because no matter what, you still need 300 total tickets, AND an additional one gold, AND crystalline dust. Its like if you went to a restaurant and got told the following:

“I’ll have a medium order of fries for $2.00.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a large for $3.00?”
“How about I upgrade from a medium to a large?”
“Sure, that’ll be $1.50 extra, bringing your total to $3.50.”
“But I thought a large was $3.00!”
“Not if you upgrade.”

So what’s the point of letting us upgrade if all we’re doing is paying more for the same thing? Shouldn’t the Gift of Heroes be more easily accessible so people actually have an incentive to get Mistforged weapons? Isn’t the point of having a Gift of Heroes to let lower-tier servers get a better reward after putting in a little effort of their own?

A few miscellaneous tips:

*If you get loot that you can’t or don’t want to use and that you don’t want to salvage for luck and materials, sell it on the TP. Even low-level gear can get you a few silvers per item, depending on what it is, and regardless, virtually everything you get at low levels will be worth much more on the TP than it would if you vendored it.

*As a mesmer, you’ll eventually be faced with a choice as to how you want to use your illusions: keep them up as long as possible to distract and deal damage, or generate them as fast as possible so you can Mind Wrack enemies to smithereens? While you’re working towards level 30, the first point at which you can use traits, figure out how you use the illusions, and base your build around that.

*Experiment with ALL the weapons! Each of them has advantages and drawbacks. Definitely keep at least one 1200 range weapon set handy for when you have to attack from a distance.

*While you’re doing hearts, be sure to explore. Talk to NPCs to learn more about the world. Investigate whatever looks cool. “Fill in” the map as you go along so you don’t have to backtrack later. If you see NPCs running around asking for help or purposefully walking towards some destination, talk to them and follow them because you might find some interesting events to do. If you need a change of scenery, try going to the other races’ cities and starter zones.

Have fun!

Personally, I’d say the best way to get equipment is just to keep adventuring as normal. Whatever you can’t use and don’t want to salvage, sell on the TP to earn some money in case you’re really unlucky and haven’t found an upgrade for 10 levels or so, and therefore need to buy something from the TP.

Heart NPCs can be a good source for weapons and armor if you’re completing hearts at-level. If you’re a higher level than the heart quests, the gear they provide probably won’t be as good. The “purple triangles” are karma, which you earn by doing events and heart quests. It’s mostly used to buy things in PVE, but you can also get a few things in WVW with it. PVE and PVP gear are no longer separate, so anything you have on you will be converted into PVP gear when you enter the Mists. PVP gear has no attribute values and always provides the defense of level 80 exotic gear for your armor type, so you can PVP whenever you want, as long as you have the weapons you intend to use. You also get a separate PVP build, which has pretty much everything unlocked for you as though you were a level 80 character, so you can choose any skill or trait your class has access to, and use it in PVP however you like. Your PVE abilities won’t change, however, so when you go back you’ll still have to unlock skills and traits.

For my elementalist, I used the staff. Dagger/dagger can be fun, but I don’t like how it puts me in harm’s way. Staff, on the other hand, has exceptional healing and support abilities with the water attunement, good CC with earth and air, and extremely good damage with fire attunement. Fireball alone might not seem like much, but Lava Font puts out a ton of damage if you position the enemy right, the 3 skill provides a nice burn, Burning Retreat can cause a lot of damage if you use it against a wall, and Meteor Shower works wonders against large enemies or groups.

Finally, if you don’t like the necromancer or elementalist, try something else! There are 8 classes, and surely at least one of them will cater to your preferred playstyle. I firmly believe that there’s something for everyone in GW2, so see what’s out there and don’t be afraid to experiment. (And don’t delete old characters either, you might find that you enjoy other classes more after learning more about the basic mechanics of the game.)

About weapon-swapping:

If you really wanted to, then yes, you could stick with one weapon per class and never, ever switch out. But the way this game is designed, you need to be flexible with your build. No one build or weapon is ever going to be perfect for every situation, and the devs (especially now that traits can be freely changed whenever you want) intend for us players to switch things up to address the situation at hand.

In GW2, every class uses weapons differently, even when it’s the same weapon type. For example, warriors use axes for highly damaging rapid attacks in melee, whereas rangers throw their axes to cause conditions and AOE damage for groups of enemies. Every weapon for each class has very distinctive pros and cons, and it’s important for you to learn what those are. Not paying attention to your surroundings and failing to adapt will lead to a lot of frustration on your part (soloing PVE) or bringing the group down (dungeons/fractals). You can’t really carry a team in GW2, so if even one of the five players in a party isn’t pulling their weight, you’re almost never going to succeed.

My advice is to try out each weapon and unlock the weapon skills for each class you try. Get a feel for what that class’s strengths and weaknesses are, and what playstyles you like the best. Then, start using the weapon types you enjoy. After a while, switch to something you might not have liked quite as much but that seemed interesting (try experimenting with traits that change how weapons behave, once you start unlocking traits). Later on, switch weapons periodically to try EVERYTHING out to see how it works. For instance, on my warrior, I’ll just pull out whatever I have and have fun with it, just to get more insight into how things behave. I might try a mace and shield for a week, then switch to a hammer, then axe and offhand sword, then longbow…

Part of being good at this game isn’t just being good at one particular thing, it’s knowing your options, as well as ALL of the possible options out there for other classes. You’ll learn a great deal about the things you enjoy most by trying out things you might not like as much. I learned how to use a warrior greatsword better by experimenting with the Fiery Greatsword elementalist elite skill early on. I learned how to maximize the effectiveness of “spread” skills by observing the effects of the ranger’s mainhand axe 2 skill, and then applied that knowledge to other classes with similar attacks (hint: it’s like a shotgun effect, you use it up close so all the projectiles hit). I learned how to position combo fields from the engineer’s napalm skill with the flamethrower. Things you learn on one weapon from one class will benefit you greatly when you play others, and ultimately, mastering the game requires at least a passing familiarity with every single skill and trait in the game, whether you like them or not. Do you have to like the necromancer? No, but if you don’t know from firsthand experience what they’re capable of, how will you ever know what their options are if you’ve teamed up with one? How will you now how they synergize with other classes, including yours? Know the enemy, know thyself and thy teammates.

Finally, if nothing else persuades you here, you pretty much absolutely MUST, at the very least, have a ranged weapon you can swap to when needed. There are MANY situations in the game where melee is really tricky to get into, or altogether impossible because of terrain or enemy skills that push you away or punish you for getting too close. Having a ranged option is essential!

I’d say start with PVE. Learn timing, distance, and managing conditions and boons. Try setting self-imposed challenges for yourself, like minimizing the damage you take through blocks, blinds, and dodges until you can fight veterans without taking a single hit. Or try experimenting with ways to do the most damage with your skills (like manipulating distance so that you can use spin attacks into walls, knockback or pull enemies to group them up for AOE attacks, keeping them in damaging fields for as long as possible, etc.). Then move to WVW and learn what to expect from actual players. You’re usually going to be in a zerg, so it can be hard to see exactly what’s going on, but in smaller engagements you’ll figure out what works and what doesn’t, at least in a vague sense. Finally, move to hotjoins just to get the hang of PVP, and when you learn the maps and their mechanics and how to predict enemy movement and basic builds and their counters, try solo queue, which admittedly isn’t much better than hotjoin at the moment. Just my two cents’ worth. If you want any help with strategies or tactics, whisper me in-game; I take Sun-Tzu’s lessons about warfare seriously and like to use his ideas as a teaching tool to help people get improve at thinking smarter and playing better in GW2.

Wanderer.3248:

Interesting, but I think the reason that you only get 50 sickles a slot has more to do with game balance (because each node only consumes one use) than with any lore reason.

I agree, but I’m trying to use the in-game logic to provide a reasonable explanation for that phenomenon. This is the most plausible one I’ve come up with, and as I said, it ties into real-life logic with the actual purpose behind double-bitted axes and picks.

On a related note – one of the most formidable weapons of the late medieval period was a modified pruning shear, called the bill

And surprisingly effective given that it was mostly peasants who used them to take down knights. The only other really effective anti-knight melee weapons of the late medieval era were prohibitively heavy, like spears where half the length of the weapon was solid steel to aid in armor penetration. Too bad there aren’t any land-based polearms in the game (yet).

I’d still love to see the basic crafting tools as weapon skins.

This isn’t exactly lore, but it offers a practical explanation for why harvesting tools have different uses, so I guess it’s lore insofar as it’s a rationale using in-game logic.

Anyone’s who’s played the game probably knows that logging axes and pickaxes have 100 uses each, while sickles only have 50 uses each. This kind of makes sense because you get at least 3 of the same material from wood and ore nodes, whereas there is a wide variety of harvestable plants. But how can we make sense of this from a Tyrian perspective?

If you look at the harvesting animations, the logging axe is a double-bitted axe, and the pickaxe likewise has two heads. Both of these are similar to how logging and mining tools were traditionally made in real life—you’d have two heads on the same tool so that if one side got blunted, you could use the other and get twice as much life out of the tool before having to resharpen it. When you can take your time breaking rock and cutting wood and don’t have to use the tool to defend yourself, a little added weight is worth the convenience, especially if you’re taking a long trip to gather materials.

This, to me, explains why sickles only have 50 uses—they only have one usable edge. If the “base sharpness” of a tool is 50 uses, then the fact that axes and pickaxes have two heads means that they have twice the usable edges.

I hope this isn’t disgustingly obvious to you folks, since I know people on the lore forums are notoriously clever. It’s just something I’ve been thinking of for a while that is either entirely coincidental or a great example of fridge brilliance.

As much as everyone complains about Detha’s lines in AC, I think that Sonya Eddy, the voice actress who does her and other female charr, should get a medal for being the most enthusiastic voice actor in the game, and the one who is the most appropriate for her roles. Her voice pretty much defines the female charr for me, like that one guy with a slightly British accent (Maverick’s voice actor) and the really gravelly guy (Clawspur’s voice actor) define the male charr.

Teckos.1305:

Humm dunno what you are talking about but mace main hand for guard and warriors is viable in pvp

Probably because PVP is the only place where most people really care about defense/blocking/interrupts, PVE is damage 24/7/365 and anything less that the optimum is blacklisted. But even in PVE it’s pretty fun to run around with a mace. I challenging myself by timing everything just right so I can get through a fight in PVE without taking any damage.

dace.8019:

Equinox.4968:

Writers get details wrong all the time. Therefore, I won’t accept any statement that isn’t directly from an Anet dev, since their word is law around here.

Even something ANet state as their intention doesn’t mean it will happen. Here’s the thing: it’s information from an informal interview, the transcript of which has been summarised by the writer. Is that a great source? It’s not, no; but it is something to consider. Given they have, through a journalist, blog-site, or anything, never said anything to the contrary, it’s still the best information we have from a source who spoke directly to CJ at ANet about this.

I’m not saying you should accept it as gospel, and I’m not saying ANet are beholden to it in anyway, but it is what it is. Which is more than you can say for your, still, self generated opinion. So what am I saying? I’m saying that it is a likely insight into what ANet was experimenting/working with circa the time of the interview and remains the only insight (however second-hand) and is presented by a journalist who spoke directly to CJ about this topic, and he is reporting what he was told. This isn’t a court of law, we can consider journalistic hearsay.

Is it the “best” information we have? Probably. Does that mean it’s worth taking into consideration? Not by my book. We can consider journalistic hearsay, but I don’t think we should. Feel free to do what you want, but I think that accepting unofficial reports leads to confusion, expectations that don’t match reality, and hype that leads to disappointment in many parts of the GW2 community. Relying too much on information from outside the company is dangerous in that rumors too often are blurred with reality. Even data-miners are given too much credence, as the information they find may end up having absolutely no significance in the actual game.

It patently is. You have no credible source (eg. someone who is citing ANet staff or, in this case, one of the senior staff at the company) stating anything to back up your opinion. You are formulating an opinion based on personal speculation and providing an interpretation.

GW2 (official) Wiki: “New weapon types and expansion of current weapon types to more professions.” Officially mentioned by Arenanet. Beyond that we can’t speculate anything, but it has at least been mentioned by Anet staff.

NewTrain.7549:

Very true. I was merely commenting on the one-handed hammer which became popular between the 14th and 17th centuries in Europe, not the GW2 “hammers”(which would be incredibly impractical in real life).

Sorry for the miscommunication—I wasn’t trying to take away from your post, just clarifying. You’re definitely still correct.

While we’re on the topic, GW2’s axes are similarly ridiculously oversized. Even some of the bigger one-handed axes that were actually in use in the pre-gunpowder era are pretty small in comparison to fantasy axes, which would likely break your wrist if you tried to swing them. Also, real fighting axes were virtually never double-bitted like you see in fantasy.

(The guy in those videos is an archaeologist and history buff who does a good job of debunking myths about the ancient and medieval eras, especially ones perpetuated by popular culture. He’s done his research, both by reading books and by testing things himself.)

NewTrain.7549:

I’m going to comment solely on the poor job some of you internet historians are doing.

A one-handed war hammer is NOT the same as a mace. Same function? Arguably. Same form? Absolutely not.

Examples:
Mace
http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=600853&name=German+Mace
http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=AA193&name=Arms+%26+Armor+High+Gothic+Mace

War hammer
http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=600788&name=17th+Century+War+Hammer
http://www.kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=600636&name=Late+Period+War+Hammer

If you want to get even more specific, the hammers in GW2 are actually “mauls,” generally closer to sledgehammers than warhammers. But you’re right, there’s a very clear difference between hammers (of any type) and maces.

dace.8019:

If you had read it, you would see that it is a write up of a phonecall interview between the writer and Colin Johanson. They discussed the blog post but spoke about other items too. I shouldn’t need to hold your hand through this.

Writers get details wrong all the time. Therefore, I won’t accept any statement that isn’t directly from an Anet dev, since their word is law around here. I don’t get my information from game journalists, I get it straight from the creators of the game, and if something isn’t stated on the official site or by a dev post on these forums, I won’t believe it to be a concrete fact until appears in one of those places.

If you want an opinion (and that’s all you’ve offered, whereas this is at least a credible source, it’s more than you will find in terms of evidence for your self-generated opinion) I believe new access to weapons has been put way down the priority list along with, and even further below, Precursor scavenging.

It’s not an opinion. They definitely stated that there will be MORE weapons. But they remained silent as to the extent of new weapons and/or weapon skills. I personally believe they would be stupid to give warriors dual foci, etc., and I think my argument is sound. But the fact of the matter is that they have NEVER said one way or another how new weapons and skills will be implemented, and there is therefore nothing to indicate that they want everyone to have access to every weapon. This means we can’t assume they will do that, and we can’t assume they won’t—it’s 100% up in the air at present. And in the absence of a positive or negative pronouncement (in other words, “yes we will do this” or “no we won’t do that”), it is logically impermissible for silence to be used to infer anything.

endirasae.3015:

What they’re trying to say is that by the time you have all the materials you need, how much profit would you make simply selling those materials and the precursor on the TP? If the difference between that price (which you’ll get quickly, as materials sell fast) and the legendary (which isn’t a popular one) isn’t particularly large, you’re essentially selling your Gift of Exploration, skill points, clovers etc. for that price. Is all that stuff and effort worth eg. a mere 100g profif?

I guess you’re right. It won’t be worth it for me because ultimately, I want to keep all the materials I have, continue getting more, AND get 1300 gold from selling Frenzy, which is just impossible and unrealistic. I guess I had underestimated just how many materials it takes to complete a legendary. At least I can resell Rage without losing much gold…

If only there was an easier way to convert a Gift of Mastery into gold.

Well, Frenzy and Carcharias are pretty much the only precursors I can afford…and honestly, all I want is to monetize the Gift of Mastery. It’s a measure of my progress in the game (map completion, skill points, obsidian bought with karma) that is otherwise impossible to translate into money, and I made a Gift of Mastery just in case I might want to use it later on.

Regarding the whole “you could sell what you have” part, I guess I just don’t think that way. Using my personal time to acquire valuable items makes them seem “free” to me, as opposed to buying them. As I said, I’m a hoarder, and I greatly prefer to see the reserves in my wallet increase, or at least stay the same, while I keep getting more useful items. For instance, why spend 594 gold on the T6 materials when I can get them all for nothing by killing high-level enemies for the next month or so? It seems like a matter of convenience more than anything, and I’d rather get money AND those items instead of trading one for the other, even if it takes me a while.

Also, after purchasing Rage I have 600 gold left in my wallet, hence why I intend to do a lot of the gathering and salvaging on my own.

If I’m calculating this correctly, I only need about 200 of each T6 crafting material since I’ve accumulated about 50 for each of the 8 materials (I’ll have to check the specifics, some might be slightly more or less than this). At current market prices, that’ll cost me about 594 gold, assuming I don’t just farm some of the materials to save myself some money or transmute T5 materials (which I also have quite a few of). 120 gold fixed cost for the icy runestones and recipes. 83 gold to buy enough lodestones to get me from where I am now up to 100. 78 gold for the ectoplasms for the clovers and 97 for the rest needed for that gift, assuming I don’t just salvage them myself. Let’s assume I can just go out and gather all the wood I need by myself to get my Huntsman to 400 and then enough to cover the Gift of Wood, and I’ll break even on all that. Ditto with the orichalcum.

That brings the total to about 972 gold. That would give me approximately 330 gold profit, assuming I don’t use my time instead of my money to get materials.

My goal is just to get more money, period. I’m a hoarder, and I like seeing big sums. I’ve put in the work for the Gift of Mastery, and I figured that with a little extra effort, I could translate that work into monetary profit.

What would you advise based on all of that?

About a month ago, I managed to get The Lover from combining 4 completely random exotics in the forge. I sold it for money and got about 600 gold. Today, on a whim, I bought a Rage (speargun) since it was only 60 gold. Now I’m interested in learning about how best to make a profit out of crafting Frenzy.

I already have the Gift of Mastery prepared (plus a spare Gift of Exploration). I have plenty of T6 materials from playing the game over the last two years, tons of mystic coins, and lots of obsidian. I have Chef at 400 and I should be able to get to 400 Huntsman pretty easily.

It seems to me that it should be pretty easy to get a profit out of Frenzy. The precursor is pretty cheap, the stuff I don’t have yet probably won’t cost more than 200 gold (out of my 600 available), and legendaries sell for a lot. I know harpoon guns aren’t very popular, but surely SOMEONE will buy my Frenzy if I offer it at a good price.

Is there something I’m missing here? It seems I am, because the whole process seems ludicrously easy from where I’m standing.

Evalia.7103:

Equinox.4968:

sorudo.9054:

pff, all the mace skills suck beyond believe, the skin is the least of my concern.

They’re actually really good on both the Guardian and Warrior as defensive weapons. The problem is that people generally don’t go for defense, they want full offense to DPS everything to death as quickly as possible

Defensive weapons?
You mean that burst combo on guardian with mace #3 or a trait called Unsuspecting Foe for a warrior which gives you +50% crit chance when target is stunned(with mace 3 second stun, +30% stun duration sigil for 3.9?)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unsuspecting_Foe
It’s so freaking defensive to go into that stun and then swap for a hundred blades…

That probably does work, but overall maces are defensive weapons. The warrior’s mainhand mace has a block and an interrupt (two if you count the burst skill), and the autoattack chain is meant to keep your target weakened (thus mitigating damage). The guardian’s mace has two healing-oriented skills and an AOE block. Compare these to, for example, the warrior’s mainhand axe (huge sustained DPS) and the guardian’s sword (many fast attacks designed to do damage and proc Justice). The mace is clearly a mainhand defensive weapon for both classes, as opposed to the superior offensive options presented by other weapons. Not that this is a bad thing, as I enjoy using maces on both classes, but people only really care about damage in this game, so maces are often discarded as worthless.

sorudo.9054:

pff, all the mace skills suck beyond believe, the skin is the least of my concern.

They’re actually really good on both the Guardian and Warrior as defensive weapons. The problem is that people generally don’t go for defense, they want full offense to DPS everything to death as quickly as possible

dace.8019:

Equinox.4968:

I don’t believe I have EVER seen them say “all classes will have all weapons.”

You have now.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mmorpg.com%2Fgamelist.cfm%2Fgame%2F473%2Ffeature%2F7597%2FGuild-Wars-2-ArenaNets-Master-Plan-for-2013.html

“What’s more is that the team is also working very hard finding a way to make it so that every profession has access to every weapon and their own weapon skills for those previously locked weapons. Engineer plus Hammer? Check. Again, there’s no specific timeline for this, but a new progression system is coming. Finally those level 80s you’ve been hoarding will get some use, as they’ll be adding more and more skills and traits to the game for years to come and on a regular basis for players to obtain.”

You misquoted this. That’s a MMORPG.com writer making an assertion that was never alluded to in the source the article was based on. All Colin’s blog post states is that new skills and traits are planned. The article writer’s assertion appears to be either misinformation or journalistic hyperbole, and it was most certainly not a direct quote by Colin about plans for expanding weapon choices. Even if it was a direct quote, we already know that things like the legendary precursor scavenger hunt have been indefinitely delayed and may never show up at all.

Show me a direct quote from an Anet developer explicitly stating in no uncertain terms that “every class will get every weapon eventually.” Anything less is mere speculation or inaccuracy. All we know for certain is that they intend to add more weapon skills to the game—no mention of when, how many, or how those additions will manifest themselves in the game.

dace.8019:

Equinox.4968:

but you’re not going to see thieves with greatswords, or warriors dual-wielding foci.

Except ANet have said, multiple times, that they have been working on making it so that all classes can use all weapons.

You might be right on ever seeing it though. They keep saying they’re doing alot of stuff that we never see.

I don’t believe I have EVER seen them say “all classes will have all weapons.” That would be ridiculous. A thief with a hammer? The whole point of the class is to carry light weapons that are easy to carry and easy to conceal. A warrior with a scepter or focus? How would they ever use those things, having absolutely no magical skill? A necromancer with a rifle? That’s pretty absurd.

I think everyone is confusing “all classes will get MORE weapons” with “all classes will get ALL weapons.” Please point me to at least one instance of them saying all classes will get all weapons, because I’m positive that they’d never do something as ludicrous as that.

Greataxes (two-handed axes) were confirmed by the devs as something they’ve been considering since around release. That’s probably the most likely new weapon to appear first. As for one-handed hammers, there actually is a mace skin that looks like a hammer. It’s called Droknar’s Forgehammer.

As for new weapon types, it’s far more likely that we’ll see existing weapons given to classes that don’t have them yet before we encounter new weapons. Of course, it would have to make sense: a ranger using a staff makes sense because it could be like a druid using nature magic, and a mesmer with a main-hand pistol makes sense given the class’s “magical duelist” archetype, but you’re not going to see thieves with greatswords, or warriors dual-wielding foci.

Wanderer.3248:

If I was a writer, I’d make the big reveal contradict everyone’s expectations, just to mess with them.

I wish the writers could actually make something like this work…but Season 1 more or less proved that they can’t. Here’s hoping Season 2 will be better.

Wanderer.3248:

Having Scarlet cut-off before she could say what her plans were wasn’t clumsiness, it was deliberate. It would have been easy for Scarlet to say “Mordremoth” or “a dragon” instead of “a new master”.

The writers were being intentionally vague. And possibly they were leaving themselves an out, in case they changed their mind.

If you say so…but believe me, this is how they work. They expect it’s going to be some huge reveal when everyone knows exactly what’s going to happen ahead of time. We don’t know all the details yet, but based on the lore hand-holding that we’ve come to expect, it’s virtually certain that it’s Mordremoth.

Wanderer.3248:

Equinox.4968:

Wanderer.3248:

Any of these theories are probably as good as any other because I doubt that even the GW2 writers have come up with origins for all these things yet.

There’s plenty of as-yet-uncontradicted lore from GW1. I think that it’s pretty unhelpful to assume that everything is in a basically permanent state of limbo; we ought to assume that whatever was stated in GW1 or the core game of GW2 and hasn’t been changed or negated yet is canon.

Take the speculation on whether Scarlet is or isn’t a servant of Mordremoth. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if the LS writers haven’t actually decided that for themselves.

It’s virutally incontrovertible that she WAS a servant of Mordremoth. Between the dragon glyph in her hideout, the fact that she’s a sylvari who was being taken over by a hostile entity, and the cinematic after she was killed, I don’t see any way she couldn’t be a dragon minion.

This seems to me to be the same issue as when people speculated that Kasmeer was going to die because of one tiny prick on her finger that wasn’t even really called out as significant in the Living Story. GW2’s writers are trying to be subtle, but only very rarely do they create justifiable controversy. It’s just that we’re grasping at straws, assuming that the story is more complex than it actually is (out of desperation maybe). In reality, I don’t think we have much of a reason to doubt that what’s being shown to us is true and that there aren’t three or four extra hidden layers of depth to the story.

Except they haven’t shown Scarlet to be a servant of Mordremoth. There have been plenty of opportunities for her to say so, but the writers have deliberately not revealed who her master was, or even that she was working for a dragon. The writers clearly do want things to be ambiguous.

We only know that waking the remaining dragon(s) was her goal, which was implied by the dragon mural, and then pretty much explicitly stated after the end of the LS.

They essentially have said so. Granted, the writers reveal important details like this really clumsily, but if you piece everything together that we’ve been told so far, that’s what you get.

Wanderer.3248:

Any of these theories are probably as good as any other because I doubt that even the GW2 writers have come up with origins for all these things yet.

There’s plenty of as-yet-uncontradicted lore from GW1. I think that it’s pretty unhelpful to assume that everything is in a basically permanent state of limbo; we ought to assume that whatever was stated in GW1 or the core game of GW2 and hasn’t been changed or negated yet is canon.

Take the speculation on whether Scarlet is or isn’t a servant of Mordremoth. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if the LS writers haven’t actually decided that for themselves.

It’s virutally incontrovertible that she WAS a servant of Mordremoth. Between the dragon glyph in her hideout, the fact that she’s a sylvari who was being taken over by a hostile entity, and the cinematic after she was killed, I don’t see any way she couldn’t be a dragon minion.

This seems to me to be the same issue as when people speculated that Kasmeer was going to die because of one tiny prick on her finger that wasn’t even really called out as significant in the Living Story. GW2’s writers are trying to be subtle, but only very rarely do they create justifiable controversy. It’s just that we’re grasping at straws, assuming that the story is more complex than it actually is (out of desperation maybe). In reality, I don’t think we have much of a reason to doubt that what’s being shown to us is true and that there aren’t three or four extra hidden layers of depth to the story.

Sartharina.3542:

I thought Paragons were replaced by Warriors and the Tactical trait line, not Guardians – Longbow for the lots of fire from afar, shouts+banners for the buffs.

Guardians got the “divine fire” thing. A lot of paragon skills were based on burning and protection. The guardian also got a few of their shouts.

Phoenix Fire.6203:

This was mainly me trying to make sense of the multiple religions.

Thing is, this world works very differently from Tyria. In this world, we can point to certain beliefs spreading and changing over time, the common origins of certain branches of religions, and common themes in religion. For example, the flood myth found in Genesis is found in many if not most religions across the world. In Tyria, you have multiple pantheons and deities that can generally be objectively proven to actually exist, and the religions based on them can definitely be said not to come from the same source(s). To put it into perspective, religions in the real world are like humans themselves—ultimately, we’re all genetically the same, though there are minor variations. Religions in Tyria are like comparing bears to lizards to humans—we’re all completely different from one another, yet we all coexist.

I think there was something somewhere about Balthazar’s family (or at least father) being human, wich is why I sais he and Dwayna were human.

Balthazar has a half-brother, Menzies, who is also a god. His forces are contained in the Fissure of Woe. Grenth is Dwayna’s son, though his origins are unclear. There are some conflicting reports in the game, and we can’t be sure one way or the other.

I don’t see how any of this is groundbreaking, and a lot of it is based in speculation and not fact.

Ultimately, everything comes from the Mists, which is the GW term for the multiverse.

The spirits of the wild have pretty much already been around. They are known to exist, we have proof of their existence.

Koda is the deity of the kodan, but there is no known connection to the spirits of the wild. There is no evidence I’m aware of that would indicate one is the creator of the other, or even that they are related.

The origin of the human gods is definitely mysterious, but it’s too much of a blind leap to say that they were humans who gained powers from the Mists. The six gods came to Tyria alongside the humans, and simply because they are associated with humanity doesn’t mean that they are/were mere humans. All we know is that their powers can be transferred to humans/half-gods, as was the case with Kormir and Grenth; it doesn’t explain where their powers originally came from. There is no information available in GW1 or GW2 that explains where they came from, why they arrived in Tyria, or what caused them to leave (i.e. the Exodus). The six gods are no more “manifestations of the Mists” than the elder dragons or the spirits of the wild, or, for that matter, humans or norn.

The Eternal Alchemy is closer to Buddhism or the worship of physics and natural order than a religion. It has nothing to do with gods, demons, spirits, or anything like that, other than those entities’ relationship to the universe/multiverse as a whole. The asura simply believe that everything is interconnected, and that even the greatest and most powerful beings are merely facets of existence, since nothing is all-powerful and the relationships between different entities is what defines reality. Chaos theory is the closest comparison I can think of—if you break everything down into mathematical equations, you can calculate exactly what’s going to happen and what influences what.

The Dream is not a religion either. The devs have stated somewhere or other that the sylavari are agnostics, as they are new to the world and don’t have any religious beliefs because they have barely begun to explore their surroundings. The Dream is an empathic/mental/emotional link shared by all sylvari, and the Tree is a guiding figure but definitely not a deity.

The Luxon demigoddesses are an instance of hero-worship and shouldn’t be construed as actual deities. It’s in the vein of ancient Greeks paying homage to Theseus, Hercules, and other figures like that.

Please explain what you’re trying to demonstrate here, because I don’t see what you’re getting at, and some of your assertions directly contradict well-established lore or make logically unsound assumptions.

Jaymee.1560:

I know they rolled over the idea of a Ritualist with the Engineer but… the two classes… are like oil and water, at least to me, really.

An alchemist from 500+ years ago would be superstitious and terrified of modern technology, even if it was based in the same principles that his pseudoscience was.

Modern scientists find alchemists laughable in their ignorance of what really goes on in chemical reactions and physics, even if the alchemists were right in certain instances.

Times change, and people and professions change with them. The human-centric world of GW1 with its ritualists, monks, and dervishes is gone, replaced with a pluralistic world where power is shared by five races, each with an entirely different theological worldview.

Having had one of my mains of GW 1 be a Ritualist, I loved the over all idea of having the power to summon spirits in battle to aid or help battle with you.

Play a ranger for buffs, or an engineer for turrets. It’s precisely the same mechanics, just with a different flavor.

Thunking a Turret out on the battlefield… doesn’t quite have the same feel to it… Not truly mystical and if anything, in my opinion, when I have play and/or seen an engineer in action… I often wonder if they carry a lifetime warranty from Home Depot….

Mysticism is all but dead in present-day Tyria because of the science-Buddhism of the Asuras, the dogmatic atheism of the Charr, the agnosticism of the Sylvari, and the humans’ periodic doubt that their gods even exist anymore. Technology has taken the place of mysticism in most instances.

The dervish won’t be added to the game for quite a few reasons. I’ll refer you to a post I made in another thread that explains why new races and classes are virtually guaranteed not to be added to this game.

They’re not going to add these classes to GW2. Why? Because they’re already covered by the other classes, as people have already stated.

*Assassin is virtually identical the thief.
*Paragon got split between guardian (holy fire + throwing spears underwater) and warrior (shouts and inspiration).
*Ritualist got split between ranger (stationary buffs) and engineer (stationary turrets). Ancestor worship is also limited to Canthan humans as far as we know, and without that gimmick, what is the ritualist?
*Dervish and monk got merged together and contributed to the guardian. As stated above, neither is lore-friendly because the 4 nonhuman races don’t believe in the human gods, and the gods were explicitly described as the source of these professions’ power.

People don’t consider that the professions we have aren’t meant to be taken 100% literally. Each class covers MANY archetypes. For example, the thief class isn’t just “a guy who steals things,” but instead covers the pirate, ninja, highwayman, thug, duelist, treasure hunter, assassin, and scout archetypes, to name a few. The warrior covers the knight, bodyguard, warlord, barbarian, tactician, and brawler archetypes, etc. No need for an assassin class when we have thieves.

Furthermore, why add a WHOLE NEW CLASS when you could just add existing or new weapons to classes? You could easily give a different profession’s flavor to an existing class just by giving it new skills. A ranger with a staff could use “druid” abilities and nature magic. Giving a greatsword or greataxe (yes, that weapon was confirmed as a definite possibility around the time the game launched) to a necromancer could give it a “death knight” feel. It seems pretty likely that future weapon skills and/or traits will help bring different archetypes into play.

Moreover, it takes more than “it would be cool” or “I want it” to get a new class introduced into the game. Consider that any new class would need to have a completely unique class skill and completely different abilities from any existing class. What’s the point of adding a dervish with earth, wind, and mystic attunements when the elementalist already has attunements? Why should the paragon have adrenaline, which is the warrior’s class ability? The existing classes play entirely differently because of their class abilities, and copying/imitating what already exists will just give you a near-duplicate of that class. So if you want a new class, make sure your proposal has absolutely nothing to do with any of the existing class abilities.

And finally, Anet has said numerous times in the past that the game was very carefully designed around exactly eight classes and five races. To add more of either would require tons and tons of work for something that could be solved in a much more organic and less labor-intensive way—adding to what we already have.

thaooo.5320:

Equinox.4968:

thaooo.5320:

“gems in the pool”?

Sorry the break the news to you.

The ‘gems’ are a fictional/virtual currency which does not have, and will never have, any kind of tangible quantity associated with its existence.

The ‘gems’ are infinite.

No. Read the dev statement listed above. Gems are NOT infinite, we create them—and we’re the only source through which they can be created.

Even if they do have a limited quantity in existence at any given time, the quantity is a virtual figure.

This virtual figure is nothing more than a number in a text box which can be edited by the company at any time.

Even if ‘supply’ of this virtual and invisible resource miraculously hits 0, do you think the company controlling their very existence would sit there and say “sorry, we have no more gems to sell! We can’t take your money!”

Anet could inject gems into the market. But will they? I severely doubt it. Instead, they’ll leave it to us players to buy gems with real money and create more gems to put into the market. They WILL take our money—indeed, real money is the only way that gems can be created, aside from the paltry 400 gems per 10000 achievement points. They’re not selling gems, they’re selling us the means of creating gems. THE GEMS DO NOT EXIST UNTIL WE BUY THEM WITH REAL MONEY. This is a simple fact, and I don’t care if you believe it or not, but the devs have explicitly said so, and there is nothing that creates gems outside of gem cards, credit card purchases on the TP, and AP rewards. Period.

Take a walk, get some fresh air, lose the naivety.

Then read the reality of my post again.

Do not let their marketing ploy trick you.

It’s not a marketing ploy. It’s a system they’ve set up. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else and play some other game. They made their decision to make the gem supply entirely player-generated. They don’t fudge the numbers or interfere with the market. If the gold price of gems goes up—that’s on us. If it gets cheaper—that’s on us. You don’t have to buy gem cards, but if you do, that’s your decision. If you think gems purchased with gold are too expensive, that’s fine too.

Are gems a virtual currency? Absolutely. But Anet made the decision not to “print money.” They’ve decided to essentially make gems a physical currency, minted by gem cards rather than generated by the game itself. So it doesn’t matter what gems are, it’s how Anet decides they’re going to work that matters. If you think that the natural consequences of the actions of us players—namely buying more gems with gold than selling gems for gold—under this system is raising prices too much, you’re entitled to your opinion. But it’s not a “marketing ploy.” Gems are still perfectly purchaseable with gold, so long as you have enough to afford them. Feel free to take it or leave it.

But whatever you do, don’t ignore objective facts. The devs have specifically said that players create gems, and nothing else can. The way the market has worked since launch, it seems that they’re sticking with that statement. They’ve put the gem market in our hands, and even if gems are a virtual currency, they’re making this system different from any other system I know of that’s existed now or in the past.

EDIT: Consider precursors. Could Anet magically create thousands of precursors for us to buy? Absolutely. Will they? No, they decided that supply will be limited to what drops for us players. Same with gems. Precursors are no less of a virtual currency, yet like gems, they don’t exist until we players do something to create them—namely killing and looting enemies, or using the Mystic Forge. People have complained since day 1 that Anet is manipulating the drop rate, we can’t get precursors through non-RNG methods, etc. Don’t like it? Play another game. This one is the way it is.

thaooo.5320:

“gems in the pool”?

Sorry the break the news to you.

The ‘gems’ are a fictional/virtual currency which does not have, and will never have, any kind of tangible quantity associated with its existence.

The ‘gems’ are infinite.

No. Read the dev statement listed above. Gems are NOT infinite, we create them—and we’re the only source through which they can be created.

Even if they do have a limited quantity in existence at any given time, the quantity is a virtual figure.

This virtual figure is nothing more than a number in a text box which can be edited by the company at any time.

Even if ‘supply’ of this virtual and invisible resource miraculously hits 0, do you think the company controlling their very existence would sit there and say “sorry, we have no more gems to sell! We can’t take your money!”

Anet could inject gems into the market. But will they? I severely doubt it. Instead, they’ll leave it to us players to buy gems with real money and create more gems to put into the market. They WILL take our money—indeed, real money is the only way that gems can be created, aside from the paltry 400 gems per 10000 achievement points. They’re not selling gems, they’re selling us the means of creating gems. THE GEMS DO NOT EXIST UNTIL WE BUY THEM WITH REAL MONEY. This is a simple fact, and I don’t care if you believe it or not, but the devs have explicitly said so, and there is nothing that creates gems outside of gem cards, credit card purchases on the TP, and AP rewards. Period.

Zaxares.5419:

Equinox.4968:

Avascar.9237:

What happens if… I buy 15,000 gems and convert them all to gold? What’s going to happen to the market?

The supply of gems would probably increase slightly (considering the vast number of gems out there) and thus the price of buying gems with gold would lower slightly.

Note that 15K gems isn’t really a lot in light of how many gems must be out there in total. You’d likely have to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars in real money to really cheapen the price of gems bought by gold, and even then, the low prices would entice a lot of people to buy them while they’re cheap, thus forcing the price back up towards where it is now.

I remember there was a player on these forums once who used to spend cash on gems every month. One time he did a binge and bought up something like 20,000 gems and converted them all to gold. Apparently even that big an injection of gems didn’t even cause a twitch in the exchange rate. The velocity of gem-gold trades must be incredibly high.

Maybe 2 million gems might affect the market in a noticeable way, but considering that most things on the gemstore that people buy often are between 800 and 1000 gems each, 20K is about 20 peoples’ worth of expenditures. So yes, you’d need a lot more than that.

Becka Williams.4978:

Sorry, no. Someone has to set the price in the first place. If you’re the only seller in town (And anet is) you can set whatever price you want. The gold to gems price is obviously manipulated, else why would it go up? Because the players want to pay more? No, it’s because it’s set to go up when demand is higher/there’s more gold in the economy (which is what I think the real answer is.) It’s hard to believe there’s more demand now than there was when the game started, and there were more players (and less gold).

Anet isn’t the only seller in town. The only gems they “sold” were the ones injected into the market when things first got started out. Since then, gems DO NOT EXIST IN THE GAME except where people buy them with real money or earn them through achievements. Anet has NO CONTROL over the supply of gems, and hasn’t had any control since launch. They don’t add or remove gems from the overall supply, and only we can create gems. If nobody ever bought a gem card or used a credit card on the TP ever again, and nobody got the 400-gem achievement reward ever again, there simply would be no more gems. Gem supply is ENTIRELY controlled by players/consumers. We determine how many gems are out there by buying/earning them and thereby creating them, and there is no other source for them outside of such actions.

The only “manipulation” that’s going on is that the rate at which people put gems into the market by buying them with real money and selling them for gold is somewhat lower than the rate at which people buy gems with gold. The other factor is that the gems to gold rate and the gold to gems rate have a “tax” involved. If you buy gems with real money, sell them to get gold, and then use that gold to buy gems, you’ll have fewer gems than you started with. Right now, the price of gems bought with gold is about 9.5 gold per 100 gems. The price of gold bought with gems is about 7 gold per 100 gems. See what I mean? It’s never going to be “you sell 100 gems for 10 gold” and “you buy 10 gold with 100 gems,” the system was set up so that you’ll never see a profit or an equal exchange rate. But that rate hasn’t been changed since launch—the system is exactly the same now as it was then, and unless a dev or John Smith confirms there were changes (and I highly, highly doubt they’d make such a statement), the fact of the matter is that it really is in our hands, and Anet hasn’t touched the market, and never will.

EDIT: I happened to find a statement by one of the devs:

“ArenaNet will set the initial exchange rate for gems to gold when the servers first open for headstart, but after that the rate will fluctuate based on supply and demand of the players using the Currency Exchange. The gems and gold players get from the Currency Exchange are supplied by other players, not ArenaNet. As supply of gems goes up, the price will go down and vice versa. While we do not expect prices to fluctuate wildly, smart traders will be able to get good deals by watching the exchange rate closely and waiting for it to favor gems or gold, whichever they are looking to purchase.)”