Guild Wars 2

Gomes.5643:

Well this is not the whole story. The commander effectively cannot spill out any secret the shining blade and therefore the krytan government may have. So if tomorrow queen jennah decided to make a surprise attack on the charr in ascalon to take back their lands, there is not much we can do about it …. because we cannot even tell anyone….

So the story is perfectly fine for a human. They should have at least some trust in their government. And for many of them joining the shining blades is also a great honor.

But for a Charr? Even if he somehow is so smitten by the 3?….4? times he have met with the human queen, that she will never cancel the peace contract…. that death oath is made with the shining blade, not the queen per se. So if the queen somehow dies and her successor is more leaning to the war path ….. that death oath is not cancelled ….

Yeah, you are right that I didn’t mention that part of a possible future conflict that may arise between human and other races, mainly the charr, though I did imagine such case. But as far as I stretch my imagination, I know that it must be realistic so that it is consistent with the current situation.

So let’s we evaluate the purpose of the Shining Blade. As far as I know, their existence in GW1 was to support Krytan royal blood line to the throne and challenge the White Mantle. In addition to that, it seems that the Blade is also there to secure the succession of the Krytan monarchy. Such foreign invasion is literally the opposite of securing the thrones. While I only read the lore, what I can infer is that all that the Blade has done more than 250 ago was as a means of self-preservation. Why would Anise support such notion? I mean, even Livia wouldn’t want to support it though she is a die hard Krytan lover since that will endanger the people nation itself. If anything, I could imagine that some other royal blood, not that I could name any, would challenge a claim to the throne, or the Blade might even disband themselves, which might even break the oath lol. But more importantly, and it is more definite than the previous hypotheses, why even the Shining Blade passes this info to the non-human PC? Yes the oath prevent us from spilling the secret, but it doesn’t give us the ability to telepathically read fellow Shining Blade mind, does it? And even if the leaker will eventually die, it doesn’t stop the secret being revealed. I mean the charr PC may even take a shot to the heart to save the Citadel right?

And look, I know it is not emphasized that much in the game, but among all the races, the human civilization has declined pretty badly. Yeah, the White Mantle is toppled now, but there are centaurs, White-mantle left-over or the bandits, and among other things. And why would the Krytan attack Ascalon? I mean, yeah they are both human civilization, but they are two separate kingdoms. Interestingly though, I believe I read this propaganda pamphlet by Caudecus to persuade Ascalonian descendants to support his cause, the pamphlet says something about a member of Ascalonian royal hang a member of Shining Blade back in the day or something. So it seems that they don’t really like each other as well? In addition to that, Ascalon has always belonged to the charr, though that prolly won’t stop the human I must admit xD But again, even if anet goes down that road, for the sake of consistency, I just hope they won’t bring the Shining Blade with them lol.

Though, let’s we face the basic truth, Jennah will not likely go down that path, there are just too many strains. Human is a playable race and Divinity’s Reach is a major capital. What are they gonna do? Relocate Human capital city? Well actually I won’t be surprised that if Anet did that. But how about new player who just started the game, what happen to the old DR? I can imagine something like Lion’s Arch, but there will be just too much revamp to be honest. Yeah, there might be a possibility that there will be warmonger powerful human figure, but I don’t think we will work against the Blade.

I’m not saying that this won’t happen, this is just my opinion after all. It might happen, but probably in GW3 xD

EDIT: now you mentioned a shift in power, I’m starting to think if it is possible for a monarch to fire a Master Exemplar? I mean it probably is, but what stops them from going back to the old ways and finding a more suitable Krytan royal that can restore peace, given that the scenario of a rising imperialist monarch?

hmm I suppose that particular encounter has some issue. On my end, I got the achievement just as the timer hit 5 minutes, but I couldn’t seem to get Precision Blade though I’ve killed 50 mobs.

I had a hard time as well swallowing the whole Shining Blade initiation, but now thinking more about it, I kind of started to accept the PC joined the Shining Blade. Consider these:

• Anise couldn’t tell us their mission due to the oath. However, it was not even clear if the oath allows her to bring outsiders into the mission or not. Based on my personal interpretation, since the philosophy of the oath itself is based on Markis’ betrayal, I don’t think they will allow outsiders from joining their secretive mission as that might reveal their locations of interest, for example, and can jeopardize their ‘secret’. Now, assuming they can bring an outsider into their mission, It feels weirder than actually joining the organization. I mean, both joining the Blade and following them without knowing their intentions are plainly blind trust, particularly for non-human PC. However, I have been thinking about the story and I can justify joining the Blade more than just following them in without any information, considering there is this oath in place, which I’m gonna explain later.
• As many mentioned, we are free agent. we have no obligation to come to the Blade’s aid no matter how dire the Krytan needs us, we just have to keep their secret. Moreover, this oath that we take seems to serve to destroy the barrier between the PC and the Blade, rather than a rope that binds us and our loyalty to the Krytan throne. Though, Anise does mention that we are not to be complicit with any force working against Kryta. This is interesting to me as Anet can still elaborate on this. But to me, it seems what Anise trying to emphasize is that using our experience working with the Blade against them will also break the oath, obviously. But again, this is the most intriguing part of the oath to me and hopefully anet will get back to this oath.
• Our PC has seen the whole truth, if not almost, to all the nuisance. We have all these superordinate goals and have work with various races to realize it. I remember a bit about this psychological study about working towards superordinate goals can lower one’s perception about ingroup-outgroup, and from this, I can kind of sympathize with the PC’s decision, regardless of race. It what makes the non-human PC is more individualized, they see things through more than their faction due to their past experience. However, my main criticism for this is how lacking personal struggle to change is shown in the instance. For Charr, as example, they could have added race-specific concern that they the PC raise when they know they must take the oath to proceed, like how they are a member of the charr legion and all. Then Anise could follow by saying that, well, first she can’t tell you otherwise cus she’s going to die, and second how taking the oath is not against your personal interest as an individual and probably add that the PC taking the oath will also be a part of the secret that will not go outside, then the ‘free agent’ dialogue can follow. Or, you know, something along that line. This is why I think taking the oath is more reasonable than just joining the Blade’s mission, even if that is possible, as it also sends a pretty good message on the whole ’we’re not actually that different’ thing through the story. But alas, I think they missed the opportunity to humanized (lol) the PC.
• As a player who doesn’t have the leisure to play GW1, I am pretty happy that we dig into the Shining Blade story and what makes them what they are today hahaha.

Now, I understand that people have their own RP (like anti-human charr or so) on their character, but gw2 story is also pretty linear. That’s basically it unfortunately xD

TLDR; I’m starting to agree with the PC decision to take the oath because of how I interpret stuff personally, I just think that the story fails miserably in delivering the individualized reaction/dialogue as it falls short to flavorless.

armaduras.8972:

-snip snip-

Ya, but now he tryna destroy Tyria just to regain his balls

I would go as low as Phlunt as a human god if that means solving the problem. Just make him ripped to make a convincing, worshipable, god figure lol. A powerful god-like entity that tries to wipe out civilizations, including their worshippers, to pursue self-interest is just annoying -_-

Tyria must come first, soz not soz.

Oh my gosh! I was thinking this since the first ep 5 launch.

I think we’re gonna have a stand off against Balthy with Destiny’s Edge 2.0. And when he’s dying, getting wrecked by the commander, Kasmeer be like interrupting and make speech about what being a god should mean and eventually kill steal from us and ascend as the Goddess of Peace or sumthin -_-

EDIT: I think it’s gonna be Kasmeer since she’s like the most religious in the group, given there are only two human in your group (three if you play human)

I don’t think his actual motive is known. But, I personally think there is something to do with the reason of his weakening power. It could be that he wants to hide from those who have “abated” him, or he is simply introverted?

But yeah, I think his arch story is still continuing in the game afaik. I just hope I’ll live long enough for the reveal XD

That is a bug and the devs have said that the fix will be on next patch.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

Eponet.4829:

Mackanstein.2503:

I liked the way he said Clawr Island.

I also realised just now that he’s the first ever Reaper. I keep forgetting he was a necromancer but Caladbolg was a greatsword after all.

Caladbolg isn’t a greatsword, it’s a bundle like the Ice bow or Fiery Greatsword.

In the early personal story, any sylvari is capable of using it regardless of class during the personal story steps in which they have possession of it.

No… given gw2 terms/lore, it’s shape and size makes it a greatsword, even if it was temporarily available for use as a bundel, it was a ‘greatsword bundel’. Ever since players first met treahearn and saw him, a necro, using a greatsword, players have begged for necro to be able to weird greatswords, and thats why when they made the first elite specialization for necros, it featured greatswords as the new weapon…

Trahearne is not a reaper thoug. His caladbold skills are rather light and nature-based theme, not necromancy. But whether anet is inspired by it or not to make reaper, no one knows.

However the first reaper that is ever recorded as far as I know is Marjory Delaqua. The origin of her new technique is shown in LS season 2. Reaper spec is based on her power.

To the topic, that last part of the story really breaks my heart. I think Trahearne is one of the wisest, yet has his own naive quality, but I love his character really much. It was just unbearable </3

He will be remebered as long as the Elder dragons still alive and until the end of Tyria sends us all to oblivion.

Esplen.3940:

But then you’d need to work your rotation around that and it doesn’t seem that useful, especially since you can just TW every CS. I mean I guess you can share 20+ seconds of Quickness, but is it really necessary?

That is right you need to work your own rotation, but I don’t really understand what you mean that making it seems less useful.

If you mean that we have damage loss while casting the wells, yes but that is the opportunity cost. However, as you might know, buffing allies with quickness will increase their total damage dealt for a period of time.

(These next few paragraphs is only based on the battle of Tarir event)

TW while CS is going on is in my rotation. Haven’t done the math after casting wells and TW but most of the quickness are spread out to random allies if you’re not in a party (due to the nature of TW that pulses 1 sec of quickness), so it’s kinda unlikely that one person has that long enough quickness from other single source.

However if you’re talking about double TW (casting TW again after CS duration finished) to get that 20+ secs of quickness, I only did that for the so called final burn phase or when the octovine is low (usually I’m helping south gate so final burn is often determined after south is done). In my opinion, it will be less sustainable if I’m doing double kitten early stage of burn since it is more likely to be avaliable for the next few burn phases.

Esplen.3940:

Yobculture.5786:

Esplen.3940:

Yobculture.5786:

Scholar or Chronomancer.

Those are basically your 2 most efficient options for group play. Chronomancer runes make you a lot more inflexible however since you need Illusionary Inspiration for it to work properly.

Wot?

Kappa.jpg

I feel like I’m missing something here.

Probably he means to say that you can spread out the quickness after cast some wells by summoning phantasm thus proc Signet of Inspiration with the trait (Illusionary Inspiration). But you don’t really need the trait to make it work properly?

I use Rune of Chronomancer too and sometimes doing that, especially for battle of Tarir XD but generally the rune works amazing too for personal use.

Nice guide, Grogba! Your guide surely will help many people!
I Just want to help you add the aggregate map mechanic here, mainly just to give a clue of what is the main objective and some tips on how to obtain them.

Tiers

In HoT, every map has their own tier that its progress can be checked by moving your cursor to mini-map. Tiers bar is increased gradually as the map meta events progress. In Verdant Brink itself, the maximum tier is tier 4, for each day and night cycle. To achieve this tier, every single event has to be completed. Higher tier means better reward, but this will require coordination.

Although Verdant Brink is not that complicated mechanically compared the three other maps (in my opinion of course!), this map requires efficient resource allocation across the map, which is the players themselves! Which I think is the hardest resource management in all four maps I think.Why? Because, during the night, there are several rally points for each outpost and all of them have to be defended in order to boost your tier bar. This will be explained further in the next section

Day

This phase might not be hard if you have played the other maps. To achieve tier 4 during the day, you have to complete all five outposts. In order to do so, spreading out is a very good idea. Remember that zerging one event will not make it faster! So, again, it is preferred that you spread out, cover all outpost, and only help when your outpost has finished.

As Grogba mentioned, one advantage of completing outpost is the waypoints and a small number of adventure unlock. But the most important thing is it will help you control more rally point at the early stage of the mordrem assault during the night. This will help you achieve tier 4 for night cycle. The reward is slightly better than the lower tier, but reaching tier 4 during the day will increase your chance to get tier 4 night cycle, which will give you a guaranteed Bladed Coat Box as a reward (so far it is unobtainable from any vendor)

Night

Night cycle is trickier and probably a little bit harder than day cycle. When it comes, each rally point will be attacked by the mordrem. Successfully defending them will slightly increase your tier bar. So, if you have finished all the outpost, you will be controlling all the rally points in the corresponding outpost and you have to defend them! 3-5 people will be a good number to defend each rally point. However, the key is to work with your fellow defender.

In addition, more rally point means more pact soldiers running supply! successful runs contribute to tier bars, too! Don’t forget to check if there any crashed pact chopper nearby your rally points, and if there is one, salvage its supply as many as possible. The reason in doing this is to boost your rally point level. If you do it fast enough, you can increase the Security Level of the map (you can check it below your Daily list on the right upper corner of your screen)

Lastly, right at minute 20, a chopper will stand by at each rally point to take you to the canopy. Grogba has provided each boss mechanic, what you need to do is to defeat them all. Remember! Keep spreading out across all the boss and make everyone has the necessary mastery to counter the boss they are about to face (special note: for Axemaster Gwyllion, there is only need one person with Nuhoch Stealth Detection mastery to direct where you have to spam you crow control). Defeating these bosses are very important since it will significantly boost your tier bar.

As additional information, in case after you defeated all the bosses and still havent reached tier 4, you have to hunt mordrem champions roaming across the map on the ground level. If you have enough people at disposal, try have some of them take care of the champs when the night is coming. This way, last minute failure is avoidable. The reward for tier 4 is, as I have mentioned, a Bladed Coat Box (pretty nice armor imo, especially love the medium one <3 they also have that clanking metal sound effect when you move) and other loots that I forgot what they are XD

So…, that’s all I got for Verdant Brink. Hope it has covered most of them. Feel free to add more or correct some info!

Also, not sure if this is intended or not, but ele’s Persisting Flame trait doesn’t synchronize with fire overload field.

Hey,

I got this problem with Nuhoch Stealth Detection mastery. It works wonder on detecting the mordrem, but somehow some times it does not work for Itzel on stealth. At first I though you need Itzel Leadership but I trained this too but still can’t help with their stealth. What I’m worried is that it also apply to treasure mushroom, which will block the progress of elite specs collection.

Also, Pact Wreckage HP (was previously Itzel Belongings) seems not to contribute to map completion for me. Not sure why, but the icon keeps glowing on my chat though I have communed to it.

EDIT: figured out the HP problem. I did the HP near Treacherous Path waypoint BEFORE it was switched to Itzel Belongings. so when I just helped some people get this point, it actually contributed to the map completion. But still the glowing HP icon is the Pact Airship Wreckage one, which I already did)

It seems like it (the mastery) will not be really grindy. Considering that there are so many prerequisites, including several items to be collected, you will require to do a number of different activities. Though, how you acquired these items can possibly be grindy, but I have no say about that yet.

But of course this only apply if your definition of grinding is repeating the exact same activities in order to get to your goal.

The chain dynamic events in BWEs are fun even if I repeat them, in my opinion. Then exploring the map during the night, especially area with no player, is exciting. It doesn’t feel grindy, honestly. Although I see anet do it so events are repeatable, but not to the point that people have to grind the events. Remember that it is important to encourage players to repeat open world content since anet expect new players and such.

Maybe the impression of being forced to grind event is because there are only two chain events during each of the BWE? Or maybe if you are open to the idea of playing all classes, you might also try all the classes in the jungle (that worked for me at least)

Oh and I think adventures also give you exp, too, right?

However, what I’m worried is, since the exp bar is not flat like in core game, that there will be a lack sense of progression as your mastery leve is higher, thus have to earn more exp. In my experience unlocking stealth gliding after speed mushroom in BWE 2 was sooooooo loooong and there was nothing in between. But again, that might change until more events are available.

So I think I’m quiet sure it’s BWE limitation causing pseudo-grin, because to me opening the first two mastery aspects of both gliding and Itzel felt really natural (as in out of my consciousness that I had leveled up those mastery aspects) as I progress through the map.

I think what everyone saying is that people might still taking Beastmastery spec along with druids. Removing pet will probably reducing diversity of build and make some trait lines dysfunctional and downgraded. Ranger is not always about pet either, since as far as I know traits that need your to manage and interact with your pet heavily mostly is in Beastmastery, other than that they do not require much management (such as effects that applied to you and your pet, and clarion bond as far as I can recall, that require you to swap pet to trigger). Additionally, druid can have synergy with pet, especially with it’s solar beam (and other skills lol haven’t looked up further, but sure they have lots of CC and can support each other with pets, and they can have their celestial energy things by healing their pets).

Beside, druid’s new mechanic is its celestial avatar.

paintpixie.7398:

ErickDntn.1847:

So, guys, don’t use the word greedy because it’s not even accurate to describe this matter in any way.

just gonna snip it XD

Agree in general/broad concept of the word.

Although, if you allow me further explain my view on this, the fundamental responsibility for every entity in commerce is their economics responsibility. This is why greed is very subjective, since profit is the main goal for everyone in the game and greed is not something that can be reliably measured (since the limit cannot be defined accurately by different individuals). Money is the motivation, the incentive, to take risk in starting the business. And as you might know, reasonable people play at higher risk for higher rewards.

Nonetheless, using ethical measure, this ‘greed’ (which I consider as the worst form of management outcome and bad ethics) by a company or entity can be identified by how companies identify needs and importance of their stakeholders, voice actors in this very particular case, and how these different entities resolve their problem.

As I said, voice talent is very intangible, actors don’t know what is the value of their voice act until you see it perform in the market, because at this point revenue is the only reliable measurement I can think of. If at the end the video game which has their voice, especially if their voice act is one of the leading voice act/with major involvement in the recording, and they are paid really low in term of the ratio to the revenue, in my logic, that means they are undervalued (emphasize that I use revenue to measure the voice act), Then, although it is self-interested, it does not make one automatically considered as greed (it might make one, but not necessarily).

And whether the developers are under payed or not, that is something we cannot see (although factually among a number of games in NCSoft financial report between 2012 and 2013, GW2 has the second best rank in term of sales), that’s why one of SAG-AFTRA requests in their proposal is transparency, which I assume every bargaining process will require internal report (which basically contains the cost of sale and all of those stuff to determine pricing scheme) so the deal will internalize as many factor as they can. So they know how actually the game perform after the sales accur.

Off topic:
If you think it through, greed sort of come to an effect when a one-sided decision is made, and believe me, it is very not sustainable (why global financial crisis happened, for example). Not many corporations nowadays can survive by exploiting (except if the products are highly addictive or many people need it, such as medicine, but there is why regulation is there), especially when people's awareness of other's welfare is high, and also the presence of such unions. So, many corporations actually act very arbitrary, beyond their legal and even ethical responsibility, which known with their philanthropic contribution

I’m quite surprised that the voice talents don’t get royalties from the publisher, considering Anet sales that have been one of the top based on NCSoft reports in the last two years, even the publisher quiet confident for this year.

I think the absence of residuals payments in this industry is because the lack of unions representation. Companies in general might be too comfortable enjoying naive labor forces with minimal bargaining experience (I’m not only talking these well-paid and experienced voice actors, but those who are new in the industries. I’m probably even talking about game creators, too). It is good that SAG-AFTRA has spoken out about this matter and look after the welfare of its members for this particular industries.

I mean, it doesn’t matter wheter the actors earned $500k for example, if the publisher and developer received $750m the money flow will only be skewed to them. And understand that voice acting is also seasonal job, if you are paid with that one-time payment, considering after the total sales and surely it will generate more money after that, it seems to me that your job is undervalued and you have no sustainable income. Again that is a very extreme example. But what I’m trying to say is that the union tries to avoid such skeweness with that every-2-million-copies cap, and because overall voice talent is so intangible the value ($$$) cannot be accurately reflected but by the sales of the copy itself. because when company gains so much like that, VA and creators who are involved and do not received residuals seem to be externalized.

So, guys, don’t use the word greedy because it’s not even accurate to describe this matter in any way. The lack of residual payments does raise some potentially serious ethical question to me. That is why they want more transparency too so they can actually see the internal report of the company, thus they can negotiate reasonably and to avoid any potential exploitation by companies. They don’t just throw random numbers (but of course they will throw numbers that are most profiting, which is probably what considered as ‘greedy’). And just to say that I don’t think creators such as designers deserve the less, and I hope there will be a union for this group. And, in any case, when these people are entitled for residuals, there might also be different proportion, but I don’t really know much about this.

Of course I believe Anet is highly ethical and always trying to fulfill its social responsibility, and I hope, with NCSoft, they will be addressing and actively involved in overcoming this matter in the future and come out with innovative measures about this.

I think the best way to give feedback about what content you desire is by your experience playing the core game. What lackluster in previous storytelling, if you like, compiled constructively might increase the quality of the content in the future update/expansion. As everyone said, the story and exploration is one of the selling point and it suppose to be wowzer factors on first try, so understandably they limit such content to players.

So yeah, I suppose for this game you get to share your experience with the devs and have faith on them

I don’t think people in the game are aware that sylvari comes from mordremoth, the closest I know is in the story during beta where this charr pact says sylvari are belong to mordremoth. But this is really not clear as she can just assume from the fact that as the giant tendrils strike the airships, so do most of sylvari. And as you said, mordremoth corrupts plant and sylvari are plants, and the only people turned during the attack are only sylvari (just my guess from trailer), she might assume that mordremoth only corrupts sylvari, without actually knowing their actual origin.

Eullo might not know sylvari’s origin as well, or maybe their actual involvement? The one who ask about these sylvari are us (as in why they are there), who already knew where sylvari come from. Frankly its quiet normal because you know the truth about sylvari and Eullo is coincidentally (?) assigned there. The obvious thing, I think, is that the sylvari are there because it’s the Wardens settlement and base operative to fight against the Nightmare Court and other bad guys, while, which is not so obvious since it is temporary, is why Eullo there; positioned to observe the area, although it is quiet absurd why she feels unfortunate that the area is not affected by Mordrem corruption. Probably her thirst of adventure and discovery like a Priory and asuran she is. Anyway, the dialogue is pretty ambigous, especially the follow-up question, the answer sounds irrelevant, too. The one that bugs me though, the sylvari settlement on the west of Ireko Tradecamp, which never really mentioned.

Other than that, I agree with the fact that the name of mordremoth is just suddenly there and we just know it, and why sylvari does not consume magic, though what I know is that we are all using this resource. It is exciting though! Is it because the Grove sylvari have their free will and also affected by their generally goodwill? Thus is consuming and stocking magic safe and/or ethical? How about the Nightmare Court, then? Above all, is it that simple to consume magic? I don’t know much about magic, but so far, I know that in the “What the Eye Beholds”, the magic artifact that has been collected is eventually consumed by the Mouth of Zhaitan, which basically ended in Zhaitan’s tummy. As well as Mordremoth, I think the tendrils almost have similar function, to find magical artifact and absorb magical flow and eventually stock them, since that is the nature of Elder Dragon. Then all the magic consumed by the risen, for example, might be consumed by the Dragon at the end. So what I’m trying to say is that, the nature of the Dragons’ servants who have submitted themselves to the Dragons is what makes them consuming all the magic.

As for hivemind and Mordremoth’s ability to “reproduce”, I am really looking forward whether or not HoT will have these covered (and of course I hope they will! *poking Leah and Bobby XD), or at least have short literatures

Hey, just want to share a build that I love for PvE, I’m using it especially when playing around in SW. Didn’t see this one up on the first page. Many furies, quickness and mighton pet swap, immobilizes for melee terragriff, nice piercing arrow with good positioning, and other stuff. So far did 6 stikes of solo fort defense in SW with this build (which I couldn’t do it with other classes because of my incapability XD). I hope you guys like it

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjEqQHLWyCusAVLG2Dq92Dgz+7gj4p7CuHGiT+wVWB-TRiFABDcBAoTHwgq/UlSQjU+BwjA4MNBzs/QCHBASBExQL-e

Probably it is what these scrappers have achieved in their live made their title remembered and honored?

The thing is that it is harder maybe for players to relate to the name, especially if they have high rank character, given the brief description of the elite specs. It made it seems like limited to these “oppressed” people.

I wonder why anet stopped posting the background lore as they did during living stories. I hope they will release the narrative stories behind elite specs after HoT is released!

Conski Deshan.2057:

The Enrage timers serve an important purpose: While I’m not the biggest fan for them I did suggest something along those lines in the raid CDI. It’s important that a time element is present, to prevent people who may not be using/understanding the mechanics of the fight or fighting well to complete it.

As an existing example: The Ice elemental at the end of the dredge fractal, the mechanic when used correctly causes 10x damage and prevents it from healing, Players completely ignoring that mechanic could eventually kill it, but they failed the test, they did not make use of the conditions set out for the fight. To prevent that from happening the “enrage” so to speak for that boss is that it heals if the buff goes off for too long.

Similarly Liandri, the timer is there to prevent someone running in circles eventually dps’ing her down that’s not really a display of skill but persistence.

As to your suggestion:, DPS management is a thing that occurs in Raids I.E 3 bosses you must keep all bosses within 10% health of each other. Or you must keep boss B above 75% till boss C is below 25%, over do the dps past that , causes 100% retaliation.

Outright punishing DPS, I.E they’re doing all the mechanics correctly and killing it really fast, so lets enrage the boss, is not a good idea, it’s punishing instead of rewarding risk.

In games going full DPS (glass cannon) is seen as a high risk thing , you sacrifice all passive defences for full offence only having your active defences to keep you alive. Since it’s high risk it gets a high reward.
Going full Tank (bunker) is seen as a safe move, your mistakes won’t kill you and you can slowly plod through the content. That’s fine in most content where the punishment is the longer run times. In raids however mistakes/inefficency is punished with complete failure. That is another aspect in ensuring that a player is forced to play to the best of their ability.

TL/DR: Enrage timers are there to promote risky play over safe play/ increase the base skill requirement through the additional pressure of a time element.

Your point is really good, and I agree, I think it is kind of bad if people going very safe and spend too much time in the raids and giving pressure might be the best move for anet to prevent this incentive.
However it seems a little bit one sided while as you said, going full DPS is rewarding while also risky, which might kill the intended diversity (although I have optimist hope that anet will actually tackle this problem with the implementation of raids). But I suppose making a mechanics while it is still risky while your squad emphasizes more into defense plus tank gearing is too complicated to be implemented.

Regarding to whether punishment or not, I find it hard to categorize them and rather let anet decide whether a mechanic would be considered as punishment or added risk to value by the player. But you are right, I missed this point, it is crucial not to or to minimize punishment in the game.

Donari.5237:

It doesn’t have to mean pour on the dps, though, does it? What if the boss enrages if you don’t solve a puzzle fast enough by getting everyone hopping on the correct sequence of colored tiles?

Just an idea that occurred to me reading this thread. There’s lots other things one might have to do fast beyond just hitting hard. The last boss in Glint’s Lair comes to mind, come to think of it. We didn’t directly dps the boss, though we did have to take out little minions fast enough to get the color buff and then scoop up a handy fragile and get to the pylon while both were active. So some dps was needed but mostly it was coordinating the sequence. Not that the boss there enraged, it just took longer and let more errors creep in and used up more resources if you flubbed things.

good thought! I think I missed there might be puzzle, like the one example mentioned by Conski Deshan, too in the boss fight. This far I have only revolved around the monster in the trailer and that lethal howl it does lol! Yeah I agree having sort of timer giving you a pressure, I’m not sure if this will be punishment though?
But if the pressure is necessary, how if the timer is separated from the the enrage effect if it was reversed? So there is a separated timer for the puzzle. One thing I am concerned is that it will be too much burden or too complicated.

Zalavaaris.5329:

An enrage timer is all about balance. If you make tankyness an optimal option for a Raid and say they make supporty builds meta there would be no incentive to go zerker. Getting rid of the all zerker meta is important but making them obsolete is bad too because instead of offering diversity it just switches from one pure meta to another to another pure meta. This is going to be great for diversity IF THEY DO IT CORRECTLY lol.

SkiTz.4590:

Enrage timers are a necessary evil

Otherwise everyone will just load out with the most tanky/support spec and just survive and slowly win, guaranteed.

Enrage timers suck, but they at least require a bit more diversity and skill than a typical “we’ll just make sure we can survive the boss and just slowly dps him while watching a movie”

I didn’t mean to say that people should go tanky XD good point though! Well I suppose it will make players to consider their time value if they reverse the current enrage mechanic. It’s kind of making player to think through their build components in their squad. I belive that there should not be meta, BUT if player want to go full damage or full tanky as a mean of challenge or just for fun, but not occasional mean, they can do so. But do consider that they need to kitten the risks either they go full damage or even full tanky, because, as it is stated in the announcement, there are several other mechanisms that will require player to be mobile, for example they have to use glider when the boss going to do that lethal howl in the trailer, so even if . So I hope that if they spend too much time dealing with the boss with my reversed-enrage-effect, there are also other threats that will further prevent players doing damage to the boss, hence if players go to extreme tanky, they will spend a hideous amount of time there (by damage prevention, I’m not emphasizing only about invulnerability, could be healing or crowd control by minions, or that explosive thingy they mentioned they need to be kited or anything really).

Because to compare to current enrage mechanism, it seems like every penalty be given only if you don’t kill it as fast as possible. So I think spreading the penalty over will make it more even??

But again not encouraging too safe play is a good point and also anet stated that they don’t want to make raid take too much time so I agree to an extent!

Hi everyone, first of all, I can’t describe how excited I am to see it how the raid will works by myself. Although I am not hard to the core player, I still love group challenge as it gives me opportunity to practice group dynamic and deal with people in general

So one of the boss feature that is mentioned in the recent post is that “they most assuredly will enrage if you take too long to kill them”. I’m not sure what will happen if the boss is “enraged”, but I assume that the simplest form of it is that the boss will have its damage increased or their attack will be more lethal. It is interesting to me because what I can extract from this is that it will give player the incentive to kill the boss faster. Now, I understand that anet is working on the issue where there is a lack of diversity and I’m not saying people will be motivated to go full zerk because of this (it might be however), I only mean that people will try to eliminate the boss as fast as possible by all means.

Here is my thought, how if the boss will enrage if they receive really high rate of damage in a period of time, or put simply the opposite of the currently stated.

First, logically, hostile creatures that their live is threated in general will become more aggressive, or enraged in this context.

Second, it will require players to manage their time and damage output, “should we try to finish it fast with the risk of enraging the boss or should we endure the battle longer?”. It might also relate to the mix of gear stats and build of the players in the squad. And to be honest, I have very minimum knowledge in MMO, but to the extent of my knowledge, I have never seen/heard any content that require such management, so it would be a new experience to me. I will be honest though, even if the mechanism I mentioned suggest different alternatives, it is restricting to an extent. Also, there might be a potential standardized way to do the raid, such as doing it faster is the best and so on.

At the end, I don’t really know what anet want to emphasize with this specific boss feature. I can understand it though if they put the mechanism as it is (enrage if took too long) so the players will take it down faster, thus they are required to fulfill their role to their maximum potential and ultimately finishing the battle in the fastest rate.

Anyway, I might externalize so many aspects in both mechanisms of this boss feature. So what do you think guys?

As you said, people assume thief will get rifle.
Ranger elite spec is said to be called druid with staff, not only appear in the trailer, anet themselves even mentioned and used druid with staff as example when explaining about elite specs.

However you are also right that this is not official and subject to changes. But the probability is quite high considering what I have said, in my opinion.

But how about the challenge playing with players with different playstyle and standing-ground?

Quarktastic.1027:

ErickDntn.1847:

I love how it actually fits my gallant ranger :o
It felt epic when I was defending amber sandfall alone for 5 consecutive attacks XD

I tried it on my ranger. It takes dye really well, and it’s well animated (very little clipping), but It’s not really my ranger’s style.

Though it goes great with gallant weapons.

Yeah, I love giving backstory while playing and my ranger has several backstories changed several time lol. He is currently sent by noble family to defend the house XD

I used to dye my magitech armor, which I find sort of suitable, with gold, and a little of abyss and chocolate and equipped with gallant weapons, somehow it makes it looks like he wore a partially metal armor and fits gallant weaps theme. Tried balthazar and ceremonial, but they look too much for this one. Royal guard outfit really changed the game hahaha

I love how it actually fits my gallant ranger :o
It felt epic when I was defending amber sandfall alone for 5 consecutive attacks XD

From what I can imply from their PAX presentation, they seem to have a commitment not to monetize hard from the gemstore, though cosmetics and convenience items are still the main feature of the store basically

Although I have a thief with steam punk secret agent theme and really want rifle for her to complete the theme, but I think I can figure something out with a staff

Really love thief for pve, especially open world <3

just to voice my opinion.

I agree with some people here. I think the slow outcome by chronomancer needs to be toned down a little bit.
Other than that, I find that chronomancer is a great spec in a right track so far.
Good job Robert Gee and the devs team

Also, is continuum rift supposed to be invulnerable?

I was thinking about this too.

I actually prefer the new version it adds diversity in condi outcome for Mesmer as Silverkey said. But it feels the projectile is also something needs to changed, IMO.

I always imagine if iMage mechanism is changed by removing the projectile, but still a ranged attack. So you can imagine it will be like scepter ele fire attunement skill 1. Instead of bounced attack, it burns and/or gives fury to up to 4 enemies and/or allies in the radius/cone/whatever might fit and not too overpowering.

ok again Aomine, your issue is that you have Autotarget on, and you want it off. Your pet will seek for nearby enemies even though you don’t target anyone.

To solve this you have to go “Game Menu” —-> “option” —-> “General Options” tab —-> “Combat/Movement” —-> and untick “Autotargeting” option.

Because I have test your issue and I think autotarget is the one that bothering you and it is exactly what causes things that happen to you.

Wow you are getting pretty annoyed and irrational with your auto-targetting option on huh? Turn it off. Go to " option" if you don’t know where to start and your problem is solved.

Regarding to the wolf case, yes your wolf will run into the thief if you select him/her as a target and the wolf will likely to continue to execute their F2 although the thief getting stealth, especially during the execution of the skill. But the good thing is that you are the one with the brain! You CAN control it as long as you aware what is going on. If you know the thief is getting stealth, you can cancel your wolf F2 by pressing F3. But switching your pet while your current pet is executing their skill will deny their effect and put the skill into recharge/cooldown state.

All I was doing when I watched the twitch was imagining some asura turret engie guarding the door with their little rifle.

I don’t even know why.

But I do agree how massive it would be when you are playing 10v10 GvG battle! WOO

but again

more turret engie.

Just want to add on pvp. As BarnabeJonez says, it would be really frustrating if you are still new with the pvp environment, especially when several of the players are used to it. It is hard to find a good match in hot join and unranked/ranked match might turn to be an unpleasant experience for you (assuming you have no experience in spvp).

My suggestion is that after you find your desired build, go to hotjoin server list and find “dueling” server. There you can shout out to the players and ask them to help you understanding the mechanism of your build. If you feel confident you can try to find a hotjoin match for further practice or jump into competitive matches.

But if you need help you can contact me in game. I do not know much about warrior, but I can teach you a little bit about ranger and mesmer, and maybe I can show you further tips for playing in hotjoin and unranked.

Good luck!

Hey there, don’t need to worry. I lost my serial number too. Luckily I made gem transaction not long before I need to recover my password. Just send a ticket, with more personal detail filled, especially the transaction information you have, you will get quiet fast response.
Last time I need to change my email it only took me 1 business day to get a reply.

Hope that will make you less worried!

Welcome back! I hope you will enjoy new changes that the devs have made. As Seal suggested, trying out the level leveling system with a new character would be a nice start to see how things have changed.

If you missed out the season 1 or a part of it, you can check this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/I-want-to-know-what-happened-in-Season-1/first#post4796686

Some player posted small notes and link videos. I would recommend you to scroll down and see Xiahou Mao post on that thread to see structured recap of season 1.

I’m pretty annoyed actually when the op said “Behave like first time in dungeon” to describe the cluelessness in the game.

Here, I almost got 11k AP and there are 11 explorable dungeons I haven’t done and only lv 2 or 3 fractals idc. And I buy my account officially from the website and I’ve played it since beta.

So in total I have spent 2.8k hours for the past 900 days.

And then, there are these players who are shallow and narrow-minded who act like dungeon is the only “major part of the game knowledge” who will look down upon you if you don’t know what to do (especially if you got “AP +5k”??). I mean surely I can watch youtube and guide before dive in to the instance, but it feels more rewarding when I learn it myself and even better if party member(s) can teach me because that means more interaction in the party.

Well idk about the validity of most tactics are “stand together in a corner and push a button”, but that makes it sounds like really rigid and will not work especially if one or more of your team members is not geared up or below 80 for middle to low lvl dg. Tbh i don’t like to discriminate players based on their level or their gear so you need to try to work things up rather than stacking in the corner.

TL;DR: instead of being a “knowledgeable” dungeon player, try to be a completely knowledgeable player in the game.

Above all, I didn’t mean to stereotype dungeon players, it’s just some player who are really annoying and make the game unenjoyable when it comes to trying out new things, dungeon in my case, luckily there are more players who are more helpful and really have the knowledge to help others out and I am seriously thank you if you are one of them, you guys make the game more playable and keeping it alive. Again, all is just saying. Peace out

I think for the salvage kit case it is purposely designed to be so. It worked similarly as like gear that you can’t stack with each other, regardless of the number of use on each stack. IMO it means to make player manage their inventories especially when it come to salvaging. Why? I don’t know exactly but probably why the infinite salvage kit comes, to provide more convenience to salvage items.

no

Some might be? But not all I believe. At least for Necromancer.

Necromancer using Greatsword is an art that is currently developed at least by Marjory. So I am sure there will be lore background, but not all Maguuma-themed.

I’m already thinking about Revenant spec (I don’t know if they will get one though but I would assume they’ll get one) XD
Called Astralists, they summon spirits from the Mists to posses their foes and allies. Don’t know about the weapon but Torch I think would fit (according to my imagination :p) and of course a number of supporting utility skills

This video probably?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9LrN-LD-ZI

Shows an alliance known as the Molten Alliance that you have to deal with basically, afterward the attempt of assassination of the member of Captain Council by the Skypirates. At the end we know that Scarlet was behind those attacks as she appears in Divinity’s Reach.

and also
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH2JGRkopyA

The video shows the beginning of her attacking Divinity’s Reach, then the revelation of Nightmare Tower where the Hero has to dealwith the Toxic Alliance (an alliance made by scarlet which consist of the Krait and the Nightmare Court), then the giant Marionette fight, and above all how what she’s done is actually a distraction for her bigger plot to attack Lion’s Arch

There are so many details that I probably missed since I also couldn’t play GW2 at the middle of the season 1.

Added
I usually play around morning or evening GMT +7
Catch you around!

The idea to repaint or dye skill effect seems awesome tbh (but I agree about leaving the butterflies out there for mesmer, that makes them mesmer imo), could be matched with your sets of armor or outfits color theme probably

But I don’t know I imagine it would be visually a little bit confusing with so many different color, I mean many more than we used to see, in big world or group content. Maybe?

evilunderling.9265:

I’ve said this before, but there was another weapon reveal in the trailer that’s not in the list in the OP. The segment starting here shows a girl dressed in incarnate armour with a stowed sword and dagger, likely implying that elementalist will get mainhand sword, although it could also be a reveal of daggers for mesmers, swords for necromancers, or even more far-fetched possibilities.

This shot here might also be a reveal — the character on the right dodging through the fire is a guardian based on the use of Selfless Daring, but while I think he might be dual-wielding something, I can’t make it out.

I just got a time and checked the video and so STUNNED right now

I couldn’t find the dagger on that girl though, only the sword, but yeah I have a feeling that ele is gonna get a sword so kitten yeah! XD
For the second segment you show, actually that asura (the one on the right as you said?) is not the Guardian, he is something else (my guess is Warrior since he is wearing Draconic Legging at least) and probably wielding a bow, either longbow or short bow. In fact the Guardian is the girl on the left with that legendary GS

And Rytlock’s “polearm” might actually be a staff? Assessing from the sound it makes (sounds like a blunt weapon, not slash, and the edge/head is too small for a hammer)

Wait one question, this Specialization also applied to Revenant right?

gervasium.4567:

Ashen.2907:

CMF.5461:

Players are served a plate of mush and they hate it.

Players are served a plate of mush, and an after meal mint…and they love it!

Are we talking one of those red and white spiral mint hard candies or an Andes chocolate mint ? Mmmmm Andes.

Different people like different things. To some the most recent episode is not mush. Not sure if I will play it. I absolutely hate playing someone else’s character. If the Caith memory seed BS had been handled with a cinematic I wouldn’t have minded, but requiring me to play her in order to progress the story left a bad taste.

This time the only thing you do as Caithe is press f.

Actually you can plug off your keyboard and “play” as Caithe in the latest episode while cooking soufflé.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

ErickDntn.1847:

http://imgur.com/a/MBtyV

Someone uploaded that conversation which mentions Mordremoth’s corruption on Ceara, apparently will only show up if you are Sylvari.

At least that is what the Pale Tree thinks.

Even there, though, the Pale Tree qualifies that it’s what she believes. She does not state it as objective fact.

Like I said, all evidence points to it, but I don’t think ANet is done holding it over our heads just yet and I’m hesitant to commit to the interpretation until we’ve seen this plot through.

Yes, that is what she believes, what she thinks, she only knows and is sure that Ceara refused her protection, whatever that means. I only think that her opinion is worth to be mentioned along. But of course it is too soon to claim anything since what nightmare she actually had.