Guild Wars 2

I recommend a Bear/Bow
Play your Ranger, it’s a Ranger not a Hunter, Hunter isn’t a thing. Get yourself a bear because bears suck up agro. Get yourself a longbow. Stand at range and kill things that your bear is distracting. It’s the easiest class to play hands down in Open world PvE. Once you’ve gotten a better handle on the game and how everything works, then work up your Necro, which is a little bit more involved with an entire different combat set built into it.

I mained Ranger from the beginning, they super easy to play. You can always tell a former WoW player cause that is the only game that has ever called a ranger something other than ranger.

When you use a boost it will transport you immediately to the Silverwastes, a zone that could be considered “The Endgame” content of core Tyria. You will be granted Elite Gear, possibly with a class specific stat set. I wasted my HoT boost for the shared slot, so I only have experience from the PoF boost on a warrior, which gave me soldier’s stats. Anyway, I recommend bumbling around in there, doing nonmeta stuff, or get in on the big fights if you like. After doing that for a while, decline the boost. That should take you back and let you then use the boost on a different character.

Another thing you could do, would be to travel to Lion’s Arc and go to the Mists, this will also make you level 80 with all skills and traits so you can test things out there against training dumbies and class dumbies. There is also a PvP arena.

Honestly, if it were me, I would do map clearing on the six cities and five starter zones. That alone should bring you to 20-30 and doesn’t really take all that long. Then you’ll have a better idea how much you like your classes, before jumping to max level

I have to assume you’re a longbow ranger, because I can’t think of any other reason you would care. What is your weapon swap, though?

It doesn’t really matter, my point was actually, are you not running piercing arrow? No, longbow doesn’t have cleave, but that doesn’t mean it only hits one target. I’ve been running longbow since before day one of the game, back when ranger was a serious joke and even then I’ve always been able to hit multiple targets. Also, I rarely have to stack for anything.

Even then, if you’re being forced into melee, pull out a melee weapon, and melee. If you have to stack, then stack. If you don’t want to stack, then don’t. If you don’t and you die, or you don’t and you get left behind, then you only have yourself to blame, but at least you were playing the way you wanted to play.

maddoctor.2738:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Not So Secret is a pain. It and Draconis Mons are probably the two worse puzzles in the game, and both of them are from problems at the beginning of the puzzle.

I disagree. Draconis Mons is an easy JP and I don’t remember it having any issues at the beginning. The one that is hard (and really hard at the beginning) is the one in Ember Bay

Oh, you’re right, I was confusing Ember Bay and Draconis Mon.

Not So Secret is a pain. It and Draconis Mons are probably the two worse puzzles in the game, and both of them are from problems at the beginning of the puzzle.

I feel like you’re doing it wrong. Why do you need to spend more than a glance at the minimap every so often to get all the information you need? Nodes pop up pretty far out.

I love how the OP specifically points out how he understands that there is a way to unbind it. This isn’t about this. This about an automatic switch that when you don’t have enough endurance to use the special jump to automatically use the normal jump until you can use the special jump again.

I don’t think this is actually possible. Or if it is it is WAY more complicated than it may seem. Separating the keys is probably the best choice

You can name it whatever you want. Why does anyone else have to see it for you to name it?

Ashantara.8731:

So that’s it? I just started and the stress test is already over? GG, got kicked out of the first mission. That really wasn’t worth creating and customizing a character for an hour.

Conncept.7638:

And it’s over

Only got to try out two specs

That’s tons more than I got to do.

Yeah, they said it was four a couple hours. Stress tests aren’t long drawn out things. they’re not for testing builds. If you wanted to test something you needed to know exactly what you wanted up front and do only that. Otherwise you should have just made a minion master and stressed the zone.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted and I’ve got some new characters and one updated character

I don’t think we have enough information to say we’ll need to swap quickly between them. I feel like each will have specific uses, but we’ll have time to swap them when we need them.

frayon.3984:

How long does this last? In 40 minutes I will be meeting with a client for a school project and can’t log in until around 7-7:30 MT. .
So, I am just curious how long the stress test will last for there is no info here.

They said a couple hours, but that is probably pushing it

Sometimes support will brush you off, but when you know you’re in the right I’ve never had them fail to help.

I wasn’t going to get involved but I will anyway.

Two thing:
1) Colin is gone, with his departure came a huge readjustment to the practices and direction of GW2. To believe that any promises that Colin made would be upheld is naive at best. So his assurances are less than worthless at this time.

2) What value, exactly? These are imaginary items in an imaginary economy that brings you nothing. What exactly do you gain by being the kingpin of the fake money of Tyria? Is it just the ability to buy more Gems with gold instead of real money that keeps you going? Or that you can have whatever you want on the trading post? Is there a cap to the amount of gold you can carry that you needed to convert it into items?

I recommend a Naga, or other multi thumb button mouse to increase real estate.

That said I assumed mounts would work similar to gliders or ranger pets. You have your mount, which you have to swap out to use a different one.

Venoo.8029:

Are we able to play the new Elite specs in the Stress Test?

This is confirmed on the first page

I want power, vitality and healing power without toughness. I run clerics on my rnager which gives me really good survivability with healing power and armor, but I would like to trade out some of my toughness for vitality and have more than the least HP without sacrificing my regen or sustain.

My Sylvari Dragonslayer is black with silver white secondary in Blue armor
My Sylvari Mesmer is Green with Orange Red secondary in plant armor of the same coloration
My Sylvari Warrior is colored like tree bark with yellowish secondary in dark green, brown and chrome
My Sylvari Reaper is colored white with sickly green secondary in black

It’s whatever you want it to be. When making the character make sure to swap between armor on and off and also between night and day to get a sense of the bioluminescence.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Will we be getting the same two characters? I want to test out my Deadshot build in the actual game, but if there is still time I’m totally down for minion mastering

I am going to figure that it’s most likely that previous demo characters will be wiped. But if not, one of the devs suggested you make a new character for this stress test. That’s because the previous character build may no longer be relevant; in fact if I heard him right, it may not even be functional. With a fresh character, you’ll have the most reasonable experience of the current game and that will make your experience and the stress test most valid. You are certainly welcome to create a new character that exactly replicates your previous demo character, or spin off one totally different — as you wish. Thanks!

Kal Spiro.9745:

Will we be getting the same two characters? I want to test out my Deadshot build in the actual game, but if there is still time I’m totally down for minion mastering

You are more than welcome to try any profession or build. We’re not expressly asking anyone to use a certain profession — I think it would be best to have a variety. Thanks for asking.

I meant, will it be two open slots, or would I need to delete the new character and make another? The other two demos had two open slots

Will we be getting the same two characters? I want to test out my Deadshot build in the actual game, but if there is still time I’m totally down for minion mastering

If the issue was an actual artistic decision, then I would say that’s nonsense. First off they already break that with a handful of tops for female adventurers. I have a ranger and a daredevil without any butt capes.

This is a mechanical question. Can they put in a mask that cuts off everything at the join between torso and legs without breaking the look of any of the tops, and I’m pretty sure the answer is no. There are definitely some tops that would be messed up as a result, my main uses one of them.

I’m not interested in the argument, if it wouldn’t look good don’t use it. Obviously I’m not interested in using this feature on that character. ANet, though, is not going to implement a feature that actively breaks some of their art. It has to be all or nothing. they can all be changed in the same one shot method without messing up any of them, or none of them get the change at all.

I really like the idea, but I don’t think it’s feasible.

Are we not taking into account that HoT isn’t required for PoF? Therefore handicapping people who just get PoF because they could have gotten HoT it extremely lame. Let the people who played through HoT but didn’t spend their points on the elite buy out the elite in PoF. Who does it hurt?

This is beside the amount of people enraged by HoT requiring them to farm HoT HPs in order to get their hands on the Elite, instead of being able to just make a level 80 character at launch and complete the elite. They learned from their mistake, sort of.

I could definitely see a Fractal of this work. It would be pretty long, though, and wouldn’t be as epic in scope as the original event, but it could still be fun.

You come in at the first lane, possibly with a speech from Taimi about what’s going on, and have to fight a wave of clockworks. They would make it a timed thing rather than a number. They could even have Priory NPCs in the lane as additional bodies to make it seem larger, kind of like the changed made to Thaumanova Fractal with all the Inquest NPCs. Then you rush the portal and end up on a random platform with your group to fight the first boss. The rest of the platforms are populated with Priory NPCs as well as the remaining DE 2.0 members (they weren’t a proper guild yet.)

Once you beat the boss in your platform you move on to the next platform. Marjory has something to say then you go that event. Each lane had a different mechanic, so that’s the event you have to complete while you wait for time to charge the portal and move on to the next platform boss. Each Boss fight happens on a different platform, so by the end you’ve been on each of the five platforms, but the order is also random so each time you do the fractal the timing is slightly different because you’re in a different spot.

If I recall correctly the third lane is Braham, the fourth is Kassmyr, and the fifth is Rox. They can each have something to say about the situation. Then at the end you get the collapsed Marionette with the chest and the five characters available to say whatever they had to say back then.

I don’t care what’s being proposed. Didn’t even read it. You had me Marionette back. Yes this, whatever this is, yes.

Hupsel.1920:

Hey guys

Loving the game as always, looking forward to the expansion. I am finally playing through Living World season 3 and there is a lot of content there, so congrats and thanks for that! There is one problem, though, which has plagued many missions in Guild Wars 2.

Story missions, especially those with bosses, are way too hard or unfair for solo players.

Yeah, yeah, this is a MMO and blablabla but I bet there are tons of players out there that queue alone and try the story missions. It sucks that a lot of bosses can destroy you so fast. I think that some of them would be okay for 2-3 players but in solo play you just hit your head against the wall, respawn and go at it again. The design is so bad that it doesn´t matter if you die – you can respawn, the boss has the same health as before then you just continue fighting it, dying and repeating.

I think some mobs could be scaled down for single player play and a lot of bosses could do less damage – maybe even as far as 40-50% less damage.

Thanks!

Sorry, but I only play Story solo and I’ve never had issues with the bosses. Some of them are tough, but they’re beatable. I can definitely see some, maybe even many, builds having issues with some of the bosses. If you made a glass cannon and wonder why you’re getting crushed, that’s why.

Maybe invest in a better build that’s more rounded.

Great, thanks

I really don’t want to run through the initial story if I’m not going to get a key at the end, so when does the week reset?

maddoctor.2738:

Many people posting here still think that mounts will be used only as a speed boost that allows you to reach events faster than walking. If that was the case, why do they all have unique special abilities? And why are those special abilities movement abilities?

Mounts will be required in PoF and their abilities too. That’s what makes the mounts of PoF good mounts instead of terrible mounts, like in other games where they are just speed boosts.

It’s also important to note that they remove your skill bar and replace it with their own. They only have one skill, at the moment. There is room for the rest of those skill slots to be filled in during the course of LS4, at which point who knows what Mounts will mean to the game. It’s potentially a whole new play system.

Torolan.5816:

Ardid.7203:

Torolan.5816:

Ardid.7203:

Hyrai.8720:

in HoT it takes you 10min to figure out a way from the ground to a location 50m higher, in PoF it takes tyou 10min to run a (mostly) linear but longer way with just a few mount-jumps. I really don’t see the problem of less waypoints.

This is exactly the reason I don’t like PoF approach. It transforms a game that compels you to explore, to think and to try again into… pressing “forward” key 10 minutes (Or not even that, if you know where the autorun is)…

Maybe I should rethink my stance on mounts after reading this. You already lost me with the word compel.

If a giant rabbit, a teleporter jackal, a hoverboard turned octopus and other animals save me from entering another tangled depths map ever again, I gladly welcome my new mount overlords!^^

Sorry, english is not my primary language. I’m probably wrong with the word.
How do you say something that is defying yet fun, vs something that is spoonfeed-ing-ly boring?

I understood your post in a way that you wanted to say that you like a navigationally challenging map more than an easy map.

I personally hate maps that deny me access to events with hidden paths or large gliding sequences, especially the ones where you have to start from scrath after making a single mistake. i don´t know how often I was looking for the right way up to the Nuhoch village from the waypoint there.
Finding some MPs was simply nervegrinding and I only managed to make some because a friend guided me through them. Tangling depths is lorewise quite nice, but it is a chore if you leave the lanes.

Whole maps should not be reflex or perception tests. Therefore GW2 has optional jumping puzzles.

I’m OK with more Verdant Brink, but yeah, I could do with far less Tangled Depths. You can’t even use the map paths, because they may be for a level you’re not even on, but are close enough to only see that level.

I could, though, gone for more map layer disparity in PoF than appears to be part of it. I liked that there were distinct layers in HoT that made a smaller map significantly larger.

Lahmia.2193:

Kal Spiro.9745:

The reason these legendaries require HoT is because they are the HoT Legendaries. They promised us a full cluster of legendaries with HoT and so they are all intrinsically tied to HoT. Until they’ve finished the set no Legendaries should be tied to PoF

They only promised the original 3 to be released with HoT. The rest were to be released with new content as we went along.

But back to the OP.

No. You’ve presented no credible reason for this change. You’ve only stated “I don’t like doing this, so I shouldn’t have to do it for the reward.”

No, they actively promised ALL the new legendaries, then they couldn’t deliver and only gave us 3, they have since been working on delivering the rest. They still did actually promise all of the legendaries with HoT, as such these are all still the HoT legendaries as far as I’m concerned.

Mounts aren’t useless, but they have been shoehorned into the game. I have long been against them, because they’re unnecessary. That said, they’re fun, and that’s really all that matters. They are functionally different from mounts in other games because they are not just a cosmetic speed boost. They also have specific functionality that makes them more interesting.

They will make it easier than ever before to break out of the maps, though.

The reason these legendaries require HoT is because they are the HoT Legendaries. They promised us a full cluster of legendaries with HoT and so they are all intrinsically tied to HoT. Until they’ve finished the set no Legendaries should be tied to PoF

FrizzFreston.5290:

Pay 2 Win here means “winning” the rewards by paying instead of playing content.

I don’t think there is any problem with making older unavailable skins available again. It does give people to have another chance at previous rewards.

Though I do criticize the way they made it available again.

I mean, If you were going to choose between putting it in the gemstore and putting it behind some ingame content, surely you wouldnt pick the gemstore?

Yeah, but that’s not what pay2win means and it never has been. Pay2win means you gain a quantifiable advantage in game by spending real money for it. If the Molten Jet Pack let you literally fly ingame and go anywhere you want then selling it would be a quantifiable advantage since flight isn’t a thing otherwise. But it can’t, it’s just another way to receive a cosmetic reward that some people previously received through specific content.

Tyger.1637:

Several LW1 rewards were made available via the Laurel Vendor too and I don’t see that being brought up as an example of “See? They started making ‘exclusive’ stuff available before!”. And as long as the Wardrobe exists; every skin and mini should be possible to get in some form. Sovereign skins should be next.

That just means you missed it. This has happened every single time that any item has become available again for any reason. They have brought back old skins in festivals that were available once, then not again, and people freak out every time. Then when it becomes clear that ANet doesn’t care and it’s not going away they get over themselves and that becomes the new reality until the next time.

demitel.1340:

I’m going to be mad if Anet decides to give Emissary of the Mad King title and Mad Memoires back bag to new players.

Even if I have Synergetic Tempered Spinal Blades and used a lot of money for it back then when it was relatively new, I can somewhat understand why they are doing this for Living Story items which are not available or ortherwise hard to get.

OMG, yes. Mad Memories should definitely be in a box. Titles shouldn’t, titles are earned, and nothing here has indicated anything about buy titles, only skins. I would very much like to see more people with Mad Memories.

Odinius.9826:

Yes I was there and no I don’t mind other people that have been eyeballing these unobtainable items for almost 4 years to finally get to add them to their game-experience.
I also like to add that as a person that has a 50/50 GWAMM account, I really hope they add a HoM box to the store next.
Yes we worked our bottoms off
Yes the titles should be kept exclusive to the ones that earned them, but be reasonable here.
Nobody is gonna grind through 4 installments of a game that has lost most of it’s population, making some things just not doable.
We’ve been sitting on these HoM items for 5 years, and I love them, but never really use them.
And though there are exceptions, not many do imo.

I would drop an unreasonable amount of money to get the racoon mini… I tried, and I played GW for a while, but I don’t enjoy it enough, it seems, to do what I need to get that far in the achievements.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Thoughtless and selfless potion bother me the most. It was very hard. Almost impossible to get two, so you got only one. Now they just sell on tp. It’s sort of not loyal to old players imo. Sure new players deserve stuff, but then what did we farm our butt for? Can i now demand every time i miss content (souvenirs), that you sell them on trade post arenanet?

There is no longer a such thing as missed content. If you don’t manage to unlock a season episode it becomes available on the TP. So they are actually doing exactly that. They just such a strong and negative reaction for the original “season” that they changed everything to accommodate it. You cannot miss content anymore. It just may become very difficult based on zone activity.

Dante.1763:

Doesnt bother me at all, frankly i wish players had a way to get some of the HoM rewards, because i barely see anybody using them anyways.

Anybody can get HoM rewards, it just takes getting Guild Wars and the last expansion, then linking the accounts.

While I did it before GW2 came out I bought GW after GW2 and have been gradually working my way toward the Racoon mini. I have not been making a lot of progress lately.

Charrbeque.8729:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Kal Spiro.9745:

That depends entirely on you. But, the Ultimate edition is worth $93.75 based on the Gem cost of items and the dollar cost of Gems. The price difference between the Deluxe and Ultimate editions is literally the cost of 4000 Gems. I used the Gems to buy the 3500 Gem starter box, then bought another $50 worth of Gems. I don’t even feel bad about it.

Kind of this, although my perspective is a bit different.

Basic Edition is $30.
Deluxe Edition is $55.
Ultimate is $80.
4000 Gems costs $50.

Basic + Gems = $80, which is the price of the ultimate edition. Therefore, the discount is getting the extras offered for free. The extras are the Character Slot; Identity Repair Kit; Elon Pass and Spearmarshal’s Presence. Those items have a cost associated with them. One could say that the discount consists of what it would take in gold or $ to get the Deluxe upgrade. Or, one could say that value of the discount is whatever value one sees in those 4 extras.

You’re a bit off there. The only difference between the deluxe and ultimate edition is the ultimate comes with 4,000 gems. Essentially, you’re paying an extra $25 for 4k gems when normally they would cost $50, so you get the gems at half price.

My accounting didn’t take into account the price of the game, or any of that. I just priced out the cash values directly. 4000 is $50. I may still have some mistakes, cause I thought it came out even with the Ultimate being the Deluxe plus 4000 Gems.

Thought I may also have been figuring the wrong cash value for the 4000

Heironeous.4928:

Does it not make ANYBODY else that fought through the Scarlet’s War content angry that just any new kid with money can just get the same items that I busted my butt for? What about the countless hours of farming that we spent trying to collect shards and blades and all the million trillion pieces that it took to make the spinal blade back items with the colors. Also, the scarlet’s kiss and rainbow items being so easily obtainable if you just throw boatloads of money into the gem store sucks pretty hard too. Honestly, I feel like it’s not worth staying up to date on the content to get rare or exclusive stuff because someday I’ll just be able to buy it.

Maybe its just selfish but my time is valuable and I chose to spend it here so that I could get exclusive and cool stuff for my character and now that time counts for nothing because I cant show my battle scars of playing this game with pride since EVERYBODY has access to be just like me. If that’s the case, just give me a pair of the holographic dragon wings for like 3000 gems so that I too can fill in the missing special event items with ease.

Those fights were excruciating at times and now those hard-earned battles are diminished. And the story lines we had to do to GET to those battles… smh

It was years ago, no, I don’t mind at all. I actually got the Statics Spinal Blade because of this. I was there for all of it, but I didn’t farm “hard” enough to get the red orbs, but thanks to this I got the 10 I needed and the gift of blades so I didn’t have to make it. I’ve been sitting on every level of the Blades for all this time, but I wasn’t willing to shell out the gold to finish it, now I didn’t need to. I’m very happy they did this.

And honestly, if someone wants to shell out the cost it would take to buy the jet pack, more power to them.

That depends entirely on you. But, the Ultimate edition is worth $93.75 based on the Gem cost of items and the dollar cost of Gems. The price difference between the Deluxe and Ultimate editions is literally the cost of 4000 Gems. I used the Gems to buy the 3500 Gem starter box, then bought another $50 worth of Gems. I don’t even feel bad about it.

So, again, it’s entirely up to you. If there are some things you want out of the Gems, then go for it. If you might want to hang onto a cache of Gems for a while, then go for it. If you don’t really care about Gems and Gem store items, then Deluxe might be a better choice.

Take into mind that the value of both the Deluxe and Ultimate exceeds the cost of each, and that value doesn’t even take into account that you also get the expansion with it.

If, by physical box, you mean what you get in stores, I don’t think the Deluxe, nor Ultimate is available, but I’ve never done the physical box, so I could easily be wrong. If you can buy the Ultimate in stores then it has to have the Gems, because that’s part of what comes with it.

I did a breakdown of the items compared to their current Gem Store value and determined that the Ultimate edition had a $93.75 value, just for the Gem Store items. I don’t typically buy Gems, but I figured that if I would also be getting the game for free at that point I was willing.

Also, I enjoy this game. No matter how many times I leave the game to do other things I always come back, and I always continue to enjoy it. I was going to get the expansion, so I might as well have gotten it them.

Except the wings were always exclusively BLTC. They would come back again and again so making them gliders wouldn’t upset anyone because they would just get them the next time they came around. They were worth the resources to do because they would always be worth money.

All of these backpacks you’re interested in were not and never had anything to do with the BLTC before. They would be spending resources to accommodate something very few people had and that for the most part more people would never have because they were nonrepeatable content. That’s a waste of time and effort.

I was going to say that short of making each of these backpacks a straight BLTC skin they won’t make them gliders too retroactively because it would mean that anyone can buy them without earning them, kittening off those that went to the trouble.

However, that is kind of the case now. It’s just a variable amount of gems to effectively buy each of them as a skin. You still have to build the Spinal Backpack, but you can buy all the parts to do it. So we’re probably getting closer.

So I’ve recently created a character design and I really feel that the Wreath of Cooperation would look great for it. I checked it out and it looks like it was a BL item from after Scarlet.

Has this come back to the BLTC since then? I don’t recall it, but then I hadn’t been looking for it. Now that I am I just want to make sure it’s in the rotation.

All rares and exotics are map skins. Rares are the Elona skins. Exotics are the Sunspear skins. There are no special ascended skins I’m aware of.

That’s unfortunate, I had it drop a minimum of 4 times with the ten keys (read 13 since the 3 dupes were returned as keys) I got from the PoF starter pack.

RNG is RNG, there is no way to know for certain.

I really liked treasure maps, that was cool. I found the Mastery points cool, but was disappointed at nonrepeatable content for the more involved ones. I am ok with unidentified gear, but I think it should be exclusively for greens and blues so that they can be disregarded entirely. The chance to get a rare/exotic skin makes them an annoying money skin that feels required, followed by a money sink to salvage.

I had a lot of fun. I was very sceptical about mounts. I have been an opponent of the idea any time it comes up in the forums. I thought it was done well, and I think I can live it. I also really enjoy the idea of them being more than just a cosmetic speed boost. The race was fun. so was the Raptor Heart, catching fireflies.

I really appreciate the improvements you’re making with mob movement. I enjoyed the story, I thought the heart was meaningful. I look forward to how things progress and for the new elites.

I will wait until I actually get to experience them before deciding one way or another.