Guild Wars 2

I can’t even go in. I reach the character selection screen, click a character, and the game tells me something about can’t access the server, crashes me to desktop, and… reloads again.

I bought the entire Vigil heavy armor set because they look nice, to skin it on level 80 warrior. After obtaining the skins, I tried to sell them to the vendors in LA. No go, but not surprised.

Then, I tried to Mystic Forge them away.

Also no go.

Which was a surprise.

I don’t know if it’s a glitch. I ended up destroying them.

Also, couldn’t salvage them. Too bad, they were Yellows.

It’s a matter of playstyle to me. Are you comfortable/satisfied with how you play and fight in any of those two? If so, stick with it.

I kept my Ranger as such and didn’t go Druid because the way I play her is something I am familiar and content with. I DID design her for PvP combat in WvW, and that translated well into Core and even HoTS with some minor tweaks to the build. Surviving and barely thriving in the jungle meant she was kind of great in the Core so I kept her as is and never went Elite.

Getting an Elite Spec can be a learning curve with the new stuff. Also, can take some time to find out if it’s really OP or not if you don’t have the points to open at least half of the stuff on the get-go (like with me).

The Mad Scientist is one of my fave outfits. I use it on my Ranger and Engineer.

I can’t see your image right now since my net is slow, but I love that outfit. So kitten and classy all at the same time.

Wish I could see how you inked it, but my net won’t cooperate right now

I can actually dig 300-400 ping. Yesterday evening on the 11:55 pm (Philippine Time) Teq run, my ping jumped to FOUR THOUSAND when the undead dragon arrived.

I don’t know what’s wrong. I know the net sucks in this part of the world – the Philippines is, after all, holder of the title, “Worst and Most Expensive Internet on Sol-3” – but I’ve only rarely experienced this level of bad ping only recently.

And seconding your request for a ping/fps HUD readout.

My God, it’s another edition of Hardcore vs. Casual.

To the OP, my suggestion is that you don’t play HoTS. I know we all bought it under certain premises and promises, but complaining about that now that we gave ANet our money will not be productive.

I have six 80s. I’ve never done map completion on any of them pre-HoTS (closest was just half on my Mesmer). I’m doing that now, going around and exploring. I’m not even rushing, just going around.

I went back to the stuff I loved: the solo play, the World Boss Hunts and now Tequatil (when my ping allows me). And since I find Silverwastes less a chore and more a long battle in my headcanon, I go there both to farm and to feel like I’m doing something grand.

HoTS made me tired. I’ve unlocked Updrafts and understanding those frogs. I haven’t even gone beyond Verdant. But that’s enough for me for now. I’ll get back to facing Mordremoth maybe soon.

Just… leave the jungle and go home to the Core. Unless you have map completion, there’s still so much to do, and we could use another Maguuma-prepped 80 in fighting the more difficult bosses (like Teq).

Because going here to the forums complaining about the grind will just get you the kind of responses from the same people who think there isn’t. And that’s not going anywhere. You don’t need training in negotiation and conflict resolution to know that, although all parties (Hardcore, Casual and the deniers on both sides) equally shout the other down, the “L2P” and “It’s not Hardcore You’re Just Weak or Entitled” crowd will never listen to you.

I just plunked another 10$ because I need to expand my stack size, after I bought more Bank tabs. I don’t like what ANet gave me for HoTS but until a better MMO comes out this is the best I can find. I’ll stick with the fun parts that cater to my casual, solo playstyle. I got six avatars to 80 and decently equipped with exotics and ascended trinks playing the way I do.

But next time ANet asks for my money big time, I’m going to think hard.

I chose this game over Fallout 4, after all.

Last time I ever do that.

My God, so much QQ over a request for simple decency.

I complain about society being so onion skinned these days, but all this over someone simply asking for his or her neighbors to do the neighborly thing?

I don’t know which of you don’t have their priorities straight: the persons complaining about the spoilers, or those who took them to task and quickly escalated it to generation bashing.

For the players demanding “challenging” content, the problem is when this kind of content becomes mandatory for everyone.

The outcry would not have been so much (at least in the Forums. I rarely see complaints in-game) if certain things were left, as was the way before, to player discretion. We all had choices leading to HoTS. We could all, eventually, become useful members of Tyrian adventuring society, in our own pace, in our own way.

But the way certain things are done post-expansion, it seems like the game is highly catered to people with (1) lots of time, (2) lots of money and/or (3) lots of… skills.

Like, say… WoW. To get to the good stuff and experience the story of each expansion in its full, you had to not only participate in raids but be both (a) competent in them, (b) equipped for them, © specced for them.

Whether or not it was advertised, GW2 showed in the almost two years I’ve played that it… respects my playstyle: the solo casual. Weird in an MMO being a soloist, but it’s there. I’ve sent a decent amount of money to ANet because I grew to love this game. And because I’m such a magpie (might buy my 4th Bank Tab).

Extra gating of “challenging” content could have been done so we casuals won’t stumble onto them and be shown our lack of skillz. And I would be the first to tell the devs that people who go for such content should get a commensurate reward.

The problem is that NECESSARY content is behind this challenging content.

I think only the whiny casuals really, really think the HoTS maps are impossible. I jumped in early at live and tried to persevere. I respecced builds that did okay for me before. I was doing fine.

But it was tiring.

This is a game. A good deal of us play it for fun and relaxation, not to be just as tired as we were when we left school or the office. Do you hardcore players even understand the kind of feeling a casual feels in participating in a World Boss Hunt, a successful Teq, or contributing in WvW? It’s great. It makes you feel like you did something awesome, especially if your IRL was bloody crappy.

You have a right to your challenges. We have a right to our fun.

We don’t have to be debating this because this game could do it at the same time. Look at the Raids. It CAN be done.

The problem, to point it out again, is that they forced us to stand together to deal with content YOU like.

Of course that’s going to be a problem.

I haven’t gone to Verdant in weeks. The most “challenging” I’ve done is Silverwastes early in the cycle and trying to contribute to Teq with a 4k ping. Except for the last one, it was actually fun.

And don’t forget to eat something plus rub some oil on. The food should give you around +10% XP bonus and the oil another similar number. Should help you get more bang for your XP’s buck.

Redenaz.8631:

It could happen, but it’s hard to say. Someone can correct me if I’m mistaken, but I don’t remember them ever carrying over achievement progress like that. The Halloween and Wintersday achievements have always started fresh, even if they’re the exact same ones. (“Pumpkin Carver,” for instance, or “Ringing the Right Notes.”)

I haven’t gone online yet in the game, but I heard/read from Dulfy that one of last year’s events carried over to this year, the one with the grinch Grawl and the bring-me quest.

I still have two items left from that list. And to ensure a high chance of getting them, I have to go up some JPs.

I’m from the Philippines and I get a ping of 4k, especially in Teq. I do a lot of World Boss Hunts, too, and on an average session things can slow down to a crawl.

I don’t know about other SEA countries (who I heard have much better- and cheaper – Internet than us poor Flips), but I often think it’s because of our abysmal net. I have a mind to file a Human Rights violation case at the Hague vs. our telcos over this.

I wasn’t even exactly being funny with that last line.

I think the argument is simple: there should be alternatives to getting an item or achievement or even progression that caters to all play styles.

The thing to remember here is that this game was marketed that way: as an MMO that caters to nearly all iterations of a gamer. The game even allows non-paying gamers to access stuff in the Gem Store through the exchange system. You might claim the exchange rate can be unfair at times, but at least the option is there.

When you start gating content behind things a certain iteration of gamer can’t or won’t do (for various reasons that should all be valid regardless; who are you to judge?), then that becomes a problem.

If some players are complaining about equal-access being unfair, then wouldn’t it be an easier solution to give players who (can) go the extra distance better rewards?

Focus on the discussion’s objective: a piece of gear that can only be got by doing a specific activity, and three times at that.

Would that we all could easily do a three-dimensional motion puzzle, or the time AND patience to do so.

But we don’t.

And that’s why some of us play this game. Because, before, we didn’t need to do these things.

Now we do.

I don’t understand why some people can’t get it that not everybody can be good in platforming.

Whether it be due to actual physical conditions (easily-induced vertigo, maybe they have a physical defect, etc.) or just actual lack of either the desire or manual dexterity to do such things, THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DO JUMPING PUZZLES.

That’s not the problem, right?

It is when content is gated behind things that NOT EVERYBODY can do easily. Like those 10k drinks. The logic is the same for jumping puzzles.

Some people just can’t do it.

And that’s just fine. Until there’s important content behind those things.

Would that you have an alternative path to that content. But that’s not the case.

And here I thought it was because my country has the worst Internet in the world.

I live in the Philippines. I got a 4k ping in Teq runs, making me essentially useless. And most times, unless I get a good connection, I’m lagging like crazy. Claw of Jormag is AMAZING with its slowness.

Also, I commonly get this login problem where I can get up to the character selection screen but I’m told I don’t have a connection (despite what my net UI is saying. Or Steam) and exits the client only to log in again. Annoying.

But, seriously, I blamed my country’s net. If those of you with the same problems don’t hail from these 7,100 Islands, that may be another issue entirely.

I played WoW for… three years? Late BC to early Cata. Three 80s. Fought my share of PvP in a server dedicated to that. Got my Paladin’s special mount solo, not bought and with barely any help even from guildies.

Left because the community was filled with people demanding you play your character to spec and how so much content – and equipment – was behind raids. I’m a solo MMOer, strange as that sounds. The only people I feel comfortable playing with are my longtime guildmates. I abhor LFG.

GW2 was a refreshing change for me. So much I can solo. I have six 80s, all with Exotic equipment and at least two with full Ascended trinks.

All mostly solo-ed.

I miss a lot of things in WoW, like the Mounts. I did the grind for those special dragons in Outland (whose names evade me right now). Like I said, I solo-ed my Paladin’s special mount. I miss the epic, easily-relatable story that anyone who played Warcraft 2 will understand.

But I’m not coming back. Not for that price tag. Arrogant little kids who have it easy and think they’re effing powerful. Grinding of gear at cap just to be USEFUL.

I have a lot of gripes with Heart of Thorns. But I love GW2. I just stopped playing the HoTS maps and went back to the stuff I found fun.

I have an 80-Eng. The little guy (yes, stereotypically Asuran) was actually my first avatar in the game and he was supposed to be the support for our little band of merry DPS-ers, especially in WvW.

Some people pointed out that there aren’t any dedicated healers in the game and that’s actually true; the lack of full-on, specific supports and healers can take a while to get used to.

The fun part about Engs, though, is that you have a lot of options to support people and still do some decent enough DPS.

It requires some assumptions, though.

First, unlike the other MMOs out there, you have to reasonably assume that players whose preferred styles involved DPS at least took the time and resources to give themselves a bit of survivability. This means that, regardless, a character should try very hard to stay up and fighting no matter their “role.”

Second, you have a lot of options to support and heal people as an Eng. I recently discovered the Med Kit, would you believe? Always saw it in my options, but never used it until I decided to support the team guarding NS in a Teq run. I think I was having too much fun with the heal spray – it has a nifty ani – that I almost missed the fact we were being attacked. Even the Mortar has a shell that heals.

When I switch to support, whether helping other players on the fly or during tricky World Boss Hunts, I make it a point to have some stuff ready. Aside from the Heal Turret, I have the Elixir Gun on ready switch, with my Rifle or Flamethrower for DPS. I just try to pay attention to the action to see if players are having trouble dealing with the mobs. And the Elixir Gun gives you a lot of options to heal, support, debuff and do damage at the same time.

But, see, that’s the good part about healing and support as an Eng: you don’t need to focus entirely on it. You can tag the mobs while supporting and healing your comrades.

Just keep playing until you discover a support-slaying style that’s comfy for you. I know I switched mains to my Ranger, but nothing in my stable beats my Eng for the large number of support and heal options that also gives me the opportunity to land some hefty hits in.

I think the problem isn’t on the sudden spike in the difficulty of the content. It’s that, in order to progress further in the game, you HAVE to do this content. With that sudden spike in difficulty.

At level 80, pre-HoT, your XP bar goes to the right regardless of what you do. When you reach it, it just resets and you get what are now “Hero Points.” The only difference is when you go to WvW because it then fills your WvW XP bar.

Now, my XP bar is stuck. Whether in HoTS or in Core. If I don’t have enough Mastery Points, it’s going to stay stuck. Core World Masteries are easy enough – map completions, Story Mode completions, collections, etc. – but what about for HoTS maps? How do I get to those Mastery Points? How do I progress my avatars in the XPac?

You know what I loved about this game, despite my initial misgivings coming from years of playing WoW? Because it respects my play style. I’m a soloist by nature. The only people I’m comfortable playing with in an MMO are my guildmates, men and women I met online in some Korean MMO back in 2006 who are now my closest friends.

At the same time, I love to experiment. The surest way for me not to use a build is to tell me that THAT is the “preferred” build for my class. I’ve had people tell me that my Retadin SHOULD NOT be played the way I did.

Don’t get me wrong: I help when I can in the Open World. I help in pre-events for the World Boss Hunt. I assist players who need it and answer any questions I can. I’m just not that social to strangers who have a high chance of calling me a noob simply because I don’t play as the game somehow should be played.

I don’t care if you want to play competitively, if you want to be the strongest in the game. Good for you!

But I’m here to relax and have fun after a hard day’s work.

I’ll respect your play style. Respect mine. Because you sure as heck don’t pay for the Gems I used for the outfits, additional character slot, additional bag slot and two additional Bank tabs. Or the money used to buy the Vanilla and the XPac.

And for the longest time it seems Guild Wars 2 was a game that respected this variance in play style. I don’t need to go Fractals or engage in PvP just to be adequate in the game. All my Exotics were either through coinage painstakingly collected solo or through the daily rewards. The Ascended trinks are the same. I have held my own in WvW no matter what I faced despite my play style.

Now, it seems (for me at least) that it’s changed. There’s so many other things I have to do just to be considered adequate in this game.

I respecced my Ranger – my most powerful Avatar, the constant of my WvW battles – to just survive in HoTS. I kept her as a Ranger and didn’t go Druid because of my personal meta story for her and because I like the things in the Ranger trees. This is the fighting style I am comfortable with.

This “just contributing” in the HoTS maps? It’s rocking in Cursed Shores. I actually lasted quite a while SOLO against the Champ Priest in Grenth’s Temple before the battle’s mechanics – really meant for an army to take it on – finally killed me.

I remember complaining about the VB Menders in mapchat. Someone cheekily replied, “do more damage?” Like, how, Mr. Genius? I have an Exotic-Ascended kitted Ranger that kills rather regularly in WvW. The only way I can “do more damage” is to get the higher ranked equips. How do I get those again?

I’ve been farming SW lately again, when I have the time. I don’t complain about the Menders there, somehow. I kill them fine using the same build.

Don’t get me wrong: there are a lot of things I do love about the XPac. The new map completion rewards, for instance. New stuff to do. The Elite specs made me play my avatars that were uninteresting for me (now I love my Daredevil). The Masteries forced me to explore Tyria more and finish my Story Journal stuff.

But I got tired with the jungle. For now, I think I’ll stay in the Core and frak these things the game is making me do for the new maps. Do my dailies, gather what mats I can in the Core, build the Guild’s resources for when everyone comes back this month and we try to take a Guild Hall despite being less than 20.

Also, if you can quickly finish a game’s content, and there’s more people who DON’T, then that’s not the game’s fault: you’re either just too good for it, or you probably have so much time to burn through so much content.

When players in this game start demanding I be so-and-so build with this-and-that equips that can only be got by following a certain path that the game itself imposes just to participate in content other than Open World exploration – no, you can’t join in Teq because you’re not [Preferred Build] that’s when I’m out.

I actually miss WvW. We were supposed to be a WvW-centered guild since we were born from the ahem battlefields of RF Online, which was very, very massively PvP. And we miss that. Surprisingly, WvW (at least pre-HoTS) fulfilled that need.

I miss how you can shift between Core World PvE, WvW, PvP and Fractals and progress. I delved into HoTS because, apparently, I need to go there and do stuff just to progress.

After getting some masteries (mostly Core World), I just said, frak this I’m going back to the fun parts.

I spent an enjoyable night maxxing out my Ranger’s Cooking. I never thought I’d do that but one recipe led to another

I just do now what I thought was fun and prepping for when the other members of our guild come back this month. We’re a small guild, but I know we’ll make the most of what we can out of this game as it stands.

I’m reading a thread on the Guild Halls, though, and… I’m getting depressed

One of the farming suggestions I put up on our Guild Message of the Day is to go with the World Boss Hunt Trains and BREAK the stuff you get.

Breaking the greens and blues can get you mats you can sell for a decent amount at the AH. And if you’re even moderately lucky, breaking the yellows will spawn Ecto orbs. Just a few can net you over 1 gold.

Also, yes, mine Iron and Platinum nodes. So much in demand, those two.

First, some answers to your questions:

I’ve worked with publishers and MMO makers, mostly as a volunteer. I helped design content for them. I’ve done beta testing for them.

The thing is, they operate with information we don’t know about. We can rant and rave all we want but when these guys sit down they have all of these pieces of information we’ll never see unless you know where to look. And at the end of a BUSINESS day, they’ll decide on what is good for their business based on that data and on what their Board tells them.

I remember us Closed Beta testers for Mechwarrior Online telling the devs that the game was nowhere near ready for Open. Too many things need to be addressed. We were Battletech fans and this was the first BTech game to come out since Mechwarrior and we wanted the best for it. We told them what could be done.

And it still launched with so many problems.

We can suggest all we want. But at the end of the day, this is still a business and, well.. if ANet listens to the suggestions, then great. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t.

I stay and just spent my last 600 gems on a new Bank Tab because this is the closest to a best MMO for my play style: solo, unless the guild is around. I played RFO until working with its local publishers got to much I quit, four years into it, no matter how I loved our community (even at that late a stage). I spent three years in WoW, from the tailend of BC to early Cata and left because it wasn’t the game I also grew to love.

I was initially skeptical of GW2 but after being refugees for so long the guild was transferring here. Kept thinking about WoW for a good long while. Then, the game grew on me. I appreciated how I could do things, be powerful, be a contribution to my World, even without grinding.

I was excited for HoTS, too. I chose that over Fallout 4 as my birthday present to myself (I only had enough funds to buy either, not both, at the time).

Now, I’m just tired.

I actually haven’t gone past VB, to be honest. The way I play my MMOs often force me to disregard what I was trying to do (something about advancing the story for HoTS) when night falls and the defense has to be up. The longest I spent in an MMO was for a most-anywhere PvP game where me and the guildies drop whatever we were doing when a comrade needed assistance.

To be fair, tough as HoTS is for me (despite the all-exotic getup and ascended trinkets), there is a sense of enjoyment in the struggle. There’s this feeling you get for having solo defended a Point. At times, I’d quip over mapchat, “dawn seems so far away…” with the kind of whimsy of a soldier who just finished a big battle but knows more are to come.

But, yes, it gets tiring.

Right now, none of my six avatars (all 80s) are active in any HoTS map. I’m finishing either their Personal Stories or (in the case of one) LWS2. I’m finishing Core World maps. I went back to doing the boss train. I discovered, quite by accident, the joys of Teq, despite my second run being spoiled by a bunch of rotten apples. I look forward to the struggle in SW (although sometimes that’s tiring, too, especially when people only taxi in when the prep is almost done and the Breach is imminent).

I’m kitten ed tired of HoTS. I only have so little time to play every evening when I get back from work. I want to enjoy my game.

So I went back to the stuff about GW2 that I enjoyed prior to this expansion and the Age of the Hardcore.

And, what do you know? It’s still an enjoyable game.

I’ll go back to HoTS later. There’s so much of Tyria I haven’t seen, despite over a year of playing.

I’m from the Philippines. I regularly plant my face on Maguuma ground after jumping.

Funny thing is I don’t get damage because my glider deploys just as I faceplant.

It becomes interesting when I have to cross a chasm, though.

Tom Gore.4035:

The channeled HPs are not the problem. You can use a stealth char if you can’t clear the mobs around.

It’s the champion mob HPs that are tough to solo, mostly due to the time limit. And some of them have pretty nasty local spawns too, like the frog HP in Tangled Depths (but we still Duod that one with 2 engineers easily – duo engineer is OP as hell).

This is true, yes. We were a Ranger (me) and a Druid taking on that Frog HP (I forgot its name. We were in a daze, hahaha, running an HP late in the evening for us while it was night in Maguuma).

We could take him, I think. But the spawns added to the difficulty, especially since some of them are Veteran.

And the bloody Frog can one-shot me with that bow attack after he reappears from stealth.

We just ran out of time

I managed to get one of the HPs on my own. It’s the one near where the Legendary Wyvern gets “summoned” by your new frog friends, near the Itzel grounds in VB.

This was relatively easy because all you have to do is channel. Of course, you have to deal with the Wyverns around the HP. Alone, it took me some creative landing (via the plateau where you fight the Legendary) so I don’t aggro all of them at once and more creative pulling to take the adds on one or two at a time.

The other one, me and a Guildie tried to take on a frog. It was… hard. Stuff spawns around you (all those bloody wasps) and then lag hits… yeah, timer ran out. At least I know the mex now, but lag sometimes makes me miss a dodge and you can go down easy from it.

It’s not about being easy. It’s about having to cover so much terrain just to get back to your team in case you die. And in Maguuma, you can die a lot.

In the core maps, you didn’t need to run TOO far if an event you needed to go back to had its nearest WP marked contested. Look at your example, which is Teq. Most of the time, the WP on the Asura research base is contested. But the next closest ones aren’t that far. It takes a bit of walk, and one of them through some Risen (while the other one has Krait), but it’s not that difficult OR long a run back.

This isn’t about the Meta. This isn’t about asking for an easy time. It’s just asking that we don’t have to spend so much time getting (back) to the places we need to be in.

Why is it when threads like this pop up the automatic response of some players is immediately to call out people on asking it be easy? Reading through the OP’s post, there wasn’t any indication that she wanted her hand held: she just didn’t want to cover so much territory just to get back to the fight.

In fact, if I get her post right, she’s even asking ANet to give us the option to port in via a contested WP into a fight. Right on top of that contested WP. Like Space Marines on a drop pod inbound to a hot zone filled with Tyranids and anticipating every moment of it to help save some Imperial Guardsmen and get some glory for the Emprah.

You know, I’d love that choice.

Actually, I think I got mine from an event spawn. And… two Exotic trinkets that are needed for one of the Class weapons, I forgot which.

I think it was for one of the Camp events, the one where they calibrate some sensors and you have to kill some creatures to do it? One of them is a Kill-Saurians thing, and I recall that’s where I got the Verdant Helmet and trinks.

I think. It was a chaotic thing. I just saw the Helm pop up in inventory after I pressed [F] and two brown chests on the ground.

Astralporing.1957:

Shikigami.4013:

You do not need ascended items to play, be it casual or hardcore.

That might have been true year ago, but is becoming less and less true with each passing day. Ascended offer significant advantage over exotics, and since the new content is no longer balanced around rares, as it was originally (and in fact in some cases is finetuned to make ascended “strongly encouraged”), saying “ascended aren’t needed” is now closer and closer to saying that you don’t need any form of transportation beyond your shoes to get from NY to LA.

I second this. I remember a minor rant I gave in map chat after getting clobbered in Verdant (by a Troll and its posse. Which included THREE Menders) about how maybe the bloody healers shouldn’t come in threes (much less a Veteran, in a later encounter). Someone responded by telling me to “do more damage.”

I wanted to reply, “how exactly?” Given I was carrying my WvW Ranger, respecced for play in HoTs because she’s my most powerful character. Most of her Trinkets are Ascended, and the remaining Exotics are there for more useful stats (like Condi duration, because she was a Bleeder and Burner). She used to be an Axe-Torch kind of gal but I switched to Axe-Axe for more CC. Her other weapon is a Longbow, although I sometimes switch to Shortbow when the fighting gets to “CQB” levels and I need both weapons to be ready to fight close in.

I’m holding my own so far, even with my badly-equipped Thief-now-Daredevil, but sometimes you just end up getting… overfatigued fighting in Maguuma. I sometimes quip to Guildmates, “the dawn seems so far off…” before the next round of Mordrem assault your Rally Point and stuff is flying everywhere.

I’m not whining. It’s just that… it seems like a hard life already, y’know? I took some time out to try and advance my Personal Story so I can help a guildie take down Zhaitan, and I was in Arah, and… we were killing things. Level 80 things.

In Maguuma, even the Tendrils are… 83? And you have ugly angry Salad guys on angrier tauntaun-looking things that knock you down one after the other and Saladified Trolls who call these moving AOE things…

… and they come with MENDERS.

By the Six, Menders.

I don’t mind the repetitiveness of most of the content. I actually, uh… enjoy the stress I get defending a Rally Point on a daily basis. It’s exciting for me. And the loot, haha

But then, I realized my EXP bar wasn’t going back to zero. I was training Itzel Language and… it’s capped. Because I have zero Mastery Points, and I need TWO.

I only got a Mastery Point after I helped a warrior get to the one in the cave below where the Legendary Wyvern spawns.

So there’s that frustration. I got an achievement for repeatedly helping fight around Itzel, but no Mastery Points. I fought some frog Champs above, in the canopy, and no Mastery Points.

I mean, yeah, I love fighting for dear life. I’m with many other players who say that Gliding has changed their life in-game (I have to stop myself from jumping off ledges off HoTs maps because YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T GLIDE HAHAHA). I’m a bit flabbergasted, but, yeah, I don’t mind looking at my specs to respec to survive Maguuma. I’ve shifted my primary (my Ranger) from Axe/Torch to Axe/Axe (keeping the Longbow).

I just wish Mastery Points were easier to access. I don’t like platformers. I don’t want to have to really, really fight for most of the Mastery Points after I already fought off The Six knows how many killer Salad Creatures to get my EXP bar to cap.

I’m not (exactly) whining. I’m just saying that some people just don’t have time to slog through things and “L2P” like the hardcore among you.

You know why I left WoW after three years and two 80s, and no matter much how I loved the game? Because it and it’s kittening community post-BC were insisting that the game be played a certain way.

It took time for me to join my Guild here. But eventually I grew to love this game because although there’s a certain way to optimize the gameplay, the game – at least pre-HoTs – didn’t demand you play it one way to even enjoy it.

I’m growing to like HoTs. I love that I’m getting good drops and earning good money despite feeling mentally tired after 2-4 hours of playtime. I even ended up being very interested in my least-played character – my Thief – because of the Elite Specs. If for anything, fighting with the Staff wearing the Hexed Outfit (thank you, Mad King’s Labyrinth) is cool to watch.

But I miss just being able to play the game the way I wanted to before the expansion and it didn’t penalize me. Or lock me out of certain content because platformers and hardcore play weren’t things I grew to love as a gamer.

Maybe something like the steampunk technomagic of the tabletop wargame/RPG Warmachine? There’s a lot of cool magic-meets-medieval-and-machines concepts on the battlefields of the Iron Kingdoms.

And, oh, maybe ANet can start making a Golemancer Character Class, make Golems really weaponized. Like Warjacks.

I miss my Warcaster

And they make this like that achievement in WoW connected to Leroy Jenkins, where you have to kill [x] number of creatures (in this case… Pocket Raptors) in [y] time. Or something like that.

omg, I still haven’t opened… stuff from last year’s Wintersday.

I was doing an audit of all my character’s inventories and ran across some boxes. And… stuff.

Sir, I think you have the wrong game. This is Guild Wars 2, not Dark Souls.

But, you know… part of me wants to SEE this in game. I’d probably be a corpse in seconds, but imagine saying, “OH MY GOD IT’S A PACK OF CHAMPION POCKET RAPTORS RUN SAVE YOURSELVES RUN AWAAAAY” in mapchat.

Have just shy of 1m Karma, and only because I went on a buying spree just to dent it

Maybe the Karma-bought stuff can be Mystic Forged and the resulting item sold/broken?

No, even given how much I complain in Guild communication channels about how hard the maps can be.

New content I’ve barely touched (thanks to launching it on the same time as Halloween), a new class I haven’t even used, and a free character slot. Also, new items and skins.

Content, so far.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Alright, time to do the math… again. Wearing no equipment at all in PVP, we get the tooltip damages for these attacks. With this data, you can get your DPS in any situation simply by calculating your effective power, then multiplying tooltip damage by effective power divided by 1000.

Staff Auto attack: 215, 254, 516. Takes 2.1 seconds, so it has a DPS of 469.
Sword Auto Attack: 284, 284, 462. Takes 2.5 seconds, so it has a DPS of 412
Dagger Auto: 198, 302, 302. Takes 2.1 seconds, so it has a DPS of 382

So the staff auto attack is the highest. Now to compare other abilities:

Heartseeker: 710 damage at below 25% health, 1 second activation time
Weakening Charge: 822 damage, 1 second activation time. Hard to use
Vault: 879 damage, 1 second activation time

These are the base damages. There are a couple of unique aspects to each auto attack: Staff reflects projectiles and stacks vulnerability. Dagger causes 8 seconds of poison and gains endurance. Sword causes vulnerability and cripple.

Going away from tooltips, in a max might situation, that poison on dagger will do 8 ticks every 2.1 seconds damage, which comes to about 3.8 ticks per second. The poison will tick for 78.5 damage, so this is an additional 298.3 DPS. Since the staff has 87 higher tooltip damage, this would mean that, for the staff to overcome the dagger poison, you would need an effective power of about 3,429. That is… very low for effective power, actually. Most zerker thieves will have that amount with just their base power plus might, let alone factoring in additional modifiers and crits. Also, most thieves are bad at stacking might.

Overall, staff auto wins. Weakening Charge wins. Staff is the highest DPS weapon we have.

Oooohhh, numbers. Good ones!

Thanks for the math, comrade. I ran my Daredevil last night in MKL and your numbers seem to jive with my experience.

Note that my crimson-and-black-clad Norn Thief isn’t my main and is, in fact, my most underpowered character. Yet she not only did not go down in MKL, but managed to do decent damage whether it be solo targets, mobs and even the Horror.

Fun fact: Stealing from the plastic spider grants a F2 that makes you hit EVERYTHING AROUND YOU with the Bo. I was in lurv

Before ending my play session early morning today (Philippine Standard Time), I took my Thief out of the “parking lot” where it was gathering dust to see what its Elite Spec can do.

Understand that I’m not a Thief player. My mains are a Mesmer and Eng for PvE and a Ranger (Longbow and Axe/Torch) for WvW (and also for “hardcore” PvE). I guess I just found my Thief (dual knives and dual pistols) not as… capable, or even exciting to play, as my other Alts.

But, I just got a Hexed Outfit from the Halloween event and my Thief has this Bo Staff. And I wanted to test run the Elite Specs.

Note that the only thing I have active on her is the ability to use Staves. She’s the least played so her Hero Points aren’t that high. Enough to have all Trees active, but just enough to spare to open the Elite Spec.

My Thief (a Norn) is also the worst equipped: her headgear, apparently, is a mid-70s yellow. One of her Exotic armors (the pants, I think) is a 79. Only two trinkets are NOT green. And I think I forgot to slot stuff in the upgrade slots of her other equips. Hell, the Bo Staff still has bare upgrade slots.

(Contrast to my mains, who all have WvW Infusions in their equips that can take them)

So, for the test run, I went inside the Mad King’s Labyrinth and just looked for fights. One-on-ones. Mobs. I even jumped into a fight with the Horror.

I also didn’t know how to (properly) use the new weapon skills, and was still using two of the skill trees I had when she was still dual-wielding daggers (I kept the pistols for ranged striking ability).

All in all, I loved the experience. I haven’t seen that level of damage in my Thief in… ever. She was holding her own and never once fell during the short run, which involved a couple of unintentional mob pulls.

Now I I’m considering kitting this girl for serious play, at least give her oranges for Trinkets (I could use the mats space, anyway, haha. THANK YOU, months of World Boss Hunt Trains) and planning a build centered around the strengths of the Bo Staff.

She used to love her dual pistols, switching to the daggers only when absolutely needed. Now, my Norn Thief in the Hexed Outfit is looking lovingly at that long piece of wood she just used to beat the crap out of mobs in the MKL.

Mats selling is still one of the best ways to get gold quick, and (AFAIK) is agnostic of HoTs.

I managed to rack up a decent amount of Gold just doing the World Boss Hunt train at 2400z Philippine Standard Time (just do the time zone math), starting with Shatterer. Break the Yellows, sell the mats. Just a couple of Globs of Ecto (assuming you’re not into crafting items) sells for Gold. Go to Dulfy’s site to see how long ’till the next boss.

If you have the time, go around and mine Iron. It still sells a decent amount per stack. Also holds for certain Wood mats and… Onions.

If you’re seeing this while the Halloween event is still up, just go into the Labyrinth and KILL THINGS. A hundred Trick or Treat bags nets around 5-6 gold easy in the AH (at least according to the AH prices).

Gaile Gray.6029:

We wanted to let you know that this year’s Halloween Festival will be ending on Wednesday, November 4.

We hope you enjoyed the celebration! I know I had a blast!

Thanks so much, Gaile. I only have one Achievement left to Event Completion and the extra day is a godsend. More time to hunt pumpkins! And more time to farm for ToT bags

And, yes, thoroughly enjoying it. Gives me a chance to run my Ranger through the paces (not yet on Druid, though. Seeing how my old build stacks on PvE).

Bought the Hexed Outfit! Naisu

Like a lot of things in GW2, crafting makes your life easier.

You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to as you will level fine and fast even without the XP from crafting. You can get items from the AH, or use other currencies like Karma or Laurels to get them. You can even get a good amount of money by selling all those mats you come across or get from salvaging items.

But, crafting can make your life easier. Certain crafting professions allow you to get 15, 18 and 20-slot bags far cheaper than you would at the AH. That also goes for weapons. After my weaponmakers could do the Pearl weapons, Exotics weren’t an issue for me.

And there’s Cooking. The stuff you can get from Cooking.

Don’t do it if you think it’s a hassle. But outside of the Legendaries the mats to make things are practically being thrown our way, whether through drops (or the salvage from them) or all those nodes you come across while touring Tyria.

Besides, it gives achievements. You do know you get stuff from getting certain levels of achievements, right?

Try to get Toughness in your gear. Knight and Soldier are good armor pieces to get Toughness while still getting Power.

My Mesmer is fine so far, but I’ve been stacking Toughness on her to help mitigate damage. Along with judicious use of healing abilities and condi removers, she can survive a good bit. She’s a Greatsword and Scepter-Gun user.

Understand that, except for your Guardian, your preferred classes are relatively short on armor but long on damage. That means you want to be able to burn most foes quickly since your Necro (light armor) or your Thief (medium armor) won’t usually have the defenses to withstand a long battle.

Depending on your fighting style, you either go for burst physical damage (therefore stacking up on POW in your gear), or abuse Conditions. Remember that Poisons not only DOT, but also provide effects like slower skill regen. Vulnerability is always a nice thing to put on your enemies. For mobile targets, Torment is just plain evil (most of the deaths from facing the Horror in the Mad King’s Labyrinth is from Torment. The ‘kitten forces us to move.). You can choose to either “burst” DOT (going for increased Condi damage) or, like what I’m experimenting on, making the condis last longer.

Remember, too, that, at level 80, you can purchase Ascended Trinkets from the Laurel merchants. My Ranger is fairly competitive in WvW (meaning I’m confident to battle people there; she’s killed her share, yes she does) and quite the little damager in PvE because I took the hit on my laurels (and Globs of Ecto) to give her that edge. She’s a Axe-Torch and Longbow user.

If Gold is low, go for Karma. If you don’t have Exotic armors yet, Orr is a good place to get them for “cheap”, going the Karma route. A full set usually costs around 150k+ Karma or so, at least pre-HOTs.

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

We need this for story missions, too. Especially for the long ones, it can be really frustrating to have to start completely over due to a net blip.

Seconded.

I remember the… stress I had in Glint’s Cave during LW Season 2. I DC-ed in the middle of a fight and… I so wanted to finish S2 before expac launch

Also, during the old World Boss trains in pre-HoTs (haven’t been in one since the launch. Halloween is eating up my time). DC there is painful, especially if you’re just about to kill a boss and your Net goes poof like Koko Crunch.

I was surprised with the lack of Ruins in the Borderlands maps in WvW. I used to consider that an easy Daily back before HoT.

Yesterday, I’d already completed the Dailies (thanks to Halloween dailies), but wanted to get some extra stuff so I went to our World’s Borderlands and… wow. New map.

Where are the Ruins?

Unless it’s that thing we needed to “capture” by fetching Power Cores from monsters?

Didn’t find out. I was the only guy from our World, and one of the other Worlds was there in force, haha, for obvious results.

There’s one I found by accident in Brisbane Wildlands, in the Pact camp where the dolyak supply escort mission starts (upper right quadrant of the map).

Saw the extra Karma Vendor, talked to the Asura, got some backtalk about investing in the Supply Chain.

I wanted to say, “Supply Chain? I just came back from the patch, you ninny! Drop and give me 50 for talking smack to your commander!”

Happened to me while we were attacking the Shaman. Thought it was the usual Boss Hunt lag and DC, but I couldn’t get in.

Will try in a while.