Guild Wars 2

Still looking for more members! We can help teach dungeons, fractals, map meta content and more.

The Fashion Wars is a small guild of dedicated and experienced adult players that primarily focuses on PvE (Fractals, Dungeons, META), sPvP and generally just having a good time.

Guild leadership has recently come back from an extended hiatus (about two months ago), cleaned up the ranks and started the task of rebuilding. Our guild hall is Level 19 and slowly ranking up.

We have dedicated discord channel and East Coast/West Coast leadership ready to organize events across multiple time zones. We do not have any rep requirements and never will, nor do we force anyone to donate to the guild hall.

Our current goal is to build up ranks so that we can reliably do missions, fractals as a team, get into raids and generally enjoy the game as a group. We have a core of very experienced players that can assist new players with whatever content, classes and builds they’re working on.

Message me in game for an invite or any questions!
-Pickles (Mike Hawk.4835)

#OCCUPYSAB2015

… and a few more …

I never said you don’t need GPU to play GW2, please refrain from contorting what my statement was. My game experience matches what the OP has experienced, not only in WvW, but in PvE (when there’s a large zerg).

For clarity, I run two 1080p displays when gaming. One has GW2 running, the other usually has a browser window open, teamspeak and a system process monitor among any other random set of apps (spotify, etc).

There are certainly countless variables here, but I’d be happy to share empirical evidence such as process logs (CPU/GPU/RAM/HDD) usage after the next time I play.

Edit:
It’s probably worth mentioning that I also have every graphical option maxed out at 1920×1080 and all camera shake effects disabled.

maddoctor.2738:

WvW has long had a problem with GPU utilization, maybe with the new borderland they will fix it. Or rather, use the same system in WvW that they use anywhere else.

It’s the same everywhere. It is simply amplified in WvW due to the nature of how WvW works. When I’m in PvE, particularly the boss train, the same exact thing happens.

In some instances, Maw for example, I get about 15/20fps with 100% CPU utilization and about 50% ish GPU. Clearly, the game engine cannot cope with what’s going on and starts dropping frames because it cannot get free CPU cycles to deal with what to even send over to the GPU for processing.

Like I said earlier, the game is computationally heavy, not graphically heavy. It it feels far from optimized in that regard when there are big groups of players in close proximity to each other.

Hamster.4861:

I play 95% WvW, and i can say that my GPU is woefully under-utilized, mostly sitting at 15-20%. I Have tested my claims, I simply am in a different community (mostly wvw) where CPU dominates. I dont really spend any time on the new maps besides to unlock them and get WPs in every corner. I simply wanted to know if there would be any optimizations that would improve resource management.

It doesn’t really affect my gameplay at all – my CPU can handle all of the processing that needs to happen in full settings, but I had a glimmer of a hope that maybe Anet would bring the game into the right decade.

Thanks for all the posts and links.

I have to agree with this. I’m mostly in the same boat. My CPU is consistently above 80% during fights while my GPU is using no more than 30-40% at the same time.

When the CPU climbs over 90% I see significant frame drops and skill lag, while my GPU is never, ever maxed out.

FWIW, my specs are …

Intel i4670k @ 4.2GHz
MSI Z87-G45 Mobo
MSI GTX 760-TF
32GB Corsair @ 2133MHz
Samsung EVO 840 SSD’s

As a former developer, I realize that there are loads of computational processes occurring in the middle of a massive fight as well as the netcode to coordinate it all across the players. That certainly takes up a lot of processing power, but I’m not convinced that it is as optimized as it really could be and, much like Hamster, I’m curious if ANet is even working on optimizations here ….

Try this .. dump the celestial stuff in your accessories.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAnd7Yjc00Sb1Ne3whbiahC66MA63o/gRIFoqNA-TRDBABVcCAO4gAExTIoalUOfAEwU9na2f4MlgYpcBgDIQe6JCUzSAHIASBAzwK-e

Mathematically, this will deal more damage both in terms of direct and condition damage due to the jump in power (even though the condition damage stat cmoes down).

For example, here’s the DPS per stack damage based on bleed …

Yours with Celestial: 2211 + (.05 * 836) = 2252.8 DPS / Stack
Mine without Celestial: 2428 + (.05 * 799) = 2467.95 DPS / Stack

Of course, there’s a bit of a tradeoff in terms of Health and Armor. But, if you are good at dodges/evades then that should never be a problem.

This is based on the condition damage formula of…
Base Damage + (Factor * Condition Damage)

Where FACTOR is different for each condition applied.

I’m not really a big fan of the sigils either to be honest, I typically always run a Sigil of Force on my main hand weapon and then switch out off hand sigils depending on the situation (night for dungeons, etc).

Stacking sigils are good as long as you aren’t blowing past trash mobs in dungeons – if you are, then it’s really a bit of a waste. I find that stacking sigils typically work best in WvW – but that’s just me.

I would consider using these sigils instead …

Superior Sigil of Force
Superior Sigil of Bursting
Superior Sigil of Strength

Cheers!

Thank you for explaining that.

So here’s the build I’m running for PvE on my Necro. It’s basically a copy of the metabattle build with some minor changes.

The biggest change is on the weapons, I never understood why there was only an off-hand weapon in the second weapons set … can someone explain this?

I added an ax as the main hand weapon because you get a stat increase and an extra sigil slot, not to mention three more types of attacks. Again, I have no idea why someone would recommend just a warhorn on off hand ….

Anyway, here’s the build.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBIbdG2IHNt0WdjjNc4mAXQgeQgWRHaSKq2C-TBSBwAFV+d5kAERJ419Hup+DK9DIM/B4JAQKgIGDA-e

Get in EOTM, find the zerg – stick with them and run the karma/xp train.

Leveling up the fastest way possible will require that you buy your traits when you hit 80 – they won’t be unlocked via natural progression. And that’s perfectly fine. Just understand you cannot have your cake and eat it too

Zenith.6403:

Lately I’ve noticed something odd. When I kill enemies on World vs. World, they are somehow able to whisper to me with insults. I thought every enemy was named just [servername] [rank name]. I would like Arenanet to close this exploit, as it makes playing unenjoyable.

From what I understand, this is done by them adding you to their friends list (or blocking you), then your actual player name comes up for them to whisper you.

Rylen.2147:

I can’t see this happening in PvE. What do expect will happen? You get a zerker staff of bloodlust or night, set to build, then salvage and sell sigil? The only was that this could work is a “deposit” of your armor and weapons. But +(over 9,000) for PvP builds!!!

Could you please explain how this would be used though? Like say I just got out of combat and want to swap builds. Would there be a tab that you hit “WvW build” then all your gear is swapped and skills changed?

This is very useful in PvE especially if you solo dungeons. I swap builds, armor, weapons, etc between bosses and mobs in some dungeons when I solo – especially Arah. In WvW, it would be useful again if you run with a zerg and have to switch from a backline setup to a frontline setup as your group composition changes.

There was another thread that went into detail about this concept, the general consensus on how it would work was …

1) You can only swap when not in combat.
2) You have to have the armor, weapons, etc in your inventory. Equally, you have to have enough open inventory slots to remove hold what you are removing or swapping from.
3) There would be a cool down between swaps, perhaps 60 seconds (a nerf of sorts, particularly for PvP game types).
4) You would get two save slots to start with, any more could be purchased from the gem store and it would be soulbound.
5) You cannot swap runs/sigils in and out of armor/weapons as you cannot today without destroying them or using an extractor.

Of course, there’d be more detail to it but that’s basically how a lot of us think it should work. Not only would it benefit the players, we agreed that ANet would be able to make some gem story cash from it too – so everyone would be happy.

I’ll try to dig up the thread …

Vesuvius.9874:

I think this was a great idea. They promised to show us a dark side and they did. I didn’t realize we had such an over-sheltered and over-pampered player base that can’t stomach a little darkness.

I agree that this is a massively pivotal part of Caithe’s history and showing it to the player will hopefully reveal why she has taken the egg (end even shed more light on who she is as a person).

What I feel completely and utterly let down by is how the story was told. It was flat out awful. The way in which the story was presented was dreadful. There should have been a great deal MORE dialog, especially after the fight/genocide event.

The way your toon grossly understates what happened was appalling and in no way captured the true nature of what really happened. There is no way that after witnessing such an even transpire, first hand, that it would be simply brushed off with a one line explanation.

FrouFrou.4958:

I think jetpacks would be the right answer to this particular problem.

Expansion pack coming soon ….

Guild Wars 2: Call of Duty Edition

Hamster.4861:

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

You can fall off of stuff and die in PvE, too. One of the first things I did in GW2 was fall through the middle of Rata Sum to my death.

I think you really should bring enough armor or something to WvW that you don’t die on the stairs of any of the structures. Otherwise, you must be rally bait.

cant tell if trolling but, falling damage is definitely a % of your HP. How much armor you have is irrelevant to gravity.

The heavier your armor and toon the MORE damage you should take from falling … I mean, basic physics and all.

With that being said, light armor Asura’s should be able to fly.

Also yeah, terrain OP.

Thaddeus.4891:

You need to craft it with leatherworking not the Mystif forge.

Mystic forge don’t need any recipe, only crafting profession does.

Yep, what this guy said.

You craft Gift of Blades with whatever profession you purchased the recipe for. Once you have Gift of Blades crafted, you can then use it in the mystic toilet to start making your Spinal Blades.

Good luck!

Linken.6345:

Mike Hawk.4835:

Atherakhia.4086:

Alternatively they could either a.) make ascended gear easier to obtain or b.) change ascended gear to have variable stats like legendary weapons currently have.

Uh no. Ascended gear and legendary gear is HARD TO MAKE for a REASON. I’d argue the opposite, that it’s too easy to make both and defeats the purpose of being called “Legendary” and “Ascended” … but I digress …

This thread isn’t about acquisition of gear necessarily, it’s about making your gear more accessible on the run to a given toon in a given situation.

If I can double click my Legendary to change the stats, why can’t i double click on an equipped trinket to quickly swap it out with another trinket that I actually own. While this is similar to the stat swapping on a legendary, it is dependent upon you actually owning the trinket or piece of armor you want to swap to (and assuming it is compatible with your toon).

Oh, I would also like to state that I don’t think you should be able to swap out runes and sigils with this system. That mechanic works just fine.

about swaping trinkets you can do that now just keep em in your friggin bags mate.

Yes, we already pointed that out. You should probably re-read the thread mate.

What we are discussing is the ability to share trinkets across toons without having to access your bank. If I have a set of trinkets in my bags on one toon, I cannot get to them from another toon unless I put them in my bank first.

Granted, this is probably 1st world problems in an otherwise kitten good game. But, for more seasoned payers that swap gear a lot while on the run, this could be quite beneficial.

I counter that with …

This is the easiest MMO on the market right now to play. People that argue about how hard it is simply don’t want to put forth the effort to do a little basic research on the mechanic, what skills work with what sigils/runes/weapons, etc. Nor do they want to put in the effort to maybe LFG, meet a few people along the way and get some help – y’know, the whole purpose of an MMO? Sure you can solo probably 99.99% of the content here with the right build, but quitting when things get hard is simply lame.

I feel zero sympathy for the OP of this thread. He clearly got frustrated and simply quit without evaluating any options.

With that being said, I don’t disagree that there are some flaws in the mechanic of the game. I think they key thing that ANet fails to do is understand the ramifications of their changes to the bigger picture of the game and player base. A small change to something may have a huge impact to something else and they simply don’t realize that. In this case, how traits are unlocked and the impact to new level 80 players that like to solo content. Sure, it helped leveling (arguably), but it also cripples you the instant you hit level 80 for the first time.

As far as time goes, well … again, it’s an MMO. It isn’t designed for you to get everything over night, it takes time. Lots, and lots of time. The only problem with that is, when new content comes out, areas become vacated as the player base moves on (this will happen with Silverwastes, and is already happening to Dry Top). I suppose this reinforces my believe that ANet operates with their blinders on and needs to step back and see the bigger picture …

Atherakhia.4086:

Alternatively they could either a.) make ascended gear easier to obtain or b.) change ascended gear to have variable stats like legendary weapons currently have.

Uh no. Ascended gear and legendary gear is HARD TO MAKE for a REASON. I’d argue the opposite, that it’s too easy to make both and defeats the purpose of being called “Legendary” and “Ascended” … but I digress …

This thread isn’t about acquisition of gear necessarily, it’s about making your gear more accessible on the run to a given toon in a given situation.

If I can double click my Legendary to change the stats, why can’t i double click on an equipped trinket to quickly swap it out with another trinket that I actually own. While this is similar to the stat swapping on a legendary, it is dependent upon you actually owning the trinket or piece of armor you want to swap to (and assuming it is compatible with your toon).

Oh, I would also like to state that I don’t think you should be able to swap out runes and sigils with this system. That mechanic works just fine.

I can agree with that, I should’ve said that my statement assumes you have all of your traits and skills unlocked – that’s what gives you the versatility.

If you don’t, then sure, you don’t have much versatility at all. But at least as a player, you have the mechanism in which you can unlock those things. And let’s be honest, it is painfully easy to unlock things in this game.

(Or just spend the gold and skill points at the trainer in any of the large cities and buy them.)

You can already do this with a bank access express, assuming your shared gear is in your bank.

What I believe an even better twist on this would be something like …

Create a system where you can save builds. Much like FPS games where you have “load outs.” Ideally, you’d be able to change your “load out” when not in combat at the click of a button.

Taking this even further, you can create a load out with any gear across any of your toons as long as it fits within existing rules (such as only being able to use light armor, or specific weapons, etc based on your class).

That way, you don’t need to worry which toon has which armor/weapons equipped. Simply switch to a given toon, choose the “load out” you want to use (or have a default set) and viola!

This would get around the problem of swapping gear between toons and using precious bank space for all of that gear. It would also allow for rapid build changes to suit whatever content or play style you want to run at a given moment.

You can do all of this manually now, so it wouldn’t necessarily break anything in game to make it a bit more streamlined and faster to do.

Heck, Anet could even make a few bucks off this … grant people 1-2 slots to start, and allow them to buy more with gems up to a certain number per account.

Meh … i’m just rambling now ….

dlonie.6547:

Time to ask the obvious: Have you tried making your own LFG post?

Players asking to ping gear: they want to run with other meta/minmaxers. Believe me, you probably don’t want to run with them anyway.

Players asking for gold at the final boss: They just solo’d a dungeon path and are opening the slots up for other players who want tokens/levels (for a small compensation for their efforts). Seems fair to me.

Just ignore the LFG posts that don’t match what your looking for, and make your own post if nothing available suits you.

This.

/thread

Filaha.1678:

Mike Hawk.4835:

Clearly the build that the OP is using isn’t working

It isn’t the game OP, it’s you.

Actually, if a game offers you a plethora of ways to build your characters but you can’t actually use most of them to play the game, then yes, it is the game, because that’s bad design.

Especially when one of the selling points of the game is, in fact, versatility.

Well, you miss the whole point on the build system then.

If your current build doesn’t work against a specific piece of content, the build system is there to for you to CHANGE your build to suit the content you are facing. Then simply change it again for the next piece of content as required.

Do you see experienced dungeon runners using the same setup/gear in each dungeon, in each path? Nope. In fact, pro’s will even change traits/armor between bosses and areas in a single dungeon path.

Do people use the same build in WvW, sPvP and PvE with the expectation of getting the same results between them? Nope.

Story line is no different.

That’s the point of the flexible build system – you seem to have it backwards and expect there to be some sort of miracle build for a given class that can do everything with efficiency and ease.

I saved up my gold and bought it – no gambling required.

No, there’s no difference other than the names … Ilya and Lyss are the two sisters that make up Lyssa.

Lyssa is the goddess of beauty and water referred to as a single being, but in reality she is actually twins; Lyss and Ilya.

Therefore, you have two pistols that are exactly the same and only differ in name.

You’ll notice in the recipe, one has the pistol frame, one has the barrel. That’s meant to be a symbolic reference of them being a single entity.

I’m not sure we’re in the worst spot at IoJ actually. The past few weeks playing against the servers in this range has been a blast – lots of good fights every night. We may not be winning them all (and certainly got rekt this week by DB), but it really has been fun.

The answer depends, but as a generally good rule of thumb …

1. Cooking is probably the cheapest one to hit 400 with. If you use crafting and xp boosters, you can get a good 6-8 levels on your toon while leveling up your craft. Unfortunately, cooking also has the lowest ROI so you’ll wind up trashing 90% of what you make when following a guide.

2. Focus on what you need first. If you plan to make ascended/exotic gear for a specific toon, then level that profession first.

3. I agree that an ascended weapon should be made before ascended armor.

4. Focus on one profession at a time and finish it before starting another one. If you spread out your materials and gold expense across many, you’ll feel like you aren’t accomplishing much and getting them to 400 (or higher) will take that much longer.

5. Follow a guide. Always follow a guide. There are many guides online, some are better than others. Look for a guide that has a mechanism to build a custom guide based on cost of materials (to provide you the cheapest option). Also, for cooking, make sure the guide gives you the option between using and not using materials only available from karma vendors.

6. When following a guide, complete a full section at a time. The market and prices change very quickly, so if you only get 1/2 of what you need today, the guide will be different tomorrow and so will the costs associated with it. (For example, if a guide shows you the material list for 0-200, make sure you have the whole list before starting. If you cannot do it, then wait and check back in a couple of days or so.)

Why not just ask the game to play itself for you?

mtpelion.4562:

I’m trying to remember what people used to do when they got stuck in a game before the internet allowed them to scream in anger and look up answers.

This.

It astounds me that when there is actually something challenging to do, that people flip out and say it’s unfair and not fun.

Clearly the build that the OP is using isn’t working, or they need to play better.

It isn’t the game OP, it’s you.

Rip Van Winkle.4859:

I think it would be nice if we could say take 4 or 5 of lesser Runes/Sigils and convert them to a better level of the same type. I don’t know if that would be possible or not?

You can … throw them in the mystic toilet.

I completely disagree with not starting until you have a precursor. This is what I have done, and it has proven to work extremely well.

You will spend weeks/months collecting materials, particularly the T6 material stacks as well as map completion. All the while you are collecting (or farming) for those, run dungeons to get gold. Ideally, run as many paths per reset as you can – particularly Arah – to maximize your gold acquisition.

By the time you have all of the necessary materials, you’ll likely have enough gold to buy your precursor. Effectively, you get all of the components you need at about the same time.

Additionally, in this time frame, you have a (low) chance of getting a precursor on a drop anyway. If you get the one you want, awesome! If not, you can sell it to buy the one you need.

I would also crush all drops you get. You need the ectos from rare/exotics, and once you have a 250 stack, you can salvage your ectos for dust. In most cases, when you get an exotic drop, the rune/sigil is worth more than the item itself so it makes sense to crush it anyway.

With most other armor items, you’ll get cloth materials. You can either sell those, silk is enormously profitable, or save them to make ascended gear.

Sometimes the simplest solution is less obvious, but perhaps you should not die next time.

Here’s the build I’ve been running with – probably not the best, but certainly very fun and very viable for soloing content. Depending on what you’re running, you may swap out Frost Bow and Greatsword for something else …

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhMMqZ25w6Bf0AEACpkhDEZh4SZ6A-TFSBwAUeAA3V/poyPa6Asu/QElgIM/B4CAQKABVGB-w

Why not craft T6 mats from their T5 counterparts in the mystic toilet? The recipe is rather simple …
50 T5 Mats
1 T6 Mat
5 Chrystaline Dust
5 Philosopher’s Stones

You can probably argue either way on the merit of this approach, but if you have a surplus of skill points (for the stones) and T5 materials, it actually makes sense.

Grow a pair. Put your big girl panties on. Put your big boy pants on. Whatever…

Seriously. You can easily farm the lab to the tune of 6+ gold per hour and you complain about the one actually challenging encounter? Maybe spend some time to figure out how it attacks and adjust your toon and attack/defense accordingly. I can solo Horror with my engineer and it’s a long, fun battle.

Wow. Just wow.

FWIW, this happened to me last night in the Mad King Jumping Puzzle in PvE.

I am completely relieved that I didn’t say anything incredibly stupid (as usual) in that video.

As a general rule, it’s safe to assume that each piece of ascended armor averages around 125g-140g. That makes a full set, on average, about 800g to make including the cost of the recipe for each piece.

This assumes you buy 100% of the mats that you can actually get on the TP (which doesn’t include things like empyreal frags, obsidian, bloodstone and dragonite).

Map completion is a time consuming process no matter what you prefer (PvX or WvW). There’s some good advice in this thread though …

1) Take your time, check in every Friday at reset and try to get into a group. The group likely won’t help you do completion on purpose, but you’ll certainly get some completion as a result.

2) Join a WvW guild, learn to play WvW and be a team player in that guild. They’ll be more likely to help you on slow nights to get things taken care of. Never know, you may find that you like WvW after you get good at it.

3) Don’t do WvW maps last, save at least on PvE area to do as you last zone for completion. Your completion bonus reward will be based on the area you are in … if you complete in WvW, you’ll get a bonus related to WvW.

Lastly, this will never change as a mechanic in map completion. ANet wants players to experience all aspects of the game and intentionally makes certain things difficult, such as map completion and creating a Legendary.

Have patience, this isn’t something you can do in a matter of days.

I agree, the loot drops should be improved. I also agree that they should be merit/performance based as well – or at least have that factored in.

1) Start with the standard loot table.
2) Modify the drop rates on rarer items based on:
——-A) How much damage you contributed to the kill.
——-B) Did you execute and complete a finisher on the downed player?
——-C) How many prior kills do you have since last being downed?
——-D) How many kills did the downed player have?

I think your first kill since being downed (or joining a map) should have the standard drop rates, maybe even a lesser chance of a blue or higher item. But as you progress through the match, the drop rates shift toward blue and higher items.

Basically, provide incentive for players to actually play well and participate correctly within their squad/zerg.

Whether they do something or not, EVERYTHING in the game is farmable in some way or another. There’s simply no way for ANet to prevent that from happening. Because of that, I think the farming argument is completely invalid.

Alternatively, I think that there should be a reward system introduced for players that focus more on buffing and healing their squad than getting kills. These players have a direct impact on the survivability of their team and should be rewarded accordingly, even if they aren’t getting kills or dishing out massive DPS directly.

Meh … I tend to react differently depending on what’s going on.

If someone is clearly mapping, then I leave them alone. You have to consider that not everyone is interested in playing WvW and they simply want completion to obtain a legendary and play solely in PvE or PvP.

If they decided to engage me in combat, then I’ll respond accordingly.

However, if they are exhibiting suspicious behavior and appear to be scouting, then I’ll engage combat.

That’s not necessarily what he asked for. He asked for a community, not a transfer for the winning side. There’s a difference, these two things don’t necessarily always go together.

Janthir is more tight knit than you are leading people to believe. I think it may have something to do with the time frame you are on. There are several very active guilds that run in the evening 7PM PST and beyond – they also frequently team up and strategize depending on the situ.

Personally, I am just a soldier in [CORE], so I cannot speak on their behalf … but what I can say is that we regularly run with 12-20 people on a given night. There are several other guilds pushing those numbers on a nightly basis as well.

I’d recommend going here and seeing what you may be able to coordinate before jumping ship …

http://isleofjanthir.net/

Hey everyone, I know I have a few in game messages waiting – just haven’t been on the past couple days to respond. Sorry about that! I’ll be sure to reply to inquiries this evening

Hello everyone, I hope this post finds you well!

COLC is recruiting all players, regardless of server to join in and play GW2 with us. While we are based on Isle of Janthir, the upcoming megaserver update will give you the ability to leverage all the features available regardless of your server! So fear not, join us wherever you may call home!

Some essential facts about us …

• Just under 400 members (391 at time of this post)
• We do not require 100% rep
• You can guest to our server for server specific activities, FOR FREE!
• We are very casual and super friendly. We frequently help fellow cavers finish stories, missions, map completions, boss trains, farming, dungeons, WvW, PvP, etc.
• We even help with sharing materials so that our new players can get a faster start without stressing out over amassing gold right away.
• On a typical day there’s 20-40 of us online at a given time.

Message me in game for more details or if you’d like to join. Feel free to post here for questions that you think would benefit anyone else looking for a guild as well.

As of now we have a small facebook page that one of our co-leaders just started and we’re going to be building a guild website soon as the central hub for member communication. We also have a dedicated TeamSpeak server that we own and manage.

We look forward to seeing you join our ranks and having some fun!

Ramesey
COLC, Co-Leader