Guild Wars 2

I recently came back to Guild Wars 2 after a long hiatus. As someone who enjoys jumping puzzles and exploration, I’ve been very happy with the changes made to Lion’s Arch recently. The nooks and crannies and winding paths and mazes of debris have made the city more interesting to traverse, in my opinion. There are a lot more scenic vistas and places to climb nowadays, and seeing where you can go feels more rewarding.

Or it did.

So in Lion’s Arch, where the Cloud Skimmer used to hang above the Trader’s Forum, there’s this impressive mountain of rubble. Maybe you’ve climbed to the top of it, stood on the edge of a fallen tower up there, and taken in the ruins of the city. It’s a nice view.

With the recent update came a new, completely unnecessary invisible wall. You can no longer climb to the top of that mountain of rubble and ship parts, to get a glimpse at the whole city from what was one of the highest points in that part of it.

I suspected that this area was blocked off because it allowed access to a nearby cliff with parts that had no collision—essentially a broken bit of environment. But the problem is that you can pretty much walk around the invisible wall and onto that cliff without any difficulty whatsoever.

I feel like the invisible walls and ArenaNet’s stance on independent exploration is lazy on a lot of levels. For one thing, they’re a poor fix to broken and collision-less environments. I’ve actually been playing this game and exploring for so long, I’ve seen ANet remove collision from certain buildings and places just to discourage people from visiting them.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, this isn’t even about the stuff near the edges of the maps. There’s so much space in this game that just isn’t for us: Empty buildings and districts in Divinity’s Reach that have been closed or walled off, mountains and structures and even instanced areas that don’t need to be instanced, or can only be accessed once and never again. ArenaNet just doesn’t really seem to like empty space, but they don’t seem all that encouraged to fill in certain regions with content when it’s just easier to put a wall around it. The only thing they seem to dislike more is when people climb on stuff they haven’t put a wall around yet.

Whether you find these places as interesting to visit as I do, putting walls around them shrinks the world. It’s so rare to find a gem of a place tucked away on the map that isn’t already marked as a Vista, or the entrance to a jumping puzzle. Finding these places can be their own reward, though even adding an event or NPC, or even a silly Easter Egg, beats turning part of the map into nothing more than a backdrop, and making the world feel more empty and fake. Things feel less grand when you know that the part you can immediately walk into is the only part that really exists.

Closing up empty buildings and blocking off parts of the map seems to basically say that I’m only allowed to enjoy the content the creators want me to, when they want me to. This perspective seems prevalent in a lot of this game’s design decisions, which may be why many folks are struggling to find their immersion, or at least to find a reason to log in every day.

I get it if you don’t want people breaking out of the map, but is the best solution really just to break the environment more, or cut a chunk of it off entirely? Is it so bad if folks just want to climb to the top of a broken tower and take a picture of the content you spent so much time putting together?

I’m signing this for the sake of solidarity, but I don’t believe making uninstanced Salma available again is the big issue here. I believe the issue is that ANet should not be afraid to allow spaces in the world to be open and available, and should reconsider making so much of their content temporary. This affects PvEers and RPers alike.

If you give us empty space, we will fill it. If you give us content we will use it up. If you keep taking stuff out that people are willing to use and exist in, you’re just going to make the world feel smaller, its buildings mere cardboard cutouts that aren’t good for anything.

If you must get rid of uninstanced Salma, then please make the cities and the world more robust and filled with places to play in, to use, to explore and get lost in. Not just puzzles and instances, and certainly not inaccessible Guild Puzzles and temporary instances. There are so many beautiful cities and towns. Please allow us to use them to their fullest.

I and others don’t like how you can never access Claw Island again after the Personal Story is finished, how you can never access a friendly version of Cragstead or North Nolan Hatchery, and… heck, ANet, why would you make a WHOLE INSTANCE like the Molten Facility and then leave THAT inaccessible forever after a mere two weeks?

If the theme of Guild Wars 2 is that all unique content is temporary all empty space needs to be purge, I’m not thrilled with this direction both as a player and as a roleplayer.

ANet has a habit of doing this.

First it was Minister Zamon’s Manor, then it was Canach’s House in Garrenhoff. Now an entire district. ANet don’t seem to like leaving anything accessible or “empty” if they’re done using it.

What they don’t understand is that there is a portion of the game community that would love access to more of these places, places that they can hold events in, interact with each other in, and call more of the world their own, because even though the world is vast, a lot of it is closed off. You can rescue cities, but you cannot enter their buildings. You can only take a total of five people into your Home Instance, or any instance.

There are people who are asking for gathering places. The least ANet can do is leave these little unintended holes and open doors into empty houses open for us, but if they cannot, it would be nice if we were provided with an alternative.

I’m saying this as someone who doesn’t utilize the uninstanced Salma area for very much, but it sets a precedent that I’m not sure I can appreciate. If the only thing that troubles ANet is that they want empty space in their game either removed or filled… we’ll fill it.

I thought all EG/FT builds went 30 into Alchemy to get Cleaning Formula 409 and HGH, and then ran with Elixirs H and B. Plenty of condition removal there.

I run about the same thing with Grenades, and I’ve never complained about my condition removal. Only reason I don’t run EG/FT is because I like explosions more than flames.

Also, EG’s Super Elixir was buffed pretty generously last patch. With the two KR Super Elixirs on top of each other you were healing for more than any of your #6 abilities in a large AoE. And that’s without healing power. Way overpowered.

So there’s no gap to close, really. Sure, you lose the cleanse, but with the glue… am I the only one not bothered by having more ways to harass and control enemies? EG/FT builds excelled at that and continue to.

EDIT: Also, how can you compare those kits to the Tool Kit? The Tool Kit requires very specific builds to do an effective job, as well as melee range. And Grenade Kit? It’s ironic that people are talking about that kit again, considering how two months ago Grenade Kit wasn’t “worth it” unless you were running 100nades or a condition build.

And FT conditions are on-par with the ones I’m dishing out with grenades. If you want to just compare raw damage, grenades might have it beat, but I am sacrificing almost everything else a FT/EG build can do in terms of support.

This topic has some valid points, but I don’t buy the argument that the hit to KR’s Elixir Gun ability means that supportive play is taking a hit, not for a second.

Why don’t you take a gander outside of KR for a moment, and see that Super Elixir got a tremendous buff?

“Increased both impact base healing and scaling with healing power by 100%.”
“Increased base heal multiplier by 50% and healing power scaling by 100%.”

And why? Well, how do you tend to play a healing support Engineer? Since Super Elixir heals in a pulse, rather than giving a regen buff, don’t you tend to drop two Super Elixirs on top of each other for massive group heals? I think ANet looked at this and decided to allow us to have KR no longer be a “requirement” for support healing builds.

And if you used the two Super Elixirs separately for slightly more consistent healing pulses, you still have plenty of healing and regen options with bombs (they fixed the Forceful Explosives bug too) and such, and your single, 16-second (an impressive cooldown for an AoE healing ability that’s been buffed this much) Super Elixir is just way more powerful now.

EDIT: Forgot to note that the 16-second Super Elixir CD is with Fireforged Trigger, so if you want to run support, you hate KR and you don’t have Fireforged Trigger, put your points in that for sure.

Elixir C was taken as a tradeoff for Elixir U, which is a good DPS elixir. What you get with Elixir C is not one, but two condition removers on 30 second cooldowns.

But what you also get is added DPS. For each boon you have, you get +1% damage. You wait until some shmuck stacks a bunch of conditions on you, and then you use Elixir C to get a ton of boons, and additional damage.

The Flamethrower is a good tradeoff though, as the stats you run this build with complement the Kit, the kit comes with additional burns and Incendiary Ammo, and you get all sorts of nice tricks like a blowback and another blind. Not to mention the Might. You just sort of have to run with 409 for something like that, because one condition remover seems like it wouldn’t be enough.

I actually throw Flamethrower onto this build, swap the traits around and get Energized Armor instead of Kit Refinement when I feel like using it. In that case I’m inclined to lose Elixir S but keep Elixir C, though. In that setup you lose your stun-breaker… but you can use Smoke Vent while stunned for some added defense. And since you have multiple condition removals at that point, you can keep your Elixir duration increase, or get Kit Refinement or something if you want to be beefier.

If you did want to dedicate the build to Flamethrower, Kit Refinement might be a fine choice, because I think you can swap kits while stunned, offering another potential stun-breaker.

Ah. Yeah, that seems to be how the PvP runes are. I’m not sure if 100% duration is possible outside of what Goloith suggested.

Say Ayestes, you were running your build with Carrion before, weren’t you? Did you switch to Rabid to apply more on-crit conditions? If so, do you miss the Power? Would you miss the Power in PvE/WvW?

I’m trying to build something like Mask’s Pistols and Pots for PvE and WvW, but with Grenade conditions as well.

Ayestes.1273:

30 Explosives (30%), Nightmare 4/6 (20%), Lyssa (10%), and Pizza (40%) works as well.

Unless the PvP version of this rune is different, 4/6 Nightmare is only a 10% increase total (4%+6%).

Well, what was obnoxious about it was that the person you were responding to wasn’t even gushing about how effective it was in sPvP. I just didn’t see the point of the disparaging remark when he pretty much said “it was decent in sPvP, but probably better in open world”.

I suppose I can’t say anything about how pistols perform in sPvP, since I don’t have any experience with that. But what I do when I want to use Blowtorch is that I move in or let the enemy move in, use it at close range, drop Glue Shot and then scoot away. I can still use my other abilities at 1050 range, for whatever they’re worth.

Looks like Matte for the whitish color, and something like Clay, Lemon Shade or Calfskin for the tan-brown color.

bromi.7809:

I hope when you talk ‘i tried it in spvp’ u talk AT LEAST about free tournaments. Cos in hot join i can play with 11111 u know. Very successfully if you maneuver right.

U know? No, I don’t know. Maybe if you added some more hyperbole I’d finally understand how much of a superior player you are, and why you’re the ultimate connoisseur of not only competitive Engineer builds, but which builds deserve to be enjoyed by more casual players.

God forbid someone enjoys a build that isn’t aces in every form of play. That would be like enjoying this class even though we need a few buffs and bug-fixes.

And we can’t have that, now, can we?

bromi.7809:

of being a sniper.

When your damage mostly come from blowtorch? Yeah…

Blowtorch is my hardest-hitting Pistol weapon skill. That doesn’t mean that most of my damage on any one target comes from an ability on a 12-to-15-second timer.

You’re just full of sunshine, aren’t you?

You’re right, actually. I remember a fellow named Vudani ran a build like this in sPvP ages ago, before Bleeds and Incendiary Powder were “changed”.

It was actually one of his favorite sPvP builds for Engineer and he ran it even after the nerfs, though with a few tweaks. But his play-style with it was very much “stay at max range and pick people off”. It wasn’t a build for holding points. It was, however, a build for “sniping” and keeping away from closer-range bursts.

I did try a rifle/grenade/bomb engineer outside of sPvP and found it to be fun, but I hate trying to use grenades at range against mobile targets, so the play-style amounted to getting on top of people, CCing and ruining their day at close-to-mid-range.

Very fun, but I also adore the idea of being a sniper. Depends on what you like, I suppose.

Even without food, this build would probably perform pretty well in sPvP with a Rampager’s Amulet, albeit not as dramatically so. Testing it on the mobs in the Heart of the Mists with just a Carrion Amulet, it still hit pretty hard, with most of them dying rather quickly to conditions while chasing me around.

Not nearly as bursty as in the video but I’d think it would still be viable and fun. Are burst builds required for sPvP or something?

luckywaldo.6089:

Interesting, I’ve been running something along these lines, except with grenades and bombs instead of FT and TK, and 30 points in explosions. There are a lot of good traits in the explosions lines that benefit both.

Hell, bombs are good even just for the smoke field and Big Ol’ Bomb; those offer a hell of a lot of control while sitting on a point.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcMM9VmalNMmalNMx9MGGcRqzsom8khf7070m7kNs70V7owY8ofy

I haven’t tried the sigil of energy yet but it sounds to be good fun!

I’ve tried this build out and it’s very good fun. The kits in this version have a good deal of synergy with one another, and the capability to strike out with damage and conditions effectively at any range.

I haven’t been using it for a bunker in sPvP though. Does anyone have an opinion of how a build like this one may be adapted to WvW for siege killing, zerg harassment and a bit of skirmishing?

Trying it out in the HotM I was able to keep myself alive and constantly lay down damage on the mobs there, but the damage was minor. I could solo Champions in solo PvE, but the fights took forever. In full Soldier’s gear the damage is definitely bad, but I like how tanky this build can be so I’ve considered using Knight’s armor to add a bit of crit chance.

So, yeah. Any thoughts of how this build could be balanced for durability and damage in WvW/PvE? Or is it just not a good setup for being damaging or effective outside of sPvP?

bromi.7809:

Yeah… if only this would be relevant at all in spvp )
hooray, now adding to www crit abuse we have www condi abuse :P

I haven’t played any structured PvP yet, but aside from the Sigil of Corruption, what makes this build irrelevant to sPvP?

So does mine, with upkeep. Med Kit Stimulant and Elixir B. And some people get infinite swiftness from Infused Precision or Speedy Kits.

That wasn’t really my point. My point is that a trait that’s supposed to only increase the range of attack skills shouldn’t be changing how my skills actually work.

Halcyon.7352:

I know Rifled Barrels was for sure, working during the Halloween event at least, for the elixir gun. I used the extra range to pull mobs, to help clear before taking on the Mad King. Must have broken between then and now, if it’s not working now.

It’s still working, in that it still appropriately increases your attack range. It just does a variety of other stuff to the Elixir Gun’s abilities, such as cooldown changes, condition duration changes, and erroneous tooltip changes.

On topic, I did think that it was strange that the Elixir traits didn’t either work with specific “Elixir”-labeled abilities or clarify that they only work with certain “Elixir” abilities. Though if the latter occurs, then what’s the point of labeling those unaffected abilities “Elixir”?

I can see why it works this way though, to an extent. Even though the traits say they affect “Elixirs”, they only affect Healing and Utility Elixir abilities. Fast-Acting Elixirs, for instance, doesn’t work on anything but these, because Elixir Gun skills have their own cooldown reduction traits, as do Tool Belt skills, and Elites have their own unique traits.

The problem is, I can’t remember if Potent Elixirs works for Toolbelt skills, but I know for sure that HGH and Cleaning Formula 409 do. Likewise I don’t know if any of these traits work for Elixir X, and I know that NONE of them work for Elixir Gun skills, OR the Elixir Gun’s Tool Belt skill (which is also an “Elixir” skill).

So even if the point is to only have particular “Elixir”-type skills be affected by these traits, it’s hard to guess which ones actually will be affected.

Maybe this bug will get fixed if I refer to it as an exploit. As in, Rifled Barrels makes my Elixir F ability’s cooldown 1.5 seconds faster, and the tooltip says that the Cripple duration is 5 seconds. This basically means that I can apply infinite crippling.

Also, the tooltip alleges that I get a 6-second Swiftness boon from it, meaning that I would get infinite Swiftness as well.

Now, in all honesty, from testing it I know that the only part of that tooltip that is true is the part about the 5-second cooldown, which is still a better cooldown than intended.

But maybe ANet should check my numbers, because the tooltip DOES imply that I get infinite Cripple and Swiftness… What if I actually do? What if I actually have a super unfair advantage that must get fixed immediately?

(I’m kidding, but please fix this. The bug has actually reduced the ticks on my bleeds and increased the cooldown on my Super Elixir.)

I recorded all the particular bugs associated with using the Rifled Barrels trait with the Elixir Gun in another thread in here. Would you believe that that bug has existed for at least two months?

The worst part about it is that it cuts my Bleed duration down by one second, which is unacceptable if you’re an Engineer laying down heavy Condition Damage and use Tranquilizer Darts to stack Bleeds instead of Explosive Shot.

I pretty much had to stop using Rifled Barrels because of that. I miss my range…

I’ve tested this tonight, and this bug is still present. Rifled Barrels does the following to the Elixir Gun’s skills:

Tranquilizer Dart:
Weakness duration increased from 1 second to 3 seconds.
Bleed duration decreased from 4 seconds to 3 seconds.

Elixir F:
Cooldown is ALWAYS 5 seconds, with or without Fireforged Trigger.
Tooltip states a change in durations for Cripple and Swiftness, but this is not true.

Fumigate:
No change.

Acid Bomb:
No change.

Super Elixir:
Cooldown is ALWAYS 20 seconds, with or without Fireforged Trigger.
Tooltip states various changes to the skill, all of which are not true.

Zaxares.5419:

Naught.2316:

“but they are there for a specific purpose.”

And what purpose would that be? (Aside from player gratification, of course.)

“A sylvari may have breasts because it is nature trying to look human.” -Kristen Perry

From the same source.

Additionally, it is regarded in the game and in the lore to be a mystery that sylvari have genders at all, but the fact that they do means that the presence of breasts could make sense. Whatever process makes sylvari male or female gives them stereotypical gender features, so that females have breasts and wider hips, males have narrower hips and more triangular torsos.

I guess in terms of player gratification, it could be much worse. Norn breasts, anyone? One of the settings makes them so large that they clip through some armor.

Kristen Perry actually answered this question back during the third Beta Weekend Event, in the BWE forum:

“As many of you may have read in the articles, the sylvari are plants, but they do have a small chest. The reason a plant has imitation chest is because it is imitating a human. The breasts aren’t real (and no, you would not find nipples ;} heh), but they are there for a specific purpose. In the options, I have made sure to have curvy for those who want curvy and as small as I can get them without breaking the model properties. The normal map prevents it from going completely flat chested, but I managed an ‘A cup’.”

http://ie.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/tcwj0/the_sylvari_sex_and_gender/

/thread

Let me just finish off this thread by answering the original question:

“Are Charr Atheist like me?”

No.

In the real world, atheism has nothing to do with worship and everything to do with belief. We have different words for people who believe in deities but don’t worship them.

In Guild Wars, faith and religion are very different concepts, because the races of Tyria build these on the foundation that the beings they beseech are in fact real things. They place their faith not on the reality of these beings but on their ability to rely on them for blessings. The power of gods is a real force in the world, and requires no faith.

The question of “what is a god” is a good one, because knowing that these beings called gods are real certainly changes how people are able to perceive them. The charr claim that they killed their gods—they acknowledge the status of these beings as gods, and they acknowledge the Six Gods of the humans. A “god” is just a being of immense power that can grant this power to other beings in exchange for devotion. Or such a being is made a “god” by devotees.

Tyrians don’t sweat the details. A god is a god. You worship it or you don’t.

The norn Spirits are not unlike gods, though they aren’t considered in quite the same way because of their origin in the world. The Eternal Alchemy is more of a philosophical idea among the asura that unifies their ideas of magic and science. It’s not a “religion” and there are no temples.

Sylvari are considered truly “agnostic” but only in terms of the six human gods—they’re the only race that never experienced the influence of the human gods, and since the human gods no longer answer human prayers, sylvari aren’t sure what it is the humans are praying to, or if they were ever there. All they hear are stories.

Sylvari can see the influence of the gods of other races, such as the grawl or the hylek, and come to different conclusions about gods in general. The sylvari themselves simply do not worship anything, and the belief they put in the Dream and their Mother Tree, and their thoughts on their afterlife are all based on verifiable fact.

Some sylvari question beyond this fact, to what created the world, and what created the Pale Tree and the Dream, but all they really do is question. Sylvari love to question.

That’s the long and short of it. (Source: the Guild Wars 2 Wiki pages about all this stuff.)

Illushia.3721:

Actually you’re probably thinking of the “Go where life goes” story choice, where you meet a Sylvari that isn’t actually from the Pale Tree, but another tree entirely.

Which is why you’re treated as strangers.

No, they mean later on down the Personal Storyline where your sylvari character is “reintroduced” to the Pale Tree through Trahearne.

On the main topic, speculation is good and all, but folks should try and honor the idea of Occam’s Razor: When you start trying to explain things that seem to be mostly related to game mechanics by speculating that machines read your mind and teleport money out of your pocket, and other such odd things, it becomes increasingly likely that that’s not what ArenaNet had in mind at all.

And this isn’t a thread for “explain why you think Waypoints work in lore”, it’s about finding the degree of evidence in lore (rather than game function) that determines their role therein.

Personally, I take advantage of them without acknowledging them BECAUSE they’re so nebulous in lore. They obviously exist to some minor degree in lore, but even if they work exactly how they do in-game, is your roleplaying character really as important as the Personal Story implies you are, friends to the Pact and Destiny’s Edge with access to all this technology?

There’s a lot we ignore or gloss over about the game just to put ourselves at equal footing with every other player and roleplayer. For me, the Waypoint system is one of those things.