Guild Wars 2

If we’re optimistic and ANet releases more elite specializations in the future, I imagine they’ll be locked to HoT as well.

Gudradain.3892:

I want to see Anet comment on this. Why do they build this place then put nothing at the top! I think it’s awesome to climb up there

If there were a sky crystal or an achievement at the top, there would be a lot of complaints from people who don’t have the patience or the ability to get to the top. My take on it is that the scaffolding was the work of a few developers who are big jumping puzzle enthusiasts, and they wanted to put in a real challenge for like minded players.

The entire area is constructed as a jumping playground after all, so what would be the point if the most ardent jumping puzzlers didn’t have something to shoot for? Puzzling out the path up to the top myself was one of the best experiences I have had in GW2 thus far, and then I find out that my solution isn’t even the only one. Smerec’s video demonstrates a completely different path up the scaffold from mine. I just love it.

2 weeks is the span of time between updates, but each event usually spans 2 updates, so approximately one month.

Often the majority of the content is introduced in one update, and the second update modifies the content and introduces a dungeon or something extra that adds on to the previous content.

Some others have detailed their experience making the jumps up the scaffold in another thread here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/bazaar/REALLY-making-it-to-the-top/first#post2396997

It’s definitely one of the hardest jumping challenges ANet has put into the game yet, and probably just the work of one or two developers there who really love platforming and wanted to put something in there that was just barely possible.

I have to speculate that ANet intended this path to be jumpable for those who wanted the extra challenge, however they were precluded them from actually giving out any awards or an achievement due to the level of difficulty filtering out the vast majority of their player base.

As Smerec demonstrated very well the first video, ANet seems to have gone out of their way to construct a path up to the base of the scaffold requiring a maximum of one skill jump. After that, both Smerec and I make mistakes while hopping up the scaffold, wasting a few skill jumps, but we still make it.

If there was no intention of letting people up there, I don’t believe they would have arranged the supports in a fashion that allowed it. Furthermore, since you don’t encounter an invisible wall until you get atop the crow’s nest proper, they included traversable level geometry up the entire scaffold, which is a lot of work for an area that they don’t want people in.

The first time I made it I definitely had to use my mesmer to portal myself and refill my charges, but I did a lot of legwork and eventually made it with just a single set of charges without a portal. Someone else made it up too and put a video in this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/bazaar/REALLY-making-it-to-the-top/first#post2389147

Smerec.7463:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvEostZDv0U

Enjoy

Nicely done, you beat me by some hours for a portal-less run, but here’s my contribution as earlier promised.

I love that we both took different paths up the scaffolding, at least for the first 2/3rds or so of it. The playground aspect of the new zone combined with the jumping mechanics is what makes it so fun for me.

Kryptonite.9376:

There is no jumping puzzle or platforming. The only thing that will even get you that high up is to refill your charges on your jump with a mesmer most likely. Just a trick. I don’t think it was ever intended.

You’re right, I did use a mesmer portal to refill my charges halfway up, but I’m working on a way now to make it to the crow’s nest without using the portal. Theoretically if you don’t miss a single jump and use your assist jump and lighting pull perfectly efficiently, I think it is doable. I’ll get back to here with a video if I make it.

With the help of another jumping puzzle fanatic guildie, I finally made it to the crow’s nest at the top of the scaffolding.

I love that ANet has made challenges like this available for those of us who are in love with the platforming aspect for GW2. Thanks guys!

Sinester.3572:

I have one thing to say for SOME of ET u guys are using the glitch to get inside the doors all day long dont start doing that that dont lower ur standarts. And yes i did kill both of them :P

FSÆ is by and large an upstanding guild, but we do have our lemons. I’ll check into it, thanks for bringing this up.

I encountered this bug today. Our party was blocked after defeating the Jotun Stargazer.

Other notes of interest: Varra Skylark’s dialogue updated to reflect that we had found the observatory. Prior to the fight, the boss chest had already spawned and we claimed our loot from it.

I will run Arah as it is now. I hated the idea of token farming the first easy bosses, and when someone showed me the trick, it definitely left a bad taste in my mouth.

The rewards we get from Arah are supposed to be challenging to get. They’re supposed to be mark of prestige for people who have grasped the combat system, understood the mechanics of the dungeon and practiced to beat it. It took me three nights of wiping to figure out how to beat the lupicus boss, and it felt great when I finally pushed through to the end of it, with a pug no less.

I can’t imagine these perma items have even a 1% rate from the Black Lion chests. They’re luxury convenience items, and as such are probably the rarest items possible from the chests.

The tutorial areas are the special versions of the zone a new character starts out in prior to beating the tutorial boss.

Queensdale, Metrica, Ashford etc. are NOT tutorial areas.

I should amend that statement about the Warden not having as much damage output. What I meant to say is it’s easier to get the damage you want out of a Berserker or Swordsman because they put it out in one big packet and they’re done. The Warden, on the other hand, does its damage over six seconds while standing in one place, so sometimes you need to do a little work and snare your target or find the correct timing to make sure your Warden keeps chopping away on your foe.

In PvP, the difference becomes more pronounced as humans are much more adept than the AI at recognizing where not to stand and learn over time.

Also, concerning whether or not the skill is functioning as intended with Phantasmal Haste, this behavior has existed since at least the July BWE as far as I can remember, so I can’t see them simply glossing this over as a bug. I’m guessing they will probably reduce the effect Phantasmal Hastes has with the Warden to be more in line with other phantasms.

Whatever the case may be on the skill’s intended behavior, there are cases that it does trivialize PvE content as the AI can’t recognize that there is a potentially permanent projectile block/reflect and AoE. Like I said, I love how powerful I feel when playing a focus mesmer; but when one skill completely circumvents a whole boss fight as in Arah, I believe some changes are warranted either to some PvE content or to the skill itself.

darkehawke.1269:

This is the same story mode after the patch. I’ll give you what you say about story mode before the patch.
And the fact is, i was helping for the fun of it, the reduced reward is a bit of a bummer but oh well, but the addition of more champion mobs and more elites means this is not fun gameplay for people new to dungeons. being constantly stunned and being able to do nothing about it is not fun. A lot of time was spent replacing frustrated players because the difficulty was ramped up.

What i’m saying is less reward or more difficult. Pick one but dont pick them both!

I haven’t played Caudecus’ Manor story mode since the patch so I can’t comment on what the difficulty is now, but before the patch the story mode was pretty much a joke in terms of difficulty. In this one case I do think an increase in difficulty was warranted, though I can’t say if perhaps ANet overtuned it.

darkehawke.1269:

and what about the players who wont be able to do the dungeons for the first time.
you admit in your post you showed people how to run through the dungeons. well there is now zero incentive for showing anyone how to do anything in dungeons in story mode.

your post reads as “i dont care, i’m not affected, screw everyone else who is”

I don’t know about you, but this patch won’t affect my play behavior in the slightest. I help people in dungeons because I like playing with people and helping out. I concede your point that this disincentivizes some people to help others get through story mode, but I don’t think story mode is so challenging that a competent gamer couldn’t handle it. Explorable mode is where I’ve seen more people asking for help; but regardless, I help people where they need it and have myself a good time wherever that is.

I like the patch. I realize I’m in the minority in the forums, but there is a portion of the player base who does not hate what ANet has done in the latest patch.

I hated the way it was before the patch, with Caudecus’ Manor being a joke in difficulty and being unable to find an Arah, Sorrow’s Embrace, Twilight Arbor or Citadel of Flames group that wasn’t a speed clear farming group. Maybe now I’ll be able to get a group that actually plays through the dungeon.

I don’t mind that story mode rewards have been decreased; that was never my main source of income in the game anyway. I don’t mind that difficulty on some dungeons were upped; even some of my more casual guildies have commented that dungeons were getting easy after I showed them the ropes.

So thanks ANet, for the great game. Thanks for staying true to your vision of a game for players. You might lose some of the hardcore farmers, but in the long run the players that love your game will find more to love for your efforts.

Nretep.2564:

@Topic
Clones are not meant for PVP deceiving. Unless they get a complete rework.
They’re meant to deceive PvE or cause conditions.

Clones are perfectly viable for sowing confusion, even for a second or two to turn a fight to your advantage.

In one instance, I was nearly down in a duel with another mesmer, and I decoyed and dodged out of a chaos storm just before I would have gone down. The other mesmer assumed I had gone down and deceptioned out went to work on my remaining phantasms for a few seconds waiting for me to reappear. This lapse in his offensive turned the momentum of the duel around and I was able to win.

Another case occured when I was defending a point and an enemy mesmer was assaulting. Instead of launching an immediate offensive, the enemy mesmer popped out three clones and stood stock still among them, peppering me with conditions. It was only for a few seconds, but that was all he needed to start the fight off at an advantage and I went down after blowing the wrong cooldowns at the wrong time.

When I first tried out the mesmer in the BWEs, I felt like Temporal Curtain was the only reason to use a focus. After countless hours doing dynamic events, dungeons, pvp matches and WvW battles, the focus has become my weapon of choice because of the #5 skill Phantasmal Warden.

In its untraited form, the Warden is a decent but not outstanding phantasm with an interesting effect. It stands in one place and starts swinging twin axes with wild abandon dealing decent damage and blocking projectiles for 6 seconds every 14 seconds. With the Warden’s Feedback and Phantasmal Haste traits applied, however, the Warden turns into a near constantly whirling death dealer that turns back projectiles onto the attacker.

Now it doesn’t have the raw damage output of a Berserker or Swordsman, but it’s useful in most situations, and wow does it shine in those moments you really need it. Is a ranger or thief peppering you while you try to defend a capture point? Call up a Warden and see how they like the taste of their own arrows. Need to bust up a pot of boiling oil in WvW? Send your Warden up there to hack away at that thing. Fighting dungeon mobs with insane ranged damage? Your Warden can shut them down so hard you’ll be off making dinner while being your dungeon team MvP.

How ridiculously overpowered the Warden is was made apparent when I finally started delving the depths of Arah. After dusting myself off from the nasty surprise that was the notorious Lupicus’ phase 2, I planted a few trusty Wardens around the room and our party cruised on through on easy mode. Not long after that, the next boss on the Mursaat path was a five minute exercise in standing around while Wardens took him to task.

Honestly, I think something has to give; it’s so powerful it’s really just trivialized some PvE encounters and dumbed down my play so I’m rather ambivalent about its future. Who else has thoughts on this trusty phantasm and its death dealing whirling axes?

Mirodir.1672:

I don’t CARE what loot I got from this boos. What the dungeon-reward was. I don’t care how much I’ve spend to repair my armor. I’ve had SO much fun playing this and overcoming our weaknesses. Figuring out what to do…as a TEAM.

This is really the answer for all those people asking what the point of dungeons is, complaining about their difficulty and lack of epic loot rewards. ANet made the game to be fun to play as they see it, and I suspect a lot of their customers agree with them.

There’s no point in grinding away at a dungeon you like to get better gear because that’s not the kind of game the developers at ANet wanted to play; they wanted to play a game they enjoyed. I want to play a game I enjoy, and I do enjoy this game immensely.

Dungeons are difficult, yes. I’ve wiped hard on some dungeon paths, yes. My mesmer power/precision build gets beaten to a bloody pulp by some mobs if I’m not careful, yes. But you know what, I’m not playing dungeons because at the end there’s some golden treasure that I have to torture myself to get to; I play because I like the combat system, I love that skillful play will make me an effective, contributing member of my party and that coordination and communication turns a wholly impossible foe into a challenge that’s just sokittensatisfying to beat.

It’s most definitely random, I’ve had it appear in every direction from my target.

While it would be nice to be able to place it at will, I think this would bump the utility and power of the skill over the top. As the skill is now, I still have great success casting the Warden, and then positioning myself afterwards to make use of the reflection capabilities, in PvE and PvP both.

Another solution to getting the Warden in position between yourself and your reflection target is to use Temporal Curtain→Into the Void to shift the enemy position. Better yet, it’s on the focus you’re already using anyway, so there’s no reason not to. With the ability to control both your own position as well as your enemy, I don’t think greater granularity is needed in placing the Warden in just the exact spot you want.

The application of Phantasmal Haste is pretty uneven across the different phantasms. It’s definitely a must if you use Phantasmal Warden on the focus, but otherwise your mileage with it will vary.

The wiki page for each phantasm has information on how each one is affected by Phantasmal Haste.

4) It does affect other phantasms, to varying degrees, but most of the time there’s so little benefit the only reason to take the trait is if you were using Phantasmal Warden.

5) I can confirm this works across all game modes. In sPvP a well built team will have enough varying types of damage that the Warden can’t just sit there reflecting projectiles for long. In WvW and PvE correct Warden placement with the reflecting trait is great in specific cases.

6) It’s really unclear when the description states that ‘distortion’ grants reflection because there is both a skill and an effect called distortion, so it may just be the trait works as intended and only triggers on use of the F4 distortion skill.

Another thing about phase 2, all the bolts he shoots out – ground target and player targeted – are projectiles. Which means every one of them is affected by skills that block or reflect projectiles.

As a mesmer, illusionary warden and feedback were invaluable as small safe zones if he blankets your area with AoE.

Secondly, this also means that simly moving back and forth will cause his single target attack to miss, so you don’t have to use a dodge on it.

His shadow walk also knocks you down for an inordinate amount of time, so it’s quite important to dodge. If you have a stun break, that will get you up quickly in case you mess up your dodge timing.

Xenolith.6154:

Add a -bmp argument to your GW2 shortcut.

For example: Right-click > Properties > Target
“C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe” -bmp

Xenolith, the hi-res screenshot feature being referred to was a capability in the BWE clients to take a screen capture at a much higher resolution than your screen. For example, my screen is 1920×1080, while the images produced by the high resolution screenshots are 7680×4320.

I have heard, though it’s on the level of hearsay, that the issues with the hi-res screenshot option have yet to be polished out, so they’ve disabled the feature until they can get it working 100%.