Guild Wars 2

Just popped into Ember Bay, after doing some events I jumped onto the long ley line that runs from the first WP, ive done it a couple of times before as it has unbound magic along the route – all now gone?! Bloodstone Fen is packed to the gills with purple orbs have you actually nerfed this or is it a bug?

Hi,

im thinking at some point of coming back to wvw, this time with actual appropriate gear as opposed to slumming it in my pve gear

I will probably try out both my Ele and Necro ( or happy to swap into the elite specs if better) is there some easy to get hold of armor stats that will be best for these classes? Im not getting ascended gear and I don’t really want to craft expensive 4 attribute gear if I can avoid it.

I always defaulted to soldiers gear in the past if I needed to supplement by zerker pve gear but im unsure that’s a good stats choice for Ele and Necro, any advice appreciated!

Thanks for the tip Deihnyx – to be honest ive only been able to play in the evenings most of the time and when I last checked LFG there were none – now its daytime and im off work for the day I may give it a try – but ive basically lost the will to live with it.

I managed to get Capricorn last night but ive been having lag issues in the game since the last patch – when I finally managed to tab out and back in again and get the game moving I had a stream of whispered and public abuse from not one but two different people in my team ( the game had started 10 seconds before I could move)

Anyone at Anet – a.n.y.o.n.e – please see sense!

This is ridiculous, ive spent the last 2 weeks not doing anything but trying to get the kitten Capricorn map and win some games – ive stopped watching TV, reading, and yet somehow im 10 games off getting the full Coliseum meta whilst still failing to break the back of Capricorn.

It makes no sense you doing this, I don’t even pvp that much but a pvp season and TWO temp map achievements at the same time as LS?

Then to top it off, only Capricorn (when I actually get it) seems to ONLY have premade professional teams in opposition that really shouldn’t be slumming in in unranked with muppets like me – we are being annihilated.

Ive broke my back trying to get this godkitten achievement after I specifically remember you saying you were stopping with temp content apart from festivals.

Please – save sanity of people and correct what has frankly become a very toxic environment to play in ( which you caused really) by extending Capricorn until Halloween.

Or at least come on here to explain why you arnt…..

Ive just played through story for a couple of hours and NO mastery points for “The Predator’s Path” and “Strange Observations”

Im already blocked from getting xp as I have too few mastery points im also now loath to do any more story until I know a fix is happening or even that its at least been acknowledged? If you didn’t make Mastery points so annoying to get it wouldn’t be a problem – whats going on?

Really annoyed about this – I cant do adventures, ive just played through story for a couple of hours and NO mastery points for “The Predator’s Path” and “Strange Observations”

Im already blocked from getting xp as I have too few mastery points im also now loath to do any more story until I know a fix is happening or even that its at least been acknowledged? If you didn’t make Mastery points so annoying to get it wouldn’t be a problem – whats going on?

Thanks for pinning Capricorn – I don’t really pvp that much and didn’t realise the two map achievements were on a timer – even so ive just played 8 matches and only got Capricorn once ;( meanwhile having only started Colosseum yesterday im well on my way with it – really hoping this is extended – even better, is there no way to implement putting people together that want to only do the Beta maps?

The Psychologist B F Skinner and in fact the entire branch of Psychology ‘behaviourism’ is partly to blame for this – it simplifies humans down to a mechanical level, it thinks because a rat in a box that’s starving will ‘appear’ to enjoy pressing a button to get food that this reaction can be also be manipulated in Humans – its called Skinner box.

Gamer developers have gone all in on this theory because it allows lazy game making – they think that simply opening a box gives enough fulfilment in itself that whats inside the box doesn’t matter.

I hate it, and behaviourists and economists who also see humans in simple terms of ‘commodity’ and simplified mechanical reactions are the right arm of the devil as far as im concerned – life is tough, we don’t need this sort of kitten being applied to games that we play in our down time.

Rant over!

Oh God – they have a salvage ALL facility now? lololol even so it still would have been a godkitten nightmare as you said – you still have to check the prices of the rares to decide what to do, forge sell sigils etc.

While im moaning, all the ascended mats like bloodstone get on my last nerve aswell – we shouldnt have to NEED an ascended mat eater to then open the boxes the item eater makes to then salvage whats inside the item eater box to then ..you get my drift – we basically should just get LESS ascended mats, and you know something nice in the loot table instead.

The entire loot table is chock full of s.t.u.f.f.w.e.d.o.n.t.n.e.e.d
Take shards of Glory for example, unless you are crafting a Legendary, there is simply no need for them and yet you get tonnes from the pvp tracks – ive got 6 stacks of them that I cannot sell, tomes of knowledge its just as bad, once you have a couple fo level boosters you have no need for these, they cannot be used for anything useful and yet the pvp tracks keeps spitting them out…

Im going to give it one more try today now you have spurred me on and been so helpful with suggestions, to be honest im pretty convinced it really is just the kitten Dyslexia slowing me, but that the timer is what finishes me off, but maybe I can get the hang of it – its just that I ‘lose’ 30 minutes of play time every time I attempt with nothing to show for it – when you only have 1-2 hours to play a lot of the time that’s a big chunk.

Its my least favourite part of the new LS events and im really hoping they consider not using timers any more…

Ok folks im going to try some of these out, thanks Fluffy for looking at the Elite specs V vanilla – thanks for all the advice everyone

- Ayrilana, im just trying to use up all the Dungeon boxes ive accumulated rather than just salvaging them all then having to buy/craft condition gear

Ive been working away a lot for the last few months and haven’t had time to stay ‘on top’ of loot – and I realised just how bad it was at the weekend…

I decided to open up all the champion bags, Hot event boxes, PvP track chests and ascended salvager gifts that had collected across all 9 characters

It took me the better part of 4 days worth of play time ( I normally only get 2-3 hours when I do play) all spent moving, opening, sorting ,salvaging and selling and organising results between characters

- and for my troubles I only got 1 ascended weapon box ( I was opening all magic find boxes of which a had quite a few under the Mists buff of 200%) 1 ascended ring, 2 unique exotic weapons worth under 3G each and 1 exotic leg piece worth 1G.

Personally I don’t think 6 items considered ‘good’ from hundreds of chests with magic find buffed up like crazy is reasonable, I also don’t think its reasonable that as my magic find has increased over time ive actually been getting ore and more white items because 1. loot tables appeared to be nerfed when HoT arrived, 2. magic find isn’t worth kitten these days due to Anet deliberately removing most of the loot from being affected by magic find in the first place.

Its the ONE thing that puts me off the game for large periods of time its not ‘fun’ to save all these godkitten boxes up only to get a tiny amount of actual usable items the rest being mats that have to be stored/sold/organised into more items I can make/store/sell

Its just not satisfying….

Nordom.3485:

for pve I’d personally go with something like this:
necro http://bit.ly/2cSW5VI
ranger http://bit.ly/2cJO690
engi http://bit.ly/2ciku7i
ele http://bit.ly/2cB3wPG
all those are a bit hastily put together with not that much testing, just there to give you some ideas/guidance;
generally I believe rabid offers the best option for condi damage, with the exception of engi that has so many traits based off crit (firearms traitline) that justify rampager
I can’t come up with a good vanilla warrior build and I’m not sure how viable it could be
for wvw as it’s been stated, dire is a good option and imo is broken xD provides all the tankiness you can have with all the dps you can have for condi
hope this helps

Thanks everyone – Nordom, I cant seem to see these properly? everything is greyed out and I cant click anything ive never been to this site before so unsure if its my settings…

I was asking about Warrior because I heard some vague talk about Guardian and Warrior maybe having a fun condition build but I haven’t really found out more…

Im just back from time away – thanks for all these contributions!

Sorry to say ive tried one last time and failed again

- im ignoring the ‘direction’ the symbols ‘point’ – ive never been able to get them to splay out 360 degrees anyway they tend to all sit in front of me even with the camera as high as I can get ( unless I need to change my camera settings?) Ive also become more reliant on WP to try and cut down on time.

I think its simply down to the fact that my brain just sisnt processing WHERE ive come and where is left to try whenever a blue turns into a red because of wrong direction, or when a red fails to turn into a blue – annoying as kitten but I have to accept defeat

Thanks for all trying to get me there though ;D enjoy your swanky staff skins

Hello,

im looking to use up a stack of dungeon armor boxes I have by trying out condition builds for some characters – I know people mostly just use Vipers these days if they are raiding but this is just to try out some builds in Pve and possibly WvW on the cheap…

From what I gather only the following are considered to have usable Condition builds:
Necro
Ranger
Warrior
Engineer
Ele?

And only these stats can be obtained from Dungeons:
Rampagers
Rabid
Dire
Carrion
Shaman

I cant find any suggested gear for builds that doesn’t just default to Rabid or poor mans version Sinister – do any of the above stats have any traction with the classes I mention? Are there classes that can also use Condition? Its just for seeing how I find condition really so im not fussed about being fantastic dps…my Necro also has a Sinister set so she is ready to go.

Many Thanks!

Hi,

just went into wvw tab after a break as im planning on doing some crafting before trying skirmishes – except the second world bonus tab no longer represents what actually happening in game? ( we are currently 2% artisan when we would normally be at least 12%)

Saw a Dev explain that you now need to hover over the wvw icon at the top of your screen for actual world bonus now> except all I see when I do that is ‘world vs world B’ nothing else…

Am I doing something wrong? are my settings wrong?

More importantly that second tab is now totally wasted! why isn’t it representing whats actually happening in game?

Thanks all – I think in that case I simply wont be able to do it then as I am definitely understanding the red/blue/green distance thing its just that I for example -= follow a blue – it turns to red – I have no idea ( really!) which way to turn next to back track and find other options…at least not quickly enough – the amount of times ive followed a red across an entire map made me think I was doing it wrong but maybe im just not quick enough to try all the options

If there was no timer I would be perfectly happy to take an alt there that hasn’t been to the map before and just amble around but 30 minutes is just not doable for me it seems – oh well I wasn’t relishing the collection I had to do to get the staff so I will just call it a day – thanks for trying to help though

On another note Anet – Dyslexics/Dyspraxics really DO have trouble with this sort of thing a lot of the time – so maybe don’t put it on a kitten timer OK?!

Hi,

not managed to find out much guide wise about this achievement – but im really struggling! pretty sure its because im Dyslexic and have a lot of problems with left right/directions/symbols etc

Ive tried it 3 times now and every time I cant get beyond 2/3 sensors in the 30 minutes – now I KNOW that other people probably cant see why this is so hard but I have gone across complete maps left to right up and down and still im getting the red symbol…tried WP across the map and starting again still got 3 red symbols 30 minutes later – frankly it shouldn’t be on a timer I feel but here we are…

If anyone has any tips advice I would really appreciate it because basically im not wasting any more 2 hour playing sessions trying to get this – there is a guide here:
http://forum.renaka.com/topic/6209670/1/
But I have no idea how to get the camera directly above my head so that the symbols splay out around me showing direction?

Others have said its impossible to see which direction its in, which is maybe why im having trouble as if I follow a blue that then turns red I cannot remember which directions I still need to check – Also the symbols , when im looking at the red ‘fork’ symbol am I following the ‘fork’ direction or the opposite end to that?

Gah – thanks in advance…

Ive lost the will to live with it all frankly – ive just spent the last three evenings trying to persuade myself to go and do the ‘new achievements’ in the ‘old’ LS areas from a couple of weeks ago or the same achievs in the ‘new’ areas – its the SAME event just copy pasted to a new area Guys, the same event that fails half the time because it scales badly.

And all for around 15AP and a tiny amount of XP? no scavenger hunt with a nice backpack at the end a la the first couple of months of GW2?

No just the same old same old

I think its sort of OK – but that’s only because ive just taken 4 characters through VB AB and TD ONLY to get enough Hero points to get their Elite in the past couple of weeks and ive almost got it down to a routine now.

I avoid most Meta’s unless im right in the middle of an event, Wallows and high level Gliding makes it all less annoying – I use Dulfy’s guides to pick off the ones I can solo then make sure to do the others prime time just after a map has completed but people are still hanging around, or look for HP runs being advertised. If you complete all of the HP in VB and AB you only need a few from TD and DS to finish your Elite.

Its the Masteries im having issues with – I gain XP far too fast to keep up enough Mastery points to use, I don’t want to do adventures so im pretty much stuck at the mid levels for each line.

Isnt Pve Parking pretty much logging out of the game with your character sat ANYWHERE in the world?

Why single people out?

I know – lets make it so that whenever you log out somewhere you plan on going back to that on logging in you are instead transported to the furthest point on the map from where you were, or dropped in the Caverns in Tangled Depths with no active WP or Wallows for 15 minutes.

Ahhh good old Dyslexia – I thought it was asking for a 75% threshold for both answers.

Still the last Poll was badly done, it allowed the minority view to ‘win’ the result, lets hope we get there in the end…

Colour me confused

- wasn’t the Threshold 75%? wasn’t the threshold for the last Poll also 75%?

Neither Poll managed a 75% majority but one of them got through and one didn’t despite the one that didn’t having almost exactly the same amount of votes as the one that did….

I mean im happy with the results but im wary of any Polls in the future if the positive result threshold is just arbitrarily decided.

Just give us 3 different Maps and call it a day I say.

‘You should remember that you can’t have everything’ OK I don’t engage with patronising comments….

Ive had nothing atall, that’s the point, anyone who doesn’t raid and that’s apparently at least 90% of players hasn’t had anything either, many people haven’t had their promised legendaries , I don’t care for the grind myself.

- I DO care when a company advertises something then doesn’t put its money where its mouth is, NOONE when all the run up to Hot was taking placed would have thought that all their talk of additional content with LS would mean that they would only be getting that content 8 weeks shy of a year from the xpac release date.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

This drought may be unwanted, exceptionally long and also unexpected by ANet. If you recall with the announcement about suspending Legendary weapons they said that they spread themselves too thin and let the content pipeline empty out. Obviously they have problems pacing themselves and setting up reasonable goals and had to retrench. Hopefully they’ve learned a lesson with all this and in the future the content droughts will be shorter.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Thanks for all the comments. I know there’s nothing I’m going to say that will make you feel better, but I’ll share some final thoughts for the night.

I said three weeks ago I’d focus on sustainability and quality. I want to reiterate the part about sustainability. Be angry about legendary weapons, sure, but how about the recent drought of content? That kind of thing happens when we spread ourselves too thin, and when we let the content development pipeline empty out so we can fight fires. What I think we actually owe you is sustainable, predictable, high-quality content. I’m making a decision that’s painful in the short-term so we can position ourselves to deliver that.

(Snip)
Mo

That’s very reasonable of you – actually that’s sort of beyond reasonable really isn’kitten– they spread themselves too thin, and yet their biggest team at over 100 Dev’s is the NEW xpac team? – they stopped Legendaries that weer advertised as coming with Hot that people paid for but they haven’t reduced the NEW xpac team by even one person? its all hands on deck guys! unless of course its not because you have pushed all of your considerable resources into getting more cash money from a new xpac?

You normally make more sense….

Don’t you just LOVE Google translate lol

The take home from it seems to be – only 3 LS releases a year new pvp maps and they are really proud of their esports you guys!

I think its been pulled and you are only still seeing it if its cached on your PC – its not showing anywhere for me – either in the magazines archives or in Google cache or in a basic search or in a different browser.

Interesting.

Ahh – ‘special’ the worlds favourite word to get a free pass for general skulduggery.

While im here why are Gold to Gem and Ecto prices rocketing? is that special too? lol

I just double checked on my memory of Super majority in countries around the World.

Not ONE country that uses super majority requires a figure as a high as 75% – so the Democratic standards used by Countries to decide how billions of people live they lives apparently arnt good enough for Anet….

You also need to get someone with a Psychology or Sociology background to write your Poll questions because the bias and confusion inherent in your questions actually manipulated the results – which you then FURTHER manipulated by going with the minority decision.

And now your going to ask who wants to get rid of DBL when its clear from qualitative evidence around reddit and the forums and yes the poll aswell that people in the main wanted a third map and no rotation?

Im very tight fisted regarding armour – what I did was have 4 zerker armor items then fill out the other two with either Knights or Soldiers depending on which stats weer considered better defensive stats for that class – then I had a mix of zerker and defensive trinkets, if I fely godly like I did with my Necro, I went with mainly zerker trinkets – this is of course if you are doing a Power build NOT Conditions.

Tbh though you need to get good at well timed dodging and ALWAYS have access to an aoe, and some sort of defensive retreat ( Mesmer blink for eg) there are a couple of places in Auric basin when not 1, not 2 but 3 full teams of pocket Raptors can attack you – my Ele has died there several times because I didn’t IMMEDIATELY start aoe’ing them down.

Are you for real?

I rarely round on someone but I am sick and tired to the back teeth of established companies/celebrities/organisation using resources intended to help the ‘little guy’ get a leg up in an increasingly neocon multinational stranglehold obsessed society.

And there you are actually encouraging this rapacious behaviour?? Do you think Anet has to divvy up its 50 breadcrumbs to divide between staff every month? Do you understand modern Capitalism?
~micdrop

Stop it!

I second all the people who say use the ‘Daily’ rooms in PVP – I bit the bullet about a year ago and now am even brave enough to try unranked maps, the added bonus is that if you pick Dungeon tracks then you can get some really nice weapon and armor skins.

When you go into the map list look for ‘Farm’ servers it will be pretty clear which ones are – its always The Battle for Kyhlo and Skyhammer, Kyhlo is easier at the moment because the new Skyhammer Beta map mechanics have changed and many people haven’t worked out it SHOULD work the same way as Kyholo in that Blue gets all the bases then the teams take it in turns to tag the middle base – so its currently abit of a bun fight.

2 ‘rounds’ should be enough to get you your Daily 3, 1 if you get lucky. Done bother with Wvw unless you log into the maps and immedialtely find an organised group with commander that isn’t meeting much resistance and can zerg train, don’t bother with Pve unless its Vista viewer( can do in Cities), activity participation like Keg Brawl or Mystic forge ( use your cheap runes and sigils from salvaging)

Pve daily was much better when it wasn’t region specific…

Gendou.9620:

Are bosses dropping the chests again? I took a break while the exploit was resolved and since I was burnt out I might as well take a breather. 18 days later and still aren’t dropping?

Nope – nothing – I inadvertently ended up doing Tarir last night when I was taking a new character through the map – no chest, and if I recall less of the other increases in rewards aswell.

I actually find throwing all these increased rewards at us (as lets be honest it was THE most tight fisted game out there for loot,) then just taking them back over time really disingenuous – in much the same way that the economy ‘management’ is very ham fisted – Leather too cheap? so they drastically change its need levels to the point that its in the space of 6 months become the most expensive mat.

:( This isn’t so good, I had presumed it would just be moved into a shaky box – as those are impossible to ‘dupe’ – to be honest im not even sure how the exploit could work – I never did it so it must have been a small crowd taking advantage…

It makes a difference to me between going back to the maps or not on a regular basis – also since the patch to upgrade rewards its not just these chests that have been stopped, it seems the drops from any other chests have been nerfed down again and the spawns for nodes like the cargo have also been reduced – could this be confirmed?

Ive noticed its much harder for me to find a map advertised late in the evening compared to a couple of weeks ago aswell I feel the boxes coming back asap could improve on numbers.

As someone who cant jump ive noticed abit of an increase in prevalence of jumping in general – the HoT maps, SAB etc – back in day I forced myself though a couple of times to do them to get Meta achievements for Festivals sand I had to endure Cliffside to get Mawdrey so i struggle – so long as its not a timed puzzle which i simply CANT DO i guess i will have to continue to moan, whine and throw my keyboard off the desk like i always do.

I never managed to get even one SAB weapon even after several sweary sessions in there – everyone else on the planet is kitted out in SAB bling apart from me.

Wierdly Labrynthine Cliffs and the Ships Festival is still one of my favourite maps and much missed.

Came back to say I STILL hate Skyhammer – especially as I forget and jump into the lower levels and cant get out without running all the way around the map

Whenever I hear ‘May the Stars guide you’ I get World of Warcraft Auberdine flashbacks – in 40 years when we are all ancient the world will be full confused old people quoting NPC conversations to each other

And oh my God that pair of Asurans in Rata Sum – I was there sorting through three guild banks and all my characters over the weekend, in any upcoming Golum uprising im really hoping they make a bee line for Accountancy Waypoint and scare the ever living kitten out of them.

You should be able to mystic forge them – you certainly can with the later armor you get in your level up chests.

If you cant that’s a tad tight fisted rally…

Thanks all – tbh it was only a couple of items and a skin that I hadn’t unlocked that was bothering me – my recently damaged wrist was hoping they were not given

Can anyone clarify – if I use the level 80 boost I wont get the level up reward chests I would normally get if I dinged normally or used tomes?

Thanks

I really dislike Skyhammer now – i will be honest i did use it a lot in farm servers on the days i just wanted to do some dailies and didn’t have long, but i really don’t get people now liking this stripped down version.

Its taken most of the uniqueness out of the map – why would you want all the maps the same? As an Altoholic i feel the same way when games slowly homogenise Class mechanics over time.

Havent tried Foefire or Spirit Watch yet – i hope they are not bland as kitten now, the different gameplay kept things interesting

Yeah I couldn’t manage a decent set of jumps if my life depended on it – and timed jumps? forget it.

Ive managed to avoid most of them but caved in and did Lessons from the sky in Labyrinthine Cliffs and still have nightmares about the jump at the top of the ship.

I also had to go into Fractals to finish of Mawdrey and ended up getting Cliffside and proceeded to fall off so much i must have ended up on everyones block list.

SAB was abandoned after 6 days which is a shame because i love the skins

I just think that nothing Meta achievement or unique skins wise should HAVE to involve JP’s

#shudder

Im just coming back to wvw with all the changes – I remember when we had server and matchup threads back in the day – tbh I have no idea why they were stopped…

With this new sever merging going on isn’t it imperative that we actually can talk about this and how it plays out on the forums? Im in Deso – im surprised we got a merger and think its very counter productive to say we need to talk about mergers outside of the forum only.

Unless im completely out of date and we now can again?

Also has anyone else had any issues with proof of heroics drops from the mists chest? I played for a couple of hours last night wasn’t paying attention to my drops and chests – I started with 6 proofs, after taking several towers, camps and a couple of keeps I came out with——6 proofs of heroics – I didn’t get one.

Im just coming back to wvw with all the changes – I remember when we had server and matchup threads back in the day – tbh I have no idea why they were stopped…

With this new sever merging going on isn’t it imperative that we actually can talk about this and how it plays out on the forums? Im in Deso – im surprised we got a merger and think its very counter productive to say we need to talk about mergers outside of the forum only.

Unless im completely out of date and we now can again?

Also has anyone else had any issues with proof of heroics drops from the mists chest? I played for a couple of hours last night wasn’t paying attention to my drops and chests – I started with 6 proofs, after taking several towers, camps and a couple of keeps I came out with——6 proofs of heroics – I didn’t get one.

Awww man that jump is killing me lol

On the world Q, it was having access to zone 3 in world 1 after I had killed the zone 2 boss was what I meant – ive killed him ( eventually) but when I went back to the hub there was no choice to get to zone 3, is it because it was killed in infantile or is it a bug?

Thx

So ive finally had a go at SAB despite being unable to perform basic competency jumping.

Its hell – but I want that kitten backpack, there seems to be very little around on very basic stuff like – if I do zone 2 in Infantile mode ( because im struggling in normal) do I not get access to zone 3 the next time I play because that is whats just happened – do I not progress zones unless its in normal mode?

Also is that bauble bridge jump in zone 1 almost impossible? I tried a few times before I got it, in the vids everyone just seems to sail across.

Is any race better than others? is there such a thing as jump ‘box’ like hit box? im using a sylvari

And if any Devs are reading – for the love of God – remember jumping is supposed to be a sideline interest, im already annoyed the only new skins in the game require good jumping skills, I don’t want to see any more of this in new content.

That’s isn’t what I asked though, I dodnt ask what the bags contain I asked which character level to open on as its changed over time – its strange that something like this gets barely any replies

Hang on a minute – I was on here a few days back asking about getting enough currency together to buy the backpack and 1 weapon ( im a useless jumper) I was given the impression I couldn’t collect anything in Infantile mode – so I can? and more than once a day?

Can anyone help here? all the information ive found Googling is pre HoT – im aiming to have two characters sat at two different low levels if its worth it- im still also confused about Champ bags post HoT.

Bump..

Ive got a stack of various bags I haven’t got around to opening yet – im pretty sure that the consensus before HoT was to open everything on a level 53 character apart from bag of rare gear but im wondering where things are at now?

Is this the best way to go at present?
HoT cache bags/Bag of rare gear – Level 80
Bag of masterwork gear/Champ bags – level 53

Or should champ bags now be going to level 80’s? are lower tier mats worth more than the level 53 can get? is a alt in the level 30’s better?

Personally I wish we just didn’t have all these dratted bags but I may as well get as much bang for my buck as I can