Guild Wars 2

Albane.8367:

It is the bots in Orr that are driving up prices.

I ran past about 40 of them last night, 20+ gathered in one location opening up the way points all over Orr. Considering I have only seen about 20 bots total in the past 3 months, seeing this many at once was pretty disheartening. I stopped to report them all, but doubt anything will be done about it.

Bots flood the markets with coins causing all prices to go up. Get rid of them, and watch the prices come back down.

How can a bot that requires nothing in terms of demand and supplies an abundance of items to the TP cause prices to go up? Bots cause competitive pricing which drives down the market, and is the reason a lot of sellers hate them, they trivialize the effort people put into farming with their low prices.

Bots aside, the issue is onyx lodestones have doubled in the past week and are only go up because their supply is limited and their demand is high. In addition, sigil of battle is the best DPS option for engineers atm, because their kit swapping does not have a cooldown and they can stack might as fast as the sigil cooldown allows. This allows them close to 100% uptime on 25 stacks of might along with some other traits and runes.

Those two reasons alone have driven the price of battle up

JonPeters.5630:

KirinDave.6451:

HGH should also be on this list. It’d make a decent master trait but where it stands, it’s not that good.

Lucky for you we agree. There is an improvement for this trait coming on the 14th.

That is great news, because I use HGH more than Lance Armstrong!

SarahTV.6470:

Bots (and the Gold Farmers who use them) are detrimental to the game. They sell goods cheaply, which means that people can not gain gold as easily, which means they can not afford to buy high end items or gold to gems. They use the gold they acquire to drive up the price of Gems, so that they benefit from stocking up on gems, and then selling them for gold. This is all so that they can exchange virtual currency to real currency. The fact that people still do this after decades of this kind of behavior boggles me.

Half the reason the economy is busted in this game is because of Botting. There is no defense for this behavior, and those that feel that they are beneficial are being Barnum’ed.

I am sorry but I disagree. You fail to realize if the economy is inflated and you are selling something at a higher price all other items you are interested in buying will also be selling for a higher price.

It is not a one way road.

I also disagree with the gem exchanged. Gold from gold sellers is 3 to 1 cheaper over gold from gems, so why would they convert gold to gems to convert them back again? They would be destroying a lot of gold in the process.

I will agree, the economy is broken because of bots, only because they were removed from game. Now supply cannot keep up with demand, and a small abundance of money can be used to manipulate certain markets to the point where supply cannot out pace people profiting.

All you have to ask yourself is, is the economy better now or was it better a month or two ago when bots were thriving?

As I posted before, “wealth” is relative, and more importantly the means in which a lot of people gain wealth in this game is static, and is not going up with market prices, which is why so many people are having a hard time with the economy right now.

You are buying and selling for US servers, that is just the VAT on exporting.

In all honesty you aren’t the first to report unaccounted money lost from the TP. I would write an in game ticket contesting the return on the sale.

Bots are helpful, wealth is relative, if resources cost less you need less gold to be considered wealthy. The input from gold is pretty static if you run dungeons or take points in WvW… as prices deflate that income becomes more valuable, so anyone that focuses on playing the game should find bots extremely helpful.

Plus anything newly introduced that would cause demand is usually tied with some token system or PvE drop so even with gold alone “wealthy players” aren’t going to get everything they want right away unless they diversify their time spent in game.

IMO farming is a really dull mechanic that should be optional, if not removed all together from MMOs…

As of right now the only thing this post is doing is driving up the price of pebbles by roughly 30%, which in turn will drive up the price of doubloons so people can be compensated…

The demand for doubloons is really high, and with the scavenger hunt around the corner all you did was screw yourself because you can’t get doubloons from chests, drops, bags, and now the MF, yet the demand is only going to go up in the future.

If you really wanted to make Juggernaut you were better off using this method and not announcing it…the people playing the market will always find a way to profit…the people making Juggernaut will continue to struggle…

I’ve done 310 conversion attempts so far and produced 8 silver doubloons. Each attempt cost 1s (1 paid 25c a pebble), I started with 992 t1 item upgrades and since I did so many attempts I got about 62 additional attempts when a pebble or mark was returned to me (I even used the T2 items.) That means each doubloon cost 38s75c…which is pretty much around the going rate.

That means if you want to break even on these doubloons you would need to sell them for 44s56c. I am not sure what the current ceiling is on these things but I have sold many for 49s99c, I’ve even seen spikes toward 1g, though at this moment I think that might be risky for a quick return. That would put you over a 10% ROI…if anyone is interested.

Of course RNG is RNG and results may vary, I was getting about 1 doubloon every 30ish transmutations until I reach the last 80 or so and didn’t see a one. The price of the pebbles is also another factor, so if the current price of pebbles is around 25c, and the current price of doubloons is around 38s you are probably better off just putting in buy orders.

majorkong.9073:

Again with not “cost effective”.

It means ROI was negative for me because of the nuggets, or I am going to have to keep an open order to sell them for a while…58s65c per just to break even, and that is only because the pebbles produced the same amount of doubloons at a lower cost.

Nuggets are not “cost effective.” Or in other words, they are not an optimal way to transmute silver doubloon because they are that much more expensive over pebbles…for now.

I just forged 252 pebbles, and 252 nuggets. In the end each forged 2 silver doubloon.

RNG, is RNG…my sample size is too small to make any real judgement, but this yield wasn’t very cost effective, it turns out to be roughly 37s for the doubloons gotten from the pebbles, and 65s for the doubloons from the nuggets.

I did get a lot of marks and talisman of mending and stout, so maybe odds are not equal across the tier.

No doubt someone is already working on buying out pebbles to make this a non-efficient way of producing Silver Doubloons, just like they did with skritt bags.

I think after the scavenger hunt is implemented, 1g for a doubloon will seem like a discount =X

Shuguard.7125:

Saturn L O L.1406:

I haven’t cried a single time about items spiking or just becoming more expensive because of the bot ban but now it’s jsut getting rediculous

Silver DOubloons have increased 25x in price?? Some people need 250 of these “low level crap items” for their legendary – Now I wouldn’t mind but they just CANT be farmed? You just cant get them?

Whats wrong with these items?

There are ways of farming them. It just involves a lot of bag RNG. There are 3 bags(“bag of pilfered goods” “light miner bags” “bag of skritt shinies”) that drop silver doubloons. You can find them in here from pig who did more research than I. :P
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/Legendaries-with-unbalanced-difficulties/first#post929339

Seems like someone wised up to the alternative and bought out all the skritt bags, doubling their price from 75c to 1s50c.

Someone is playing this market, and probably making a lot of money.

I’ve already cashed out a partial position in Silver Doubloons and I’m working toward a different legendary right now. But with that partial sale I’ve finished one gift and bought a considerable amount of cores for the other gift.

I expect this item to go even higher. It looks like someone is trying to set the ceiling at 99s99c, and once those sell out the ceiling will become the floor because supply cannot keep up with demand.

But Tallis.5607 is right, expect no help from ArenaNet, because this benefits them. And to top it off you get an infraction from buying gold from their undercutting competition…some monopoly…more like Gem Cartel.

In those screenshots I’ve posted I was in pow/tough/vit gear with knight trinkets. I’ve never tried the spec as a glass canon.

As for the math, no one ever factors in HGH and +40 seconds of might. That gives a base of 10 might stacks. If you look at all the screens I never fall under 15 stacks, rarely fall under 17, and sometimes I can spike to 25 stacks.

Also the guy arguing against my original posted did about 1.7k worth of damage, with one toss…so you are saying in 2.4 seconds a grenadier can throw 5 times, and with flight time land all five hits in under 2.4 seconds? His stats were as equal to mine as they could get, traits aside, we were using a soldiers amulet.

So if you are going to compare damage, make sure those numbers account for relatively equal stats.

Flame Jet is also 10 ticks or 5 ticks per second, that is 2 seconds not 2.5…so you may want to redo the math.

I’ve tried grenades, and would rather take HGH with might duration, plus juggernaut.

I normally don’t complain about this stuff, but Anet needs to intervene. The price is not the real issue, the real issue with all the doubloons is that they are not attainable through any means, that makes them a prime target for market manipulation. Even as their price becomes attractive for more people to post no one can go out of their way to attain them.

If my prediction is right, I am going to cash out my 200 doubloons after the holiday event and just buy all the mats for gift of stealth and start maining my engineer again.

There is a problem when one gift of a different legendary can be bought with a small fraction of another legendary gift’s investment.

BTW, again to put this in perspective, between the time I posted the original post and now their price has doubled.

Accuracy on the weapon.

If you are referring to charged lodestones, they are more available than silver doubloons, they are just in higher demand atm, even unidentified dyes have a higher drop rate.

The point being, eventually the demand for silver doubloons will supersede that of any other resource on the TP because they are impossible to farm, and people rarely come across them from endgame play. It’s probably been two months since I’ve looted one…and I play a lot.

Let me help put this into perspective. Two weeks ago they were 2s a piece…I can only imagine what they will be in two more weeks.

Shuguard.7125:

“bags of skritt shinies” drop them, but it’s a low drop rate.

Thanks for the info, I’ll check it out.

And I only see them going higher. Is there going to be anyway to attain these outside of luck? People know they are in demand and they are going to squeeze the community for as much as they can get. There is no easy way to farm these. I wouldn’t be surprised if they shoot up to 3g per eventually, pretty much making the legendary hammer unattainable.

Even lodestones are somewhat farmable. It would be nice to see silver doubloons in more chests like cores, or make them craftable from resources.

Eastcorn.5901:

Grenades are the best build for DPS. Flamethrowers don’t come close, but they let you be very tanky, and offer more utility.

I’ve had this conversation before and IMO proved the naysayers wrong. Flamethrower is more DPS when soloing than grenades, but involves getting a lot closer and does not bring the utility of the grenade kit or the vulnerability condition. But in terms of 1 on 1 comparison Flamethrower can come out ahead in damage if you know what you are doing.

The real issue is the kit is too difficult for many people to use because of targeting issues on flame jet and flame burst.

My chiming starts here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Making-the-Engineer-flamethrower-more-interesting-and-useful/305356

There is a mis-stated point from me. Crit indicator does not persist if the sequential hit is non-crit. That means some of those large numbers I thought were non-crit probably have a couple crits in them. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that Flamethrower can be devastating.

I am not sure how to phrase this to make my point clear, but it isn’t about a first or second place mentality. It is really about what is best for the server. Even if that means cutting loses to retain a spot in a higher bracket to stay closer to the ultimate goal of achieving first place.

There can be no winning mentality without strategy. It would be equally to the idea of wanting to run without knowing how to walk first. Learn to solidify second each match up is just as important of an accomplishment as making first. It insure that tactics to get to second were not a fluke but also allows room for evaluating, adjusting, and learning from first place.

If the gap becomes too large to close you have to understand there is risk with trying to drag down the leading team and ignoring the second place team, because the third place team occupies the first place team’s time the second place team can move off freely, closing the gap while the third place team is not moving up at an equal pace to second.

So ultimately go after the first place team may close the gap between 1 and 2 but ends up hurting 3 more in the end.

This increases the third place team’s chance of dropping out of the tier and ultimately further from the long term goal of being top server, in the top tier. If there is a significant point gap then chasing first means taking a risk to drop tier. If a server drops tier and crushes in their new bracket with the same tactics that got them there, then when they move up a tier nothing will change.

By all means start off each week going for first, but also realize there is strategy in cutting your loses to achieve your ultimate goal. Just like folding in poker, going for second would be similar to biding time to insure you are in the tier at the time of the restart, and will allow another chance to adjust tactics, especially when it is know who the participants are.

I think each server has represented this tier very well, and it would be a shame for one of them to drop down next week. I also think each of us has more to learn from this tier, and coming from TC I can say, some of the commanders have noticeable improved in the last 3 weeks.

WvWvW is really about commanders learning how to use their population at any given time. There are severely EB commanders that will focus on defense and counter siege during off hours because they know they can’t get the numbers to take towers, and I think that is an appropriate strategy even though that isn’t a 24/7 go for their throats type plan.

My armor is 3350k with a 2 hander. My gear is pow/vit/tough, trinkets are knights with the exception to my back piece which is koss on koss. I also have 6/6 dolyak runes, and can probably squeeze out 15 to 20 more toughness depending on the ascended rings and crafted infusions.

I’ve used about 70 shards and got about 20 clovers, but I don’t mind missing on clovers if i get a T6 mat I can use instead.

I agree something should be done. Silver Doubloons went up 10x in value over the last 2 weeks, and they are still rising.

Unfortunately there are people who have already collected a lot of doubloons and switching them out at this point wouldn’t be fair to them.

At most, Anet should consider reducing the amount required to 100-150, or make them farm-able either through the forge or up their drop rate in FotM and dungeon chests. Or just artificial deflate the market by periodically injecting them into the TP, and have the money used to purchase them go no where.

I’ve been making money with T5 to T6 conversions, though that isn’t possible for people who still need T6 mats for legendaries. I also do a lot of dust promotion. FotM and AC I gives me a full stack of Incandescent Dust every few days.

Another easy way to make money is saving sigils and runes from salvaging and forging 4 majors into a superior whenever you can.

If you saw someone mainly using a pistol or rifle and they were popping potions like crazy this is most likely what their alchemy looked like:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcM9ux0Maq

If they had a flamethrower or elixir gun on most of the time, it probably looks like this:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcM9ux0Mkq

As for runes Fire x2, Hoelbrak x2, Strength x2, for 60% additional might duration, this will near double the time on HGH, effectively doubling the might stacks which are applicable for condition and power based damage.

You can fill in the rest of the spec however you want to play it.

If nothing else, it is bad sportsmanship. Part of PvP is the risk of death, removing the consequence, trivializes the experience, discards the reward, and degrades the entire WvW aspect.

This is a disturbing trend. Please stop doing this when you go into a down state or right before a down state and take your death like a pro.

I’ve been using master’s kits since launch and over the course of last week switched to plan salvage kits. I’ve noticed no difference in drop rate. I’ve concluded an ecto is neither a rare material or an item upgrade.

Item upgrades, which is the larger percent of the kit is the sigil, rune, or gem on the item. The rarer material is the difference between getting a mithril or orichalcum ore. From what I noticed ectos just seem to be a product of salvaging.

When I had started on my legendary I thought the largest hurdle was the karma, but with the introduction of FotM the karma requirements dropped significantly. Just doing the FotM daily has put me close to 1k fractals on top of a whole lot of karma I already had.

Now with the introduction of FotM and the ascended back pieces, plus the crafted infusions; mats for the legendary have sky rocketed (at least t6 and ectos).

On the plus side, core prices have come down because FotM yields a variety of decent cores. But ultimately as a person crafting a legendary you are either going to spend a lot of gold, or a lot of skill points. This is the beginning of a larger trend, and I do not see prices coming down in the near future.

I suggest grinding as many fractals as you can as often as you can and using the cheapest salvage kit(they still create ectos) on everything rare or higher, or throw stuff into the mystic forge to get a chance upgrading until you get a chance at a precursor.

Aside from badges of honor and whatever dungeon gift you need, FotM has everything you need to create a legendary.

Mats are so expensive now it is cheaper to grind FotM get a bunch of random T5 mats and craft level 80 gear then salvage it for a chance at ectos.

Also the drop rate on armored scales is pretty high in the water fractal, powerful venom from the jade maw fractal, powerful blood from bats in the grawl fractal and harpies, totems from grawl and norn etc… So you may want to state upfront to your FotM group that you want to kill everything.

I suggest being patient, do some WvW and run some dungeons, use the mats you get wisely, including the gold and it shouldn’t take long. Unfortunately for me I keep getting side tracked, especially with these crafted infusions, and now I am spending another 20g on a new rune set after having spent a lot gold last week changing it prior >.<

I can offer you a bit more situational advice, if you don’t have a mesmer and you have a guardian, have the guardian run the furthest wisp, or provide a relay for the furthest runner.

Stand Your Ground, Retreat, and (if the guardian is running) Save Yourselves, is enough uninterrupted running to make it back from the furthest point with time to spare.

In my opinion it feels like a self-defeating ability, and I rarely use it.

The time invested in the cast is better spent trying to stay on your target. 3/4 second cast is enough time to get out of its radius because you cannot move while casting, let alone dodging or using stability to walk out of it once it is cast.

Ironically many people try to use it to keep a gap closed, but it really just opens one up.

This is a move that requires too much of a setup to use a effectively, with terrible return on investment. Invest two skill cooldowns, just to have someone roll out of it once it down, and one of those cooldowns is a utility skill…so you are forced to put a skill on your bar that you may not normal take.

I tank most dungeons on my mesmer…I was floored the other day when I was denied a group because they were specifically looking for a heavy profession to tank a run…

I love this game because a clothy’s stats can look like this…who needs warriors and guardians

I choose Iron and Steel, and added a day pic in addition to the night pic that was originally posted.

I kind of agree with the people that say it looks good while using a shield, but looks out of place when you have a two hander.

I think I would rather glow blue, or be engulfed in blue flames when aegis is up or something, especially when a two hander is equipped.

I’ve made the decision to pursue the legendary knowing it will be a sink. I am not going out of my way to farm gold, but I do a lot of dungeons and WvW whenever I am on, and I can rack gold and items quickly…hell I probably could have bought my pre-cursor from the TP by now, but I find the gamble interesting.

I have no issues throwing all I have into the forge, and I have no expectations toward the results.

What I would like to know, is if exotics or rares should be used? Because if rares do not result in the pre-cursor (which is what I am gathering from a lot of these posts) I’ve been wasting my time and resources, that I could have been folding into acquiring more exotics to throw into the forge.

But ultimately, what else are you going to do with these resources? I’ve found the profession I enjoyed the most and it is geared out in all slots and has top end item upgrades.

IMO if you are not ok with losing all you have to get a legendary then your account is not in a place where you should be going for it.

I just forged +200 rare hammers last night, got about 5 exotics and no pre-cursor.

I wish I had skimmed this post sooner, because it seems that the only people with success are the ones using exotics in the forge…

Traits should focus on boon duration after juggernaut, and runes should be 3x 20% might duration for 40sec might duration on HGH. You’ll get a decent chunk of condition damage from the might stacks, but gear for power all other stats are secondary based on how much survivability vs damage you want.

Completed my look – wasterlander fallout 3ish.

Funny, I was going for the wasterlander look from fallout 3 and mixed the arcon and SE armor. The pants are from AC.

Fine, I am trolling because I am trying to make sense of why so many people are having issues with this kit…

People ask for proof, I show them it can retain its survive-ability while demonstrating its damage potential…and still they aren’t happy…there is nothing conceded it is still viable spec in WvW, and sPvP, don’t be stubborn and criticize a build without trying it first.

I am done giving advice on this kit, the majority can struggle with it because I am obviously an arrogant twat for sharing a build that works for me, and one that I feel I have proven somewhat through screenshots.

Gear dictates spec, or spec dictates gear, without knowing your spec and how you want to use it, no one can really make a meaningful suggestion, unless you want to adopt their spec with their gear suggestion. But it doesn’t sound like that. I suggest posting the spec you have in mind.

I really think this kit can hold its own.

It really comes down to what you mean by competitive. If you mean, can it hold a spot on a tournament team, then I would agree, no, that spot would be better suited for a grenadier. I say that because flamethrower does not provide the synergy and team utility that a grenade kit can.

If you mean competitive in the sense if a grenadier and a flamethrower crossed in a 1v1 in WvW or sPvP, the grenadier would have an advantage.

I would say if the flamethrower is used and built properly, i.e. playing to the strength of Juggernaut by stacking might and toughness (near 3k worth), it would come down to the players more so than either kit giving an advantage.

Also keep in mind, I kept the damage simple as well, which is why I called it a wash. I didn’t want to get into this theoretically rock paper scissor game, because I know I can power through most of the tricks with my spec, especially in a 1v1, but apparently I am the only one who uses my spec…and the only one who doesn’t complain about flamethrower…so that in itself should say something about the spec…and for the record, I have tried the grenadier spec, and it is disgusting damage, I just find the mobility and camera control more cumbersome when throwing grenades on a target that is circling.

Silentsins.3726:

Why would I bother with Flamethrower then?

If we are showing sPvP stats, then lets compare apples to apples … and I don’t think there are any surprises here. You have 300 more power from explosives I have 300 more toughness from 10 points in Inventions and Juggernaut, so that is a wash.

Also your kit is not equipped in the screenshot of your stats, that will drop your attack 240ish points, which puts my attack ahead of yours with our kits on, because of my 100% up time on 10 stacks of might which is an additional 350, power/condition damage.

Minimal damage for me is between 2.1k to 2.5k without utilizing HGH, and I can keep a 17 stack of might up permanently with some conservative potion usage, I can get it to 25 stacks for short bursts if I pop them like crazy.

I think DPS wise from our spammable skill, if we are going off of your screen it is a wash.

So why would you want to use flamethrower? Personal preference. The original stats I posted were to show the damage potential of flamethrower while retaining a defensive setup.

It isn’t as useless as people think, they just have the wrong setup.

CptCosmic.3156:

Sorrow.7452:

Silentsins.3726:

Flame Blast and Flame Jet are just damage, and not even top-end damage EVEN AFTER spending 50 build points on it (Juggernaut + Deadly Mixture).

What do you consider top end damage on flame jet? 3k non-crit every channel good enough?

nice troll.
1. you only see a crit for each invidiual hit of the channel. just because you dont crit on your last hit does not mean you had no crits.
2. glass cannon build does not really work for a mid range weapon. playing against bad players does not make flamethrower good.
3. my mesmer greatsword channel hits for 2-3k on regular basis. additionally to that, it has a phantasm hitting for 5k critical AOE damage and it has 1200 range…

When you get a crit with flame jet the blood splatter persists even if the following hits aren’t crits. Secondly I have no crit in this build aside from firearms. Take a closer look at the gear in WvW. It is the SE pow/vit/tough set, with the chest and shoulders from the temples in Orr…no crit, or crit damage on it.

It isn’t a glass cannon build…over 21k health with a kit equipped is hardly glass cannon…

Third, my dad once knocked a bear out with one punch…

You have no proof of your claim nor could you do it with a defensive setup.

Edit: I’ve attached a screen of my current stats with my flamethrower out…my trinkets, leggings, and boots are still of masterwork quality. I am waiting on tokens for my leggings and boots, and I haven’t decided what to do with my trinket slots.

Silentsins.3726:

Flame Blast and Flame Jet are just damage, and not even top-end damage EVEN AFTER spending 50 build points on it (Juggernaut + Deadly Mixture).

What do you consider top end damage on flame jet? 3k non-crit every channel good enough?

It is a power build…

I took a screen in sPvP, saw 3k or near 3k a lot…I will say it is tough to keep the camera turned and take a screenshot at the same time.

As for the issue, no one is arguing the targeting, but the flamerthrower doesn’t need a drastic rework.

Fix the targeting on flame jet and flame blast, and increase the radius on blind…and it pretty much fixed.

Then I must be crazy, because I use it against the keep and fort doors and never go down to retaliation…don’t blame the skill if people are using it poorly, blame the people.

I’ll agree with you, that is number one on a lot of the users’ list, but there are still people out there asking for it to be buffed or have its burn duration extended, and giving it a misconception that it is weak, and that argument needs to die.

I am all for people requesting it be buffed, but honestly…do you really think I should be using a buffed flamethrower…bug fixes are one thing, tuning mechanics another…but some people are asking for 10-20% more damage on flame jet and flame blast…jeez my flame blast is criting for 5k…and this isn’t even my damage set, and my stacks of might aren’t even near maxed because I wasn’t pushing for big numbers…and none of that jet crit on the 3.2k

If you think flamethrower has anything to do with condition damage, you are doing it wrong.

Edit: Added someone running from my flamethrower, because people say it does not have the fear factor…

I think there is a pretty significant difference in a flamerthrower spec (even if it has HGH) and my flamerthrower spec that has +40 seconds on might for HGH.

The first spec has 5 stacks of might, with minimal increase to that stack, the second spec has 10 stacks of might 100% of the time with a stack that can spike to 25, and safely hover around 17 stacks with 100% uptime. I can guarantee this is at least 3x more powerful than a flamethrower spec with Juggernaut and Deadly Mixture only.

The problem is no one is willing to invest in the superior runes (which make the build work) to really see if it is all BS or not. And trying it in sPvP is unreliable because of all the strafing and targeting issues with flame jet, but honestly this spec is a really good in PvE spec especially because the target rarely moves unless you move, and you can just drink potions without having to reserve them for a situation that require utilizing their effect. Which means you can retain a higher stack of might more often.