Guild Wars 2

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You don’t need DrD in PvE however it has the best AoE weapon (the staff) so it’s something that you may want to have. That’s really up to your build and playstyle if DrD fits flawlessly.

In my build, CS/Acro/DrD, I used S/D + P/P on single target fights (boss) and D/D + S/B on trash mobs — I used to carry Staff for the trash mobs, but the animation of the staff skills really bugs me. Other than the Staff AA, the rest of the skills’ animation looks awkward, specially Vault. So my choice not to take Staff is subjective — objectively, it has the best AoE damage and two skills with evade. Those two evades works well with Driven and Escapist, so if you choose to not take the Staff, choose a weapon set with evade, otherwise you won’t benefit much from DrD.

The main reason I take DrD is Unhindered Combatant and access to the Physical Skills like Fist Flurry and Bandit’s Defense.

It’s great to finally see someone else using those 3 spec lines together. I know Acro line isn’t great for dps, but PW with Upper Hand and Bounding Dodger makes for a potent combo to get more than the 3 PW’s in before you run out of Ini.

Just curious though, why do you choose UC over BD? I find BD really good with boss fights to stay at the flanks of the boss and just Bound into PW and repeat for the dps boost.

As someone who made Howler as my first legendary and not too long after the death of the animations, I’m so glad to see that it’s almost back to its original glory. The one thing that I would love to see work its way back is the star sparkle that used to be around the horn at night along with the moon. It’s small I know, but it’s something that I really liked about it that got taken away. And louder howl sound would be nice too, but I’m good with what we got.

Neko, I will be keeping an eye out for your TD run today. Hoping you decide on 2 hours before reset since that is a perfect time for me, but I will stay up for the on reset one. Failed 15-20 over the past 5 days with some getting extremely close but no win. It’s one of the last things I need for HOPE other than a few mats here and there. If you see a whisper from any character with Sukiri at the end of the name, that would be me. Probably Tsukiko Sukiri since I’m mostly on my Daredevil for these kinds of events. I will mention that I did Nuhoch lane every single attempt, so I’m most familiar with that lane, even commanded 2 successful lanes. I would have only one more guildie that needs it come along if she is on today since she needs it as well. I appreciate you, your guilds, and people like you who do help the GW2 community like this. o7

The map meta event for Iron Marches, Devouring the Brand, that spawn the Champion Branded Devourer Queen at the end which drops the Branded Devourer Ichor for HOPE IV collection, is broken. I’ve spent the past 4 days going to Iron Marches checking every hour or so (approximately 40+ checks over the past 4 days) to see if Sentinel Whiptail moves from his ramp, and he is always stalled there. It’s always on the same IP as well, the last 4 digits are 38.62 iirc, and since this map is never full, there are no other instances to overflow to for a chance to get an un-stalled Sentinel Whiptail. The only way you could make this happen is if you brought your guild with like 50-100 people to just flood the map and force another instance to open and even that takes a fair amount of coordination and ask of your guild members time.

The only time Sentinel Whiptail will ever move is when you do the escort mission for Sentinel Scalebrusher when he is bringing the trained devourers from near Champion’s Shield. When he gets to the outskirts of Brandwatch Encampment, Sentinel Whiptail will walk back up the ramp to his normal position, then walk back down and get stalled again. I have never seen him get past the Repair NPC. There is also a Veteren Giant Devourer just southwest of this encampment that is always at 50% hp and is constantly Invulnerable and just spins around. I’ve sat there for a good 30 minutes once to see if anything happens, and he just continues to do the same thing. Not sure if this is tied to Sentinel Whiptail or not, but I thought I would mention it.

This Ichor and Royal Chak Ichor from Chak Gerent are the last 2 things I need for my collection, but this is a post to help all those people going for HOPE so this same problem won’t happen to them if it can get fixed.

I apologize for the lack of really detailed location information, not currently at home, just wanted to put this up while its on my mind and the fact that I can’t find any other information on it anyway except on reddit that were just a couple posts that don’t get any traction. Please pitch into this thread if you really want to get this noticed.

Well, I have always stayed away from any kind of Zerk or Sin gear for enjoyable builds on my Thief/Daredevil, so I use Soldier’s almost all the time with captains trinkets which work very well in the jungle. I roll Staff and P/P on my Daredevil with Trickery and Acro lines. Hard to Catch trait in Acro helps me recover from a slip up against those mobs that have the kb/kd, otherwise I just use bounding dodge to initiate a fight, then go into a Vault followed with either Debilitating Strike or Weakening Charge into Debilitating Strike then repeat from dodge. I tend to go with Staff Master as my Master trait for the endurance back per point of initiative spent deal so I can always have a dodge ready, and I always have Channelled Vigor as my heal for immediate endurance regain plus the Vigor on heal from Acro line. For those Rolling Devils, any form of soft or hard cc will stop them, that includes cripple, so I just use Debilitating Arc on them or Scorpion Wire, or Steal because of Sleight of Hand trait, then I can make them melt. The Snipers are easy for me to deal with, I just use Scorpion Wire and immediately start using Fist Flurry, by the time they come to, Palm Strike from Fist Flurry just interrupts them again and then a dodge into Vault normally kills them. For the Shadowleapers, closing the distance is key, so dodge into a Vault to engage, and if they Shadowstep away, use Vault and steal in midair to make sure that Vault lands, then use Scorpion Wire to interrupt their Stealth Bomb animation and to get them in melee range.

I agree with Blarg on the active defense by knowing the animations of the jungle foes. I felt the same about EA as well, but I just love bouncing around a group of mobs with my current build and evading everything. I’m still learning to time the bounding dodges with vault as to not waste that 4s dmg boost since I noticed it doesn’t stack duration…

I also had a similar build to yours Blarg, but with all Assassins and Zerk gear with invigorating precision in place of no quarter for the upkeep on health. It was working, but I used it too early in my exploration of the jungle and those Itzel were destroying me, and I haven’t tried it again since. It was outputting some amazing damage with the 265%+ Crit dmg I had with it.

I run with Trickery and Acro with my DD, trickery solely for the increased initiative pool really, and Acro for the initiative on evade and Hard to Catch for full endurance when stunned. I use Staff and P/P, since unload is pretty good now and having black powder is handy for when you want to skip stuff with Bounding Dodger trait. I use Soldiers armor and weapons with Captain’s ascended trinkets or use emerald trinkets if you can’t get the Captains stuff. I have Lyssa runes on my armor for the random boon on heal and the condi convert on elite skill use.

I can evade tank essentially with this build and rarely die. Even taking out packs of pocket raptors is a joke with all the dodges. I normally open with 3 bounding dodges, then vault 3 times, then because of the staff master trait where you get endurance back for each initiative point spent, I can get another dodge out, then use Channeled Vigor heal for another 2 more dodges. It can repeat for a while, but it’s not infinite evade. I also use the +40% endurance refill rate food (forgot the name, something truffle stew I think), so that might skew the number of dodges available for me to use. Having that Headshot on your pistol is also very handy for those many many break bars in the jungle and I run with Scorpion Wire, Fist Flurry, Bandits Defense, and Impact Strike as my utilities and elite skill. A pretty awesome combo is to use scorpion wire, then immediately start casting fist flurry, use the chain skill, then impact strike chain, then start doing the dodges and vault combo. It’s just super fun and very durable. I can post a link to my build later if you would like.

Here is the build I use: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZUQNAW6an8lCVmi1OBGmCkmiFqiyLE+gSoLCCgDYu63+xH-TFCFABLp8LF1fA4IAEz+DC8AA0Q3wCXEABVCSGgqxA-w

Silencer.7614:

What do you mean for once?

I was more referring to the trinkets more than anything. The trinkets you can choose the base stats for, but the gem is always celestial. I know it may not make a huge difference overall, I just want to make exact builds from theorycrafting to fully test out the elite specs. That’s what I was trying to say in that post.

Jephiroth.3197:

I’m sure that the “stat selectable” ascended gear will just be like the exotic gear we get throughout the game. It will just be ascended in quality and you can pick the stats (think Mawdrey and a few of the Ascended book backpieces).

I doubt they’ll give us ascended gear for the beta, especially since we only get one wing of the raid. It wouldn’t surprise me, though, that we could get a single piece of stat-selectable gear for completing the raid once HoT goes live.

As far as when does the bank copy, For BWE2 I loaded all of my other characters and banked all of the ascended gear and then created a beta character and the bank was generated with all of the gear I had just put in. I think it’s safe to say that if you bank it anytime prior to creating a beta character, that it should generate the bank then.

Personally, I’m going to bank everything Thursday evening when I finish for the night and then create a beta character Friday once the beta starts.

You make a good point about the stat selectable thing. That had actually slipped my mind. And I agree that we may get a stat selectable gear piece for completing the raid, especially if its as hard as they say it is. I will probably do the same, storing all my stuff in the bank that I want to use in beta, when I get off today.

Okay, thanks, I wasnt really sure if they cloned the bank when the beta actually started, or when the first beta character was made.

I hope they do give up ascended item boxes for this beta… It would be nice for once to use gear that doesn’t have any cele stats on them

For BWE3, does anyone know when the account copy thing will be applied to the beta characters? And I also saw something that That_Shaman datamined that said something along the lines of ascended stat-selectable gear, do you think we will get those item boxes for this beta that have ascended in them rather than exotic? Or maybe its for the raid rewards?

Just to put my 2 cents in here, I Personally use this build for WvW:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYVl0MhinYtTw0Jw/EHwEkPMxpN9skknoTQA2NA-TlCEABhfIAeSpXLq/4kyAuUCSwDAwgjAQN7P4h+AAOBAkBoaMA-w

I have been able to go toe to toe with just about every class except Mesmers…. I had a good 2 min fight with a good power Necro, that I still managed to win. I know there might be some inefficient bits to the build, but it works really well for me. Haste has gotten me out of lot of sticky situations and Scorpion wire makes for a good interrupt and to pull those people standing on the ledges of tower/keep walls. I know using Lyssa runes is very odd, but I find that they work really well for Basi venom, which I don’t use to engage, I use mid fight when I use either Shadow return or Infiltrator’s return to get a bunch of condi’s off. Again though, this really tailored to my style, but I hope it can give you some ideas.

Edit: Just wanted to state that Shortbow has worked wonders with Mesmer though, despite my statement that I have a hard time with them in general. With the high base dmg and Shortbow #1, I can just slaughter the clones before they become an issue, if I’m quick enough, it will also go for stealthed Mesmers if they are hanging around their clones.

I personally think Ley Line staff is cool looking on thief. I bought it specifically for Dare Devil. It’s one of the few among the above listed ones that fits thief well.

WEll, I just saw the sticky topic about in game mails, I will change my password now in case I did manage to go to that link by chance. Hope I can stop the account hack before it happens.

I haven’t been playing hardly at all over the past week or so, and got a mail from GM Devon Santos in game saying that my account will be limited. I wrote down half of the link provided, but I deleted the mail by accident and I don’t remember the former part of the link before the string of characters. If Devon sees this or another GM/Dev can help, please contact me.

My 2 cents here, I use a chill based condition build in wvw to a pretty good effect. Here is the link to the build in case anyone is interested:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fRUQNArYWjc00YbnNe3wfbiehauhA6xMAa3YjgJA-TVyDABhfIAMRfAM7PosyPwPCAAYCaG1fQ4BAKBf+EAQKgFVWB-w

It actually works well, even in 1vX situations, though it gets a little tough with more than 3. Even engi’s and warrs have a hard time dealing with the chill, with their leg mods and dogged march. It’s by no means 100% efficient, but it’s a load of fun.

Nihlus.9724:

I’d suggest that they combine Power of Inertia and Expeditious Dodger, since they’re both “Gain X on dodge” abilities.

I’m kind of sad to see Power of Inertia go away as I use Runes of Strength on my PvE gear, and it was how I consistently kept Might up while solo.

Funny enough, I am using strength runes on my wvw armor for this. Having those constant stacks of might up almost all the time is fun. It just complemented my fun with dodges as I saw dodging correctly in those small fights much more rewarding personally than just stealthing, backstab, and re-stealth. That was just a personal preference of course, as I personally hate using stealth.

I agree that Power of Inertia should be merged into Expeditious Dodger. It certainly does make sense to have those two together.

Well, since I already have a full set of sinister with giver’s weapons (here’s hoping for more condi duration buff somewhere) and 2 other sets of gear for a more bomb kit focused build and the standard nade build, I will probably try to add in the f5 button into a spot that’s easy to get to and use on my Tartarus. Maybe work towards a Jugg, not sure though. I think my Tempest hammer will be sufficient for a hammer skin.

Ya, I suppose so. Guess it’s just wishful thinking to keep an “interesting” trait around rather than get getting a much better trait. Fair enough.

Is anyone else sad to see this trait go away? I thought it was a pretty well placed trait and fit into the Acro style. I get great uses out of it with the food that gives 100% might on dodge roll, can normally keep 8 to 10 stacks of might almost all they time while roaming in WvW. Or am I the only one who takes the trait and enjoys it?

We can only only hope that they will bring it up, or at least hint at fixing the current legendaries before the new ones go live. I agree with many others here in that they should make sure that the current legendaries are working as intended effect wise and are still just as amazing as the new legendaries will be.

Wow, I can’t believe how well my reddit post went and how far it went on the forums from the OP making this thread. It’s great to see, even with all the other threads about this bug. I really hope they will take notice, or at least write it down on their to do list of small fixes.

This is just a bump post to keep it within dev view range. I apologize if bumps are frowned upon, but this is to keep the idea of returning Howler to the same standard as the other legendaries.

As the one who did put up that reddit post a couple days ago, I agree that these effects need to return for sure. It couldn’t be too hard to work around the coding for it. I would like the howl sound to be louder of course, the crescent moon is an absolute must all night long with the sparkles for the starry night effect. The ghostly wolf projection is okay for now, but an increase in how long it stays in the air would be awesome.

As of right now, it’s effects are subpar, and approximately half of what the other legendaries offer… Like I mentioned in my reddit post, my Frostfang I made a few days ago is so much more unique and the effects are much more prominent than Howler’s effects are.