Guild Wars 2

“Q: Is Heart of Thorns included for free when I buy Path of Fire?

A: No. As we said when we announced Heart of Thorns, we always want to give you the option to purchase both expansions for a single price. With the purchase of any edition of Path of Fire, you can add in Heart of Thorns during checkout and purchase both expansions together for less than the combined prices of the expansions. If you already own Heart of Thorns or only want to play Path of Fire, you can purchase Path of Fire separately."

From:
https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010688287?_ga=2.111328580.133531747.1501525481-291613596.1411503758

Guess they made that clarification after all. Oh well.

The ArenaNet team published this back in June 22, 2015:

“We want to be clear about our business model for future expansions now that we are approaching our first paid expansion for Guild Wars 2. We believe that to keep the game dynamic and vibrant with a constantly growing community, it should be as easy as possible for new players to get into Guild Wars 2. For Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, we didn’t want the core game’s price to be a factor in a new player’s decision to begin playing Guild Wars 2. In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.

We are committed to our players and believe we remain the single best value in the MMO space. We set out on this journey to challenge the conventions of MMOs, to knockdown the barriers to accessibility, and to fulfill the promise of what online worlds should be. "

You can find the above clarification in full at:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/pre-purchase-community-address/

So…

“Single purchase price”. I suppose that’s accurate. Adding $20.00 to bundle Heart of Thorns together with Path of Fire. It’s still one bundle, one price. But I can’t help but feel like that was a really shady way to sell the idea of offering value to the players.

I was under the impression from that clarification that ArenaNet will always be bundling all previous expansions and the core game with the latest expac at the full retail price of ONE game.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not salty at all since I pre-purchased the core game and Heart of Thorns and am a very happy member of the community. Working in the games industry myself, ArenaNet are my heroes. So imagine my surprise when I learned that Heart of Thorns is going to cost extra.

Maybe a second clarification is in order.

Patch notes say it’s fixed. It’s not. Still can’t attune the PvP ascended rings.

Thank you for the change. Really appreciate it.

I wouldn’t mind making the achievements harder to complete now that they are permanent so long as it helps to shut the whiners up about the whole “prestige” non-issue.

Would have been better if there were dedicated queues for maps with temporary achievements so that those who think completing a temporary achievement is somehow more prestigious than a permanent one would have no excuse to complain, while I wouldn’t be aggravated by the constant RNG of being thrown into other maps while Coliseum gets 6 votes every time. But this is an acceptable workaround. Thanks!

I for one would prefer the next set of Elite Specs not introduce a new weapon type to each profession.

At that rate, we’ll eventually run out of weapon types to give every profession anyway.

I’d prefer we play around with the profession-specific abilities (in the F1-F5 keys) that changes the weapon skills on one or some existing core weapon types of the profession.

For example, using the F3 on the new Guardian Elite Spec not only triggers a particular effect, but also changes the Weapon Skill 4 and 5 to a new pair of skills if the Guardian is using a Shield.

The new Necromancer Elite Spec will have an F2 that changes the Staff skill set to one that consumes Lifeforce with every use.

This will add another dimension of expansion to professions and ensure we can keep building on the elite specialization feature.

I’m supportive of a slot for a seasonal item like a ToT Bag. But ONE bag per chest? This is a Gem Store item. People pay real money for this, and for a slot to be used for an item a player can get as a common drop, this is an incredibly poor show of judgment.

Any update on how to fix the display issue of the text? My WvW server has a lot of folks typing in Chinese, and all I see are blank spaces in the chat. I can read Chinese and I’ll appreciate some help trying to get the characters to display properly.

Despite MO’s announcement on the indefinite suspension on new Legendaries, I kept faith that they will eventually be revisited and released.

And so, with my experience in crafting the Tooth of Frostfang and H.O.P.E.’s precursor in mind, I started crafting Lumps of Mithrillium and Globs of Elder Spirit Residue on a regular basis. This is so I can avoid the time-gating when the new Legendary sword is finally in the game.

But now with Matt’s announcement on the new Legendary paradigm reducing the development time for future legendaries, I’m left having wasted thousands of Mithril Ores and Elder Wood Logs on Lumps and Globs that I can’t use for new legendaries.

I sincerely ask ArenaNet to look into possibly allowing Lumps and Globs to be used for the crafting of the new precursors, or in the alternative, allow the Lumps and Globs to be dissolved into their component materials similar to how Gifts of Fortune were allowed to be dissolved following the changes to Legendary crafting after the launch of HoT.

Thanks

Anytime someone says “I’m not trying to be racist but….”, they’re being racist.

At time of writing: Played 7,245 hours.

Zero Precursor drops.

Never played Mystic Forge except with equipment obtained from drops. No precursors from Mystic Forge.

Made Juggernaut, Bifrost, Sunrise, Incinerator, Twilight, Frostfang, Eternity, HOPE, in that order, all precursors bought from Trading Post, except Tooth of Frostfang from collection/crafting which ended up costing more than buying it straight from Trading Post and the precursor for HOPE.

To give a good idea of how broken the RNG for precursor drop is: That’s over 7,000 hours of game play in PvP, WvW and mostly PvE where I’ve only crafted 4 Ascended Weapons and 3 full sets of Ascended Armor (Light, Medium and Heavy). But yet I have 9 characters all fully equipped with Ascended Weapons and 7 characters with full sets of Ascended Armor, obtained from drops and rewards (4 from WvW, 7 from PvP, the rest from PvE (Mostly Tequatl’s exotic Dragon Chest and Triple Trouble’s grand chest. 1 from Fallen Champion’s Bag, 1 from Shatterer’s grand chest, 1 from Golem Mark II’s grand chest)

That’s nearly 4 dozens of Ascended equipment boxes and 7,000 hours of playing and still not precursor drop. Yeah, I’m no longer making legendaries but I’m still salty as all get-out. Not even one pathetic aquatic precursor. Pfft.

Hello. I have not nailed the mechanics of the Shatterer down to an exact science, but after many fights, hypotheses, and observations, this is what I’ve figured out. Disclaimer: If any of my following hypotheses laid out can be falsified, please do share, so I can further refine our understanding of the Shatterer’s mechanics.

1. The first defiance bar will always appear after the purple flare attack around 14:15 on the timer.

2. The 2nd defiance bar will ONLY occur AFTER 12:30 AND if HP remaining is 75% or lower. Once BOTH conditions are met, the defiance bar will pop within 10 seconds after the next purple flare attack.

3. No more defiance bars will occur until the first healing crystal event. This first event will occur ONLY AFTER 11:30 on the timer AND HP is 50% and lower.

4. The third defiance bar will only occur after the first purple flare attack following the completion of these two conditions: a) the first healing crystal event has occurred, b.) The remaining time is 9:50 or less.

5. The 2nd healing crystal event will only occur after these two conditions are met: a.) Timer crosses the 8:30 mark. b.) Remaining HP is 35% or less.

6. From now on, defiance bar will appear after the first purple flare attack following every healing crystal event. This rule applies regardless of time remaining.

7. From now on, healing crystal event will appear 2 minutes after every time the Shatterer flies into the air, or if its defiance bar is broken. This rule applies from this stage onwards regardless of remaining HP.

Hope this helps everyone with Shatterer.

Also, if ArenaNet is watching, please insert rewards for successful breaking of Defiance bars for Shatterer and/or an additional reward for completing the fight without Shatterer ever taking to the skies.

The turrets, mortars and glide bombing are mechanics designed into the fight, intended to be used. By making the no-fly-zone a one-time achievement defeats that intention. Most people who’ve gotten the achievement find no incentive to play the battle as designed, preferring to stand at the feet and wail attacks on it.

Those who haven’t gotten the achievement find it next to impossible to find organized runs to get it.

Tequatl awards chests for defending batteries as part of its unique design. It’s time to implement the same reward structure for Shatterer so that people bother to observe and learn the fight.

“When it’s ready”

John Smith.4610:

It’s me.

FNAF reference? John Smith is the Purple Guy?

Completed the Tangled Depths meta and defeated the Chak Gerent. Had 75% participation. Did not receive the Royal Chak Ichor collection item for HOPE Vol. 4: The Catalyst.

Day Trooper.3605:

Fyi you can buy them off the TP – currently you can purchase all 350 for a bit under 7g.

Thanks for the tip. But 15 Memories for an entire Reward Track is asinine.

I was looking forward to this update so much, hoping that it will bring back the crowds to WvW and my dead server so I can finally get my 350 Memories to craft H.O.P.E.

The crowds did come back but my situation got worse instead of better. The one thing I wanted to obtain most out of the patch was removed from WvW Rank Up chests. By the time I got my first Memories from a Reward Track, I had already ranked up THREE TIMES! So instead of getting 12-15 Memories, I got FIVE instead.

This is insane. For all the positive reviews to this content update, the improvement in approach to rewards, and reduction of grind, you go and do this to WvW.

What on earth were you smoking, ArenaNet?

Why isn’t this done yet? Way past time to make most if not all Runes viable, and for Crests to have some value already.

Mirdave.2014:

After trying to get this achievements so many times, changing map and searching for a coordinated one with no results, Anet i ask to you to avoid this kind of cooperative achiev., or achiev. that involve so many people, because 2-3 days after the release no one helps to get those anymore. I’m personally stuck at 7/20 of no-fly zone, but every time i see only 10-15 player that helps in the break-bar phase, and they aren’t enough.
Don’t come to say “search for a cc map” because it’s what i did. But nothing changed.
Perhaps by encouraging players to continue to try to break his bar regardless if they have completed the achiev . Please forgive my language errors, i’m not english.

Hello,

To be honest, I don’t feel this is a problem of ArenaNet’s. There are content meant for single player. There are content meant for coordinated groups. The Shatterer, being an Open World boss is meant for coordinated groups.

To address your other issue, I’ve lost count of the number of times I did “Smash the Dragon”. You just simply need to be in a quality guild that organizes coordinated kills, OR do the event often enough and pay attention each time you attend such an event to observe when do organized maps start posting on LFGs.

Luck plays a small factor, but is mostly a learn-to-play issue.

Rauderi.8706:

The problem with AP-as-metric is in the numerous exceptions of false positives/negatives that come from multiple-account holders or players with high AP from one content mode and dailies and/or easy-peasy holiday events.

Yes, but as you noted, they are still exceptions, even if we were to agree they are numerous. Kinda difficult to substantiate arguments for or against practice of “rule of thumb” based on examples of exceptions

Rauderi.8706:

So, the correlation between AP and “skill” (which still needs an operational definition) is potentially moderated by “time in game”, which could go in any number of directions. You might as well be asking for /age before every run, and that still doesn’t solve anything for the same reasons as above. I should also mention that just because a correlation exists, it may not bear the statistical power to be useful.

Yes, and as I already conceded in the original post, this is not a perfect metric. But with the limited tools and data in the game, this is the best most people can do, or at least within reasonable limits of ascertaining.

Rauderi.8706:

For example, say you define ‘skill’ the group’s run speed on a particular dungeon path. (This is a horrible definition, don’t actually use it.) After tons of testing, and taking the first group that comes along (no AP limits to taint your selection process), you find a significant correlation of -0.35. (Higher AP yields lower dungeon times.) The actual statistical power (~.12) is barely worth bothering with. The example, if true, would actually suggest that it’s better to just run than wait for a ‘perfect’ group.

As stated in my previous post, I’m ignorant with regards to the ACTUAL effectiveness of AP filters on amount of time saved. In the interests of intellectual honesty, I do not have enough information to make an opinion on that.

My proposition is merely: AP has a correlation with skill level/experience most of the time.

Rauderi.8706:

If I’m against an AP test for any reason, it’s because of sloppy statistical assumptions, not so much on elitist exclusion.

But, I suppose you could request specific titles? The Liadri title, Sunbringer, etc, at least indicate either high skill or the capacity to follow directions.
The Agony test is probably the better indicator for fractals, anyway. It shows enough attention to gear and progression that a person ought to be worth taking.

I think this is great, that your opposition is based on something that’s more rational. I agree that AP is a poor metric that makes for sloppy assumptions. Unfortunately, it’s the most salient we’ve got, when weighed against the effort required for other means of more accurately obtaining information.

I think you’re taking the discussion in the right direction: How can we come up with better metrics that can be practiced with reasonable amount of effort. The bashing and defense of AP is a complete waste of time and just a bait for kitten. It’s safe to assume there are better ways of measuring skill and experience. Our time will be better spent exploring those possibilities instead.

Rauderi.8706:

Sylum.1806:

…the more they cherry pick exceptions as “evidence” the more it proves the rule. Nobody has yet provided any salient statistics on the distribution of skill level versus AP.
. . .
The fact is, AP filters work for some, not so much for others, and citing personal encounters of low AP high skill level and high AP low skill levels players without anyone really having a handle the actual numbers is really just a waste of time.

That’s still not how science works.
“The notable evidence supports the null hypothesis,” is kind of a way of saying “My theory was wrong” or “I didn’t plan my study well enough.”

Perhaps someone should do a double-blind study for a correlation between overall/average group AP and fractal/dungeon group satisfaction? It’s a much “softer” thing to provide evidence for, and let’s be honest, “skill” is tremendously nebulous without several metrics or rubrics.

You do you and let others be.

Still the best thing that can be said on the topic, science or no.

Thank you. I agree with your point, and to add to that, going by your point, my argument no more invalidates their claim as their personal experiences invalidate the utility of the AP filter.

I just want to further clarify my point on “the exception proving the rule” because I see the conversation going NOWHERE between most of the commenters on this thread; and I only want to help advance the conversation in a more productive direction.

An honest reading of all those posts that argue the lack of effectiveness of the AP filter based on the authors’ personal encounters with high AP players of low skill and/or low AP players of high skill will turn up the use of the words “are”, “such”, “some”, “few”, “a”, “one”, “couple”. Nowhere will you find their claims emphatically accompanied by words such as “many”, “all”, and “most”.

This is what I mean by “the more they try to prove the exception, the more they prove the rule”. Because the wording of their experiences imply that the concept of high AP = high skill, low AP = low skill, does still apply often enough if not most of the time.

As for an earlier point made by someone else regarding the time wasted waiting for those who qualify for the AP filter versus the time saved by having these higher AP players,

well, first of all, accepting this premise is a tacit acknowledgement that AP and skill level do have a correlation, and secondly, I am ignorant over whether time is saved or wasted using an AP filter because the data is incomplete. What I do know is that AP and skill level do have a correlation, and you get skilled/experienced players more often than you don’t, when you use an AP filter.

We can all disagree over the necessity of the AP filter, but it seems to me disingenuous to dismiss the correlation between AP and skill.

Astralporing.1957:

Sylum.1806:

It’s amusing how many chime in with anecdotes of high AP players with low skill levels and low AP players with high skill levels.

You folks do understand that the more you cite exceptions, the more you prove the rule, don’t you?

So, you’re saying that the more exceptions there are, the better the rule?
I’m sorry to disappoint you, it doesn’t work that way.

Sylum.1806:

There will always be exceptions. There’ll always be groups that use AP filters that actually are crap and can’t speed run. There’ll always be players that don’t meet the AP requirement who can actually speed run. There’ll always be players that meet the AP requirement who can’t.

All these doesn’t negate the fact that AP filters do work to assemble a team capable of faster runs, most of the time.

In my experience, the time gained by this is on average, less than time wasted on enforcing those requirements.

I shan’t dispute with your experience, I believe you have no reason to be dishonest about it, bukittens back to the point I make. Yes, the more they cherry pick exceptions as “evidence” the more it proves the rule. Nobody has yet provided any salient statistics on the distribution of skill level versus AP.

We can debate till we’re blue in the face with claims and counter claims over anecdotal evidence of our personal experiences. The fact is, AP filters work for some, not so much for others, and citing personal encounters of low AP high skill level and high AP low skill levels players without anyone really having a handle the actual numbers is really just a waste of time. You do you and let others be.

This bug happened again, for the second time in a row. And other players in the map complaining of getting the same bug. Can ArenaNet acknowledge this already?

It’s amusing how many chime in with anecdotes of high AP players with low skill levels and low AP players with high skill levels.

You folks do understand that the more you cite exceptions, the more you prove the rule, don’t you?

People kittenort to AP filters for LFG do so probably understanding that it’s not a perfect system, but are just making do with what they can use.

There will always be exceptions. There’ll always be groups that use AP filters that actually are crap and can’t speed run. There’ll always be players that don’t meet the AP requirement who can actually speed run. There’ll always be players that meet the AP requirement who can’t.

All these doesn’t negate the fact that AP filters do work to assemble a team capable of faster runs, most of the time.

If you don’t like it, just make your own LFG and run at your own pace. Unless there’s a more expedient way of determining skill and build available, there’s really no point to continue flogging this dead horse.

I was on 31% participation, tagged all 4 Octovines, and died like 2 seconds before the completion of the meta. The meta was SUCCESSFULLY completed.

When I opened my meta reward chest, the message said that a noble Exalted sacrificed itself. My participation was stated as 31% but when I checked the participation above my minimap, it was 111%. I got 15 Aurilium from the chest and only 1 Exalted Key.

This totally blows. Nobody else was complaining they got a meta failure reward so I’m assuming this is some lame bug. Can customer support please contact me regarding compensation?

Shikigami.4013:

Is that a typo or did you really suggest a price of 8000 gems willingly?
I was under the impression that the only people paying insane amounts of real money to lift limitations that the game makers imposed on them (and could remove for free at any time) were teenagers who got addicted to those horrible pay2win cellphone games with 99,99$ “gem packages”.

C’mon, be fair here. I work for such a developer/publisher. We don’t sell Gem packages at $9,999. We sell “Ultimate Value” packages at ONLY $220. That’s not much is it?

#Sarcasm

Hello,

On the State of the Game 2016 blog post, it was mentioned that the Shatterer will be upgraded. Presumably, we can expect it to have much the same effect as Tequatl Rising did.

If so, Shatterer should be considered a “hard-core boss” at that point. Will it still make sense for it to occupy the same spawn times as before? Currently, the Shatterer event occurs concurrently with 2 Triple Trouble and 3 Tequatl spawns. That will cause players to have to choose between Shatterer and one other hard-core bosse at 5 of the 8 available spawns throughout the day.

Please consider removing the Shatterer from its current time slots and increase the hard-core world bosses current 3-hour window to a 4-hour window, 6 spawns a day.

Also, please do not forget to implement a guild spawn feature as with the other 3 hard-core bosses.

Finally, this will be a good opportunity to introduce one of the long-neglected legacy bosses into world boss rotation. Since the implementation of the mega-server, they have been largely ignored by the general world boss hunting community. Among the Dredge Commissar, Fire Shaman, Ogre Chieftain, and Eye of Zhaitan, the Fire Shaman, in terms of its combat mechanics, relative level, and proximity to Shatterer, make the Fire Shaman the ideal replacement for Shatterer on the rotation schedule.

Your reading of this suggestion is much appreciated.

ham.8209:

Prime Greek.1092:

Sylum.1806:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOztr628Evw

Something everyone on this topic should watch.

This is an excellent video and get to the point of “Where does this begin and end ?”

As one of the people say in the video, “it is up to the individual to protect themselves, as there is no clear definition of what even begins to be a spoiler”

Let me also state here that i have ZERO sympathy for those individuals that intentionally and not in the context of a chat discussion just shoot out movie details.

even tho this has noting at all to do with the game or any thing at all . and the fact it bored me even more . watching these videos honestly has no point at all to video games or even guild wars 2 at all . wonders how long before this topic is now locked and hope fully the cs team makes it clear to all on this topic what the rules are for matters like this .

While I agree with you on the point about other things in the game more worthwhile discussing in the forums than this topic, this topic was made still and I shared the video only to try to contribute to the discussion.

And your boredom interests those invested in this discussion as much as this topic interests you.

What I’m saying is, if you have nothing to contribute to the discussion, you’re free to refrain from it. Your disdain is important only to yourself.

I say that being somebody who cannot understand the appreciation of the millions for a movie franchise that has little to offer beyond amateur direction, cringe-worthy acting, and the most banal dialog (not including Episode VII, I haven’t watched that one yet).

Something everyone on this topic should watch.

Dashingsteel.3410:

It is not “entitlement” to ask that a game stick to its original philosophy. In vanilla gw2 platforming was sideshow attraction. There was maybe a title and achievement points attached to them. Gaining skins or items was never attached to jumping puzzles.

With the introduction of HoT, the emphasis on platforming has skyrocketed. Skins, mastery points, and even the nature of the new maps require platforming. I bought an rpg not a platform game!!

I didn’t sign up for Mario Wars 2.

Never have asked that the skins are given to me. I already said I have earned other items and skins in game. I am asking for the process of acquisition to be akin to some of the great events in the past.

+1

Gating skins and Masteries behind platforming is a terrible idea. Jumping puzzles are a great and fun diversion to the game, but I never wanted the most desirable content to require platforming. This isn’t Metroidvania Wars 2.

Tried both the Halloween and Wintersday Jumping Puzzles for 3 years, never cleared one of them. The timed aspect is just too difficult. Yeah yeah yeah, I know it can be done. Good for you, those who can clear. But I just can’t, and making this one of the compulsory things to do for the Winter’s Presence skin is just bad form.

Kraggy.4169:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

@OP: it’s worth trying the event with different toons and taking your usual teq toon somewhere else, just in case it’s a case of DR.

So the desired drops come in the loot you get from the big ‘dragon chest’ statue and not the 4 reward ‘dragon chests’ you get on a once-per-day-per-account basis?

If so, d’oh!

Nope. Your real shot at ascended boxes will come from the Exotic grade Dragon Chest which is only one per day per account.

The Fine, Masterwork, Rare grades of Dragon Chest almost certainly won’t give Ascended boxes (although you have an extremely small chance of getting one from the champ bags you get from these chests)

As for the Event Chest (The statue of Tequatl), I’m unclear if one can get an Ascended Chest from that. It is likely that you can since I’ve gotten Ascended Weapon Boxes from the Event Chests of Golem Mark II and Shatterer. However, this rate will be far, far lower than the Exotic grade Dragon Chest.

Finally, I’ve been killing the revamped Tequatl to close to two years myself. My rates have been consistent. 1 Ascended Weapon Box from Tequatl every 2 to 2.5 months. Among them were 5 Tequatl Hoards. The others were random named Ascended Weapon Boxes. I don’t remember getting any from the Event Chest, though I might have. If I did, they wouldn’t be more than one or two.

Finally, if your frustration is with NOT getting any Ascended Boxes, the easiest solution is to just raise your MF to 200% at least, then go sPvP. I kid you not, the rate of Ascended Boxes in sPvP is insane and affected by your MF. I play 99% PvE content, doing only 1 sPvP Conquest match a day.

PvE Ascended Rate: 1 per 2 months.
sPvP Ascended Rate: 2 per 1 month.

There’s no contest. Just go sPvP for your Ascendeds and enjoy the PvE content instead of fretting over loot.

1. It’s not just an Australian problem.

2. When you start the game, you’re given a choice of either NA or EU region, then a list of servers. Which means ArenaNet does not have servers located anywhere near Asia and Oceania regions.

For all of us in Asia and Oceania, the fastest we can go is 200 ping. That’s just the way it is. Hopefully, ArenaNet can consider that they are catering to an international audience, and there are significant numbers outside NA and EU that desperately need a closer server.

ArenaNet can just solve this by implementing what is already on WvW into PvE, queueing.

Just let us bloody queue to an IP already.

Also, add UI functionality where all active IPs of the player’s current map is displayed in a list, and allow players to switch IPs to the one they want. This is already done in other MMOs. It’s way overdue for GW2.

Doggie.3184:

Killface.1896:

TT is not made for PUGs but you can find lot of guilds/open community’s that do it daily ^^

It actually is made for pugs, which is what causes so many problems.

No, what is causing so many problems is players having a warped sense of expectation. Is this event open to PUGs? Unquestionably, yes. Is this event meant to be completed without organization. Hell, no.

If players aren’t willing to put in the effort to learn, organize or just bloody follow instructions, then stop whining about the difficulty.

Aenaos.8160:

Thank you for your answers guys,I’ll keep trying.
But, am I the only one who sees the huurduurness
in asking from the players to play content in a non optimal,
almost fail way,in order to achieve getting the best rewards
in the game?
This could be anecdotal joke material if it wasn’t true.

Non-optimal, yes, fail, no.

Since HoT launch, the zerk meta is really not as prolific as it is. If you’re a hardcore Teq farmer like I am, you’ll notice that it’s very hard to find a map that successfully chains all the burn phases anymore. The reason is because most players bring characters that are wearing gear for other purposes such as raids to Teq. Same reason why nowadays it’s so hard to find a full zerker group for dungeons. With such a significant drop in people bringing full zerker gear to Teq, DPS has been consistently slower for Teq since HoT launch.

If you’re finding difficulty getting sucked into whirlpools, you’re probably doing it wrong. If you get to Sparkfly Fen 10 minutes before spawn, you’ll almost certainly wind up in a non-optimal map that can still successfully complete it while having whirlpools for at least after the 1st burn phases.

That gives you two chances for whirlpools, once right before the first battery event, another time after the 1st burn. The subsequent burns go much better cuz there are a lot of traits and skills that deal bonus damage once an enemy is below the 50% health threshold.

if you arrive 20 min before, you’re likely to end up in a well-organized PUG map. Good for fast kill, bad for whirlpools. If you join an organized guild map, you’ll likely get consecutive chaining burn phases with only whirlpools right before the 1st battery event, also great for fast kills and bad for whirlpools.

So to answer your question, no, it is very easy to get a map with lots of whirlpools that don’t fail. You just need to know when to show up. Don’t show up on the dot in case you get a really lousy map, which is very likely. Goldilocks time for your collection needs is 10 min before spawn. And do it on a weekday. When you come in, check and see if your map is taxiing people in. If it’s sparse and players are lazy to get organized, taxi your way out. At 10 minutes before spawn, the late maps will start getting organized. The most organized maps at this point in time will be full so you won’t get in, which is fine. You just need to get into a late organized map that has people working to get it full, and you’ll have a slow DPS-ing full map that will get the kill and lots of whirlpools. Ideally, you should also be ferrying in people in LFG into your late Teq map until you can’t get anymore in.

Mill.9758:

I’m a bit amazed that something like Triple Trouble even made it live because there is so much about this event that screams, “not appropriate for a world boss setup.” There are so many ways to fail this event, that it requires some pretty series organization. The in game chat is inadequate for making a successful TT happen and that is a sign that the event was improperly designed as a world boss

The requirements needed to even have shot at a successful Triple Trouble completion, leads to the first set off hurdles that makes this event extremely frustrating. Since so much organization is required, a player has to first find a map where a fairly large and organized guild has decided to attempt to this event. Such maps tend to fill up quickly, so if you can’t manage to get into one, you’re out of luck. This also has the nasty element, where attempting TT is essentially off the table for some most of the week (for instance EVOS is well know for TT attempts, but the times they choose to run the event just don’t work with my schedule for most of the week).

Now let’s say you do manage to get on a map, where there is a chance at succeeding. That’s awesome, except there are so many ways for the event to fail. For starters, you could get the EVOS map, but have too many people that are either AFK or refuse to take part in the event. Everyone on the map could take part in the event, but it still fails because either too many people gravitate towards one head or since this is open world, you get enough people that just aren’t geared enough (This seems to be one of the most stringent world bosses, when it comes to dps). Even with a good map, everyone organized and geared well enough, there are so many thing that could toast the whole thing. Maybe one of the condi teams drops the ball or something happens and one group gets overrun by adds. Have enough people drop the ball with Harpoons at amber and miss a burn phase. Get bad add placement at cobalt that prevent people from getting the powder kegs where they need to be. Crimson can also have a similar problem with bad add placement. Finally, even if you do decapitate all three heads, get someone away from the wall, that then draws aggro and the attempt is hosed.

Worse, this all creates a vicious cycle. Given the high chance of failure, many players that get the achievements, have very little incentive to go back because the rewards just aren’t worth it and I don’t blame. I really wish Anet would revisit it and tune it to work with the reality of an open world event. The rewards don’t need to be better, that’s not the issue. The issue is this is incredibly unfriendly to the idea of a PUG and that’s counterproductive design for a world boss.

Several legit points, especially on design of the bosses and the vicious cycle point.

Here’s where we disagree:

1. ArenaNet never intended this boss to be easy. While the argument was made that since this is open-world, it should be “PUG-able”, the question becomes whose definition of “PUG-able”?

EVOS has shown consistently that you can organize PUGs to complete TT regularly. Where I feel you’ve missed the point is where you conflated the difficulty of the boss and the requirement of organization, with “PUG-ability”.

I feel “PUG-ability” doesn’t = can be done without organization at all.

2. I just got my 8th Pile of Regurgitated Armor from TT yesterday, on top of another 2 more named Ascended Armor Boxes in total from my entire GW2 career. And I don’t do TT everyday. If you can’t get into an organized map regularly, trust me, it’s more your problem than the organizers’.

I’ve been in these guilds long enough to see time and again people complaining how they can never get into these organized maps. These guilds have a fixed protocol and routine when setting up for TT. You just need to learn them and you’ll know exactly when and where to show up to almost guarantee yourself a spot on their instances.

You have my sympathies for the fact that organized runs don’t suit your personal schedule well, but really no one in this game is owed anything. ArenaNet doesn’t owe you rewards. Organizing guilds don’t owe you a spot on their instances. If you want to complete a difficult event, you learn how to do it. If you need numbers, you learn when and where to find it, if you want numbers as and when you do, you learn how to organize them.

I’m a member of both EVOS and TTS, and I can tell you they are more than willing to recruit leaders who can organize additional TT runs. If you want it badly enough, you’ll learn to organize these raids and lead them at time slots that better suit your schedule.

3. The RNG aspects of Crimson and Cobalt are legit points, though minor I feel. Your points about players AFK-ing, unbalanced distribution of people across the wurms, condi teams not controlling the husks well, dropping harpoons, leading the decapped wurm head astray; I’m sorry but all these are learn-to-play issues. If you need to point your finger at something to blame, it isn’t ArenaNet and their designs at getting people to work together, you have to blame human nature.

If you do Silverwastes, then you know what I’m talking about. Selfish players all clustering at south path hoping to get two kills or some other reason. Or people at Verdant Brink refusing to move to defend another camp when the one they’re at already has more than enough people. One thing is constant for all difficult open world content: if everyone is selfish and refuses to play ball, listen to commanders and cooperate and work for each other, then everyone loses.

Some of the points you raised really have nothing to do with ArenaNet. You need to focus more of your frustration on selfish players who refuse to cooperate for the good of everyone.

This is an asinine request, no offense to the original poster. Look, if you sPvP exclusively, eschewing all other game modes, you don’t need to “earn” elite specs. They are there for you to use right from the start.

The reason why WvW has a Proof of Heroics currency to buy Hero Points is because WvW builds are dependent on your PvE progression. The elite specs are locked for them. So there needs to be an alternative to obtain elite specs for those who WvW exclusively.

If sPvP is only a part of your GW2 experience, then you can just get your elite specs from your other modes (such as PvE or WvW).

Either way, there’s no need to implement what you requested. Please do the developers and this forum a favor and consider your request thoroughly first.

I’ll buy the glider with cash. No gold-to-gem conversion for me. But no way am I spending a cent on the bundle even though I’ll gladly have another Immortal weapon skin. The reason is simple. Games such as these usually have more than one art team on the tab.

I work in a mobile game developer/publisher studio, and in just my branch office alone, there are three different art teams. Buying this bundle containing skins you do not like is tantamount to telling these art teams that it’s ok to churn out filler material, and they’ll still get paid anyway.

Send a strong signal that this manner of marketing will not be supported.

Yes, LFG tool needs a serious update.

1. First of all, there’s been a whole slew of open world content added with HoT. the Open World category itself doesn’t cut it anymore in terms of filtering out events.

2. A default group for posting is a seriously bad idea. Developers, please refer to the earlier suggestions about mandatory selection of categories for both posters and joiners to avoid cluttering one group. I’m sure the developers should already know how common Ascalonian Catacombs groups have been posting their LFG on the Open World group.

3. Allow players to input keywords with a click. Add buttons to the side of the menu containing important keywords such as event names and profession names. These reduce the effort required for posters so they’ll feel less inclined to just type out what they want in the most popular group. Right now, everyone is posting their fractal, dungeon, story needs on the open world because it has the biggest audience. Improving the convenience of inputting keywords will encourage them to reinvest that effort into posting on the right group.

Please make affordable Extractors happen please. Build experimentation will be really turbo-charged if this is sold in-game rather than in the gem stores. In the alternative, price them properly so that it actually costs less than outright buying the upgrades themselves.

I’d love for new cultural armor tiers, and even more so if it’s paid with karma, but even in the event we do get a new tier, the previous tiers are bought with gold, and a lot of gold at that, so I don’t expect a new tier to cost karma instead.

The Itzel Flax Seed farm isn’t the main cause of obstruction for players trying to get into an organized Verdant Brink map. Flax farmers leave as soon as they are done. The problem is players hanging outside the raid entrance waiting to form a squad to enter the raid.

I totally object to the raid entrance being placed in any map outside of its own. The raid entrance should be in the raid map itself, with its own Waypoint.

If your Magic Find is above 200%, then play at least one sPvP match a day. I get 2 ascendeds from sPvP each month on average playing just 1 match a day.

I spend all my playing time on PvE content and I get like 1 ascended every two months on average. Suffice to say, the drop rate is very skewed in favor of sPvP. I understand one cannot gather materials as quickly as sPvP, but the rate is still ridiculously lop-sided.

I don’t farm with crafting ascended in mind. My former daily routine of SW, Karka Queen, Tequatl, Triple Trouble, and Dungeons was to get resources for legendary crafting.

It invariably ends with me getting lots of other materials as by-products of farming that are used for ascended, so I have like 5 characters fully decked in ascended armor and 7 with ascended weapons, and I never felt like I spent any effort on ascended equipment at all. In short, aim for something else, and get your ascendeds as bonus.

1. I still see LFGs for Tangled Depths, quite regularly in fact, but nowhere near the frequency for LFGs for Verdant Brink, Auric Basin and Dragon’s Stand.

2. The success rate for TD is many order of magnitude lower than any of the other 3 HoT Maps. Since it is NOT the last map, the other commenters are right in saying it makes no sense for this to be harder than Dragon’s Stand.

3. I am in a mega-guild that relishes challenging content, and did TD day and night before finally completing it. Now the leaders say they are burnt out of TD because of the effort to get the first successful completion. They were nowhere near as pushed when it came to completing the meta for the other three maps.

In the interests of guilds such as the one I’m in, that likes very hard content, I’d suggest scaling up the difficulty of DS and nerfing TD’s instead.

Absolutely agreed with the main point of this post. Spent precious resources changing my ascended to Magi for my Guardian only to find out that the heals hardly improved with the big increase in healing power.

So far, only Druid healing scales properly with healing power.

Previously, the developers said they didn’t want people who didn’t invest in Condition Damage attribute to reap the rewards of bonus damage from conditions and revamped the Condition feature.

Isn’t it high-time to update the healing skills and traits of all other professions to scale properly with Healing Power investment for the sake of build diversity?

As the first responder said, there’s no “get-rich-quick” scheme or you will have uncontrolled inflation. I made my incinerator in two months. All by doing 1 x Karka Queen, 3 x Tequatl, 1 x Triple Trouble, 1 x Breach + Vinewrath @ SW, 1 x sPvP match everyday. SW chest trains are only done on weekends and I don’t do them more than an hour a day.

My earnings are not very much affected by RNG. Granted this routine will take more time than a high-schooler with a part-time job can afford but that’s how it is.

You say your previous post wasn’t well written enough. Well, in this one, you failed to mention how long you’ve been doing your current routine of earning 5-10 gold an hour, how many hours you play on average a day, and what’s the number of days/weeks/months you hope to take to craft your legendary. Without these information, it’s hard to give you a good plan how to improve your routine or whether if your expectations are even reasonable.

At 5-10 gold an hour, you’re making way more than I can. If you can’t make your Incinerator (and you only need to craft one, just reskin the other dagger, unless you’re going for the Twice Told Legend achievement which is pretty pointless) at that rate, either:

1. Your estimation of gold per hour rate is way off

2. You have no discipline saving money.

3. You buy stuff that can be farmed while doing the things that earn you gold.

4. You only play 1 hour a day, in which case the advice is be patient.

5. Your projected timeline to complete the legendary is unreasonable, in which case the advice is also to be patient.

I agree with most players that there shouldn’t be that safety hill that people can just cheese Shatterer from; and that the Shatterer needs a revamp to match how epic it looks.

However, for the time being, there is a workaround to this problem of getting the trophy:

Go to a late map and stand just right under the Shatterer.

Trust me, I’ve gotten crystallized dozens of times for being late to the map and insisting on being the only person at the double damage spot where the grand chest will eventually spawn. If you’re on a late map, everyone else will just attack from the cheese spot leaving you vulnerable to the crystals. Hope this helps.

I took a whole week’s leave to play the expansion. I can’t log in with any of my 8 characters due to this network error bug. Obviously very miffed at this.

I’m bugged on Qualify for Peer Review too. Can’t start the achievement. First piece of log is not interactable. Please fix this.

Foomnz.6954:

The problem is people have an I want it now mentality
and are not content to let progress be a form content

leveling up masteries and unlocking my elite spec I have found to be an incredibly engaging activity with an incredible reward at the end

I got my full elite spec unlock last night after playing a lot over the weekend and now every hero challenge in the game is redundant and the hero points will just sit in my wallet tab now for the next 2 years.

people wonder why they get bored with games so quickly

it sucks to be in a games market where the majority of consumers just want give it to me now content all the time

Wait, your reason for opposing the change is because your Hero Points are going to sit there unused for another 2 years? Let me get this straight. You completed your Elite Spec in 5 days since launch of HoT. Assuming it was 250 HP from the start, you got like what? 4 additional days of “mandatory” content (which by the way is only changed to optional content and not removed entirely) and you’re seriously arguing for that 4 additional days of grind?

You need to apply some logic here and understand that the point of Elite Spec is to play them, not to earn them. If you found the journey fun, great for you, but they’re not meant to be as exclusive as Legendary or other premium achievements. Not all content are created equal and not all content are created for the same purpose.