Guild Wars 2

Isn’t the focus more like a shield than a weapon? I wouldn’t expect it to do loads of damage.

I was a little surprised at this as well, since I figured the Elementalist would be a “Wizard”, all staves and robes and fireballs and stuff. And you can do that with this class… but the dagger/dagger build suggests a different interpretation.

Consider the Elemental Chaos, the great swirling maelstrom of primal elemental energies. Now place a man at the center of it, the great embodiment of the Elemental Chaos. Now place him in the middle of a fight, whirling about like the wind, daggers flashing like lightning, searing his foes with flame, but with the stability of the earth itself keeping him upright. Ice and fire mix indiscriminately, air and earth churn and bleed his foes to death.

Oh, sure, he’s a “mage”… but don’t ever make the mistake of assuming he prefers to fight a distance. He revels in the chaos of battle. It feels like home.

If you’re asking if this class can be played effectively without swapping attunements, I’m pretty sure that’s a “no”. Thematically, this class isn’t so much about “fire mages” and “water mages” like in something like Avatar, but rather something more like Masters of the Swirling Elemental Maelstrom.

That said, if you want to play a “fire mage” or an “earth mage”, you can do much with your build and your choice of clothing and dyes.

For instance, my character, “Tarvok of the Waves” is primarily a water mage—thirty points—-with enough earth and air to emphasize that place where those three elements meet: the surf. Also some arcana. He’s probably not the most effective character out there… but really, the Elementalist is only as strong as you play it. A competent player with a gimpy build will outclass a poor player every day of the week.

When I’m in town or with a party expecting trouble, I run around in Water attunement (though of course I travel in Air, because that’s just practical). My clothes are all shades of blue with just a touch of an aquamarine like color (I think it’s technically olive or something). I am, to all appearances, a “water mage”. However, I usually begin combat in Air, switch to Fire to lay down some damage and a field, to earth to combo that field four times, and only then do I switch to water to recover. Theme is all well and good… but you gotta play the class the way it’s written.

So if you want to be thematically an “earth mage”, wear lots of brown or maybe grays (dirt and/or stone), run around in earth attunement in public, put as many points in earth as you can, give your character an earth themed name, and viola! You are an earth mage! Just don’t forget that even in many elementalist based fictions, only novices are restricted to one element. The true master can weave all four like the very tapestry of nature itself.

As a casual player, I must say that the thing I notice is the titles.

Huh. Looks like I’m going to be going home for the first time in a long while. I’ve been out exploring for so long, I’ve almost forgotten what Divinity’s Reach looks like. Nice of the queen to send out baloons to pick up people like me.

And I am loving that wallet thing. I’ve got badges and stuff clogging up my bank vault, when they really ought to be organized as a currency.

I don’t know. It seems to me that stuff is happening and a player could figure out that stuff is happening just by paying attention to the existence of new content. The walls of text explaining that new content should probably be relegated to the browser. So long as they are showing in-game, that should be fine. For those of us who want the telling, stepping outside the game for a bit isn’t unreasonable.

Indeed, if I were to put the “telling” in-game, I would probably turn bookcarts and flyers and stuff into browser links… but only if it’s written from an “in-game” perspective. (And actually, adding dozens and dozens of “in-game” books, truth, lies, heavily biased opinions and all, like in Elder Scrolls games, to Guild Wars 2, would be really, really neat.) The synopsis should be linked purely from the launcher.

Huh. I think I’ve figured out what class I’m going to use for my Asura character. Asura ranger would be truly weird, and therefore awesome.

Worst thing you can do is actually get used to the Elementalist. You won’t be able to play other classes, except maybe the Engineer. They’re just too boring.

Maybe we’re approaching the Sylvari-Plant analogy from the wrong direction. Maybe they’re not reproductive in nature, like flowers, fruit, or seeds. Maybe they’re a resource gathering part, like roots or leaves.

Think about it. We know Sylvari contribute their experiences back into the Dream, allowing each generation to have more finely tuned knowledge. Maybe this knowledge is one of the things the Pale Tree needs to perform its functions. Leaves to gather sunlight and oxygen. Roots to gather water and other nutrients. And Sylvari to gather information about the world, and the societies that inhabit it.

As such, sexual forms for Sylvari serve as a means of allowing for different viewpoints in interacting with other people in the world. Through the male form, the Pale Tree gets a male perspective on these societies. Through the female form, the Pale Tree gets a female perspective. The “uploading” of these experiences back into the Pale Tree allows for gradually more sophisticated Sylvari… but what ultimate purpose this serves is unknown.

So, Leaves for air and light. Roots for earth and water. And Sylvari for society and knowledge… and also for protection. Indeed, that may be the main purpose of the Sylvari, after all. With an incredibly slow reproductive rate (we only know of one Tree and a few seeds from legend), perhaps the purpose of the Sylvari is to create a stable environment in which the Tree will not suffer disaster at the hands of other sentient beings (such as Elder Dragons, or humans with the idea that you could make some AWESOME equipment from Elder Tree heartwood…).

tl;dr: Sylvari have sexes because the animal based races have sexes, and the Tree needs both perspectives to do its job.

On Boralis Pass, I’ve actually been seeing a lot of activity in Black Citadel. Though lately The only racial cities I’ve spent any time in are Black Citadel and Hoelbrak, I went through all of them before my hiatus. I’d say that the order of player activity was as follows:

1. Divinity’s Reach
2. Black Citadel
3. Hoelbrak
4. The Grove
5. Rata Sum

So yeah, The Grove is generally among the slowest racial capitals.

My guild isn’t active… yet. But I just started working on getting it started. If you just love the Elementalist class and want to play with others who feel the same way, you may enjoy Elementum Natura.

… assuming I can actually get this off the ground. Want to help?

I’m not really sure what this system would give that isn’t already there, in terms of money and effort. You have the mats? You can just as easily sell them and use the money to buy the gear. Big difference between the prices? That’s the commission.

Flipping low level crafted stuff is incredibly easy to do, and a good way to get money at the lower levels. Higher levels… it starts to get a bit tedious to manage the sheer number of investments you are capable of making. I never did figure out how to invest at higher values.

This is how it works.

Generally speaking, most players who are crafting low level items are doing so for the skill gain. The sooner they get their cash back, the sooner they can plough it into more materials for more skillgain. Thus, rather than putting in a high offer and getting more money in the short term, they tend to just “sell it now” and move on to the next tier. Thus, there’s constant downward pressure on the highest bid.

Meanwhile, players who are buying crafted materials are generally doing so because they just leveled and want to upgrade their gear. Thus, rather than putting in a low bid and waiting for cheaper gear, they “buy it now”, because, let’s face it. By the time their bid is met, they’re probably already ready for the next tier of gear. Thus, there’s a constant upward pressure on the lowest offer.

Enter the flipper. You’re basically competing to sell time at the lowest price. You can place the higher bids the upgrader can’t. You can place the lower offers the crafter’s won’t. As a result, you make a profit, the buyers can buy at a bit lower a price than they otherwise would, and the crafters sell at a higher price than they otherwise would. Everybody wins.

It occurs to me that we have a case of a rich businessman vs. a soldier (or something; I only recenly rejoined). Of course the rich businessman is going to offer better benefits for higher tiered players. It’s called “buying the election”.

I also use it for travel. It’s something to set to when you’ve got a lot of running to do but aren’t expecting particularly difficult combat. Good for most PvE, or at least the exploration part.

Seems to be an ongoing problem.

Do the Hounds count? I just started using them. I like them.

I don’t know if this is what you’re looking for in this forum, but the upgrade component filters on the Black Lion Trader are broken… and have been for a very long time now. You filter for “weapons”, and it only shows gems… filtering out the sigils which are definitely upgrade components for weapons. Armor appropriately displays runes… but I’m pretty sure there are other things which can be applied to armor.

I know this isn’t the Guild Recruitment forum, but I thought this might be of interest here. Remember Elementum Natura? That Elementalist focused guild Flyfunner started? Though I wasn’t really able to participate at the level I would prefer at the time, for some reason, Flyfunner made me Grand Master. So now I’m Grand Master of what’s basically an empty guild… and I thought I’d give it a second go, this time with a bit more structure.

The full recruitment message is [url]https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/guilds/recruitment/Elementum-Natura-PvX-RP-Light-Class-Focus/first#post2501169]here[/url]. If you’re interested in getting a big group of elementalists together and experimenting with combos and group composition (mixes of weapon types, element focuses, and such), that’s exactly what I’m trying to start, here.

FWAE

Introduction: A while back, a guild called “Elementum Natura” was created. It was intended to be an Elementalist focused guild, but due to a lack of organization, it never really got off the ground. Then I stopped playing for about half a year. When I returned, I discovered I’d been made Grand Master of an empty guild. Ha! So I’m restarting this project, with some ideas of my own.

Purpose: This guild is mainly for:

• Elementalist enthusiasts who want to experiment with builds and combos under a varity of conditions, and be recognized for exceptional contributions to Elementalist gameplay.
• Adults with limited time to play, but who desire to make the most of that limited time.
• Roleplayers who want a guild that is friendly to greater degrees of immersive play… but still want to be competent at the game itself. (Roleplaying not required.)

Qualifications:

• Have an elementalist character with a name that isn’t blatantly anti-immersive. That’s it

Communication: At least initially, official Guild communications will be done via Google+.

Advancement: Players who both demonstrate competence with the class and participate in guild events regularly will qualify for advancement, with the highest ranks reserved for those who are particularly effective and innovative.

Events: Elementum Natura will have one official meeting a week, held on either a Saturday or a Sunday (my weekends are wide open). Our first official meeting will be held the weekend of August 10-11, with the exact time set by Tuesday, August 6, after consulting with the membership.

Home Server: To be determined by consensus of the Founders.

Those that attend this first meeting will be given a special rank called “Founder”, having all the rights and privileges of a “Magus” (the standard member rank) without having to go through the Apprentice rank first.

To join, you can contact me via PM, in-game (Tarvok of the Waves) or via Google+.

VIDEOS.

We need to see this in action. You could end up doing for Dagger/Focus what that one guy did for Dagger/Dagger last year. It was awesome. With almost no action on ANet’s part, I watched as the community went from “OMG fix eles they suck!” to “OMG nerf eles they’re broken!”

I love this class.

As I understand it, the current process for creating a legendary weapon is intended to reward mastery of every aspect of the game. I could be wrong about that, but that is, I believe, the appropriate goal.

What if the gate keeping were divided between crafting and equipping the items? Here’s what I, mean.

Crafting a legendary, under this system, would require extremely rare, but “naturally occurring” materials. Some of the materials would encourage mastery of the trading post. Others would be bind on acquire items that would either drop or be available from karma vendors in remote locations. Finally, the process of crafting would only be available to characters that had acquired a certain level of achievements in the areas of crafting, gathering, and exploration.

Equipping the item, however, would not be a simple matter of being of an appropriate class and level 80. To even equip it, one would have to reach a certain total of achievement points in areas like PvE kill totals and variety and PvP participation and performance. That would allow it to be equipped.

But to get full stats out of it, and to display particle effects (to attune to it) would require the completion of a series of difficult tasks while equipped with the (underperforming) weapon. These could include simple but time consuming tasks like doing a full tour of the capitals without using gates or waypoints, as well as more difficult tasks like purifying the weapon at a captured temple in Orr, being victorious in SPvP, being in that central fortress when it is in your side’s possession in WvW, and so on.

In summary, creating a legendary would be best done by players who had mastered the economic systems of the game and done a lot of exploring, while wielding would be best done by players who had mastered the combat systems and done a lot of killing.

Oh noes! This thread is full of trolls!

Oh, wait, they’re nice trolls, the kind with fuzzy hair and belly buttons.

Cool.

Another option would be to have duel requests, rather than showing up as a pop-up or something, show up as a lit up icon, like how your backpack icon turns red when it’s full, or the little numbers indicating you have mail or stuff at the BLTC. If you’re looking for it, it’s there. If you’re not, you might not even notice (a bit like how sometimes, I sit there wondering why I’m not looting… and then realize my backpack has been full for a while). As to people spamming with PMs… we can block people from doing that, already.

Personally, I kind of like dueling.

I’m just disappointed I’m not going to be able to get on Tarnished Coast before the transfer restrictions kick in. I really want to get involved in the RP community. I’m going to have to figure out an alternative to TC quickly.

Character voice sliders aren’t unprecedented. Phantasy Star Universe had both a number of voices to choose from and a slider that changed the pitch of the voice you’d chosen. I think that’d be a worthy addition to the already excellent character creation process.

“Stuff, stuff, STUFF!”

Personally, I like the little conversations. They’re funny, and I’d rather they were there than nothing at all. I always stop to listen to the little conversations I haven’t heard before, and if they really annoy you that much, you DO know you can turn your sound off when you don’t need it for combat, don’t you?

I thinking being able to kill a guy and have him out of the action for a while is kind of the point. I know you want to be back in the action… but do you really want the opposing team to have that same ability?

Funny thing about “Kitten” is it can show up anywhere. For example, ever been to kittenattler Caverns? It’s in the Hrathi Hinterlands.

LF3M TA EXP= :Looking for 3 more, Twilight Arbor, Explorable Mode.

Astraea, what percentage gains are you getting on the items you’re crafting and selling? I’d given up on crafting, and I’d be curious to know if it’d be worth going back in to search for profitable crafting opportunities.

Theplayboy.6417:

This is actually a pretty brilliant idea. Would never work though, the sheep would freak out.

Maybe. What I’m thinking of is something along the lines of what you would get if you were to combine Eve Online with A Tale in The Desert. (I plan to check out ATiTD once I have an income again ankittenired enough of GW2 I’ll actually spend enough time with it to justify the subscription fee.)

Come to think of it, I’m actually surprised I haven’t seen what I always used to see when I’d try out WoW: a tavern full of stripped down female characters consantly /dancing.

At any rate, in this culture, you really need a certain maturity level for “natural” nudity to work… and I’m talking about a level of maturity a lot of people in this country never reach.

To paraphrase a certain developer (different game) in regards to this debate on another forum, "I’m twenty-five (or whavever) and I still shout “boobies!” when nudity appears in a movie.

That said, I still find it disturbing that you can blow a guy’s head off in front of kids, but the uncovered female upper body is considered a dire threat to their well being.

Well, Magic Find raising inflation rates really depends on what players are actually doing with their drops. There are three different options:

1. Sell it on the Trading Post
2. Vendor it
3. Salvage it for materials

Obviously, the first isn’t really an option if the supply of that particular drop is larger than the community can absorb, but when it is, selling on the TP has two effects: first, the additional supply drives down the price of that particular item. Second, the demand for competing goods drops, so it can have the effect of lowering the prices for a whole class of goods. Third, transaction costs remove gold from the economy.

The second option adds gold to the economy.

The third increases the supply of materials, thus lowering the price of both materials and things made from those materials. The sale thereof removes gold from the economy.

I am thinking that the kinds of things one finds more often with a higher MF score are the kinds of things that can actually command a higher price on the TP than with vendors. So if we’re assuming perfect information, higher MF could actually reduce the gold in the economy, and increase the supply of such items.

However, I could be wrong, and the goods found more often with high MF are also things that can only be vendored or salvaged. Additionally, it could also be that a large number of players prefer vendoring to selling on the TP (even if going to the TP gets them a few more copper), for whatever reason, which would also have MF increase the gold in the economy.

So there are two questions to be answered: do the things found with MF tend to be more tradeable than things that are found without it? How often to players vendor a thing that could be sold on the TP for more? The answer to those questions are necessary to come up with an answer to your own question of whether magic find is a gold maker or not.

Lafiel.9372:

People associate anything that is similar to WoW and associate it as clone. It’s like apple suing everyone because their phones are rectangle. Then we have the people who say anything that’s not similar to wow is crap eg. the phone isn’t rectangular so it’s crap.

Actually, it’s more like when people accuse the guys that made the Lord of the Rings movies of ripping off Harry Potter. :p

Or like, back in the early days of Napster, how every song with comedy was attributed to Weird Al.

Ema.4953:

There is a 250 years difference between GW1 and GW2. In the real world, things change over the course of 250 years in terms of currency and coinage. Why wouldn’t that be also true in a game?

I have to admit the GW1 system of having ecto as the ultimate commodity was awesome. What was it roughly? 30 ecto for 100 gold? I wish I could bring all my GW1 ecto over to GW2. My Xunlai Chest was full of the stuff.

Personally, I’d like to see an MMO that had no default currency. It’d be interesting to watch and play through the period when the players inevitably shifted from pure barter to the adoption of some sufficiently rare but sufficiently commonly demanded product for use as money.

So do you think playing d/d elementalist is “god mod”, mursie?

If not, obviously you were not the intended audience.

I didn’t play GW1, and that’s actually a pretty amazing story. Did the game particularly facilitate barter at a level where ectos could function smoothly as an alternate currency, or was it a more clunky system?

John Smith.4610:

This is very far from the truth.
Even more so inside of MMOs where there is complete data.

I’m pretty sure that the only way to have “complete data” in a science that purports to study human action would be to be omniscient with regard even to the thoughts and motivations of the people involved. Certainly more data helps with the analysis of specific historical trends, but the data still isn’t “complete.” We’re dealing with the activities of human beings, not the motion of inanimate objects, and as such, much of the “motive forces” behind economic trends lie beyond our view.

Karsusk.5247:

The economy is headed for a state where new players will be powerless to purchase certain items. As the inflation grows out of control, new people will need to rely in irl friends or generous guild mates to be able to function. This will shift the game to having far less casuals playing. Like everything in the game is doing now.

“To be able to function?” Ridiculous. You do not need a legendary to function. You don’t even necessarily need exotics to function… but if you do, there are plenty of ways to get them that have nothing to do with gold. (THIS is the difference between GW2 and the real world.) And the best stuff, Ascended gear, isn’t available at any price in gold; you have to farm it. And there is no way to use gold to prevent another person from playing. Only sheer envy could possibly cause someone to QQ over the prices of items on the trading post.

This would be really convenient. I bop back and forth between the buy and sell screens all the time, and I have to admit, I’d love it if they simply combined the two screens and gave us all the information on that one screen.

When selling random drops, I still typically undercut by 1 copper. It’s convenient, and I’m dealing in low enough volume it doesn’t really matter how long it takes to sell. Further, when I’m selling random drops, I’m typically trying to empty my bags as fast as possible, so I can get back to active play.

In my trading operations, I used to list 10% lower than the lowest sell. That did really well in getting my inventory to clear fast, so I could quickly reinvest it. But after a while, my volume of transactions reached a point where this was cost-prohibitive in terms of time. So now I undercut by 5%, in larger volumes, in the hopes that I get just a bit more cash in less of my time, rather than less time overall (so I can actually play the game). For the most part, it DOES eventually clear.

I’m assuming you mean “magic find”. I’m guessing there would be a very, very marginal increase in the gold supply if you vendored all items with higher MF than if you vendored all items with lower MF.

Not really sure The Blue Ace’s kittening about lodestone availability has to do with your question, so I may not understand the question…

Even on a Thursday night a 3:45 AM, it and five other servers still register as full. Amazing.

Is there a “secondary unofficial RP server” being established, for the overflow of RPers that can’t get onto Tarnished Coast?

I doubt it’s the big money people keeping crafted equipment prices down. For the most part, if someone’s making a lot of money, they’re smart enough to stay out of crafting. For lower level stuff, there’s always someone leveling their crafting and therefore dumping stuff onto the market. What’s odd is how thin a profit margin there is on Exotics. I figure people just love crafting, and will take a 5% profit, despite the fact that there are 100% profits to be made.

The really interesting thing is the effect this has on the buy and sell prices of crafted equipment. People who are leveling their crafting generally “sell it now”, to get the money back for their next batch of materials. This exerts a constant downward pressure on buy orders. Meanwhile, people leveling their characters generally “buy it now”, so they can actually use it rather than getting it a day or two later, when they’re ready for even higher equipment. This exerts a constant upward pressure on sell orders.

The result: 100% is the minimum return I’m making in my chosen market. There literally aren’t enough smart traders to counter the prevailing trends, thus crafters continue to receive a pittance, while levelers continue to have to pay a premium.

I know for a fact that in cloth armor, Mystic’s answer is pretty much incorrect. There are a few slim profits to be made, but for the most part, everything sells either at or below cost. What Mystic was really doing there wasn’t so much selling crafted items as selling material—that he happened to have changed into crafted items. This will make a small profit, true, but not so great a profit as selling the mats outright and then playing the spread.

It only adds to their control if they get it at a price that is lower than a price they can get away with charging (that someone will actually buy it at, and that nobody else will undercut them at). If they pay more than that amount, they have to sell at a loss, thus reducing their power.

I’m on Boralis Pass, and I saw quite a few people out and about when I was exploring the Hrathi Hinterlands and Snowden Pass. I’ve seen a few in my current zone (an area south of Snowden Pass, can’t recall the name). So there are people out there.

Games like that aren’t actually possible in higher volume markets. There just aren’t many of what you bought on the market, so who can say what is and isn’t a “fair price”?

darkace.8925:

Spools of thread, lumps of tin and coal, runes of holding, etc. There is an element of gold sink to crafting.

Ah yes, true. And there is also, of course, the trading post fees for selling the items.

It isn’t a sink. A gold sink is when you give money to an NPC and it disappears from the game forever. This money goes to players… but yes. Understand that at low levels, you’re basically paying for skill points. And there’s enough crafters and competing goods in the game that, even for exotics, profits are very, very modest, if they’re even there.

Crafting is basically for vanity, for achievements, and for buying XP. It isn’t unfortunately, a source of wealth.

So… so long as you’re here… can we get some hard data to chew on?