Guild Wars 2

I use a Fellblade on my Reaper. I wish the smoke effect was just a bit more prominent (or, even better, like the GW1 Fellblade) but I still like it.

Yes, please. Please hire this individual.

I don’t really consider this a P2W item. What I do consider this is vertical progression.

We had 2 sets of infinite gathering tools that all did the same thing and had alternate animations. Cool. Now we have the 1st component of a new set of infinite harvesting tools that do the same thing as the earlier sets, have alternative animations, AND provide a new bonus.

I don’t really care if that bonus is worth having or not. As someone up higher said, who knows what the next tool’s bonus will be (though harvesting tool and spore doesn’t seem unlikely). All I know is that taking something in game that many people already have, and adding a new item that is identical except with an added bonus is vertical progression. Vertical progression annoys me. When I’m annoyed, I don’t spend money on the thing that annoys me.

Unfortunately, I must once again admit to sadness and annoyance with ANet. * sigh *

Although I am not opposed to the idea of not having to wait for the JP to “respawn” to give it another go, I have run into some issues with the new mechanics of the puzzle.

Specifically, I have several times now run into a spot where I simply had no snowflakes to jump onto, because I had started to catch up to the person in front of me, who was running the puzzle slower than I was. The snowflakes had “melted” after that individual used them and had not yet respawned by the time I reached them, causing me to fail the puzzle through no fault of my own. Unfortunately, this is entirely unpredictable.

A faster respawn on the snowflakes might be worth considering.

Selene.9415:

So what’s going to happen to Opals (the raw crafting and exquisite types)? I didn’t see any information on them, only the runes and sigils.

I figured Opals would get switched to Assassin’s stats.

Weapons, armor and trinkets with magic find will become account bound, lose their current stats and will gain the ability to be double-clicked to select one of several stat options depending on the item. … For example, if you have an Explorer’s Pearl Staff, you can now double-click it to change it to any other crafting stat.

This statement still seems a bit unnecessarily vague. Explorer’s is stated to be swappable to any other crafting stat. Does this mean just the original crafting types (Berserker, Valkyrie, Rampager, Knight, Carrion, Cleric)? Include apothecary, sentinel, and celestial as well? What about Giver’s? Based on the use of the word “any” I would assume all of these.

What are the conditions that determine which stat choices are available to choose for other gear? Explorer’s is a crafted stat combo, and it has been stated that it can be changed to stat combos that can be crafted. What about dropped Traveler’s gear? Similarly, it seems as if available stat combos should include any combo that can otherwise be found on drops within the game. If I have wayfarer’s trinkets from the temple karma merchant, should I only be able to expect to change them to stat combos that are otherwise available from temple karma merchants?

It would be nice to have some clarification on this.

And on that last point, has anyone seen any mention regarding what stats Wayfarer’s will be replaced with?

It looks like we got another 5 stat combinations for both rings and amulets with the new patch. While this represents a 50% increase compared to the previously available Ascended items, it still only represents 12% of the combinations available at the Exotic Tier. And to reiterate, the point isn’t that all those combinations might be useful, but that they are available.

I still can’t believe they would give up the rune / sigil system for armor and weapons by giving up the Upgrade Slot. There is so much depth there and I just cannot see the benefit to losing it. Maybe they found the variety too hard to balance, decided to do away with the system, and felt this was the best way to do so. I guess we’ll just get to wait and see.

A lot of people find ascended items annoying, their very existence, the perceived grind, etc. But I think the biggest issue with them is the lack in the variety of the available items. The developers have said that they will add a greater variety of items in the future, however I don’t understand why this is even necessary when they already had a very well received and robust customization system in place with the Upgrade Slot of gear. The upgrade slot allowed extensive possible customization of gear without the necessity of introducing an excessive number of new in-game items.

To keep things simple, originally we had access to 8 different types of jewels from which to craft jewelry from. In November we got Passiflora, making 9 jewels. I suppose technically you should also count snowflakes, but I’ll ignore those here. With FotM, trinkets with non-craftable named stat sets started dropping as loot, and January gave these as karma purchases from the Orrian Temples (Cavalier, Rabid, Magi, Wayfarer, Solider).

At that point we had 14 possible base trinkets with 9 different possible jewels that could be placed within the upgrade slots = 126 possible stat combinations. That is 126 possible end results from the existence of only 23 in game items. Granted, not all 126 options would be generally considered useful, but the point is that they are all possible.

With ascended rings and amulets, the upgrade slot was inexplicably taken away (and I have yet to find an explanation for why this occurred). In order to replicate the preexisting variety of items, the developers would need to create 126 unique ascended items. Because of the way they implemented different types of infusion slots (offensive, defensive, utility) they actually would need to multiply that number by 3, resulting in the need to create 378 unique ascended items.

What we actually got were 10 ring versions with 2 infusion types each (a total of 20 of the possible 378) and 10 amulet versions with 3 infusion types each (a total of 30 of the possible 378). Also of note, in both cases, 1 of the available ascended options was a “celestial” variety

Reimplementing ascended items with the upgrade slot would allow the developers to successfully replicate the variety of current exotic gear by instead creating 14 ascended base items and 9 ascended versions of the jewels. Assuming they keep the 3 infusion slot types, this would require a maximum of 42 base items and 9 ascended upgrade items. 51 total new items seems like it would be easier to implement than 378.

It would also make it much easier to expand the available gear if new base stats or new jewels were to be offered (such as expanding the available jewels to include the soldiers, cavaliers, rabid, celestial, etc stats).

My suggestion:

- Re-design ascended items.
- Each ascended item can come in base versions consistent with each of the currently available named stat combinations.
- Each ascended item has an upgrade slot and an infusion slot.
- Do away with unique status of ascended items (unnecessary) and do away with the different types of infusion slots (also unnecessary).
- When the ascended item is purchased or dropped, the upgrade slot is pre-filled with the respective ascended jewel (will need to create new ascended jewel types for the named stat sets without jewel counterparts).
- Create mystic forge recipes to create ascended jewels from exotic exquisite jewels (as an example: 1 exquisite jewel, 1 ecto, 1 vial of condensed mist (should be purchasable at laurel vendors), 10 crystalline dust… or whatever, but be reasonable).
- Make ascended items salvageable. Make ascended jewels non-soulbound. This will allow for a market of ascended upgrades, and create a purpose for surplus dropped ascended rings from FotM.
- Existing Ascended items would simply be converted to their equivalent item, infusions intact (eg, a Bagh Nakh would be converted to a berserker base with beryl ascended jewel).
- Smile at a job well done, and enjoy the praise of happy gamers.

I asked this in guild chat yesterday, “I wonder if we’ll ever be able to get better than green waterbreathers.” Of course, the response I got was: “Don’t hold your breath.”

sigh

You’re right. I find it rather silly that an entire armor piece has been so completely neglected. We can get exotic and even ascended backpacks but still are stuck at green waterbreathers.

No. Please do not raise the level cap.

I fell through one of the red rings, fell from the ceiling into another ring, and then fell from the ceiling again… Was amusing. Of course I was also dead.

Chase.8415:

There is no reason to get ascended gear except for the agony resistance.

Odd, I thought that the ascended amulets that used the new utility infusions had nothing to do with agony resistance. ponders

I agree with this. At this point I find myself willing to forgo the Ascended amulet stat increases simply because the stat combinations aren’t the ones that I want, and I feel it will ultimately hurt my build.

I still can’t fathom why they destroyed the excellent ability to customize gear that existed prior to the ascended tier. A system that let you acquire a base item with stats that appealed to you, and then add an upgrade that could be the same or different set of stats, as you felt was best. It doesn’t make any sense that they chose to actually decrease the ability to customize gear.

1st, you have to remember that when you level up, your enemies are leveling up too. Their armor and toughness increases, so even though your power might increase and you think you should do more damage, your opponents damage mitigation also increases. This may explain why you’re not seeing the damage increases you expect, especially if you’re not upgrading your gear.

2nd, I don’t know how the level scaling works, but it seems to me that your level, your stats, and your gear would have to be adjusted to approximate equivalence with the level you are being decreased to. There may not be a cap on this, ie: if you’re being down-leveled to level 5, your gear might not bottom out at level 5 stats. Instead, whatever gear you are actually wearing might have its stats adjusted according to how on-level equipment would be adjusted. For example, lets assume that gear effectiveness increases linearly (it doesn’t, but it makes it easier to talk about). You are level 25 and have level 25 gear. You get down-leveled to lvl 5. Your gear would need to decrease in effectiveness by 80% to be equivalent to lvl 5 gear. Now, if you’re wearing lvl 5 gear at lvl 25, and are down-leveled to lvl 5, your gear might actually be adjusted by 80% regardless of its own level, thus it would be closer in effectiveness to level 1 gear. This type of situation might explain the effects that you are seeing, when you say that you are doing substantially less damage with the same gear against the same mob when down-leveled than when you were truly at that level.

Anyway. I assume this simplified scenario is not the full picture. I assume it is much more complicated and somebody may or already has teased it out through experimentation. But my primary point is that you may be seeing only a tiny part of a complicated mechanic, and jumping to the conclusion that it is broken simply because you don’t understand how it actually works.

I should note that I have a lvl 35 character with lvl 35 gear and, while running around down-leveled in Wayfarer Foothills after the patch I was seeing no massive changes in expected damage output or difficulty.

Temples all have a set of new exotics: backpack, ring, amulet, earring.

Stat set is based on temple

Balthazar: Cavalier
Dwayna: Rabid
Lyssa: Magi
Melandru: Wayfarer
Grenth: Soldiers

Balthazar: Cavalier
Dwayna: Rabid
Lyssa: Magi
Melandru: Wayfarer
Grenth: Soldiers

Patch Notes

*Players can now reconnect to the Fractals of the Mists if they are disconnected.
*Players can now connect to a fractal map even if they are not part of the original group that created the fractal instance.

I find the 2nd point ominous.

I sadly envision the following scenario. A group of 5 friends sends 2 of them to create a party for FoTM. Those 2 invite 3 pugs and proceed to run the 3 fractals. Halfway through the Jade Maw fight they 2-man vote-boot the 3 pugs and then invite the other 3 friends who join the party, enter the fractal, and finish the fight. All 5 get the daily chest and a FoTM level—3 of them getting the reward for minimal time and effort. They could rotate the 2 runners each day so that everybody gets maximum rewards for minimum time spent…

Is this scenario made possible by the new changes?

Your level is 34, so if you do lvl 40 fractal you get lvl 34 loot, and then move up to lvl 35.

Sabreene.8062:

Sometimes I think things must look different from other people’s screens. Two days into the puzzle I hadn’t made it into the box yet, but while jumping someone accused me of using a portal hack. They said it looked like to them I was disappearing without jumping or falling.

This is definitely a different situation. I love the jumping puzzle and tend to run it (farm it) for periods of time every day. My success rate is high. I watched this guy over the course of about an hour and it was the same every time. He would disappear off the initial peppermint, and reappear on the boxes leading to the portal at the end. While typing the original post, I was parked in the chest room, and saw him show up like clockwork, run to the chest exactly the same time each time, and then disappear without using the teleport pad. It appeared extremely automated. When I called him out in /map and /say, I got no response.

I attached a screenshot… as you can see by my percent health remaining, I’ve made pretty good time and there’s no legitimate way that somebody could be where he is standing with that much health remaining.

I think many people are aware of the teleporting hack used for gathering resources by bots.

Today was the 1st time I saw something similar being used in the Wintersday Jumping Puzzle. The individual in question would appear on one of the starting peppermints with everyone else, then suddenly disappear as if he had zoned or logged off, before the first snowflakes had spawned. He apparently reappeared standing on the last blue box at the end of the puzzle, right before the glowing box you jump in. After a set amount of time, he would jump into the box, collect the chest, and disappear (without going to the little teleport pad).

While observing this, I was typically at or near the front end of the jumpers. Several times in a row, I looked up towards the end while on the large peppermint directly following the exploding presents segment, and he was already perched on his blue box.

Multiple comments in map chat produced no response from the individual.

I obviously reported him for botting, but was interested if anybody else saw this behavior too.

Of note, the ascended rings that have berserker stats (crystalline band, red ring of death) aren’t bad… the ring component clocks in at 12.5 stat points per 1% crit and the “jewel” part has a ratio of 4.5.

Love the jumping puzzle. It is much much easier than Mad King, but that’s okay, because it is still very fun. I have no problem with timed puzzles. In fact, that’s part of what makes it more fun and intense. I like the 3 starting pathways. I’ve completed all 3 pathways successfully enough times to realize that they’re slightly different but equivalent, which is great. The 3 different pathways are great to cut down the clutter of too many bodies jumping around you at once. Love the little “gotchas” such as the snowman blowing you off the big peppermint after the vanishing presents and the skritt lobbing mortars at ya.

All in all, Bravo ANet! Well done!

(I also loved the Clocktower!)

You’re getting knocked off by the breath of the snowman on the big candy

30 minutes after noon server time… overflow server. Catapult has been in progress for 20 minutes. Nothing else seems to be happening.

Working in overflow… heh

I also saw the immediate resemblance to Radiance. My 1st thought was, “Why is ANet, a company that took great pride in being innovative and unique in the genre, suddenly going against their original designs? And why are they doing so by recycling a mechanic already used by other games which has already been showed to be a deplorable failure?”

I hate the entire idea of this ascended armor / infusion system. Maybe if they hadn’t raised the stat tier I could have accepted it (maybe, though I would still consider it a bad idea), but raising the stat tier was unnecessary and incomprehensible, especially as it goes against their own own decree.

Cut scene at noon PST was great. Went into the dungeon with 2 other guildies, on my lvl 22 mesmer. We finished the dungeon fine. It was fun and cool. Not sure why so many people are whining and moaning about this.

Beat it on Asura (1st toon), Charr, and Sylvari
Warrior, Elementalist, Mesmer

I got frustrated initially by having trouble seeing my Asura. However after several runs it should become quite easy to blindly make those 1st jumps after the pause and it quickly became a non-issue.

I love this jumping puzzle and would be horrified to have ANet dumb it down.

What are y’all using for Armor Runes on your support build. I am not overwhelmed by the bonuses of any of the runes with Healing.

Of Dwayna: 15 heal / 15% regen duration / 35 heal / 3% chance to gain regen for 10 secs when hit
Of the Water: 15 heal / 10% boon duration / 35 healing / 3% chance to remove condition when hit
Of the Grove: 15 heal / 15% protection / 35 heal / 3% chance to gain protection for 10 secs when hit
Of the Guardian: 15 tough / 10 heal / 35 tough / 25 heal

(major runes, obviously. can’t afford superiors yet)

Is there any other useful rune that I am not seeing? I am also looking at Dolyak (tough/vit) for survivability…

World: Yak’s Bend
Guild: The Incredible Three Stooges [STGS]

I tried to use a Tome of Influence received as a story quest reward. I was told I did not belong to a guild despite the guild panel showing me as an officer of my guild and that I was representing. I tried to stand down and re-represent. The stand down worked but when I clicked on Represent, nothing happened. I changed zones, I re-logged twice, and still cannot Represent.

[edit] I just zoned back into the Overflow Server of Lions Arch, tried again, and this time it worked and I was able to Represent my guild. I once again had full guild services available. Odd that it seems so random.

Previously placed an Buy Order for 180 tiny totems. 117 arrived to my Pick Up Tab. 63 of them never made it to my Pick-Up Tab. These have not yet shown up as “delayed items” as it was claimed they should. The “Items I am Buying” filter shows nothing. The “Items I have Bought” filter shows one 47 tiny totem transaction that never arrived to my Pick-Up Tab. As only 1 screen is shown on these transaction windows, I can’t see / verify the other individual transactions that went missing. :-(

After reading through many posts here, it might be a good idea to make the 10% back end fee for successful sales a bit more visible within the game interface. As far as I can tell, there is nothing within the trading post interface that describes this additional fee. It might cut down on bug reports related to a WAI situation if people actually were aware that the additional fee existed, and thus why there is less money in their Pick-Up Tab then the Sell Order interface says they would be receiving.

i’m placing orders for 32s for 200 items, i received only 104 items, and the money is gone. When selling 200items i should get 40s-2s fee, but i only get 36s.

The 1st thing you mentioned is a bug, and is one that I experienced as well. Made a purchase order for 180 items, order was completed but only received 117 from the Pick-Up Tab. Frustrating.

The 2nd thing you mentioned is not a bug. There are 2 fees related to the use of the Trading Post. The 5% upfront posting fee which is not refunded if you cancel the sell order. If the sell order is completed, the Trading Post takes an additional 10% off the backend. So, you said that you sold items for a total of 40sp. The 2sp fee is the up-front 5% posting fee which comes out of you current coin in inventory, not from the sale. You received 36sp in return after the sale completed, which is the 40sp minus the 10% backend fee (4sp). This is working as intended.

There have been many additional reports of a bug similar but reversed to the 1st you mentioned, in which an individual sells an item but receives no coin within the Pick-Up Tab as a result of the sale.

Both seem to be inconsistent, as some items seemed to make it to the Pick-Up Tab and some were lost. I just hope there is some log of these transactions and some way to get it settled. I lost a lot of coin just as others did.

Or, it could be that you are experiencing the same bug that many others are experiencing and describing, in which you place an order and the trading post fulfills that order, with items showing in you “Items I Have Bought” filter, but these items do not show up in the Pick-Up Tab to be received.

Keran is right about the 15% fee. The 5% posting fee shows up when you post the item to sell, but the additional 10% comes off the back end after the sale is made. The extra 10% was a surprise to me. I may have just missed it, but I did not see that described in the in-game interface.

This has been happening to me as well. I was purchasing an item (tiny totems) in bulk for crafting. Placed an order for 180. One of the 1st listings to show up on my “Items I have bought” list was a set of 47. However this never showed up on my “Purchased Items” pane to pick up. After my order had apparently been fulfilled, I only had 117 of the 180 items. Of course, the coin I had used to place the order had vanished.

A guildmate reported a similar occurance.