Guild Wars 2

Rooks Zaer.5846:

They are definitely going to want to have an expansion waiting in the wings with TESO, Wildstar, FF14: ARR, Archeage, etc. on the horizon. I hope they don’t think that the living story is fun and compelling enough to hang on to players.

I hope they don’t think that as well. I quit after the first part of the living story was released, mostly due to RL stuff. But since RL has settled down again and I have time, I still haven’t had a desire to log in and play any more. There’s not enough new or interesting for my taste.

By the time any real content comes out, many will have already moved on.

One nice (or not) thing about the game is that aside from skins, gear is easy to get. So while I’ve taken a break for a while now, if an expansion comes out I can get back into the game without too much trouble and still be on relatively equal footing to everyone else

I quit playing nearly two months ago. Considering my reason for quitting after 1k+ hours of play was boredom / lack of content.

If GW2 were subscription based and they utilized those funds for added content (at a relatively fast rate of updates) opposed to charging for expansions, I would have paid from the start.

But the way things are, once you do everything on multiple characters/playstyles in PVE, PVP, WVW, and the vast majority of achievements, there isn’t much left that interests me other than the players. But if it’s just the people, I have RL friends to hang with.

I’m sure future content will be great. I’ll probably check it out from time to time. But the content that’s been added lately isn’t nearly enough and it’s not coming out fast enough.

The additional income from subscriptions would (should) change that.

I just logged in to the game and left. Didn’t feel like playing I guess. So I logged in here for the first time since the beginning of the month. Seems like the same old here too.

I played 1000+ hours and that’s enough for me I guess. To each his own…

I ran out of content other than wvw rankings which isn’t as interesting to me as it was a few months ago. I was expecting more at the end of January but the teaser of “things to come” was barely even that.

I guess I’ll log in for the next big patch and see what’s changed but I think my time in GW2 is pretty much over.

I like my guild but overall the community and/or lack of things to do as a community or guild (outside wvw) aren’t keeping me playing like other MMOs I’ve played in the past have.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Xenth.2408:

Actually I agree with wasabi. Maybe a little longer on events. but not by much if you’re just doing speed events. For example I know where all events are in queensdale. So I can waypoint hop quick. If Barthol event is available the starter is right next to the waypoint. I can /map Barthol event, start it, and hit one of the centaurs when he moves out. As long as there’s another person or two that responds to what I said in map that’s all I need. I can waypoint out and move on to another event – let the other players finish that event off. This can be said for pretty much every event. You don’t have to stay and do the whole event if you know other players will finish it up.

le sigh How to speed run dynamic events. Whatever floats your boat I guess. If I ever find myself thinking this way, I will realize that I am not enjoying the game, and I will move on.

I really enjoy the game. I just like getting the daily out of the way so I don’t forget about it. So I get it done quickly and just move on to doing whatever floats my boat at the time. Dynamic events aren’t something I really like about the game. I’ve probably done 95% of the dynamic events, a lot of them MANY times. Same thing with underwater kills and crafting. I don’t enjoy either so I get them out of the way. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the game.

Heck even daily dodge I probably wouldn’t get done through normal play except on days I do WvW. In PVE my main is a fully ranged thief and I use lifesteal food to sustain life. I don’t need to dodge anything except in rare cases. I’ve got so much sustain with dual pistol spam and high crit that the pitiful damage things do (when they rarely hit me) doesn’t matter.

But none of this matters. My post was just stating that I agreed that daily is very quick, and pointed out examples of how it can be done quickly for those that want to get it out of the way.

Maybe other people want to play normal then when they know they’re going to log soon see what’s left to do if anything. If there’s anything left on daily, maybe they’ll want to rush it and the info I gave are examples of how to do so.

goldenwinga.5417:

Yes, letting things deliberately die in order to do a daily just goes against every value held as tank, healer, shield maiden, support, etcetera in every MMO I’ve played for over a dozen plus years.

It’s…. uncomfortable.

Yet, it is now efficient. Especially, as you point out, regarding revive.

I suppose from a lore perspective, we can be heroes that have been momentarily corrupted and praise Zhaitan for providing fodder for our dailies?

;)

Depending on what maps you have available, waiting for people to die is not efficient at all. There’s so many areas where NPC corpses lay around all over. Blazeridge is one such map. There’s 4 areas there that almost always have a lot of NPC corpses littered about.

I could care less if someone gets made cause I took their precious dodge mob(s). I like helping people in the game and I’m not going to calculate whether they’re trying to get a dodge accomplishment if they’re low on health. I’m going to focus on what’s doing damage to them.

If moving to another mob or waiting for the short respawn timers is too much of a pain to them to the point they get upset at someone, they have more to worry about in life than someone hindering them in an effort to help.

In fact just a bit ago I was working on my dodge daily in the grub cave in queensdale. I was down to half health and someone came by and killed the grubs attacking me. I said thanks and watched them move on to killing something else. I then just attacked a few more and continued dodging. No big deal…

exocet.6308:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

The hell are you doing that makes it take an hour per day for your daily?

Underwater kills: About 5 minutes
Crafting: 1 minute
Gathering: 5 minutes
Events: about 3-4 minutes total
Dodges: 2 minutes

Excuse me for not laying it out better

Monthly. Like I said its a rough estimate. 20 days of 1 laurels + a monthly 10 laurels = 30 laurels for the amulet.

Also, I can’t do 5 events in 3-4 minutes.

Actually I agree with wasabi. Maybe a little longer on events. but not by much if you’re just doing speed events. For example I know where all events are in queensdale. So I can waypoint hop quick. If Barthol event is available the starter is right next to the waypoint. I can /map Barthol event, start it, and hit one of the centaurs when he moves out. As long as there’s another person or two that responds to what I said in map that’s all I need. I can waypoint out and move on to another event – let the other players finish that event off. This can be said for pretty much every event. You don’t have to stay and do the whole event if you know other players will finish it up.

Also, monthly barely factors in at all. The only thing that takes time for monthly assuming you’re doing dailies are the 5 dungeons runs. So do 3 ac paths, 2 cof paths (or more AC) and you’re done. The other aspects of the monthly will easily be accomplished through doing 20 dailies, or pretty close.

- Underwater kills: About 5 minutes… agreed. about 5 minutes just east of queensdale garrison in that lake. kill whites and things along the shoreline too. As long as you kill something while in the water it counts.

- Crafting: 1 minute… the crafting achievement is basically the travel time to get to a station – that’s all. I usually log out in LA so yeah it’d be about a minute for me as the last thing I do.

- Gathering: 5 minutes… or less. This can be tied in with events. Since you’re waypointing and moving around some it’s easy enough to just spot some nodes and gather them as you go.

- Events: about 3-4 minutes total… Already explained this.

- Dodges: 2 minutes… Maybe a little more than this but the troll champ / grub cave in queensdale is great for this. just agro 3 or 4 and move away enough that they’ll all use their ranged attacks at the same time. Dodge through them for 3 or 4 hits, repeat. Also since there’s two events that take place in this cave often, it can be tied in with the events part of dailies.

I logged in for 30 minutes today. I started in LA, chatted with guild for a bit, went to queensdale and rushed daily, went back to LA to craft and do TP stuff, then logged. I usually play a lot more than that but I have other RL stuff to do.

What’s wrong with being patient? You don’t have to get everything NOW NOW NOW. Keep doing 10/20 dailies (if you’re even doing 20 dailies) until you get a ring and/or 3 more pristines.

I could complain that I’ve gotten over 30 rings but only 2 fractal weapon skins. But I don’t – I just don’t do fotm any more even though I really wanted a couple decent looking skins.

This is far from over. But I’m hating the thought of a possible outcome.

“If” Kain ends up winning by 200k+ it’s going to knock the other servers that obviously deserve to be in T3+ back to the stone ages next week. It would also mean Kain would get bumped up to T1 to fight against lower tier servers that will likely get bumped up there.

In both cases the servers currently in T3 will absolutely dominate next weeks matchups. In fact, beyond these 3 servers there will be a lot of stacked matchups over the next few weeks thanks to the reset. It’s going to be much worse that it’s been over the last few weeks that just a couple servers were dominating on their rise up the tiers.

Unless they limit the amount of places a server can go up/down the rankings, every tier is going to be a mess for more than a month.

I’m not sure.

I don’t see loot as mattering that much from a certain perspective. The best gear in the game is easily achievable by everyone so it’s not like it gives you an advantage.

On the other hand, the variety of loot gives build diversity. If I want to make a glass cannon character in order to clear PVE faster, I have that option. If I want to do a condition build to have good damage while fighting in a more defensive style, I can. If I want to go full defensive/healing or whatever to be a distraction to mobs or enemies in wvw, I have that option, etc etc etc.

So if characters and traits were more customizable towards different builds I wouldn’t care as much about loot.

There’s also the eye candy aspect of loot though. I like my guardian running around in full armegeddon skins and my thief in whispers armor skins. I like the variety of weapon skins too.

I see loot as eye candy and a way to adjust builds. Without loot I don’t think I’d like playing as much unless something was put in place to make up for losing these two factors.

LieutenantGoogle.7326:

Is this where the mighty fall?
Will the Kaineng forum warriors react like the Magumma warriors last week?

Maybe but I heard War Machine decided to sit out reset night. I could be wrong…

Even if you get groups and get up there, good luck with fractal weapons. Maybe beyond 30 daily there’s a better chance. But I’ve done 26/30 dailies for a long time…. long enough that I had the fractal frequenter done almost a month ago (requires 500 fractals). I’ve gotten 2 skins total – focus and scepter.

boohoo. They added something to the game that doesn’t benefit you. Didn’t they also add new pvp stuff that doesn’t benefit those of us that prefer PVE/WVW?

Big deal!

On my first thief I did D/P vs singles, SB for multi targets. 0 30 30 10 0 for traits. Worked pretty well. That thief is now P/P-SB with the same traits. It’s my PVE thief, and I’ll be changing to 20 30 20 0 0 in traits once my wvw thief is done. This is the character I did world completion on.

I’m level 50 on an WVW thief now and using the same build to level/map complete. P/P-SB and currently 10 20 10 0 0 for traits.

Not sure how much this helps. Quite frankly though for PVE I think P/P-SB is quite good with a fully glass cannon build. At level 75 use mixed berry pie or at 80 omnomberry pie. As a fully ranged thief with seriously spamable attacks and high crit chance, survivability goes through the roof.

20 30 20 0 0 is quite good for this build. 20 power for additional base damage + increased dual skill damage (unload). 30 crit for obvious reasons. 20 toughness for a little more survivability but mainly for the two chosen traits…. regain initiative when you use a skill that stealths, condition removal “or” initiative regen while in steallth – up to you.

You can spam through initiative with unloads, heal or refuge to regain init, autoattack from stealth for a nice burst of shots, more unloads, repeat. With that build no single targets short of champs can take you assuming you have rare or exotic weapons (preferably exotic).

2 stealth utilities, precision signet, movement signet, daggerstorm.

Shortbow is nice for skipping mobs for faster map completions obviously.

Get to 80 if you’re not there already. Get wvw done as you can depending on your server and what game times they do well. The rest goes by pretty fast as a thief compared to a lot of other professions – especially with the movement speed and ability to skip a lot of content.

I have a pretty simple solution to combat potential blowouts the first week and beyond. A server’s ranking can’t adjust more than two positions at a time. If by points a server would increase rank by 3 or more spots, their point total would be equal to the server 3 spots ahead of them (or below them in the reverse scenario) but placement would be directly under (or above in the reverse) that server for the following week.

It may not be the best solution but it could work in stabalizing ranks for the first week or two. After that things should be balanced enough that they could go back to how the system works normally.

Maybe I’m wrong in my thinking. But whether I’m right or wrong I doubt Anet will do this, so it’s kind of a mute point.

Parties are going to start requiring members to link their rings if they haven’t already, especially in level 20+ fractal groups.

I’ve done more than 500 fractals on my main, so if I decided I wanted to play an alt to get him higher ranked in fractals, I’d start at level 26 or 30 probably… especially since I have rings on all my alts and backs on 2 alts.

But for people with no agony resist or knowledge of tactics in higher level fractals, I agree with the OP. Take it in steps.

Once you’ve done single digit levels of fractals a few times to get to know what to expect (expect more/tougher mobs and abilities the higher you go), do level 10 a few times. There’s a lot of changes at level 10 that ramp up the difficulty. You shouldn’t try 20 until you have 10 or 15AR at least I think. Without AR you’re just a hindrance to the party.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

The “killing strike/final blow” must be a combo finisher(such as burning bolts).

Not that it matters because the daily changed. But that’s not true. During a champ fight with no adds I was watching my % go up on combo part just from people using finishers off my fields. It went from 10% complete to 60% complete before the champ was killed. So it didn’t require the killing blow.

zaniix.9074:

PUGs can do fractals fine. A full group of squishies cant, a group that is unwilling to learn can’t. Players with full glass cannon spec cause they like to see high crit numbers cant.

It just takes some time to understand what you are doing. We all see the same issues.
Players who rage because you don’t know the content and scream at people and rage quit and the players who refuse to listen to direction.

IF you don’t know ask, if you do know explain to others. Do not make silly attempts at high level fractals with a group of casters unless you are doing it for the extra difficulty and are willing to take that challenge.

And if you are going to rage quit because your group either doesn’t know how to glitch or isn’t willing to then its you that are the tool.

This is a social game, help each other out.
Peace

I love my fully ranged (semi) glass cannon thief in fotm and do very well – though I rely on lifesteal food to make up for the lack of defenses (more than makes up for it with dual pistol spam).

I agree with your comment about glitching though. Bosses aren’t that hard. If someone doesn’t want to glitch it, what’s the big deal? In fact the only bosses with a decent potential to wipe pugs that don’t work well together can’t be glitched (ascalon and grawl).

I also agree with you about knowledge. Knowing what to do is the key to doing it. That’s probably why I have more successful runs with pugs past level 20 or so. By then 95% of players know what they’re doing in each fractal. 75% or so know other professions strengths and weaknesses enough to work together well.

If things go bad and there’s a wipe – then figure out why and talk game plan. The only time a wipe is an issue is arm seals on cliffside which is why I make sure my group is on the same page prior to engaging that part.

Sorry but I’ve pug’d up to level 31 with little problem. I’ve been doing 26/30 dailies for a long time now. 90% of the time it’s either entirely pug or maybe 1 guildy + 3 random pug.

I’m a thief so I don’t bring a lot of utility. But I do bring life insurance and a lot of ranged DPS (plus I sustain myself great with lifesteal food with a dual pistol / shortbow build). The types of life insurance I bring are things like refuge for dredge and for reviving safely on grawl shaman, and area blindness for things like the middle seal on cliffside.

While I can see parties having difficulty without a thief if they’re squishy, Other professions bring better utility overall. I don’t get how people think it’s difficult.

The only real challenge on later levels are things like coordinating well on the vet grawl shaman to get the bonus chest, and getting everyone on the same plan of action for the arm seals on cliffside… and maybe dredge if there’s no thief or mesmer.

If spy kits get nerfed for fotm I could see the first part of dredge being a real pain on higher levels too. But that hasn’t happened yet.

Also I do understand the concern if AOE is nerfed too much. The beginning grawl area “could” end up difficult as well as some dredge areas. I guess we’ll find out.

I, for one, won’t claim the sky is falling until after the patch goes live. There’s little use to speculating on things like the AOE nerf and/or upcoming fotm changes.

I sustain life great, DPS great, am good life insurance (blind aoe, refuge) … all in all this dungeon build works great for me. It’s not for everyone.

My dungeon setup;

Main Weapon Set Pistol/Pistol;

Why? It allows me to safely use a crit build and mostly berserker armor – both of which increase my DPS. The auto-attack from stealth is quite nice so stealthing to lose agro is made up for DPS-wise. Also traiting to regain initiative on stealth is quite helpful for unload spam.

Head shot is a good interupt (think veteran shaman in volcano fractals, or the brood in AC that summon adds). Area blind is underused but an incredibly powerful defensive ability for groupmates doing the tanking. You’ll gain more life from lifesteal food than you will from other party members healing and your own healing combined – that’s huge survivability. Both sigils are superior accuracy.

Swap Weapon Shortbow;

Obvious reason for this – it’s the best multi-target damage we have. You won’t steal as much life as with P/P, but you’ll still stay relatively safe compared to using sword to deal your multi-target damage. Also, as mentioned by the previous poster, it’s a great source of blast finishers. Sigil is superior bloodlust.

note: I do keep daggers with me for some occasions such as jade maw fractal. With so many mobs that reflect projectiles, clusterbombs don’t cut it.

Traits;

0 30 30 10 0 currently. 30 precision for obvious reasons – it’s such a good trait line. Since my survivability is so high I’ve considered changing the other two – possibly going 20 30 20 0 0.

Armor;

All my armor is berserker currently (transmuted to whisper skin). I’ve been using beryl orbs in the armor but I’m considering changing that up as well as my survivability is fine.

My trinkets are also berserker with exquisite beryl orbs with the exception of karka accessory, and solor/lunar infused rings. I like the rounded stats of these three items. The only stat I don’t utilize from them is condition damage since I’m not a condition build.

Utilities;

Hide in Shadows, Shadow Refuge, Signet of Agility, Signet of Shadows, Daggerstorm. I keep HiS, SR, and DS in at all times. The signets I sometimes change to other utilities depending on the location in the dungeon (ie: for swamp fractal I change signet of agility to either blinding powder. For boss fights I’ll often change signet of shadows to blinding powder or assassin’s signet).

You decide on your own what’s best for you. This is just my example of what works good for me in PVE/Dungeons.

Keep one thing in mind with this build. While it’s great for DPS and survivability, it can hinder a weak party that’s lacking survivability. The goal of this build is to stay off agro while dishing out as much burst and sustained DPS as possible. That means mob agro is potentially going to 4 members instead of 5. In some parties you’ll want to save refuge for emergencies to save other members. In parties that don’t need life insurance, I use refuge to regain initiative + autoattack from stealth + lifesteal benefit for the first 3 seconds + stay off agro. In some situations, Using #5 pistol attack is better for the party than your DPS. Kills take longer but they’re “safer” kills. Think of it as your “less lethal” option – you’re less lethal but so are the enemy.

I switched from D/D-SB to P/P-SB after fotm 13. I kept having to gimp my damage by adding more and more vitality/toughness. When I switched to pistols I switched to more glass (0 30 30 10 0, all berserker armor and trinkets except karka and solor/lunar rings. With lifesteal food and the sheer volume of attacks, it’s much easier to glassify myself in fotm and any dungeon really.

You “can” get further with D/D but you will eventually hit a brick wall where it’s futile to try to melee in fotm effectively.

This probably isn’t the advice you were looking for – just figured I’d give some input from a former D/D thief (for pve anyway – I still D/D in WvW).

Besetment.9187:

ghtchill.7613:

As we have risen up the tiers, I’ve come to sort of see Mag and DB as close relatives in a way…albeit with Mag being the weird Uncle type.

Weird uncle type? Hell naw.

Core Maguuma and core Dragonbrand players (the guys who have been there since the beginning) have a long history of fighting horrifically outnumbered in horribly imbalanced matches, but they kept playing anyway. So there is a mutual respect there.

Our core groups play differently though.

Xenth.2408:

While I think T2 will be a challenge for sure, I’m not sure Kain will learn that much from T3. The score won’t be as dominated but I have a feeling Kain will still annihilate T3 – Where there’s no challenge, there’s less room to learn/grow from a tactics standpoint.

Sorry, but only a fool thinks they have nothing to learn. Only a fool calls the result of a match they have never been in, against opponents they have never played. You should be watching and learning in all your matches. Even the ones you are winning with massive numbers.

You can really learn something from anyone, no matter how good or bad (or big or small) they are. Hubris is the downfall of all players.

Actually I have played against them. For the last 4+ weeks that crystal desert was in T3 including last week I was playing against them. I was on Crystal desert from release up to last Thursday. I’m quite familiar with how “strong” the current T3 servers are. I transfered with my guild to Kain last Thursday. From keeping an eye on Kain the last couple weeks and experiencing wvw with them this week, I truly believe T3 won’t be a challenge. If you want to call me a fool for saying that, you can – everyone can express their opinion.

When strength in numbers works, there’s less need for tactics. If we’re in T3 next week and the result after the first day or two is similar, people won’t learn much new. There’s less need for forming parties with synergy – less need for flanking or multi-pronged attacks – less need for better multiple commanders/guilds to work on plans of action – less need for better communication in general – less need for build adjustments, resource/supply management, siege management/training … etc.

I’m not saying Kain doesn’t have these things. But they need to work on improving them. “If” I’m right about t3 not posing a challenge, less work will be done on these types of improvements.

Looks like it may end up being very close between Kain and TA at this point for who gets into T2.

While I think T2 will be a challenge for sure, I’m not sure Kain will learn that much from T3. The score won’t be as dominated but I have a feeling Kain will still annihilate T3 – Where there’s no challenge, there’s less room to learn/grow from a tactics standpoint.

It’s not that bad. I took my time with my main but breezed to level 80 on mesmer and thief alts. I didn’t keep track of anything but it went fast.

My guardian hit 80 in 54 hours while mastering 3 crafts.

I’m working on a 2nd thief so I can have two builds without dealing with gear and trait swapping. I hit level 45 a bit ago and checked /age before logging out. 21 hours with no crafting or event chains – I just did events as I found them while doing map completions.

I’ll probably just got to 50 then master 3 crafts, maybe just 2. Either way I bet I’ll be 80 in around 30-35 hours total.

Or maybe I’ll save gold and not do any crafting. Then I’d guess closer to 50 hours total to get to 80.

Either way that’s pretty fast.

It’s a map of the floating rock formations over the spiral (that’s what it looks like to me at least). Perhaps they were drawing up a battle plan. Maybe it was part of a ritual ages ago that caused the formation in the first place.

Braxxus.2904:

ryan.3915:

Hey all,

EDMW had a discussion and we decided that Crystal Desert no longer had the PvE and WvW environment that we wanted. After much difficulty in deciding, EDMW has moved to Jade Quarry.

Me, I was touring TC when the decision was put up and made. It will be sad to leave CD behind, but I gotta go with my guild.

Thanks to all the guilds who stayed behind, and good luck to you.

: /

And so it continues. Wonder how many more posts like this we’re going to see in this last 24 hours.

Sorry CD.

@Xenth: Defend zergs any way you want, they’ve been despised by most gamers since their inception, and for the most part always will be by people who actually like PvP and competitive fights. Some people like the idea of squaring off with an opponent. Other people, like yourself I presume from the premise of your post, prefer the fight where their friends hold a guy down while you kick them repeatedly.

To each their own.
:)

Not at all. I prefer free roaming solo or in a small group. That’s why I’m often designated as a scout for my guild.

I’m not defending zerg mentality. I’m just sick of people whining about it. It’s a fact of the game on any server that has the numbers dedicated to wvw. People will end up in large groups (zergs) by nature if there’s a lot of people around to hang with.

All I was saying was quit complaining and do something about it – be it special tactics groups or by getting your server more involved in wvw so you can combat against it.

I tire of reading “zerg this zerg that”. Guess what, EVERY server is a zerg server!

Any server that gets the numbers into wvw will form zergs, don’t kid yourself!

If you and your buddy enter wvw and run into 20 people it’s a zerg right? I see a lot of complaining about 2v20 or whatever.

It’s the way things work. People aren’t going to spread out in groups of 1 to 5 people all over the map. They’re going to gravitate towards each other and work together. I could care less if you call that a zerg. Calling a server a “zerg server” is sort of a compliment to them even if you don’t mean it that way. It means that server has the dedication to continually field a large number of players. It means those players are interested in helping the server achieve victory and advancement.

Instead of complaining about it, get your server more involved in wvw. if you have 40 people online in one guild and you can get 25 of them into wvw you can now take on that zerg of 20. If you can get 2 to 4 guilds more involved in wvw, you can make a good impact.

Quit complaining about it because you want to go around with a small amount of people and think it’s not fair that you’re running into large groups working together.

If you can’t field decent numbers, instead of complaining about zergs, don’t go in wvw. Or better yet get people involved. Train people on group tactics. Make parties that synergy with each other well (a good combo of healing/buffs, finishers, confusion/stealth, whatever). There’s tons of thieves around. Get a group of 3 or 4 thieves to start flipping camps while you apply other tactics elsewhere with larger numbers.

A zerg can only be in one place at one time. It takes time to move that many people to an objective. So work on other tactics like getting orange swords up at a tower or two while you ninja a keep.

If you can field numbers you can do stuff like this. If you can’t get 20+ people to coordinate together, you’re S.O.L.

If you’re being spawn camped, there are 3 routes out of server borderlands – you don’t have to go head on into them.

Nice vids and editing. I watched the last 5 you uploaded.

Thief has been my main for a long time but I like glass cannon for PVE/Dungeons. I’m only up to around 4k kills in wvw so not super experienced compared to a lot.

I’m working on an alt thief now. I got sick of either being squishy in wvw or having to deal with trait/equipment changes. I may try a build like yours. I can see having a high crit chance from gear isn’t as important as long as you have 100% crit chance from stealth for backstabs. The valk armor is actually great for your playstyle.

Whether I go this type of build or a condition build, I definitely won’t go squishy build. I’d rather not be a one hit wonder GC – take out one or two people then run for your life screaming for momma…

If they ever fix culling you’re going to have a harder time against the numbers you were sticking around to fight, but I’m sure you’ll adapt.

My /age on the character I’m working on now is a little over 16 hours. He’s level 38 without doing any crafting. That’s pretty fast. It’s an alt so I started him with some funds. But aside from the cost of bags I’ve been about breaking even so far. I’ve been vendoring greens, and salvaging blues/whites for crafting later – haven’t sold a single crafting material.

I guess I can kind of understand you not wanting to do other starting areas. But at the same time, except for a roleplay/immersion aspect of it, it matters little in the long run. Or are you worried about being bored redoing content on another character. Because you will eventually end up redoing content.

I doubt you’d get to 38 in the time I did doing this, but you could just repeat events in a starter area. it’s boring but effective. The norn area is great for events.

Just to give you an idea, these are the maps I’ve completed on the way to 38 thus far (in this order);

Queensdale, Caladon Forest, Plains of Ashford, Kessex Hills, Brisban Wildlands, Gendarran Fields, Snowden Drifts, Warfarer Foothills

Another reason I’ve leveled fast(ish) is because I’ve already done the content on other characters. I know what to do and where to go. Being a thief helps for movement and damage too, especially since I’ve been upgrading to masterwork gear at each interval, and just recently rare weapons at level 35. With 25 stacks of bloodlust as a glass cannon, dual pistols annihilates single targets, and shortbow makes short work of multiple targets.

You may experience things much differently on a different profession.

Since crafting is so expensive, I suggest not doing crafting prior to level 40 as getting to 40 is pretty easy compared to the 40-60 level gap. After 60, I feel it gets pretty easy again but some may argue that.

This is my 5th character I’ll get to 80 so I do have quite a bit of experience. It’s my 2nd thief. I like glass cannon ranged build for PvE and Dungeons specifically. But it’s horrible in WvW. I got sick of being squishy, or taking the time to swap gear/weapons/traits. So I said the heck with it, and made the 2nd thief.

I’d definitely keep 30 in the crit trait if you’re going for pure damage instead of condition damage (which is what P/P is meant for – pure damage). I didn’t mean regen actually. I meant the trait you get with 10 toughness. Gain initiative whenever you use a skill that stealths you (infusion of shadow).

I’m currently 0 30 30 10 0 on my PVE/Dungeon thief, but I’m considering going 20 30 20 0 0 or something similar – haven’t decided yet. 20 power for the added base damage and the dual skill trait, 30 precision because the precision trait line is just so good for a P/P build especially with lifesteal food, and 20 toughness for a little defensive insurance, initiative gain, and either initiative regen from stealth or condition removal from stealth depending on the situation.

I prefer fully ranged weapon sets for dungeons lately.

Rampagers and carrion aren’t bad armor sets for P/D condition builds. It really depends on how well you’re surviving. If you can get away with it without getting downed/dead in one or two shots, rampagers puts out good damage and actually helps survivability a lot (lifesteal on crit food).

That said, I use P/P-SB as my weapon sets and every piece of gear I have is berserkers except 3 trinkets (karka, solar and lunar infused rings).

Since I’m fully ranged I take little damage. Since I’m semi glass cannon, I put out good DPS single or multi targets. With a good crit chance, my lifesteal with food is through the roof with these weapons.

It really depends on the build type you want. If you like P/D condition build, go with that armor type. If you plan to use that build in PVE and WVW, I’d say definately go carrion. If you stay away from wvw, rampager may be better for you.

If you do decide to go berserker (power/precision/crit dmg), consider losing P/D because P/D is much better suited to a condition build. You can try D/D but combined with berserker it’s risky for sure against many bosses.

I did D/D for a long time in berserker gear and I did “ok”. The problem is I kept losing sustained damage simply because I had to dodge more or cloak and dagger more to get out and heal up. The damage output of D/D doesn’t make up for the risk of getting downed or the loss of attacks.

I could do many dungeons fine. Once I got to fotm level 10 or so, I finally switched up to P/P for bosses. After that,I figured, boss or trash, P/P is a better option for me full time. I’m up to fotm 31 with no worries. The only time(s) I bother equipping daggers any more is against reflect mobs (jade maw fractal and the like).

Also if you go P/P, I suggest getting the trait that regains initiative when stealthed. It helps overall sustained DPS a lot. You can blow your load (so to speak) on unloads, heal/stealth to regain init, auto attack with pistol from stealth for a 5 shot burst – which by itself makes up for the lost attacks while stealthing yourself, hit another unload or two with some auto attacks between. Then shadow refuge and do it again.

Even at only 14k health, with the quickness I steal life on crit, it feels like I have 20k+

Just as an afterthought, something a lot of thieves don’t use is #5 pistol attack. It’s quite helpful in select situations. If you / your party have to stand still in one spot for a particular dungeon scenerio, it’s incredibly helpful (like the middle seal of cliffside fractal for example).

I like having alts. My main is a thief but if a dungeon party I’m in could better use a guardian or mesmer, I can play one of them too (or ranger, but… nah).

Playing alts is a nice change of pace from time to time.

You’ll also get easy map completions again if you like for a chance at something “ok”, like BL salvage kits or keys. I recently got a key on an alt and ended up getting an endless mystery tonic out of it.

65% is a pretty good amount. I think I was around 65 to 70% before I decided to just go for it. I already had more than half the wvw ones done so I hung out in wvw for a couple days and got them as I could. It wasn’t hard because my server was doing really well at the time. This could be a different story for you and many others.

Then I did all the racial starting cities (non combat). They were a breeze, and with the use of lion’s arch didn’t cost anything for waypoint travel.

By then I was up near 85 to 90%. I figured since I’m that close just rush the rest. So I spent a little on waypoint costs and just rushed map completions for the rest.

When I was done I didn’t feel taxed or anything.

That was on my 3rd character, a thief. I had gotten up around 80% on my mesmer before trying a thief out. I admit it was much easier and faster on thief with passive run speed and invis (for skipping areas, rushing past mobs, shadow refuge at commune skill challenges so I didn’t have to deal with killing stuff, etc).

There are definitely some professions I could see world completion being quite annoying with; mesmer ‘cause they’re so slow, warrior ‘cause it’s harder to skip content, etc.

I got disconnected a few times early on, and changed some settings in options. I haven’t been DCed since. I’ve had days that I’ve done 10/20/30 dailies and helped a guildmate’s party get past another 2 levels all without restarting the client and still had no problem.

I don’t remember which settings I changed though unfortunately.

The problem is that you have to enter as a whole party from the same instance. If there’s no overflows you can’t rely on gw2lfg.

Changing the system so that a party can enter any level up to the highest level available to any party member will help because it will be easier to form a group from your server’s population alone.

But, in addition to that, I thought I read somewhere that they were working on a fix to disconnects as well – so that people would be able to rejoin the party in fotm. I’m wondering if the fix will be to make fotm like any other dungeon which would mean you don’t have to be in the same instance to enter it in the first place.

Of course this “fix” would cause a lot of other problems – the biggest being griefing with the current kick system. I could see two people planning from the beginning to get into a group then kick everyone else at Jade Maw so that they could either sell the party slots or just to get their buddies/guildies in for the chest/bonus chest.

I’d never do that but I know there are people that would.

I’m working on getting my 5th character to level 80, yet I’ve never been bothered by respawn timers. They’ve never held me back.

Sure there were times when I went into a cave to get a skillpoint challenge and had to fight some on the way back out. That’s not a big deal and how often does that happen?

Since the majority of players are level 80 and not playing alts much on lower level maps, I can see respawns being more noticeable – there’s less people “clearing the way”.

But I fear if they increase respawn timers too much, leveling is going to be that much slower. Mob kills probably make up at least 40% of experience (assuming you’re not mastering more than 2 crafts on your way to 80).

The % is different for everyone of course because some prefer skipping “trash” mobs and just methodically do map completions. I prefer killing as I go these days because less people killing things = larger bonus xp.

I wasn’t on. Wasn’t there a warning system message saying they were shutting down in X hours/minutes? If it’s routine that’s usually the case.

My first run through I did D/P-SB. I decided I wanted a second thief so I could use the first for PVE/Dungeons with a cannon build, and another for WVW with a completely different build / armor / weapon sets.

I think D/P is good against single targets and pretty safe. Single target damage output is better than S/P, and let’s face it – if you want multiple target damage, cluster bombs is just so good so a simple weapon swap is easy enough.

But… on my 2nd thief I decided to go fully ranged glass cannon while I level (I’ll switch build when I get 80). I’m loving P/P for single targets and SB for multiple targets so far.

Your playstyle is yours to choose though. I’m just giving you one more point of view.

fellyn.5083:

Well I made a new character tonight, norn this time. And I’m only 75% or so done with the area and my character is already level 11, almost 12. I haven’t done anything different than what I did with the human character I talked about in an earlier post. Same process, hearts, then events whenever I could, with gathering. No story quests and no crafting were done on either character.

Now, I will say that the frequency events – especially levels 1 through 5 – seemed a lot higher in the norn area than in the human area. As far as I can tell I’ve done roughly the same amount of events, I wasn’t keeping track.

But it still begs the question of why, without doing anything different (other than being in a different area) is my norn character so far ahead of my human character while completing less content, all things considered?

Less people play norn so less creatures get killed – that’s my guess. Let’s say you kill something and it gives you 16xp. If that creature has been alive long enough to get it to the full bonus of 2.5x, you then get 16xp + 40xp bonus. I’m not 100% positive but I think that’s how bonus xp works for kills.

Also xp granted scales with the difficulty of the mob. Base xp for killing an easy target might be 10, while a tougher target might be 16 or 20 (whatever). Maybe the norn area just has tougher mobs? I’m not 100% positive on this one either ’cause I never really paid that much attention.

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/suggestions/Just-Another-Suggestion-Thread/first#post1188303

Suggestion number 8

P/P yes. D/D not so much. D/D as a glass cannon is too squishy for a lot of encounters in dungeons, and you have a high risk of being downed. But maybe you’re extraordinarily skilled and can pull it off.

Personally I do pistols and shortbow (fully ranged) for dungeons … well for all PVE these days. Aside from 3 trinket slots and some traits (0 30 30 10 0 – changing this soon in favor of more DPS) I’m full glass cannon. It’s working great for me and worth giving a try. Using food that gives lifesteal on crit helps a lot with this or any type of high crit build. It’s just not enough to risk D/D against some encounters.

If you’re traited to regain initiative when you go stealth, that helps dual pistol users a lot. It combines burst unload damage with sustained overall damage in a way. Here’s an example: unload 4x, heal/invis for initiative, 5 shot burst/bleed auto attack out of stealth, unload 2x, shadow refuge for initiative, 5 shot burst/bleed + additional lifesteal while refuge is active not that it matters with lifesteal food, unloads and auto attacks while waiting for an invis to cool down.

As for the shortbow, the auto attack is good against multiple targets (not great but good). Clusterbomb is very high damage and spammable depending on how far away you’re shooting. That’s about the only time I go in melee range on purpose – so I can shoot clusterbombs at my feet (almost no travel time = CB spam).

I won’t say my way is THE way but it works well for my playstyle while bringing a lot of DPS

Kandrick.8054:

Stopped doing daily and monthly sometime in November. I only logged in twice a week for guild dungeon runs and then logged out as soon as the run was finished. I’m swimming in unused Karma and Mystic Coins so didn’t see the point.

Just rolled a new alt so am back to completing them again although I don’t try for them they just kind of happen. I will still give the monthly a swerve though as I’ve done nearly all the JP’s and can’t be bothered to re visit. When you weigh up how much completing that part would cost in WP’s alone it just isn’t worth the reward. Fractals, WvW and Events is complete for the monthly but cannot be bothered with the JP part. I play the game for fun, I have enough chores around the home to complete monthly without doing them in game.

The JP are easy since it’s only discovery, not finishing them. Park a couple alts in LA. Each overflow counts as one. So you log on an alt, run to the start of each JP, go from overflow to normal, repeat (that’s 6 right there). Log on a different alt, another 6. Do it on your main and your total is 18 in one day with no waypoint costs. You can go beyond that by getting in to different overflows and repeating as well. I finished my monthly on day 2 because it was so easy this month.

But if you don’t care about the karma, pocket change, and coins, it still doesn’t matter.

Are people brand new to GW ending up underleveled? I’m just curious because I think if people are on alts and complaining about it, I have to wonder just how much achievements matter towards getting to level 15-17 from finishing a starter area.

I seem to remember doing just fine on my first playthrough too, though it was quite a while back. I don’t remember feeling underleveled though that’s for sure, or undergeared even though I didn’t have funds to constantly upgrade gear like I do these days with alts.

Adaneshade.2409:

brunohstein.9038:

Any class running full glass canon will be bad at FotM, specially thieves.

And thieves love to run glass canon.

SOME thieves love to run GC builds…… Experienced thieves generally do not.

I’m a pretty experienced thief and I prefer GC for dungeons. solar and lunar rings, and karka accessory are the only pieces that give me any toughness or vitality. But then I switched to full ranged (p/p-sb) quite a while back. Higher damage output because of GC, more survivability because I’m ranged, more survivability because of the volume of hits with lifesteal food, more DPS because I don’t have to worry as much about dodging (as I would as a melee).

I do understand you said “generally”. Maybe I’m an exception to the rule.

Halanna.3927:

Maybe it comes down to a difference in play style. For those players (like me) who take our time and enjoy the game and what it has to offer, there doesn’t seem to be a problem leveling.

Maybe others are just trying to push push push and level as fast as possible.

If you log in and just simply play what you feel like playing, crafting, harvesting, doing your daily achievement, personal story, exploring – you level far too fast.

My second character is level 65 and I’m only at 35% map complete, my personal story is still in the level 20’s, I’ve never done WvW (except to try and to the map vistas, poi’s etc., but I don’t do PvP).

I don’t know why there is such disparity, but GW2 is a game to be savored, not rushed and pushed through.

I agree. My first 300 or so hours of play I savored. In fact I enjoyed redoing some content on my 2nd character (mesmer) just because the playstyle was so much different than my 1st (ranger).

My 3rd was thief, and 4th was guardian. Thief is by far my favorite profession – to the point that my 5th is also a thief. I don’t want to deal with gear/trait swapping so one of my thieves is my PVE/Dungeon thief (semi-glass cannon) while the other will be my WvW thief (condition/bunker).

I have no desire to savor anything on this character as I level him. The only things I have left to savor are the sweet smell of my enemies blood in wvw and future content releases.

Strikerjolt.5910:

Xenth.2408:

I’m working on leveling an alt. I completed 3 starter (level 1-15) areas without skipping past mobs/events/nodes/etc and got to level 20 by doing so. I’ll probably be level 26 by the time I finish two 15-25 maps, when I can get the next masterwork armor, which will help me into the higher level areas. So far that’s taken me 9 hours only, because I knew where to go and what to do.

That’s the hardest part of PVE leveling – getting to that point.

XP/Kill is much less in starter areas because there are more people killing things generally. The longer a mob lives, the higher the bonus xp, up to 2.5x bonus. So you’ll get faster xp via PVE in the level 25+ maps.

This is actually my 5th level 80 once I’m done. My plan was to get to 26 through the method I’ve done, get my level 26 masterwork armor/weapons, and into the next tier map(s). If I end up underleveled, I’ll master a craft.

That’s what I’ve done in the past. Mastered one craft at about level 30, and another around level 60-65.

The previous character I got to 80 I mastered 2 crafts with and did the rest through map completions. It took me a total of 46 hours according to /age to reach 80 that way. Playing 2 hours per day during the week, and 8 per day on weekends, that would be about 2 weeks to get a level 80 – longer of course if you’re new to maps or don’t have resources to master crafts. Regardless I think that’s a pretty short amount of time to get to max level compared to a lot of other MMOs I’ve played.

The biggest key I think is killing things people usually ignore and run past, for the bonus xp since those mobs have probably been alive longer – and events of course. XP/time for events is quite good.

If you don’t want to do multiple starting areas because you’d rather experience them later, you’ll run into the same problem. But you can do that just by event hopping and killing mostly creatures that will likely give bonus xp on a map you’ve already completed.

Are you suggesting killing mobs to get XP?
Lol. Even with the bonus you still have to sit there, and kill dozens.
What a silly idea.

And why does everyone need to bring up crafting?
Crafting is down right pointless in this game, and it’s not fun at all.
I make more money by selling mats, and buying my items than I do by crafting.
Lol, how pathetic an entire game mechanic that’s useless. It’s like diablo 3 all over.

I know people will say.. “BUT YOU CAN MAKE YOUR ARMOR FOR FREE!”
Yeah, but the time, and effort to gather materials vs selling them on the AH.

haha. I assume your comment about killing things was sarcastic.

I agree that crafting is worthless. To people that say “but you can make your armor for free”; No, you can’t. There’s a cost to leveling a craft – either the cost of materials bought or the money lost by not selling materials you found. The resell value on most armors/weapons prior to level 80 is well under cost. So the money you’d save by making your own armor is already lost by getting crafting to 400. To me it’s a gold sink that levels me faster than killing/mapping when I just want some fast levels – for example when I hit high 20s/low 30s I’d rather just get to 35 asap so I can use my tokens to get my rare ascalon armor, then go back to doing PVE even faster.

I actually wish crafting was even more worthless. While I get that you can run dungeons to get your level 80 exotics, I wish more exotics dropped in the open world. As it stands ~95% of armor people use are crafted or bought with dungeon tokens (or a combination of both transmuted). The other ~5% are karma or cultural. Less than 1% of armors used are from actual loot if I had to guess.

I started on CD at release. I’ve loved my time here and the two guilds I’ve been in. I’m an officer in [RISE] now and I plan to stay here as long as I play GW2.

I started doing wvw about two months ago, and have seen improvements week after week – especially in group dynamics, special tactics, and communications/tactics between guilds.

That last couple weeks have been a breeze. I’m glad for the competative week with FA and DB! This is posing a challenge to all three servers, and all three will learn so much from it.

While I love the community of CD, I can’t speak for the other servers. I have a feeling all three will be competative for a long time to come though. From what I’ve heard, I also get the feeling you’ll be in good hands on any of the three servers you listed.

Best of luck to you!
-Jaded Shadow
(aka: Jade Whisper, Draven Darkmane, Xênth, Twisto Fate)

I’ve done 500+ fractals. I can’t give you an exact number because that’s as far as the achievement goes. Most of that was doing dailies, but a good portion was just helping random groups and guildies on lower levels.

When they complain about swamp, I explain why it’s the best fractal in higher levels. When they rush in to fight the robot (why can’t I think of it’s name), I explain the mechanics on level 10+ to prepare them. If the group does poorly on dredge I’ll explain about spy kits and where to get them for future runs. If people are getting downed a lot in melee I’ll tell them ranged is a better option later on, and often against bosses the only option.

Sometimes I let them learn through their own mistakes and then explain a possible better way. Other times I’ll explain before we do something. I’m not overly polite about it, nor rude. About as confrontational I’ll get is telling someone they might have to look into different build options. That rarely comes up, and only with people that are really noobs (like just got to 80, has like 600 achievement points, whatever).

I never call someone a noob. I don’t act like an elitist. I know fotm well, and I let my playstyle and communications show that. People tend to listen.

If people are being rude to, swearing at, or blaming each other, I’ll say “Let’s quit kittening at each other! Maybe the content is difficult for us, maybe our classes don’t work well together, maybe we have personality conflicts. But we’re all here with a common goal so let’s try to work together and wreck this kitten. here’s my suggestion for getting past X…” – something along those lines.

I play my thief in FOTM so it’s not like they need me. I bring DPS, very slight protection in emergencies, and that’s about it.

Guess what… I’ve never been kicked from a party, be it in fotm or anywhere else. I’m an assertive player. I speak my mind. I argue with people. I’ve said and done things in PUGs to the point I could understand someone bringing up a kick vote, especially if they’re already having a bad day. Yet it’s never happened.

So I don’t know what to tell you OP. I guess the best advice I can give you is this; Consider how you come off to other party members if this problem is happening to you. In my experience, parties (pug or not) don’t kick people without reason.

I’m working on leveling an alt. I completed 3 starter (level 1-15) areas without skipping past mobs/events/nodes/etc and got to level 20 by doing so. I’ll probably be level 26 by the time I finish two 15-25 maps, when I can get the next masterwork armor, which will help me into the higher level areas. So far that’s taken me 9 hours only, because I knew where to go and what to do.

That’s the hardest part of PVE leveling – getting to that point.

XP/Kill is much less in starter areas because there are more people killing things generally. The longer a mob lives, the higher the bonus xp, up to 2.5x bonus. So you’ll get faster xp via PVE in the level 25+ maps.

This is actually my 5th level 80 once I’m done. My plan was to get to 26 through the method I’ve done, get my level 26 masterwork armor/weapons, and into the next tier map(s). If I end up underleveled, I’ll master a craft.

That’s what I’ve done in the past. Mastered one craft at about level 30, and another around level 60-65.

The previous character I got to 80 I mastered 2 crafts with and did the rest through map completions. It took me a total of 46 hours according to /age to reach 80 that way. Playing 2 hours per day during the week, and 8 per day on weekends, that would be about 2 weeks to get a level 80 – longer of course if you’re new to maps or don’t have resources to master crafts. Regardless I think that’s a pretty short amount of time to get to max level compared to a lot of other MMOs I’ve played.

The biggest key I think is killing things people usually ignore and run past, for the bonus xp since those mobs have probably been alive longer – and events of course. XP/time for events is quite good.

If you don’t want to do multiple starting areas because you’d rather experience them later, you’ll run into the same problem. But you can do that just by event hopping and killing mostly creatures that will likely give bonus xp on a map you’ve already completed.

Yes adamshadow. P/P strength is unload.

In a full group, stacking vulnerability with body shot is semi helpful, but rarely enough to make up for the lack of DPS from unload. Headshot helps in rare situations. Even AOE blindness helps (#5 attack) in rare situations such as cliffside fractal on the mid seal in a squishy group. But for the most part unload is it.

Unload spam, heal/invis or refuge/invis to regain initiative (if you’re traited for that), autoattack from invis = 5 shot burst + 5 bleeds, unload more. That’s currently the fastest / most damaging ranged burst in the game vs single targets.

Pistol/dagger on the other hand is useful for condition builds. The combo of cloak and dagger and autoattack stacking 5 bleeds from stealth puts out of a lot of condition damage. But you have to be in melee range for it to be effective. That can work well against some tougher single targets if you’re solo.

Alternatively, dagger/pistol can work well too if you’re not a condition build in the same situation by just using autoattack and blindness. It’s not my favorite choice because, while it’s pretty safe, it’s slow DPS.

I played around with sword some and don’t like it. Yes sword can hit multiple targets in melee but shortbow-clusterbomb does that much better if you’re shooting at your feet. So I’d rather just stick to focusing on single target damage with my main weapon set and swap to shortbow when mulit-target damage is preferable.