Guild Wars 2

Yep, Menzies has it called and my money is on that as well. A Mastery in Junundu would make perfect sense. First learn to mount them, then unlock combat, maybe access to even more zones, possibly some wallowing under the dunes.

That would fit nicely next to a Mastery to resist your disgust at trading and exchanging with an undead nation (and at higher levels enlsit their support). Cause for sure we will need to enter an alliance with Palawa Joko and undead Elona to fight Kralkatorrik!

Have had this happen to me four times now. I guess I will try a fifth but this is driving me nuts!!

Chapter 13 “Buried Insight”, at the end of the escort, when Taimi activates the portal, the vet spawns, I kill it and then everything is stuck. NPCs stand around and do nothing. I cannot take the portal. Going away and back does not help. Dying and taking the last point does not help. Had this four times already. SUPER ANNOYING. Story progress blocked.

You should buy and play GW1 not for the APs, but because it is still a great game, with some very interesting gameplay elements. Well worth a try if you want a look at what MMOs can also be, beyond the typical WoW/GW2/SWTOR approach.

Sure the graphics are a bit dated, but it is still very passable and there is lots of fun to be had. I started on it last May and I got to 30 points on HoM within 250 hours of play (i.e. enough to unlock all skins and pets), but I keep on playing cause it can be great fun and there is still some content here and there that I want to try out.

The icing on the cake being that you get to connect the dots between GW1 events/locations and GW2 ones + all those Ascended Trinkets names make sense to me now. ;-)

Zel

Quite frankly at this stage I would take a rehash over the boring emptiness of the past months… I know they were working on HoT but compared to the first 24 months of the game, the recent past was maddeningly numb. Would have loved some rehash of ANYTHING to survive the wait… SAB, Queen’s Gauntlet sans Scarlet, wintersday in July, just simething to do than yet another SW.

That was maybe the plan: deprive us of anything for long enough so whatever comes next feels better than nothing.

As long as active mitigation in the form of dodge, blinds, aegis and evades was more than sufficient to deal with anything PVE could throw at you, there was no point in using tanky stats or bring any healing. If you are good, you are currently taking close to no dmg.

We will see how raids are designed, but with longer encounters, some unavoidable dmg, etc. healing – wherever it comes from – will be needed. Depending on tuning, either a little or a lot, and probably from one or two dedicated healers. How much will be needed will be a factor of tuning and player skill.

So, if Anet pulls it off, healing will be needed in raid. And druids will be one of the options. No PVE use outside of raids, though. Unless Anet releases new, radically different, Fractals.

Here is my feedback to the Devs

Problems with the event itself and suggested remedies:

1 – The steps in the reward scale are too wide

With rewards of 5, 10 or 15 blooms spaced the way they currently are, it encourages players to just “tag” events and run off to try at all costs to get to 20 events in the timeframe, but it also de-incetivise players to keep contributing if they get the sense that they will not reach 20 stacks of the buff. So many are stopping after reaching 10+ stacks and AFK waiting for the event to finish on the map.

Suggestion #1: make bloom rewards be awarded in a more continuous manner: each event to which you contribute should reward you something. Maybe one bloom per event. It does not change massively the total amount of blooms awarded, but makes it meaningful to keep doing events throughout the timeframe.

2 – Disconnecting is much too punishing

By awarding the blooms at the end of the event based on stacks of the buff it means DCing (currently) wipes your rewards and not every player enjoys top notch connectivity. Plus Anet servers are not always the most stables, so DCs do exist (particularly on maps where large amounts of players gather for such events).

Suggestion #2: award rewards immediately after the completion of a single event. Mixing this with the previous suggestion: make every event reward one Bloom immediately after it completes. That way, if you DC you have accumulated what you worked toward and do not lose that.

Suggestion #3: To track map contribution still award the buff (just one stack) and anyone who has it when the event ends gets the map daily bonus reward. That way, if I DC after doing 15 events I have my 15 blooms from those already and doing quickly one event after DC gives me back the buff and allows me to get the daily map bonus.

3 – Reward structure is too individual

In its current form it is a free for all, everyone for themselves, tag war.

Suggestion: To foster a sense of working together towards a common goal, on top of individual reward for the single events contributed to, a map wide reward could be added based on the number of total events completed on the map. The more coordination and joint success there was, the better the reward. I.e. if a map completed at least X single events, then all those with at least one stack of the buff at the end get an extra chest at the end.

Problems with the rewards and suggested remedies:

A – The offered rewards were of very little interest for “veterans”

It was a great catch up opportunity for players like me who had missed out on some of those items, so I was happy to get a chance to get my Armored Scarlet Mini. But for lots of my guildies, there was nothing on offer that they did not have.

Suggestion #4: make rewards a mixture of new and old stuff. So both players who missed out and veteran completionists have something to work towards.

B – Lack of clarity about the timeframe and currency

With no clear communication about how long the vendors would be around, whether the currency would be used in the future or not, and whether there’d be more opportunities to get the rewards in the future, it makes deciding which rewards to choose very hard.

Suggestion #5: please state clearly from the onset whether a currency is one-off or not. And whether we should use it all now, or what would happen in the future.

Getting more and more excited regarding raids coming to GW2! The new article on raid design provides clear answers to some of the unknowns, one of them being the issue of lock-outs.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/designing-challenging-content/

“First, you can earn unique rewards once per week from raids, but you can play a raid as many times as you want to help your friends earn rewards or to refine your strategies.”

Great that we can go back and repeat the content, even if it is without rewards. It sucked on other MMOs not being able to go back on your main to help out friends later in the week once you had cleared, so I am quite happy about that.

Quick question to the Anet CMs and/or Devs though: is the weekly reward lock-out at account or character level? I suspect that, like Dungeon bonus chests, it is account level, but could you confirm?

Thanks in advance!

Zel

kitten! I was so happy to have finally unlocked a few things in GW1, went to the HoM in GW2 and then this!? sigh

They really make it kitten you to like their game…

Possible solution:

I had the problem on my Guardian yesterday as well. It was the first time I was there and was quite puzzled and wondering if I was doing something wrong. I was running GS and Scepter/Focus.

I noticed that if I was walking in casually into the hitbox of the Dragon and meleing from there it would result in no damage, BUT if I used GS3 to jump on him, I would be able to damage him with auto-attack and GS2 (provided I would not move further in).

Similarly, it seemed that if I was standing at maximum melee range for my GS, slightly outside of the red circle around his hitbox, I would be able to damage him with GS and Scepter.

It still took me 5-6 burn phases (including a couple to figures this out), but it was fricking annoying indeed. Hope this helps at least one other person…

Cheers,
Zel

Hey Miner Bob,

If you open your Hero panel and check under your character story you should be able to see which Living Story #2 episodes are already accessible or not for you.

But anyway do not worry: the gem price for the LS2 bundle is scaled according to what you already have.

I stopped playing about a year ago, but still occasionally logged in every so often so I ended up having two-third of LS2 accessible for free already. The gem price of the bundle was automatically scaled down to something like 360 gems for me (it was the price I was quoted in the gem store). So if you buy the bundle, Anet will only charge you for the episodes you are missing.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Zel

Alrighty! Thanks for the help and the constructive answers. Seem like I can keep going more or less as I was.

Cheers,
Zel

Wonderful! Thanks for all the answers. Seems like I would not need much adaptation.

Dear Rangers,

I left the game around Feb/March before the big patch and was now wondering if the Ranger was still suffering from the same problems as it did before (talking PVE): poor pet AI, lack of real choices for (real) DPS weapons, lacklustre choice of Talents, etc.

I loved my ranger and didn’t mind playing my cheesy Zerk Sword/Warhorn build, but was wondering if things had changed now.

Are bowbears still a thing? Are they still as dramatically awful? Or is it now the best DPS in the game?

Cheers,
Zel

Hi all,

I stopped playing around February/March ahead of the big patch and plenty of changes. From a quick read through the forums, I take it the meta for Dungeons has not really changed? And it is still all Zerk gear (or however it’s called now) + Red Rubies or Scholar Runes?

And as for Guardian builds, I guess Sword/Focus with Greatsword or Hammer are still the go-to weapons?

Thanks in advance for any pointers to what might have changed since then.

Cheers,
Zel

Vol.7601:

TKIB.9061:

account bound…
Try to think a little.

Giving materials to someone to craft the legendary, at which point they give it to me (only among trusted people)

Try to think a little.

Someone in our guild did it something like nine months ago. Guildie 1 gave the farmable mats and precursor to guildie 2 (who had the needed map completion, karma, etc.) They agreed on a price to be repaid over x months. Guildie 2 crafted the Legendary and gave it to Guildie 1 alright.

Guildie 1 does good on the repayment plan for a few months, but then both guildies fall off each other. Guildie 2 now thinks the agreed upon price is too low and wants a few more months of payments. One starts badmouthing the other. Things escalate. Drama. Guild-quit. Name calling. Tears of Orrian water.

DigitalKirin.9714:

So before you say “don’t make fun of people who don’t stack/skip” stop and reread your posts and reword anything that smacks of talking down to others or saying that they’re unskilled. If you want respect, give it first.

Haha! True enough…

Let me rephrase slightly: being a speed-runner and partaking in the stacking/Zerk Meta does not mean that you are unskilled. But it does not require you to have much skills either. Skilled players who have tons of MMO PVE experience and can deal with complex tactics probably do it because it is faster and safer. But so do plenty of others, who probably do not have half the skills or experience.

So there is nothing “pro” or “leet” about being a dungeon speed-runner in GW2. There is just a very easy (and boring I might add) Meta that requires close to no tacts execution.

Stacking and LoSing is not an exploit: it is replying to the game design rationally if your purpose is to maximise your dungeon profit Vs time spent.

If you do dungeons for in-game rewards and not for funzies, the current (poor) dungeon design encourages you to stack and/or LoS bosses and to skip mobs. As most people run dungeons for the tokens and gold, they want to get through it as fast as possible.

Too many mobs with too much health, bosses easy to bug out or neutralise by stacking, short-ranged buffs and convenience for resing downed players = skip + stack.

It’s boring as hell and makes for mind-numbing PVE instances.

Those who think they are good players for doing speed clears in Zerk gear fool themselves. I bet they’d have no chance in a proper tact-based PVE instance (thinking a proper Raid or dungeons like in TSW NM mode or WoW).

For those players who enjoy a bit of RP and doing instances slow and fun for the lore and beautiful aesthetics of GW2 at least can go to [PASS] or LFG for similarly-minded people. Not a bad thing and nothing to make fun of.

Zel

The hard truth that most of us have a hard time accepting is that Dungeons in GW2 are awful because of a series of design mistakes:

- Too many adds with too much health and too little reward from them (sloooow!)
- Buggy bosses, that can’t be CCed and have close to no tacts apart from telegraphed big attacks
- Mechanics for player buffs and raising a downed player encouraging stacking
- etc.

So in the end nearly all dungeon encounters are pull, stack, LoS and nuke with Zerk gear. I do it, you do it, they do it. It’s fast, easy and you get your loot/tokens and move on. It’s boring as hell and makes for mind-numbing PVE instances.

Truth is GW2 dungeons have close to no tacts and those who think they are good players for being able to nuke bosses in Zerk gear while stacked are fooling themselves.

Fractals perform better in terms of PVE instances tactics, but there are only so many times you can do them before you get bored senseless.

It’s a really big letdown for an otherwise very good game with wonderful open world zones and a very pleasant questing system.

But the awful dungeon design + the overflow fiesta that started with Teq and is being continued with new world bosses is really turning me off…

Zel

Hey Xyonon!

Just adding: regarding the Jungle Stalker Might buff, it has a relatively short range so you need to stand quite close to your kitty to get it.

Regarding your second question, the problem with all F2 pet attacks is that they do not interrupt what they are doing so there is usually a delay before the attack kicks in, except for some who have AoE frost attacks (some lizard and some kitty iirc). You need to experiment a bit, but as Wondrouswall say, look where your pet is at, and if it is already hitting something then spam F2 and cross your fingers. F2 is buggy overall and many people are quite frustrated that over one year after release it is still as bad.

Finally, Axe off-hand: yes it is amazingly good. My default weapon combo for PVE, particularly dungeons, is Sword/Horn and Sword/Axe (i.e. I leave my second main hand empty and use the same sword for both).

Axe 5 is even more OP than Axe 4: not only does it deflect range attacks, it also REFLECTS them. But the tooltip is wrong and says “deflect” only (unless they fixed it recently). So you can use Ranger Axe 5 to great effect on certain bosses fights in Dungeons/Fractals, or to play with Karkas.

One great application of Ranger Axes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-cVWh3bKt4

Cheers,
Zel

ferretyferret.4087:

What did you get from it?

^^

Very curious as well… (may your suffering contribute to the expansion of knowledge)

I will wait to see it all on paper and feel how it goes once live. My main concern is that the Devs on the livestream did not really explain things particularly well and did not give the impression that they were on top of their game.

Saying that they nerf Crit dmg because “we feel it was too high” (or something similar) is no explanation at all. Giggling, mumbling and half finished sentences did not help get much clarity.

So I hope that the high level of confusion at the moment is is due to the bad quality of the stream’s delivery, but that things will make more sense once on paper.

Unfortunately the real issues were not addressed… (Defiance, lack of fight mechanics, poor AI, underwhelming Condi builds in PVE, etc.)

Zel

Yeah I know they won’t add it. And, as I said, I don’t want it (seems ppl have a hard time reading).

It’s just that if they redo enemy A.I. mechanics and fights (which would be the best solution to a more interesting Meta), PUGs will have it hard in absence of clearly defined roles. But I would prefer it that way, rather than as a DPS race.

And there we are… A nerf to full DPS builds is in no way an incentive to players trying out other approaches. It does not make for a more varied PVE environment, nor does it fix the bad boring mechanics of PVE fights and bosses.

Bosses are still the same boring punching balls, instances are still better cleared with an “all out DPS race”, utility or CC builds are no more needed than they were. Clearing dungeons will be just a bit longer and players will have to play their active defenses cleverly a bit longer than they did till now.

PVE in open world remains faceroll in any gear
PVE in instances remains a boring “hit the pinata hard and fast” approach

gg

Zel

DiogoSilva.7089:

It’s not so much the lack of trinity, but something broader, the lack of well-defined roles, that makes challenging content very unfriendly to pugs.

The way the current damage/ control/ support roles are setup, it pretty much only works in highly organized teams (with voice software), or when content is easy/ shallow enough. When everyone can do a little bit of everything, redudancy will be aplenty within pug teams, and strategy will suffer.

Yes, I guess this is what I was trying to get at.

GW2 got rid of the Trinity, but the instances/dungeon design does not feel like they tried to replace it with anything else meaningful. So in the end many Dungeon paths do not require players to do much, beside doing DPS and avoiding highly telegraphed attacks. So it gets boring quite fast, and once you combine that with a few of the other problems discussed here, it gives us the current Meta.

If instances design was going more towards requiring certain roles within party (e.g. if handling conditions and/or mobs through CC in a specific fight was required, or you needed some guy to go around soak big attacks to keep the field free of AoE for the rest of the party, etc.) this is where the “play as you want” situation would make PUGs’ lifes even harder: without the kind of coordination you describe you would very likely risk getting a mixed group without the abilities needed to handle the encounters.

While Trinity systems are getting quite stale over time, at least they bring some level predictability that allow designers to build encounters that are a bit more complex than what we currently have AND at the same time guarantee that a PUG group will get some basic abilities mix to handle them.

I do not want Trinity, but would welcome a game where Instances require you to do a bit more than max-DPS + dodge.

But if GW2 was to bring forward new (or reworked) Dungeon paths that required players to fill more specific roles, PUGs would likely suffer because the in-game LFG would not ensure that the groups get the right mix of abilities (whereas LFG in a Trinity game would force a minimal mix by making you to wait on a tank or healer).

Zel

Afya.5842:

But the problem of current meta again is HOW THE BOSS DO DAMAGE rather than on the player side. Zerker can survive in current meta because boss doesn’t do sustain/other form of dps and active defense abilities that help them stay alive in this meta even easier is independent from stats.

This has been said in a few threads here but it cannot be underlined enough. It is one of the major problems.

Dodging and other forms of active defense (blinds/reflects/etc.) + slow, telegraphed one-shot attacks = no real need for survivability stats

Combine that with the PVE bosses being as good as immune to CC, having huge health pools (Vitality) and comparatively low Toughness, and the only logical conclusion from a player perspective = “kitten heals, kitten tougness/vitality, kitten CC – let’s go zerk, dodge all and burn the bosses down as fast as possible”. Ideally while stacking so you get all party buffs and can res each-other when one is downed.

Zel

Looking at the debates around the current PVE META and how Dungeons are played by many, it seems to me that the “No Trinity” approach is one of the main causes of many of the issues currently debated. How so?

With a Trinity system you have a player who focuses on soaking most damage and controlling where the boss or mobs will be standing and brings a good set of interrupts (the tank) and another one focusing on keeping everyone alive, removing conditions and usually a healthy dose of utility (the healer). With those two specialised players, the other three can focus on DPS and go “Zerk” so to speak. It also means — and that is key — that each group will by design bring a minimal level of control/utility/heals.

The concept of having no Trinity and allowing any class to play any role is quite noble and at least tries to move away from the MMO standard that many were getting tired with.

But in essence it seems that, in GW2’s case, it ended up with instance fights (boss fights or specific events/mob groups in a dungeon) that have either very little mechanics (so that any type of group can handle them) and are boring; or are quite hard for PUGs to handle (because they often miss certain skills or abilities to handle the mechanics).

When you PUG in a Trinity MMO, at least you are sure that there will be someone bringing a minimal amount of CC/interrupts/soaking and another one who will bring good survival utility. So designers can work around that and make some assumptions valid for all groups. Without trinity you can never be sure that you will have the right builds to handle some of the mechanics (e.g. enough CC, the right type of conditions/interrupts or enough heal/condi removal, etc.).

Many Dungeon paths in GW2 seem to be on the “low mechanics” side of things and are favored by farmers and PUGs. There are very little mechanics and content can be handled fast for easy rewards. It made the META evolve towards an all-out DPS race.

Those dungeon paths that are longer or have more mechanics are harder for PUGs and are avoided. I am going to venture that this would not be the case if there was a Trinity because, by definition, each group would be bringing a built-in minimal level of control/interrupt/utility skills and therefore would be better to handle a larger variety of fights.

So, in essence:

No Trinity = easy boring fights; or fights too hard for PUGs

And, as most fights in GW2 instances lean heavily on the easy side:

No Trinity + Dodge + downed state + short-range buffs = current META (zerk gear, stack, dodge on telegraphed attack)

I am not calling for bringing Trinity into GW2, but it seems to me that the absence of Trinity means that fights/encounters have to be designed radically differently and (if we want them to be interesting) will probably be too hard for PUGs. Unfortunately at the moment we have a lot of very bland fights with a booooring META.

Zel

Tl;dr: without a Trinity designers end up producing Dungeon content that is either too hard for PUGs because a bunch of random guys without harmonized builds cannot handle more complex fights; or content that is too boring because the most efficient answer becomes “DPS race”. With a Trinity system, designers can at least start from shared minimal basis of control/utility/heals in all groups that allow for bolder design.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Spotter on both pet and ranger would be nice (not double bonus when in each others auras, just two sources of the same buff).

While that would be a nice improvement, a more holistic solution would be to greatly increase the buff-giving range for all classes and abilities (talking 1800 range or something like that). The current short range is part of what encourages the current stacking-meta (among other things) and quite frankly standing still and hitting things fast is quite boring after a while.

So if we want to improve Ranger utility by having Spotter and other buffs reaching farther, it might be best to do it for all classes so we can move towards a playstyle that allows for more mobility.

1) Kodan
…
9) Tengu

I do not particularly feel the need for another race, but if at all, the Kodan race would be great! Although some combinations seem really weird and culturally inappropriate: Kodan Mesmer?? Kodan Thief? Hmmm… Not sure about that.

Then if at all yet another one, maybe the Tengu, but far behind the Kodans.

I run a Zerk Guardian build along the lines of Obal’s build (GS and Sw/Focus) and I will soon have enough gold to buy the precursor of my choice and thus finally complete my first Legendary. I am not so keen on any of the Legendary Greatswords so was thinking about buying Zap and go for Bolt, as I like the style and animations. But I am worried about how much of it can still be seen on Guardian.

A lot of the Guardian attacks and animations are light and flash heavy and I am wondering if Bolt’s effect do not end up being overshadowed by them in the end. The Youtube videos I checked of it on Guardian were not super helpful to get a good sense either.

Any Guardian with Bolt who would care to chime in and let me know how it is working out for them? Are you happy with how Bolt’s effect mesh with Guardian Sword skills?

Thanks in advance.

Zel

Except that it makes sense to keep the 1-9, 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40+ brackets as they currently are in LFG: because it matches the AR requirements.

I’d rather have the LFG tool encourage people to ask themselves “Do I have the needed AR for that bracket?” rather than “Which loot do I get?”

Adam.4103:

Pug guardians are worse than bearbows most of the time. I can’t even remember the last time I got a guardian that didn’t camp staff and use their virtues.

Yes… Actually, with the possibility to go in so many different directions with builds in GW2, it is a bit strange to ask for classes (as opposed to ask for types of builds). If people ask for “Zerker only” it makes sense: you know that you are going for a DPS-race type of run. I have also seen request for “four zerk war and one support Guard”, and I guess that makes sense for certain instances.

But asking “war/guard only” doesn’t tell you what type of builds you want and if you get four condition warriors and a guardian in cleric gear, well… you got what you asked for, even though it might not be what you had wished for.

Cake Tasty.2408:

I don’t know why people love pug guardians so much. They nearly always spam light fields and overwrite my fire fields.

Yeah… I often put down fire fields as guardian as well and I hate it when the second PUG guardian in the group think it’s a good idea to use GS4 or Staff3 over them… Could slap them.

So, as you see, kcmastere, there is a lot of misinformation and kid-hate towards rangers (some of it justified by a significant presence of bad players playing the class with sub-par builds —- for example the bearbow).

If you want to be welcome in all dungeons and not worry about people’s negative opinion of your class, go for Guardian. If you don’t care about that, and do not mind avoiding LFG groups that advertise “war/guard only” then pick whichever of the three you mentioned that you like playing.

But indeed be aware that getting a good dungeon build on Ranger that works well with the current meta (i.e. lots of stacking and DPS race) will require you to go melee and go for a power-build (not conditions).

Cheers,
Zel

Hi Druss,

If you intend to do Fractals or particularly Dungeon, stay away from Conditions builds and from bows.

Go for a Power-based build, melee weapons mostly and keep the Horn for the awesome buff and strong burn CD. You will want to run pets, traits and skills that support your group strongly (Healing Spring, Red Moa, Frost Spirit, Spotter, etc.)

Sword mainhand is your strongest DPS weapon. Goes well with Warhorn. If you need some reflects swap in off-hand Axe for Axe 5 (it not only deflects but also reflects). Dagger in offhand is good for fights where you need good evades and do not want to risk rooting with the sword (Alpha in CoE).

I suggest you check out Brasil’s ranger build (update of October) – it is a very strong one and easy to pull off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oGtY69tcek

I personally prefer Ranger runes. And if you feel you are too squishy because of Zerker gear, learn to dodge and evade better + use some Omnomberry Pie for the extra regen.

PvP and WvW is another story, but for PVE and dungeons this is a very good and reliable build.

Cheers,
Zel

John Dean.9035:

Well you need a Brown and a Polar Bear and a longbow and a short bow and you need Apothecary’s armor and Settler’s weapons. 30/20/20/0/0 traits, but don’t take any major traits – they are overrated. You basically just spam everything, and for utilities you run Search and Rescue, Protect me and Guard. On your elite run Spirit Of Nature for amazing party support. If anyone goes down you’ve got it with loads of rezzes for all!

If you ever actually need to heal run heal as one, but I don’t think you will ever actually go that low. Have fun showing off your Dreamer!

Haha! Awesome! I nominate you for best trolly reply of the year.

If you win, you get to make a video of you soloing Lupicus in that build.

Hi Parktopp,

With the two answers above you have all that you need I guess, but just wanted to throw in an additional element: with exotic armor pieces being so cheap on TP at the moment (with people leveling their crafts to 500), you might want to collect pieces with your chosen stats (I am going to guess Zerk) just to apply different looks to them.

If you play a character a lot, you sometime wants a change of visual style (simply cause you get bored of seeing the same armor all the time) and if you got a full set of Zerk gear with temple look (for example) and another full set of Zerk gear with dungeon style (or a gem-store skin) you can swap between both and not get tired of the look. Having two sets with same stats and different look saves you transmutation crystals in the long term, which are harder to come buy that pieces of gear.

And anyway if you do WvW and/or Fractals you might end up having two or three sets anyway but with different stats (e.g. tankier stats for WvW Zergs).

Have fun!

Zel

I agree that the amount of 100 silk tend to stand out as compared to the other materials, but does light armor blues and greens drop more often than other gear stuff?

If yes, that might explain why Anet wants us to use more of it: i.e. if salvaging gear results in twice the amount of cloth mats being produced as compared to mithril, leather or wood generation that might be a reason.

Just wondering…

The OP seems to be ignorant of the most basic principles of an artificial virtual economy and is quite impolite as well, so not sure it is worth replying to his points one by one. But it makes for an interesting topic overall :-) So let me join the crowd and contribute my 5 coppers worth.

When thinking about virtual economies like those in MMOs, there are specific factors to keep in mind. All MMOs have to:

1) Design in-game mechanisms to reduce the volume of virtual currencies in circulation

(“stealing” them as the OP puts it eloquently)

This is needed to keep inflation in check, otherwise prices go up steadily over time. This is called monetary inflation.

In a MMO, monetary inflation is particularly bad because it disfavors newcomers to the game (i.e. who start with zero gold and therefore have a longer, harder uphill battle to get the money they need as compared to other players who started playing earlier).

In the case of GW2, they have a few mini-gold sinks here and there that are designed to take a little bit of currencies from all players equally over time, while not being felt too strongly. The WP charge is one of those. At the level of a single player those small amounts do not amount to much, but when applied day-in day-out to all players over time it enables the removal of a non-negligible volume of virtual currency from the market.

2) Design small mechanisms to discourage excessive micro-transactions on the trading post/auction house

For sure the TP charge is also a form of gold sink, but even if it was not needed as a gold sink, some form of “tax” is needed there to ensure that only transactions that reach a minimal level of “meaningfulness” take place. If there was not tax at all on TP transactions you would see huge market moves with people speculating over a couple of coppers. I suspect this could attain volumes of transaction that could break down the TP servers.

By imposing a 15% tax (or whatever it is in the end), you ensure that speculation only happens when there is a significant gap in price between offer and demand, or when the person actually really need the good and needs to buy it (i.e. does not perform the transaction for speculation).

Maybe 5% would do the trick for that purpose, but bringing it higher is another form of gold sink (see above).

So all games will always tax the TP and will always destroy/“steal” money from you. It is not against you, it is to keep the game economy healthy for you and all players.

Now, I am not saying that the current game economy in GW2 is perfect and there are for sure a few problematic isolated pockets, but recent history shows that Anet is not averse to making changes and tweak the economy when needed. And no point whining about gold sinks or TP tax as a principle, they are needed.

Zel

kitten ! I tried to reply, ended up editing, then deleting my initial post… Doing real well on this thread…

So, yes, might be they were meaning Ascended Armor and I actually had mixed up dates of two posts, so I thought this was much more recent news of after the update of last Tuesday and the introduction of Ascended Armor… Sorry for the wrong alert if it was just only Ascended Armor which was meant.

That being said, I will keep hoping :-) A part of me keeps thinking maybe they meant the precursor crafting/hunt…

I seem to remember there was an official nerf of this many months back? Queen Jubilee time or even before?

As long as they let us kill Scarlet once and for all as part of the last four releases of “Season 1” I will be happy and ready to move on.

Maybe I will even manage to forget the sluggish storyline progression of 2013 and all the meaningless running around of Scarlet (I will call it meaningless until I have seen in-game a meaningful purpose and intent to all her actions and “collaborations” ).

And I want to be able to hit her and see her body dead as well: no crap like Zhaitan. I want to see my character hurt her, and I want to be sure she is really dead.

Sounds awful, I know.

Scarlet brings out the worse in us… not because she is such a great evil genius, but because she is such a poor character…

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

It actually does matter what controls you use.

The Controls you are most comfortable with and can play well with is clearly the right choice! =)

Being comfortable with your controls is one of the conditions for efficient playing but is in itself not sufficient!

I am sure many keyboard turners are comfortable with it. but they are still slow, lack precision and overall move inefficiently.

So, yeah: Xbox controller, mouse movement, etc. whatever means that you can turn and move fast and well + NOT click your abilities with the mouse but activate them rapidly at the press of a button + be comfortable with

Snoctopus.7084:

(…)

New content should not come from undoing the achievements of players and making them redo something for no legitimate reason. I have never in my ten years of playing mmorpgs seen something as disgraceful as a “content patch” specifically designed to punish the high skill players such as this.

I understand the feeling, Snoctopus. And I hate it when MMOs nerf the achievements of “early adopters” or make it so ridiculously easy for late comers to catch up with players who invested time and energy from the beginning. so you have my full support with this. A better solution could have been found.

E.g. roll back everyone to 50 (for those who went above while it was possible) and introduce the competition and new mechanics at level 50+ (same Agony but new tacts).

+1

Zel

PS: Still have a bitter taste of all the boosts and easy catching up options offered to players working on their Legendary in Mists of Pandaria (WoW). I played from the first hour of the expansion and had it hard to collect all those Sigils and Stones through doing actual progression raiding. Now LFR kiddies get those handed out so they can also get their orange cloak before WoD… Grrr!

Not a definite answer to your question but an element that might be of relevance: after the patch all levels of fractals have the potential to bring you a daily reward (i.e. not only the even-numbered ones but also odd-numbered ones).

So I suspect that depending on how they implement “level 50” FotM, the highest level one you can do for a reward will be either 49 or 50.

I suspect that once you reach level 50, you’ll be better off running a daily FotM 50 for optimal reward, but we will see…

LordByron.8369:

Taku.6352:

Can’t wait for aetherblade and molten fractals with their anti ranger mechanics that make the whole class ability useless.

well its not that the current maw with permareflecting mobs is much better.

Oh those are just a deserved punishment inflicted on Bearbows and other ranged Rangers who still have not understood that melee/Sword is their friend.

Hi Khisanth,

I never had any problem with the double-tap in JPs (and do quite a few of them), but can understand the concern.

Just out of curiosity, what is the alternative to double-tapping if you want to do a directional dodge??

Zel

Once you opt for the principle of using your mouse for motion, the issues of keybinds is then a matter of taste, but a possible way to do it is as follows (for people with standard mouses and keyboards):

• GW2 does not have many abilities to trigger, so you can simply leave your weapon skills mapped 1 to 5
• Assuming you use an Azerty keyboard, you can keybind “A” to strafe left; “Z” to move forward; and “E” to strafe right
• For special skills, you can either leave them on 6-0 or map them to other keys closer to 1-5 and AZE (to further diminish the need for hand-movement)

As GW2 is not a very demanding game I personally left all skills on 6-0 (I have big hands anyway and can easily reach all).

you then use A and E to strafe and for side-dodges. You use W only for forward dodges (and mouse buttons for forward motion).

Since we are helping each other out in this section of the forums I thought I’d be proactive rather than reactive and do a public service announcement:


Hey people! Do not use your keyboard to turn or for movement! Use your mouse!


I keep being surprised at the number of keyboard turners I see in dungeons, in the Nightmare Tower, etc.

If you want to get better at GW2 or at many MMOs with similar interfaces, learn to move with your mouse (or a combination of mouse and keyboard).

Why?

1. Your reaction speed and turns will be faster and more precise, allowing you to more efficiently get out of AoE or away from danger
2. You are freeing your keyboard-hand to press your skills and weapon buttons on the keyboard, which is faster than clicking them with your mouse

How to do it?

• By pressing both mouse buttons simultaneously you get your toon in a forward motion.
• While pressing both mouse buttons use the same hand to turn left and right by moving the mouse
• You can then combine forward motion and turns with strafing as needed (e.g. you can keybind your strafing with either special buttons of your mouse – if you have a very fancy one – or do like me and use keys on your keyboard close to your abilities to trigger strafing while using your mouse for forward motion and turns)

What about dodges?

Since your keyboard-hand is freed from the need of holding “W” down or of turning you can use it to activate abilities and trigger dodges. For dodges in a specific direction double-type the direction you want to dodge toward (e.g. if you are strafing left with “A” then double-type “A”). For a regular backward dodge, you can either double-type the key you use to backpedal or “V” (default dodge key).

How to get used to that?

It takes a big of time to break habits and get used to mouse motion, but you will NEVER regret giving up keyboard turning. Once you are used to mouse motion you will simply be amazed by how more efficient you are at moving, dodging and activating your abilities. Even if the first days are hard.

A tip to break the habit of keyboard turning is to unbind your keys for turning and for forward motion from the keyboard. You are then condemned to use your mouse for that and it makes you learn fast! You might want to bring back the forward motion keybind eventually as you need it for a forward dodge.

Zel

See the progress bar tracking the injections made into the tower? (it appears in the living story tracker on your UI)

On my server it is going up all very slowly (maybe 20% after eight days). I suspect that when the bar is full the tower will collapse on itself from its core having been corroded by the antitoxin. I suspect this is when the tower will go away.

Probably Kessex will then look like something halfway between what it was before and what it is now – with a collapsed giant thistle in the middle.

Zel

Ellisande.5218:

I completely disagree with the opener.

(…)

We are being penalized for things that are essentially out of our control. And then you are calling us crap players simply because we aren’t you.

This content wasn’t challenging, it was just way overtuned. There were too many mobs doing too much damage with too much hp who were given too many CC and debuff abilities.

Is this serious!?!? People find the tower “hard content”? I am amazed. Finally content that requires me to play my abilities and think a bit about which skills to choose! Yeah! But ‘hard’? No. Not even close to hard.

I cleared it on second evening with my Ranger, then again a few times with my Zerk Guardian. The “3rd floor run” to get to top is a bit tricky, but nothing that cannot be compensated by using a minimal level of thinking and planning – choose your skills well and time your dodges. I bet most of those who QQ did not even bother respecc to skills that grant Stability or stun-breaks.

And of course, those same players that find the tower hard do not make it easier on themselves by keyboard-turning….

Zel