Guild Wars 2

Syntharia.8067:

Bump? I can’t find them either Tried different merchants with different toons, achieves done etc, etc. Halp

For me, both became available at laurel merchants when I completed Gates of Maguuma Mastery. I really don’t know why that is the case, but there’s some talk on the wiki too about this occurring for people where a mastery needs to be done for this to show up at laurel merchants.

CorneliusCoffin.3169:

Well, there’s lots of small pieces of lore in all the refugee camps. If you go there, you’ll find a lot of familiar faces from Lion’s Arch and they’ll tell you what exactly happend to them (although that rarely goes beyond “oh my god, it’s all gone, I lost everything, what am i gonna do now?”)
A lot of it, I find slighty confusing. Like, why is Commodore Lawson Mariner degraded to a simple merchant? Why isn’t Evon Gnashblade selling his stuff through the Blacklion’s tradepost?
And why do people in the refugee camps keep insisting that Scarlet’s attack came totally out of the blue?

Evon is standing right next to several trading post merchants. He never sold things directly, so that makes sense. In lore, the attack did come out of the blue. Marjory, Kiel, and etc. tried to warn the council but were met with no success, extended from the last patch. A lot of citizens are “merchants” now probably to give them more function beyond just npcs standing there.

One Note Chord.5031:

Some skins were always supposed to be grindy. It was just stats that they promised would never require a grind.

(And then they added ascended stuff, so everything can be grindy now! In fact, a few months before release they listed a lot of things they thought were bad in other MMOs and all those things got added to the game within a year. Oops.)

Initially they thought exotics would be much more difficult for players to get, so ascended was brought it. From what I can tell this amounts to what they hoped exotics would be. If anything, that level of gear is really only for folks who want to work for it, and is not necessary for any content except high level fractals, which is already endgame like content.

Far as the rest of this goes, “cool LS rewards” is pretty subjective. There are quite a few things introduced in this patch that are new, including a back item like other patches. However, the back item can be completed by doing the content, rather than completing the meta-achievement. It’s just a different way to get the same kind of reward. Whether or not it’s better or worse is somewhat subjective too, far as work put in vs. rewards. There seems to also be different tiers of that back item, as well.

It seems like the bulk of the lore happened last patch. You can still get some insight into things by talking and listening to npcs around the camps and the Vigil.

Thanks for showing me this. I had wondered if there was a thread, but, as you might expect, when I tried to search for something, I got no results. >.<

This has been a problem for me for a while now, and one reason I haven’t really used the forums much: the search box doesn’t seem to work for me. I don’t mean not work in the sense that I can’t use it, I mean doesn’t work in the sense that it rarely returns any results for anything. If I search for something specific, like: shadow of grenth, I get 0 results. If I search for something more general, like: sword, or, armor, or, weapon, I get 0 results.

This isn’t the case all the time, as sometimes I do get some results, sometimes, for some searches, but I would say about 95% of the time I try to search for anything, I get no results. Now, I’m not sure if it’s an internet setting that’s causing this, or if it’s the browser I’m using (right now Internet Explorer 11), or what, but I’m curios to know if anyone else has had this issue, or if there are any known solutions to this.

This might have been brought up before, but I’m wondering why the game has both a crest and a gem with the same stat combination? I never noticed that before, and it seems a bit strange, not only because it’s the only stat with both a gem and crest, but also because not all the stat combos have been filled yet. Unless there’s a reason for that which I’m missing (not unlikely), seems like it’d be nice to change the crest stats to something else at some point in the future.

I don’t think they need to punish berserker gear and stat allocations, per se. What they do need to do, however, is make pve content more compatible with their build system: you take one thing, you give something up. Mob classes that require different strategies or different setups to beat seems like a good start (i.e., enemies that can’t be critical hit, fast casters that need confusion to effectively take down, enemies that come in large swarms befitting the aoe aspect of conditions – not limited to 5 like burst damage). At the very lease, having a mix of enemies like that in the game would reward various build and party combinations.

Berserker stat allocations and gear are fine for character setups, but, the goal shouldn’t be to punish some stat allocations, but to reward others, like heavy support, sustained damage, aoe/condition builds (conditions are aoe, really) and so on. Enemies that reward different build setups would be the way to go. Then berserker setups would shine where they are supposed to, which is more single target/small group burst damage, but not where they make no sense to, like sustained fights. In that sense, balanced parties would be rewarding on top of that. Granted, that’s easy to conceive, more difficult to implement, but seems like the way to go.

I’ve noticed that the Opal shards and up only have three stats now. Any word on what the removed magic find stat will be replaced with? I’m assuming power, since explorer items and now assassin ones, but am curious.

Not sure how many else got this in their servers or overflows, but at least half the portals I went to were bugged in some way and were not spawning minions. This made the event pretty well impossible to complete I think even if we did have enough people.

So far, it has only been in Frostgorge. The first two were fine, as far as I could tell.

I wasn’t making a direct developer quotation there, because I know it doesn’t pertain to the whole game. The point about the grind was less relevant than the rest of the post. Obviously you need to work for gear, that just makes sense, and I was being sarcastic by the end, as by this point I’ve become a little irritated by all the tokens/karma I’ve misused.

Apparently the game started with a first person mode, but was taken out. I’m not sure why. Angling the camera Also only goes so far. For example, on my 9 ft Norn, and even on other characters, I’ve so far only encountered a couple jump puzzles that I could get through in which my camera did not start glitching out, since, even with the off-set view, it still bugs. Even a “partial” first person view, like, your character becomes transparent, would work – just something that doesn’t cause the camera to constantly glitch in close quarters.

Please…seriously.

Account wallets are coming soon, so dungeon tokens are considered currency. Why not have a buyback option for dungeon armor? Nothing fancy, just have the same time limit buyback window as other merchants have.

I’m getting rather tired of being just a little groggy or excited and mis-clicking on the wrong armor or weapon piece, and thus losing sometimes hours of my life. I don’t really want to make a QQ type post, and I’m pretty sure this has been suggested before, but I swear, I’ve had to have lost at least 1200 tokens so far on mis-clicks, and I’m sure I’ll lose more.

Same thing with karma gear. I’ve probably lost close to 100,000 karma clicking the wrong item. Since I doubt they’ll make dungeon or karma gear account bound instead of soul bound, why not just the same time limited window on karma gear? Features like that can keep little mistakes from being painstaking ones, and quite frankly, would fit with the “no/limited grind” mentality Guild Wars has. Since, as it is, if you mis-click what gear you want to buy, tough luck. You have to grind that karma or those tokens back.

And just to clarify, I don’t mean a buy-back option to convert gear to gold, I mean buyback in the same currency. I buy the wrong item with, say, 300 tokens, like I just did, I go to buyback, and get my 300 tokens back. I accidentally buy that exotic karma gear I didn’t want for 42,000 karma, well, I buyback my 42,000 karma.

Well, time to go grind back 300 tokens in this no grind game.

The tactics minor traits certainly aren’t useless. It’s just that, rather that being damage related they’re more, well, tactical. The might on the grandmaster one may not seem like much, but if it ever comes to be that additional people come with boon on revival, like guardians, it helps provide an increased overall buff when an ally revives. It can’t be too much might, as, say, if several warriors revive someone with this trait, it can stack up rather quickly.

They are definitely sub-par in pvp, though, since so few revives happen. But, they are very useful in genera pve, dungeons, and wvw.

I noticed a personal improvement in survivability already after the patch, especially with the additional condition removal. As far as that last video goes though, while I see where he’s coming from, a full sentinel’s set certainly isn’t pointless on a warrior, nor is a seemingly excessive amount of health. Just because it’s hard to heal the total amount of health even with shout heals, doesn’t mean that it’s necessary to do so to have sustaining capacity.

It could even be said that traits such as Desperate Power can be held onto longer if the toughness and vitality are higher, giving extra damage to a more defensive setup.

Well, “builds” are something that you really can’t optimize until you have full access to all of your trait points (i.e., level 80). At that point, builds will be more significant, not that trait allocation doesn’t matter at lower levels.

The advices I give to folks of any class they are new with is to spec first into toughness, vitality, and power, in that order. Toughness improves direct damage mitigation, vitality sustain damage (condition) mitigation, and power improves attack. The idea behind this is that taking care of defenses first gives you more breathing room with respect to learning about the class.

Especially if you’re new to the game, you should give yourself some leeway to learn how this game differs from others. Learning how to utilize dodges, evasive maneuvers, enemy cues, and how self-healing functions. As you get better, you might consider playing around more with power and precision for higher damage, or the warrior Discipline line.

As far as weapons go, the warrior can use more weapons than any other class, as well as use them in different combinations. Take the time to make use of different weapons and unlock all the skills associated with them (including underwater weapons). However, most warriors (and guardians and mesmers, actually) consider the greatsword to be their staple, if you will. It is a weapon that has a capacity for both high damage as well as high mobility, which is actually more significant than stationary defense in this game. Paired with that is typically a ranged weapon. Personally I favor the bow over the riffle as while it has a bit less range untraited, it has area of effect damage. It also contains the warrior’s only combo field, which is it’s burst skill, which can also serve as a teaching tool for how combo fields and finishers work, which is a game mechanic itself.

Those two weapons paired are probably the most versatile pairing warriors have, as they cover both melee and range damage, a stationary as well as movement skills, and combo fields (bow burst) and finishers (greatsword 3 and 4). In the long run, of course, I think it’s fair to say most warriors will always carry at least one of each weapon on them (two in the case of dual wielded weapons, namely swords, maces, and axes). For greater detail, there’s a warrior weapons guide on the top of this warrior forum section.

As far as armor goes, I’d say early on armor that focus on defensive traits, namely toughness and vitality. Early on you’ll only get one stat per armor, but eventually two, then three. If you start to feel more comfortable with your defenses, you can get armor that emphasizes power and or precision.

Utility skills are very versatile, and can really further the way your use your character. You’ll unlike them bit by bit, so when you do unlock one, be sure to try it out for a while. Utility skills like weapons and armor can be changed at any time out of combat, so feel free to experiment. Some very common choices, however, especially early on, are the shout “For Great Justice!,” the shout “Shake It Off!,” and Signet of Might, all in the first tier of utilities. Warriors have 4 kinds of utilities: banners, stances, shouts, and physical skills. It’s good to explore all of them.

Ultimately you’ll learn by doing more so than being told, but that should help get you started, I think. Make sure to always try a variety of things, and be willing to change.

Well, depending on how you define comparable, it could be yes and no. If comparable means damage within a range of, say, 10-30% or so, then I’d say yes, though you will certainly be doing less. If you mean more or less “exactly” the same, then no.

Part of the idea behind the patch was to refit warriors so you can’t do it all. For example, using greatsword, before you could have up to 12% additional damage, up to 9% additional critical chance, and a might stack on each critical. Now, you have an option to pick two of the following three: might stack on critical, up to 15% additional damage, up to 15% additional critical chance. You can’t have all three.

Basically, warriors have always had a wide variety of viable builds in PvE, it’s just that some clearly outshone others in terms of effectiveness, particularly with how direct burst damage compares to sustained damage. The recent patch has brought down the most exceptional setups to where they are more comparable to others that are not as damage focused.

However, greatswords and axes are still the more direct damage weapons, swords are still the more condition oriented weapons, and hammers and maces are still the more control oriented weapons. The fundamentals behind these weapons haven’t changed, so if you’re looking for a berserker oriented setup, builds which benefit greatswords and axes will those builds most appropriate for what your looking for.

If it is taken into consideration that no single patch represents a completely finished state of the game, then I’m overall happy with the update. The ultimate goal is to create classes that are different, yet equivalent, and this is not the easiest of tasks, considering just how many things can impact how well a class, build, or specific skill can operate.

Warriors took a notable damage nerf overall, which, honestly, I don’t mind. Warriors have been the heaviest hitting class, and still are, only now they are a bit more comparable in terms of risk/rewards to other classes. The shifting around of various traits means that there are few clear and obvious “best” traits at any given level of a trait tree, which opens up more options, and makes different builds more viable and even equivalent.

I primarily play PvE, and in that sense, the recent update has made for greater versatility. I now actually feel like making use of the burst skills of all weapons is more of a benefit than a detriment to any build I’ve run, which was the idea to start with. Condition removal is better, and the choice of traits is, actually, more sensible.

I somewhat have to cede to those more experienced in PvP with respect to how warrior compares. I’ve certainly felt very vulnerable in PvP in the past when I’ve run high damage builds, and ineffective with higher survivability builds. However, I can say the following. Blind is now a more powerful against a warrior with the new mechanics. It does seem like with difficulty in now has in being removed, it should be more difficult to apply, or at least more infrequently, that’s something that probably should be dealt with. Warriors still have a comparatively difficult time considering they don’t have as easy access to many defensive boons or offensive area of effect skills (there’s the longbow, and…the longbow).

Personally, I think it would be nice if Guild Wars 2 had, like the first game eventually came to have, separate PvE and PvP skills, even traits. Many of the issues that Warriors and other classes have with respect to these different game types is that there’s only one set of skills which are supposed to operate equivalently for two almost completely different game types. You could even have 3 skill sets or variations on skill sets if you want to consider WvW (some folks call this PvP, some PvE, though I’d say more like PvP).

Warriors also aren’t the only class that have had very hit and miss patches. It’d be much easier, at least I’d think, if they separated the skills, then balanced the skills within the two different game types, rather then try and make them exactly the same. After all, some skills are obviously PvE skills already (like banners), that have no functional place in PvP they way their designed. Removing those from PvP and giving more functionally useful skills to address some issues with warrior in PvP could be a possibly solution to many persistent issues.

Overall, I think warriors are doing alright. Yes, they definitely need more work. It’s very clear warrior was built around PvE, more so than other classes, I find, and indeed function very well in PvE. As such, it takes even more work to make it more viable for a totally different game type, PvP (I’ll include WvW here). Each patch is, however, moving in the right direction, even if each patch by itself doesn’t fix all the issues within the game. I honestly don’t know how many patches it’ll take to make things right, but, it does pretty heavily depend, I think, on how restrictive the developers are going to be with what they’re willing to change. I will say, however, that if they want to make a uniform set of skills for two different game types, which didn’t work in the fist game either, then, well, it’s probably going to take quite a long time.

Warriors in this recent patch received a damage output reduction, but considering how high it was to start with, the nature of the reduction actually makes it a bit more balance compared to other classes, at least in terms of damage. Warriors can’t hit for as much as they used to, but the still hit very high hitting power compared to every other class. They bear a higher risk for being close combatants, and need a higher reward for it.

From what I’ve tried so far, if you’re using a greatsword setup, 30-25-0-0-15 is quite effective. You can play around with things, but so long as you have the Berserker’s Power trait and the two greatsword related traits, the rest of the things you can fiddle with. If you’re looking for more of an axe-axe or axe-mace setup, you might consider something like 30-0-0-10-30, which would allow you Berserker’s Power, Heightened Focus, and the two axe related skills, among other things, as well as Empowered.

Just keep in mind though that while some very key builds that people have commonly run have taken a hit, it does mean that a variety of other builds are becoming more comparable, and there’s plenty of room to experiment.

Realistically, stats can only go so far. You can say one rune or gem is better than another, but only if you can make it better. Scholar’s Runes I believe have been calculated to be slightly better provided 90% or better health is maintained. If you actually think you are capable of keeping your health that high throughout the entire duration of any fight, then Scholar’s would be a better choice for you.

However, realistically, if you take even one hit, particularly on a berserker setup, you’re automatically sub-par compared to Ruby Orbs. And as such, while Scholar’s Runes can be better than Ruby Orbs, I would venture a guess that for 98% of all situations, or even 98% of a single fight, Ruby Orbs will outshine the Scholar’s Runes considering how easily one can lose health.

However, you can consider getting the best of both worlds. At the time of me writing this, 6 Ruby Orbs cost less than 1/3 the price of a single Scholar Rune. Especially if you are not as familiar with a berserker setup, you should start with those. As you practice, keep an eye on your playing, and where your health pool is sitting as you get better. If, with practice, you are actually finding that you’re able to keep a high health pool, then you might give Scholar’s a try.

However, considering Scholars Runes cost close to 4 gold per rune, it is a very expensive try. I think you’ll find the benefits of those 2% of cases not to be noticeable, not worth 24 gold, and will probably just stick with Ruby Orbs once you try them.

Although both of these traits seem to function normally as far as the character sheets go, the icons that pop up over the UI (to indicate they are active) still say toughness and power are only increased by 70 like they did before the update. Seems like just a slight oversight.

The former easy off for blind was at a time when blinds were also easy on. Now that blinds are more difficult to remove, hopefully they will become more difficult to apply, eventually, that is, with future updates.

Also, so far everyone I’ve seen on the forums here that have tested Cleansing Ire with Burst Mastery note that it works as intended, meaning, a burst at 3 full bars removes 3 conditions. When I get some time I’ll have to make sure myself though.

Suppose in a sense it has. I certainly no longer expect primarily good things from class updates, though I certainly give credit where credit is due. I like that they are trying at least, even if updates often seem very hit and miss.

Personally I don’t mind that they shifted Berserker’s Power and Heightened Focus to the Grandmaster level. They were certainly the most powerful Adept traits for most general gameplay, and more powerful than many other Master and even Grandmaster level ones. That those were the most obvious choices for those lines besides weapon related skills means now players have to rethink how and where they spend their traits.

Much as the greatsword burst skill was not seemingly the best, at least in a PvP sense, I never hesitated to use it if I needed the extra endurance recharge, as well as the extra fury. Might be helpful, especially now with cleansing ire, to think of what you’re getting in exchange for using your bust skill.

With cleansing ire with a greatsword burst, you’re, basically, converting each condition you remove into 5 seconds of fury (more with increased boon duration). Depending on your setup, it’s possible to keep fury up without “For Great Justice” or Signet of Rage, meaning depending on what you’re going for, you can use those slots for other things, if so desired.

Before this update, of course, it was better to keep adrenaline full and use Signet of Rage and “For Great Justice” to keep up permanent fury on yourself. Now with the Berserkers traits moved to Grandmaster in the appropriate trees, other options are more viable, at least comparatively. From a more PvP oriented perspective, the greatsword burst skill is still not going to look as good as many others, but at the same time, some skills are overall more PvE geared than PvP, and vice versa. The burst of greatsword seems to be more PvE oriented, to allow for some various utility slots while keeping critical damage high.

This trait didn’t stack before, same with the guardian version. Unless there’s some bug in there, they shouldn’t stack after. If it does happen to, don’t expect it too for very long.

I wasn’t aware we were promised sustain. It’s been suggested and talked about, but I’ve never heard any developer say, “right, you’ll get some next patch.” At least, I haven’t. I might have missed something.

Like the equivalent guardian trait to give 150 toughness now, it shouldn’t stack. I’ll emphasize shouldn’t, since there are times when things are not supposed to but do. If it did/does, then it would be quite overpowered.

Dude, spelling….and….dots….

That aside though, there is some rationality in putting that trait in the precision line, if you want to call it that instead, considering increased precision means more frequent activation of the might stacks. Also, putting this into the Strength line would mean greatsword/spear are the only weapons with two traits related to them in the same line.

Before this recent patch, both mace 2 and sword 5 could block projectiles, and both could reflect projectiles also with Missile Deflection.

I’d have to do some more testing, but when I was playing around with this in Orr, Final Thrust was able to do 7-9k on a critical hit with 0 might stacks when the target was below 50% health. Was running 30-25-0-0-15 with a berserker setup, 3288 power and 81% critical damage. Took Dual Wielding and Berserker’s Power in the Strength line.

Seems to me like this change was to give the sword a bit more capacity outside of condition damage. Helps that swords can get the +10% critical chance above other weapons, at least in terms of traits, although now you can’t easily get Berserker’s Focus and Berserker’s Might. The cooldown on it though is…well, not the best. I think 10-12 seconds would have been better than 15.

Maybe this has been addressed before, but when i searched for “sigils” I got only one unrelated post.

Anyway, it was brought to my attention today that a guild mate was putting 2 sigils of accuracy on an main and off-hand weapon, and they were stacking in the critical chance stat on the character sheet, even though, at least as far as the wiki goes, 2 like sigils are not supposed to work in this way. I tried it myself and found this to be the case. It would be one thing if 2 handed weapons inherently “double stacked” the sigil, as someone suggested in the guild, which I had never seen, and still did not see when I tried a single sigil on a 2 handed weapon.

This seems like a rather notable bug, as if this is allowable it means that two single handed weapons can be inherently more powerful in terms of damage than a single two handed weapon, and that the wiki has been inaccurate for a long time with respect to two like sigils. It’s one thing to use two weapons with two different sigils and get some benefits from each. Maybe it’s just an issue with the character sheet, or maybe just an issue with the sigil of accuracy, I’m not sure, but double stacking of sigils does seem to go against the design intent of gameplay.

Top three? Hmm, well, there’s a lot more than 3 I have, but here goes:

1) Better utility skills.

The buffs to the signets are very much appreciated, but other utilities still seem not all that useful, or, at the very least, don’t have effects which are useful enough to warrant their use compared to others. Kick and Stomp especially come to mind, mostly due to their low damage or long recharge. The buff to banners was nice, and appreciated, though they still have very limited mobility, and good luck finding party members who take the time to help you move them around in a dungeon. A lot of utility skills need to be refitted, or outright replaced.

2) Better traits.

A lot of traits by themselves are certainly useful, either in the minor or major types, but compared to others just seem weak. Still others, like XI and XII in the strength line, I don’t see the point in using. Other seem broken, such as V in Tactics. Did some testing in Lion’s Arch, and I don’t think it actually increased the range of banners. Further, 50% of the Tactics line being rooting in reviving people (minor traits), which useful in pve, does mean that 50% of the Tactics line is useless in pvp, or so my experience has been, at least.

3) Weapon rebalancing.

I feel like while each weapon has some nice features to it, for warrior, if you’re using a weapon that isn’t putting out high dps, then it’s often not worth it, at least in pve, which is what I play most of the time. Powerful control effects don’t work on bosses, and condition damage, at least on warrior, isn’t comparatively useful, since there’s a dps ‘cap’ on how much condition damage can be taken at any given time, but not raw damage. Much as I like to use a variety of weapons, I find myself either using greatsword or axes for close ranged damage almost all the time, since other weapons just don’t have the damage capability. And to that, I feel like the sheer amount of damage greatswords and axes can do with high damage builds is part of what’s been keeping other aspects of warrior from being better balance.

Having said all this, though, I don’t personally know the best way to remedy these things and other aspects of the class. Class/weapon/skill balancing is not easy task, so, while I’m often disappointed at some choices Anet makes (like, buffing Kick…really?…Really?), I do appreciate the effort in trying.

Summon spells may not fit, exactly, but since the warrior can already summon a banner out of nowhere, I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch. At least, not outside of what they can already do. Honestly it’s already a bit quirky how they can pull banners apparently out of their own hammer space, or how banners can grant regeneration (sort of like how shouts can heal).

The biggest weakness of banners though is their mobility. I can understand the principles behind making them not fully mobile, but something like this would at least mitigate some of the weakness, making them more viable, while not fully scrapping the initial design choice.

I know some folks have talked about a sort of “backpack” option before, where one might carry a banner with them, thus making them all fully mobile buffs. I can sort of see that, but I don’t know if that’s fully in the spirit of the banner mechanics. Especially now with the increased stats, they work well in team PvE situations and dungeons, but not that much else at the moment, generally speaking. At least not compared to other skills and builds.

Just wondering what people here think about this: Banners have already been buffed with the recent update, but they still aren’t terribly viable for things like PvP due to their limited mobility. I think I can understand the reasoning behind the nature of banners as they are, but it still makes them only so viable.

It seems like one fairly easy fix to this would be to include a “Summon Banner to Your Location” option after it has been placed – after all, you’re already summoning them out of nowhere, apparently. So, for instance, right now when I summon a banner, without the reduced recharge rate, I just have a black space with a 120s cool down timer. Instead, the banner slot could be replaced with a new skill called, well, “Summon Banner to Your Location,” or something to that effect. Each banner could have it’s own skill, so you couldn’t just instantly summon all your banners at once, and each summon could have it’s own recharge. Something like 20 seconds seems reasonable, but anything in the range of 10-30 seconds might be fair.

In this way, banners could keep their aspects of limited mobility, needing multiple people to carry, say, a full utility/elite banner bar them for generally useful precise placement, but would also allow more versatile mobility than they presently have, and in that respect, might mean that they become at least a bit more viable in more situations.

I’d be interested in anyone thoughts on this. Also, if I’m terribly behind the loop and people have suggested this before and I’ve totally missed it, feel free to let me know I’m dumb like that. Don’t worry, it happens often.