Guild Wars 2

I’ve made one ascended weapon so far, have the mats for another, and am about a third of the way through the dragonite and empyreal for a third. I’ve done a lot more gathering runs, world bosses and temples then I’d have otherwise chosen to. If I didn’t feel the need to gear up for WvW I’d not be bothering. Ascended armour’s coming in a month or two so it’s not getting better any time soon.

> no one has an expectation for what they want fixed

Reduce all ascended gear to exotic stats in WvW. For me, that would solve the ‘ascended problem’ altogether.

Obtena.7952:

Statistical loot is not BiS; it’s just some vague nonsense really.

Some players have interpreted “the best statistical loot” as meaning “loot with the best statistics”.

Similarly, http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/guild-wars-2-interview-monetization/ . Mike O’Brien: “Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.” Some players interpreted that to mean that GW2 did not feature “grinding to get the best gear.”

On their own website: https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success/ " Colin Johanson wrote, “We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”. Some players have interpreteed being “just as poweful” as meaning, “just as powerful, and not less so by having worse gear stats.”

Some are able to read these statements and shrug them off – the basic argument there is, “players should not be so stupid as to believe marketing noises made by ArenaNet spokespeople.”

Sad but true.

Obtena.7952:

Do you have a quote that Anet said this because I would doubt highly for such a thing.

The most quoted example is http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-27-guild-wars-2-preview.

“Colin Johanson: Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base.”

> Umh. Where have you seen the new armor skins, please?

Codes and various screenshots can be seen here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1njf9o/new_ascended_armor/

Agreed: if you’ve a commander and zerg into capping things the wvw karma train is probably the best.

Engineers and rangers with 1500 range weapons can stand right on the edge of the platform. We get knocked off sometimes but that’s all.

Sadly Golem II is bugged on Gunnars Hold and not spawning at all. (Also the Claw of Jormag is bugged half way through phase one and can’t be completed; it’s a bad day for bosses on GH

Mastruq.2463:

Did they announce crafted ascended armor before the year ends?

Yes they did. See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRR7TNC7c7s . At 2:20, “Ascended armour … coming later in the year.”

> You in no way need ascended gear

New players coming to WvW next year will find themselves up against enemies with ascended weapon and armour sets that give a very real advantage, and that need massive amounts of time and money to acquire.

You didn’t need ascended gear when it was just trinkets that gave a few extra stat points, plus agony resistance for fractals. You will increasingly need ascended gear (for WvW at least) as it moves to a full set of armour, weapons and trinkets.

I understand that WvW, while the most fun and innovative part of the game is not valued by NCSoft/ANet, but it’s sad to see it damaged in this way.

All races move at the same base speed. So asuras legs move like crazy while the norn or charr next to them jogs slowly.

Warhorn-4 and Signet of Rage will give you permanent swiftness. Greatsword-3 and -4 move you forwards more quickly. Sword-2 will make you leap forwards. (Remember to disable auto-targeting first!) If you use a banner (there are multiple utility banners, and an elite), its number 4 skill will make you rush forward.

Warrior’s Sprint, the number III skill in the Discipline line can be really effective. The Balanced Stance utility skill is good in combat for giving you stability, but does also grant swiftness.

In short, Warriors have lots of ways to go faster.

Painting your toon red may also help; your mileage may vary ;- )

Some maps seem to change more frequently than others. For example, wood and ori in Cursed Shore and Malchors Leap stays in place for the full week. In Frostgorge they change much more frequently. Similarly, herbs in Straits of Devastation seem to change more than once a day.

+50 to +150 stat points doesn’t sound game breaking. However when I have the +150, whether in small scale 1v1-3 or roaming with my guild, I’ve been killing other players much more quickly and easily than usual.

Is it possible that the “+150” buff is giving us more than that? It seems to be right on the player stats page, but it does not seem to be right in practice.

Maybe the buff is not working properly, and giving the buffed players too much? It really feels like it.

I’m just out of WvW. I had the “Iron Hide” buff for about 30-40 mins after using a ram. I didn’t want to log out! 50% damage reduction, plus Bloodlust stacks – my warr was just indestructible. Good times! Do please hotfix asap, thank you :- )

Coldin.2840:

Yeah…I’m not a fan of dungeons. Maybe I’ll step back into them with the new Group Finder thing, but I still doubt I’ll enjoy them much.

Also, easy doesn’t really seem like the right term. It’s 20 per path, and some of those paths can take quite a long period of time.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_basic_chests

I added six of the eight Cursed Shore chests and three in Malchor’s Leap to my node runs for orichalcum and ancient wood. That’s 20-25 fragments per run. Makes a change from dungeons.

right click > destroy

I’ve been doing this for some time now.

Run dungeons, champion trains and temples for gold and loot. Sell and salvage that, buy T6 mats on the BLTP. It’s more fun, and more profitable.

Astralporing.1957:

Savoy.6824:

Nope, ancient wood works the same way. You get a set amount per map, per character.

When i overfarm a map on ori, it stops showing for my other characters. Wood nodes however stay the same, so either it has no cap, or it is higher and i don’t run into it.

Each of my six 80s can mine five ori on Cursed Shore and five ori in Malchors Leap per day. I.e. those six chars can mine 60 ori per day between those two maps. What is “overfarming”, for you?

Thanks

> I’ve been running CoF P1, P1, P2, P1, and getting 20 each time.

If you do a given path more than once in a day, do you still get 20 fragments each run?

+1 for luck to karma conversion.

We’re getting luck now at the cost of karma. There is a 300% cap on magic find. Once a player has as much %MF as they want – or they have reached the cap – luck will be worthless unless it can be transformed into something useful. Such as karma.

I use a Grenadier build if I take my engineer zerging. High damage, 1500-range AoE, plus perma-switfness makes for a decent ranged build. I don’t agree that “all the condi damage is outdone by necro”. I agree that retaliation shuts flamethrower down but can’t say I noticed that for grenades.

I grew up in PvE and have been branching out into WvW and enjoying that. What little PvP I do has been mainly to skill up for WvW. I might do more PvP if I could take any rewards out of it beyond Guild Influence.

See Hamartia’s guide for a fire-focussed scepter/dagger build designed for PvE. Well worth a look for levelling. Terrific DPS, about five blast finishers and a big long-lasting fire field for huge might stacks.

Like AndrewSX and others I prefer staff on my Ele in WvW. I typically run with a guild of 20-30, or with a Zerg if I’m just messing around. Staff eles are wanted mainly for water and lightning fields, plus general ranged DPS.

Staff is terrible for small scale fights. The AoE attacks are slow to cast and easily dodged. Mobility is limited. Single target DPS is very low. Dagger/dagger is the clear 1vX winner. Scepter/dagger for maybe up to 10 a side. Staff for big fights and sieges.

Sagramor and Tammuz make some good points.

In my experience Merciless Hammer and Leg Specialist improve the hammer greatly, as does Unsuspecting Foe.

I want to use Death from Above but keep finding something more useful in the other four trait lines.

I’m having a great time running hammer warrior with my WvW guild. Hammer for control, sword/warhorn for mobility. Probably my favourite thing in GW2 at the moment.

Axe/mace is a good damage/control pair for PvE; axe/shield for bosses, fractal harpies and the like. Off hand mace and shield are both excellent.

Warrior has great gap closers (sword 2, axe burst skill, shield 4, bulls charge…) and a lot of crowd control if you like knockdowns and stuns.

If levelling a Warr again, I’d be waiting to get Dogged March and Adrenal Health – 15 points in Defence. I find both traits really useful. For utilities, I tend towards shout heal builds (XII in Tactics) with Shake it Off and For Great Justice.

Best things about warrior compared to necro: easy perma-swiftness with warhorn and signet of rage. Good structural damage with most weapons. Knockdowns and stuns with mace and hammer. Cleave attacks.

I used Lyssa/SoR/Signet mastery for about the last six months. With all the extra badges of honor I recently took the plunge and bought a full Soldiers/Melandru set for WvW, changing Signet Mastery to Death from Above.

I miss stability (and protection and regen) on SoR, and have had to swap a shout out for Balanced Stance. I love the way conditions and stuns slide off me with the runes+soup. Relying less on SoR means that I can slot Battle Standard.

Lyssa gives an incredible elite, but one that demands SoR and Signet Mastery for best results. Melandru turns ‘swap all conditions for all boons every 48s’ into ‘less conditions always.’

Overall it’s not a huge difference, but I do feel a bit stronger in condition-heavy environments.

^ This is great.

> [would] the melee train of a zerg would be more effective with less guardians and more warriors?

The calls in my WvW guild tend towards ‘please bring a warrior or guardian if you have one.’ I.e. we at at least want more warriors and more guardians!

In general I agree with Lalnuir: you need a balance.

> You DON’T want to actually BE the warrior though. Trust me, you’re a lot happier on the guardian.

I’ve been having a great time playing the hammer/sword/warhorn frontline warrior. Being at the front of the train isn’t the death sentence I was expecting ;-)

> great………a thief….what are we gonna do with a thief….?

Sadly there’s some truth to this. In my small guild, we’ve come to view thieves as dangerous WvW roamers and harassers, but not a class that pulls their weight in dungeons. On average, thieves seem to spend more time downed in dungeon runs than any other class. We’re rarely thrilled when we go to gw2lfg for a fifth and get a thief for it.

Stealth can be useful in dungeons sometimes. For example, a few nights ago the party chilled in AC path 3 while the thief picked up scepter parts for us.

After a thousand+ hours in game I’m finally levelling a thief to get a more informed opinion.

My build that cost 55 points and left me 15 to play with, now costs 75. Thanks ANet!

Well, it’s happened: IC now costs 20 points more, and Blurred Frenzy takes retaliation damage. We’ve gained some additional ‘on interrupt’ skills it’ll take us a while to work out what to do with. Overall, a sad day for mesmers.

The IC nerf is missing from this version of the patch notes: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/25th-June-Patch-Notes/first

My mesmer was built around Blade Training, Chaotic Dampening, Warden’s Feedback and of course, Illusionists Celerity – i.e., IC + traits for my three weapons. These changes are a straight nerf to that build, for no obvious gain. I’d have been ok – just – if IC were made a Master trait, and not a Grandmaster minor. (0/10/20/20/20)

If they would fix Illusionary Elasticity I could move to 0/0/20/20/30. Otherwise it might be time to shelve the mes and main necro again for a while :- (

I’d like to see something like an Elo rating for servers. Or just a squash ladder :)

Hiya P :)
Re: price tag. Conservatively let’s say this monopoly yields 1g per day – call it 400g per year. But for how many years? The first unknown is the upcoming further changes to the salvaging system – they could easily force down the cost of crafting your product. But if it can be crafted for 90c it’s fairly low-tier so let’s assume no impact there. The next unknown is the time for which GW2 will last at (its) current number of active players. Maybe five years? Perhaps you could net 2000g over five years?

OK so you have 30g stock, 15g in buy orders up and 2000g expected revenue over five years. So that might put an upper limit on its value at ~2050g for those assumptions of gold/day and years to the game. Clearly if we’d said 2g/day or 750g/year that would be ~3800g over five years. So 2000-4000 over five, all things being equal.

So let’s say you were selling a proposition of 3000g over five years. How much might that sell for? There’s quite a bit of risk. The next question is what is a reasonable rate of return on investment that anyone should be able to expect? (I.e, what’s the opportunity cost?)

For example, I think a return of 5-10% per month on investment is possible – let’s call it 7% – but at 7% compound per month, 70g would become 3000g over five years.

So if I were currently a market player making 7% per month then I’d offer you 70g at the most for your “business opportunity” of 3000g over five years. If I were making only 3%, I might offer you up to 500g.

On those numbers, my first guess on the worth of such a monopoly is somewhere around a year’s revenue.

(Edited for kittens)

I run traited grenades on my Engineer in WvW. I’ve been using 30/0/10/20/10 – Grenadier, Explosive Descent, Invigorating Speed, Speedy Kits. Elixir Gun and Elixir C or S. It’s good artillery but not ideal in 1v1. Perma-haste and vigour mean I can keep up, and get away, most of the time.

I’m surprised not to see more mention of traited grenade engineers – that’s what feels like my strongest underwater build, before condition necro and mesmer. Still, I haven’t made much use of the spear on the mesmer yet – must investigate.

> putting points in Illusions reduced the shatter recharge time.

[smacks head] yes, of course, you’re right.

Hi Nemesis,
Can you clarify your response to osicat? You wrote,

The reason why i didn’t take Illusionary Persona is because i already have shatter recharge rate reduced a bit more then i need.

But Illusionary Persona does not reduce shatter recharge rate. It “causes the user to count as an illusion for the mesmer’s shatter mechanic. […] This means shatter skills can be used even when no illusions are up.”

So it gives you harder-hitting shatters, and the ability to shatter without clones. Do you still prefer Confusing Combatants? Did you try both?

I’m testing your build out in PvE, and liking it despite Confusion being subpar. I’m balking at the cost of Sigils of Generosity, but do need better condition management. The lack of swiftness is also frustrating. So things to try include:

1. Centaur or Air runes, trading damage for speed
2. Lemongrass or poultry and leek soup, trading confusion duration for condition mitigation. Possibly switch in null field?
3. Cheaper sigils, such as Might or Battle

> shark farming

I got a weapon ticket from a crate from a personal chest while farming shark in south sun yesterday. The sharks wander round in nice tight packs of five or so. Get ‘em before they’re gone!

Thank you for the quick fix to staff mastery .

Do please fix the 1/3-downed-health bug: I’m always amazed when downed while playing an alt how long I get. I’d love to have this on my necro as well!

Probably the new vendor. We also noticed last night that the drop rate of shell from young karka felt much lower. If the drop rate really has fallen, and the event is drawing to a close, that could also start pushing prices up.

I think this post and other guides like it are responsible. This isn’t the first spike in dill prices: there was a similar one back around May 3rd. I spent several days running around harvesting dill in response. A guild mate laughed because someone was crying in Lions Arch map chat about how they needed money to buy dill to level their crafting :- )

In short: someone’s fleecing ignorant cooking levellers, again. Time to go dill harvesting :- )

Flow’s build is perhaps the best current example of using the staff as a primary weapon.

As LastDay says, it’s more normally a secondary weapon: use it to pull mobs, drop marks before battle, while backing away from a boss to heal up, or manning ramparts or defending chokepoints in WvW. It has range and utility, and improves with both power and condition damage.

Its auto-attack, while weak, is a 20% chance projectile finisher. That’s something, given all the fields you’re putting down.

That was fun to watch over a rainy lunch break – thank you! It’s impressive what the engy can do in the right hands.

You’re not alone. There’s a Ranger in our guild that gets this every time. Necros, Guardians and Warriors all seem fine.

It’s not an engineer-specific bug. It’s a path 3 bug that affects at least three classes.

Kraag, what an excellent, mathhammered lifesteal on crit build! I’ve bookmarked this page and look forward to giving it a go in WvW : -)

Wangatang, I don’t know if you’re looking for WvW, PvP or PvE. For PvE Dungeons, I’ve been having a great time with Nemesis’ ‘Abomination’ build, here. That’s a 15/0/25/30/0 Power-Tougness-Vitality tank build. It steals life via wells rather than on-crit, goes for regen from focus as opposed to lifesteal from warhorn, and trades some damage for survivability. I swap the dagger out for an axe for the most dangerous boss fights.

Finally, necro lifesteal doesn’t seem so popular in PvP. It scales with the number of available targets, and is pretty lackluster one-on-one.

0/30/20/20/0 is also popular for condition builds. Blood is Power and Epidemic are the mainstay utilities – do give them both another try. As well as Nemesis’ excellent guides, see also Lopez’ here . As Anchoku says, the high toughness that comes with Rabid will draw you a lot of aggro. If you’re doing a lot of gw2lfg drops, with random party makeup, do consider easing off on the Toughness a bit so that you can swap Signet of the Locust for something more situationally useful. (If you play in a regular group you may have enough melee in your party to keep the aggro off you with full rabid.)

> I think many heavily underestimate the focus

Agreed. The Focus is wonderful with dagger or axe. Less so with scepter.

For ‘optimal’ open world PvE, dagger off hand, and Signet of the Locust. Switch off-hand dagger for a warhorn for travelling. CPC can be very effective. Switch ‘Locust for CPC if you know you’re going into extended combat, such as with archers, event champions or other things that don’t move around much. As flow says, the master of corruption trait is well worth taking for BiP, Epidemic and CPC.

Off-hand dagger (4) is really effective with the corruption utilities – especially if you’re running all three. S/D and Corruption utilities is the bread-and-butter condition build for a reason.

So: yes you’ll be gimping yourself quite a bit by running S/F. The good news is, it’s only open world PvE, and you can easily try both S/D and S/F to see how much effectiveness you’re trading for looks.

> viable in wvw/pve?

Your build looks a lot more targeted to PvP/WvW then to PvE. Corrupt Boon isn’t much use in PvE – most mobs don’t buff themselves a lot. It’s clearly a high damage, close-to-midrange combat setup. My main concern with this build in PvE, and especially dungeons, would be simply staying alive. As Zenith notes, wells may not be ideal for WvW, where your enemies will tend to roll out of them.

> im not sure if its worth to spend all my tokens and relics to gear up

The good thing with Knights gear is that it’s cheap, and readily acquirable through crafting or the Trade Post. One option would be to make/buy a cheap rare set to test your build out with. If it’s working, you could start upgrading to exotic/ascended.

> if I trait my necro with rabid gear and go for the pure condi build […]
> am I going to have an equally difficult time surviving in dungeons?

As Panhuaramix says, the first thing I noticed on going full rabid was how much aggro I was drawing. Bosses like Malrona in Twilight Arbor / Up, or the Champion Risen Abominations in Orr just wouldn’t leave me alone. I ended up needing to lose some toughness, and to use the Locust Signet more than I’d rather. However, Lopez’ fractal guide attests to the conditionmancer’s viability in dungeons.

Rabid conditionmancer has superb AoE. Sometimes that’s not what you want, like in the Cliffside fractal, where you want to leave a chanter alive at one wrist seal. Other times it’s wonderful, like in the Charr or Dredge fractals. I’m taking a break from rabid, but do expect to go back periodically. I don’t regret having ground out the gear, at all.

Spectral walk is your best stunbreaker.

Well of Blood is much improved by Ritual Mastery – Blood Magic VII, -20% cooldown time, and Ritual of Protection – Death Magic IV, wells apply 3s of protection. The Blood Fiend may be workable if you’re going minion master, but not really otherwise. Consume Conditions is the staple for Corruption-using conditionmancers.

Do remember that Mark of Blood (staff 2) can give both you and your minions regeneration . You can also gain Regeneration from the Focus (I’ve come to love its attack 4). You can get ‘life siphon’ powers from the Blood Magic tree, and main hand dagger. See for example blood Magic VII, Vampiric Master – all your pets attacks will siphon life to you. Although Healing Power boosts regeneration but not life siphon, life siphon is another way to scrape back a few hitpoints.

We’re not the best dodgers; instead we can choose to put points into Soul Reaping, and spend more time in Death Shroud. I haven’t done this much outside of PvP yet.