Guild Wars 2

Earned it, been wearing it on the norn guardian, and yes – fix it, please.

No matter how small, quality of life changes are always very welcome and the re-ignited work on the little details is what brings hope for even better huge things.

So i managed to find a group selling raids and bought the Prison Camp completion.
It did not unlock the mastery track. I got all the other stuff, but not the mastery track.

I sent in a support ticket and a GM confirmed that it should work, but their hands are tied as they have no tool to manually unlock a mastery track.
I went ahead and bought a VG kill from another group and it worked that time.

Not only the sole fact of gating spirit shards behind raid masteries is bull, but also the whole mastery track unlocking is buggy and inconsistent.

Been pugging via LFG and, oddly enough, have only seen one wtb offer there, none wts.
Then again, while i did spend considerable amount of time there, it was not 24/7 and i wasn’t watching LFG during actual attempts, which did take the majority of the past week.
Will keep looking out on LFG but also wanted to post here, ranting included.

Short version:
Looking for a group that will unlock the possibility to train the remaining masteries for me.
AKA wtb VG kill or escort completion. (EU)
Can contribute on the way. Got full ascended zerker ele / condi engi. Mail me in-game.

.
Long version / vent:
I’ve been on a leave this week and dedicated nearly 70h total on learning the encounters and practicing them in-game.
Watched the videos. Prepared accordingly to most popular meta guides.
Since i haven’t had the time required to get into raids at any point in the past, i have no Legendary Insights to show. I haven’t joined any raid-oriented guild because of the time constraint and no real interest in raiding per se.
It was all fine and dandy not to raid – not particularly attached to that – but now the spirit shard generation has been gated behind completing the raid masteries. Now that – what next?

My first few runs were rocky, even if i’m a long-time player (while 20k AP don’t mean much, they do mean some time spent for dailies and other silly things that contribute to overall practice), but after the first seven hours i got competent enough to die as the last person on VG, and constantly so. I didn’t miss green circles unless the tank screwed up. I know my staff and its knob well enough not to mess up my rotations (…much).
Still, with all the groups i’ve attempted VG, best result i got to was 40%. 40%. At best.
Possibly one major contributing factor has been the fact that the team was changing – even if a single group opted to stay together for 2-3 hours, with no one being replaced, after that time (or the next day) it was all random people again, all more or less clueless about the fight, at best at my level of ‘experience’ (having spent dozens of hours without any luck, but understanding the mechanics and knowing enough on their own), at worst – people completely new to raids, first-timers each and every day, people that get frustrated and blame everyone around after the first wipe, people wearing masterwork gear for a raid (and it was a bearbow ranger at that), people who claim they’re experienced tanks with 100 LI but then screw it up for ten consecutive attempts and blame everyone around before leaving.
Got the picture yet?

People say – join a raid training guild. Or a proper raid guild. Right.
I’ve scoped raid training guilds on EU and it turned out their calendars were filled for this week. Perhaps there are more that i haven’t found, but a few of those guilds have already hit the 500 member cap and are currently not inviting anyone. Happens, that’s how it works.
Joining a raid guild, however, would be a bit unfair on my end – after all, i’m here only to get credit for one kill and proceed with the masteries. Not saying i wouldn’t be interested in raiding proper, but that’s at least a few months away – as it has been since raids were added to the game. But even if i were to join one, there’s a curious conundrum: raiding guilds either require a very strict code of conduct before joining them, including rites of passage, observation, writing a cover letter, fulfilling the requirement of raiding 2-3 times per week – or ‘simply’ requiring the new person to have over 100 LIs, a raid tonic, or some other stuff you can only get if you actively raid already.

Right, so i also tried joining VG pugs from lfg that didn’t state they were training teams. I pinged my equipment after joining, all fine and dandy; do you know your rotations on tempest, hi, yes i do; can you cover green circles, yes i can; very nice, very nice, 20k AP and even ascended armor, very nice, now ping your LIs – and since i have none, i got kicked from the group. Six times throughout the week, the very same scenario.
The sad part is that the majority of people i formed a ‘training group’ with complained about the very same situation as above. Mind it, it wasn’t everyone – if it were, they wouldn’t be training anymore, there always are those 3-4 people who really are new and need to see the encounter or who need to practice the mechanics. I’m not saying i’ve perfected them by now myself either, but i’m no dead weight on VG for sure.
Doesn’t matter – no LIs to ping, no ‘killproof’, instakick.

It’s a catch-22 problem. If you don’t raid, you won’t get into raids.
It wasn’t that much of an issue for people before the spirit shard re-introduction, but now their xp is still being wasted unless they have unlocked the raid masteries – aka they got credit for killing a raid boss.
I’ve been actively using up my spirit shards and would certainly use the extra generation via any means, so yes, it’s a direct issue. Even if not for the shards alone, if raid masteries are an obstacle for that, we’re in no position to be sure they won’t become an obstacle for anything else not related to raids.
Before that, people that don’t want to / can’t / won’t raid, simply ignored that part of the game and carried on. To me, it looks really neat, but i haven’t had the time to dedicate to it to properly learn the encounters – i am very well aware it’s nine other people who waste their time if i screw up, i don’t want to put anyone in that position until i know i am ready to spend enough time in raids, which won’t be for the next few months at least. If not for the spirit shards, i would gladly keep ignoring raids until that time.

Sure, ANet could implement one of many workaround for that – make the raid masteries available to train just after entering any of the raids rather than killing any boss; make the spirit shards generate without those masteries; removing those masteries and moving them to account unlocks like the new stuff in Bloodstone Fen. Add yours.
But it doesn’t seem to be on the table, and in the meantime there’s a lot of spirit shards to be had – that someone who was lucky enough to start raiding months ago will have, but now all newcomers are met with an impeneprable wall of high-experience expectations or even less-experienced clueless colleagues.

So, to sum up: wtb VG kill or w3 escort, just so that i can start grinding xp for raid masteries, just so that i can start earning spirit shards again.

Kunzaito: I’m not sure why you’re starting with the ad hominem argumentation. Is it hard to handle a dissenting opinion that also is backed up by raw factuation, with screenshots and explanation?
I merely pointed out that everything already is nicely pointed out. If people read/listen to the NPCs instead of running blindly ahead, they will know how it works, especially that there’s enough training via babysteps of bloodstones and golems.
Even if, at some point, i thought to myself that this OP is an entitled rusher complaining about a really cool and well-designed content just because it’s not given out on a silver plate where his regular cookie-cutter build works, i haven’t said such a thing, so i am not sure where your feelings of arrogance came from.

It is actually quite possible that if you re-do this story step, paying attention to all details and not rushing anything, you will notice all the instructions just as they are and will realise no change would be necessary. Worked for a few people from one of the guilds i’m a member of, and they didn’t enjoy the story the first time around simply because they rushed it.

Given the attitude so far, maybe you’ll find it odd but people quite often watch their surroundings in games and when they use a skill, they observe what it does. This is why there are three bloodstones at the beginning – so that you can, at your own pace, witness what it does.
To be fair, with the first bloodstone i thought i simply need to AoE it and hit the special skill by mistake, but the remaining two did the teaching trick for me.

I concur about feedback – feedback is good – as Koda teaches, balance is good as well.
So, going your way, counterbalancing your feedback – my feedback for ANet is that it’s all provided in the best possible way, namely that of the oldschool gaming rather than the contemporary hand-holding the majority of games have employed, including GW2 at times.

Glider skill #5 grants stability and is on 5s cooldown. It also seems that hiding your glider and re-deploying it often breaks aggro of the ghastly rocks.

First, Marjory says something about countermagic, implicating you need the new mastery. You can also read up on all the effects as the first three bloodstones do not drain much health: http://i.imgur.com/znNbOaY.jpg

Then, right before the elemental fight, Marjory explicitly states that shields will go down if you catch them in the bloodstone flux: http://i.imgur.com/Gg2lygW.jpg

It might have been worded in a more in-your-face manner, but why?
It’s been perfectly explained, there was time to read up on the effects and the new skill, to practice, and to take the shields down from elementals after an NPC tells you what to do.

Any external distractors should not be seen as a ‘reason’ for the story to be ill-written.

I died to her two times before i got it right the first time, and i am glad that not all fights and mechanics are dumbed down in this game anymore, and that we, as players, are actually required to follow advice of the NPCs, prepare for the occassion and execute our fight properly instead of simply pressing 2 for three minutes.

Once you do drop her shield and you’re trying to DPS you’re surrounded by a huge purple and red light so you cannot see her tells.

All tells you need to see are the orange fields, and they are well visible even through the bloodstone flux. Out of the two – circle and triangle – only the triangle can really hurt, as it knocks you down for a longer while.

If you feel you are getting knocked down a lot or you can’t handle the miniscule damage from the adds, let her kill you and change your skills / weapons for something more adequate: slot ranged AoE (either a weapon for swap or a utility skill) to take care of the adds – they really die in two hits; slot stability and pop it as soon as you see the triangle AoE attack (or just dodge).

I died to her two times before i got it right the first time, and i am glad that not all fights and mechanics are dumbed down in this game anymore, and that we, as players, are actually required to follow advice of the NPCs, prepare for the occassion and execute our fight properly instead of simply pressing 2 for three minutes.

Everything is there, provided by Marjory – but, you know, you can lead a horse to water…

edit:

Once you figure it out, it is still very frustrating because the margin between “went too far and the beam drops off of you” and “stayed too close and Adrienne knocks you back” is ridiculously small. Meantime you’re taking DoT from the shard and constant peppering from all the trash mobs.

You can avoid DoT if you use the special skill immediately – it also creates a bloodstone flux, and one that empowers you instead of draining your life.

I also don’t think there’s any range on the flux, however there is a time limit on it – you are draining hp of the bloodstone, and once it’s destroyed, the flux is over.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

PopeUrban.2578:

I agree that the counter magic/beam mechanic wasn’t messaged adequately. There probably should have been a more explicit callout during the training fights with the golems. I broke both of the golems and had no idea there was a tether/beam mechanic. I thought just breaking the bloodstone was what took their shields off.

I had exactly the same experience.

First, Marjory says something about countermagic, implicating you need the new mastery. You can also read up on all the effects as the first three bloodstones do not drain much health: http://i.imgur.com/znNbOaY.jpg

Then, right before the elemental fight, Marjory explicitly states that shields will go down if you catch them in the bloodstone flux: http://i.imgur.com/Gg2lygW.jpg

It might have been worded in a more in-your-face manner, but why?
It’s been perfectly explained, there was time to read up on the effects and the new skill, to practice, and to take the shields down from elementals after an NPC tells you what to do.

It’s a really good cliffhanger after a long time without new content – primarily lore-wise.
It is now confirmed that Caudecus is the White Mantle leader – something that we’ve been hinted at since the game’s release, but it could have gone a different way; we’ve SEEN THE MURSAAT! and everyone who played GW1 should be quite surprised by the interaction between Mr. C and Lazarus; we also had the big bomb dropped at the very end, with EXTREMELY good pacing of the dialogue (even more props to the Taimi voice actress!).

You need to see this episode exactly as that: an introduction to a new storyline, purposely ending with such cliffhangers.

Slowpokeking.8720:

OriOri.8724:

No, you don’t. Racial skills are not needed for this fight. When you get near a bloodstone it hurts you with a pretty large DoT effect. It also slows you down. So channel the special action skill you got from that mastery. It will popup when the bloodstone has “attacked” you, default keybinding is -. Use that skill and now you can channel the bloodstone magic through you. It instantly stops hurting you, you get to move faster, and it refills your endurance as well. That is literally all you have to do.

The fact that you keep talking about continuously taking damage shows that you aren’t actually using this skill, or at least not using it correctly.

I was talking about the special action skill. But even without using it, you could drag the beam to the elementals and the justicar and remove their shield. But the story didn’t hint you to use the skill.

The story teaches you about the skill and how it works a few steps back; first, in the previous story step, you get to fight the Jade Construct and see it damages stuff back; then, in the final step, you need to destroy bloodstones, then elementals, then the dudette…
With all due respect, but the current setup basically walks us through what and how needs to be done. It does so in the oldschool gaming style of showing rather than telling, which is the best way to handle it.

I’ve just finished the story on an alt wearing only masterwork gear, with no elite specialization – sure, it took longer and thus was more error-prone, i even died once – but that’s because i misclicked and was punished for my own error and weakness – but there was nothing especially difficult about it.

Stacks with itself.
You can buy it three times, for a total of +30% extra experience gain in Bloodstone Fen. Decide yourself if it’s worth it.

Currently running it on my fourth toon, and it’s fun enough to run on all the remaining ones, even if just for sense of completion – not to mention the extra quick unbound magic for the materials!

Hi!

I’m unable to log into ArenaNet account – and, thus, the forums – via Chrome. The login hangs after providing credentials (attached – the yellow circle keeps spinning). I have tried disabling AdBlockPlus and all other extensions, to no avail.

Works flawlessly with Firefox, logs in instantaneously.

Wyvern Matriarch in the Verdant Brink didn’t show up throughout the whole night phase. The icon was there on the map, the boss wasn’t anywhere.

Crystallized Cache Seeker achievement registered only one out of ~five opened caches.

Honorary Rata Novan does not recognise the first "Protected Zildl" event when one needs to divert the golem while Zildl reconfigures it. Without damaging the golem, i’ve kept its aggro on myself, got golden credit for the event, but the achievement hasn’t tracked it.

The flames in Tendril Torchers often don’t ignite the tendrils, despite being properly aimed; they seem to pass through the terrain below the tendrils instead.

Not getting map rewards for Southsun Cove, Dry Top, Silverwastes or the new Magus Falls maps on toons who have 100% map completion in core Tyria.

“Bark Breaker” achievement seems to be undoable – done the Laranthir and Pale Reavers event chain five times so far, no husk with breakable defiance bar to be found.

Story Act 4 achievement ‘Untethered’ not popping despite three successful attempts.

Same here, done – assuming – properly three times.

Nsknick.3816:

Donari.5237:

I do wonder if the 100% rep guilds kick someone who has a personal bank guild and has to rep it for a few minutes here and there to use the bank storage.

We have a 100% rep rule, it’s pretty easy to tell if someone is using their personal bank. If you’re in a guild that can’t, that guild needs help. If a person is not repping and is in LA, it’s pretty safe to assume that they are using their personal bank.

Not only that, but we also have a special thread in the guild forums to just leave a short message advising of having bank guilds, community guilds, or small guilds with friends.

The whole discussion is like ‘zerker vs soldier’ – if you’re someone who’s dedicated to a single community and want to make meaningful social bonds, you will rep 100% anyway. If you don’t, don’t join a guild that has 100% rep req.
No need to badmouth anyone around here.
It really is that easy.

Give www.midnight-mayhem.net a go – might be just the guild for you, with more than enough limited hardcore people (our time is limited, our approach is hardcore) in casual guild ramifications.
MM is all about opportunities for people, not pressure to join specific events (unless you want to be a member of the WvW raiding team, but that’s not exactly PvE). ~80 people online in the evenings makes the lfg tool look redundant.

Grab your team and give www.midnight-mayhem.net a go – might be just the guild for you guys, with more than enough limited hardcore people (our time is limited, our approach is hardcore) in casual guild ramifications.

The only time i used the sword and chose it consciously over the elemental was during Tequatl, back when you couldn’t crit bosses.
Never took part in fiery gs dungeon spam.

1. It generates influence.
Influence is a currency to not only upgrade the guild, but also fund one-time upgrades, buy missions, WvW and PvE boosts, etc.

2. It’s only fair.
If a guild is covering all aspects of the game (semi-hardcore social all-in-one guild), it’s very common to get people outright leeching on its potential.
Some people join a 300+ member guild so they never have to rely on lfg and they have the opportunity to do whatever they want in the game, and have the same people for it rather than random strangers each time (which is how my guild operates). Some people join such a guild just to hop in during the guild missions, or rep to ask if there’s someone for xyz dungeon and then rep their ‘main’ guild again. Neither is ok from the point of view of someone who put their heart and mind into making a big guild operate.

Big guilds are not extended friend lists to be used when it’s convenient.
(Unless they advertise as such ;-))

3. It’s easier to manage.
Because of 1 and 2, if someone’s repping another guild extensively and hasn’t let anyone know what’s up, it’s only rational to let such a person go and make room for someone else, who might be actually interested in being a guildie rather than just another name on the list, reaping the guild benefits when it suits them.

4. It builds bonds.
Repping the same guild makes you play / chat together more. Even in a 300+ guild, you really not need to be just a name on the list. I used to remember 200+ of my active guildies by their first name, location, and personal news; i would ask how’s their newborn child.
People who represented much less – for any reason – or who never really socialised via /g and the guild forums… well, they weren’t the 200+ i mentioned above.

Even then, a good guild does need some exceptions and a way to inform that you’re also a member of some community guild or a small circle of friends or you have four extra banks you might visit.

lightning hammer s/f ele had a place in dungeons too

lightning hammer

I run a d/d ele in PvP, sometimes switch for s/d or s/f just to refresh my game, and dabble into staff in premade teams; i still prefer either d/d or staff, even for PvP/WvW.

1) In PvE, if warhorn is to be viable, D/W or S/W needs to offer more than Staff.

Not more, just be on par, with alternative playstyle even. Currently scepter is just tiers below staff in terms of usage in PvE.

Maining ele since the headstart – i don’t give a rat’s kitten whether it’s a warhorn, a sword, or your grandma’s knitting set. It’s the skills and overall specialisation that count.
Then again, i’m from the old age of gaming when graphics / visual design weren’t the most important factor.

If they made all old achievement attainable (bar monthly and the dailies you missed, obviously), i’d be the first in line to buy gems for the purchase.
Bringing the old content back as instanced, toned-down versions where all the challenges are still there – looking forward to it much more than to the new expansion.

Maining ele since the headstart – i don’t give a rat’s kitten whether it’s a warhorn, a sword, or your grandma’s knitting set. It’s the skills and overall specialisation that count.
Then again, i’m from the old age of gaming when graphics / visual design weren’t the most important factor.

The first time i did Arah 4, back before all the nerfs to Dwayna and other steps, before skipping was cool fun and dandy, and before zerker meta was even there – the first time i did Arah 4 was with two rangers, a rifle warrior, a soldier’s guardian and a mixed gs warrior.

The catch?
They were all guildies.
Random people i met a month earlier, who decided to join my guild and form some bonds of sympathy over that month, reforging them from random strangers into guildies. Just by playing together.

Any time i do a dungeon/fotm nowadays, i ignore lfg and just hit off to /g.
Everyone’s welcome from /g, people get shown the tricks, taught the paths, rookies are welcome, bring-your-own-build style.

Your solution?
Join a guild.
Not a speedclearing high-end PvE guild. A decent, open guild.

If i want to run a speedclear, i get onto my zerker war or zerker ele and use a mix of people from /g and lfg.
It’s normal and natural that random pugs base on the most effective meta.

Simply either set up your own lfg with appropriate description, or join a guild that won’t mind you bringing a ptv ranger. No need to label meta-people as elitist jerks. It’s quite easy if you think about it.

I’ve been particularly against new professions because of how new professions were handled in GW1: ritualist was able to solo the whole Prophecies content using spirit spam; assassin was the cream of the crop to solo all PvE content; paragon had one decent build, but the imbagon was a staple to bring into every demanding PvE content; dervish was later toned down a bit (or, rather, put in line), but still was a very strong option as d/rt.
Power creep is much, much harder to handle when new pieces enter the chessboard. I’m already seeing it in Heroes of the Storm and i fear it will be the same here.

Logged in only to +1 the OP.
Yes, please.

If it’s not affecting ALL Asura characters you meet, it’s normal – my Asura toon is red-eyed, with a hue/glow very similar to those above.

Be sure not to open a PvP reward chest and pick the bow while in the PvP area; take the chest to Lion’s Arch and open it there.

Try flushing your DNS data and setting your router’s DNS to Google’s.

If you attempted to overclock the machine or change anything in BIOS, try going back to default. Run a GameAdvisor scan and attach the result.

Try to run ipconfig /flushdns and set DNS to Google ones.

Try to run ipconfig /flushdns and set DNS to Google ones.

Twice as much static defence rating is not pointless or insignificant.

I have no tridents discovered on an alt.

Trident components won’t connect with inscriptions for discovery crafting. Tried with t1 and t2.

My toon is a lv500 artificer.

I wanted to discover all recipes just for the sheer sake of completion. Started with the lowest tier – crafted the components, the inscription… and the inscription is not showing up in discovery mode.
I am sure i haven’t discovered everything using Strong Green Inscription.

http://www.gunnars-hold.eu/guilds.php

I had very similar issues – please try to follow my steps and see if any helped:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Continuous-connection-errors/first#post4705064

Keep in mind FoW, Vabbi and RoS are all lowest tier in WvW – meaning simply they have less people in that format. With the dawn of megaservers in PvE, it doesn’t really matter for this side of the game, but if you tend to play WvW you’ll likely prefer GH – take a peek at http://gunnars-hold.eu
Unless, that is, you want the maps to be half-empty most of the time so that small-scale roaming is more impactful.

Or simply buy the gems (with gold or cash – up to you) and transfer over with gems – you get to keep the characters.

Use some driver uninstalling software to completely remove graphic drivers and install a fresh version; try newest first, and if that doesn’t work – use a ~6 months old one.