Guild Wars 2

Individual bowls can be discovered with Spinach Leaf, Slab of Poultry Meat, Bowl of Poultry Stock, Sage Leaf from the Discovery tab of a Cooking workstation. Pots Recipes, like Feasts and Trays, have to be gained from the Mystic Forge, requiring a variable number of Mystic Coins, Crystals, and Bottles of Elonian Wine.

There are two different questions here, which may have radically different answers.

1. Should it be viable for average players to make money upconverting materials?
2. Should players able to regularly upconvert into T6 materials?

The first is likely yes, since ArenaNet probably wants some sort of meaningful way to spend excess skill points, and because you can already make some small amount of coinage (4-10 silver/skill point) making Mystic Weapons.

The latter is much, much more complicated. ArenaNet /might/ want to avoid having giant bulk availability of Silk, Thick Leather, and Mithril (and to a lesser extent, fine crafting ingredients). They might not : it helps keep the luxury market loosely coupled to the base function market. If the system exists to provide a weak outlet valve for T5 materials, it isn’t intended to be economically viable in the general case. Even if they do want to having the prices of Silk and Mithril hard linked to the values of Gossamer and Orichalcum (or t5 fine ingredients to t6 rare ones), the low cost of Philosopher’s Stones and the overhead of the trading post means that these prices will constantly and quickly adjust to an equilibrium. If you’re not on the early edge, or dealing in bulk items or the lulls of the market’s cycles, they’ll be no money to be made in conversions no matter what market-available controlling ingredient is involved.

The only way to prevent or limit that is to make the controlling ingredient not market-available, which ties it instead to player time. Upping the absolute value of Philosopher’s Stones would do that — but it may not be ArenaNet’s goal, and would have other results, many of which you might not like.

They’ll actually become unavailable in certain circumstances, although the event chain to clear the vendor is both short and fairly easy. On the other hand, you can buy complete rare weapons from city vendors for relatively small amounts of Karma. The grades have to do with item quality, rather than what you have to do to earn something.

Practically speaking, they also don’t follow the use tendencies of any of the fine crafting ingredients, and were probably labeled as rare to help make clear their utility before the bank could store non-fine and non-gem crafting ingredients.

That said, it is kinda goofy to have weapon recipes that require 75 of the things, and then only sell them one at a time. ((And Beaded Hylek Necklace should probably require more and be a rare grade item, as well.))

John Smith.4610:

Does players selling to highest buyer instead of waiting for a better offer show that people are not “Profit Maximizing” entities as basic economies assumes?

At least in a large portion of transactions, we’re talking minimal or ignorable values of profit. The difference between Highest Buyer and squeaking under the current best sell order on a 1 gold Exotic may be as high as 20 silver, true, but 20 silver is currently equal to a little under ten cents USD. If we look to non-bulk sales of other goods, the value drops to fractions of pennies. You have to be dealing with pretty large scales or highly valued goods to actually matter.

Add in the time value of money and the tendency of humans to put a high time value on money, and it’s not terribly surprising. Nor entirely unreasonable, since less money now can easily end up saving a repair bill or otherwise increase efficiency.

That revelation shows some interesting things, though.

draxynnic.3719:

To be honest, the one i find to be strangest is darksteel – presumably, the primordium is introducing some magical essence that makes it not only suitable to make weapons and armour out of an alloy of platinum, but makes said alloy stronger than steel made from iron and coal.

Although its real-world rarity makes doing so impractical, platinum-iridium, platinum-ruthenium, and platinum-tungsten alloys can be very tough, high-density, nonreactive materials. So that one’s not actually as unusual as it looks.

I’m quite happy with the Conjurer set — excepting the peafowl shoulders — which comes in a pretty available level 80 Rare version. It actually looks better for Charr than most other races, where it’s not nearly as covering. See attached

The Magician, Seer, and Temple sets are also nice simple options. Heritage, if you own GW1, isn’t bad, either.

The Conjurer’s set, minus the shoulder pieces, actually looks pretty good on its own.
Female Mesmer with Conjurer’s Chest, Legs, and Mask, along with Feathered Gloves, using Pride, light gray, and a blue accent
Male Elementalist with Conjurer’s Chest, Legs, and Gloves, along with the Water Stone starting Helm, using light blue and a darker gray

Konig Des Todes.2086:

(… I used to think that it teleported Destiny’s Edge to another asura gate, but I’ve not been so sure on a second reading).

Snaff’s “hole in my pocket” device could only be attuned to specific known locations, and the one we see used was only attuned to one specific location south of Ebonhawke where there was nothing but sand (and was used for group transport when Ebonhawke’s asura gate was unreliable or down). It’s probably somewhat alike in concept to the teleporter found in Professor Portmatt’s Lab, if vastly miniaturized — you need to know where you’re going and how to do the adjustments, or you risk dropping out of the sky somewhere dangerous.

SilveryBeing.5082:

Are charr allowed/is it socially acceptable for two charr of the same warband to have the exact same last name?

We don’t see any examples of such an overlap, even where multiple warbands share the same name. That’s probably indicative of something.

Does this mean they cant move their jaw side to side?

They’re animated as doing so, possibly a side effect of whatever part of their genetic structure had horns. A lot of Charr skeletal structure is distinctly non-feline, and like the claws, the jaw structure is one of those things.

Do they also have barbs on their tongue and…. you know where?

Hopefully not, for the sake of the lady Charr (and gay/bi male Charr). Lapping, tongue grooming, and induced ovulation don’t make terrible sense for intelligent tool-using social bipeds, and Charr have been under some pretty intense evolutionary pressures for a long time (assuming those apply in the setting). Descriptions of Charr drinking, both in-game and out of it, suggest that there’s no equivalent. We’re not likely to see any answers on the latter question, obviously.

Are they obligatory carnivores?

The Ecology of the Charr says that Charr are carnivores, and modern-day Ascalon shows little in the way of dedicated farmland instead of grazing land. That said, in-game Charr characters can eat plant-based Cooking items, and Tybalt Leftpaw is very much a fan of apples. The vast majority of the Charr diet is meat, but it looks like they can at least consume (although possibly not get much nourishment from) other foods, so whether they count as obligate carnivores depends on your definition.

Expectations probably differ heavily depending on the specifics. Clement Forktail, for example, was recruited from one of the three Legions to the Flame Legion, and that’s treated as normally being the sort of crime that earns a life sentence in jail as a traitor. Several of the other recruitable Charr come with their Legionaire, Centurion, or even Tribune’s blessing, and that’s presumably more acceptable, as are the ‘adoption’ of gladium or other lost causes.

Samona’s practically kicked out of the Iron Legion at the end of that quest — demoted to kitchen duty indefinitely, and she was already on scrapper duty. It’s not quite equivalent to becoming a true gladium, but it’s low enough on the totem pole that she didn’t have many options for real combat duty except through the Charr Player Character’s warband offer.

Charr can only be part of one warband at a time, and warbands can only follow one Legion, however. That’s not just a philosophical difference, but a command matter. Being recruited into an Ash Legion warband doesn’t just add Ash Legion to your list of titles: one might still remember one’s previous bandmates fondly (or not), but only the new Legion and warband have command authority.

The Nightmare itself is the Dream, from the perspective of a sociopath. It is the same pool of shared emotions and memories, tied to the Pale Tree, as the Dream that mainstream Sylvari claim to share. Physically, it is part of the Dream, as defined as those aspects that contain darker emotions or memories, but the borders aren’t always clear.

As a philosophy, the Nightmare is about rejection of norms established by external forces. The Nightmare Court would argue that the Nightmare is an older part of the Dream of Dreams than the Ventari Tablet-inspired aspects, but even assuming that this is a lie or otherwise incorrect, the basic bad memories are likely still as old as the Firstborn. They hold that by encouraging negative perspectives to take root in the Dream, this will cause the Sylvari as a race to distrust the Ventari Tablet and turn to a new moral code and outlook. ((This is likely false: Malyck was born without memory of the Tablet, but is closer in morality and mindset to the mainstream Sylvari or Soundless than to the Nightmare Court.))

Note that Nightmare Court Sylvari would argue that they do not abandon the Dream, so much as they exist to fulfill it and free it from the restrictions of the Tablet’s false morality. The Nightmare Court still feeds emotion into the Dream (although they quickly become jaded to pain or horror), and can still feel or be felt as the buzz of Sylvari presences. Falling to Nightmare isn’t a matter of being physically or magically altered, but of one’s experiences changing the relative value of concepts like xenophobia or trust.

Sylvari can choose to abandon the Dream, but this is a difficult and different (and probably incompatible) action to falling into Nightmare. Only a small group have done so, however, and such Soundless Sylvari are found only in Caledon Forest at The Weeping Isle.

It’s not clear what the Nightmare Court end-game is, or if the Nightmare Court itself knows. They’re fighting, in many ways, to change how their own minds work. The point it to know how to rule themselves, rather than how to follow the teachings of a carved rock. In practice, the nature of the Nightmare means that they are corrupting themselves into sociopathy — in philosophical terms, rather than achieving a Knight of Faith or Ubermensch, they’re just establishing a separate anti-Tablet code. That’s likely to keep them xenophobic and territorial monsters that revel in pain and sadism and extreme emotion, because it’s the new norm for freshly ripe Sylvari. They might try to plant new Pale Trees (or find other existing ones), but in the short term they’ll be trying to wipe out the Asura and Human civilizations.

Examples : Fyon the Wraith and (to a lesser extent) Soure Doomsday. There’s also Charr dishonorable gladium who wanders the base of the Black Citadel in rags, required to honestly answer anyone who asks the precise details of his crimes.

Kangaroocyancomic.1298:

I know many people see mental illness as a weakness, would the Charr disrespect those with mental illness like depression etc…?

Not necessarily, although certain aspects to life at the Black Citadel are likely to do so. When everyone you’ve known since childhood gets eaten by a dragon and — to add insult to injury — surviving means you might be recognized as a hero, but are more likely to be treated like dirt… well, it’s not exactly a great recipe for treating unhappy folk well. Same for the duty-oriented culture : if you’re so drained of emotional energy that you can’t get out of bed, it’s going to hurt twice when that gets you put on scrapper duty. That’s a different matter than treating folk with depression poorly, but there’s going to be a sizable degree of overlap.

Note that not all humans react similarly to depression, and Charr cultural norms are only going to exacerbate that. It’s somewhat common for real-world humans with depression to focus on outbursts of anger, for example, or to take up a veneer of overconfidence. These Charr might be recognized as heroes by mainstream Charr culture, even as they drive away bandmates or endanger allies. Arguably, Rytlock Brimstone’s on the border of this particular group.

And the Flame Legion / Black Citadel gap adds even more to the mess.

Naked Mole Rats, the animals that Dredge share the most obvious physical setup with, are also eusocial, like bees or ants. Normally, mole rats have a single queen and one to three breeding males in a colony, with the remainder of the colony hormonally immature workers. It’s not clear how much this inspiration controls the Dredge society, but it’s possible that we’re seeing equal numbers of XY- and XX-chromosome workers.

Most birds are exceptionally hard to gender in the real-world — it can require a surgical procedure or DNA test, where there are no obvious traits like eye color or feather arrangement — so Tengu may likewise be very hard to gender.

Grawl are the odd ones out, since we see entire encampments and their inspirations have normally obvious genders.

Not really a Charr-related question…

First of all, you may not want to level crafting. Destroyer Greatswords are selling in the range of ~40-50g, while the lodestones to craft one, alone, are at 1.1G, and not exactly easy to farm yourself. If you aren’t going to craft other Weaponsmith-related stuff, it may not be cost-effective. That said, getting Weaponsmithing up pays in experience and other capabilities, so it may still be worthwhile.

There are guides out there detailing optimal crafting leveling, but for the most part, the big trick is simple :
– Every time you get to a new tier of materials, churn as much of the ore and raw wood into ingots and planks as will still give you crafting-XP.
– Once you can’t level from that, use Discovery — you’ll want to Discover for Sword/Dagger/Mace/Spear at each tier of inscribed dowels, until you get a newer grade of dowel available. It’s /usually/ more cost-effective to buy the inscribed dowels over the base components, but this isn’t always the case, so it’s best to check both.

Another possibility re: Claws is that Charr, unlike real-world felines, normally operate with their claws out (if only partially), but retain the muscles to retract those claws (presumably only doing so to protect the claws from damage, or as part of surrender). This would explain why in-game Charr show their claws regularly.

Some attributes to keep in mind — you can apply a Phantasm to a wooden gate, or use Veil to sneak past an automatic defense grid. Things like Portal can take someone places they’ve never been or were unaware of, or even could not reach on their own (in the case of players without a Swiftness buff, or certain particularly nasty jumping puzzles).

There are some things that do depend on the victim’s mind. You can’t apply Confusion to objects without a mind or fascimile thereof, nor can you apply Blind — automatic turrets simply don’t work that way.

That said, it’s not clear that the difference between illusions and reality is a well-drawn line in this setting. Phantasms and Illusions ‘die’ with their target, whether or not the Mesmer wants that to happen, but can be harmed by other actors or even harm actors other than their target. The magic may not be on the target’s mind, but the magic is dependent on the target.

azureai.9764:

My problem with Charr platforming is that the Charr are so big the camera starts freaking out when I’m anywhere near a tight space. It’s truly annoying.

Yeah. I’ve no problem with most jumping puzzles, even the timed ones like the Halloween puzzle, but the tighter the turns the more likely I am to want to switch to an Asura or short human. I know the jumping puzzle developer claims he ran a tall Norn or Charr through everything, but Troll’s End keeps insisting on shoving the camera into some remarkably awkward slanted first-person viewpoints even on a fairly short Charr female.

I’ve got two might-stacking Charr, one an Elementalist and one a Mesmer. So, you can guess what I’m hearing every six seconds.

While “For Great Justice” is a little lore-goofy for both (duty? sure. rules? yep. orders? of course. Justice? the agony is that to a charr?), it’s at least moderately entertaining on the Mesmer. Since she’s normally in the process of throwing a sword overhand, it’s a little reminiscent of a good number of things.

I’d play whatever you like. There are Charr of every profession, and reasons for Charr of every profession. Some are less likely to be popular, but it’s not as if the racial skills matter for most folk, and from a role-playing perspective you can put a lot of flavor on most anything. Your warband includes a warrior, a guardian, a thief, an elementalist, and an engineer, whether you’re Iron, Ash, or Fire, and the remaining professions of necromancer, ranger, and mesmer are all reasonable if you prefer them, too.

Halcyon.7352:

I don’t recall ever coming across a Charr mesmer NPC, but players often go Ash with Mesmer.

Vallus Smokemane is a Charr Mesmer NPC, albeit an unreliable one. I don’t know what Legion he serves, although his warband’s tactics are similar to Iron or Blood.

AuldWolf.7598:

After they organised themselves, they could have chosen to obliterate Ebonhawk but they didn’t. Ebonhawk was spared as a gesture of peace.

That’s not really supported by the events of Edge of Destiny and Ghosts of Ascalon, both of which show a joint Iron Legion-Blood Legion army laying siege on the city of Ebonhawke, and especially Ghosts of Ascalon saying that to have been the case for at least a generation. Charr characters doing the Renown Heart inside Ebonhawke can point out that, to Charr, the Ebon Guard won. A large part of that isn’t the development of stone walls — even in Ghosts, it’s pretty clear that artillery could damage them — but the counterdevelopment of human artillery on top of those walls. Setting up +3% range trebuchet at the bottom of a hill won’t help much against folk on top of the hill with base range ones.

Against an enemy with a massive height and cover advantage, you don’t merely need to have better guns; you need to have and hold a comparable advantage, or bypass those advantages entirely. That’s not really a psychologically attractive option to the Charr, especially given the Iron Legion’s distrust of magic. Bribing the Asura, getting a human bandit to infiltrate the Ebon Guard, or coming up with whole new concepts of artillery isn’t a battle — it’s admitting defeat.

And remember, Ebonhawke isn’t a minor target. It’s its own city-state, and one that survive the wars between the human nations, as well as battles with a sizable quantity of ogre tribes. Meanwhile, the legions attacking it had to deal with not only said ogre tribes, but also the ghost problem, the Flame Legion, for a few years the Brand, and a half-dozen other lesser issues, while projecting a fairly long supply line. Eventually, one side or the other would have developed bombs powerful enough to end the battle, but thankfully it didn’t come to that.

Rytlock is Blood, too. That deserves some respect. He’s more pragmatic than I thought someone from Blood would be.

Rytlock’s a little weird, by Charr standards. Not just in his willingness to work outside of his Legion, but also that he doesn’t seem to work with his warband much. You see some other pragmatic Blood Legion Charr, enough to suggest that the stereotype of bloodthirsty brainless brawlers is only two out of three. Mrs. Soulkeeper, for example, might not count as Blood currently, but she’s either the world’s strongest gladium or a hell of a Blood Legion planner.

[QUOTE=446806;Lifelike.5862]Given that they are so militaristic, I would assume that Charr value breeding and keeping their numbers up.[/QUOTE]
That may or may not be the case. Given their tactics and social structure, Charr manpower has a relatively low value. That may reflect a sudden burst of industrialization, but it’s been the case for quite a while. Given what we’ve seen of their society, and their carnivorous nature, land and especially livestock may be more vitally important to their military. An army marches on its stomach, and manpower without food is worse than useless.

Agreed Numot. And beside that, the warband has to come first…
It’s one reason charr are interesting, IMO, because this is a refreshing departure from ZOMG Twoo Wuv obsessions. :p

Worth noting : a big part of why Rytlock Brimstone is so pissed about Logan is that he put Twoo Wuv At First Sight ‘romantic obligations’ (:coughtotallynotmesmerbrainwashingcough:) and orders above his warband and his duty. It also gives a rather interesting texture to the Honourless Gladium background and Rytlock’s reaction to taking the “Thicker Than Water” quest, whether you take Sesric and Vallus to have been lovers or bandmates.

azureai.9764

I have a feeling that a Charr is free to get together with whomever he’s attracted to, so long as he can keep things drama-free.

That seems to be the most vital rule. Violate a direct order without exceptionally good reason, and you’re in for a world of hurt; scrapper duty and beatings at best, and death or even warband expulsion if it was serious. Keep loyal to your orders and your warband, and most Charr will allow quite a bit. That’s going to vary somewhat based on commanding officer — if you’re unlucky enough to be stuck with someone like Volante Tornpaw or Urvan Steelbane, they’ll probably try to twist personal matters as having got in the way of duty to fit their whims — but as a social norm it’s probably the typical response. If running Meatoberfest and getting drunk as a Norn while on duty isn’t a problem, bunking with someone whose horns match yours probably won’t matter much.

azureai.9764

I’m also betting even gay Charr are encouraged to close their eyes and think of the legion on occassion, since gay Charr aren’t needed for additional hands in child raising (one of the current explanations for the evolutionary existence of gay animals and humans).

At least for gay males, unless female Charr have very short estrus cycles, it’s unlikely to be an issue in modern Kyrta. The numerical reasons for that are probably why the species was able to survive when it was throwing the majority of its males into suicidal charges, actually. As long as offspring need to be weaned — which can take a year — there are at least some evolutionary pressures to make sure there will be parts of the warband that are available for more general help.

Assuming, you know, macroevolution is even responsible for the Charr; at least a few races have been dramatically reformed by the Mists or other powerful beings.