Guild Wars 2

I love how the Cheetah looks as well, they look different from their real-world counterparts but still recognizable. The shadow-step Beast skill is interesting, I wonder where it could be most useful.

I am surprised by how adorable I find the Rock Gazelle, it’s movement and its idle foraging animation mean I’ll be picking it often lol.

Thanks for sharing the screenshot, just saw the link to Aurora Peachy’s video as well and will make my way through it fully tomorrow.

It looks like right now the more interesting, and perhaps play-altering skills will come from going beastmode.

The Aurora Peachy video (this one at 32:07: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqj-yOPEudA&feature=youtu.be&t=2120) shows at least 5 new pets:

- Iboga
- Jacaranda
- Rock gazelle
- Two others between the Tiger and devourer on the third row of the pet selection screen, one of them leonine (a roaring ether maybe?)

Thanks jcbroe and Heimskarl Ashfiend for the screenshots! I was hoping for an evasive condi spec, so I am cautiously optimistic. Khenzy, you say the grandmaster traits are underwhelming, do you happen to have a link to any vids/screenshots of Soulbeast traits? I have been looking for more on the spec’s traits but have seen nothing unfortunately.

Ooooh nice, I have been theory crafting Ancient Seed builds since Irenio introduced the traits, I was going for a similar but less selfish build (same marksman traits but BM and GS/staff instead of Skirm and SB/axe/dagger, glyph of tides rather than alignment) but this seems so fun!

Natural mender could still see use when you transform, too.

The video is fun to watch, but is debunked here: http://geekdad.com/2015/01/danish-archer/

Rangers are real, but idk that this guy is one. Where he mentions “discovering forgotten techniques” is the part where I realized this guy definitely doesn’t know his history. That “forgotten” knowledge is still practiced to this day by archers in the Middle East and Africa.

fenix.1860:

I hope that druids will have to give up on some physichal aspectes that ranger have what else would be the point of being a ranger? Or do they want everyone to be a druid? Regardless what role u want to play?

Rumor (on reddit) has it that specializing will get you a new trait line at the expense of an old one. If this is true (and really we have no confirmation), which line (or weapons, or skill type) do you think the Ranger will give up for the new specialization?

The ships were probably there before the sewers were built over/around them.

The background audio when selecting and creating a Ranger character is really relaxing. Is there a way to add this to the ambient track playlist so I can listen to it in-game?

There are some dark skinned Norn NPCs – Moda the Quick (Speaker of Raven), Vheratha (has a tavern in Hoelbrak), Havroun Svena (Havroun of Snow Leopard, you meet her if you pick Protect the Spirits in your bio), Scholar Prott (Priory representative in Norn personal story)…just to name a few off the top of my head. But there weren’t any in the original game, which is unfortunate.

So if I understand right, characters, regardless of level, will have 1-12 unlocked unless they are created after April 15th. For those characters created pre-April 15th, will doing those challenges be available or provide any reward upon completion? If not, well trait hunting sounds fun enough for me to want to delete my low-levels and restart!

Thanks for this post, Autumn.

Some advice to others trying for In Tune, I’ve noticed in my case at least, it is important to watch the UI for the remaining duration Prime Light Attunement you have, rather than the glow on your character. I’ve found I only stop glowing a couple of seconds after the Prime Light Attunement buff ends on me.

Name: Bayad Frostfang
Server: Henge of Denravi
Preferred game type: Only have done PvE so far, really want to learn and excel in PvP and WvW.

My sympathies, OP. Not Welsh myself so I didn’t catch those, but the pronunciation of a number of words/names in languages I do understand really hurts – i.e. every time someone tries to say Zhaitan or Orrian language place names (e.g. Azabe Qabar). You could maybe make up the excuse for those that Orrian is no longer spoken and people have forgotten how to speak it correctly, but then there’s the terrible immersion-breaking job they do with Khan, which really is a shame since the Charr cutscenes are otherwise really good.

Honestly it wouldn’t have been that hard for Arenanet to look this stuff up while writing dialogue, and I’d go so far as to say they really should have. Not sure we can expect in terms of fixes now, though =\ If they did, it would be a great step towards showing players they care for the immersion of more than just the white anglo americans who play.

Does the Moment of Clarity stun/daze duration increase also work with pet stuns and dazes?

Haven’t seen exotics drop yet for me in the game (I am level 69 on my most complete character), but I have had some rares drop, including a rare level 60ish torch today at Southsun Cove, which was the best drop I had there. Everything else was white or blue, mostly low level stuff, if there was anything at all. I had quite a few keys drop for me in the early levels of the game, but they are quite rare now.

My ranger was level 65 when I started this content, with green weapons and green/blue armor, specced for precision, crit and a little cond/toughness. The difficulty for me:

- Young karkas: easy to solo up to two at a time once I learned their attack pattern; I use a greatsword and the block is an excellent counter for their opening attack, when I’m on longbow/shortbow I dodge.
- Veteran karkas: very close to soloing one near Pearl Islet, random showed up last minute though I might have been able to finish her off on my own. Brought several of the big egg layers in Driftglass Springs down with a small group.
- Reef Drakes: can be trouble, due to confusion stacking – I didn’t know how to cancel auto-attacking quickly until today. But I can take one or two if I’m careful.
- Reef Drake Broodmother: kicked my butt when I tried to solo, mostly because I was swarmed by nearby drakes.
- all the rest of the regular enemies, including underwater: not troublesome.

Overall I’m not a very careful player but when I paid attention Southsun Cove became manageable. The key is, I think, careful pulls, damage mitigation of key skills via block/reflect, and condition removal. You have those, and you’ll get the hang of it pretty fast.

Also, I do agree the drops were mediocre, although I was happy to see ori nodes (although strangely my master mining pick couldn’t handle them) and t6 blood drops.

I feel that pet stows in-combat aren’t going to happen, unless the class itself gets re-envisioned by the devs as pet are our class mechanic. They’re just probably one of the trickier class mechanics to implement correctly. Too powerful and a pet allows your character to stand there doing nothing, which is a situation I can get myself into sometimes even without traiting that much into BM, although I guess since I’ve only got my ranger to 65 that may yet change. I do like the short invulnerability on dodge idea to improve their survivability though. edit: just realized, we already get protection on dodge with the minor master wilderness survival trait. Knew it sounded familiar!

I haven’t played much with spirits, but I feel they might be more effective if they shorten the internal cool down a little and make them slightly more survivable. Today’s increase in the effect chance is a step in the right direction. Traps are where they’re supposed to be, I feel. Something needs to be done to make shouts more interesting and worthwhile to bring. I feel like all this stuff has been mentioned before, though.

Mostly with rangers I want bug fixes (mh sword, I’m looking at you) and variety. I don’t mind if playing the ranger would require more skill, as long as we get to do things a bit more interesting than spamming attacks.