Guild Wars 2

I really like the Shadow Garb set, a lvl 25 wool crafted you can buy the recipes with karma to make. It has a skull helmet that includes spikes on the shoulders(covers any shoulder pads you may be wearing) and when paired with the bottoms looks like a long coat that is open in the front with pants. Its been my favourite since found its look as a drop and I was so happy it can be crafted for when I get a new set without having to destroy my old one.

I like both staff and scepter/focus for my play, never gotten on the d/d bandwagon as I’m a bit like you, an ele shouldn’t be an in your face melee. that said I do often get into s/f battle very close to what I’m fighting, especially in pvp, but I don’t have to be as worried about being out of range when dancing around during the fight, and yes, I move constantly, mostly in circle around my target.

In pve your staff is best choice early on and you will find it easiest to use. s/f is my fav and you have to really think and move with it. The advantages are all the defensive skills it offers(the drawback is you won’t be doing damage most of the time with those.) S/F is not a quick kill, it is better suited to DoTs while offering you survivability while they kill. D/D hits hard and has some good survivability(if you count running away, though this also lets you chase down a running enemy)

Right now you are in early play, an ele really doesn’t start to shine until at least lvl 20 and possibly lvl 30 because you really need your utilities to shine. so I suggest you level up with the staff, and then you can start expanding to other weapons around lvl 20 or so.

As for the Dragon tooth(fire 2 on scepter) not being good, its best combined with a slow, stun, root or knockdown to keep them in place while it hits. This skill is very easy to hit npc mobs, a challenge to land on a real player but if you know your skills well its much easier than most think. Also, it will make them dodge, meaning they aren’t hitting you and your DoTs are ticking away on them You would be surprised how many players will get in its range if you run under there while they are chasing you also. almost like they dodge out of its way and then forget its still not dropped yet lol.

reikken, don’t forget that phoenix also adds vitality to speed up dodge and cleans conditions. you also hit on way out and back so can always try and make sure you move so this happens. if you can get in the firefield so much the better though of course

If you are looking for might don’t forget to keep cantrips in mind along with fire trait with at least 10 points. This will give you 3 stacks of might everytime you use a cantrip(though I have noticed that popping all 3 cantrips seems to limit out at 7 for some reason, maybe a bug? but not like you want to use them all same time anyway) I use a 10/0/15/25/20 build and s/f with mist form, armour of earth and cleansing fire. tons of condition removal, 2 invulnerabilities, a reflect and a destroy projectile and 2 blinds though one is dodgeable by enemy.

Currently I’m using carrion armour but want to try rabid and I’m using Rune of the Undead. Not sure if increasing my cond dmg will overcome loss of power, but hoping the higher crit chance will make up for it. So I’m looking at toughness to cut down on their hits, ability to remove conditions often when placed on me, do high dmg DoTs and trading crits chances over power and might is going to be needed both for a bit of power plus the increase to my cond dmg.

Mithos.9572:

I have hit everything here at least 4 times, i have ran around hitting places there was nothing, just to see if maybe there was a piece that wasnt showing or something.

There is only one thing i can think it might be, the piece in the picture, I cant destroy it. I am hoping someone will confirm for me if it can be destroyed. Thanks

that does look like the area our man found the last piece we needed, try an aoe on it and maybe will smash that way. good luck

out of about 85 giant presents I’ve opened, I’ve gotten one wooden dagger I sold for 1g19s, most of rest were sweaters and around 10 lvl 400 crafting snowflakes.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

InfamousBrad.5879:

There’s one of those by Ascalon Catacombs in Fields of Ashford: level 12 area, spawns level 31 Skritt about half the time.

Yep, got that one on my radar as well. Basically I’m checking the entire game. Should be able to get this addressed before….other things…start coming out of those boxes.

ooooo, a hint OTHER THINGS will come out of boxes!

My team just got it, member found last item said it was in a rock wall and his aoe just happened to hit it, sort of in the northern part, some other structures nearby, probably most getting it hit with large aoe there and didn’t realise one piece either very very hard or impossible to see.

TwoBit.5903:

Piercing Shards-Decent. This trait allows you to attune to Water while channeling other skills for a 20% damage boost to vulnerable enemies. This includes skill like Churning Earth and Fire Grab. The one thing that holds this skill back is the fact that we don’t have a reliable method of applying vulnerable outside of Water. It’s also facing competition from some of our best traits.

Shard of Ice (II) in traits can be used to make all signets and arcane spells apply vulnerability and is the only reliable way to do so outside of water I know of.

To play scepter effectively you really need to combine with focus. While D/D is set to do quick hard damage, the scepter is best used for conditions. The secret is to live long enough for the conditions to kill the enemy. This is why I prefer the focus instead of dagger offhand.

Fire-I don’t spend a lot of time here as not a lot of defensive ability. Flamewall from focus does give some you ability to blast finish with dragontooth and phoenix and then to earth to cause burning and bleed with stone shards and another blast with magnetic wave. If they try to walk rather than dodge the tooth try and trap them with either focus comet(2sec daze) or focus Gale(2sec knockdown) in its effect. They know its slow so often don’t try to dodge. That phoenix is going to add vigor AND remove conditions even if misses, so don’t leave fire without tossing it (hopefully hitting the enemy.)

Water-Probably should use more but usually pop in to water right after I hit my glyph heal or if air on cd. Hate the 2 sec proc on Shatterstone? Place it then drop a comet on their head for 2 sec daze and you got them and the vulnerability stacks on too.

Air-One of the 2 attunements I’m in most of the time. Arc lightening does nice damage and strike them when its up. Blind if see a big attack coming instead of dodge. Once more by using focus I can take away ALL of their projectile attacks with swirling winds for 6 whole seconds! I also have a knockdown here for 2 seconds.

Earth-My other main attunement and one I spend most time in during a fight. Stone shards does nice damage and bleeds and if can use with firewall you get burning also. Dust devil hard to use on opponents so best to use to make them dodge or in combo with your daze or knockdown if want to insure a hit.

Overcap-You have so many condition removals in this build that you want toughness as a main trait with a little vitality. Phoenix, magnetic wave and utility cleansing fire to clean yourself and lots of opportunity for regeneration. Add to this Obsidian flesh, mist form and swirling winds along with blinds and they won’t be connecting hits often. Remember, its stay alive until your conditions can take them down so you are looking at a long fight. The drawback is that its not very good if having to fight 2 or more at same time but I’m still tweaking to see if I can overcome that.

I’m probably the only Ele out there who loves scepter/focus. The focus gives you lots of defense from projectiles (swirling winds), a reflect projectiles that also cures conditions (magnetic wave) and a 4 second immunity to damage(obsidian flesh). In water you get a 2 second daze and a flamewall when in fire that adds some nice burning if switch quickly to earth and charge in and set off magnetic wave (projectiles reflected, cure 3 conditions, damages foe if close AND its a blast finisher for the flame wall.) I’m running a 10/0/10/30/20 build and heavy on the cantrips (Mist, armour of earth and cleansing fire). I don’t know how I would fair in sPvP but for PvE and WvW it is effective both with a group or by myself. TBH, I don’t drop anything quick. For me its all about staying alive while my conditions wear them out and while I can often win 1v1 I usually lose out to 1v2 but its a heck of a fight and they both leave hurt.

I thought we were done with people building siege weapons where they had the invulnerable buffs up but seems not.

Yes, I’m sure all outer and inner gates and walls were up. I also have an idea of how Mesmers are getting inside using their skills, but not having played one I can’t say for sure. Hard to say if that system is being used is an ‘exploit’ since it would mean the skill was used as described, but if it is allowed to be used there will never be a reason to bother with taking out walls or doors or buy siege equipment ever again.

I will say as an Elementalist, I discovered a way to get past outer walls of Bay today using only my skills. I can’t say its an exploit because the skill works exactly as described. I guess if my thought about how Mesmers are getting in are true then that wouldn’t be an exploit either. Maybe ArenaNet wants Mesmers to port in a lot of people past walls because they think standing around in a boss room for hours in case its done is a fun thing to do.

Normal would be nice, can we have our Bay with upgrades back and the orb that someone from Xaoc took a couple of hours ago using the same exploit on Blacktide map? As Blacktide has twice taking the base, once with orb and another time after using this same method clearly using exploits is fine with many people as they brought in about 15 at one point. All walls and gates up both outer and inner and we had searched for mesmer inside and 3 of us started looking again as soon as white swords appeared. Next we knew there were orange swords inside the boss room and about 15 Xaoc there.

As for shots of SR doing questionable stuff, get us their account name from report feature. We’ll make sure they don’t have any guild or help from our server again like we did to the orb thief in a previous match who later went to the enemies servers and stole the orbs because his brother was kicked from a guild since both had same ip. Its a shame ArenaNet is so slow banning when you have screenshots of the guy admitting what he did and saying he is going to go other server and do it back on us, which he did, because we found this unacceptable behaviour. At the very least, you should have someone who knows who your exploiter was a couple hours ago and should shun him and those who thought it was ‘funny’ to steal the Bay.

go out the sides to supply camp, was happening to us last week only on one borderlands but could exit normally by side exits. Usually you can get out okay, just can’t run back in, but then again you can teleport back inside anyway.

excellent idea. come on Anet and lets see this done.

We don’t have to and should not stoop to their level. Hacking is never right to do no matter the justification. I do recall in our last battle with Kodash and Elona Reach one or the other hacked our orb but cannot recall which did it.

The sad thing is we took both of their keeps later and could have gotten the orb fairly. So there was no cause to steal it with a hack.

In case it helps, the last one was done at about 10:05pm PDT on the Seafarer’s Rest Borderlands.

I and many others would like to apologise for a hacker we seem to have on our server. Please find and ban them ArenaNet as I have personally witnessed 2 orbs taken by our server tonight that just ‘suddenly appeared’ in front of our altar of a held keep.

This in no way represents the wishes of the majority of our server and we are just as upset about it as I’m sure the teams we are fighting against are.

Its not just players who give badges, I’ve often gotten 2 badges when capturing a supply camp after killing the main NPC.

Maybe a good solution would to be give the NPCs of an owned keep the ‘outmanned’ bonus also. Scale them up to be a lot tougher based on the amount of defenders. This would help counter zergs and nightcapping.

Recently they added the chance to get a permanent Black Lion Express item so you would never have to run to a Trading Post to pick up your items/money. Not sure if added anything else or how rare that item is to get but I bet its not easy.

I may have a solution for many who are having problems. I too have lately begun to have this issue and at first thought was due to latest patch. It happened only in WvW and only when got to a skirmish. It didn’t matter how large of a fight either, just a couple other players around me and major lag then disconnect. Here is what I found.

While running www.pingtest.net I found I was losing packets and having high jitter. My problem only surfaces it seems between 9pm and midnight. I’ve had this problem in other games also in the past but usually it entailed a total loss of internet.

With Fall upon us there are larger temperature changes which affect lines. I’m on cable myself and everytime I start to notice a problem it has turned out to be a line problem. This usually involves me getting the cable company out here until they can make it during one of the ‘problem’ times and ‘discount’ it may be on my end. They do this because in most cases they can charge you if problem is after gets to your house and it costs them if have to track down the line problem.

Some causes of this are: loose or corroded connection, insulation cracks allowing moisture into the lines and faulty signal boosters. All these things are leading to your house and not inside. These are caused by aged equipment, storms, heat and cold causing expansion and contractions or even a rodent chewing something they shouldn’t.

If you have this problem sometimes during the day but not others I suggest you immediately do a test at www.pingtest.net and be sure to try at least a few different servers as sometimes the testing server is having the problems(especially the Atlanta one). I play from the US but on EU server and usually conduct a test to Frankfurt, Germany also and one time it was all German servers having problem but my local and Ireland and UK all gave back good information.

If you don’t have problem only at certain times during the day, or not around to know (like work mornings and afternoons and only play at night or something) this will still let you know if problem could be ISP or game. Also, do the test sometime when everything is WORKING. This will give you a base idea of what you should be seeing as far as packet loss(which should always be ZERO) ping times and line jitter(think static on a radio)

Either I’ve gotten someplace I’m not supposed to be or there are major issues with the graphics in this area. I went up the sails to access the top of the ship. Once up there I walk through ship walls and ice walls, can’t climb most stairs as I walk through them as well as walkpaths. You fall into ‘holes’ where you see the ‘insides’ of unfinished or possibly what shouldn’t be seen at all areas. Screenshots at various locations on top of the ship in ice included.

Swam up this river towards what I thought was a forest and instead found a huge ocean and couple interesting screenshots. Attached are view looking forward, behind me and of the world map showing position.