Guild Wars 2

We need bad expansions to cost a little more and be account-wide, IMO.

Discord has become much more popular than other forms of voice chat, but it’s still worth having teamspeak and mumble, in case a group is using one of those. The training group that Chris McSwag linked above me is great, really good natured, patient people commanding those raids. I recommend joining their Discord, because you will get more up to date information (for example, they aren’t posting sign ups to reddit this week). If you do run with this group, realize that some classes are higher demand, probably in this order: chrono, druid, PS warrior, DPS, so you’re more likely to be put in a group if you can play the support classes.

cafard.8953:

Mocrassar.4317:

My Ranger DPS decrease… 30 to 28k…

Sharpened edges?

Yeah, my DPS decreased about 2k (I usually get 31k, now getting 29k) from the trait nerf. But from a couple of golem tests, seems like using Trapper’s Expertise is = Sharpened Edges. This is without Pinpoint Distribution from engi, though.

I love the Logitech G600. You can get it for about $40 on Amazon. It has 12 thumb buttons + a G-shift (works like a shift key so you can bind 12 MORE keys if you really need to). All of my weapon skills, F1-F4, weapon swap are on the mouse and it really has improved my play. You can set a couple of profiles for different games using the software.

I don’t have any issues with the size of the mouse, and I’m a female with probably average sized hands. Would definitely recommend the black one, I made a mistake buying it in white >.>

khani.4786:

What do you have to do for the third boss one? I had the heart active for my kills of that and I’ve been alive at the end. What do you have to actually do during the fight in order to get the heart for that fight?

I went looking; I got the heart on our first attempt and had no idea how..

“Once Rigom returns to the battle field to be killed, stand within his aura and kill him. Upon his death, you should receive this progress to the collection.” http://leadexample.net/articles/guild-wars-2-legendary-armor

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You can try posting in the ‘Looking For…’ sub-forum. You need an invitation from a guild to be able to join.

Good luck.

In addition to that sub-forum, reddit has a guild recruitment area for GW2: https://www.reddit.com/r/guildrecruitment/ You can just browse and contact them in-game if you don’t have a reddit account.

Acrisor.8097:

So I receive a mail with the serial code, that I can simply forward to her? My billing info such as email will not become the account email?

You don’t have to forward the email (which will show credit card type and last 4 numbers IIRC). Just give her the serial code, which she can apply to her own account. The purchase is not tied to your email/account, only the account that redeems the serial code. I gave away two HoT gifts this way.

Buy gems —> convert gems to gold. Buy wings 2 and 3 to have full access to the vendors, then do whatever raid bosses you can to earn shards (look in the raid LFG tab, there is almost always a group advertising sales). The Glenna escort is about the difficulty of a dungeon and you can shard cap weekly without even killing a boss (so join practice runs). You may even meet a group along the way that raids casually or does training runs.

DoctorDing.5890:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

DoctorDing.5890:

It’s simple, just take a week off work and spend every waking moment trying to get into a successful map. Maybe take another week off to make sure. Honestly, it’s almost as if you are not prepared to go that extra mile to play the game…

Except the two people posting just before you didn’t do anything of the sort: they arrived right before the event and things went fine. The only “going out of your way” bit is that we have to use LFG; we are not able to just show up on the map. (That’s true of a number of other umbrella/meta events too, not just DS; it’s just most obvious with DS.)

Well, yes, obviously my tongue was firmly in my cheek for that one but I would observe that if you post any sort of complaint/question/problem/issue on a gaming forum you always get responses from folks keen to tell you how easy it is. Quite often the same folks each time too. JPs – easy . Adventures – easy. Mastery points – easy. Anyboss™ – easy.

The DS question keeps coming up again and again because it’s not easy to many players, even if they know about the timers and LFG. The timers don’t tell you where and when to turn up. They tell you when the event starts which is too late, unless you get really lucky with LFG. It’s a map meta that attracts smugness.

Uhhh it seemed to me like the OP was completely confused about how to get into a successful DS map. So naturally people are going to respond by explaining how to do it. If someone posts a problem, people will try to give a solution. I don’t think anyone is saying it’s easy, in fact, it probably really sucks for people who can’t set aside a solid two hours or just aren’t online at times when the event starts.

The timers are a great tool. /wiki ET shows me the start time with waypoint links, as well as a link to the event’s wiki page. We learned way back during the Tequatl revamp that when you have to organize a large amount of players, you have to show up early. That’s just something new players have to catch on to with experience.

If OP was actually complaining about not having adequate in-game tips, well I could go on and on about that… Starting with how many new players don’t know the /wiki command exists.

I think a lot of these worries would be alleviated with more interaction from the staff. We live in a world of social media and constant connection. Of the hundreds of GW2 staff, we only get a few random posts here and there on reddit, info when a patch is coming and [rarely] some Q&A’s/AMA’s. If we saw more Anet staff being enthusiastic and interacting with the community over various social media, we might have a more positive view of the game’s direction. Just my feelings

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers

Show up about 10-15 minutes before DS is going to start. If you see a commander tag on the map, join their squad. If there is no commander tag, look in the LFG section under Dragon’s Stand and join a group there. When the map resets and everyone dies, right click on the commander in squad and join their map.

A good map will have 3 commanders with squads for each lane. You have to show up before the map starts- this is when people are grouping up to do the event. If the map starts at 2:30 and you show up at 3:30, everyone who wanted to do the meta is already on a map somewhere. Sometimes you can get lucky and find a late LFG, but that is rare and the maps are usually full at that time.

I do DS at all different times- mornings, weekends, evenings and as long as you show up early, it’s usually successful.

As for the poisons, you generally just bring them back as far as you can. You’re dying to the “green stuff,” are you moving him fast enough, or is he sleeping on the edge of poison? Are you taking a path that makes a very narrow road in between the poison floor? I find the best success is to go along the wall from the first to second mushroom. Second slubber eats toward the center, then toward the third so you have a large space, and can bring slothy close to the slublings. Third slubber can take a mostly straight path. The the fourth eats a wide path to the next one. This gives you a lot of space for dodging the slam/aoe attack, without having the poison floor too close.

You can run a very safe comp here. Necros and druids can pull downed people to the group. Druid can run nature spirit, in the event that the shake downs a bunch of people. So if you’ve got 2x chrono, that’s a lot of reflect and they can invuln most shakes. 2x druid- has Search & Rescue, Nature Spirit, Protect Me (covers the tempests if their Gale Song is on CD), projectile defense on staff. Place healing spring directly under him after a shake. 1-2x necro- Plague Signet to take condis and stun break, Corrosive Poison Cloud for projectiles, Epidemic for slublings, and shroud 4 for a clutch res.

People getting downed to the green stuff is really a l2p problem though, they can’t just stand in it.

Keep an eye out here https://www.reddit.com/r/guildrecruitment/

You’re going to have the best time if you find a guild or raid group. There are various types that require various skill level. Honestly after the amount of time I spent today pugging, I can’t imagine raiding without my static group and guild group.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

So we get VG to split (for us at usually 6:35 or so), is that our problem? Are we losing too much dps early? I’ve always thought it was P3 & later…

I’m going to share this with you, and everyone else I suppose haha. This is a long time ago, in my early stages of raiding. Hopefully this can help your group in some way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ntksWzsNB8 (It’s a bit of a boring video but I did not record with sound and I really have no idea how to add music or anything to it. I don’t usually share my videos)!

This group took a while to nail down VG. If you notice, our first split phase is at 6:35, and we still got the kill. One thing we did to try to save time, was to start the fight only after the second set of blue circles go off. This gives time to get VG in place so everyone starts DPS at the same time. Also note the very first seeker will aggro to somebody. Figure out who that person is and have them move it away. Second time saver was to only move VG between two sections during phase 3 (this is shown starting around 2:50 in the video). This can also help with DPS since the group is not constantly on the move. The tank just has to be aware that after the current section gets two green circles, it’s time to switch sections.

Otherwise, you just have to make sure everyone is performing/avoiding mechanics properly. Too many teleports are going to slaughter your DPS. Circle team needs to make sure they can see the whole area that the circle can spawn in (if you notice, I’m always turning my camera to look for the circle spawn). The can adjust their field of view in settings to help with that. Melee group should have their UI volume turned way up- you can hear the blue circles and simply move out of them or dodge if necessary. Breaks need to happen quickly so you don’t end up with a circle in a bad place.

I would prefer a mix of 1 and 2. Designate map names with the hosting server. When objectives are captured, announce the server and guild tag. Red, Blue, and Green are bland IMO.

“Server name [Guild Tag] has captured objective!”

This allows players who aren’t on hosting servers to keep some semblance of server identity, and would notify the opposing sides that [X] guild is on the map.

Warcry.1596:

Amaimon.7823:

When it comes to Matthias, i was asked to specifically NOT reaper, so I would have the normal shroud skills and could pull people who downed in pools/toxic-clouds out

I never changed from Reaper but I did that too. Thinking about it I probably would be better off changing from Reaper for that fight. I just am out of touch with what’s popular so I just run the same thing.

Reaper is good for Matthias. I personally prefer curses, blood magic, reaper. Some prefer curses, death magic, blood. Reaper shroud 2 is nice to have for running to/from dropping poison, as well as qT’s reasoning on their site http://qtfy.enjin.com/forum/m/27740239/viewthread/26564851-qt-necromancerreaper-raid-builds : “At Matthias Blood magic really pulls through with the helpful sustain of vampiric aura and the ability to pull downed foes out of nasty situations using transfusion. I choose not to run death magic at Mathias as you can easily transfer using suffer, and the plague sending trait in curses, as well as traited dagger 4 with a lower cooldown.” Basically, you get lots of condi cleanse and mobility.

Alec B.8905:

the reason so many people seem so mad is because the small minority who does raids are getting so kitten and complain the most when their builds get nerfed. while the majority who do other things don’t really care because it gives their classes the option to do other things. it is quite funny how salty the raiders are getting over this small announcement which was needed.

People have complained about every balance patch long before raids existed.

Gaile Gray.6029:

And I can’t wait to get the new rewards.

OMG WHAT NEW REWARDS!?!!?

How I start my non-HoT legendaries:
1. Precursor. Do I want to buy it from the TP or craft it? Or maybe you want to try your luck in the mystic forge (not recommended). I tend to buy my precursor last, but it’s probably better to place a low-ish buy order to see if it fills over the course of getting the rest of the legendary in order.
2. Every legendary needs Gift of Fortune and Gift of Mastery. Break these down into their components and write out the materials.
3. Weapon-specific Gift broken down into materials.
4. Start slowly buying the materials, while thinking about which parts I actually want to work for, and which I just want to mass-buy. I tend to set a goal like “today I’m going to place buy orders so that each T6 is at 150.” You can do it however, but it makes me feel like I’m keeping some kind of progress and order.

Special note about Mystic Clovers- These are quite expensive with the rise in price of the Mystic Coin. Some reward tracks give you 7 Mystic Clovers for completion (non-repeatable reward tracks). These tracks are Silverwastes, Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, and Tangled Depths. If you play both PvP and WvW, that’s 56 Mystic Clovers. Since the mystic forge recipe for mystic clovers also rewards T6 materials, it is recommended to obtain your 77 clovers before buying T6.

At this point I’m just happy when someone joins my dungeon lfg. Took almost 15 minutes for cof p1 to fill today, with no others listed…

Anyway, just read the lfg and join if you meet the requirements. If it only says “p1,” for example, just mention you’re new to the path. There is less elitism now that fractals and raids are the focus.

cafard.8953:

Vayne.8563:

cafard.8953:

Ugh, there’s no backpack skin for alts?! And here I just picked the one I was going to use first, convinced I’d get the others soon enough when the alts aged up a bit. I’d have picked another had I known. Meh.

Contact customer service, they’ll probably switch it out for you.

Will give it a go, luckily I haven’t applied the skin anywhere. Cheers.

I’m interested in hearing how this goes for you. AFAIK, Anet can’t delete skins from the wardrobe. That’s why we all got to keep the Flamekissed set after they changed it and refunded our gems. Are they allowing people to keep their first backpack choice and select a second?

My first character was a Sylvari necromancer (I started playing 8 or 9 months after release). GW2 is my first PC MMO, so I was a skill clicking, keyboard turning noob who spent the first few months getting used to keyboard controls and navigating the UI.

One early story mission leaves you naked. I remember running around trying to figure out what the heck happened to my clothes, and rather upset that I wouldn’t get them back because a friend had crafted me some sweet gear. Totally oblivious to the fact that there are markers on the map to show you where to go in story…

I spent a good amount of time just using whatever gear I found that had “condition” stats, wanting to be some kind of support necro that takes condis from teammates and sends them back. Somehow managed through paths of CoE when making Meteorlogicus, at a time when [little did I know] necro was not desired in dungeon runs. Fast forward 3 years and I am living the dream, playing my Sylvari condi necromancer in raids.

Honestly can’t believe how far I have come, and I’m very thankful to all of the people who had so much patience with me when I started playing.

First off, I really love having an engi at Vale Guardian for seeker control. You can join a run with your engi when the lfg calls for condi. For warrior or rev, you’ll want to join the group specifically asking for your class.

If you are making ascended armor, the warrior and revenant can share the set. Warrior is used in raids to generate might. Revenant is typically placed in a party with the chrono to maintain Facet of Nature and some other boons (which the chrono will then extend to the rest of the group). Both classes bring good cc, some groups rely heavily on a revenant to use their staff 5 skill for cc.

Warrior has more build diversity (regarding raids). In addition to the standard greatsword PS warrior, there is the condi PS warrior. It allows you to have some range and could be taken as one of the condi members for Vale Guardian. So if you like to change things up sometimes, warrior may be a better choice.

In agreement with others, being able to “multi-class” will give you a better shot at a spot in raids.

ikereid.4637:

Malediktus.9250:

ikereid.4637:

Malediktus.9250:

ikereid.4637:

Malediktus.9250:

Halandir.3609:

So much for “challenging group content” boosting the game – Casuals leaving was expected.
Too bad most “hardcore groupers” seem to spend ingame-gold instead of RL-cash.
Catering to the least profitable group 101?

I never buy gems with gold, I spend 100s of euros per year on gems
buying gems with gold is a bad use of my time

Let me ask, do you feel you get your money’s worth on Gem Purchases?

Not really, considering I could buy at least 10 full AAA games for my gem purchases

yea I kinda thought so.

The last time I bought a series of Gems was on the Heroes weapon sets (Kasmeer’s Staff, Majory’s Daggers…ect) when they were first released.

Since then I have just banked Gold into Gems on a weekly Basis, but I cant bring myself to buy anything on the store anymore. Its all just a bunch of lame stuff that will do nothing for me. Its all Glider Skins and outfits.

They need to change their direction with what they are doing here. and fast.

But what could they sell in shop to make more money without going straight up pay to win? I would like to see armor sets over outfits again, but Anet insists they are too much work

Lots of things, actually. But anything I say on the subject will start a flame war and ruin this thread :-)

But, does not have to be pay to win to be successful.

There are even a few things I would consider buying if they altered them. Bag slots for example- if treated as an account unlock rather than single character. I haven’t been spending nearly as much as I used to on gems, and maybe that’s the same for other veterans of the game. Opening Black Lion Chests disappoints me. I have 11 glider skins and 19 outfits, I don’t care how cool the next one looks. I have so many armor and weapon skins, that one would have to be very special for me to bother buying it.

I would love to support Anet with gem purchases but lately there isn’t anything I want.

Having zero legendary insights means you have killed zero raid bosses. That’s all there is to it. If you want to start raiding, look for groups advertised as training runs.

BTW- When groups are looking for a druid, they are looking for a healer.

Today’s patch allows Experience Boosters to add 50% to WvW reward track progress.

When is it? I had a character waiting with all four cantles at the Sylvan chest. I tried using the Celestial Cartographer’s Gear before opening- nothing. After opening the chest- nope. I chose a different character, completed the puzzle again, still nope. This was all done during “night,” according to the wiki page https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Day_and_night . I am sure it was the correct time, as I was able to get map pieces from other areas.

I was unable to obtain a map piece from Ossan Quarters in Divinity’s Reach. I ran around the area, went up to the vista overlooking it, and the Celestial Cartographer’s Gear did nothing. Does anyone know if there is a very specific spot?

Roam.5208:

To me, having what are now unobtainable PVE skins just means you were in the right place at the right time… which isn’t quite as impressive. I think it’s okay to rerelease old PVE items periodically, so long as the effort required to get them remains at a similar level as it was before (i.e. don’t put them in the gem store).

This, and I’d like to see some of the old events come back with the old rewards. Why isn’t Boss Week an annual thing? Why isn’t there a party in Southsun Cove in the summer? Why isn’t there an annual Dragon Bash festival, Queen’s Gauntlet, Moa Racing? The list goes on. I love annual events in games, and it’s a bummer that we pretty much only have Halloween and Wintersday as guarantees.

I have always done my dailies, before and after the changes- mostly for the AP. It’s also a pretty nice addition if you have an alt account. I always log in to my alt for the log-in rewards, hit up dailies and teq if I have time and that ends up being an extra 5 gold or more depending on drops.

I cannot agree that this is a negative for WvW and you won’t convince me that the people who pop in to do their daily crafting stick around to scout and help around the borderland. However, I do agree that there should be an instance for crafting, and this should be in the guild hall.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

The reason i’m in the 960/1000 person guild is two-fold.

It’s nice and friendly. (don’t laugh with this, I had my share of drama in over 15 guilds that failed because drama). I once even shortly quit gw2 because of all the drama. I set a new rule on my comeback: I play the game to enjoy it, any drama i can avoid I will. I mean sometimes, a word can happen and a little fight, nothing bad if quickly worked out. But unnecessary guild drama, killing the fun, nope, no thanks. I avoid it. The guilds that often had the most drama were: Wvw/pvp guild with a very elite nature.

The guild has a wide (but not perfect) variety of playstyles. Worldbosses, HoT maps, Guild missions (don’t laugh some guilds to small to do this good enough), perfect guild hall (lvl 64), do pvp sometimes, fractals often and dungeons. And… The teamspeak is nice, like really nice, rarely shouting, rarely kittened of people, rarely to much dirty talk (this can get annoying after a while). I can go on, but these are the reasons im in this guild. They very sometimes organize a raid, but i’m often that 11th’s guy. It’s also the ‘old core’ of the guild (veterans) and i’m newer member of guild. I’m not gonna ‘fight’ for my spot in the raid, i ask, and if i get a no, it’s no. (Drama prevention remember). also in a wvw and pvp guild (no represent required, yeahaaa!!). Works perfect (example for how raid guild should work!!!)

I got one slot guild left, and I keep it empty until it’s filled with a raid guild that has my requirements: friendly, non represent. No other requirements. And i tried one so far (found via LFG, as all these ppl could not get into another raid).

Raid experiences from extremely good, to very bad:

Very friendly guild (that i am not in) invites me (i’m in their friendlist). I join their teamspeak. Happened a few times (diff guids/ppl). This situation: The cream of raid experiences. If i could sign for this permanently, i’d even pay gems for it. People are friendly, happy, cooperate well, admit mistakes, are motivated, team speak they invite you (normally closed for outsiders) etc. This often were the fastest boss kills also (and even if not, still enjoyable experience). These are represent only guilds, so don’t come with the suggestion to join them.

Second best experience: The slowly dying raid guild (non represent) that I was in had a victorious evening: we killed VG first time (laugh with it what you want, but new people, new coordination, takes practise to get it right). WE struggled a bit on Gorseval. Another friend offered to join between his other raid appointments, and explained litteraly everything to us. He then left for his raid, and we succeeded gorseval same evening, totally unexpected.

We tried Sabetha and failed. The leader left at this point, so some issue’s were there already, but they didn’t really bite yet, the guild issue’s. The same guy showed us what to do where. We almost succeeded.

Now the average experiences: you join pugs. Coordination is not so nice. Sometimes lucky VG kill, often not so much. But no drama (still ok i guess this way of raiding).

Same situation but people point fingers a lot at each other, drama is in the making, people get kicked, group slowly dies. This is very common experience (hence a raid guild is almost requirement, not so much for FINDING people, but for finding good ‘raid coordinating’ people (wich lfg lacks). This situation why I rarely open lfg anymore.

People in lfg require 25 LI. You negotiate. Another guy (not raid leader) lets you in. He then notices you got in. He asks your gear (mine is perfect), my food (perfect again, expensive ‘toxic focussing crystal’), asks my LI: he kicks me and accepts a guy with 20 LI in exotic gear.

Now to even worse experience: Don’t bother noob with 11 LI you are not welcome. Me ‘but but if i was noob, where Did i get these’? Answer ‘screw you noob’.

LFG ‘you don’t have right gear’, Me: ‘if you really want i can make it’, them ‘ok we invite you next week when you made the gear’. I make the gear, wait a week, pm them, their answer: ‘did you really think we would invite you? Hahahaha go away noob’. PS this was at a time most ppl did not have Ascended raid gear yet and I had 3 sets specified for raids ready…

I’d only sign up for top 4 situations. Anything else: Nope. And I want that situation without having to leave my guild (you read up why). I don’t think that’s to much to ask (wvw and pvp guild succeed in this way). But alas, i’m here sitting in forums rather then succeeding raids.

You need to find an external raid group. No guild, just a group of people who get together at set times to raid. I found one, and it’s the best thing to happen to me for raiding. You avoid a lot of issues that come with raiding with friends or a guild:

1. We are a set 10. All 10 have a spot in the raid every week, unless they are late or absent. There’s no taking turns/rotating people in and out.
2. Someone is in charge, and it isn’t me. If a member needs to be replaced, it is handled by the leader. No drama.
3. Things aren’t taken personally, which happens when you suggest your friend/guildmate try something to improve. (I recall a time that a guildie dropped raid squad because we asked if they had a particular weapon to try).
4. You don’t have to bring X guildie/friend along to carry them through a kill. This is really what set me off in one guild (the reason I looked for an external group), and is disrespectful (IMO) to the people who worked on success for weeks. You aren’t forced to sit through hours of failure with someone who isn’t contributing, but no one will ask them to leave because we’re all friends shooting the poo, and X really needs their kill so they can be a cool kid with 169 mastery points. Sorry, little rant there.
5. I feel like I’m playing with 9 other people who take the raid seriously. My group is not hardcore-leet-super-awesome-pve-heroes, but expects proper gear, builds, willingness to adapt to each fight, and to improve consistently.

Farming Flats.5370:

Zenith.7301:

Please, bring the vendor back and use an in-game mail to announce the grace period. This is not proper communication of a change at all.

Grace period is already expired : It was announced one month ago … lol.

They do what they can but you have to do your part of the job by reading the patch notes after an update. And please don’t tell me that you are not aware when your game update ……

We all know updates come on Tuesdays… Most of us were under the impression that this week would primarily be the release of the new raid wing. There was no communication that the WvW reward tracks would exit beta this week. That is what people are upset about. This is akin to the karma booster nerfs, which they redacted long enough for people to use their boosts and drink their karma. Hoping they’ll throw the vendor back in WvW for a week or two, because I completely forgot the mention in April’s patch notes- vacations and a job will do that to you.

Otherwise, I think it would be fair to allow us to buy WvW reward track potions with Badges of Honor. What the heck am I supposed to do with them now anyway?

This is a somewhat different request, but I didn’t want to make a new thread for it. In December 2013, players who had bought gems were sent a Green Quaggan Backpack Set and a Mini Mr Sparkes for purchasing 4000 gems. Since that year, I have been waiting patiently for some new yearly special item to appreciate my spending (ahem) loyalty to supporting the game.

“Special,” to me, would be a really fine looking set that is somehow tied to the current lore of the game. There is nothing special about this set, aside from the fact that I can buy the scepter and pretend I’m Harry Potter on my necro.

I’m fine with special weapon sets being released with bundles, like the Immortal skins. You took feedback and separated the components out, but to get an Immortal skin you had to buy the bundle. Black Lion tickets are RNG enough, Privateer weapons should have been added as a bundle or separate box in the gem store.

My bf and I trade black lion tickets.. as in.. if I like a few from a set, we use all of our tickets and then we get the rest of the skins from the TP. This completes the achievement, and returns 7 tickets to me. Then when he likes a set, we do the same for him. I also have an alt account, so when it has a ticket, I’ll buy a weapon skin to mail to my main account.

This is a blatant ploy to get more key sales. I spend quite a bit on the gem store, and keys, already. All I can say is I won’t increase my spending habits to complete account bound black lion skins collections.

penelopehannibal.8947:

I can’t understand why ArenaNet can’t turn certain keys into a map currency so they go straight to the wallet.

It would hurt their sale of shared inventory slots. Seriously, I have at least 8 characters that do HoT map metas, and finally bought five more slots to hold keys.

The Luminate’s back requires you to collect all of the Auric weapons, which can be time consuming. If you have several characters, you can run each of them through the story part City of Hope, which rewards a choice of one Auric weapon based on class. You can also craft these weapons. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Auric_weapons Otherwise yes, the Luminate’s back is just a matter of doing events in Auric Basin. Collecting all of the weapons took me several weeks, collecting the other parts took me a couple of days (you have to collect an item from champs at each outpost, so you can’t hit them all in one map cycle).

If you don’t want to spend a lot of time:
The easiest would be making one of the backpacks from the mystic forge.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Equipment#Backpieces

If you do fractals, and have been doing the daily recommended, Finite Result (first tier of the legendary backpack precursor) is pretty easy and cheap to get. The only costly part is salvaging an ascended piece of equipment. You will need level 500 in at least one craft.

I, for one, am tired of having to jump through hoops to aqcuire a top-tier condi setup. And I have one of each weight class playing condi. I’ve got laurels galore, but still have to raid for months to finish a set of viper trinkets. Yup, they can be shared. Nope, I do not like doing that- it’s why I have 8+ sets of berserker trinkets and armor. That said, I do not think laurels should be able to be traded for magnetite shards, but I do think all ascended trinket stat combos should be available from the laurel vendor. You should not have to raid to acquire ascended viper trinkets.

OP seems like you want to almost directly trade laurels for ascended armor- I would not be okay with that. I would be okay with all stat combos being treated equally.

rhapsody.3615:

So african grey inspired? I would expect something more flashy like macaw coloring.

So ahem what do I win?

RoseofGilead.8907:

Firedancer.8350:

I don’t mind paying, to be honest, but not at the expense of having my account banned.

But because Arenanet will for whatever reason they see fit not tell us what their stance is, I will have a proverbial tummy ache either way… do I buy but risk my account or watch others cheerfully buy and risk being the sucker?

Paying for dungeon runs, fractal runs, and even raid runs is perfectly allowed. None of those require exploiting a bug in order to do something you’re not supposed to be able to do. Selling SAB Tribulation runs DOES require exploiting a bug to do it; thus, you should be smart and avoid doing it (in my opinion).

This is basically my thought as well. You are warned at the start that players will be unable to join your instance. If it was intended, players would be allowed to hop in and out, not have to exploit a small window of opportunity.

It’s a shame- this was one of the rare pieces of content where having a skin meant you achieved something. If Anet do say something, it will probably be along the lines of, “it isn’t intended but fixing it might break the event and we would like you to enjoy the time you have left.”

It allowed me to collect 253 before capping. Then suddenly I could collect more, to 486, then it capped again and I can only earn more from the wiggly chests. The numbers I’m capping at seem odd.

I am wondering if you ever found a solution for Shadowplay. Mine is set to manual recording, and the hotkey will work for about 3 recordings. After that, pressing the hotkey gets me the green light with a red line through it. No clue why it suddenly stops working. Sometimes turning Shadowplay off and back on works, but it’s so tedious. Web searches only bring up the same complaint with none of the solutions working.

Sinmir.6504:

I didn’t write back, maybe I should have explaining that I was on my own, not in his squad so at that time I felt it was my choice who I represented.

Yes, you should have responded back. A little communication goes a long way and you might have been able to smooth out some of the misunderstandings.

Before you join any guild, have a chat with the leadership about expectations. As a courtesy, I let my main/PvE guild know when I’m switching over to another guild, for example, “going to rep X guild for now while we do WvW.” Guilds are still somewhat harsh about rep requirements because new members are turned off by a roster full of non-reppers.

You can set yourself to invisible status, which will make you appear offline and you will not have access to any guild chat. You can join a party with friends and use party chat (or any chat channel besides guild) while invisible. Be mindful of the fact that friends can hover over your name on their friends list and see your location while you’re offline (they finally removed this from the guild roster but it is still happening on the friends list).

I think the most fun I had in the game was during the Scarlet Invasion. If we can get back to updates like that, I can forget about new legendaries (though I am pretty disappointed that I won’t get a crack at the new ones- been waiting for the new longbow).

My guild had a discussion about this, and we are all in agreement that we want the Friday reset back, however the time is too late for many on the east coast. We are in a more unique situation where our “reset commander” is in EU time, plus most of our runs end around 7:30 pacific (when the majority of east coasters have logged off).

Essentially, my guild (and most of our server) would still not have a proper “Friday Night Reset” if you go with 10PM eastern.

Mine just arrived too! Ordered in December ._.

Anyway, it feels like plastic to me. I squeezed his little quaggan face and if it were cardboard I think the bend would be permanent. I would contact iam8bit though, to be sure.

You can speed up the process if you have friends or guildies willing to craft them for you. Send your friend the materials and they can send you the finished product.

gatling.5319:

Is this a normal thing to happen and it’s all about how lucky you are or is this a game feature ?

I would like to know if we can get a feature to spawn into a well populated map or we can spawn into a less populated one at our own desire.

It is pretty good luck to show up to the Tequatl fight exactly on time and find a populated map. Tequatl used to be just like every other world boss- show up on time, autoattack, loot. He was changed to require some coordination; at the beginning, players would guest to higher populated server (pre-megaserver). Then as we became better, we simply made sure we weren’t in an “overflow” map. The introduction of the megaserver brought about the ability for all players, no matter what server, to fill maps. We learned that maps have a “soft cap” and a “hard cap.” A soft cap is where the game will stop allowing players to spawn into an instance, and instead will send them to a less full version of the same map. But the map is not full yet- players then set up “taxis” in the LFG tool to hard cap the map. The map is hard capped when players can no longer right click on a party member and select “Join in x map,” -they receive an error message telling them the map is full.

When you show up exactly on time, you are likely being sent to a new version of the map because all other maps are already soft capped and/or hard capped. This is megaserver working as intended, by opening new instances when others are full. To prevent being on an empty map, we as players have the option to show up to Sparkfly Fen 10-15 minutes early. During this time players will be organzing defenses and some will have taxis up in LFG to fill the map instance. Your other option is to show up exactly on time and hope there are still players putting taxis up in LFG.

Guild Wars 1 offered a district system, which allowed you to select which version of the map you wanted to be on, without needing a party member to taxi you there. Several players have asked for this system, but I believe the “taxi” system and LFG tool are the only option with megaserver (since maps are always opening and closing, and there is no static District 1, District 2, etc).

TL;DR: Show up 5-15 minutes early and/or use the LFG took to join a “teq taxi” and you’ll never teq alone again. Megaserver is working as intended in Sparkfly Fen.

Palador.2170:

Manasa Devi.7958:

People should realize that the answer to many of their complaints are in the name of the system: “Mastery”.

Honestly, I think the Mastery System would be much improved if they just got rid of the Mastery Points entirely. You’d still need to earn EXP to fill the bars, but you’d not be running into walls of content you dislike or can’t do.

Yeah, that way we can all just find the place that grants the most xp and farm it. Then we can all come here and complain about how grindy the game is and that all the maps are empty.

/end sarcasm

The only negative thing I can say about the mastery system personally is I would have liked there to be enough points where the adventures are totally optional (meaning you could get enough points without touching a single adventure). Some people are really bad at those adventure mini games… Tyria I can’t complain about; been playing over two years and already had more than enough points at HoT launch.

savacli.8172:

I’d like to a fourth.

4) Tried raids and got bored/burnt out

Unless you’re a raid-roster type guild the repeated problem I see is guilds having the same group of experienced players teaching the more novice players week after week. Thus, you end up with a group of players that just end up burning out on the content or getting bored of seeing the same stale encounters.

This has been my experience for the last month and a half (my guild didn’t really attempt raids until after the holidays). I want to raid with my guild… But getting 10 people who are interested and experienced in the raid online all at the same time is difficult. This results in often having one or two new people in the raid, and it really gets tiring to teach Vale Guardian over and over again for hours (we haven’t even attempted Gorseval as a guild). After a few failed attempts you start to lose people. You lose them after an hour or two because dinner, personal lives, wanting to finish dailies, etc. Or you lose the experienced people who get burned out teaching it for hours every week.

The solution for me was to join an external group, in addition to raiding with my guild. I also pushed for my guild to create one specific day/time for a more serious raid with set members that want to progress at a faster rate.

The experience is epic- for casual guilds. Like others have said, when we do beat it, it’s by the skin of our teeth. I do enjoy the raid bosses, but I fear the hardcore players are still not getting what they want, while the more casual groups are still struggling to down the first boss.