Guild Wars 2

Chill balances out Alacrity in PvP, to a degree. Pun aside, Ranger, Elementalist, Necromancer, Thief, Engineer and Guardian got relatively reliable access to it, then there’s Sigils and Runes. Mesmer even has some RNG form of its application with Chaos Storm and Chaotic Interruption.

Becka Williams.4978:

You were. You got exactly what you wanted. You knew that commander tags might become account bound, yet bought them anyways. The money wasn’t “wasted”. You spent it and got what you wanted. We have to make choices, and that means guessing at what’s going to happen in the future. Do you complain that you bought an ipad 2 a year before the ipad 3 came out, and then go to apple saying “it’s not fair, I want a refund” or do you realize you got use out of the ipad before the new one came out, and you got exactly what you paid for?

Excuse me? How would I or anyone else know Commander tags might become Account Bound? Practically nothing, even as short a time as just a year ago, was Account Bound. I doubt ArenaNet themselves knew Commander tags would become Account Bound at that point.

In what non-crackerhead way can you even compare it with a revision of an iPad? Please explain how you in real life, have access to multiple “characters” that you can move your consciousness from and to? How Apple can make the iPad change colors, but not only that, without a single cost to them within the universe of which the iPad exists, make it so that it magically duplicates itself across these “characters” that’s all you. You’re comparing something virtual, to something real, in a way which it does not relate one bit. ArenaNet are Gods within their universe. They can do whatever, whenever. If they want, they can make it rain goats. They can make one item into multiple items. Pigs can fly. And within this universe, this costs them nothing. In the real world, sure, it costs them development time and money, but Gold doesn’t pay for that.

So why should you, armed with this new knowledge and certainty, get to have this for 100 Gold, just because you now know that it is coming and are spending your money now in order to save yourself from needing to spend an extra 200 Gold later? Why am I supposed to get treated differently, within a game, a virtual world? The only reason anyone has bought multiple Commander tags, is because it wasn’t account-wide, because it was something considered a very useful thing, and as you play, you tend to swap your main character. Even you will do that at some point.

Comparing something in a virtual world, where the cost of refunding Gold will cost them practically nothing, to something in real life.. please.

I vote we also complain about physical bursts of damage as well. Since we’re going to complain about condition bursts. I played physical builds for 4 years. I’ve recently started playing conditions. I don’t feel any more or less powerful than I did before, it’s just a different way of playing.

I’m not convinced the duration has not been tampered with when each pulse is supposed to give 1s of Blur. It seems a bit rash to give each pulse on a 3s well, immunity to anything but such things as, e.g., Retaliation and/or Shocking Aura. Even if it’s on a Fourty-Five Seconds (“a kitten ” is kitten.. ok then.. WHAT?!—by this time next year, we can only read “kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten, kitten, kitten kitten” in our posts. This is getting ridiculous, ArenaNet…) CD. We’re talking about 5 targets having the benefit, not just one Mesmer. If it isn’t adjusted accordingly, then it’s downright overpowered and most likely considered mandatory for clashes on points, never mind for resurrecting. 3 seconds of straight up immunity is huge when you can cover so many people at once. Also I’m not sure why I had 9s in my head. Still, I think it needs adjusting, but I’m open for trying it out before screaming bloody murder.

Absconditus.6804:

Vella’s new hybrid (Dire+Berserker) style. Aimed for a bit of an angelic look.

Decided to go for an angelic look again (I know, very original, right..) on Vella’s Berserker set, using the glow of the Luminescent skin set (Silverwastes), boosted further by Sunrise (well, during daytime anyways), the Light of Dwayna (Recipe, check Trading Post) and the Wreath of Cooperation (Gem Store). Minor difference from what I currently had, being mainly dyes, though it has a rather drastically different feel to it (at least in my opinion). Using Pyre-, Electro Peach- and Celestial dye on the armor. For the laurels I use Green Apple- and Illumination dye (I know a part is technically metal, but it’s hard to see so I’m treating it as shading/highlights on the leaves). Celestial hair- and eye color. The halo is from the Selfless Potion (uncertain if that can be obtained again or not, haven’t checked NPC’s in LA). I believe that should cover any potential “Hmm.. what is—”, regarding what is what and colored how, if a newer player should look at it and like something but not know what things are. It’s not going to be everyone’s taste of course, that’s ok. Note that the dyes look rather drastically different with the Luminescent set than on other armor skins, due to how it glows in its pulsing manner. The hairstyle and face (as well as the Celestial color for the hair and eyes) are unique to the Total Makeover Kit (Gem Store). The face sliders has been tweaked. She’s Human. Uhm.. that’s it. I think.

(You can read bolded words for short and concise feedback.)

Renegade has a few very problematic bugs, one of which makes the entire legend’s utilities unreliable for use in all game modes because you can’t rely on them not being the victim of a “No valid path to target.” message at any given time. I have recorded a short clip to demonstrate this here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llctr_10b50

The Brutal Momentum trait seems to have some sort of issue with Rolling Mists in the Invocation trait line. I saw my Critical Chance shoot up to 100% as it should while under the effect of Fury, for a split second before it would drop to 70%, then when combat ended, it would drop to 30%, and a few moments after pop up to 60%. It felt all over the place.

The Blood Fury trait which should provide a Bleed duration increase while under the effect of Fury didn’t seem to be working either.

Another issue comes with Seven Shot on the Short Bow, which will frequently not fire off several of the arrows, even if the terrain is seemingly perfectly flat. This can be seen in the following clip; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C4kOM3W2Xg (arrows 1-3 do not fire) and also in this example combo clip; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8847KBvhwrA (arrows 1, 2 and 4 do not fire).

On the notion of Seven Shot, it would be nice if you could aim the sweet spot in the same way you can when having set Ground Targeting to Instant (which may or may not be a bug. But it made the skill feel far nicer to use considering this is not a 1200 range weapon and enemies can close the distance needed for it to be optimal (when it doesn’t bug out) in mere moments, making the skill somewhat useless very quickly). Renegade does not have a short Immobilize, which could alleviate the problem too.

Citadel Bombardment felt pretty inconsistent in its ability to apply damage to targets. I never find the opportunity to use it in any sort of rotation, which is somewhat sad considering how cool it is. It is just way too energy hungry to use.

In fact all of the Renegade’s skills and utilities does feel as if they have a slight bit too high energy cost tied to them. It’s a constant energy starvation when playing Renegade, which just doesn’t feel as nice as when playing with any of the other weapons and legends.

PS: The heal feels rather.. in lack of better words, garbage. If it scales well, that doesn’t help condition and power builds. It just makes it awkward. Also not sure I like that the stun breaker is on it, though I can understand the difficulty of putting it elsewhere.

I wouldn’t be against it, that’s for sure. That way you’d have one backpack for sPvP, one for Fractals, one for general PvE and exploration, and if they’d find a way to make one for WvW as well, that’d make one for each kind of game type.

I guess it depends on how much other things is required for the sPvP/Fractal ones. Are they self-contained within the content they are advertised for, or do they branch out into the other game types as well, like current Legendary equipment?

Hohan.4016:

I agree with her difficulty i’m not the QQ more player but I’ve not kill her yet.
I’m arounf 200+ try and the only thing that make me suffer is AoE, just to know i’m colorblind and evading her AoE is not really easy. I’m not asking for a nerf, but at least a way to see that skill better cause i’m stucked on seeing where the AoE pops and most of the time for turning up the camera i die on the shadows xV. Any advice would be appreciated.

Best advice I can give is to make sure you use the same arena every time, and that you get a complete pattern for yourself going from phase 1 to phase 2 until she dies. I am color weak, not completely blind and I can see the red in the top left of this forum just as most other players without “disabilities” can, but I have trouble with, e.g., seeing red hues within red, red in green and so on forth. For the gauntlets, the floors are literally making every single red circle invisible to me, so I share your pain when it comes to this. I was able to overcome it by giving myself a pattern of movement and tasks (like picking up the orb, then throwing it at specific locations, before moving to that location, and so on forth—using the light fields mainly to help me orientate).

For everyone out there that struggle, I do believe in the fact that anyone can do this. You can do this. What matters is that you don’t let it get to you too much. You need to try keep your boiling blood under control and stay calm. Try to get a “zen”-like attitude towards it. Being calm and collected will help you so much when it comes to going at it over and over. Try to distract your brain a bit with some music as well, because when you don’t overthink it, you’re likely to play better as you’re just going through the motions.

There’s plenty of time to achieve your goal, but I do understand the frustration and anger you may feel towards the game right now. I felt the exact same way, and still find it stupid that they put these (actually quite awesome, if not for the arena design annoyances) hard challenges in temporary (though returning in some way or form) content. Not because I don’t necessarily deep down think I can do it, and not because that I think I’m great or anything, I’m not. I just know I’m dedicated and I have a lot of spare time on my hands (working from home). What I hate is that it does exclude a pretty large % of the playerbase. Those that may need a little more time to achieve something, and that doesn’t have the same time on their hands like I do. I never feel like I need to prove myself to others by rubbing it in that I have done something they struggle with. If I wanted to be that special snowflake, I’d try to achieve something in real life where it actually matters. At least in real life it can get you laid.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Yeah, you can use distortion, just remember your no longer tanking the point then. Idk what you think someone standing infront of you does. Cause it does nothing at all. As for distance, that also means your not doing your job and holding the point. CC is a option for cc’s that have a cast time. But not all ccs have a cast time. And a block from a enemy guardian to stop that totally screws you over. Or multiple ccs from different people. And as for waiting for when there is no ccs up, GL, cause you will be waiting for like, the entire fight lol.

Force people off the point with a Chaos Storm? Any slightly clever individual knows they do not want to stand in that, more so when facing a lockdown Mesmer.. Something it’s a shame you never really see your pros play I might add. Though I do understand why, considering lockdown is not something that you can just switch to and be instantly good at. I’m well aware that it takes time, several months even, to learn the ropes, refine and actually become good with that way of playing. Just like it takes time to get decent at Mesmer in the first place. So yes, I fully respect that those that have their interests invested towards competing in tournaments, the “pros”, aren’t exactly all that up for being bad (and practically anyone that’s just starting out with doing lockdown is quite bad, for quite some time) and a liability to their team, while they become efficient with that mindset. Over time, you start to pre-emptively interrupt skills you want though, at a rather great success rate. Initially, it’s hard, many skills are instant, and it takes time to get it to be second nature to interrupt specific things and to not go trigger happy and waste them. Luckily, most players adapts the same exact playing patterns, so it’s easier to counter <insert x profession here>.

As for tanking the point. Sometimes, taking and controlling a point, is not all about you standing on it. If you win a fight because you weren’t insisting on standing in harms way all the time, and you can capture that point, then it doesn’t matter that you moved off it for brief moments. Even your pros, which you so often seem to refer to, knows that, and you can easily see them not focusing all their efforts about standing on the point, but rather on winning the fight, then standing on point. Sure, stepping into the circle is important too, but not dying it more important. You’re of no use dead.

E.g., you may have lost the point for 6 points ticked over to the enemy team, then you ended up killing whatever opposition that was there and take it back for the duration of, let’s just say 20 points, to your team. Who benefit in that situation? The opposing team that managed to decap and tick 6 points? Or you who’s controlling the point currently while the opposition was sent back to their spawn, giving your team 5 points (or more, if there were additional stomps performed) in addition to the points ticking in while you’re in control. Hopefully, if applicable to the match and situation, you were clever enough to send them off just after a 15 second window (:01, :16, :31, :46), to capitalize on the time they are kept out of the match.

CC to re-channel can be from one interrupt with Chaotic Interruption, Power Block, Confounding Suggestions and Furious Interruption for some added speed to aid you further. So what do you mean with “cast time”. Our interrupts are instant (unless you consider Chaos Storm or clones needing to travel for Diversion—don’t forget that you are a source of Diversion too). A block from a Guardian, as in a Aegis, is not something to worry about, your illusions will likely peel that away anyways, if it was on-demand, then they are more often than not out of it for over a minute, besides a few traits (e.g., just be ready for it at 50% health, or after they block). If you mean through skills (e.g., SoW), you can- and will want to peel it to avoid the explosion. If they are using Shelter, by all means, channel up a Mantra without care. They aren’t posing a threat at the time. You had no reason to move anywhere.

And if there’s multiple people there, and you are alone, you are in trouble regardless. Most professions are, even the almighty cEle is going to face some trouble when they get outnumbered. Actually even more so when there’s a +1 in a lockdown Mesmer to harass them. You can perhaps survive long enough for your team to assist you, but if they delay on that, you are faced with the choice of either eating dirt, or trying to tail it out of there because it’s futile, and you’d rather they didn’t get the +5 and benefit of you being taken out of the fight for x amount of time.

LightOfMercy.3516:

Does anything go through blur?

You will get interrupted if you hit someone with Shocking Aura in example. Or if you try to run through area of denial fields (Static, Warding, etc.). Retaliation will hurt you when you hit on people, but they basically made Retaliation tickle.. so whatever. So.. yeah, not much will actually hurt you, unless you are already loaded up with conditions.

What does it matter what percentage I make out? And don’t just pull statistics out of thin air and state it as a fact, to try make your opinion more valid. I’m fairly sure we’re talking about a different number than 99%, as there’s plenty of complaints to be found about the task needing WvW throughout the past two years.

I still think it’s a bad design to set up something in a competitive environment, that has players who have no interest in participating in that game mode, running/standing around taking up space for those that do, for extended periods of time, since they need to rely on others. It’s not like queues are uncommon, on a lot of servers, more so for Eternal Battlegrounds.

What are you going to suggest next? That those with this problem should just take their wallet out, move away from their friends and go on a lesser populated server? You can always transfer back and pay those 1800 Gems, right? Oh wait, you’ll probably even state that you can use Gold to convert to Gems, which in no way what so ever helps support the game. Good idea.

What exactly would be so wrong with changing how it works currently? How does this hurt you? In what possible way does that negatively impact you or me? Shouldn’t I with my 8 legendaries be dead against this, since it would “lessen” my past efforts? Well, no.. as this is but a tiny step of the effort involved in making these weapons. Why is it so important to you that a player should not need to rely on others for a selfish goal of World Completion? Why should it even need WvW in the first place? Having players not interested in the game mode clutter the battlefields. The Legendary crafting itself requires (almost) all game modes. Gift of Battle being out of participating in World vs. World. And why isn’t it including Dry Top and Edge of the Mists then? Southsun Cove? It should encompass everything right? You seem dead set on it needing to be as-is, and not made better for players overall. Why not suggest it to be made harder, add those new maps.

1.) No, players can for one set other models to be standard ones, so basically the same Human model across all opponents. And you can zoom out the camera substantially enough for this to not be a issue when fighting against a Charr/Norn at any rate.

2.) Again, same as above, standard models is an option. Also, this should not be a issue once you are used to reading animations across the various races. I’ve never had an issue fighting against someone because of their selected race.

3.) Again, same as above, standard models. Also, Phantasms are see-through, making it incredibly easy to spot the opaque Sylvari. It should not confuse anyone.

Mind games comes from the illusions and shatters, interrupts and control in general, (stealth if you want to use that), positioning and so on forth. A new player may also be increasingly confused by the illusions regardless, especially when paired with stealth. A more experienced player will pick you out faster than you can count to 1 however, when you pop out of stealth.

Wrong game? At least my GW Mesmer is named the same as my GW2 Mesmer, that counts for something, right?—Wish this set was in Guild Wars 2 as well. I guess in ways we can somewhat mimic it (e.g., there’s a vague resemblance to the Inquest Armor (Light), wiki body piece), but it wouldn’t be the same. We need more classy looking armors, or at least pants for female characters. It’s annoying that there’s only skirts for Light armors.

Got to agree on the notion of the Mini Pets (and other RNG box items for that matter) needing to be possible to trade. Out of €50 I got 2 Mini Festive Golem, 5 Mini Snowman (3 went to make Festivoo the Merry), 2 Mini Infirarium and 2 Festive Hats (I do not need/want more than one, quite honestly)—besides the other “junk” items. I am actually “stuck” with a duplicate of every Miniature, and I got friends that are missing just 1 to complete their collections. I’d like to give mine to them.

Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that I at least didn’t end up with a broken collection, and that it only cost me €50 (which is still a terribly high cost for 4 Mini Pets), compared to others I know who’s spent over €80+ and not gotten complete collections. Even so, it still stings that I needed to pay €50 (50 Wintersday Mystery Boxes opened before the collection was completed) in order for that collection to happen. The Halloween approach was FAR better, a set I can buy twice to make a fourth.

As I’ve said in one or two other posts; I will not jump into another RNG gamble like this, if this is how it’s intended to be forwards. And, as soon as my collection is broken, and I have no way of obtaining these collectibles through, e.g., Trading Post, I will just stop collecting. Who wants a broken collection? Thus, any funds coming from me for future collectibles updates are not going to be happening. Consider that this may be the case for many collectors. Making them Account Bound may just be like shooting yourself in the foot on purpose, stupid.

Guild Wars 2 is not the typical Free-to-Play model, we already pay upfront for our copy of the game, and as such we have already invested and are less likely to jump in and out. You’d think you would want to keep your already playing players investing, through clear purchases, and not drive them away. If the game was completely free to download and play, then yes, I can see that tactic being possibly beneficial to the company; but as it stands however, this game is not a game that I would expect to see having a influx of players jumping in and out of it, like other F2P titles that relies on these tactics to “milk” players as they jump from game to game.

Ross Biddle.2367:

• Yes you play Sw/Sw, even Sc/Sw etc at mid (to close) range since they’re mid range weapons, and the devs have stated that mes is a mid range duelist.

How in the world do you play to Sword/‘s strengths at mid range though? You have one single attack that will connect from that distance, and that is to get close. Mesmer is in most cases far more effective, the closer it is to the target (not counting the Greatsword auto-attacks damage scaling). Our shatters are faster and far more difficult to avoid if the target is close to the illusions, they travel less distance and blow up faster (at the risk of being blown up before you’ve created three of them granted). Projectile speeds as well, while they can be annoying at a distance, is less of a factor if you play up close and personal, as projectiles that are sent out at barely a few Asura feet’s distance from a target, has pretty much no travel time. They will bounce more predictably too, hitting you back for their buffs. Most of us know how effective Mirror Blade on Greatsword is, when thrown at point blank (unless we want it to bounce to more targets). That’s not to say you always want things to be up close, or that you will always be up close (Phase Retreat sort of forces you out at range for a moment, and/or sometimes you want to Blink to that ledge to get away from damage and recuperate), but you are typically more effective up close nonetheless.

On the note of Pistol’s Magic Bullet; it used to have an annoyingly narrow cone of attack, which is why I said it roots me, I didn’t actually notice they have patched that before now, so my bad—Magic Bullet is above and beyond better these days, when compared to how it used to be. It used to be that it felt like for in order to make sure I never interrupted it through my movement, or that the target moved out of the tiny little front-facing cone, I had to let go of my movement keys, taking control away from me for a brief moment, effectively rooting me. This is something I’ve never felt was the case with Counter Blade, which is also rather good for interrupting attempted resurrects I might add, typically hitting a cluster of enemies just fine. I have never been in a situation where I wasn’t able to throw that out to interrupt one or more enemies (target the one furthest away) from trying to get one of their own back up on their feet, after our team has put them on the ground. Additionally, Counter Blade will come out pretty fast by double tapping, where as the Magic Bullet is tap, wait briefly, shoot (though that is just placebo feelings from the animations). All in all, I guess they feel rather similar in terms of execution, and with Magic Bullet’s cone being a very generous 180°, that is actually better now. I have been rooting myself without the need to do so for a few months.. durp. Old habits.

Edit: Wow.. durp with an e is actually a censored word? Seriously, ArenaNet? . . .

Got some friends who run with the same look as their Thieves Guild/Ambush Trap spawns. I can’t remember on the top of my head what specific armor combinations it is, but you can head into WvW and check the PvP locker there to figure it out.

Blue.1207:

Wheres the cohesion of the items with the in game aesthetic? I know we get a few items that adhere to this midset, but then we get a giant raven, or a literal meteor glider, or (insert your item of choice) that throws that aesthetic out the window.

While I can find the raven glider to be a bit.. frustrating when doing jumping puzzles, due to the immense size of the model on large player characters, I don’t think it can’t fit within the game. On the contrary; say you’ve made Nevermore — now the spirit of the raven is allowing you to soar through the air towards the ground. The meteor; an Elementalist summons a meteor to fall slowly towards the ground. The Sheet Music, some contraption created by a “bard”, perfect for the musicians of the game (as in those who likes to play instruments). Besides some of them being a bit frustrating to deal with in certain aspects of the game, such as jumping puzzles, I don’t think the majority of them can’t have their place within a functional theme.

Also, if players wish to load up on all the possible auras, why not let them? There’s generally very few people who can ever afford to become the “monstrosities”. How many can you honest to Kormir say you see on a regular basis in the content you partake in? It seems a good quantity of us thinks effect bombs just look ugly, so we shake our heads. And you know what? We can then move on with our lives shortly thereafter, looking the other way, not caring. Chances are we won’t necessarily see that person again. We won’t remember their character name just because they were a walking bile of particle effects, we’d likely remember them more if they had a clever combination to be fair. It’s insignificant to us. You’re letting yourself get worked up for brief moments in time.

PS: There’s a difference in how player models look (they can be hidden with name plates showing during big encounters should the game deem it necessary), and how skills look. There’s also unlikely to be 5-10 people that are regurgitated effect bombs. It’s not unlikely to be 5-10 fields on the ground.

Also concerned about this as I transmuted two of my Legendary weapons already, with Sunrise being the only one I didn’t touch, just in case I wanted to make a Eternity at some point.

While it won’t be the end of the world for me, if my Rodgort and Bolt don’t get reset to their Legendary status, I do think it’s a bit of a slap in the face, when the only reason I transmuted in the first place was from thinking that even if they wouldn’t be upgraded automatically as Ascended weapons were introduced, worst case I would simply need to collect the Ascended stats I wanted and transmute it again, as I didn’t really want Soldier stats on my weapon(s). This new way of handling the stats on the legendaries however, are something I would simply never have imagined ArenaNet to do. And it’s awesome, so thumbs up on that ArenaNet.

Hopefully this patch makes a pass through the database, looks for the Legendary skin/ID, the Transmuted status, and revert it back to Legendary.

Edit: Seems a moderator didn’t think this belongs in the topic dedicated to the Living Story patch, even though the release page is mentioning this change being implemented.

How is Fractals a chore now compared to before? They are over with so fast, which to me is a welcome change, and you can jump into the same and/or a different one much faster than before. You also know exactly which scale to go to, in order to do a specific Fractal instance, meaning you can do, e.g., 56-60-61-67 for some quick runs. Salvage the various Rare/Exotic you should get, sell the Globs, earn some Gold. Use the 13600 Karma you gain (assuming your Reward Level is at least 77 in the example above) and make some additional Gold—figure out where to best spend it yourself.

Why would it matter if a person has switched professions? Also, it’s not uncommon that people will play with alts for some variety, and/or to get all that much better at countering said profession.

As far as I saw in one short streams I was looking at, he seemed very into Chronomancer and were looking at his video footage from playing with it in BW3. Afterwards I believe he played some Thief in sPvP. Perhaps he simply plays something else while he waits for Heart of Thorns? And again, why in the world would it matter if he wanted to swap to a different profession? Why start a topic on the subject?

There are two random factors in the fight. The Gravity Rifts pulling you, which will change positions between fights, even in the same arena. And the blinding effect that you can “cheat” around and turn off through disabling Post Processing, which most people who beats her and say there’s no RNG to the fight have done, that much is obvious. I agree that the fight is not overly complicated once you learn your patterns though. But some luck will likely be involved in the runs where you do win (Gravity Rifts popping where you quickly kill them, and the blind effect occuring while you are in a safe spot (unless you “cheat” and turn it off of course)).

The arena however, is quite frankly and in my opinion undeniably terribly designed. The camera does get cramped, and I noticed it being far easier to get my bearings with a tiny Asura, since at least the camera rather zoomed in towards the top of her head, unlike when it was staring at my buttox while I was on my tallest possible Norn, smallest possible Charr or tallest possible Human in example. That makes a difference, and it shouldn’t have been designed in this way when they are fully aware of their own camera limitations.

The flooring is even worse, but this comes mainly from the perspective of being color weak and/or blind—I am the former, color weak. I was completely unable to see any red circles at all during these fights. Were you? With the camera issues, combining with the inability to even see a red circle, it became a lot of trial and error until I had my own perfect movement from point A, to point B, to point C, to point D, etc.—perhaps you would have been rather irked off as well, if they had for this encounter completely disabled red circles? If I recall correctly, they can be turned off in the options as well, so why don’t you devote one token to doing the fight while they’re disabled to get that perspective of things? Do you think it is as easy now? Or is this making it more annoying? Poor game design != challenge, poor game design == poor game design.

I was able to overcome it, but that doesn’t mean the encounter is perfectly fine. As for not being as random as some people may think, yes I agree on this, but saying nothing is random, that’s not true.

I was also disappointed in seeing it being the Human Cultural, but ended up buying it still, as I didn’t actually expect them to re-design it. It somewhat gave me a revitalized love for my Mesmer again, so I even splurged Gold on Whisperblade, Spirit Links, Vision of the Mists, Ignus Fatuus and Mirage which I like in combination with it. Crafted her 4 20-slot bags to go with the Fractal ones, in order to get 160 slots. Bought 7 Superior Runes of the Traveler, so I don’t need to feel so slow. A Rare Cloth Aquabreather. Superior Bloodlust, Torment and Energy Sigils. Even got her Commander tag, as I am going to be playing her for quite some time now. Overall, this set gave me the motivation to spend over 1000 Gold on my character, even if I didn’t quite agree with it being a Cultural set. So yeah, I really do hope the re-design is a rather good one.

Keep in mind of course that nobody forced me to go on a spending spree. That was entirely my own choice. It was however indirectly caused because of how a new set of gear can really make you want to play your character more. So if the new design isn’t all that good, or should I say—personal opinion—as bad as the Medium and Heavy skins, that little load of Gold will somewhat feel like a waste on stuff I perhaps wouldn’t quite have bought if I didn’t get this new love for the character. I also overwrote my Phoenix skin. Something I don’t think ArenaNet’s idea of a refund would cover getting back.

Sure, I have Cultural already, amongst other skins, so I can get a similar look again. I can still find a use for the Mesmer-theme weapons with any other set for that matter. A long-term goal is to have Commander on all characters anyways. But it was something with how this fiery-theme was done that really got me to spend some serious Gold on her now. I really do like the flame particles on this one, where as I never liked it on the other fiery-themed pieces of gear. The metals on Flamekissed is also far more like metal than the good old Cultural is (which looks more plastic than metal to me).

Yeah, hope they do a good job with the re-design.

You’re not alone with the frustration of this achievement. Again someone on the ArenaNet team thinks it’s a good display of individual skill and ability to achieve, to force each individual player to rely on about 149 other players to get an achievement done. I only pray I can get it before it’s too late.

cyyrix.6105:

Absconditus.6804:

…

Holy walls of text, Batman! If you want people to understand (or even read) your arguments, try to be more concise. Your post history looks like a mass grave for words.

Anyhow, intentional interrupts are very difficult vs. most thieves (save HS, HiS and bassi). Haphazardly guessing with them can work against some classes (engi, for example), but with thieves it is generally a losing game.

Oh no! Someone on the internet uses words! On a forum at that! Rude! Call the.. call the.. someone! Halp! It dazes my poor brain to see words written out in paragraphs and I must call it a wall of text, even though it is not by any standards. I am so insulted to see a post that has more than 3 sentences!

And no, intentional interrupts are not very difficult vs thieves. An inexperienced-with-interrupts Mesmer might think that though. E.g., take on their #1. It’s a predictable pattern. And again, that’s why you string out the Diversion with your own Illusionary Persona being very reliable as the first hit, to increase the odds. You try create your clones a certain range apart, before going for the dazes.

Your poor brain able to read this? Too many words to handle? Did my Diversion hit you on the forums again? Maybe I just like playing Mesmer too much if it works here too.

Most of those are going to be from the Core masteries, as they have exploited the fact that certain dungeons has endless spawns that grants XP, and just grind on those for a few hours. ArenaNet isn’t doing anything about it either, so high ranks is not anything special. They failed hard with that aspect.

Edit: ArenaNet.. can you please start loosening up on your over excessively filtered kitten-list? “They failed kitten that aspect” is not even remotely close to lewd, or swearing, it’s a straight forward English sentence. Yes, kitten can be lewd too, but for crying out loud, it’s not as if someone will have their eyes starting to bleed if they read it in a lewd manner.

I didn’t find it overpowered to fight against, nor underwhelming to play. It felt good with how it were tuned in Beta Weekend 3. I do expect some minor tweaks however, on the nerfing side (sadly), people are quick to jump on the “nerf this, nerf that” choo-choo train, and the general feedback is that we are OP. Then again, so is Mesmer. Has been said to be OP since Guild Wars for that matter.

Never mind that it takes some rather skilled individuals to actually make Chronomancer shine. Who cares about that. It’s OP. This really skilled player, made this thing seem easy. OP. Nerf it. I don’t care if I can’t do the same. A few people can. OP! OP! Furry kittens and fluffy sheep OP!

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Sword 3

Summon an illusion that leaps at your target, crippling them. After the intial leap, the clone will execute the Mind Slash sword chain.

Actually, they need to fix the tooltip too, the clone doesn’t leap, it dashes and stops on the way if distracted by a strand of grass, pebble or ants. Let’s get it right here.

gad.7365:

Ok, after long time I got this.
Here is solution:
Stay face up to open space. Little on the right from the middle you will see some mushroom ledges( I would say they are maybe purple or little red idk i don’t recodnise colors good ) on high level with usually 2 mobs on it.
You have to glide there WITHOUT closing gliding, use updraft to get enough high.
It worked at least for me.

Translation;

When standing in the opening of the Arboreal Overlook Point of Interest, glide towards the top mushrooms on the big tree, which is a tiny bit to the right—There’s a couple Mordrem Guard Sharpshooters on it. If it’s not obvious enough, it’s the tree with the big flowers above some mushroom ledges. You must (and can) use updrafts to reach it. When near the bigger center mushroom (where it triggered for me at least), just slow down your gliding and it should pop up before your feet even touch down.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

muscarine.5136:

About the 50% ratio, yes, and i think it’s fair, i personnaly know i won’t get past ruby and i’m fine with it, people who go past that 1/ team queue 2/ are better than me.

This is actually, despites its flaw, a system that will reward the best, like it should be.

To move up a tier in a division, you have to win 5 games in a row. With a 50% chance each game (assuming a perfect system, which ofc its not), that is a 3.1% chance of going to the next tier. When you add in the complexities from issues such as solos vs premades and class balance, it all adds up to a mountain of horsekitten.

Well, technically not in a row. I just spent what felt like 20 matches yesterday, winning, then losing , then winning, then losing (queued solo from the start of Leagues for what it’s worth), and so on forth, on the last pip to reach Sapphire. It felt like a endless cycle of being back to needing 2 pips, then back to needing 1 pip, rinse-repeat. Eventually I won two in a row. There are also several times I’ve climbed a few pips, only to drop down one, then climb a few more. I’ve even had a 9-10 win streak, all solo queue.

The biggest offender is when I get queued against good grouped players, especially when it just repeatedly happens and I lose all the pips I’ve gained towards a tier. That just leaves me salty. That makes me frustrated. They have such a huge advantage. MMR balancing can take a seat when it comes to that scenario. Grouped players always has a massive advantage over those who are randomly put together. Losing to teams, is kitten horse and fluffy kittens kitten. Nothing makes me saltier, and I have to vent by asking for water in the map chat, because I am salty as kitten.

Jaymee.1560:

I am one of the few who actually love the armor…

You are not one of the few. On the contrary, I doubt there’s too many people that does not like the armor skin. The Cultural Human Light Tier 3 armor has always been one of my absolute favorite looking sets in the game, and I think the particles and textures they added to it for this re-skin was rather nice. It’s the first fiery-themed armor set that I actually like the look of. Can’t stand the CoF set, nor the Achievement pieces, not the gloves from the Molten LS, and not really the HoM bracers either.

It’s more that it was a “Requires race: Human” armor, something that was supposed to be exclusive to Humans, and while it has minor differences, namely the slight texture additions and particle effects, it is basically the same exact skin—or mesh if you want—now available to other races, without other races Cultural armor being available to Humans in return (and the rest of the races of course). It’s a set that costs 119 Gold, and while this is not much in the GW2 market today, back when I in example started purchasing it, that was a lot of Gold. To give it some monetary value, 50€ would give you about ONE Gold when converting Gems to Gold back then, not really something I’d recommend anyone to do. It’s been de-valued over time of course, as the Market amasses more currency into its circulation, more players convert Gold to Gems, driving the Gems to Gold ratio up and so on forth, but that still means when I was working towards it, it was pretty much at a value of nearly 6000€, or $8000 if you want.

Today it may be of no real effort to get. But a lot of the owners invested a lot of time to get these sets, in the early days. And I don’t think I heard anyone not laugh at it being the exact same mesh as the CHLT3 set when we saw it for sale, the same way they still laugh about Medium being the WvW set and Heavy another skin set you can buy with Karma/WvW Badges. People called it lazy and a cash-grab, because it kinda was.
_______________

However, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t really see how they can in any possible way properly refund the purchases of this skin set, to players who may not enjoy the look of the new re-design they are doing. I doubt they can go about restoring previous skins on the armors the Flamekissed was transmuted on to. E.g., it may have been transmuted over CHLT3, Phoenix and/or other skins. How can they refund all the Gold that has circulated thanks to Dyes purchases to create that exact look you wanted? Weapons that may have been bought (a lot of my friends have purchased Destroyer weapons in example, one the Volcanus) to fit the theme. I know there’s people who used Total Makeover Kit(s) to change their appearance to better suit the skin. People who found a new love for their profession because they really loved the look can have purchased several expensive Superior Runes to go into it, e.g., 6-7 Traveler’s. How can they possibly refund that to everyone that may not like the new look? A simple, here’s 800 Gems and a set of # Transmutation Splitters doesn’t really cut it.

On the other hand, it’s also a problem to leave it as-is for those that already purchased it. It creates a very exclusive rare skin that others are not able to obtain anymore (Note: I purchased it for my Human Mesmer). It still means there are going to be Sylvari, Charr, Asura and Norn running around in what is effectively Cultural Human Light Tier 3 armor, which irks some people more than others.

What they could do perhaps, and this would require a lot of work on their end, is to provide players with a recipe that involves purchasing the Cultural Tier 3 armor set, a permanently available Gem Store item (more money for ArenaNet shouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing for them, right?) and some other various in-game crafting items, that allows you to upgrade the Cultural to that new Flamekissed look through the Mystic Forge. This would mean they need to re-skin every single Cultural set for the different races however, all fitting under that same theme. It would also mean they still need a way to exchange/refund current Flamekissed owners of other races than Human, so that they could get their racial in that style. Still, that doesn’t really solve the issues at hand, as people bought it for how it looked, not necessarily just for the nice particles and textures.

Nope, I really don’t see how they can resolve this properly. The best-case would be that the new re-design is unique, not a re-skin of anything currently in the game, and that it is so awesome, while still having a similar theme (the top is usually a favorite of the set), that people wouldn’t mind that it got changed over to it. That is not necessarily going to be easy, when the CHLT3 armor set is already so great looking.

I don’t think you’re seeing the bigger picture of what you’re doing here, ArenaNet. You are locking content away. I mean, I can still place myself in the new player shoes. I remember I was a bit confused at first, I wasn’t quite sure where to go. Nor did I know what my buttons did the first time I went into the Downed State. But your philosophy of telling me that I can simply pick any direction, run for a bit, and as a result, adventure will find me—helped me get through the leveling experience. It was amazing, I’ve never had this much fun leveling in a MMO before, and I’ve played my fair share. Please take this as the compliment it is. Sadly, this isn’t really the case anymore.

You’re for one limiting players more than you did when I leveled up. But you’re hardly improving on anything. You’re not teaching them the fundamentally important things. Yes, such as dodging. The new tutorial for that is relatively alright, but could do with a bit better explaining. It should be in the starter instance as well. Downed State, there’s no real time given to a player for learning this, so you learn through multiple encounters with the state as-is, slowly taking in what each button does each time you get downed, while you wait to die as you read the tooltip(s). You simply needed to, forcefully down a player, taking them step by step through the skills of the state, pausing the action, nothing hitting them, without a timeout period. Then once things have been explained, put them through the test of using the state against an enemy, cheering them on for being awesome once they rally. The game could do with a few tutorials. But of course, please make it possible to skip them.

You are holding the players hands, way too much. There’s no excitement in exploration when you are at all times presented with an arrow telling you where to go. The whole idea of, pick a direction and adventure will find you, is lost. You’re told where to go. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to follow it, but as a new player, you probably think that’s the ideal way to go about things and will do just that. You’ve in a sense robbed them of the exploration sensations and joy this game can provide.

Why not provide this compass initially to send the players to their very first heart? Explain how hearts work in detail, how there’s in pretty much all cases more than one way to finish the quest it represents. Then point out that near every heart, there will usually be events to find, which will even contribute to the nearby hearts completion, directing them to a nearby event and its tutorial. Take them from that to their first story instance, explain how this works. And so on forth. The game needs tutorials, not for you to be locking options away. It’s not rewarding to see that you’ve “unlocked” the ability to use dyes. That you are allowed to be rewarded for visiting a Skill Challenge and/or Vista you might already have found. Something rewarding would be to get 5 dyes unlocked at some level. To get an appropriate Rare weapon for your mid-range character with a selection of Sigils to customize it with. You know, rewards that players feel rewarded by. Another way to increase the feeling of rewards for this game, is to stop making it so we can’t salvage our Karma things. I know it was exploited early on, but for crying out loud, it’s almost two years after the incident! It’s time to make Karma rewards feel a bit more rewarding again. To make it not feel like spending Karma on gear as you level up is a waste. Because who likes to destroy their rewards when they outlevel them, with nothing in return. Salvaging, that’s different.

You really need to think a bit more about things you do, before you do them. You had plans of removing ranks in sPvP, because you were going to implement a Seasonal Ladder system to this game mode. The reasoning for removing ranks, was “… to give PvP players ways to set goals and work towards them …”, by.. uh, removing something which was already a goal for players. You have great intentions, of that I’m sure, but this outrage should have been obvious. If you want to retain players, you need to make the game feel rewarding, not by locking things away, but by actually letting us do and get rewarding things. A good start would be to allow us to salvage/vendor our Karma items. The new collection system already helps, I’m excited about killing mobs, certain events and dungeons. I have over 4000 hours played and I’m excited.

If I was to put your new player experience into a picture, it would probably be something like what’s going on in this screenshot I took yesterday, it’s just confusing.

I just figured someone at ArenaNet likes this maybe not so famous, famous photo edit.

I don’t think it was OP, nor is it necessarily OP now, but it became a proper annoyance when they allowed for it to stack in duration. That was one of the most horrible decisions they ever had and went through with, PvP-wise (WvW), at least in my opinion.

I have never felt the need to be a special snowflake based on some limited exclusivity. I am not a fan at all of the timed kind of exclusivity, which pretty much means nothing in terms of how dedicated you are. They aren’t prestigious at all. I will much rather have rewards that everyone can obtain at their own pace, but that requires some hard work / dedication / skill to obtain. Heart of Thorns seems to be bringing just that.

- sPvP Legendary Backpack (higher sPvP League ladder ranks)
- Fractals Legendary Backpack (higher Fractal levels)
- Legendary Armors (challenging Raids)
- New Legendary weapons (Masteries and various in-game mini achievements)

The Luminescent set is far more prestigious to me than some of things which I have that are for whatever reason no longer obtainable by newer players (e.g., my Selfless- and Thoughtless Potions, two items I hope to see put on the event vendor for future / current players to obtain). Luminescent’s a set of equipment (skins) that requires dedication. And while it’s not all too hard to create, the very notion of collecting every piece of Carapace armor, for every weight class, etc., makes it something that not everyone will want to pursue. Just like a Legendary.

On the notion of Legendary weapons, sure, they may feel rather common these days, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still items a majority of players look at with desire. There are more have nots, than haves, when it comes to the Legendary weapons. I feel there’s plenty of prestige and crazed dedication shining through on my Mesmer, when I can with pride wear every single weapon it can carry as a Legendary. They may not be uncommon to see these days, but it’s uncommon to have as many as I carry. Even my Twice-Told Legend title is prestigious, irregardless if someone wants to reason that it’s not worth it to pursue it. It’s still an option for everyone to pursue after the fact, but nonetheless I have a very uncommon title under my character name. Again, a display of my dedication and perhaps stupidity to some.

Royal Guard does not make me feel prestigious. I don’t need it to stay exclusive to us “Veterans”. You could have owned the game a single day, less than 24 hours, for less than 1 hour even, and still get it, as long as you owned a core game copy prior to it becoming Free to Play. It’s no indication of being a Veteran when you think about it. I am more than happy with having gotten an outfit for free, even if it is made available through the Gem Store at a later date for everyone to have. Keep in mind that over 5 million people have the Royal Guard outfit, going by their statement that more than 5 million copies of Guild Wars 2 has been sold to date. It’s not uncommon either.

I find it a bit silly to be obsessed about having timed exclusive things. Because, at some point, you, nor anyone else will really care. Do you care that I used to have a ghost tiger mount in WoW? Arguably, at least for a good long while (—I think by now they’ve made them available again, I dunno, haven’t played it for over half a decade), it was the hardest to obtain and most valuable thing in that game, as it was from a very limited print of a TCG tie-in that became unavailable? No? Exactly, neither do I.

Personally, I don’t ever feel like starting to play a MMO if I weren’t there throughout its release. Why? Because I hate being left behind everyone else with their timed exclusive event items and all that jazz which I may want, but are unable to obtain. I am quite certain I am not the only person who hates feeling that way, in fact I know I’m not, as I’ve seen comments such as “I’ll be so far behind everyone else” being used as an excuse to not play games, including Guild Wars 2, time and time again.

I want Guild Wars 2 to challenge that tradition and be a better MMORPG for it, a game open and welcoming to new players, without them needing to feel as if they’ve missed out on oh-so-much stuff. It’s why I want Season 1 of the Living World re-playable. And I want new players as well as current, to be able to obtain everything someone else has obtained (and I’ve obtained pretty much everything there is to obtain that’s time limited), as long as they go through the same hoops the haves had to go through, so that they can join their ranks from the have nots.

Astra Lux.2846:

I think of it like the Guild Wars legacy rewards. It was something that you worked for, but also a nice throw back/send off sort of thing

A perfect example. You can to this day still go play Guild Wars, and unlock these rewards. It simply requires the dedication and will to do so. This is not time limited. You are perfectly able to buy the Guild Wars Trilogy and Eye of the North expansion, and unlock your HoM rewards in Guild Wars 2 today. In fact, I recommend any Guild Wars 2 fan that never played Guild Wars to do so at some point. Guild Wars is still a great game.

Pretty sure there’s some sticky topics here in the Mesmer forums that can get you going. I haven’t really read into them, so not sure how good they are, but there are plenty of great Mesmer players here, so I assume they are good.

Ultimately, experiment and play around with the different weapon combinations until you find something you like and enjoy playing with. If you hate playing with a Staff, even though it’s a nicely defensive weapon which can generate some clones and re-direct players off a spot with its Chaos Storm—well, you wouldn’t exactly enjoy playing with it, so why torture yourself? If you love Scepter/Sword and get really good at using those block skills, even if it’s rare to see a Mesmer using those, who’s to say you shouldn’t use those? Experiment a bit. I personally like GS and Sword/Sword the most atm.

Staple Sigil for most Mesmers is probably an Energy one at least. Many Mesmers also run Traveler Runes to circumvent what feels like the slowest profession in the world when it comes to mobility (it’s not that bad).

I think it was simply bugged initially (actually not working as intended), outside of WvW and towns. I see my Miniature much more often now, with very few cases having it being culled. Regardless however, I don’t think my Miniature should ever be culled for me. It’s nice if the message states it is culled for others though, so I don’t look like a weirdo if I talk about my crow friend that’s not there for other players. Perhaps make it so that a party see each others Miniatures even if they should normally have been culled?

I do also still dislike that Miniatures are taken out of the market cycle. There’s no longer a collection around them at that point. In the sense that you collect and you trade. There were already a lot of Account Bound Miniatures, with only a few making sense to bind (CE and HoM ones), but at least you had the ability to “Trade you x and y for a z”. I find such player interactions to be fun. The main problem was that the Trading options from Guild Wars are nowhere to be found in this game, and I think it could sorely need it. Even if we got Mail and Trading Post systems. I still want to feel like I’m face to face trading with someone now and again.

Also, by making Miniatures unavailable, you are hampering your potential to earn real money, ArenaNet. Collectors, don’t want to collect something they can’t fully collect. There’s no point in collecting Miniatures for a lot of players, if you’re unable to “catch them all”. Account Bound status on a bunch of them, as well as the limited availability for some, and some outright being near impossible to get (e.g., the debacle you created with Mini Mr. Sparkles, which caused myself, and others, to stop giving you money for Miniatures), only hurts your potential of cashing in on those of us that actually collects/collected. I don’t think you’re always being all that financially clever when it comes to a lot of these things that you do. This saddens me. You are taking so many wrong choices when it comes to earning yourself money, and then you look at other ways of pushing players into making you money, again the wrong ways. You need someone to slap your financial direction team, they are doing a terrible job quite honestly. Rule of thumb, ask yourself, will this negatively impact someone that may be giving us real money, causing them to stop doing so? If yes, look for a different idea/iteration, as you don’t want to make players who already give you money willingly, to stop giving you money. PS: You did it again with the Mini Llama. You obviously don’t learn from your mistakes.

It’s not a new subject. And as per usual, I shall reply with the standard “Why?” question. With the way the world is populated with Waypoints in every nook and cranny, barely a stone toss away from one another, why do we need mounts? A mount would obviously be considered necessary to speed up the player, right? If not, then you have two mounts already in the game, a flying broomstick and -carpet. But if it needs to speed up the player, you completely negate the effect of one of our Boons, Swiftness, and stats through Utility/Traits/Runes providing Movement Speed. So again, why? Can’t you collect skins as-is? Or perhaps Miniatures (though since they are not possible to completely collect, I don’t see why anyone would bother themselves with collecting them). You could collect the Mail carriers. Finishers. There’s plenty of things to collect besides a mount. A mount which honestly feels very out of place and unnecessary when there are so many Waypoints.

Take a moment and visit the Signet of Humility wiki page. Familiarize yourself with the skills you will be having access too there, instead of panicking in-game pushing buttons and not knowing what to do.

You may notice that you can use Flee to evade some attacks, and it even sends you running a short distance if you wish to try create somewhat of an gap between you and your target(s). Perhaps to LoS around a corner, down a ledge, or otherwise.

You can use Screech to apply Weakness and lower the potential incoming damage coming your way. It’s not huge on range, but should serve its purpose.

See a field you can Combo Finisher: Leap from to gain something beneficial? Use Kick, besides using it to Cripple your target(s). You could use this before trying to Flee as well.

Or go on the offensive. Kick them, throw in a Screech, then Peck the kitten out of their hides before you Flee and Dodge for avoidance. And before you know it, you have dealt them some damage when they least expected it, and find yourself back out of the Moa form ready to curb stomp them and teach them that Moa is not such a easy thing to win with after all. If you got a buddy, practice in a empty Lobby with them.

Nearly every Elite Specialization gets a new F* utility, without sacrificing the old, so why should ours be merged into/replace an existing one? On the subject of the UI, yes, that can do with a bit of a makeover perhaps, but I don’t mind how it looks as-is. There’s bigger issues with how our numerous in-game buffs will go in a conga line all the way to the right side of the screen, disappearing under the mini-map—if you got enough of them—when talking about the aesthetics of the UI that is. That affects every player, regardless of their profession (unless you run the game at 4K, I guess, never tried that).

The balance to our Continuum Shift, is its destructibility, you can counter it by targeting the Continuum Rift placed in the world. Players are not used to spotting it, nor to take it out, yet. This will come with time. Our counter to this again, is to make use of clever placement, lockdown and so on forth (all with their own counters). We got a rather short period of time to make use of it however, so we can’t exactly drop it around a corner, run for a few seconds and then do our skills. By its very design, it’ll often be placed in sight for the enemy to focus. If they don’t deal with it, that’s not our fault, is it?

I don’t see any reason as to why we need to sacrifice more than one of our Trait lines. Taking Chronomancer over our other preexisting lines, comes with certain sacrifices. Let’s not pretend it doesn’t. While our new line gives something for everyone, it also is taking the place of something else. And with us being a profession incredibly reliant on our Traits, more so than most other professions, it’s not without sacrifice that you pick up Chronomancer.

I think people tend to forget that Mesmer, is a relatively difficult profession to get into. A difficult profession to master. Most players acknowledge this. It’s a profession that require some skill to play. In turn, this means that the average Mesmer you will be facing, is inherently a relatively skilled player, maybe more so than your average player of another profession. When every Mesmer you face, is inherently relatively skilled, this can create a skewed perception of the professions “power” to someone playing a different profession. Thus, we face the “QQ”, complaints and nerf requests at a steady rate.

Love the little tune it plays too. Happy Wintersday to all that gets stomped.

Not going to wade through 64 pages of comments. But here’s my 2 cents on the subject;
Excellent implementation, ArenaNet!
_____________

I, for one, applaud that you incentivize team work, by interacting with other players for a large quantity of these Hero Challenges. I mean, this is an MMORPG. Why in the world would we not interact on some basic level with others? I’ve had no issues finding people to help by asking in /map, and have at this point 104 Hero Points beyond having fully unlocked my Chronomancer on Saturday. I still have 10 Hero Challenges that I have not completed in various Heart of Thorns maps, for another 100 Hero Points, meaning there’s a 204 Hero Point surplus (in my case, and for most pre-existing Lv.80 players) of them. If x Hero Point is too difficult and/or you can’t find it, move on, find another one. There’s more than enough to get yourself maxed out.

Why should the Elite Specialization be unlocked without any form of effort? If you play sPvP, this is not a issue regardless, you got full access as-is. For World vs. World, you can unlock Hero Points entirely through the game mode, using the Proofs of Heroics you get from ranking up (not a difficult task). It’s 4 days since release, and people want to have everything completed already? That would be a terrible expansion. This is not grindy. It’s not gated. It’s just basic progression. I was perfectly able to finish up with my Hero Point collecting on the second day, and that was easily done by interacting with others and/or tagging up to draw people to a Hero Challenge (a valid strategy if you have it available).

When compared to your average MMORPG expansion, at the very least ArenaNet took the road of horizontal progression, rather than vertical. All our past efforts (except Guild investments.. and I am really annoyed by this Anet—you threw several HUNDREDS of my Gold out the window by replacing, instead of expanding) is not voided due to the expansion being implemented. This is a good system. It gives you some reason to do these challenges with strangers and friends, beyond Map Completion (which is bugged if you have 100% Core completion, Anet, and don’t grant rewards—it does grant rewards if you don’t have 100% in the Core game though).

There is no GRIND here. At all. You do one Hero Challenge, move on to the next, etc.—you are not grinding away repeatedly on one batch of enemies, over and over. Don’t throw the word grinding out there if it does not freaking apply. Although this topic is not about it, that applies for Masteries too. You play the game, or you choose to grind. There’s a MASSIVE difference here. You can grind, but then you have no right to complain and say it is a grind. How you choose to play is up to you. You can do each event once or twice just fine and get high ranks of the Maguuma Mastery lines. Just remember to kill enemies here and there. Gather. Uncover the map. Again, kill enemies. You’ll be surprised how fast it fills if you kill some foes now and again.

TL;DR: Ask in /map if you want to complete a Hero Challenge. It’s a MMORPG, why wouldn’t you socialize at least on a minor level? Don’t get obsessed about completing a specific one, there’s a surplus to get your Elite Specialization fully unlocked. There’s four maps. It’s perfectly possible to use a Elite Specialization before you unlock every Trait and Utility Skill, but that said, you don’t have to use a Elite Specialization to play in the Heart of Thorns maps. But most importantly; It’s been FOUR DAYS since release. Not even a freaking week!

They have the metrics we don’t. How many of us are on Windows 10? How many of us have a DX12-ready GPU? These things would need to be factored into the pros and cons of performing a engine upgrade. Would it be worth it in the current market?

Better yet, they could perhaps offload more graphical things to where it belongs, the GPU. And not be so overly reliant on CPU overloading. That is where the game has “problems”. Not the lack of DX12.

Got to agree that they should be Account Bound.

I do, as I’ve said in the past, see the problems with purely making them AB however, as there are Legendary weapons being sold and traded on the market already. But an Account Bound on Equip status on the items, which would allow for them to still be sold, but once equipped, turn Account Bound, doesn’t seem like something that’s too far fetched an idea to implement.

When I made Bolt and Incinerator, I enjoyed playing my Thief the most, then about a month ago, I started enjoying Warrior more. I still enjoy playing my Warrior, and do use a Sword, so it “stings” a bit that my Bolt is stuck on my Thief, especially now that I’ve gotten to Rank 10+ in WvW and feel more and more punished by ArenaNet for wanting to play multiple characters.

Basically, the whole fact that these weapons are Soulbound, after switching over to a new profession as my favorite to play, makes me not want to spend any more money and time making new ones. I won’t make a duplicate Bolt in example. I’d like to make Juggernaut, but it’ll be Soulbound, so if I ever feel like switching my favorite professions to play again, that’s another Legendary stuck on a character I ain’t currently enjoying.

If they were Account Bound, I would be far more likely to spend time, money and effort into making more of the Legendary weapons. I know that I will some day want to play something other than my Warrior for a while. Just like I don’t “main” my Thief anymore. The way they’re designing the game lately however, makes this feel extremely punishing. Soulbound status on basically anything that takes a large/huge amount of effort to get (not just Legendary weapons, e.g., Infinite Light, Ascended earrings/amulets). WvW progression that’s bound to characters, and not the account. Etc.

I’m feeling less and less motivated to play every day, because it feels like whatever I do is just solidifying what specific character I must play forwards, unless I wish to feel like I am losing a ton of effort, money and/or time invested from changing to a different character.

cursE.1794:

Because these folks really think that the class is actually balanced and it’s their super-ninja skills that let them dominate pvp.

Ahaha! Good one! Dominate—ahahahaha! How about.. no. Revenant/Herald does not dominate the slightest. They are not weak, but they do not dominate either.

drkn.3429:

Manuhell.2759:

Well, now you know how people that bought the old digital deluxe upgrade felt when they added heroic edition items to new purchases of the digital deluxe upgrade.

Except i received the heroic stuff upon that update, myself being a digital deluxe pre-purchaser. A chest with shiny set of profane armour along with some boosters and bags arrived to me via in-game mail.

I sure didn’t get that. Anyways on-topic, I think ultimately it would be wiser to quickly remove the ability of the new Watchwork Mining Pick to have a chance at gaining sprockets. Adding Azurite to Molten, Candy Corn from Halloween pick, etc. will just make the idea of it being a convenience item fly out the window for me. You’re, as others bring up, then stepping on the Pay 2 Win territory with these items—even though I don’t necessarily find it fair for GW2 to be called a P2W title at any rate, considering its provided ability to convert Gold -> Gems.

It no longer is simply an convenience to have these gathering tools however, if it is something that gives you an advantage, however small it may be, over someone who does not have them. Granted, Boosters are already touching upon this territory, albeit it is minor in most cases with it mainly being convenience buffs speeding up things. It won’t bother me too much if nothing is done about it, but I do understand that players such as myself who has purchased the Molten Alliance Mining Pick, might be a little annoyed that suddenly a new one appears that gives you a drop that you can not get otherwise out in the world as you mine.

I really wish they just wouldn’t do mount skins at all. But.. that’s not happening. Oh well. I hope they don’t become different creatures entirely with the skins though and I pray to Kormir there will never be a SAB mount. I’m fine with a SAB mount inside SAB. Not outside it.

This is as others say, a very valid bug fix. It just means we need to use further skilled play to use it effectively. Mesmer has always had a high skill ceiling, and I would imagine most Mesmer’s are happy with that. And, keep in mind that we can very likely find ways to use the intended way for this to function, to our advantage as well. I’m sure we can figure out instances where we want to see it destroyed by an enemy, and place it in harms way purposely to do something really quickly. You may not think that to be the case now, but give us some time to experiment, and you might be surprised at the plays we make out of Chronomancer and its quirks.

I’ve gotten 2 in Zone 1, 2 in Zone 2 (freebie torch one didn’t count, moved all over inside (avoiding the trap in the ceiling by going on the left of the counter)) and 6 in Zone 3 (hidden one under the rug and Elite skill room counts). Total 10.

Currenty going back to Zone 2, to see if they count the hidden room that you had to go “under the map” for as a shop (right before checkpoint leading up to the boss-cage), if it’s even reachable in Tribulation mode that is. It had a bed and other furniture, but I wouldn’t have called it a shop. Who knows, going to check.

Edit: Nope, got in there, but was killed off, so isn’t that either. Guessing they’ve messed up the freebie torch shop trigger or something. With that it is 11.

Does not matter, we have better fashion sense than every other profession! We’re refined, civilized and as nobles, we are also rich, we can afford it. #Sarcasm

Got to agree it’s poorly worded. It does say kill, not to complete the meta as a whole. Killing one of them would be fair enough for the achievement anyways. It does grant Gerent Slayer achievement, which is similarly worded.

I went ahead with Berserker, since I prefer the raw damage over conditions, especially in PvE. I also use it in World vs. World for that matter (full zerk, since Mesmer has decent defensive skills), so it wasn’t too hard a choice for me to make.

I’d much rather have spent my time working on a Legendary set of armor though. I would love being able to switch stats out of combat and play more with builds while having a single set or armors and trinkets.