Guild Wars 2

I ran a small Halloween contest for my guild this month. This morning I judged the entries and set about mailing the prizes to the winners. After sending out TWO main prizes and getting a ‘not found’ message for the third, the mails I try and send out are ‘suppressed due to excessive messaging’. At this rate, getting the four main category prizes and the half-dozen or so participation prizes sent out to my guildmates is going to take forever.

Why is it I can’t send off more than two successful mails without getting hit with suppression while during the trial gold spammers could stand in LA and spam their gold-selling ads for hours under the same name, sometimes several times a minute, without being suppressed?

Latest Updates
1/29/2016
Added starter build

Video Guide

Zerker – https://youtu.be/oWKSOGhLDi8
Condi – https://youtu.be/HRDZWE6fL_w

General Text Guide

Gear

Stats

• Berserker with Assassin Weapons and 2 Trinkets – Zerker Set
• Viper Amulet + Everything else Sinister – Condi Set (Group)
• Viper Armor + Viper Amulet + Everything else Sinister – Condi Set (Solo)

Infusions

• Zerker – Power
• Condi – Condi

Weapons

• GS – Top DPS burst weapon
• Bow – Top DPS with GS
• Hammer – Top sustained DPS weapon
• Mace – Use with GS if blocks are needed or with hammer
• Torch – Use with Mace for DPS and condi
• Mace – Use for blocks
• Sheild – Use for utility out of combat or more cc for raids
• Sword – Use for condi trash
• Scepter – Use for condi boss or larget targets when solo

Runes

• Scholar – Zerker
• Flame Legion – Zerker alternative
• Balthazar – Condi

Sigils (Multiple sets is optimal)

Zerker

• Force + Air
• Night + Force
• Slaying + Force or Night

Condi

• Scepter – Air
• Torch – Earth
• Sword – Bursting
• GS (Boss) – Geomancy + Earth
• GS (Trash) – Earth + Bursting
• Alternative Cheap Sigil – Geomancy

Consumables

Food

Zerker

• Bowl of Seaweed Salad – Most optimal food if you like to dance and for record runs
• Plate of Truffle Steak – Best in general
• Fried Golden Dumplings – Best for solo
• Birthday Blaster – Free decent alternative

Condi

• Koi Cake – Best
• Super Veggie Pizza – Cheap alternative
• Fried Golden Dumplings – Best for solo

Utility

Zerker

• Slaying Potions – The best choice if the mobs are all the same type
• Toxic Sharpening Stones – Best when slaying doesn’t apply

Condi

• Toxic Focusing Crystal – Best choice though slaying is fairly close so you can use that as a cheaper alternative or other condi utilities. If you stick with cheaper alternatives you should get more viper gear to account for the loss in condi duration.

First of all, I checked the first 3 pages, and didn’t find anything, if a topic about this is already up, please redirect me.

To the point: there is a huge flaw in the design of the Ascended Weapon boxes. I realize that Anet figured out from Fractals that having random weapons drop for you is undesirable and people didn’t like it.

Now they implemented a system where you can get an Ascended weapon box with fixed stats that make you pick your weapon. For example, you can get a Occam’s Weapon Box, which let’s you pick any Ascended weapon with Rabbid (or Carrion? I dunno, doesn’t matter) stats.

There lies a big flaw in this design though, which honestly is even bigger than having a random weapon drop of which you can pick the stats: if you get the wrong stats, the weapon is essentially more useless than any other weapon.

If I got a Cleric’s Ascended Box, I would literally never open it, because I have absolutely no use for a Cleric’s weapon. A blue lvl80 Berserker weapon is literally more useful to me than any Cleric’s Ascended weapon. The only reason I would use it is if they opened lvl50+ Fractals and I would need the AR, other than that, I wouldn’t even bother.

Which is why, to me at least, having random weapons of which you can pick the stats is a better design than a random stat of which you can use the weapon. Because, at least an undesirable weapon can still fill some function on some character, whereas an undesirable stat wouldn’t even be considered by me. An exotic of more desirable stats will ALWAYS be more useful than an ascended weapon with other stats.

I’m not asking for random weapons though, since that design also doesn’t work, but to me it would be better if they either implemented both systems, where you can get either of them, a random weapon with choosable stats, or a random stat with choosable weapons. Or have a token-like system where you can exchange some ascended token for a box of your choosing.

I don’t know, this might be a foreign concept for some people but you might want to consider leveling to 80 by a means that is not exclusively crafting, such as… well… playing the game?

Lately, PVE players have been getting upset about the lack of end-game options available to them. New content is ideal, but perhaps Fractals can be tweaked to be more fun and rewarding so that current players can continue to enjoy them, and so that future players can have more fun working towards their rings and back.

Let’s Fix Fractals of the Mist!
****
I am going to focus on 3 things.

1.) Improving the existing Rewards System

2.) Stabilizing the difficulty, time length, and FUN of various fractals.

3.) Taking into account the months of player feedback on specific fractals, bosses, and other issues.

THE REWARDS SYSTEM:

Currently, running Fractals is net loss in terms of Gold for almost everyone. Running COF p1 outpaces it immensely, and to be honest, solo farming Orr probably beats it too.

The obvious tweak is to improve loot, so I’m not going to get into that too much. I do believe that loot in general should be improved from boss chests, and that perhaps an additional item, perhaps a chance at a core or lodestone, should be added to the daily chest above 20, with improving odds of getting a lodestone the higher the level.

Here are some less obvious tweaks. I’m not suggesting that all of these be added, but some would certainly help.
****
Five Fixes for Fractal Rewards:

1.) From Fractal level 30 onward, the Fractal daily chest has the chance to contain Fine Infusions. These are the infusions that offer +5 stat, +5 agony resist. Very few players ever bother to obtain these due to their high cost, and giving us a way to obtain them would get more players seeking their +30 stats they can now obtain through ascended.

2.) From level 40 onward, infused rings have a chance to drop with the Fine Infusion that corresponds to their primary stat. Red Ring of Death drops with a Mighty Infusion, for example.

3.) New Mystic Forge Recipe: 1 Fractal Weapon, 1 Shard of Crystallized Mist Essence, 3 Globs of Condensed Mist Essence, 5 Vials of Condensed Mist Essence. Gives you a random Fractal weapon of any other type than the one originally placed in the mystic forge. Or, if this is hard to program, just random Fractal Weapon, so that we can re-roll until we get the one we want.

4.) Level 40+ has a rare chance to drop Ascended Amulets and Trinkets.

5.) All Ascended Gear, including Rings, will now count as Yellow Armor for Mystic forging Purposes. 3 Ascended Rings + one yellow weapon will be a viable mystic
forge recipe for gambling for exotics/precursors. Four ascended rings will get you back a yellow armor.
****

now for the real question
DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY?
grabs popcorn

Plenty of people want high WXP rank nowadays. So, here is a guide to get WXP fast! Follow this guide and soon you can brag about your insane high rank to your guildies and server!

.

STEP 1. RUN WITH A ZERG.

STEP 2. WHILE WITH THE ZERG…

Don’t build siege, building gives 0 WXP. Let other people do it.

Don’t protect with whirlwind, protecting gives 0 WXP. Let other people do it.

Don’t heal people, healing gives 0 WXP. Let other people do it.

Don’t rez people, rezzing gives 0 WXP. Let other people do it.

Don’t kill downed people, killing gives 0 WXP when you already tagged that enemy. Let other people do it.

Don’t upgrade towers or keep, upgrading gives 0 WXP. Let other people do it.

Don’t down people downing gives 0 WXP when you already tagged that enemy. Let other people do it.

Don’t buff people, buffing gives 0 WXP. Let other people do it.

Don’t stand guard in a tower, guarding gives 0 WXP. Let other people do it.

Don’t escort yaks, escorting gives 0 WXP whennot attacked. Let other people do it.

.

Enjoy your new ranks!

It seems very odd there have not been any moderator posts in the past few days/week to touch on some more details of the WvW update. I would figure if Anet wanted to have a truly successful WvW “makeover” they would have to keep open communication with the community that plays WvW 24/7.

So this is that opportunity since most players do NOT use GW2 twitter or if there are any other social sites that Anet prefers to use instead of their own official domain.

(No quoting/posting updates/status from a month ago, that would just make you look silly to say the least)

What baseline can we expect, this is a very simple question that should be able to receive a really simple or even detailed response that might be similar to a table of contents. Granted Anet will say “We cannot tell you what we will do because even we do not know until the last minute”. Which is true somewhat, but mostly that is used to make it seem like they have no idea what CORE elements of WvW will be addressed.

For example: (Anet, you can list with bullets what main issues you would like to address

• Culling
• WvW reward
• Badges of honor reward
• Dynamic event credit reward
• Dolyak guard npcs not efficient/effective
• Siege blueprints being soulbound but still able to transfer between characters (seems like 2 people in the same department disagreed on this solution which is why we can trade the blueprints by dropping them but yet they are “soulbound”)
• Bigger or new map(s)
• Rework npcs such as Grub/Champion Tree/Mosquito event/Quaggan/Temple
• The water in the Borderlands that every single person hates
• Is the “glitch” where the waypoint is available for 1-3 seconds after Repel Enemies event going to be “resolved” with this patch or is that still a method we can use to reinforce falling Keeps
• Is Outmanned buff going to receive an update? We all know how pointless that buff is and HAVE known since release of this game 5months+ ago
• Will Orbs come back? If not what are we doing to replace them? WvW has become even more stale since the removal
• ADD THE OPTION IN REPORT FOR HACKING/EXPLOITING PLEASE
• Resolve current queue issues that have recently been reported but have not been addressed recently
• Current WvW titles are far out of the limit of many if not everyone who plays GW2, all kittentalk aside nobody can rack up one of those titles in 6 months – 1 year unless 24/7 focused on that single title
• Guild claiming currently has no purpose unless to activate guild buffs when under attack, why can we not see who claimed the location and or have additional options upon claiming a Keep/Tower/Camp
• Additional rewarded loot for killing enemy commanders (and/or higher loot table)
• Invulnerable zones/anti camping zones that reach into supply camps in the Borderlands (These are not a big issue by any means, but lots of people are ….. and believe this is hacking/exploiting and I’m sure that’s racking up the bug reports/paperwork, would be efficient to remove so that frees up time for whomever has to read all those support tickets)
• Address siege locations that “cannot be countered”, remove or maybe even add more
• More high ground/cliffs everywhere, Borderlands and Eternal
• Incentives for WvW both for guilds and for players (The virtual score that may or may not get reset has no bearing on if my guild is in WvW, rather if we feel like doing pvp together we go into WvW, which is always . But we are not an entire server and at many times servers lose even when there is enough active population, but not enough actually in WvW due to score and/or seeing a map 100% another color or the fact that there have been literally no incentives to WvW (other than PvE world bonus maybe? I personally don’t believe anyone has seriously considered those that valuable enough for PvE players to get into WvW.

Without incentives this has created a catch 22 where if a server loses, morale drops, participation drops, server’s ranking drops, server drops whole tiers, people transfer, dead server until massive alliance comes and makes active again. Granted with paid transfers, not every situation will immediately result in transfer, but with weeks of terrible participation in WvW combined with constantly losing, players will either leave Guild Wars 2 (which many have) or they will just leave WvW (which far too many have)

(Again please no quoting from 1 month ago or even 2 weeks ago; issues like culling and queue and maybe a few others require constant update as those ARE game breaking, but this thread is not to agree/disagree on these topics as much as it is to help Anet create their own “table of contents” of what they KNOW will be updated)