Guild Wars 2

As we move ever forward into year 2 of GW, the living story rolls ever onward. Whatever direction you are taking it, we as players need a place where the Lore of the living story exists for returning and confused, or even nostalgic players.

Some out of the way place in Lion’s Arch that details what happened: a councilman’s death, an investigation, aetherblades!, skyfolk, elections! As we move away from these events they will be harder and harder to explain to folks, and some players just won’t be able to make all the living stories, but will want to know what happened, from within the game.

I missed flame and frost, and have no idea what happened in that living story. I would love to be able to go somewhere, in game, and read about what happened. Who was affected and how did it end?

Not to mention the art that was included in the little noir short for the LA investigation event during dragon Bash. Or the dragon art. Tidbits…. they would not go amiss, and offer a permanence to the living story that we could use to visit and reflect.

I loved seeing the Queen become a mesmer’s joke in Faren’s arms. I think it would be sweet to be able to revisit that, or even show a new player sometime later when the pale tree sends sylvari to hunt that terrorist down what happened through a device in game.

It would be a kind of tatoo, a reflection of the living story that would last.

^^ Nice looks all!

Here’s my Sylvari necro, Luna, decked out in a mix of cultural armor, Twilight Arbor, and the starter mask. My inspiration for this character’s look… Tim Burton movies.

Anet, mah fingers be tired. Tired of double-clicking my 250 drips of liquid karma. Tired of tapping mah heavy loot bags. Can we please have a “Use All” option?

Engineer of course.

Okay fine, I leave.

Warning: This is an opinion thread. You can disagree, but it is my opinion.

I don’t even know where to begin. First, I’ll say the wallet and PVE culling is good. I am pleased with a lot of the “quality of life” improvements that are being made to the game with each patch. I feel they are needed and finally getting some attention.

But I ask my fellow forum-goers…how do you feel about all of these themed-updates?

In my opinion, the content being put into the game is abysmal. Call it “free abysmal content”. Where are the threats to Tyria that we must use the skills we have to defeat them? You know, those buttons and abilities we have used for 80 levels? Things like Death Blossom, or Heart Seeker? Where are the enemies to kill that actually pose a threat to the world? Where is the content that is not just a list of achievement check boxes for a mini at the end of the rainbow?

Yes, some of these updates are fun and neat-o for a while. But really, did you create a character in an MMO, with abilities and skills to kill things, just so you can play minigames that replace your skill bar anyways? Or to click on objects in the world? Is this why you play an MMO? Role playing, and interacting in a living world is definately important, I agree. But I also feel that we should be defeating enemies of value and purpose. Things that have meaningful ties to story and lore, and that we feel a sense of accomplishment once they are killed(no, I am not speaking of loot).

Where are the dragons? Where are the gods(besides chillin’ in abandoned Orr). Wheres the REAL combat, the REAL content?

Yet another patch, another fantastic and lovely living story update with beautiful bunnies and confetti. Yet another patch with no substantiated or meaningful content, or content that we can go out and see in Tyria, conquer and have a meaningful impact on the game. They say it is coming, but in the mean time…it is patch after patch of festivels, mini games, fireworks, celebrations, RNG…NOTHING that likens to a traditional MMO. I know this is not a traditional MMO, but it should have some traditional updates, like REAL content.

The content that is being given to us is all dessert. Wheres the meat and potatos?

Why is there no sugar in my coffee?

1. Grab a deck of index cards.
2. Write an engineer skill on a card, one per card, and sort them by healing, utility, and elite.
3. Shuffle one pile of cards then spread them out
4. Flip over three utility cards and slot the skills.
5. Flip over one healing card and slot the skill.
6. Flip over one elite card and slot the skill.

That should be pretty quirky.

For extra RNG, do the same with traits.

Fortus.6175:

For example, you wouldnt expect a thief to not have stealth, and to come out of the ground with a bucket full of worms and flowers. It doesnt fit them, right? Exactly, iconic thing for thieves is; stealth, mobility, daggers, hit and run, high damage.

In other words, the rogue stereotype is of a class using stealth, and so people assume all variations of them need to use it. Meanwhile, the rogue profession of the original Guild Wars, assassins, did not have stealth.

Do you know what’s the stereotype (or, I guess, the “iconic thing”) for MMORPGs? “Kill ten rats” quests while using the Holy Trinity. I guess we should complain about how ArenaNet is doing something different over there too, now?

Fortus.6175:

-sigh- again someone had to bring Wow, because apparently THEY were the ones to set the standard for modern fantasy, right?

It appears to be so. After all, we have people saying…

Fortus.6175:

Another one would be DPS staff for eles, you would think a “mage” archetype would be dangerous with its iconic weapon(…) I have yet to imagine Gandalf running at the orks with two daggers….

…Obviously without actually reading “The Lord of the Rings”. If they had read it, they would have noticed how Gandalf used a sword for combat considerably more often than a staff, and how said staff wasn’t used for throwing fireballs or any of the other concepts commonly linked to the “mage” archetype. In fact, the battle in the book between two mages used words as weapons, not any of the stereotypical “fantasy mage” effect.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

- snip -

Not quite what you imagine, eh Gandarel?

Did you really have to create another thread on this? If folks who never played GW1 want to know about Abaddon, we have the Temple of the Forgotten God to spark interest. And the mention of the Fall of Abaddon would spark some interest to, and they’d go to the wikis and read the lore. The fractal will not be giving as much lore as you think it will. I can promise that.

Even if Gandarel is an aggressive, flamer troll… he’s right. That’s not what would’ve happened… AT ALL.

Ascalonians had begun the conquest of Ascalon before magic became widespread. With the gods still around – especially the human supremacist Balthazar – they would’ve pushed the charr completely out of Ascalon and the Blood Legion Homelands back to the east of the Blazeridge if not further. One way or the other, the charr empire would’ve been utterly annihilated.

Seriously Konig… stop acting like you know the reason behind everything. The mursaat were afraid of the Flameseeker Prophecies, and they hunted the human Chosen to stop it from coming to pass – they weren’t out to slaughter Kryta… back then. Without Abaddon, there would’ve been no Cataclysm, no Door of Komalie, no invading titans… so the mursaat would’ve had no reason to oppress the Krytans with lies and spectral agony. Besides, the gods knew about the mursaat, and they could’ve probably figured out a way to combat their magic under that 1,000+ years that they would’ve spent on Tyria instead. -> Humans and gods roflstomping the returning mursaat.

sigh Zhaitan was only strong because he rose in an undefended graveyard of corpses and a vast museum of magical artifacts. Considering that ED are kitten weak when they awake (Jormag getting his tooth ripped out, Kralky getting mind-beaten by an asura and nearly dying), a lone Zhaitan would’ve been just a BIG, rotting lizard with wings… no match for the Six. Especially if we consider that in that 1,000+ years they could’ve figured out they’d accidentally built their palace on Zhaitan. Then they would’ve went on to kill him in his sleep – along with the other Elder Dragons. The Forgotten are there in force in this alternate timeline, with no casualties suffered at Abaddon’s hands – both in Tyria and the Realm of Torment. Together the Six, humanity, and the Forgotten and with their uncorruptible magic the Elder Dragons would’ve been – as you like to say nowadays – “wtfpwned” with extreme prejudice.

Cantha: gods are still there, answering prayers. Balthazar is a human supremacist psychopath who would commit genocide on all non-humans. No Jade Wind: time before encroaching on tengu territories pushed much further -> thriving of the Dragon Empire without turning their lands to slums (technological, military, etc.). Tengu also without magic. Result? Canthan tengu wiped out entirely.

About the Kurzicks and Luxons: no Abaddon -> Shiro isn’t corrupted -> doesn’t murder Angsiyan -> peace between the vassal states and the Empire -> reannexation.

Elona would’ve been a pretty peaceful place. If the scarab plague was magical in origin, the Primeval Dynasty would still rule all three provinces and there would’ve been no Scourge of Vabbi. (If not, then as you said: Varesh remaining a noble warmarshal, Palawa Joko would’ve never risen to undeath and power, and the Margonites would be still around.)

All in all: if Abaddon didn’t exist – and the Five figured out the way to bring humanity to Tyria without him – then the non-human world would be under the crushing bootheel of humanity and their gods now.

But I agree on your last sentiment: that fractal would do no justice to an awesomely epic and determining moment as the actual Fall of Abaddon. We’d see Abaddon plummetting to the ocean, fight scantily clad sailors called Margonites in the Temple of the Six Gods, and watch blinding blurs of signature colors representing each of the Five Gods in the distance. I dare say I get more excited if I use my fantasy to imagine an event we know about.

Evans is also right. He might’ve been to first to learn of Tyria’s existence, and proposed the others to flee there with humanity.

Downed Skill 2 (Grappling Line): Change to Acid Bomb, cooldown 10 sec

Utility Goggles: applies revealed debuff to anyone in a 1000 range of you for 3s

Blunderbuss: Make cast time instant

Throw Junk: Change chance for chill to 1s immobilize, weakness to 2 stack of vuln 4s

Immobilize gives downed state more trait support/benefits condi duration, vuln benefits power/crit

Overcharged Shot: increase the distance you are launched back

Personal Battering Ram: Transfers 2 conditions to enemy and gives 4 sec of stability

Solves lack of gadget condi removal, lack of guaranteed stability for the class outside of Elixir X

Throw Mine: change remove boon to steal boon if you are in the blast radius

Elixir R: Remove cast time

Elixir C: Also gives stealth for 3 sec

Mortar: Change to a kit, remove minimum range, allow it to crit, unreflectable and doesn’t give stability

Solves position issues, survivability, benefits from better traits, 2 turret elites are redundant as supply crate already includes turrets, just add a 45 seccooldown to the 6th superior rune of lyssa, other on-elite runes

Rocket (Rocket Turret Toolbelt) knocksdown for 2 sec

Analyze Also applies haste debuff for 3 sec

Empowering Adrenaline: Gain 2 sec of quickness when you use a gadget

Since all the gadgets seem to have an offensive aspect, gadget traits should support that

Kit Refinement: Remove global cooldown, each has an individual ICD

Rifled Barrel Turrets: Move to Master Tier

Even when turrets come up in survivability I don’t think this trait does enough for 30pt

Performance Enhancement: Gain 35 healing power for each stack of might

You will only get a significant bonus in power if you go for a lot of heal pow, even then it is Diamond Skin bad

Accelerant Packed Turrets: Move to Adept Tier

There are few traits for turrets in the Adept Tier so going 20pts for this seems wasteful

Modified Ammunition: grants a 3% crit chance and 3% dmg per condition

Napalm Specialist: Increase bonus to 50%

Adrenal Implant: No negative effect when you gain quickness

Armor Mods: Gain 3s of prot when you use a toolbelt skill, cooldown 10s

Power Shoes: Makes strafing same speed as forward movement

Static Discharge: The bolt shoots to your target, not where you are facing

Blood Injection: 5% dmg reduction when bleeding or poisoned

Energized Armor: 5 sec of swiftness when critically hit cooldown 5 sec

All of these X% of Y given as a bonus to Z traits don’t seem to do enough, even if you get enough of Y it would be better to just stack Z if thats what you wanted.

Exploit Weakness: Weaken targets for 2 sec when you immobilize them

Mine Field/Reserve Mines: Instead of a random pattern, they deploy in a 180 aoe circle around you

New Traits
Inventions: Grandmaster Tier:
Jaeger: Turrets can move and dodge. Cannot be picked up. Heal/Net Turret follow you within 600 units, Flame/Thumper/Rifle/Rocket Turret defend a 900 aoe area

Alchemy: Grandmaster Tier:
Mutagen Infusion: Gain 3% boon duration for every condition on you

Turret Changes
Flame Turret
-Make Health/Armor equal to that of Drake Pets
Tough enough to survive for the range it fights at

Thumper Turret
-Health/Armor equal to that of Ursine Pets
Very tough, justifies long cooldown

Rifle/Rocket Turret
-Health/Armor equal to that of Cat Pets
Harder to kill but not too hard considering their range/use

Fix innacurate rate of fire for turrets, fix their hit-boxes, make overcharge instant instead of next attack, fix them getting ignored by devs
Fix the bug that causes weapons to be invisible when casting throw mine.

1: Have 8 character slots at the bottom to represent all 8 professions before character scrolling.
2: Allow players to organize character order instead of whoever was last played. If you wish for character details, then use the left side of the screen and have a box with some character details like “last played date and time” and “age”.
3: Have the character figure show back detail.
4: Scale the characters accordingly to their heights from character creation. As it stands, my warrior and thief appear the exact same heights on character select screen despite my warrior being taller in-game.
5: Have a button to display all your characters next to each other with their heights for comparison’s sake. I don’t want to be manually making pictures like second pic attached just because this game doesn’t have that sort of feature, haha.

inazuma.7021:

Evon does not look trustworthy. There’s a lesson to be learned about voting for a candidate with fangs and horns.

LION’S ARCH SUN DAILY

One Hungry Charr

an interview with Evon Gnashblade, as conducted by Rroxi

Rroxi: Good afternoon, Captain Gnashblade. Thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Evon Gnashblade: Certainly, certainly! Always a pleasure to speak to an award-winning member of the press such as yourself. Five Pewleetzer prizes! Impressive.

Rroxi: Thank you. I know you’re terribly busy with your bid to secure a seat on the Captain’s Council of Lion’s Arch, so I’ll get right to it. Your statement, “Canthans, without fail, have the most exquisite taste,” has stirred up quite a bit of controversy in some circles recently. How do you respond to the allegations that you… eat people?

Evon Gnashblade: Well, I’m definitely a ‘people person’! I… wait… what? I don’t — that’s taken out of context! I was speaking at a fundraiser at the Great Collapse in Divinity’s Reach. Myself and some like-minded individuals were trying to raise money to relocate and rebuild the Canthan & Arts District!

Rroxi: I see. I have here a copy of the latest issue of Flame-Broiled Legion magazine, in which you are quoted as saying, “When serving asura, one cannot go wrong with a light white wine.” What do you have to say about that?

Evon Gnashblade: I was talking about when you have asura for dinner. OVER for dinner. As guests! Not the main course. Now, look here, what are you—

Rroxi: Captain Gnashblade, you were at an effigy burning ceremony in Queensdale last week, were you not?

Evon Gnashblade: Yes…

Rroxi: And there was a sylvari there who bumped into the burning effigy and scorched her arm, was there not?

Evon Gnashblade: Yes, what does this—

Rroxi: Is it true, then, as several witnesses have claimed, that immediately following the poor sylvari’s injury you stated that you, and I quote, ‘love the smell of fried cabbage in the morning’?

Evon Gnashblade: Commerce! I said I love the smell of commerce! Aw, stick a fork in it! This interview is DONE!

What happens is after each race we stand around for three minuets waiting for ??? , for what I do not know. Everyone has finished the race yet the timer keeps on counting down. When the last person crosses the finish it should go ahead and give the tally and show the winners list.

Also it should show the winners list with all the names of the people who participated. Last night I kept thinking I had won, I kept getting top score and no one was at the top when I crossed the finish line, but what was really happening was the guy who placed first would as soon as he got the chest he would leave and start a new race…I wonder why, oh yeah I know cause he did not want to wait 3 to 5 minutes to see the winners list.

I would have liked a little on screen cloud shaped thingy with the position you are in that updates as the race progresses, that is a basic for all racer games. This one just tells you what position you are in after each checkpoint. Unless I have overlooked it.

id bring back the underworld and fissure of woe

I’m not getting these just for the look, that is a plus, but i like the fact I don’t have to keep running to a vendor to get more picks, sickles or, logging axes. Although I would have gone the chainsaw route, made the axe mini chainsaw and have wood chips fly and litter the ground for the animation, but hey whatever. thanks A-net.

So this was a bug, but I really want to see it return as a master trait, added to ‘malicious sorcery’ instead of the condition damage or a new trait in illusions or chaos. For something that was unintended it had so many benefits:

-It boosted the viability of scepter.
-It would make for less reliance on ‘deceptive evasion’ and ‘illusionists celerity’.
-A build based around the traits that cause cripple, random conditions (weakness!) and confusion on clone death would be much more effective.
-It gave the scepter a much stronger and coherent identity of being a punishment weaponset, the ‘double clones’ add conditions to stationary targets while block skill adds a condition that punishes movement, so scepter becomes a weaponset that forces an enemy to keep moving and to be cautious of triggering ‘illusionary counter’.
-With this change and the 3 stacks of bleed on ‘Debilitating Dissipation’, it is the only way for scepter clones to add enough bleeds to equal staff or greatsword. That’s right a power weaponset when traited adds more bleeds than a condition weaponset.
-Build diversity!

We Mesmer are an extremely versatile group, capable of excelling as tanks/bunkers (Immortal Mesmer), burst damage (Shatter-cat), and much more. We are the only class that can manipulate Confusion into a viable build, and we can manipulate boons better than any other class.

There are plenty of Shatter Mesmer builds, Confusion builds, Phantasm Mesmer builds, even Mantras have been gaining more and more attention; I think its time that another type of Mesmer, who’s popularity and viability has been steadily growing, to gain a bit of spotlight.

THE INSPIRATION/ SUPPORT MESMER

The support-based builds created around Signet of Inspiration and often (I’d argue manditorily) climbing the Inspiration tree for the incredible support traits it offers. Inspiration Mesmers are the masters of boon-support, capable of applying 6-8 boons at once. Many players, even other Mesmers, do not know that this type of Mesmer exists.
Many that do know of their existance question it’s viability, especially since it’s one of the most difficult Mesmers to play.

Boon sharing is only one form of Mesmer support. Though boons becomes a lot easier if you tell the group to gather on Chaos Storm and they see the Sig of Insp. results consistently. That also helps train less skilled players to stick together, learn to combo off eachother, and pay more attention to eachother’s skills. The best form of support is helping someone learn and improve.

ADDING SUPPORT TO YOUR BUILD
Between reflects (Feedback, traited focus), boon sharing (Sig of Inspiration), Mantra heals (Inspiration X), Condition Removal (Phantasmal Disenchanter, Null Field, Shattered Conditions), and damage/death prevention (Phantasmal Defender, Illusion of Life) You’ve got all kinds of hand-holding options for your allies. And you can do most of that without much sacrifice to whatever is your favored playstyle. I’d advise going 0/0/20/20/0 for whichever build you make, that way you get a nice 20% boon duration and a way to trait into any of the above support options. Oh, make sure to drop Chaos Storm on downed allies while you rezz them if you’re using a staff.

I wanted to compile a list of Inspiration Builds & testimonials to their viability. Please feel free to share any builds or stories I may have missed in the comments.
————-

• Fuscia’s Doctor Mesmer
  A condition damage(Apothecary’s) support build with very high healing power
• Fay’s Panacea Mantra Build
  Arguably one of the the best healing builds a Mesmer could create. Cannot share Vigor, but instead creates a Feedback shield when rezzing every 10 secs.
• Chaos Archangel’s The Chaos Maestro
  Capable of administering every boon with strong reflective and group healing abilities.
• Pyroathiest’s Supporting Phantasm Build
  Though this build doesn’t use Signet of Inspiration, it still climbs 30 into the Inspiration tree, can apply up to 6 boons with the Staff, and offers strong heals alongside damaging Phantasms
• AkkiChan’s Boon Dispenser Build
  Has the maximum boon duration you can obtain from runes to supply long lasting buffs.
• skcamow’s Mesmer Paladin
  The Paladin build utilizes Focus and Staff’s interrupts to gain boons while maintaining decent damage and high regen.
• Kasama’s WvW & Kasama’s sPvP Inspiration Mesmer.
  A build tailored to manipulate CONFUSION for damage.
• jportell’s Protection Master
  Offers superior team defense via ungodly amounts of Protection.
• Handin’s Glamorous Medic
  A support build specifically tailored to save lives in the middle of WvW zergs

William Fairfield.1428:

There has been no decrease in the rate at which coffers drop from holo’s or in the world.

There also was no decrease in the amount of ectos we got by salvaging rares.
Oh wait a second…

GW2 purports itself to be a game with a great community due to the everybody wins program it uses. However, what few people seem to notice, or perhaps just don’t know because they never experienced it, is that GW2 actually happens to have one of the worst PvE community’s I’ve ever seen, imo.

— There is no incentive to group with anyone when running about the world. We’ve all fought through countless battles no doubt with strangers, and yet most likely never said a word. The only chat you see between players takes place in shout or guild.

Which brings me to my suggestion:
— I’d like to see a feature implemented that gives small stat or XP bonus’s when grouping with other players. Have the feature scale so that the more people in the group, the greater the bonus. Put a radius meter on it so that they must be around each other for the effect to be active.

Edit: Additionally, there is apparently a bonus for defeating a monster alongside another player. This is exactly the kind of bonus that should be given when actually in a party with another player. You already reap the rewards of killing the enemy, give a bonus for doing so while actively teaming up with other players.

Edit: It has been stated that a main component to the problem of communication is the lack of means.
— So I am also adding the suggestion of an in-game voice communication option within a party, similar to that of EQ2. Join a party, auto-join a chat channel and begin communicating (assuming you set it to auto in options.)

Doing this will hopefully bring the community closer together. It’ll make people actually have to speak to the players they’re doing the heart quests and events with. Most developers have now come to realize and have stated that the largest factor that keeps people in a game are the people they meet while playing. This feature would serve to help facilitate that need in GW2.

Thanks~

Hello,
My suggestion is simple: make the ctrl key a toggle. I feel like I am holding the ctrl key down 99% of the game. I don’t see why it can’t be made a toggle.

Thank you.

You think you know me?

I’m on top of the fort you’re trying to capture. Oh, what’s that red circle? Probably nothing. Now you’re choking on my gas grenades, and you can’t roll far enough to take you out of it because your body is numb with ice. Something flashes, you can’t see, where am I? I’m right behind you, setting you on fire. Finally you find yourself able to run away, what’s following you? A ball of napalm, that’s what. It explodes, it burns, it hurts so much. Then the hurting stops. You’re lying on the ground, gasping for breath. A wall of fire spreads on top of you. Do I keep up the assault? I do not. I’ve already dismissed you. What am I doing? I’m dodging through all of your friends, I chug a potion. I deploy a turret, where did it go? I destroyed it. Suddenly I’m back up to full health, and your friends shouldn’t have stood so close to the cliff. Some of them are smart enough to dodge through me when they see the bubble appear. Most aren’t. Half of your friends just went flying, what’s on my screen? Numbers, many numbers, high numbers. That’s the experience coming in. Your friends start falling back, what do I do? I pull out the rifle. One of the poor suckers get netted, I turn the rifle to the ground, and within the blink of a moment I descend upon him from above like a thirsty vampire. Before he can react he’s already taken a Blunderbuss at point blank. He turns to face me, where am I? I’m already gone with an overcharged shot. I get up, he gets up, supply drop goes down. Netted again. I leave the turrets to finish him off as I head to meet up with the commander.

You think you know me?

I am Engineer. I embody versatility, utility, cunning. Adaptability. I am dynamic, flowing. I shape the battle in my favor using every tool at my disposal.

This is who I am.

This is the result when players do the same thing over… and over… and over… until all fun is leeched out of the game. It would certainly make me testy, if I were inclined to do so in the first place.