Guild Wars 2

I would have to say that saving up to buy it directly is probably less frustrating. Even if it is time-consuming. The chances of it actually producing a precursor is very small. You may get lucky of course, but in the end, chances are you blew 300G and don’t got a precursor back for your investment, at which point you’ll likely be extremely disappointed.

If you still wish to pursue the Mystic Forge approach, I’d probably recommend Rare Lv.75+ over Exotics. Reason being simply that Rare may upgrade themselves to Exotic, while Exotic can’t become anything of “higher monetary value”. Exotics you can sell again over the Trading Post, to feed more Rare into the MF or at least cut your losses some.

Expect needing 1000+ Rare items dumped into the Mystic Forge before you see a precursor, if you’re lucky.

I wouldn’t say they’ve been slacking on providing PvE content, as there’s basically been new things added every single month, which is far more often than I saw in “that other game” or generally other MMO’s when I used to play it/those in the past. The only time there was proper new content added, was in “yearly” expansions, and we’ve had none for GW2 yet, considering how young it still is.

“That other game” has also had years to build upon the content it can provide. This one has barely had half a year. For such a young game, I find it to have a lot more to offer than your average MMO released. Granted, I do enjoy mostly all types of gameplay provided; PvE, WvW and sPvP.

And although the Living Story was a fairly poor implementation of engaging story, before this 26th of March patch, now I at least, feel like it’s starting to pick up. Clearly it is leading to something changing in Southsun Cove, as mostly all the refugees are talking about it, how the Consortium is making them sign contracts, and what not. There’s also been new changes in the world due to this Living Story, small perhaps, but with two new beautiful little instanced areas, added for the “solo-dungeons” revolving Braham and Rox.

What I do agree with is Ranger feeling underwhelming. I never have trouble fighting Rangers. Some are building themselves very efficiently for being evasive and survivable, but then are absolutely unable to deal any sort of substantial damage to be able to do anything but survive for a few minutes longer while itching their opponents, and others are glass cannons that die in a couple hits. I really hope they have a serious look at Rangers soon, and buff them properly.

Perhaps the problem is in how ArenaNet has designed difference in damage between melee and ranged. Ranged has lower damage, because it allows you to be further away from danger, but it’s so easy to keep yourself within melee range against a ranged target, that melee are dishing out far superior damage to the ranged player. Pretty much all melee has a decent gap closer to quickly be in the face of their ranged opponents. Could perhaps ranged damage be slightly increased when targets are closer to you?

Things that worry me though, is when I see things like the new Fused Weapon Skins, being only obtainable, Account Bound, from sinking massive amounts of Gold and/or real money into Gems, relying on hopes of a gamble on a random chance Black Lion Chest providing a token to purchase one. There’s a total of 16 skins, and although I didn’t perhaps want more than a handful of them (4-5), after I personally opened 149 chests without getting a single token, I wrote them off as not being worth it, and a legendary even seem more feasible as a goal. This worries me. New skins that helps bring more customization and variety in choice, when it comes to looks, being added as Account Bound and only available through money-grabbing gambling “scams”. If that keeps up, I may keep playing or I may just get discouraged enough to quit outright, but in either case I won’t support the game anymore through real money purchases in the Gem Store.

It feels like the Gem Store team/head believes this is a “traditional” Free to Play game, where there isn’t the barrier of a entry fee before you start playing (GW2 is a Buy to Play game after all). It seems like they think it’s another one of the “just going to try it and see how it is” F2P titles, where such RNG milking tactics may work far better. Perhaps it’s working for them to a degree now as well, but for how long? What happens once most of your players start to resent you, spreading bad advertisement about it to their social network? If your friend is telling you about how annoyed they are with a game, are you more or less likely to spend money on buying into it? I’m not at the point of resenting the company, but I am getting increasingly more disappointed in them due to the Gem Store and these RNG milking tactics.

Really don’t get what they’re thinking with these gamble items. I’m fine with gamble items being there, as some might enjoy them, but at least provide direct purchase options as well for a “higher cost” when it comes to skins and miniature pets. It doesn’t help that the majority of the items produced from these RNG boxes are generally pure junk. Boosters and one-time use tonics aren’t rewarding. Especially with real money involved in several cases. If I want a Booster, I’ll just buy the specific one I want. If I want a Name Change Contract, I’ll buy it when I need it. If I want a Total Makeover Kit, you get my drift. It’s just annoying to get these inventory filling items that you absolutely do not want.

RNG boxes with skins/minis already caused an outrage in previous content updates, now they do it again. It’s like they say “We don’t care about you as a customer, what you tell us doesn’t matter one bit to us. Kittycat to you and give us your money. Huehue.”

Personally I’d like a toggle. Old type and new type. I’d also like for them to make the font size a bit smaller on the title text, and more so to present the enemy titles in a red-tinted color.

I do somewhat like this new appearance of titles though, and would probably leave it on, but the way it is presented could be improved and I think it should be optional.

Felt like checking how rare, “rare”, was this time. After roughly 100 Black Lion Chests opened and 100 Euro spending money spent (I ain’t fuzzed about the money, it was meant for supporting the game at any rate), I had a total of 0 Fused Weapon Skin tokens to show for it.

Now, as I wrote, I ain’t mad about the money involved, they were always set aside to spend on the Gem Store (as my incentive to not take up smoking again), however, I do get more and more annoyed at how rare they need to make certain things, Account Bound things at that, from random chance boxes. They’re basically pushing, at least me, further and further away from wanting to spend any more money on their game to support it.

I did get a Name Change Contract though! That’s always great, considering I don’t want to rename any of the 8 characters. Also got 3 Total Makeover Kits, although I don’t want to change my appearance. And I got a Self-Style Hair Kit, which was the only decent not-so-common item that I feel I can have some use for, maybe. Personally I don’t find it helpful/exciting to get these types of items in a random chance box either, as I would much rather buy them as I want them, if I want them. As-is, they are just taking up precious Bank slots.

If I didn’t luck out on the Unidentified Dyes that I got, where one turned out to be a Abyss Dye, the whole 100 Euro spent would be for more or less complete junk (personal opinion I guess, as I really don’t care for Boosters or one-use Mystic Tonics).

It’s a shame that their Gem Store team insists on milking the player base. Instead of additionally providing a direct Gem cost purchase for the weapon skins, though at a slightly “higher cost”. I wouldn’t mind spending 2000 Gems (25 Euro) on a weapon skin, if I really want it. I do mind spending 8000 Gems not getting what I want however. But, as others would say, it’s the players own fault for hoping ArenaNet stops these cheap business tactics in order to make money. On the bright side, we’re not forced to spend money in the Gem Store, though if everyone simply stops doing that and only convert their in-game Gold to Gems, I wonder how long they can keep the game development going.

PS: I honestly ain’t mad about it, I went in not expecting it to be too good of a chance when they worded it as “rare”. I am disappointed (in ArenaNet) yes, but not mad.

Not sure I feel that it needs Protection.

Personally I’m quite in love with the Hammer as a zerker-type weapon. It doesn’t necessarily need full-out P/P/C equipment, e.g., I balance it a bit with alternating Knight/Cavalier accessories in example (3k Toughness Armor), but combined with Signet of Fury for a quick opener full-powered Earthshaker, instantly pressing Frenzy and allowing the auto-attacks to deal the damage, it more often than not results in most targets being down before they can react. Granted, there is some cooldowns involved in the big burst spike, which is a negative side of it. I tend to carry a Sword+Shield/Mace as the secondary set. When moving around, I just swap in the GS and Warhorn for the added mobility.

It obviously requires you to not blow Frenzy if the target(s) has Stability (for example other Warriors who often have Last Stand traited), but if all they use is a Stunbreaker, you got your Backbreaker to knock them down with for the full Frenzy effect. It’s one of the few weapons I feel safe using Frenzy with.

Currently using 20 [V, VII] – 0 – 30 [III, X, XI] – 10 [I] – 10 [V], though I’m still experimenting with different trait combinations. Bowl of Curry Butternut Squash Soup and Master Maintenance Oil. Berzerker armor with Ruby Orbs. Berzerker weapons with Superior Sigil of Accuracy and Hydromancy on offhanded. (Ascended) Knight/Cavalier accessories, alternating.

Utilites used: Mending (used asap. when I lose 6k HP of max health), Frenzy (usually used after opening for strong fast auto-attacks (3-4k per hit)), Endure Pain (used as a stunbreaker or if I feel I get too high burst damage on me), Signet of Fury (used on engaging, whenever it is ready), Signet of Rage (used on engaging, whenever it is ready).

Only thing that bugs me with the weapon is Staggering Blow needing you to stand still when used, or it gets interrupted. Every other skill for the weapon can be used on-the-move, so it feels weird/awkward needing to stop for the knockback one. Still find it to be a very good weapon overall though.

Reason I don’t use Stability trait/utility is mainly being used to not having it on other professions. And 10s combined, of being invulnerable to damage, is pretty insane.

Ok, so this is probably going to sound insulting, but it is sadly for the majority of the time true. Why do pretty much every single one of you Vizunah players, run away all the time? Unless you get the upper hand, as in outnumbering someone that is.

E.g., just now, an Asura D/D Elementalist, ran away from my Warrior. I mean seriously? A D/D-Ele that runs from a Warrior? But as soon as he/she got help from a Mesmer ally, then he/she starts to fight.

Grow some, Vizunah, because this is exactly why most servers have hated “fighting” against you. It’s been the same if we meet your players as larger numbers or as small, you never fight, unless you outnumber. For a while it seemed like you actually went out and fought in the field, but lately you’ve been retreating away again. Making the only good fights to be had from Desolation players.

It doesn’t apply to every single one of your players, but sure does for the majority.

This should not nerf the average Thief at all. It will work pretty much like it always has. Thieves stealth, then attack from stealth in most scenarios; this always gave us the Revealed debuff at any rate, so what’s nerfed? The only difference is that you can’t let the stealth wear off, then re-stealth instantly. While this was a good survivability mechanic, that part I’m personally fine with, as we have plenty of other utilities that can help us survive for 4 seconds if we need to get away, and let’s be honest, it was a semi-OP get out of jail for free card to have as-is currently. It can definitely be countered, but it’s mainly Thief player that really knows how to counter a stealthing Thief player.

This nerfs the ability to throw down Veils in succession, through a small army of co-ordinated Mesmers, and that is a good thing in my book. I guess I should point out that I also play a Mesmer (and every other profession for that matter), not just Thief.

I’m happy to hear about this change, even though I understand that there will be a lot players that are on the other hand, not happy with it.

Edit: Decided to change Fiona Absconditus’ looks a bit with a Total Makeover Kit.

Screenshot taken of the Hero panel, now that I have more or less finalized her equipment setup, to show what stats I am getting from it. Soldier’s armor using Superior Runes of Lyssa. Berserker’s weapons using Superior Sigil of Fire (GS, Axe) and Superior Sigil of Bloodlust (Axe). Alternating Cavalier’s and Knight’s accessories (earrings are Exotics with Exquisite Beryl Jewels, as it annoyingly takes forever to get Ascended earrings if you want to gear more than one profession). 0-0-25 (VI, VIII)-30 (VI, VIII, XII)-15 (VI) for Traits.

The stats requires using Bowls of Curry Butternut Squash Soup and Superior Sharpening Stones. The build has perma-Might and Fury, so these are the stats I engage in combat with, though if there are anyone else providing further stacks of Might, the Attack will go upwards to 4000.

Also added a Town Clothes shot.

Was in-game, but got disconnected after I tried buying some items on the Trading Post. Kept telling me that the items I was trying to buy did not exist, then after a short while I got disconnected.
_

Guild Wars 2 has encountered an error

The game client is unable to gain access to the log-in server at this
time. This is most commonly caused by firewall or router settings,
security applications, or connecting through a campus network. For
additional support, please visit http://support.guildwars2.com.

Build: 16845
Error Code: 42:6:3:2158
_

Server: Seafarer’s Rest
Region: EU
Country: Norway

At last, Final Rest has been added into the game! Edit: Been struggling for the longest time to find leg armor that I like, to go with the torn looking Lionguard Coat. Decided last night to just go ahead with the Cultural Tier 3 Human legs and leave it at that. Also went ahead with a little makeover, changing Evie Absconditus’ height, hair color and face.

Been focusing a lot more lately, on my Mesmer, Vella Absconditus.

My concern about the Legendary weapons is that they are Soulbound (on Equip). I am at least somewhat highly annoyed at this. The amount of effort involved in making just a single one of them, only to have them locked down to a single character (in a game which somewhat pushes for you to have multiple characters in order to experience its branching storylines), is a bit of a punch in the gut.

I can understand the problems faced with changing this as-is currently, with finished Legendary weapons already being sold and traded over the market. However, wouldn’t it be possible to make these Account Bound on Equip instead? They can still be sold, but at the same time, you can also use them on multiple characters, instead of needing to make 4 Eternity, 5 Bolt, 4 Bifrost, etc. in order to have these on the various professions you may enjoy to switch between.

I don’t see how this would be hurting either the players who have already Soulbound them, intent on personal use, or those that wishes to sell and trade them, as they should still be possible to sell/trade with a status like that.

While I agree with the topic at hand, that the creation of a Legendary weapon is somewhat dull, and far from a “legendary journey”. I don’t mind so much that a large amount of the creation process can be redeemed through Gold. As long as this is not illegally obtained RMT Gold, and either legitimately farmed through the games content and/or converted through Currency Exchange (supporting the game), I am fine with this. I do find the ability to purchase a finished Legendary on the Trading Post to lower the “legendary” feel of them, but I wish to pursue these weapons for the skins and how they change your skill effects over anything else, and don’t mind if someone can get them without setting a foot in WvW, a dungeon, exploring the world, etc.

I additionally think an Account Bound on Equip status should be considered for weapons like Infinite Light, Mjolnir, Volcanus, etc. as these too require a rather good amount of effort to create.

Was able to log in (after purposely writing a wrong password, getting instantly told it was incorrect, then using the correct one), but on the Character Selection screen, it shows my e-mail address next to the achievements points. The friends list shows my e-mail address as well, and so does the Guild Roster. Figured I’d log out to see if that solved it, which just got me back to not being able to log in with Error Code: 42:1020:9001:4103. Edit: The e-mail address is only seen by me, not by others, and they still see the regular Name.#### information.

Again; I’m located in Norway, EU. Server I consider home is Seafarer’s Rest. Strangely enough it seems to instantly know if you are logging in using a wrong password, it just won’t process the correct one.

Unable to log-in from the launcher, in other words, not even able to launch the game.
This is the same launcher that was used during beta, that updated to “retail” version once the game went live.
____

Guild Wars 2 has encountered an error.

The game client is unable to gain access to the log-in server at this
time. This is most commonly caused by firewall or router settings,
security applications, or connecting through a campus network. For
additional support, please visit http://support.guildwars2.com.
____

Build: 16732
Error Code: 42:0:9001:4105
____

Server: Seafarer’s Rest
Region: EU
Country: Norway

I will assume this is about the consumable, and not gear, as in equipment. While I do enjoy stripping down to feel the soft breeze across my fur on some occasions—when the weather allows for it—I do somewhat prefer keeping my clothes on.

I haven’t actually seen that many use the various consumables in Europe. There’s been a couple of persons doing it, but nothing that’s made it terribly annoying, and they didn’t spam it like no tomorrow. I do smell a nerf (aka. removal from WvW) coming for them though, as there are those that abuse spamming them repeatedly.

What do you see as powerful? Also it’s extremely hard to judge when you can’t possibly have played against all the guilds around in the game. Edit: I also don’t really want to name any of the current guilds on my own server, though there are some that I consider to be very strong, in a multitude of ways, over on Seafarer’s Rest at the moment.

From a viewpoint of who I’ve probably enjoyed the most fighting alongside, it’d have to be PRX. Those guys had some great little tactics when it came to offensive siege warfare, could hold their own in battle, and were very approachable (friendly), inspiring and including towards the PuG players, when they stopped by on Seafarer’s Rest for a time.

How they are to fight against, I have no idea about, but the ability to inspire and include others outside of your own guild, is a merit I respect a lot, and consider a large “power”-attribute, more so than who can wipe the opposite group/zerg/bus/blob/truck/train.

Best wishes to all of them.

As for a guild to be reckoned with when it comes personal experience of crossing their path and being on the receiving end, Red Guard [RG]. They can be taken out as any other guild, but are consistent at the opposite and very good at what they do. They are a force that probably puts fear into most other guilds that play against them. It’s not that rare to hear their guild name specifically called out as a danger warning to get everyone into their A-game, “Careful, Red Guard!”

Their individual members are also rather well versed in the game, and seriously hard to kill when you on occasions run across them and get some 1 vs. 1 fights on your hands.

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.

Any profession with a “blink teleport” should quite easily break that way of staying in stealth, so there are counters to it. Just be aware of your surroundings and use your teleportation straight into that Smoke field to break them out of stealth. Or just ask another decent Thief to kill them. Thief players are generally pretty good at connecting their blows with the other thieves, even if they are in stealth.

If you know where the Mesmer body is, you know you don’t need to look far for that perma-stealth Thief trying to resurrect them, if there is any. If you’re uncertain, move out of the Mesmer’s view so they can’t see you observing, they’ll call on their friend if there is one, then you know they are close.

Never experienced someone using this as a tactic to get a Mesmer up though.

Currently running a hybrid S/D and D/D build, somewhere in between an defensive and offensive setup. Mainly “zerker” gear using 5 Superior Eagle runes and a Ruby Orb, with a few multi-stat and “zerker” accessories using Exquisite Ruby Jewels, Karmic- and Precise Infusion (rings are not infused with Precision yet, as they are not upgraded to (Infused) status). Traits I’ve settled on is 0-30-30-10-0. I currently use Bowl of Curry Butternut Squash Soup and Hardened Sharpening Stones as Nourishment buffs.

Happened from time to time when I was still toying around with the glass cannon build(s). Usually it’s on Light armored targets that are upscaled. I think ArenaNet should buff the upscaled players a tiny bit more, at least defensively.

I usually run around with Maduk – Feel Good in the background. In general, I tend to listen to Drum & Bass when fighting.

Not a huge update on the general looks, but Grohl is very happy (just look at that face, he’s so happy!) with his new sword.

There is no best profession for running in large groups, but if you want to see yourself doing a lot of damage, while putting up Cripple and Bleed on your enemies, you might want to try a Thief. Signet of Malice (heal on each hit, incl. Conditions like Bleed/Poison) combined with Dagger Storm, allows you to pretty much dive straight into the zergs, even with more glass cannon builds. Once you’re done spinning around, throw Stealth on yourself and pull back, switch to Pistol/Shortbow and fire at the enemies from a safer distance.

If you can spot a Warrior, by all means Steal from them to get Whirling Axe, as that is basically another spinning-round you can do while being healed at a rapid rate.

People tends to underestimate the amount of damage a Thief can provide in the middle of a zerg clash, on multiple targets, not just a single gib. And that’s combined with pretty decent survivability.

As a bonus, your Steal can also provide yourself and nearby allies with Might, Fury and Swiftness, if you spend at least 10 points in Trickery. Shadow Refuge can be thrown down to save downed players from being finished and/or as a regenerative heal to yourself and other allies within it (limited by “AoE cap”). You can also Trait to share your venoms with allies nearby. Shortbow also works well for pushing back enemies on top of a tower wall, due to good damage, poison and bleeds.

PS: An often overlooked thing, is Thief’s ability to block projectile attacks (e.g., counter-Trebuchet/Catapult shots) with Smoke Screen. It requires a bit more work than the Elementalist’s Swirling Wind perhaps, but once you’re used to “reading” projectiles in air, you can quite easily help with the rotation of protecting your groups siege.

ColinJohanson.2394:

The combo killer has been removed from the weekly rotation, clearly not working as intended.

Thank you for removing that. Was the only reason I weren’t able to complete my Daily. But on a slightly related note, why oh why did the Daily reset at 1am CET, then again at around 1:20am CET? I was nearly done with this new batch, now I need to do it again, which I must admit I find slightly annoying.

prayerless.9052:

why make this game more pve sentric and less pvp friendly. now i have to do a crafting daily and i don’t do crafting or pve so i guess i will be looking another game to play

Gather some Copper Ore while running around in WvW, it doesn’t take long and you can do it as you go from “objective to objective”. Go to your server BL, hit up the crafting stations there and refine those ores into ingots. Sell those ingots on the Trading Post, use the money you earn over time to buy upgrades or siege, etc. Done in a couple minutes time, while you are doing WvW. I didn’t find it to be that big a deal.

As a Thief, for soloing PvE, all you really need is a clever use of Shortbow (evasive Cripple application? Yes please, thank you, I’ll have that cake and eat it too) and “correctly used” Stealth (avoid resets from staying in it too long). It takes a bit of work sometimes, especially when facing a Champion, but you can definitely solo a lot of the games content (incl. the dragons, if there’s nobody around to help you kill them—though they aren’t all too challenging unfortunately).

I’ve since my leveling days, fallen into a more beefy build, and I am pretty much exclusively using Sword+Dagger / Shortbow as my weapons these days, but that just means it’s even easier today than it was back when. Like Jeffrey says; In general, survivability > glass cannon.

If you wish to be more in-their-face, I recommend to use Dagger+Pistol, as you can just keep applying Blind on your target over, and over, and over, and over with Blinding Shot. It makes playing a more melee-focused Thief pretty easy. In most cases you can avoid adds, by pulling back, stealth, rinse repeat until your desired target is alone.

I’d be ok with some sort of transparency effect on the Thief when they take direct damage (as in, not condition damage). If you get hit by a melee attack, a AoE attack, etc., you’d show up for a split second. Would be something they could look into once culling is sorted.

As-is, I just use my chained 1-attacks to see if I am hitting a character that’s in stealth. If it goes from first, to second, to third chain, I know I am connecting all my hits and have a pretty good idea where that character is. The problem is that neither Elementalist, nor Engineer, have access to such attacks at all. If us Thief players would show up for a short duration when getting hit with damage, at least every profession would be able to know if their attacks are connecting, while still allowing the Thief to get away if played correctly.

Shadow’s Embrace from the Shadow Arts trait-line is one of the best condition removals in the game, in my opinion. You basically have access to it without any long CD to worry about. If you shoot it up to 30 Trait Points, you can even make your stealth regenerate your health while it’s removing conditions, by combining it with Shadow’s Rejuvenation.

Can’t really say I have any reason to complain about our ability to cleanse ourselves.

So much talk about “zergs are bigger here”, “no, they’re bigger there!”—Let’s face it, we all have them, sometimes one side is bigger than the other, other times it’s the opposite. Sometimes the smaller groups takes out the bigger group, other times the bigger groups steamrolls the smaller group. Oh, did someone say VS have small numbers in EB, or did I read that wrong? (Screenshot is from yesterday, not today.)

I’ll say it again, I think CnD needs a damage reduction. As cannons, a skill that allows us to go invisible, shouldn’t be doing 3-5k damage. And those crits happen on pretty beefy characters too; I’d think a fair Thief would acknowledge that.

I also think Mug does slightly too much damage for what it provides. A gap closer, which can be traited for more distance, stealth, initiative, conditions and/or providing good ally-wide buffs. Not to forget the various skills we can steal from the different professions.

I believe there’s adjustments they can do, when it comes to our damage. But on a personal opinion of Stealth; I don’t think that part of the Thief is as broken as many makes it out to be. As another Thief-player saying this, I rarely have issues with fighting against a Thief. On Thief or on an alt.

Things I did/do to learn how to counter other professions:

• Learn rotations. Most players adapt a habit of skills used in sequence and around certain health. Take D/D Thief as an example; They will likely use “Mug”, CnD, Backstab, Heartseeker. Variations will occur, but a lot of the glass-Thieves will use this rotation.

• If you die, use the Combat Log. Check the /wiki to learn what a skill does and think of ways you could have avoided it, even if you didn’t see the enemy. What punished you the most in that fight, when did it occur, can you do something about it? Analyze your data, try things out and in doing so, learn to predict some rotations, as well as counters.

• Consider playing the profession you struggle with the most. Alternatively use an alt in the Mists to check skills with. Learn the sounds, learn the animations. This will help you to react based on visual cues and more importantly, sound.

A couple pointers on Thieves:

• Stealth does not mean immunity to damage. It doesn’t last a long time. Keep this in mind when facing a Thief. Consider a melee set if you want to more “easily” counter a Thief. More specifically you’ll want a weapon that you can spam the first attack with (tapping the 1-key), that doesn’t need a target and has a sequence of attacks (e.g., Sword, Greatsword). By noticing when you go from the first skill animation to the follow-up, you’ll in many cases be able to locate the hidden Thief and unleash on them at that location (AoE, continued 1-key spam). Engineer and Elementalist do not have these melee follow-up attacks, but throw down AoE/aim range attacks into a location and around yourself by looking more towards the ground with the camera.

• You can predict where the invisible Thief is. Obviously not at a 100% success rate, but at a fair one. It really helps if you’ve used a build yourself; Most players, will behave and move similar to how you would in order to approach the next attack/escape.

• Stealth lasts 3-4s (for the Thief), depending on Trait setup, but it can be stacked while in stealth using Utility. Glass cannons typically has 3s, and will not stack up stealth unless they wish to escape from you. They need to attack before their timer runs out, so expect attacks after 1-2s. If they do not attack you, and let it time out, they can re-stealth instantly, as Revealed is triggered by attacking while in stealth. Keep this in mind for whatever you make of it. Creating some distance using skills or general movement, may also deny them from using the attacks they wanted.

• Shadow Refuge will stack stealth on the Thief, as long as they stay within the circle. Their movement within the circle is somewhat predictable, as pretty much any Thief that use it, wishes to maintain it for the full duration as a escape/recovery mechanic. It will generally be used when the Thief feels threatened and wish to avoid you (low health, cooldowns). When entering the circle, if you can, do a AoE knockback to deny their stealth, otherwise attack (1-key, etc.). A Thief is likely to follow a general pattern of staying near the edge of the circle, opposite of where you are coming from and where you move inside it, trying to avoid your attacks. By entering and attacking on the “right side” of the circle, then abruptly turning left and focusing your attacks there, you are likely to be hitting the Thief. In most cases, you will find the Thief pop out of their invisibility, either downed, or dead. Also note that if you see it used near a “wall”, the Thief is likely to be standing up against it to prevent getting knocked out, try position yourself to knock them out of it sideways.
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Also, if a Thief players state they don’t think they are as broken as you think; That may be because they know how to counter themselves, playing the profession and all. You may be far better at countering your played profession than they are, if they haven’t played that for an extended period of time. Like with most things, I’d say it’s about practice and learning through trial and error.

Since WvW is very much a larger-scale team-oriented kind of PvP, you can also forego both “Power” and Condition builds and lean towards “supportive” ones, that also allows you to stay alive for longer periods of time (allowing you to keep supporting, both through shared buffs and resurrecting, doing damage and what not). There is a lot of flexibility. Experiment and find something you enjoy to play with.

My personal take on conditions is that I find them too easy to cleanse off (at least when I run around on a “tanky” Thief), but there are of course those with less/no removal, which will suffer greatly from it. Whatever you find fun to play with is what I’d recommend you to go with. In the end, you don’t want to play if it’s not fun, right?

Thieves kill so fast they can’t even see themselves.
(Game failed to render me again, after I got Moa’d in a large clash within SM.)

I totally understand and accept that this first implementation of the system will not allow for guesting between regions. I do however, hope and somewhat expect that ArenaNet will be able to overcome the difficulties they are facing with this feature, and that it will be implemented somewhere down the line in the coming months.

It’s common practice to not make potential statements, that can be taken as promises, if you are not certain about if and/or when you are able to resolve an issue you are facing with the development of a feature. They may very well be working on it.

I would very much like to guest over to my american friends, but are nonetheless welcoming the changes they are introducing, as they are presented for the time being. It will be interesting to see how it affects “server hopping” and World vs. World.
__

To the devs of the feature, stability of the connections between regions and so on forth are obvious concerns with a cross-region feature like this. Have you considered plastering up a disclaimer Accept/Decline window, when you are on a Europe server and attempt to guest to a North America server, or vice versa? A message saying this may cause latency issues, connection instability, that you recommend against it, etc.?

Bren.9320:

Whole Deso borderlands has absolutely massive skill lag. I dont know if other servers has the same, I would assume yes, but I find it ridiculous that anything other then nr. 1 skill takes 10+ seconds to cast, never seen servers lagging as bad as right now.

That will happen on the map you’re in, when large groups (usually a combination of all 3 servers) clash in one small area of the map, in example a Keep. It doesn’t affect the other maps, but it sure is annoying. Had that happen a few times in SM today.

It’s unfortunately another one of the technical limitations of the game, and it’s the same reason why the Karka-event was so lagged. Hopefully they manage to solve this together with culling in the months to come. I’m sure it’s not easy to resolve.

Please note that I do respect a lot of you VS players, but seriously—I was a single player down below your tower, and you were 15+ inside it—and only a single Engineer jumped down and.. well.. stood with the guards, but I’ll take that as “attacking” (I guess). Something’s kinda wrong with that, wouldn’t you agree? It’s not really putting your “Vizunah pride and spirit” which you love to talk about, in a good light.

Come on VS, live up to those claims of yours. Because this was just ridiculous.

Victory.2879:

In the meantime, bronze seems as adequate reward for pressing 2 from the safety of whatever safe spot the treb was built in with little to no chance of you damaging your armor.

Got to agree with this. When I spend my time firing a Trebuchet from complete safety in SM, I am pretty much fine with getting “reduced” rewards. Sure, Johnny Random may not do anything but run into a circle and get rewarded for it, but often times Johnny Random did actually fight and contribute on the battlefront, risking death and repairs.

Are your build a “glass cannon”? If you try building yourself more defensively, you may have a more fun time in WvW. Sure, you aren’t doing insane damage, but you should be able to outlive most of these glass cannons.

Yeah, that is the splash damage around where the shot lands, hitting the wall. Imagine some of those rocks in your first screenshot getting flung into the wall and damaging it.

LordByron.8369:

many vids shows the opposite ._. there were many 1VS1 vids against permastealth thieves due to culling (despite the high end PC and connection).

Dunno if changed with last patch.

Actually, I do think there is a issue with Thief, the fact that Revealed is triggered by breaking stealth prematurely from attacking. A Thief that is willing to spend their full time in the stealth, can just re-apply it right away, and CnD does too much damage for what it does, making you invisible (that is one of my biggest irks with the profession I prefer to play). I am in no way saying I don’t think Thief (and Stealth) needs some slight adjustments, but I have never experienced culling when fighting against someone who can use Stealth, on my own, ever. I’m sure there are others who has experienced it differently, but that is how my experience with stealth in WvW has been at least. Perhaps it shouldn’t be possible to stack Stealth while in stealth. I dunno, if a Thief does stack up their stealth and aren’t attacking to prevent Revealed, that gives the opposition plenty of time to move away, get their skills off cooldown and/or heal.

Anyways, this shouldn’t be turned into another Thief/Stealth discussion topic, there’s too many of those already as-is, and we can pipe in on those if we want I guess, or discuss it in PM’s. My main point was to say that I doubt VS, SFR or Deso as servers are purposely abusing culling, and I am personally a bit tired of reading these accusations.

Regarding bags and their current implementation;

Habib Loew.6239:

wintermute.4096:

Any chance we might get a chance to the slightly awkward badges system we have right now? Moving the bags to the feet of the player is nice and all, but it doesn’t help much in a thick battle, and I’m sure most of the players actively engaged in wvw have had their share of lost bags. AFAIK, there once was an answer among the lines of “we don’t have the tech for that now”, but I can’t really see how this should prove to be unsolvable…

As a suggestion: Couldn’t we just get rewards based on a slightly modified monthly tracker? You know, the one that says “players killed in wvw” – just add an npc that hands out as many bags as the counter says and resets it back to zero.

In the beginning players killed NPCs and found loot on the NPC corpses. That setup is nice because it makes sense (gruesome sense, but still sense). If you kill a dude where is his stuff? In his pockets of course (see also: The Hobbit). If the corpse decayed then a bag was left behind so players would have one last chance to pick it up (it doesn’t hurt that rendering a bag is cheaper than rendering a high-poly character model.

Then WvW was born and players started killing players. At first we left the loot on the corpses as before but then a thousand player voices rang out and said “WTF man? I can’t jump down off this wall to get my loot because there’s like a hojillion enemy guys down there waiting to plant me like a tulip bulb!” or “WTF man? I can’t get up on top of that wall to get my loot because the whole point of a castle is that people can’t do that stuff!” We heard those pleas and, after some internal arguments (er, design discussions) we decided that realism could go suck it because getting loot is awesome.

So why did we put the bags at your feet rather than just dumping the items into your inventory? Part of the answer is that it was the smallest possible change that could work (programmers like stuff like that). We already had the bag spawning system so we could just reuse it. Another part of the answer is that picking up loot can be a bit like unwrapping a present and we didn’t want to ruin the unwrapping for everybody. Finally, if we just start putting loot into player inventory then we need to deal with a bunch of edge cases and at the time we had more pressing issues to work on. For example, when your inventory fills up items you receive go into inventory overflow and your character becomes encumbered. That makes you move really slowly and that didn’t seem like a nice thing to do to people in the middle of a fight. There were some others that I don’t recall off the top of my head, but suffice it to say there were some thorny design questions about the best way to handle it.

We have tossed around some ideas for ways to improve the system but it’s relatively low priority so nobody is actively working on it right now.

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Willing-to-share-WvW-details/page/3#post1195534

There is a fine line to walk with the Monthly Achievements though. Even now, the inclusion of the 50 invader kills are something not everyone enjoys, as they generally don’t want to play WvW. That’s one of the reasons as to why we see completely “naked” players running around at some point of the month, which is in turn, hurting those of us that do want to play WvW.

I too get slightly annoyed at some of these monthly objectives, like the current “discover” jumping puzzle one, and Fractals. I have done every single current JP in the game, and now I am supposed to “discover” them again? Didn’t like it, regardless how simple it was to complete it. I have gotten everything I currently want out of Fractals, I want to wait for fixes to it before I do more of it, but was again “forced” to do some more of them instead of fully focusing on WvW which I greatly enjoy. It’s minor annoyances, and I am a bit childish getting annoyed at it, but nonetheless, I did get slightly irked by those two.

Quite honestly, I’d rather see them add Monthly WvW Achievements as well. Perhaps they could reward us with a little chunk of schematics and badges from doing them, maybe with a chance for a Superior here and there? And with that they could take out the 50 invaders kills from the “PvE” Monthly. We don’t really need a Daily WvW one, as the current Daily do get completed within WvW quite easily, while contributing. But, I wouldn’t mind one that gave schematics /badges there too though, as it’d be better that I can get some free ones doing contributions to the war efforts of WvW, rather than spending some time off the field, jumping in caves.

While they’re at it, I wouldn’t really mind if the JP’s was more of a overflow thing you can do while there are queues for the BL/EB maps. I like those JP’s, and I like the PvP element in them, but I would prefer seeing players in the various WvW maps focus on the fight, rather than camping JP’s, taking up player spots for those that actually wants to contribute to the battle. Then again, this has been rinsed and repeated several times by a number of players.

And please note; I am not one to look down upon or wanting to flame those that wants to do the JP and camp it for their fun, by all means, it is how it is, and it’s not your fault it has been designed the way it has. Keep having fun, that’s what a game should be!

Could we please stop the accusations of players/servers exploiting culling? I’m not saying nobody does do this, but a large number of players do not. I for one, do not believe VS are retreating purely to take advantage of culling. It is a perfectly valid tactic to pull back a bit if you feel that your team is spread out too much, and then strike again as a more grouped up troop. Another side-effect is getting your cooldowns to tick down, making you a stronger force to be reckoned with on your second and consequent strikes (though your enemy gets this advantage too of course). Not everything in this game is done to abuse a culling mechanic we can’t do much about.

A Thief that uses their stealth may do so simply because it is their defensive mechanism, not to take advantage of being rendered invisible for longer, to some players (if I have used stealth—purposely or due to a Trait I can not get away from in my build, automating it at low health—I am often still getting focus-attacked the instant I go out of stealth again). Same goes for when I’m on my Mesmer and Engineer (if I get the stealth buff).

I even see people complain that they are having a hard time 1v1 on Thief/Mesmer who stealth, because of culling, which is quite simply silly. If you are really 1 player versus 1 player, you are not affected by the culling, as that occurs in “zerg clashes”, not when you face another player somewhere away from the large numbers of other players.

TL;DR: I don’t think any server purposely abuse culling. Some players may try to use it for their advantage, but that doesn’t mean the whole of a server does.

Definitely would like to see NPC upgrades make a slightly bigger difference, and not just on caravans. Currently it feels somewhat pointless to do NPC upgrades on a lot of things. And while these may be “intended” to protect the Dolyak against hostile NPC (creatures), those are not really going to kill it at any rate, as it will slowly walk out of their range.

I’m additionally not a huge fan of how it is seemingly unrewarding to protect your caravans anymore. You spend time protecting the “slow moving” Dolyak and get basically nothing out of it. During that time you could often claim 2-3 camps, which would actually reward you with some XP, Karma, “Gold” and Badges of Honor. Sure, capturing camps are important too, but it feels really unrewarding to run around protecting Dolyaks, which can be very important as well.

I get that we don’t want bots to take the place of contributing real players, but currently it’s definitely not fun when I decide to take the task of protecting our caravans.

Personally I don’t think any specific profession is a better Commander than another. It’s far more the person behind the profession that makes or breaks a Commander on the field. Like others have said, it will of course help not being built as a glass cannon, since a Commander diving head first into clashes can indeed inspire others to not stall and get everyone killed slowly, as a few inch in at a time. I do however not believe this is a requirement for a successful Commander on the field.

All professions has various Traits and Utility they can build into for being somewhat beefy, and additionally to provide good helpful boosts to the allies around them. Play the profession you prefer the most, and if you want it, get your Commander status for that one.

I’ll follow a Commander that enjoys their profession any day, over one that doesn’t (as much as they would on a different profession), just because the profession they chose was perceived as being “better” at it. I’ll follow a “glass cannon” Commander who dies often—someone who knows how to inspire and lead, has a good tactical sense and field presence—over one that does not, but stays alive longer.

The Commanders I like to follow, are good at including others outside of their own guild “bubbles” as well. And they are good with their ability to communicate their intentions. In most cases it doesn’t take more than a little hot-linked (Shift-click) location in the /t chat.

To the VS Elementalist I was fighting near the Hyleks a couple minutes ago, whoever you were; Well played. That fight dragged out a bit, haha. Sorry for cutting it short and running off, had to go help defend.

All I’d want is the ability to create a legendary, that doesn’t shoot rainbows or pop bubbles. I wouldn’t mind a Staff that had a little darker theme to it either.

Tygra.4570:

Hey what’s up Fishing guys ? You were much more friendly before you saw you were potentially #1 EU

Don’t be to hasty, we’ll count the points at the end of the week.

Cheers from Vizu

I think we’re just being bothered by all the hate directed at our friends, which happens to be generally referred to as “NA” (though there’s probably some other nationalities in their guild as well). I think a majority of us see ourselves as one large community, and when you attack one of us, you’re attacking all of us. If a guild were to up and leave some day, I still consider them to have been a integrated part of our community, and our friends. And one thing PRX needs serious props for, it’s to actually include everyone in what they are doing. They communicate really well, and they really feel as if they’ve been around for ages, when you play with them. Great bunch of players, with some great tactics and execution.

Also please note that I still have respect for VS and ER alike, find the clashes to be entertaining and (for the most part) challenging, and clearly see there are several skilled players and guilds on both servers. I wouldn’t judge the whole of a community based on a few people spitting at us on the forums.

As you said; The week’s not over, there may be flips in the scores to be experienced for us all.

Oh, and it’s not to start/fuel a flame; I would like to point out that I find it slightly hard to believe in the case of VS at least, that they do not have players in other timezones as well. Perhaps it’s just that you’re not being aware of it, or for whatever reason it may be, don’t want to acknowledge it. We are often receiving Outnumbered buff at night time, these past couple days (though I mainly play in EB, so I dunno how the status is in the Borderlands), and the ER troop presence isn’t usually as large as either SFR or VS (huge respect to all the tenacious ER troopers for that, you guys really show that you fight with your hearts in these late-night battles!). I would also like to point out that, while there a few of our NA friends around in EB at night time, for the most part, all I see are old EU guilds that has been in SFR from day one, if these guys have other nationalities I can’t say, but it would not surprise me.

At any rate; Holidays are over, our numbers are going back up again. At least for the time being. Scores aside, I am really enjoying the matchup, and can’t wait to get back on the battlefield now. These fights are fun!

The video was ok, though it might be a better idea if you just switch the chat to combat log or something else, so you don’t need that huge black square covering the chat, it kinda pulls down the “enjoyment” of watching.

Let’s also be honest here, there are only two professions in the game that has a somewhat more steep-ish learning curve than others, and that is Elementalist and Engineer. Simply because of all the buttons you got to learn to keep track of. Every other profession, to me at least, was fairly straight forwards to learn and get my grips with (not saying “easy to master” however). Still, none of the professions are seriously all that more easier or harder to play than others. I often get the feeling that a huge number of players saying x profession is oh-so-easy to play, has not even tried it themselves.

In my experience, every “OP build” has a counter in another build. There is no universal iWin build for any profession that will always land you the kills. It’s more that a build that is very effective against, say glass cannons, is going to be very effective in a large amount of situations, since there is a huge number of glass players running around.

I can’t speak for the Borderlands, but past midnight CET on new years, I were still seeing a large presence of both VS and ER in Eternal Battlegrounds at least. And quite honestly, there wasn’t all that many NA players around at the time on our side (in EB at least).

We had a fairly drunk Commander running about which was somewhat hilarious, and several (buzzed and not) EU players though. But for the clashes we had, which I were present for until about 3am, the numbers looked pretty equal. Also, in VS’s case, and I don’t state this to “flame”, but as an observation; they were extremely cautious for a lot of the engagements, since me being alone at their Keep after we had captured it, kept 40-ish of them moving away from the gate simply by shooting down some Cluster Bombs. They could’ve easily broken through before our players came to defend and kill them. I at least, think the lead at the time was created more from opposition being really cautions for some reason or another, not because we had some (admittedly very skilled) NA players around. Perhaps I’m wrong though.

Here’s a screenshot taken a little bit past midnight, as the year switched to 2013, CET:

1) Give us back the Orbs to have as an objective, just make it have boosts to Karma, EXP and Magic Find (etc.) instead of anything affecting combat prowess.

2) Slightly improved Commander functionality. Make /supplyinfo work at a larger radius for one, at least the size of a supply camp capture radius (for those not aware, that is a different command from /squadinfo). Make it possible to join a squad from the mini-map. Make map icons (Attack/Defend/Rally) placed down by Commanders, visible to players joining a squad after their Commander had placed them. I may have missed this being implemented as such already, so ignore it if it works like this; if a player joins a squad, they should see what their Commander draws on the (mini-)map. Being able to visualize tactics with drawing arrows, circles and so on, can be really helpful. Again, haven’t really paid attention to if it works like this, but if it does, ignore this as well; pings (red circle) should be visible to all members of a squad. Make a little UI element and/or chat command to make it possible to Show-/Hide all Commander icons/Show only your Commander (this should allow you to see all Commander icons even if you are in a squad as well).

3) Not easy; replace all enemy opposition with generic duplicated character models (same generic low-details armor, same (server) colors, same everything, with the only difference being one for male and one for female characters and probably some generic weapons models too), that are loaded client-side until information about how a character actually looks can be sent to the client from the server.

In smaller engagements, this should instantly load in the oppositions actual details, but in larger scale battles, when culling is a fact of life, the server should be able to delay and limit the data sent on everything but the skills used, x/y/z-positions and otherwise required information for showing what is going on in the battlefield.

The generic “default” model should help improve on framerates, as well as overall culling from not having the information about where a character, with this and that combination of equipment and dyes, are positioned. Prioritize the positioning of the enemies and their skills used, load generic client-sided details otherwise. Implement anti-cheating memory checks on the details loaded client-side, if this is not in place already. Could probably revert all defeated enemies to the generic models as well, if the client had gotten around to loading their player models.

I wouldn’t like seeing a universal army uniform being forced on a player for WvW, as I appreciate that I am able to use my PvE gear and desired looks for this PvP-part of the game, but having a generic “uniform” to load before the server is able to provide the variety of different combinations of equipment and dyes data, should hopefully help, at least to some extent, with reducing the invisible-enemies-are-killing-me issue.