Guild Wars 2

I think it would be perfectly reasonable to lock these skins behind Requires Profession: <profession here>, just like we have our racial armors and skins. It does look weird to me, when a Warrior and/or Guardian are running around with Revenant/Herald skins on them. They need to make full sets for the other professions too though, not just the Revenant.

The one to Rule.2593:

you don’t need the 15 infusions. 3 10’s and 2 11’s will do

When minmaxing stats, you are looking at 65 AR from using the +5 stat +5 AR Infusions in every Defensive/Offensive slot (an added +5 if you opt away from a Utility- slot and Infusion on the Amulet). E.g., I have all Versatile Precise Infusions in my armor (as the slots are Defensive) and a mix of Precise and Versatile Precise on my jewelry, so that I can reach 60% Critical Hit Chance and with that 100% (on Revenant/Herald) through Fury while using mainly Berserker equipment. (My weapons use Mighty Infusions for added Power.) This is a huge investment of Gold on my part, and one I gladly did as well over these past years, but it is admittedly a bit annoying that they seem to have neglected an upgrade recipe to make them into +5 stat +7 AR as well. Your proposed 52 AR will fall very short of the recommended 150 for Fractal Lv.100 to put it like that. 33 AR short in fact.

There is that +10 AR Potion one could use of course, which will lessen the required AR that tiny bit more, but you still need to come up with 70-75 AR spread over 5 Agony Infusion slots. You see how that starts becoming a bit problematic? That’d be around five +15 required. Pretty steep.

Incidentally, I found it interesting that my Herald, which I made sure to 100% the Magus Falls maps with, before trying to finish World Completion in central Tyria, got flagged as having done World Completion with 90% being done. As soon as I visited The Chantry of Secrets (the typical spot that players need to go when they’ve 100% and haven’t received their Gifts), the little reward icon popped up and I am now told I am a Herald with a World Completion star in my name tag. Even though I technically aren’t supposed to have it just yet. This makes me wonder, if each Magus Falls map has some sort of value in the World Completion system, which would be weird, as they should be separate. Not sure what the developer(s) has been doing there.

Edit: Just noticed that due to this bug, I didn’t receive map completion rewards for mapping Sparkfly Fen now either on the Herald. Since the game has basically said I have 100% World Completion or something. Uncertain how this system works, but it’s genuinely broken and poorly coded when this can happen. I hope whatever fixes they got in the works will reward me on these older maps too.

I duo’d Gilded Hollows with a friend for my personal Guild. He plays a Warrior and I play a Herald. Didn’t really have too much issues with it. I had more of an issue when trying solo for the challenge of doing so, as the damage was barely a bit too low to burn through the vines. The boss in the end is incredibly easy if you range him.

I wouldn’t rule out that it is possible to solo too, if you use food buffs and Boosters perhaps. But at the very least, 2 players can claim a Guild Hall. That much I am certain of.

For what it’s worth; I will likely hold off myself. The precursor crafting turned out to be a silly Gold sink, beyond it being a neat concept as an adventure. It basically ends up costing you more than it would costs to just sell the materials you’d have to farm for it, and then to buy the precursor off of the TP. Well, until the precursors rise to an all time high because of this collection that is—yay? Silly.

But that aside, I do sort of want to see how the HoT one looks first. I may want Juggernaut now that I’ve switched my main to Herald, and are thus playing a profession that can use hammers, plus there not being that many other “awesome” hammer skins (to me) available. But I still wish to see the new one, just in case it strikes my fancy even further. As to avoid making two.

It will likely take a good long while before we see it though, so it’s something to keep in mind too. I don’t expect them to come out all too quickly, so in the meantime, I will probably make Astralaria and/or Nevermore and be content with having done that.
_

PS: Still disappointed (as a owner of 14 legendary weapons) in how much of a Gold investment is needed for the precursor “scavenger hunt”. It utterly defeats the purpose as for why people wanted it in the first place. A more long-stretched, challenging way of earning a precursor, without needing to resort to buying it on the Trading Post or having some insane luck. But when the process is both challenging enough, and also adds a cost that exceeds that of the direct purchase on TP option.. the whole system is ridiculous. Terrible implementation, Anet, terrible.

Not very original, perhaps not very fancy, but Enryon’s sporting one of the best looking armors in the game—and that’s all I care about.

I don’t mind the hymn once every so often. But when it plays on top of other in-game music, it gets messy, and annoying. It chugs along all the time when the weapons are drawn, which is often. Sure, it won’t play when the weapon is sheathed, but I tend to fight stuff, or get into combat, or generally just use some skills. It’s a hassle to constantly need to sheathe the weapons manually again to avoid it.

The counter is to use, e.g., a Block/Invulnerability/Evade, or to interrupt it before it can get used. If you can get out of 450 range quickly (e.g., Blink/Shadowstep), that is one way. But it also has a rather reasonable-to-interrupt ramp up, with its 3/4 cast time. The evade portion of the skill does not start immediately either.

No regrets at all. I enjoyed leveling Revenant normally. I love playing Herald, with how it feels like Guild Wars, using Energy, Upkeeps and Pips, absolutely love it—became my new main and splurged thousands of Gold on it. But I also like all the other Elite Specializations.

The new zones are fun once you’ve done some event chains and gotten your bearings (PSA; It’s one of the best ways to learn them, start from a Waypoint and follow the chains). I enjoy unlocking my Mastery progression without grinding or (imo.) exploiting endless spawns in some remote location/dungeon (and I think it’s a shame they didn’t do anything about it, as it made Masteries trivial). There’s a good amount of new skins, one of which I really hope to get my hands on, Ebb. I like the Tarir meta, Tangled Depths meta (even if it fails a whole lot), and especially the Dragon’s Stand meta—that one’s amazing. New stuff to do in Fractals are nice. The Ascended tier Aqua Breather recipes (they’re on TP too), at last. So many achievements to hunt. There’s an overload of things to do, and I’ve played more in the weeks since HoT than I have in the past year.. almost combined. I was so burned out on content drought, that this was just what I needed to get hooked again.

Nope, I don’t regret pre-purchasing Heart of Thorns, not even a tiny bit. There are things that bugs me though. Alpine Borderlands being straight up taken away is not cool, no pun intended. They could have had one of the Borderlands be Alpine at the very least. Who cares what corner you are in.. that’s not how we win in World vs. World. It doesn’t matter if you got the central location or not, it’s not going to magically make you win that matchup. We can easily have 3 different maps without that being “unbalanced”. Anyone saying otherwise are short sighted and can’t see the bigger picture. Coverage is what wins. I really dislike that they took out Influence from Guilds, as it was a great way for the individual person to contribute in a Guild, doing what they want to do. Influence could have been used to purchase materials for upgrades in the Guild Halls, lessened the need to beg/guilt members to donate x and y. I also am wholly against the Commemorative statues from the old system. I think it’s unfair to those who were close to maxing their Guilds, and to any Guild created after HoT released. But overall, I do love the expansion.

Druid needs to build said energy. They do not start with it, so you’re way wrong there. Sure, they can build it, and keep it until they go into their form, but they still had to build it on enemy foes prior.

Ventari takes effort to shine (e.g., micromanaging it by sending it just through yourself/allies that needs healing as you have told it to push out a Natural Harmony), and traits. You sort of have to trait it to use Ventari to its potential. Don’t dismiss the channeled range protection in Protective Solace for certain situations though. That can be really good, e.g., in some Fractals.

Vengeful Hammers is incredibly strong in a power build. It needs to be a rather expensive cost on it. This is called balance. I guess I agree that the Elite can be a bit underwhelming. Combined with Protection, you are looking at a rather hefty damage reduction however, so it will certainly have its uses. I can see it being useful in raids.

I agree that I’d like some changes on Mallyx, but not the way you may want them. The Unyielding Anguish field is insane for building Torment. In PvE, you can easily hit 20-25 stacks of Torment on multiple foes. That needs to cost what it costs, as you can almost throw out two of them at the same time from 50 energy—it doesn’t take long to gain the energy needed to have two pulsing at once. Banish Enchantment is also a easy way to pump out rather big numbers of Confusion (you could spam out 15 stacks if you had 100 energy), I think the cost is fine. The heal, again, I think it’s fine. It’d be neat perhaps if it would eat a few conditions, as the Revenant overall lacks condi cleansing options (imo.), but I think the heal is in a good spot. However, Pain Absorption feels utterly pointless. 2 seconds of Resistance is borderline nothing. And sure, it adds one more second per (single) condition drawn from your allies, which I guess could be useful—but in most situations, this feels extremely underwhelming and futile to use.

It’s not impossible to start with an Elite btw., not even remotely so. Be in the stance you want to use an Elite on engagement for, use it, switch stance to another that you like, and immediately get 50 energy back. Solved.

Herald is absolutely bonkers insane I might add. Perma Swiftness with little effort, need I say more, and you can build up 10-12 stacks of Might with ease (and using no duration increases at that) by just channeling Facet of Nature and Facet of Strength as you run around (blast One with Nature as you engage for Protection, Fury and 3 stacks of Might added to your 10-12 currently provided ones). FoN+FoS+FoE costs 5 upkeep, meaning you can run around like that prior to combat and maintain 50 energy; One word: Awesome! The heal is also extremely good with how it converts damage to healing for 3 seconds. The elite also looks so amazing, plus you can start channeling other skills as it’s playing out, meaning you can force a interrupt in many situations (PvP—I main a lockdown Chronomancer, besides Herald, so I am pretty used to the interruption concept), however, I wish it would grant the Superspeed to the Herald as well. Oh, and did you neglect the part where perma-Fury becomes an option too, even without channeling Facet of Darkness (which is a stealth reveal)? Herald is almighty powerful, bow down to your overlord and embrace it.

And.. Impossible Odds are insane for damage dealing, considering we have traits to reach 79% damage increase (that includes Vulnerability, but not Sigils/Runes bonuses), and quite easily 100% Critical Chance. Again, it’s balance that it costs what it costs.
_

That covers your topic subjects I believe. With my perception of things. You’re welcome to disagree. I don’t take it personally. Heh.

I just wish the shield would have a bit more duality to it. Add some offensive to the already existing defensive. Even just a Blind on EoE would make it a bit more attractive to use when you’re in no need of dishing out a heal, and give it that offensive duality. CH could have Retaliation on you for the duration, so if people hit you, they get hurt (a tinsy tiny winsy bit). Again, you could use that a bit offensively too, though I must admit I quite enjoy it as-is for both PvP and PvE. It’s not a bad heal.

I just want UA to be properly coded. It’s infuriating how it will just fizzle if the target is up against a ledge/wall/“prop” (e.g., a rock or two), or even if there’s just some sort of minor elevation difference, as-in a slight slope. This is a issue with practically all Revenant skills too. Hammer’s CoR won’t hit things down a slope in a whole lot of cases, nor will it travel up one. Phase Smash does not travel down on slopes, it makes you jump out and smash air, before traveling back. Temporal Rift, goes in a straight line, does not want to go down and/or up a slope. Added bonus; TR often spawns on top of things above you and your foe, e.g., a tree branch, completely ignoring the enemy. Frustrating.

The hymn constantly chugging along, together with other epic music, is really annoying. It’s fine if it would do the hymn like once when you enable your first aspect. Constantly, just annoying.

And yes, I find the circle to be ugly. It also stretches and looks disgusting up on ledges and such. I don’t even quite see the purpose for it. Do we need to visually see what skills are invoked on the Herald? Do we need that on the Guardian virtues? I am not against the effect per say, but it could sure use a redesign, because the current iteration does not live up to the otherwise great art assets in this game.

It’s fixed now

There’s so much more clunkiness to the profession.

The limitation of two Legends under water is annoying to say the least. If it at least would automatically switch to Shiro and Mallyx as you duck under, without it affecting your equipment (e.g., if you are on Herald and have a Shield equipped), it wouldn’t be as bad. Other professions remember different utilities under water. Do I need to mention what a pain it was to level initially, when I had no clue that I was limited to only Shiro and Mallyx, and had gone for Jalis and Ventari? I had no heals under water.

While doing the Personal (Sylvari) story and getting forced to wield Caladbolg, I had no heals either, since that deactivates your profession function skills. Great!

Using Unrelenting Assault on anything near a wall, ledge, stone perhaps, makes it fizzle. It’s infuriating when the enemy keeps running to a wall. Maybe that’s improved AI, I don’t know..

Facets on Herald keeps randomly turning off. For no reason. Even if you are running around with only Facet of Elements on, it suddenly and randomly decides to turn off. Again, annoying. Minor frustration, but still annoying.

It seems like Staff has no tracking at all on Surge of the Mists. I mean, if you let go of your movement keys, press it, then it will charge forwards in the direction you’re facing, irregardless if you have a target or not, not towards your target. Practically every other skill in the game will auto-turn towards your target, so this behaving differently is really awkward. Some may like it, I am used to de-targeting when I wish to use such abilities for movement, in and out of combat.

While it’s a personal preference, am I the only one that finds the glowing circle under a Heralds feet to look really awful and out of place within the game? Not that it’s clunky, but seriously.. there must be a better way of portraying the aspects. It looks terrible.

Edit: Oh, and Mistwarden armor can be used by other professions, hehe. Should have a clause; Requires Profession: Revenant —I’m only half joking. I think it’d be perfectly fine with some profession-only equipment sets. They just need to flesh out the other professions’ pieces to be individual sets as well. Speaking of, in terms of clunkiness, the Mistwarden pieces are Soulbound on Acquire.. talk about awkward if you grab it on your Elementalist or something, not noticing.

Seems to be the issue, if we got 100% World Completion in central Tyria, this affects our ability to receive rewards in all 4 new Heart of Thorns maps, as well as retroactively from Southsun Cove, Dry Top and The Silverwastes. Hopefully this will be ironed out quickly. It’s rather frustrating to be unable to finish Collections for various of the new weapons, etc.—everyone I’ve asked that links the Map Completion reward, says they are on characters without 100% World Completion in central Tyria.

Agreed wholly. I do not see why they had to abolish the Influence system, just to add to the Guild systems overall. It could have perfectly co-existed nicely with the new changes. If anything, the Influence trader could be a thing that lets you purchase materials that gets deposited directly to the upgrades storage (with its own Permission Flag), while still allowing individual players who wish to deposit items manually, to do so as well. Influence was a great system that allowed anyone in a Guild to feel like they contribute, by simply playing. Even just logging in. Favor is not representative of how that part of the Influence system was great. Even though I like the idea of Favor.

On a slightly different note; I am also not a fan of the * Disciplines Research Commemorative Statues—not even one bit. It can become a thing of frustration to new Guilds created post-Heart of Thorns, to see that there are pieces of decoration (a huge part of a Guild Hall) that can’t be earned. Or for that matter, smaller Guilds who may not have been aware of this being a thing and not having reached max tier prior to everything they had done in the past getting abolished by the almighty ArenaNet developers. While I have a Guild from before these changes, I still really dislike the idea of items that can’t be earned by new players and Guilds in any part of the game. You basically voided all my 3 years of effort, Gold (and real money in some cases from Gem to Gold conversion) with your changes. You don’t need to give me a few statues for it. Take them out, or make them earnable, renaming the Commemorative part. We don’t need such nonsense in Guild Wars 2, do we?

I agree it’s weird that it’s Soulbound, but at the very least, if you are aware of it, you can make absolute certain that your Revenant gets the pieces, as there are a couple “purchase this item” criteria for them all. At least it’s not possible to get them accidentally. Still, very weird that they are Soulbound like that.

Minor placement issue with the Aurillium node in at least the Divinity’s Reach Home Instance; It overlaps with the Mithril node, should you have this as well and could use a different location perhaps. It also could use a slight model change from looking like carbon copy of the Gold node, even though the textures are fine looking the same.

Not going through 49 topic pages and we all know that Search has pretty much never functioned on these forums (why I ain’t so sure having one topic is necessarily a good thing—and isn’t it about time the Search got fixed, ArenaNet?); just adding probably yet another voice/note to the myriad of others on this subject by now:

Map Completion is not giving out the rewards in the new maps (nor retroactively for Southsun Cove, Dry Top or The Silverwastes). I have not tested completing a map with a character who does not have 100% World Completion in central Tyria, to see if they receive the reward, but from all I have gathered, those who don’t have 100% World Completion in the core game, receives rewards, while those who do, don’t.

Usually before crashing, one or two characters among the rest, will have no textures, and it’s as if only the Specular Map is showing on their models. That tends to be a clear sign that the game is about to crash in a relatively short while.

None of us should have lost any AP, but nonetheless, a big part of making sure you do all the achievements, is to be able to go back and look at them to remember the fun you had. I sure would hate to see them being gone. It’s a journal of sorts.

Agreed, not enjoying it. There are bright spots in the location which obscures the targeting reticle, other players obscure the view as they run by, theirs and NPC nameplates are also in the way, the grass gets in the way when you aim up and while the first section is straight forward, when it starts to skip random numbers, it’s really frustrating. I also dislike that it’s a slow-moving (overall) projectile, rather than a shot which is pretty much instant. It doesn’t help that the camera settings are predefined in full within the Adventure, so if you wanted to try start it in first person, nope, the Adventure will pop you right out of that and zoom you out. Annoying to fiddle with when you need to hit 40 within the time limit. 30 was challenging enough.

The more they dumb it down, the less it feels like an expansion. I will agree to this. I was able to take all the core professions (as I’m still leveling Revenant at leisurely pace instead of throwing Tomes at him) on a little Hero Challenge run through the first two maps yesterday, and had all Elite Specializations completed within the same evening. That’s in my opinion way too quick. Far too easy. It actually disappoints me a bit. And all these changes they have done to the Hero Challenges. Suddenly the challenge is four regular mobs and a Veteran, where there used to be a Champion. A channeled one has had a very trivial regular mob with a knockback (you can face the wall and avoid getting pushed off) removed next to it, they moved the one that needed Itzel Poison knowledge outside of the area that would kill you and you can land next to it, avoding the three enemies down there completely. It’s systematically dumbed down. What’s next? They slash the required XP to progress Masteries, and we can finish those within a day too? The more they dumb this stuff down, the more it feels like a slightly souped up Living World update, and not an expansion. At least in terms of time spent on progression.

Masteries is leveling that doesn’t void your previous escapades. Instead of raising the level cap and introducing new power creep tiers, they went with a horizontal approach instead. Elite Specializations are perfectly capable of functioning without all their Traits and Skills too, I ran around collecting these with just the first few things available to me, just fine. No issues were presented when facing those Hero Challenges that aren’t dumbed down and at least still have their Champion (by getting other players, obviously—which is easy, I’ll say it one more time; Say you are doing it, give directions to where it’s at. Don’t ask for help, and people will come).

Now, I am perhaps being a bit unfair here. There’s Guild Halls, the new Elite Specializations and Profession as well as the four rather expansive maps (when considering their layers) are quite a chunk of content. There’s the Masteries, which albeit has been made trivial by allowing XP exploits on endless, rapidly spawning foes, does introduce such things as the Precursor crafting. There’s more Fractal levels to conquer, and there will be Raids. Sure, it does have a whole lot more to it than a Living World and/or Content Patch has brought in the past, but I can’t help shake the feeling of it being lessened as an expansion, by making everything so trivial and easy to unlock (time wise).

Note that I don’t equal time to difficulty. I just think it should take more than a few hours to unlock every single profession’s Elite Specialization in full. It’s a progression kind of reward. And it was tuned just fine as it were prior to this pampering change. If the zones starts to die down, then yes, I am all for tuning them accordingly. They aren’t currently however, and things are getting far too easy. Soon we’ll just press 1 and not even need to hit ‘F’, since we all got our Pact Mastery item vacuum by exploiting XP loopholes (—but no, I don’t have it yet, as I refuse to partake in anything I perceive as an exploit).

Rasimir.6239:

Absconditus.6804:

I would hope they are aware of the issue by now.

I’m sure they are, since there’s an extensive thread over in the bugs forum that’s hard to miss .

Without any developer comments on it saying they are looking into it that is.

Worse still, it’s not clear which masteries are required to unlock specific activities. I’m currently stalled in my personal story because I didn’t have the prerequisite mastery. It’s not prohibitively expensive, I just didn’t know I needed to have it.

This is partially wrong though. If you go through the Masteries list, you can see them having a little star next to the ones that are required for Story progression, and mousing over them even states which Mission it is for, e.g., the Itzel Poisoning one (at least used to) say something akin to Required: Mission 14 in the tooltip. This was not really explained anywhere however, so it’s forgivable to not notice it, but ArenaNet did actually put in pointers, so that you can spend some time to work towards specific ones, if your main goal is to go through the Story.

Perhaps they should add a little tutorial quote on that functionality of it, when you open the Masteries panel for the first time. Teach people how to figure out what they need in further Story chapters.

That said, they don’t say what are required for what Adventure, if considering that as an activity. Fair enough, could perhaps be a nice little change to have that on the tooltip of the map, when you mouse over one.

Ok I Did It.2854:

I stopped reading that review when they wrote this

“I do like Guild Wars 2. According to the game, I’ve spent 728 hours playing it. 30 days”

How can you properly review a game for the masses that you have only looked at for 30 days, and given there is only 720 hours in 30 days, it further adds to the mystery, im guessing being AFK in LA for a month cannot really constitute playing.

728 hours, is roughly 30 days. 720/24=30. I think you misunderstood it there. The reviewer can have played it since launch and experienced all the content ArenaNet has delivered just fine. Sure, I have over 5000 hours, so in comparison, 728 might seem short, but it’s still a respectable time to have spent in the game. But here, to help you perhaps understand the statement better; Over the course of 3 years, since launch, I have spent over 208 full days within the world of Guild Wars 2 (5000/24=208). And now.. I’m horrified. And Sad. Thanks for that <insert sad face here>.

Try using the Elite Specialization, Lisa, even if you don’t got everything unlocked. You even get a free Exotic Greatsword that you can customize from a short list of selectable stats—I used that and my Staff.

I ran through the zones on my Reaper, which only had the new heal, the first Utility Shout and 2 Traits to select from (of which I selected the one I thought were more desirable at the time—I forgot which that was) unlocking all the Hero Challenges I needed, to get all my Skills and Traits, and it were actually pretty straight forward overall. Now, I don’t consider myself a bad player, but I rarely play my Necromancer, and I had a great time. The Reaper Shroud is so powerful! A tip is to use the fifth skill, which is a big iced over field, then the fourth skill to spam out Chill on your enemies. Later on you get a Trait to make Chill deal damage, which is so awesome! And that combined with some of the shouts makes Reaper incredibly powerful. It’s such a fun Profession.

I believe you can learn to overcome these things, Lisa, even if it may take you slightly longer than it perhaps takes me. For that matter, I am 30 years old, and yes, I grew up with video games, but nonetheless, I don’t consider myself a young whippersnapper anymore. The content is possible to overcome. You may just need to give it a bit more time. Remember that you don’t lose much on a death, Repairs are free.

There seems to be a bug, and I reported it through the in-game Bug Report feature too. Basically, I believe it has to do with having done 100% core game World Completion, and that it somehow messes up the new Map Completion rewards distribution. This also stretches on to Dry Top, Silverwastes and Southsun Cove, which was stated to have received new Map Completion rewards as well, but that aren’t being given out retroactively to those of us who has already completed these maps (and by ArenaNet’s standard, they should, they tend to be good at retroactively rewarding us when such changes are implemented).

Rest assured however, that ArenaNet will find a way to resolve this, and they will make sure we get our rewards. If there’s one thing you should never doubt, it’s that ArenaNet will make sure you get your rewards if something is wonky and broken. They just need some time to figure out where the bug is I reckon.

I would hope they are aware of the issue by now. If it’s of any help to the devs, I finished Verdant Brink on the character Vella Absconditus.

They are rather squishy, so you can take them out relatively fast. What I like about the new zones, is that you want to take out certain enemies before others, such as the Snipers, and Tormentors. It’s also nice to see them employ a bit more tactics to combat over just facerolling your keyboard and pressing ‘F’ to loot. Reflects are great, Interrupts are great, Blocks are great, Evades are great. Please, do not request the dumbing down of every little piece of content in this game. These are not some super destructive bosses in the open world, you will learn to adapt in a short while (I know you will), and any sort of pampering on their difficulty was unnecessary. I give it a week or two, and you won’t look at them the same way at all, granted you keep fighting them every now and again.

Ran through every single profession except Revenant (leveling him normally) yesterday, all in various Exotics. And I slotted in what I could of the Elite Specialization (e.g., the weapon and heal + one Utility Skill, as well as the first Trait (on a whole lot of them)), and then ran through the new zone(s) to collect Hero Points. I did not really die, even once. And it were incredibly easy to get people to come to the Hero Challenges that can’t be soloed (—You just state; “Doing the Hero Challenge <insert direction> of <insert Waypoint/PoI> in a bit, if anyone else needs it.” and alternatively give a little bit more direction, e.g., “It’s up and over the vine.”, and people will come. Don’t ask if people can help you, say you are doing it, almost as if it’s a favor to them. Basic psychology. It’s a MMORPG, there’s players all around you. You can interact on some basic level with people once in a while. It doesn’t hurt. For that matter, there are more than enough of them spread over the zones that are channeled, meaning you don’t need to do the ones with Champions. A huge amount of the Verdant Brink ones are soloable.

Anyways, I took every profession but Revenant, in various mix-matched Exotics and Runes, professions I don’t normally play, through the Maguuma zones, without any issue at all. I could traverse it just fine, I could kill enemies just fine (every Elite Specialization, even without all skills and traits—are really good), and I could unlock every Elite Specialization, within the course of 6 hours or so (which is way too easy/fast if you ask me, but then again, people want it to be over with fast, so whatever, I’ll deal with it). You don’t need a group to run around at all. The new content is as such, soloable. Getting people to come to certain challenges aren’t voiding your ability to stay solo.

Oh, and you can solo the Story perfectly fine. There’s no problems there. Again, something I was done with in just 3-4 days post-launch. Honestly, it’s quite sad how they removed any sort of progression reward, through unlocking access to Story missions. Because people wants everything now on a silver platter, instead of actually playing the game a little bit (and no, that does not equal work or a grind, it just means you play the game—you can get every Mastery required from doing events only once, Hero Challenges, killing some mobs, gathering, exploring the maps and so on forth. There is no need to repeatedly grind on something.).

This is feeling more and more like a slightly souped up Living World update, and less and less like an Expansion, the more they are nerfing these things. But that’s my opinion, and you’re welcome to disagree.

SkyShroud.2865:

so you want to solo kill a elder dragon…

I already did. That’s besides the point of the topic. They are saying the zones are too difficult, and I for one disagree. It just requires you to pay a bit more attention, and possibly to change your build to be a tiny bit more defensive for a change (and you can use cheap Exotics just fine).

It’s not work to unlock Hero Points. It’s not work to run around experiencing events for the first time, or generally just exploring. It’s not work to unlock Mastery Points from the XP you get doing all these things. These things are called playing. If you want to be a broken record and farm the same single event over and over and then call it a grind, that’s on you. Not the game.

Sicarius.4639:

Like Day 1 GW2, the experience I’m sure is fun and rewarding, when the population dies down I expect the jungle to be tuned accordingly. Otherwise those huge map wide events that need hundreds of players will never be touched again and the zone will die.

I’m not convinced it will die down too much. With the Mega Server system, I’m sure there’s always going to be a few overflows with enough people, and you can always use the LFG system to request a taxi and Join on someone. The maps are incredibly rewarding in terms of loot and in that sense, Gold. I don’t see why people wouldn’t want to be there. Plus gliding is so much fun. Going outside these zones now is such a drag, because you want to glide down every little slope you traverse. I think this will be a healthy zone for the foreseeable future.

Honestly, it’s not that overly hardcore. You just need to keep in mind that certain enemies are more dangerous than others and take those out first. If you ever played Guild Wars, you are well aware of that concept. You want to take out Snipers, Tormentors and such first as an example. Smokescales, you make sure you kite them out of their mist and don’t stupidly stand in it whacking away at something that evades everything you do. Interrupts are invaluable, and everyone has some form of interrupts, use them. Control makes things far more easier. The Breakbar can often be broken by one person in most cases (still can’t trigger my Traits, Sigils and Runes though, ArenaNet!)—so interrupt when you can and/or when the Breakbar unlocks.

And just change your build already, if you’re dying over and over. This is like my friend who I even offered to make a build for, as she doesn’t enjoy/understand how to do so herself, who refused to change anything and just kept dying, saying the new areas were kitten and too hard. Then she finally let me make her a build (after guilt tripping her as I had bought her HoT) which takes into consideration the dangers of the jungle, and she’s far more capable of traversing on her own now. It’s fine to not be full glass cannon you know. You can use cheap Exotics to bolster your defenses a bit and make yourself all the more capable of survival. I rarely die, it’s extremely rare. Sure, I don’t consider myself casual either, but that is besides the point. The content is just right when it comes to challenge. Casual or not, you should be able to deal with it just fine if you can just adapt a bit on how you play. You want interrupt(s). Optionally you want reflects. Blocks/Evades are good. To name a few things.

Change your build, and you are fine with Exotics. Ran around with my Thief, using Exotics, without any issues. Kill some enemies now and again, don’t always try to just run past them, that can get you killed. Also learn the mechanics, it usually is a clue right under the enemy health bar, e.g., evades while in their mist, stuff like that. For Hero Points use the /map and say you are doing a Hero Point in a direction from a Waypoint, give people some clues about where you are doing it, and chances are they’ll come. If not for that one, try a different one, be that the same map or a different one.

Seriously, I believe you can do this just fine, and that you’ll come to enjoy it. Just be willing to adapt a bit from your previous habits and build(s).

Found it on Saturday and love it, especially as a Guild Wars player.

Tip: /dance —also, M.O.X.

Sure respawns are normal, but there are respawn timers that are normal, and those that are hyper increased for an event to make it challenging. That combined with an otherwise abnormal numbers of enemies, classifies it as an exploit to take advantage of the fact that they give XP (which they shouldn’t when the event can be prevented from failing/succeeding) and keeping it in a standstill. You purposely make it benefit you by not completing it (which is obviously what is intended).

You’re being a bit too nitpicking about the word respawns. It’s obvious that certain means people have been using thus far, e.g., CoF and Mushrooms in Maguuma, are not intended ways. You’re not supposed to keep an event from completing just to endlessly kill something for personal gain. That, is an exploit.

Luckily, masteries don’t really give you any specific gain over another player, so it’s trivial in the big picture. But I find it disappointing that seeing high ranks is nothing like ArenaNet promoted it to be, something of prestige. Now I just see exploiters, and it’s nothing special about that, at all. Oh well.

I’d rather see that they added checkpoints to the final fight stages, rather than to reduce the Toughness/Health of the final boss. I liked that it took some time. It’s a fight against the visage of an Elder Dragon, it should be conceived as difficult to do. At least in my opinion. I appreciated that it was a bit of effort involved.

Kill.3458:

Absconditus.6804:

No, it’s mostly an exploit. Endless spawns in dungeons and/or at certain events in Maguuma giving XP (no Bonus XP involved there). It’s harder to prevent a event from being completed in the open world though, but you can get away with it for a few hours now and again. It’s obviously not the intended way of progressing masteries, to prevent an event from finishing, so that you can repeatedly kill enemies that spawn in droves. That is an exploit of a game mechanic, and I find it weird that ArenaNet is allowing it and not really doing anything about it. Mastery ranks lost all their meaning.

You do realize its not an exploit, otherwise Orr farming would be just as offense (how dare players forcefully fail events for more mob spawns!). The CoF thing has been there since launch, hell i remember running p1 for the first time back when it was fresh and thought that part was hard as hell and needed nerfing xD. People are just being people, if an efficient means of reaching an end appears it will be used

Certain Orr farming is also an exploit truth be told, which is also why it was hit with the nerf bat extensively over the years. An exploit is to take advantage of a weakness in the game mechanics for personal gain, in a unintended way. You can’t honestly say you believe they intend for people to forcefully fail an event, or to avoid completing one to repeatedly kill endless spawns that gives XP (which they shouldn’t if they are endless).

No, it’s mostly an exploit. Endless spawns in dungeons and/or at certain events in Maguuma giving XP (no Bonus XP involved there). It’s harder to prevent a event from being completed in the open world though, but you can get away with it for a few hours now and again. It’s obviously not the intended way of progressing masteries, to prevent an event from finishing, so that you can repeatedly kill enemies that spawn in droves. That is an exploit of a game mechanic, and I find it weird that ArenaNet is allowing it and not really doing anything about it. Mastery ranks lost all their meaning.

I’ve soloed all the content so far, just fine. All Story missions can be soloed. You can go to events solo perfectly fine, there’s bound to be people there, or they will come eventually. You can explore the maps solo just fine. Certain Hero Points can be grabbed solo, but it’s not harder than to use /map and say “Doing the Hero Points <insert direction> of <insert Waypoint> in a short bit, gather up if you need it or just want the XP.”—if nobody shows up, do a different one, chances are people will show though, because you said you are doing it. That’s just basic psychology, as you are stating you are doing something, not asking if anyone wants to do it. You take charge, and people follow. Most people are content with being followers of those that dare lead. As long as you’re not being overly controlling, people have no problems with that.

So.. that’s one single aspect of the expansion that you can’t play through solo. And it’s rather easy to get people to come for those too. If you can’t solo the other content, it’s time to look at your own build. Chances are, you need to update it to be a bit more defensive. There’s nothing wrong with asking you to do that.

Good.. job? Honestly, the ranks lost all its meaning once people started exploiting endless spawns in dungeons, and for that matter at certain events in Maguuma. At least Maguuma is a bit more “effort”, so I’ll do a slow golfclap for that. Well done.

I just want to pipe in and say I absolutely loved that final fight and mission. People kept saying it was so bugged when I was about to enter, but I only found it to be a bit wonky in the final fight, when you were tasked with either going to Braham (uncertain how it works if you don't bring him, I guess you get him regardless) or bounce up and glide around to avoid the AoE damage (it wouldn't glide a lot of times, and often I wouldn't bounce up either, a problem the bouncing mushrooms have in general). I saw no bugs, just various mechanics that I assume people didn’t understand, and then just chalked up as bugs. This was a really fun fight to solo.

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

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

I agree with you. I found it to be rewarding to work towards my Elite Specialization. Now pretty much every character I got, has it fully unlocked before I even set foot in the new maps. I honestly think it’s a bit of a shame that they removed the Itzel Poison Mastery from Mission 14 as well, as it wasn’t something too harsh to achieve when you put your efforts towards it.

I have barely done any events more than once, bar a few that I enjoy, and I have gotten rank 4 in most Maguuma Mastery tracks. There was no grind here, just me exploring, gathering, killing enemies (they drop Exotic trinkets for Achievements/Collections), doing events I hadn’t done, bosses, Hero Challenges, Mastery Points, Vistas, Points of Interest, Waypoints, and so on forth—across the 4 new maps. The sad fact is that now I am all done with the Story (the final fight is awesome I might add, if you understand the mechanics), and it hasn’t even been a week. All my characters have their Elite Specializations. It became far too easy.

What’s so wrong about spending a little time to progress for a change? They even allow the exploitation of endless spawns in dungeons, meaning having higher Mastery Ranks aren’t even special anymore. Oh, you got Rank 78, you exploited a weakness in the game, aren’t you great.

I’ve been getting a increasingly large number of crashes since Heart of Thorns, but I believe that is more down to instability in the expansion currently. It should work fine on Windows 10. I ran it flawlessly for a good while now prior to the expansion launching.

Seems to be a wide spread problem, same issue here (EU). Plenty of people complaining about being trapped in the maps because they can’t Waypoint out too. I just tried to change characters and can’t even get into the game now. So, yeah, haha. I’m hoping that they are at least aware of it, and that a fix is issued within the next few hours. In the meantime, I’ll just follow in the footsteps of the Asura in the data transfer room that is currently sleeping on the keyboard, and go take a nap myself. It’s late.

Seems plausible that it’s related to having World Completion prior to the change. If you had already 100% of the Core maps, you don’t get any rewards in the new maps, nor these 3 additional ones. Hopefully, ArenaNet will get around to resolving that, and soon.

Could it be that we need to get all the Mastery Points too? Those aren’t listed in the criteria granted, which is a bit weird. They’re a part of the maps. A friend of mine speculated that it has to do with having Core completion done. If you don’t, supposedly you get rewards, if you do, you don’t. I can’t confirm that though.

I’m not convinced it has anything at all to do with How to Train Your Dragon. I think that’s just Chris poking fun at the name being Nightfury, and that Toothless is a Night Fury dragon (two words). Which is honestly more cruel than not saying anything, if it really just sent a bunch of players off on a wild goose chase, wasting money on the most obscure items.

I’m more worried this is another Final Rest situation. I remember clear as day, that the developers confirmed on more than one occasion, that Final Rest was obtainable and in the game. Then it was added to the Shadow Behemoth loot table, because it had been bugged for over a year. I pray some developer(s) actually go and double check that it is possible to obtain whatever the items are that is required to make these shoulders. Don’t make the Final Rest mistake again..

Also, if this would require Heart of Thorns, I would say that’s not cool by the developers. This is a Halloween-related item. It should be obtainable for everyone, even those without Heart of Thorns.