Guild Wars 2

nekretaal.6485:

The class is really fun, but only a couple of gimmicks keep it barely alive in PvE.

Actually, my experience was the complete opposite. Necro/Reaper was/is the class I had and have the least ‘staying alive’ problems on. I basically danced through HoT. I run a condition ( asc. Viper ) build, and while it is certainly true that this particular variation of the profession has close to no burst capability, I get stuff done and I get mobs dead. Does it take a few seconds longer than other classes, due to conditions needing a few moments to start ticking? Sure. But “barely alive” in PvE couldn’t be further from the truth for me. It’s more like “last one standing” depending on what happens around me.

TzuCon.5368:

It sounds like the Necro/Reaper have some problems contributing directly to team-situations, but are still viable when compared directly with other individual classes?

It depends on what you mean by ‘team-situations’. In a big world boss zerg and in most if not all HoT events, absolutely nobody is going to give a kitten. I mean, seriously. I run a TON of HoT events and I’ve never been called out for playing a Necromancer. Learn how to deal with breakbars and when to use CC, learn the encounters, – something ALL players should do, regardless of what profession they play – and you’ll do fine. And even in smaller events, like defending a rally point or escorting an NPC…nope, can’t say I’ve ever had anyone single my toon out for anything, good OR bad.

I’m honestly not really sure what you expect from this thread. Every profession has its weaknesses and faults; every single profession is going to be better or worse at this one thing that another profession can do better or worse. You’re not going to find out whether or not you like playing Necromancer/Reaper until you’ve played one. I started playing one when they weren’t even considered part of “the meta” – which, as I don’t raid or PVP, meant exactly this to me: nothing.

Ask yourself this: do you want to be desired in absolutely every aspect of ( PvE ) gaming? If that is the case, Warrior, Guardian, Mesmer or Elementalist with their mass of party contributing buffs/raw DPS/utility might indeed be the better choice for you.

But that says absolutely nothing about whether or not the required play style to fulfill those roles would appeal to you. It didn’t appeal to me. I chose Necro to be my main. And I’m having FUN out there because the Necro ( condi ) play style appeals to me.

/shrug
/two cents

I belong in the same boat as some of the posters above; sometimes I like the chatter, sometimes I don’t. Having the option to turn it off when I want to is great. I can FINALLY play a Mesmer without wanting to put my fist through the screen when I equip a particular signet.

That said, I’d still like an option to turn off the ughs, aghs, grunts and groans the toons make, like that Human Female “AIGH!” exclamation…squeak…whatever, that is SO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the otherwise rather enjoyable voice, especially if said Human Female is supposed to be a battle-hardened, dragon-smooshing veteran. Kinda immersion-breaking. Like a tiger that suddenly goes ‘meow’.

I’m gonna play Devil’s advocate here.

I run ascended armor/weapons Viper Necro on a mix of rabid/sinister trinkets ( until they sort out to get ascended Viper trinkets from other sources than just story/raid ) now and I levelled as a condition build. Let me tell you that the latter was a pain in the rear. Your greatest enemy as a levelling condition Necro, especially if you’re bullheaded ( or dumb, take your pick ) like me and DON’T carry additional power stat weapons or a second set of gear, are boxes/flagpoles/anything unaffected by conditions.

I love my Necro. She’s – after much dabbling in other classes, and even after the latest nerf – my main and the class itself has become my favourite. I’m one of those players who also runs around with minions/Rise! a lot for maximum survival. I’ve facetanked stuff I wouldn’t even touch with a ten foot pole on other classes. HoT was a cakewalk. What can I say, I’m lazy and I like to take the scenic route.

And that’s the thing: scenic. Viper is a hybrid stat geared mainly toward long fights where all that Expertise you’ll be statting has a chance to shine: world bosses, event bosses, dungeons, anything where your conditions have time to build up and tick. I’m sitting at about 1900 power/1900 condi and 51% condi duration without food/buffs. I’m sure someone more knowledgeable about the numbers can give you an exact breakdown, but bursting doesn’t really happen on a Viper ( the way I play it, anyway, I’m strictly speaking from my own experience here ), so if you’re used to a power build, you’ll definitely feel a difference there. Now, I am not saying that you’ll spend 10 minutes killing a trash mob, but I do take longer than your average Joe Berserker killing the exact same mob two trees over. The ramp-up time is real.

So, pro/con wise:

+ having two sets of gear suited to two completely different play styles is great
+ ranged damage: sometimes it’s nice to stay a bit in the back for that overview
+ when those conditions start to tick, they tick

- Vipers especially is expensive ( or used to be, when I made mine )
- trinkets :(
- almost no burst unless, as Rhyse said, you spend a lot of time in Shroud
- on trash mobs, Vipers is kind of wasted

/two cents

My current endgame is crafting Nevermore. So far I’ve gotten to the Raven Staff. While I’m doing that, I am also: running events, levelling alts, finishing the odd collection, gathering stuff, doing world completion on said alts. Whatever I feel like doing, really. When I’m done with Nevermore – if I’m ever done with it; currently hitting the speedbump of not having enough mastery points to unlock the next tier collection, and have been INCREDIBLY unlucky with finding a map that actually manages Triple Trouble – I’ll finish Kudzu.

Whether or not a new race will ever be implemented, the one I’d really love to see —

Jotun.

Why? Because that race fascinates me, its history is rich with lore, and out of all the maps the Shiverpeaks are my absolute favourites.

scratches head It works fine for me. Alternatively, ESC works, too. Only problem with ESC is, smash it too often and you’ll bring up the Options menu.

The loincloth hides the fact that Faren seems to be, erm, rather well-endowed. Hint hint.

Also, speedos are about as sexy as string tangas, I’ll never understand what’s so great about those buttcrawlers.

Leaving aside obvious gripes with the heft/weight/balance/grip/curve of the entire weapon, the spikes are awesome. Just think about them for a minute. Stab in, twist, get yourself some nice spaghetti. Buh-bye to your opponent’s guts if you hit them mid-body and from the front. Stab only, well, if you apply enough force your opponent now has three holes he’s bleeding from, instead of just the one from the main blade.

I was born in the year Pink Floyd released “The Wall”, Sony released the first Sony Walkman ( for a whooping $200 ), and Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister in the UK. I suffered through shoulder pads and spandex while I grew up. My mom’s hair was so big, she didn’t fit through doors.

I’m a level 37 human now.

Have you tried quitting the episode by going to H → Story Journal → ( episode you want ) Quit This Episode? If the Personal Story isn’t active, that should technically get rid of the green text. For the record, LS2 does show up in the content guide for me.

I don’t think it would be game breaking, as long as it can be turned on/off.

That said, I’m not sure if adding a mass of green bars to the chaos on the screen would help, or just make things worse. From a purely PVE perspective, and playing on a fairly large monitor, I sure as heck can’t see much of anything if enough players pile on top of the boss/mob and do their flashy kaboom stuff, especially in zergs.

I used to play Shaiya a couple of years ago. The game has several modes ranging from Normal to Ultimate, Ultimate being the one where if you die and aren’t resurrected within 3 minutes, your character is deleted.

I’ve had that happen a few times, and it was fun the first time, annoying the second, and every time after that just made me want to bash my head against the screen because a) that game’s economy was ( probably still is ) so far down the toilet you wouldn’t reach the bottom even with a submarine, thus starting over was…ugh, and b) lag/latency accounted for more than half of my deaths.

Now imagine that in GW2. Imagine having a legendary weapon, or something you worked really hard for, possibly for months, and then having that character deleted — not because you don’t know how the game works, bit off more than you can chew, or were zerged down…

But because of lag/latency. Imagine having a lvl 80 character with a legendary weapon and/or ascended gear, and then dying to a lvl 5 mob in core Tyria because your internet went wonky for 5 minutes.

I can’t really think of anything more frustrating.

So tl;dr: HELL NO.

I usually zoom out all the way so I can keep an overview of what’s going on around me, especially in the higher level maps…and at that distance, even my toon is a 2-inch mass of pixels, so no: I very rarely pay attention to what other toons look like. I barely pay attention to what my own toon looks like. As long as the colours aren’t too eye-watering, I don’t care.

What peeves me off in general are the backpacks, be they wings or blades. It’s not that they don’t look good, it’s just that they make pretty much all toons top-heavy and kind of clunky. To each their own, though.

Huh, okay. I didn’t know that portal may not work due to events in the area. I took my lvl 45 Ranger there just now, and yeah, it does work. I tried doing the same a couple of days ago with a different lvl 80 character and it did not work – there was an event going on at the time.

So, good to know. Thanks guys!

As the title says. I’m probably either asking the dumbest question in the world, or am simply overlooking the most obvious answer, or something.

I’ve played through the story on 3 characters now, and I’m honestly getting a bit burned out on it.

I’d like to take future alts into the HoT maps without having to play through it/the first part again, to fully unlock their elites before I do anything else with them. Is that actually possible? I can take my lvl 80 alts to the portal in the Silverwastes, but the portal to Verdant Brink itself is X’d out. Short of using Teleport to Friend to unlock at least the first waypoint in the HoT maps, which I’m not even sure works, is there another way to actually go there?

( And before anyone points it out, I know playing through the first part doesn’t take long. I just find it a bit weird that those maps apparently are inaccessible without jumping through that particular hoop. )

SlateSloan.3654:

I would like to see a pvp zone inside pve. It could be designed so that one can find rare and valuable resources. Make the zone lootable pvp even to cause nice action. Competition, we need competition.

Like they have in ArcheAge, one of the most toxic player communities ever? Granted, last time I checked when you died there you didn’t lose anything, but man, talk about a griever’s paradise.

No matter how nice a player community is, the moment you start mixing hardcore PVPers with PVEers, meta falls by the wayside and people start grieving others just because they can, especially if the map is tailored toward it. It wouldn’t be “balance and twists with the events and terrain”, it would be an all out war between people who want to do the events and the people who want to kill/annoy/grief other players because that’s fun to them.

I wouldn’t be opposed to such a map only if PVEers have no reason to ever go there if they don’t want to, and that includes loot and/or materials.

Shikigami.4013:

If they “surrounded” you, they could not all have moved in the same way, else they would have formed some kind of blob next to you. Do you think it is possible that they deliberately tried to troll people and startle them? Sounds like the most plausible explanation to me.

Which is why I said I’m not sure.

Even if it was a bunch of players trying to troll/startle others – in which case, my hat goes off to them because you managed – I find it extremely weird that they’d all use the exact same skills at the exact same time on the exact same target and moved everywhere as if they were a kind of blob.

Going to ask the obvious here, but have you tried fiddling with the slider in Options → Sound Options → Dialogue Volume?

I’ve come across something similar as the OP is talking about. I was levelling a sylvari when a group of players ( or bots, I’m really not sure ) came running up to me. They were moving perfectly synchronized, they were all wearing the same armor, they all carried the same weapons. And by moving synchronized, I mean in ways that I don’t think are possible without some form of ‘outside help’ – running everywhere the same time, moving the same, executing the same skills. They, too, were in a guild.

What threw me off was that they were talking to each other, so I thought at first they were just some players messing around, but then I followed them for a while. In the screenshot attached you can sort of see what they did. But all at the same time, using the exact same skills and moving the exact same way, at the exact same time. It was like one player controlling five toons, or five players letting a program run and sitting at the screen watching.

In the screenshot you can see how they surrounded my toon and attacked my target. Which, I know, is neither an offense nor indication of a bot. But it still threw me for a loop in how they did it. And I’ve seen a couple of those ‘player groups’ in the meantime, moving/acting that way.

Esquilax.3491:

If there was a “Money Spent” icon on peoples characters, similar to the mastery points next to name?

Do you think people would look at the person with $3000 next to their name and be like:

“Wow man, nice legendary weapons and armor!, you look incredible and I’m jealous!”

or maybe “Holy crap I wish I had that much money to spend on a video game!, nice stuff”

Or perhaps a simple negative reaction of “W T F” ? (etc.)

What would your reaction be?

Maybe I’m a party pooper, but —

1. it’s not my business how much money people spend on this game
2. it’s no one’s business how much money I spend on this game
3. without people spending money on this game, there would be no game

I think the overall reactions would be negative — there is a tendency in online gaming to ridicule or shame people who spend a lot of money on their games. At the same time, it doesn’t seem to bother anyone if I collect expensive, I don’t know, jewellery? Clothes? Cars? Spend all my disposable income on booze, or movies, or some other tangible or intangible form of amusement?

In the end, for what I believe is the vast majority of players, gaming is just a hobby like any other.

That said…

I think my final reaction would be to quit the game immediately. Making information like that public is the surest way to get a gaming community to explode in a churning geyser of jealousy, seething hatred, finger-pointing, and anger.

Some nice titles that can be gotten relatively easily ( Finder’s Keepers for example – follow dolyak and pick up presents it drops ), item that gives you 10k Karma if you do a Frostgorge Sound event 3 times, free food from Wintersday Presents that you can either sell or hoard, plus the drinks you can either guzzle or sell.

There is also Warming Grawnk’s Heart. It will give you a Wintersday Tree node for your home instance, if you do the entire thing ( which again, includes jumping puzzles ).

Located in Germany ( central Europe ), playing on Ehmry Bay server.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

It’s working fine for me. You could try:

• Clearing out your GW2 cache
• Repairing the client.

Instructions for both appear in the troubleshooting guide under the Account & Tech support forum (for the cache, you navigate to local and delete the folders prepending with “gw2cache” and for repair, you create a shortcut to the game and use -repair as an argument).

Both those have resolved display issues with the TP for a lot of folks.

(The TP is basically just a webpage, using an in-game browser — like any browser, sometimes the cache gets corrupted and needs to be purged.)

---

FYI if you are using windows X, I have seen some issues around the TP due to problems with windows misunderstanding whether to use the default browser when GW2 requests data via the TP/in-game browser. Some people fixed this by changing their default browser (and unfortunately, I believe you need to change the settings in two places for WinX).

I’ve tried your suggestions, and they didn’t fix the problem. I’m not sure if the problem is really on my side, though, as I’m not the only one suddenly having it? Changing the default browser in Windows wouldn’t change much as I’ve completely removed IE months ago and exclusively use Chrome ( I have a few alternative browsers lying around as .exes in case Chrome ever starts futzing on me ).

The Black Lion Trading Post isn’t showing any items, no matter what I select. I’ve relogged several times, tried different characters, even went to different trading posts. Searching for items doesn’t work, either, it only always returns “Sorry, no items match this filter”…even on items that SHOULD display choices, like the inventory bags. I am not the only player with this problem.

Edit: as suggested by someone in map chat, I also tried resetting my router. No go.

Thanks for the replies, guys!

I honestly don’t care much about optimal at this point, as I play this game 100% to relax and have fun, not to win any contest or be that one toon that stands out. I do try to play to the best of my ability, but a typical game session for me translates to “wander the map for x hours and do hearts/vistas/POI, maybe an event if I happen to be in the vicinity”.

Yes, I am that boring. My job is stressful and I need a counter for that. I’m also getting to the point where I can consider myself one of the older crowd and my twitch skills are beginning to deteriorate, so high-maintenance classes are more of a chore to me than actual fun.

Note: I don’t expect to be able to faceroll anything.

I’m more looking for ease of play.

I’m going to give the Guardian/DH a try, thanks again for the answers!

Thank you!

/15chars

…and I’d like some input. I’ve mainly played Ranger so far, dabbing a toe into other classes and really kinda…not liking any of them. What is it with this game’s infernal focus on melee? Anyway -

I prefer ranged classes. I suck at close combat unless it’s “Press 3 buttons and the mob is dead”. Elementalist wasn’t really my thing, since I don’t have piano fingers. I’ve tried Mesmer and Necromancer, didn’t like them. I’ve done Ranger and am currently beating my head against the Druid wall.

My question is, can the Guardian elite spec be played like Ranger 2.0 sans pet, once the elite specialisation is unlocked? Obviously I’d equip a close combat weapon for when mobs get in my face, but I’d really rather stay with a ranged weapon 95-100% of the time. Did any Rangers make the switch from Ranger to Guardian ( DH )? What’s your experience?

( I don’t know if it matters, but I don’t PVP at all. I’m mainly interested in doing map completions, a few events, and HoT/LS. I play solo, too. )

Gonna have to join the bandwagon here and say that Asian MMO grind and GW2 mastery earning do not compare. I played Perfect World where max lvl 105 required 4,263,108,185 EXP. They introduced some easier ways of earning that amount, but doing it the hard way meant grinding for MONTHS to get half a level, if you weren’t hardcore dedicated and had several hours’ worth of playtime per day, something which people with out-of-game responsibilities like jobs/family/other hobbies simply do not have. And don’t get me started on how EASY it is in GW2 to get decent endgame armor. Even Ascended is a joke compared to some of those other MMOs ( Rank 9 PWI, anyone? ).

That said, I can KIND of understand where the OP is coming from. Getting to lvl 80 on the base maps is a no-brainer: explore, do the quests, view the vistas, find the POIs, snag a few events here and there if you’re passing through the area. Heck, if you have the money to spare, buy a bunch of keys and open BLC for tomes ( or do the PVP thing I can’t comment on, because I don’t PVP ).

HoT…requires more planning, more coordination, and more teamwork. Now, before anyone jumps down my throat, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. My main gripe with GW2 is that I’ve made absolutely no friends here casually as I did in other games, simply because you DON’T have to group up for anything that gets you to lvl 80. You don’t even have to join a guild. You can play the game like single player and still get lvl 80 without breaking a sweat or grinding for months just to reach that sweet spot called endgame.

And then suddenly HoT comes around with ( at first glance ) its massive gating behind HP ( already nerfed ) and EXP requirements. That can put a casual player off like whoa, especially if all you did before was log in for an hour or two per day, explore a new section of the map, and do some hearts/events.

No. No matter what game, I always play ranged, so magic or bow type classes are my automatic go-to class. I tried Elementalist and really didn’t like it. My ranger is the only toon I’ve managed to stick with to almost full map completion, and I’m not going to give her up.

I just won’t pick Druid for spec. I would consider it if we had the ability to swap between more than two weapon sets on the fly – LB, S/A, Staff, for example – and a fourth spec slot because Druid feels very situational for me/my gameplay style. As it stands, swapping out my sword/axe for staff just isn’t worth it for me.

This?

I don’t know if I’m a veteran. I’ve been playing MMOs for about…15 years? Thereabouts?

1. Apart from a few veteran/champion creatures and group events, is there really anything on the ( PVE ) map that would require camping? Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything. Do I miss it? I don’t know. Players do tend to come together and in the loosest sense work together for events. Personally, I play this game like I’d play a single player – absolutely no interest in PVP, lemme explore the map, other players = other characters, if I meet friendly strangers yay, if not, no loss. Strangely enough, this leads me to #2 and #3:

2/3. The biggest vacuum for me is the absence of dungeon runs, both community- and game wise. That was one thing I was looking forward to when I started playing GW2, and was disappointed to find out isn’t really done. Granted, I’d read before I started that a lot of players prefer speed runs, but I hadn’t expected to have SO MUCH TROUBLE getting together a group of players for a lazy, yes-we-will-kill-every-mob-because-we-can, run. I know dungeons aren’t everyone’s cup of tea and can get very tedious, especially if you’re farming something, but…well, let me put it this way: I have 2x lvl 80 toons, a couple of lower level toons, and on not a single one of them have I seen anyone in map chat asking for X dungeon. And that’s just a little weird to me. Even outside of guilds, in the games I played I always saw people trying to get together dungeon runs.

I have also found a vacuum of e-diots on GW2. Something which other games, quite frankly, have in overabundance. Yes, there will be the weird oddball spouting nonsense, yes, I’ve had players throw insults, but in general the player population of this game seems…nicer? More laid-back? ( Wait till I actually get to do dungeons, I might change my mind then )

4. The giant map. The hundreds of quests. The levelling. For me personally, that’s a selling point. I’m a pure PVEr and in this aspect, this game is great for me. I play this game when I get back home from work, when I want to relax and have fun.

I can go farm, I can go explore, I can try Jumping Puzzles ( and horribly fail, most of the time ), I can do the personal story or let it sit until I’ve reached lvl 80 – this game is what you make it. Wanna craft? Craft away. Wanna PVP? Go for it. Wanna be a lazy slob like me and just bounce around the map…well, there’s aforementioned giant map.

Class-wise, I’m a bit meh about it though. I sometimes wish the meta wouldn’t exist, at least not to the point where classes are exempt from it by design. I’m kind of used to the holy trinity and its inevitable transmutation, when people figure out the ins and outs of classes: whoever ends up with aggro, tanks. The rest either heal or DD. So I’m used to playing in a style where it didn’t matter so much what you were playing, as how you were playing. Then again, that’s a personal preference, and so far the meta hasn’t had any negative or positive influence on my gameplay, so I’m mostly ignoring it and just play however the heck I want.