Guild Wars 2

Awesome, thanks for the quick response.

I’ve come back after a year hiatus, so forgive me if some of this is common knowledge by now. I’ve been working on an elixir engineer for fun but I had some questions about how and when traits activate.

1. For the AED, when it says “lethal damage” does that include going down but not dying? Will it instantly rally me during those five seconds or do I have to be downed and about to die before it can activate? If it’s the former, does that count as actually rallying (in terms of other traits that might proc on rally) or does it occur before I actually go down?

2. In the Alchemy branch, the trait called Self-Regulating Defenses, does that activate even if my heal skills aren’t in cool down? Meaning if I go below 25% health before I use my heal skills, the trait is wasted?

3. Dumb question, but does the toolkit skill Toss Elixir C activate on the thrower as well or only allies?

4. I noticed there are quite a few traits that activate below 25%. Assuming I have them all unlocked and equipped, will they all activate at 25% or will only one randomly activate below 25%?

5. In the Alchemy branch again, there’s a trait called Fast-Acting Elixirs that reduces the cool down of elixir skills by 20%. Does that also include elixirs activated by other traits (e.g. Hidden Flask)?

6. Under Alchemy one more time, there’s a minor trait called Transmute that converts an incoming condition into a boon. What happens if I have another condition placed on me during that 15 second cool down? Will the trait automatically convert it to a boon, or does it only work on conditions about to be placed on me? What if I have a condition placed on me during the cool down and another stack of the condition is incoming when the trait is cooled down (i.e. 3 stacks of poison already on me, and the trait procs on the 4th stack of poison, does it remove all 4 stacks?)

Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated. If it helps any, I was planning on this just being a PvE build for fun. I don’t see it being viable in dungeons or PvP.

The only problem I see with leveling too fast is getting the best gear for your current level being expensive if you’re getting new levels really quickly.

With the exception of the gem trading I feel this is what a cash shop should be- small items that add to convenience of the game via bank size or xp boosters, but are obtainable ingame albeit through a much slower pace. Cosmetic items that give no bonuses other than to look unique are a plus too, but the moment any item is added that give a permanent stat boost I’m deleting the game.

And it’s time to take a look…at Guild Wars 2

http://www.blisteredthumbs.net/2012/10/mmo-grinder-guild-wars-2/

Consider the review from the viewpoint of a newbie. Agree? Disagree?

I’m going to save you the trouble. Although I agree that the game’s too difficult and unfun, people are going to either tell you to “dodge better”, to kite, or to zerg. Or they could just tell you to quit because they love their hardcore game. Dying isn’t fun. Failure isn’t fun. A boss that can spam an attack (i.e. uses it every second) that has a 100% knock down rate (i.e. an interrupt that always hits and keeps you from using skills for two seconds) isn’t fun. A boss that instantly creates a fire field that takes out a third of your chunk every half second, all while throwing axes at you from a distance with hitscan properties (i.e. can’t be dodged) is too difficult to fight considering how few people actually do events anymore. But people will tell you to quit the game and play “hello kitty online” or something because you’re not as good as them (i.e. they’re lucky enough to have better computers)

This game is turning elitist real fast.

I wanted to make a new Norn engineer that focused on the flamethrower and fire attacks. I was going to name her Mona Meatroaster because alliteration is fun and I used to know someone named Mona. Flagged as inappropriate. Here’s the fun part- it’s not for the reason you think because I tried Ramona Meatroaster and that was okay.

Ahmon.1730:

Aramanth.1546:

That’s a great idea, Vulish! How about you get me a full set of Runes of the Noble so I can test out how many Krytan Hounds I can have and how long they last, and if I can affect them with my abilities.

The problem is not all “allies” means “you” as well. Sigil of water, for example, doesn’t heal you- it heals allies. I think someone should go through and just do a double check on terminology, so it’s all unified. Maybe come up with a new word to differentiate between “allies and you” and “allies”.

You say that like it’s hard. Doing that takes about five minutes in-game. You’d get a much quicker answer.

Getting 6 runes from a dungeon takes you five minutes?

Really? What kind of build? What class?

Scorpio.3821:

I see bots of every class, so I don’t know why this is directed solely to rangers…

There’s way more ranger bots than others. I’ve gotten to the point where I assume everyone’s a bot until they do something unbotlike, if that makes any sense. And being in a guild doesn’t help, there are not bot guilds too!

That’s a great idea, Vulish! How about you get me a full set of Runes of the Noble so I can test out how many Krytan Hounds I can have and how long they last, and if I can affect them with my abilities.

The problem is not all “allies” means “you” as well. Sigil of water, for example, doesn’t heal you- it heals allies. I think someone should go through and just do a double check on terminology, so it’s all unified. Maybe come up with a new word to differentiate between “allies and you” and “allies”.

I’ve always wondered, how come we don’t get trait points from level 1 up? Would it break the game and create unbeatable builds? I’m not complaining, I’m personally fine with the current system, but I’m curious what kind of builds could be made if we were given 10 extra trait points.

Where the hell are these NPCs when I need them? The ones I see die from 1v1 fights against a mosquito. It takes three lionguard to kill one warg, and even the priory and vigil go down to a friggen skale! then after I res them they run into a fight and get killed by passing wurm in two hits. It’s almost not worth it to res them. -.-

Not that I agree with Arenanet’s Anti-Trinity method, but where’s the logic in having a stat designed to describe how much we’re hurting something govern how much we’re healing something? Even if healing from power is a smaller amount, now players who have tremendous amounts of power (as is the norm currently) will be able to heal themselves very well, as opposed to them being glass cannons designed to dish out punishment but not take it very well. If you have a class that can not only do tremendous amounts of damage, has good toughness and vitality, but can also heal very well now, game balance will collapse quickly.

Barbarka, How is going through a dungeon and not failing a bad thing?

There’s a difference between challenging and hard. Challenging is where you have to actively try to do well, putting everything you know to the test. Hard is just the game being unfair. A boss with a rapid fire attack designed to kill you but can be easily dodged and doesn’t occur often is challenging. A boss with a rapid fire attack that hits you no matter where you are and is his main attack is hard. The champion giant in Diessa is challenging. The fire elemental in Metrica is hard.

Hard is not fun. Hard is obnoxious, boring, and almost painful to do. Dungeon mobs are hard and it makes me never want to do dungeons again. Bosses that use cheap tactics that can only be beaten by hundreds of players wailing on it as fast as you can doesn’t strike me as fun. It just proves my point that the only build to ever do is DPS, undermining the whole “be what you want” clause. Just because some people like hard core games and dying hundreds of times to absurdly unfun fights against an enemy who spams knock down attacks so fast you can’t even get up from them doesn’t mean we all do.

Never found it appealing to begin with, but I hate the fact it was nerfed for the guardians who use it. Consider it dread for what might come when they nerf our maces.

Ynna.8769:

And 80% is a number you just made up. Just like Arenanet not caring. They might care, they might not. There’s no evidence pointing in either direction.

Wait, wouldn’t that be a 50% chance of Arenanet not caring then?

I knew from the moment the patch hit this forum would be lit ablaze with talk on the greatsword nerf. But now I feel like I’m the only guardian not affected by this. I use a mace/focus/staff and go for a more defensive build. If I wanted to use a greatsword I’d switch over to my warrior. Are all the other guardians only looking at their damage output? I can’t be the only one who’s not affected.

“Does the warrior trait talking about +10% crit affect greatswords as well, or is it normal swords?”
“Go kill yourself nub.”
“^”
“lol yeh u suk at this.”

That’s why I don’t bother with map chat.

“Hey, blood witch spawned, can someone help me kill her?”
“Circle straf, u nub. do it yorself”

What I’m complaining about.

I’ve had this on all targetable objects at one point or another. My best guess, at least if you use a melee weapon, is the actual “enemy” it far enough away from your attacks to not get hit. I.e. the actual hittable part of a ballista is in the middle while the rest is just normal object collision.

Paying 119 gold to look like someone skinned a deer and stuck patches of it on me isn’t enough to justify “it’s for looks”. For that price, the armor should at least give the bonuses/defenses of dungeon armor, just so now we have four ways of obtaining our end game gear- crafting, buying culture armor, karma vendors, or dungeon vendors.

Learning order of skills isn’t as important as end game, or even mid game mechanics- anything that doesn’t unlock a skill from 0% when killed isn’t tough enough to worry about in the grand scheme of things.

I’ve finally hit level 71 and have seen about 60% of the world. So far I’ve seen three types of bosses:

1. The kind that are really easy, to the point they aren’t fun to fight at all. The champion ogre from Field of Ruin is this. He barely does damage and spends most of the fight invincible while his pets do the fighting. I’m not saying buff him, but don’t expect anything epic from him.

2. The kinds of bosses that offer challenge but aren’t too difficult to fight. They can be soloed if needed. I say “soloed” because let’s face it- other than the newb areas no one bothers with events unless they have to be there for completion. This makes some boss fights annoying impossible. Thankfully these bosses aren’t that. They’re tough but if you know what you’re doing you can take them down. Or they have a cool premise about them. The behemoth from Queensdale could classify as this. You have to clear away his portals while avoiding stone rocks (which you can see coming easily) then you can wail on his face for a while. It’s good because while the portals most likely need a ranged weapon, melee players can focus on the minions that spawn, and everyone can attack the behemoth when he comes down to roar at people.

3. Those bosses. You know what I mean. The ones that are just bullkittenly annoying to fight. They don’t offer challenge, they aren’t fun, they’re a nuisance because they rely on some mechanic that makes it more of a fight against luck than one of skill. The fire elemental from Metrica is this 100%. Although it stands still, it lobs hundreds of fireballs at random parts of the area that, if they make contact with you, knock you down for 3 seconds and damage you the entire time. A level 60-ish guardian based around toughness and vitality is brought down to less than half hp if she gets caught in one of those rings. And if they don’t hit you they summon minions that can make their own fire pits! The elemental doesn’t focus on a particular player, it just spews lava wherever it wants, so you can’t have one character circle strafe it drawing aggro and pelting it with arrows while everyone else bombards it. The ranged characters end up getting melted from the very edge of the room while the melee characters have to run around jumping over circles of fire and avoiding 15 embers chasing them and taking pot shots! I don’t care if you can solo it, it’s an annoying fight and doesn’t make me want to go back! Caledon Forest has two of these bosses- the krait witch and the fight with the hylek warrior who transforms you. The transformation one is obvious- try fighting as a jellyfish on land- and the witch has this insta-cast grapple skill that not only pulls players towards her but poisons them, does massive damage, and hits twice. She does it so quickly I don’t see how anyone can dodge both of them, and in that case they’re out of endurance so now t hey have to avoid the krait you’ve just pulled by avoiding her! Some of the champion bandits in Kessex might count too. There are these two in particular with sledgehammers. In melee it’s fine, you can see the attack coming, but out of nowhere they practically warp to your location and slam their sledgehammer into the ground and do massive damage to anyone nearby, and you can’t dodge it for some reason like the champion giant in Diessa Plateau (which is in the second category btw). I could be ressing someone on the sidelines, not attacking him, not anywhere near him, and he immediately beelines for me with that attack and I can’t avoid it. Maybe I’m just slow, but if you saw a man teleport to you with a weapon designed to knock down buildings and slam the ground so hard it causes a mild tremor, you’d panic too.

Anyway, you get it. Anyone else agree with this? Disagree? And if you think I’m whining because you can solo every boss in the game in 15 minutes or less or whatever…well, maybe. But any boss where the man strategy is “circle strafe, u nub” or “zerg it” then we have a problem.

hammer’s not useless With the trait that extends the duration of symbols you have protection up almost all the time.

I knew the front page would be filled with nothing but greatsword outrage. I don’t use one, but I’m sorry you guys lost out on your build. I’m dreading the day my block build gets nerfed too…

you want to talk out of place? Since when do the brainy asura value something like hitting a person with a blunt object until they’re dead like a caveman? Why would a Silvari, a creature made from wood specialize in fire-based magic, or even poison based attacks like a Necromancer? Magic’s looked down on in the Charr society, why would any of them focus on being a mesmer, elementalist, or necromancer?

You really want people to hear us scream “Retreat!” or “Save yourselves!” when we’re doing well on a boss?

Dovakhin Dragonborn.1842:

Aramanth.1546:

That seems like a very slow and stupid way to gain levels, when there’s so many bots events just sorta do themselves now.

Its very hard to capture what i’m talking about in a screenshot, but here is one: http://i.imgur.com/iWPu8.jpg

One bot kept dying, and was rezzed by the other bots.

I’m not saying I don’t believe it, I’m just saying it’s inefficient.

AndrewWaltfeld.4621:

lethlora.1320:

it would also help if females did not have absurdly long legs in this game.

i don’t get video game designers’ contempt for female bodies, anyway.

contempt?

con·tempt/k?n?tem(p)t/
Noun:
The feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn.
Disregard for something that should be taken into account.

---

With the amount of flak the gaming industry has been getting lately, they have been nothing but considerate. Contempt certainty isn’t the correct word to use.

If he hit the nail any squarer on the head the plank will split in two. Look at games like Tera and Blade & Soul. Hell, look at a new MMO coming out called Queen’s Blade. Game industries do NOT care what we think, they make games based on what they think we want, and apparently we want kittenty women in tiny outfits with giant chests, running in all sorts of environments in stilettos. To them, women are objects. So yeah, contempt is an apt description.

I agree with the fifth thing Najur said, that reviving a charr really sends them into a flurry. I was helping a guildie with the Claw Island but he gets swamped by Risen. While NPCs were fighting them I figured I’d just res him to continue. Even when I don’t try to attack the risen, even when I stand there for a second, the moment I start to res my guildie (a charr) they dropped everything and beelined for me. Something about Atheist demon cats really makes enemies unhappy.

That seems like a very slow and stupid way to gain levels, when there’s so many bots events just sorta do themselves now.

Do this for everything really. Sigils of water just says “x chance to heal allies.” Does that mean every time you attack? Every time you use a skill? Just standing around? Is there a cool down? Does it affect you like other effects that says allies? I had to go do some research and learned it was on critical hits and only works on allies and not yourself, which renders it useless to me, while I was trying to figure out exactly how it worked for 40 levels. Keep in mind this game has terminology that makes decision very literal, like Magic: The Gathering. A “Block” is not the same as an “Aegis” or “Invulnerability”, Despite them essentially doing the same thing. It’s very important we know if a trait, skill, rune, or sigil is affected by one of these and not the other. Same goes for crit, burning, damage, skill use, ability use, kill, hit, etc.

On the flip side it’s especially hilarious when the mob your fighting unintentionally hits a neutral mob and gets ganked by them.

Ixal.7924:

Groonz.7825:

e.g. the guardians elite tomb that gives you 3 second invulnerability and recharges all your virtues.

I wish my Engi had something like that. The only usable choice is supply chest -> 3 turrets and a bunch of medpacks. Mortar is completely unusable.

I’ll trade you. It’s invulnerability, not blocks. It doesn’t make you immune to condition damage or attacks that place conditions on you. Chances are you’ll die from poison and burning in the middle of the animation. Your supply chest, on the other hand, gives me a bunch of wonderful med packs I desperately need as wel las some back up damage to draw the enemy’s attention while I heal up and try again.

Actually, I would love this. I’m based around shouts and have all but one. If i had all four I could definitely do better.

Aggro’s random in this game from what I’ve been told, or at least it’s based on who’s doing the most damage. People claim it’s because logically an AI will go for the one attacking them the most, but when most AI have trouble moving from point A to point B without getting lost or dying I’m willing to bet it’s just random.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#cmcczV0MzMvaGmMvaGm0axx0VMVqMok8kiB7kiU7ki3707kii7kNc70V7owX70m

This is what I’m working towards. It’s based around blocking attacks and using burns/heals to keep yourself alive. Shouts remove a condition from you, and with a decent precision your crits have a chance to remove a condition too. Since enemies are going to get burnt most of the time, one fourth of those will remove a boon from them. Boons you apply to yourself or allies will heal you, so shouts will ultimately heal and remove a condition thanks to your runes. Outside of dungeons if enough people are fighting you can swap to a staff and empower people for a tremendous heal to yourself and 15 stacks of might to everyone else. Anything that gives toughness, vitality, and healing power is what I’m going for in terms of armor. Your damage won’t be all that dandy, and I’m sure all people will care about is doing as much damage as possible, but if you play your cards right and know when to use your blocks, you’ll live longer than most.

Gotta be honest, when I did the rival one, I was really hoping for one of my other characters to turn out to be the rival. Other than that having Eir be the teacher kinda came out of nowhere. I like her though, so it’s fine.

That’s what happens when the game trolls you.

I agree that the elite skills aren’t all that impressive. Maybe we should have a contest where people think up new elite skills or redo old ones for the devs to look at and implement.

As long as I get money and xp and possibly transmute stones, I couldn’t care less what mats I get- it’s all going on the trade post anyway.

Story of my life. -.- I’ve noticed the targeting always goes for the one farthest away from you. I know it’s suppose to be whichever one you’re focusing on as you attempt to target, but if there’s a risen abomination running towards me with 19 stacks of berserker and one risen waaaay off in the distance not doing anything, I find it very unlikely I want to focus on the one not knocking me down with insta-cast attack spam.

Is this it?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Noble

Don’t these have a cool down? Or go away after awhile?

Fine, I’ll look around for it myself.

It’s based around my giantess, Aramanth Aegis. It’s part of her back story. I know no one really cares about it, but long story short she’s suppose to be the tallest human in the world, and is just under the impression she’s a giant/norn.

Why would you make a norn if you weren’t going to be maximum height? If you wanted a norn with minimum height you should’ve made a kitten human.

I made mine as big as I could. she gets called huge all the time. I love it. XD

…Ok…how do we get that many pets? Can they actually fight for you? Are they found ingame? Do they function just like normal ranger pets?

I wouldn’t mind a bard class, one with excellent buff capabilities and good ranged attacks. Then again they’d probably get their own unique weapon which wouldn’t make it fair…