Guild Wars 2

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I’m at 185% MF, and drop rates are fine. In the attached picture, all the Ecto you see were salvaged from Rare and Exotics (btw – Ecto salvage rates are fine too). I’ve gotten multiple Precursor drops from monsters and from Zommoros.

Your picture only proves that you play quite a lot and that you’ve probably seen hundrets of thousands of drops, not that RNG has a positive effect on your drops.

Actually, I think what that picture shows is what John essentially said in a post earlier that people sort of look past: Some accounts are “lucky” and some are “unlucky.” That is if the pool is large enough you will inevitably have accounts at either end of the RNG distribution over an extended period of time. No wonder Penguin is such an avid defender of the current rewards system and economy! Its working for him/her thank you very much so leave it alone! lol

The weapon for this heart quest in Plains of Ashford is bugged. Skill #5 – the net capture skill shows locked and will only occasionally show up when using the rifle. It was inconsistent and the skill took several seconds to show after the target was 50% or lower when it did show up. I suspect many players will simply try this and give up because the skill they need isn’t available.

Something tells me this is more glitchiness cause by the NPE since it level gate’s skills . . . and that heart may be too low for skill 5? Just a thought . . .

lordkrall.7241:

Well, they HAVE told us that the event from last year will repeat.

Later in October, we’ll be bringing back our famous Halloween festivities! Blood and Madness will be returning to Guild Wars 2 on October 21 and remain active until the return of Season 2.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-events-in-guildwars2/

I do wonder why they should bother being more transparent when people quite clearly doesn’t even read what they do tell us.

I wonder how some people get much of anything from what Anet says. In my mind Blood and Madness returning doesn’t necessarily mean a complete replay from last year.

@DonQuack
I actually looked for a customer service link very briefly at Amazon and didn’t see one so thought I would follow up here first since I remembered seeing a thread on this issue. I bought the gem cards with Amazon gift cards, getting refunded the difference on a gift card purchase would seem to be problematic since I’m not using a credit card. I guess I would need to cover the difference with a credit card and get refunded the difference on that card by Amazon(?). I’m assuming you can use Amazon.com gift cards with third party sellers(?). Seems like a hassle either way. This is the only IRL money I’ve spent on gems in a few months other than a $10 purchase I made for someone else. So long as the gem cards are here before the holiday sales start I will be fine. Presumably at some point Amazon will cancel the order if they are not going to fill it . . .

So any update on this? Got some Amazon gift cards for my birthday and ordered two $25 gem cards from Amazon.com on 9/18. Delivery window is supposedly between 10/8 and 10/20 but as of today the items have not shipped yet. Any word on whether or not they (Amazon) are really carrying the Gem Cards or just stringing everyone along? Has anyone received one from Amazon (not a 3rd party Amazon seller) recently? The Gem Card link leads to the $34.90 priced version someone noted above.

I like #2.5 and (#2 to a lesser extent). Systems that players can see their progress towards a goal are better than systems that operate in the background I think.

Dry Top is an example of where that concept/idea (#2.5) was (partially) implemented. You have the “geode” drops melded with the concept of “map favor” for increasing access to rewards that you can also get through RNG drops. Unfortunately, the idea was only partially implemented – the missing piece is a way to get the amber fossils through some method other than RNG. Anet could/should have implemented a way to get say “amber fossil fragments.” For example an “amber fossil fragment” could have been given: 1) one from each Dry Top open world chest (including the JP chest), 2) one as part of every Dry Top Champion’s loot, and 3) and as a rare drop from Veteran and Elite Mobs. Players collect says 20-50 amber fossil fragments turn them into the vender who mixes and matches them with other fragments he’s collected and hands the player back a completed fossil of their choice. A system like that would save’s players the annoyance/frustration of grinding enough geodes to open a hundred chests and getting no Amber Fossil.

In all honesty I’ve no interest in Legendary weapons and have refused chase them at all. I find the economy working well enough for me as a result since I avoid that ridiculous time/material/gold sink. However, I suspect that GW2 has lost a lot of players over the frustration of chasing precursors through RNG and their inability/unwillingness to grind for hundreds/thousands of gold to buy one off the TP.
Carrying the thought on to precursors an example of a #2.5 system for them could be something like:

1) Add precursor components to each of the Dungeon vendors – crafting each precursor would involve gathering 4 different components from four different Dungeons vendors that would be placed in the Mystic Forge to generate the precursor;
2) Price the components in dungeon tokens fairly high but not astronomically high (say at the equivalent of 50 dungeon runs for each piece – about 3000 tokens?); and
3) Expand dungeon tokens as drop to appropriate open world areas near the dungeons – again dropping a token as part of each champion’s loot, open world chests, jumping puzzle chests, and as a rare drop from veterans and elites.

As a “sop” to the lore fiends and role players you could conceivably work some lore into the process by adding a related quest in each dungeon and/or open world area that would explain some history behind the legendary the player’s attempting to craft with a one-time reward of say a 100 tokens.

The fastest path to the precursor would be dungeon runs, but the system would also work for those who do open world. Not sure how it would work with the PvP crowd since I’m not familiar with the PvP reward tracks.

The important part for the players would be to see the progress first through token accumulation then through buying the separate components.

Draknar.5748:

Arrow.4619:

I think all they really need to do to make map completion “worth” it is to have both a Transmutation Charge AND a Black Lion Key drop with each map. Right now the mats, and the experience and (at lower levels) the relatively lackluster loot don’t motivate me much. Every map I’ve completed since the last update I did in the hope of getting a BLK. Of course I nearly always seem to get the Transformation Charge (which is useless to me since I’m sitting on 130+ of them).

Charge yes, key, no.

People don’t need to be motivated for map completion because it isn’t required for anything. If you want to craft a legendary then that would be motivation enough to do it for the Gifts. But outside of that, why exactly do you need to be motivated to do something that is completely optional? And I don’t mean optional like Ascended armor is optional (has a slight stat benefit, which is motivation enough). I’m meaning optional like there is absolutely no benefit whatsoever to map completion. You either want to do it or you don’t. That’s it.

The “its optional so they don’t need to give you anything” argument is always a fail. The entire game is “optional” rendering that argument fairly meaningless.

It seems obvious to me that Anet wants players out in the open world playing the game and going about visiting all of the areas, completing all of the hearts, events, etc. and helping other players in the process. Hence the reward that exists now which probably could use a little upgrade at this point.

Kurrilino.2706:

Shpongle.6025:

I think they’ve been working on an expansion for 2 to 3 months now. It’s either an expansion or gw3. Either way, they’re definitively doing something because gw2 feels very still and neglected right now.

---

You can’t be serious…..

Let me explain something.
A-Net and especially NC-Soft are interested in making money…. nothing else.
If there would be something like an expansion or GW3 they would hype it
to nirvana.

I know people’s last hope is that there is somehthing brewing something they can hope for.
A reality checks tells us something more simple….
They don’t announce something because there is nothing to announce.
Ever thought about that ?

I know most people don’t wanna hear it. I am one of these people.
But it is what it is. The head office have this illusion of feeding the people barely enough to keep them from quitting.
This is the big difference to GW1 where they did everything to please the customers and even trump the wildest dreams of the players.
If you ask for something in gw2 you get the bare minimum that could even considered
to relate to what was asked for.

I guess it is easier for everyone of us to realize that there will be mini maps added without any connection to anything just say… “you guys got what you wanted”.

You guys remember asking for new skills ?
We got new skills… sure every class got a single one and they are utterly useless….
but A-Net can say they are listening to people and added contend.

You guys better get used to it

If that’s the case Anet better get used to paying its people with Monopoly money. If that’s the reality then eventually people say “That’s all? Guess we’re done here.” And leave. And take their cash shop money with them. Even the cash from China will eventually start to run out if that’s Anet’s attitude.

Judging from the ~75 player roster of the guild I joined when I started playing the game has lost about 50% to 75% of its initial player base. And by lost I mean gone for over a year. Another roughly 20%-40% check in on the game occasionally sometimes every few weeks although many have been gone for 6+ months now. From what I can see only myself and 1-2 others still play regularly. Good thing its an MMO because if GW2 were a TV show it would have been cancelled mid-season year one.

I do believe they are working on an expansion and have been for long while. But if not, and mid-2015 rolls around with nothing but more LS . . . I’ll try to remember to turn out the lights when I leave.

I can distinctly remember saying that at some point on these forums over a year ago that Anet HAD to do an expansion at some point – the LS would not be enough and that the game would slowly die without one. Time has just further reinforced this for me – the LS is good, even great as filler while we wait for expansions – it is insufficient as a replacement for an expansion.

I think all they really need to do to make map completion “worth” it is to have both a Transmutation Charge AND a Black Lion Key drop with each map. Right now the mats, and the experience and (at lower levels) the relatively lackluster loot don’t motivate me much. Every map I’ve completed since the last update I did in the hope of getting a BLK. Of course I nearly always seem to get the Transformation Charge (which is useless to me since I’m sitting on 130+ of them).

Ran into this bug as well.

Jana.6831:

Tachenon.5270:

Second attempt: Let’s try another adept Arcane trait – Windborne Dagger! ‘Find and defeat Lord Ignius the Eternal at Venison Pass within Lornar’s Pass.’
….
All went well and soon my NPE ele had a new trait.

I’m sooo jealous! I waited on that map for hours but nothing happened.

Tachenon.5270:

‘Find the grand chest near Scholar Fryxx.’ Sounded simple enough.
… and so on and so forth, and after many, many, many attempts at disabling 6 asuran data pads within the span of 10 minutes I gave up and went to bed.

I think it’s 5 minutes, but not sure. My first attempt was like yours, I guess, then I watched a video about it and now I’m a pro =) I even think that soloing it might be easier.

If this is the underwater cave in Straits of Devestation, I believe you can simply swim up to the upper left corner of the force field and there is a path through that doesn’t require you to take down the force field.

Got a Bag of Jewels from the Karmic Converter. Attempted to use it to craft a Goblet of Kings. Bag did not show up as an item useable in the Mystic Forge. Actually tried to simply put it in first and it would not allow it. Had all of the other materials (Eldritch Scroll, 250 gold ingots, 30 Mystic Coins). Tried multiple times no luck.

Throw in my vote for FIX THE TRAIT SYSTEM.

Some utility and elite skill kills seem to count as certain types of weapon kills. I’ve used the Dagger Storm elite on my D/D + P/P Thief for a long time and I noticed at some point that I had a lot of Sword kills. This was before I started playing my Ranger as a LB + S/WH but was instead playing as LB + GS and I literally had no other character that had ever touched a sword. First thought I had was that the Greatsword kills by my Ranger were being counted as Sword kills or perhaps being double counted as Sword and Greatsword skills. Checked and that was not the culprit. Experimented some more and finally discovered that Dagger Storm kills were counted as Sword kills.

Olvendred.3027:

Arrow.4619:

Just used two scrolls to level a character from level 27 to level 29. My two items rewards were level 15 and level 20 consumables. One of them – the simple sharpening stone was soul bound. The white nights will say I should be grateful that I got something I wouldn’t have gotten before. Given all the BS gating that people have to go through now, my reaction is: If you’re going to give something that costs at most a couple of copper (42 cp for the unsellable sharpening stone and 2 cp for the food on the TP) can’t you at least make it level appropriate? There were no level 25 consumables you could give out?

Actually, no. The next level of sharpening stone requires level 30.

Actually, yes. There are any number of food consumables that would have worked just fine. If you want someone to be impressed with a 50 cp consumable at least give it to them when its the best they can use (level 15) not level 28 or 29.

Just used two scrolls to level a character from level 27 to level 29. My two items rewards were level 15 and level 20 consumables. One of them – the simple sharpening stone was soul bound. The white nights will say I should be grateful that I got something I wouldn’t have gotten before. Given all the BS gating that people have to go through now, my reaction is: If you’re going to give something that costs at most a couple of copper (42 cp for the unsellable sharpening stone and 2 cp for the food on the TP) can’t you at least make it level appropriate? There were no level 25 consumables you could give out?

BTW – A soulbound 42 cp consumable? Seriously?

I found the change obnoxious. I almost always match lowest seller or set the price higher than the lowest seller if I believe the item is in sufficient demand.

My suggestion is that collecting all of the Mystic Weapon skins (or perhaps limited the trigger to actually forging those weapons) would be a reasonable collection deserving a reward. If forged at the Mystic Fountain by a player it would cost 950 skill points plus materials. And if bought at the TP would cost round around 200+ gold (and likely much more once it becomes a known collection).

BTW – Anet if you instituted that a Mystic Weaponsmith collection achievement you might be able to drop the grotesque skill point cost for traits and still have a sizable skill point sink . . . just sayin . . .

Night before the patch went live I saw the Wooden Potatoes video and thought “I should buy those.” Of course it was very late and I was very tired so instead I went to bed. So today the total cost is 2000 gold or whatever instead of less than 200. I thought then “no one should know what the correct items” are and I still think that.

This feels like another one of those screw-ups that shouldn’t have happened, but now that it has happened, Anet will steadfastly refuse to acknowledge any wrong done or change their policy. They are sadly predictable that way . . .

Can confirm it was bugged last night on the server I was on. Home server is TC.

Concept’s List:

Rescue injured Zephyrites from the Inquest inside the mine and escort them outside

Agree. This one seems to scale very badly. Its almost impossible to accomplish in its present state. I do remember successfully completing it early on, but that was either a fluke or something changed.

Rescue the captive Zephyrites

Disagree. I soloed this today on my thief. Its quite doable and it really does not take more than 3 people to do it.

Protect Serene as she recovers crystals lost in the crash

Agree. This one has serious pathing issues. I get that she’s Serene and therefore wanders about serenely but the joke was annoying the first time. Hasn’t improved with age. Players doing this event are making a sacrifice.

Drive the Mordrem from the Vine Planting area

Partially agree. The mobs do respawn quickly and the density is high. But this is doable with 3-4 players. The respawn can help – I remember that I did solo it once by killing mobs at the entrance and not pushing into the canyon hardly at all.

Tendril Spawns

Disagree sort of. Not getting hit by the AOE while kiting and ranging the roots works. However, I’ve found that unless I have good Bloodlust stacks I cannot solo complete this with my thief before the roots respawn (very very close but not quite) – if I go ranged on the roots. Mix in some careful melee on the roots and its doable solo with zero bloodlust. Biggest issue I’ve seen is players either not noticing a root and killing the tendril causing it to respawn and the bonus to be lost, or a player(s) who simply don’t know how to get the bonus and go after the tendril first (or they are trolling the event).

Defeat the light-infused Inquest Golem

Disagree. Definitely a pain though. Solo’d him on my thief – not fun but he quite killable. Three or four players and he’s dead in less than a minute (maybe 2 tops).

Champion Sand Giant

Agree. As I put it in Dry top map chat recently “pain in the kitten + crappy loot = don’t bother.” I’ve seen him killed very quickly though on t6 map that I suspect was hard capped but most maps have to spend way too much time on him for too little reward. It might be possible to use a lot of reflects to end the fight more quickly but you still have crappy loot regardless.

The Dust Monster

Agree. Worse than the Sand Giant. If they put some kind of achievement on this one maybe people would do it but as it stands now don’t bother.

Mintyfresh.2539:

In all honesty, the worst part is that this feature especially punishes people who are into the game. I’m not sure if it impacts new customers who started after patch as this is something they get used to. But for us, people who have literally finished story on 5 different toons and completed maps it’s utter kittening disappointment and nonsense theatrics that we don’t want to be subjected to.
Regardless, I choose to vote with my wallet.
Why invest money in a game where developer interaction and feedback is close to zero.

I think its worse for new players. They may not know better initially but if older players find it a grind guaranteed that eventually new players will feel the same. Maybe not the first time out but by the third time . . . Older more established players that still want to start another character can simply mini-max their way through it by going directly at the traits they want or buying them outright (for example – I’ve got several hundred gold and a pile of about 300 skill point scrolls). Which in and of itself makes a mockery of the change supposedly being made to help “build diversity.”

At this point I’m not recommending this game to new players; or I should say my recommendation comes with more warnings than one of those drug adds on TV (may cause impotence, hives, rashes, dizziness on standing, do not take with alcohol or NSAIDs to avoid potentially life-threatening reaction, do not take if your pregnant or have ever been pregnant, etc., etc., ad nauseum).

I’m also considering cutting them off from my wallet – its going longer and longer between openings anyway. I may just start using only in game gold to buy gems if I really really want something.

This change is Exhibit A on the real weakness of ANet. When I started my IRL career I got very good advice from someone who had a distinguished long career in a tough political arena:

When you kitten up. And you will kitten up. Fess up. Apologize early and often. Make it right if you can and for gods sake learn from your mistakes.

Sometimes you can see a little of that kind of professionalism and service orientation in ANet – the changes in new season of the Living Story shows it, the CDI stuff that makes its way into the Skill Bar stuff shows it. But then you get: Roleplaying and megaservers, Guild missions and megaservers, this whole thread, and (my current pet peeve) traits, sigils and consumables that don’t work in the LS.

A good time is 20 minutes. Anything below that is fairly rare.

Troll post/thread. Ignore.

We tried several variations to complete it and one of them was to ignore the Asura base event initially and run to the downed NPCs and rez them ASAP and send them off. It may well be that we could not rez them fast enough for the NPCs at the Asura base to finish off the defense event (I know that happened at least once, may have happened more times than that).

Adding my voice to this. Tried this at least 10 times. Both duo and solo. Solo rezzed 7 NPCS and duo raised twice that number. Tried multiple variations and iterations. No achievement. I know we encountered the killed at the portal bug at least once and it may well be the culprit for all the failed attempts.

You may not believe this but I’ve been tracking the value of the Black Lion Chest loot for some time and based on the 177 chests in the sample I have you get on average ~150 gems of value from a BLC. I had an older data set of 161 chests opened and that had a value of around ~120 gems per chest. They made significant changes in the loot table and I abandoned it and started a new data set with no more than 5 entries in a row.

Some Caveats: I calculated the gem value based on the lowest regular per-unit price I could find at the Trading Post Gem Shop. That value ignores many items that are not available through the Trading Post Gem Shop (Armor, Rejuvenation, Speed and Strength Boosters to name a few). I’m also not saying that the gem value equates to items you would necessarily be willing to pay for.

Some of the “better” items I’ve gotten: 6 rare minis, 4 mini 3-packs, 2 backpack sets, 2 whole black lion tickets (not scraps), 4 BL Salvage Kits, 4 Self Style Hair Kits, 4 Total Makeover Kits, 1 Communal Bonfire Boost and 1 Permanent BL Merchant Contract (netted 300 gold on the TP).

Don’t know if its really a bug or not and if it is how serious it might be but the “Lost Coins” in Dry Top started showing up again for my character even through I had previously found all the coins. Checked and the achievement is still there. The coins have just returned.

It affects every “kill a foe” sigil and trait and consumable.

It is not being griefed at the Transformation part (this time at least).

Did that for both characters. Yes everything seems to have worked reasonably well for the first character, other than the the green LS box hanging around in the upper right corner of the UI.

For the second character something is amiss. I ran through the second time and at the start all of the instance markers were purple. Now that I completed the third part again, the initial instance has a green marker and I have a different message.

Return of the Green"

I completed the LS2 Episode 1 on 7 level 80 characters and I went back with two of them to get the achievements.

First Character: My Thief main I ran through the story with first and solo. Second time for achievements I was partnered up. Finished all but two of the achievements. Now in the upper right hand corner of the UI it indicates that LS is still active and that I should “Check your mail.” Not overly concerning but weird and I suspect not right. That character’s map shows three purple icons for the instance markers now.

Second Character: My Ranger second character. Ran through the story with a partner and we traded off starting the instances. Ran back through two of the instances (first and third) solo to get the final two achievements. Got a warning on the second one saying that my progress would not be recorded (or something like that). At the time I thought it was strange since I’d previously completed it. Now I have the green box in the upper right corner telling me that I should “Meet your allies in Tangle Root.” Plus, on the map the first instance marker is now green, while the others are purple. I suspect if I were so inclined I could re-enter the instance and get rewarded again for completing part 1 of the story, but after 10 runs of it I’ve no interest in doing that (not to mention that might be considered an “exploit”).

Buggy stuff but not critical I guess except for the last.

Tried again today and still the same, also still the same IP (64.25.33.38). I wish I could select a different server – seems like I’m continually pushed into the same horrid one. Lag so bad that it ate away enough of the timer and the save the Zepherites event that it failed. This obviously makes certain events completely untenable (pretty much all the Champion events).

BTW – Luckily this time I was simply getting map completion for my PVT Warrior. Few things could even hurt the character as I lagged in the fight 5-10 seconds at a time . . .

Arganthium.5638:

Paulo.8459:

The 2/0/0/6/6 build with strength rune has 2 sources of vigor, feline grace, boon duration and might duration… so basically everything PoI can profit from.

Now imagine somebody playing 2/6/0/6/0 with rune of the pack (just an example). Is PoI really too strong with this setup?

Nerfing a trait because of a very specific build will make the trait absolutely worthless for other builds.

Yes. Either way we should be looking at the trait’s most optimal usage. Otherwise, we could argue that Warriors should be allowed to have their 400 HPS HealSig again because for a naked warrior with no toughness or additional vitality Healing Signet is not very powerful.

Nice reduction to absurdity. You run a 2/0/0/6/6 build, not a common build by any means, and because you assert that you find PoI over powered it therefore needs a nerf. As other posters have noted many other classes can actually stack more might with less effort.

You also seem to be missing an obvious point. There are three impacts from dodging when traited with PoI: 1) you don’t get hit (yay!), 2) you don’t hit anything (boo!), and 3) you gain a modest amount of might so that when you stop dodging around and finally hit something you make up for some of the dps you lost while dodging around not getting hit and not hitting anything (which is ok, nice even but nothing that special . . . just ok). If anything, most of the other classes might stacking skills/traits deserve a nerf long before PoI.

Notice the Saturday patch indicated you’d fixed the lag on a number of servers. This is just to let you know not all of them have been fixed. Was on Dry Top earlier and saw no lag, logged on to another character and the lag was so bad I died in the quicksand even though I used the sun aspect to cross – cam out of it right in the middle tried to use it again managed to reach the other side and could not get get out of the quicksand before it killed the character.

So this was on IP address: 64.25.33.38:0
Last time I noticed this was on IP address: 64.25.33.44:0

Found the same. Dry Top virtually unplayable. Noticed it last night.

/IP shows IP address: 64.25.33.44:0

Found the same. Dry Top virtually unplayable. Noticed it last night.

/IP shows IP address: 64.25.33.44:0

ANet needs to pull the various posts on this together.

Found the same. Dry Top virtually unplayable. Noticed it last night.

/IP shows IP address: 64.25.33.44:0

Khisanth.2948:

It is not just traits. There are also consumables and sigils that are affected.

I was going to start a thread about this. I noticed it acutely running through this story when my (fully ascended geared) Guardian found himself downed about half-a-dozen times throughout the episode (as opposed to other, typically less robust characters some of whom made it through without hitting the ground once) and then I realized ANet had screwed me out of a good portion of my character’s DPS because I was using Bloodlust Sigils and Renewed Justice.

This screws up (makes worthless) the following Sigils (in order or value at the TP): Bloodlust, Momentum, Corruption, Perception, Life, Restoration, Luck, Benevolence, Stamina, Demon Summoning and Celerity.

This also screws up “kill a foe” traits: Guardian’s Renewed Justice; Ranger’s Remorseless and Master’s Bond; Thief’s Assassin’s Retreat; and Necromancer’s Parasitic Bond and Spiteful Removal.

I think this is mostly an oversight on ANet’s part (unless they have something personal against the above Sigils and Traits and the players who use them), but it needs to be fixed. If the issue is that certain mobs have zero experience, and therefore don’t count as “foes” then simply make them all worth 1-5 EXP on kill or something and fix it. If they can make a mob worth zero experience they can make it worth 1 experience and allow those Sigils and Traits to work normally.

Most of the answers above are missing the obvious. The correct answer is: Thief. With a thief you can trait 2 points in a trait line (Acrobatics) that will give you a speed boost with a dodge coupled with access to either reduced falling damage or a 50% speed boost in speed while in stealth. Spend 3 points in Acrobatics and you can dodge quite a bit (more than just about any other class). Couple that with the Signet of Shadows and you have significant sustained ground speed without having to use Runes. Add to that stealth on demand and you can simply avoid most conflicts. Use a dagger main hand and you can Heartseeker your way across the landscape if you so inclined. Built right you should be able to burst down a handful of normal mob targets faster than just about every other class in the game besides an Ele. laying waste with AOEs. You can harvest, hit open world chests and when necessary slip past most of the tougher mobs that might be guarding them at will. I used to stealth harvest the rich Ori node in Southsun that was guarded by a Champion Karka and escape unscathed about 90% of the time even if the Champ was camping on top of the node (sometimes the kitten would get a lucky shot in). And if you have the skill and the knack speed run JPs while you’re at it.

BTW: For some reason I’ve always found the way the Thief moves (which seems more “graceful” than most of the other classes) makes it easier for me to do JPs. Don’t know if that’s a real difference of just my having spent so much time playing a thief . . .

My experience with this item has been similar to the OPs. Since I’ve gotten them for “free” as part of rewards its not a big deal but unless/until they fix it I certainly will never buy one.

Inscrutable.8347:

“snips”

• Have Agility Training be default for Ranger pets or combine it with Pet’s Prowess. To compensate, you could move Honed Axes down to Adept and make a new trait that upgrades F2 attack damage, since Ranger is more about the pet.

• Dramatically nerf Warrior mobility by reducing range on Bull’s Charge, Savage Leap, Rush, and Whirlwind Attack a minimum of 50% each. The tankiness of the class is fine, their immunities, condi cleanse, etc. but being able to reinforce all over the map and escape to reset so easily is too effective. They ought to be a bit more mobile than Necro, but not much more because of their similar tankiness and copious access to swiftness.

“snips some more”

I also want to point out some things to the community that were actually a bit educational about the show

• Necromancers are NOT casters, they are NOT assassins. They have built the class around death shroud, so when you run builds that do not feature it the class is being utilized against its design. Anet was right to nerf the bleeds, dhuumfire, etc. because you already have boon rip, condi passing, condi drawing, and fear dmg and are ignoring Death Shroud.

• They wanted Necro to be a attrition class where you are nasty over time and have the tools to outlast anybody. The tools exist for that. The Necro does not need stability, teleports, or any of that stuff. It’s a very strong class at this very moment.

• Here’s the build I’m running right now that is crushing people on Necro. Warriors, Eles, Rangers, Engis, doesn’t matter they will either die or run. The proc damage, being able to lich when opportune, the only class that really gives me trouble on Necro is Thief with not being able to build life force as quickly with either evadespam or 5/2 D/P combos.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAndWjc0UcbpNm3whbighSyW4Di8BCAq3iroXB-TJBFwACOFAL3fwaZAAPBAA

• Ranger pets hit very, very hard if you build for them. Like the Necro, people have been building Rangers outside of the pet instead of with it, so I believe Anet is right to keep player damage lower. It’s not their fault you don’t put points into Beast Mastery or take Prowess or Agility Training. You get a massive DPS boost that way and can take a really tanky amulet while enjoying that advantage.

• Eles and might stacking being so strong at the moment is more due to the fact that Necros and Mesmers aren’t punishing them than the classes being “OP.” If Necros built tankier and around DS, used their boon rips as a priority, while Mesmers also built a little tankier with null field and Arcane Thievery, there goes the 25 might advantage.

• When you think about it, it was actually brilliant on Anet’s part to bring might to the fold like this because boon rip is more important now than ever. People still ignore it, so of course Ele, Guardian, Warrior, Thief, and Mesmer might stacking is going through the roof. When Necros and Mesmers figure out how they can leverage against that, they’ll see that they are not “underpowered” and if they are a bit sturdier they can go toe to toe with the meta and win.

Re. Rangers: Yes, what Rangers should clearly do is throw all of their trait points at a questionable class mechanic governed by a crappy AI. Perfectly sensible idea. /sarcasm. Playing a Ranger is (appropriately) more about playing an archer class for many people than it is about playing a “Beastmaster.”

Re. Necromancer: DS is useful, no doubt. But the lack of access to utility skills while in DS coupled with a sort of anti-synergy with some of the stronger trait lines makes it less than the be-all-and-end-all you imply it should be for Necromancers. There is no “one right way” to play any class and there is zero reason or excuse to expect Necromances to build everything around their class mechanic. That’s as silly as saying all Thieves need to build around their glorified gap-closer Steal.

Re. Boon Stripping: Its not now nor is it ever likely to be “critical.” Sometimes effective no doubt, but so long as certain classes have ready access to boons (not to mention the existence of Strength Runes in their current state) stripping them will have less impact than you are implying. Feel free to strip a big stack of might off a Warrior or Guardian – they will likely have another big stack on them in 10 seconds – long before most boon stripping utilities are off CD.

Carighan.6758:

Arrow.4619:

Adding stability as a utility skill option for classes that currently lack it would be trivial to implement, reasonable and not unbalancing. You don’t even have to be particularly generous with the stability provided by the skill. Say 5-6 seconds with a 60 second CD.

But, how come you are even in a situation where everyone wants personal access to stability in the first place? Aren’t you fixing a symptom instead of the underlying issue?

I don’t think so. Look at the effects Stability nullifies, its a significant/powerful list of in-game effects. All of them are reasonable and appropriate for an MMO like GW2. What is inappropriate in this game is the lack of reasonable access to skills that counter them.

You can argue that the control effects Stability nullifies are too prevalent and whether or not that the real underlying issue. But right now they are prevalent especially in specific areas of the game. I don’t see that changing. I am arguing that what should improve is the ability of most classes to counter those control effects.

Carighan.6758:

Arrow.4619:

If the ANet team cannot figure out class balance by being reasonable and fair to all classes they should probably find another job.

Ah, with many of these comments I wish the people would end up in the industry, and actually face the class balance issue.

It’s not such a trivial issue as we make it out to be. It’s not even an easy or average issue. It’s a conceptual question, “Do you want unique-feeling classes” versus “Do you want a smallscale-capable class balance setup”. And the worst part is, players want both. Despite being opposed to each other.

People don’t play “concepts” they play classes. A little too much naval gazing by ANet and not enough actual play testing of the various classes across all of the games content is what’s going on here. Adding stability as a utility skill option for classes that currently lack it would be trivial to implement, reasonable and not unbalancing. You don’t even have to be particularly generous with the stability provided by the skill. Say 5-6 seconds with a 60 second CD. Right now any necro equipping Lotus Signet is making a tradeoff – movement (and a bit of emergency healing) for a combat utility skill. It would be the end of the world for them to have a tradeoff of movement + 6 seconds of stability on a 60 sec CD instead?

Seriously, is the argument here that the current state of the game is so wonderfully balanced that this would just destroy it? If you want to understand exactly how unbalanced the game is currently and why it needs to change – just look at the recent live stream and the red post in response to Warriors listing their “weaknesses.” Compare those weakness to the inherent weaknesses of the Necromancer (light armor, crappy minion AI, seriously limited mobility and serious susceptibility to crowd control). The only thing that is danger by this suggestion or the idea of allowing all classes some access to stability through a utility skill is the GWEN meta in WvW or the “zerk heavies only” dungeon meta. Good riddance to both . . .

Bottom line is this: Stability is extremely useful skill and certain classes such as the Necromancer now have almost zero access to it except through others (they could have used Lyssa Runes prior to the recent nerf). There is ZERO EXCUSE for not have every class with at least one decent utility skill source of stability. Its a tradeoff every player of every class should be allowed to make. If the ANet team cannot figure out class balance by being reasonable and fair to all classes they should probably find another job.

Not certain but you might be able to “guest” back to your other server and access the materials in your bank from there.

ANet needs to change this. Given the recent megaserver change, home “servers” mean nothing except for WvW identity. Its all just megaservers/overflows now without meaningful identity outside of WvW and guilds shouldn’t be locked to a specific server any longer.

^^ Tommyknocker put it nicely.

I’m all for all the duelers to have a place in either/both PvP or WvW where they can gank each other to oblivion. WvW is btw very close to what the OP is requesting – its open world PvP without the PvP limitations – WvW it just needs a separate area a la EOTM for duelists. Getting them out of PvE into their own little world would be just fine. Dueling in the open world PvE setting: No.

Finally made it back through all of them. Found my 10th. It was crystal #8 in dulfy’s guide. If you look directly beneath it there is another crystal in pretty much the exact same position (end of a mast). I think I must have thought I had it because I’d grabbed that crystal earlier and I wasn’t paying attention as to whether it was a master or normal crystal.