I hope you realize that you can complete one meta-achievement in a day (that means 6 achievements). There are two meta-achievements. If you can’t login for 2 days (and by 2 days, I mean 4 hours sessions each day), then that’s not Arenanet’s fault.
Doing both daily achievements requires 6 days out of two weeks possible. That leaves very little time for any summer holiday activity.
Also, just recently we were told that while living story is shifting to a new event every two weeks, it would not mean shortening the events themselves (they were to last full month each – partly to avoid the problem that OP nas mentioned).
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Generally – orr vendor green armor is good as a stepping stone, until you have something better. Temple armor (you’d need much more than 100k karma for a set, though) is a top tier (until they release ascended armor, at least) gear, but the balanced stats make it less than ideal – you can either pick the set that offers the best stat balance for you, or pick and choose the soldier (power, toughness, vitality) pieces.
All of the above is mostly temporary, until you decide on a build, which will tell you what stats you will need (unless you will find that some of the stats do compliment your buid, of course).
After that, karma is mostly for legendary weapons, and orrian boxes (which are a nice source of income)
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
-I believe Grenth defeated Dhuum before the gods brought humans to tyria. Abaddon wasn’t defeated until after his decision to grant magic to the humans. Since we see statues of Grenth -not Dhuum- in Orr, leads one to believe that Grenth was among the gods who defeated Abaddon.
Almost certainly. The Gate of Madness contains the temple of the Six Gods, from before the Abaddon’s imprisonment – Grenth is included. Statues in Orr might have changed later on, but that temple has been inaccessible to followers of the five gods since Abaddon’s fall.
-The battle was so intense, it transformed the entire Crystal Sea into desert. It’s likely the battle took place over the entirety of the sea, with gods fighting in the heavens, and margonites/human armies waging naval battles across its surface.
It’s possible. What we can guess is where it ended – in the city of Morah (as that is the place where the barrier between the mortal world and his prison was the weakest, suggesting it was also where he was sealed).
Edit: correct:
Morgahn: “The Mouth of Torment. Varesh’s mentor, Kahyet, spoke of it.” Morgahn: “It was here that the Five Gods defeated Abaddon.” Morgahn: “Here that the walls of his prison are the weakest.”
-The gods didn’t want to take magic away from the humans, possibly because they couldn’t. But they did want to limit its use by sealing it away in the bloodstones, thus preventing any single human from possessing all schools of magic. Abaddon and his followers believed that magic should continue to flow freely. Perhaps Abaddon felt that the other gods were punishing him by limiting his gift to the humans.
Or he had other reasons for bestowing that gift – reasons that the other gods were either unaware of (he was big on secrets), or disagreed with. Some suggest, that those reasons might have been tied to the existence of the Elder Dragons
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
“Offers us new and different things we are not familiar with” vs “Traditional and offers to give us things we are familar with and already know”
It’s not like we don’t know anything about Thaumanova reactor (ve’ve been there, after all), nor do we know that much about Abaddon’s fall
“Protects and defends the weak”
… You forgot to say that those were the same weak she helped oppress earlier.
“Controls a large majority of the economy”
This isn’t exactly an opposite argument to any you have made for Kiel (unless you wanted to suggest she’s poor). On it’s own this argument is neither pro of against Evon’s candidacy
“Upholds the law”
More like “follow orders”. Blowing up the ship was hardly following law. Besides, as far as i know LA has no law, only Council edicts.
“Believes in sacrificing personal gain to help others” vs. “Makes money off of us”
It’s not only personal gain that Kiel is sacrificing. Have you seen the reaction of her crew in the Trials? Yes, that was their pay for getting themselves in danger that she was sacrificing. And as for Evon’s “making money off of us”, i haven’t bought any RNG boxes. Did you? And of the many boxes you could buy through his shop, only Black Lion ones can be blamed on him – the Dragon Boxes were offered by LA council (meaning, Magnus – the Norn behind Kiel)
“Opportunist with a keen eye on profit seen through the various events since launch”
As i said before, most of the RNG stuff was only sold in his shop, it was someone else’s (Hint: Anet ;P) idea.
“Promises to make you rich and give you things”
And that is definitely not a bad thing. As long as he won’t renege on his promises, of course.
Evon Gnashblade is purposefully written to be depicted as deceitful, manipulative, and greedy. Yet there is a fairly large vocal majority which seems to support Evon Gnashblade, even in the face of a lot of negative exposure.
Now, that first part is a serious argument – and a true one. The real problem with Evon vs Kiel hovewer is not that people are willing to forget he’s a manipulative kitten, but that Kiel in her “positive candidate” role has been seriously overdone, and in effect she’s at best irritating (besides being a cardboard cutout with no personality).
In effect, you have here a vote between a real person, and a prop that has been painted so bright that it hurts. And additionally, if you scratch that paint, you will find that the wood underneath is a bit rotten.
No wonder Evon has such a big support. Even if he is a greedy merchant that is out to swindle us out of our money.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
There are a lot of things your calculations do not cover.
The most basic thing you missed is that if you keep healing continuously, most of it is going to get wasted due to overhealing. And Guardians have a lot of heal options, bot passive and active. Personally, when i need to use my healing skill, it means i am really in trouble, and i’d want as big effect as possible – Signet is better for this (and the condition removal alone makes it a valuable skill to have). If i were to consider any different one, it would be Healing Breeze (the fact that you don’t get that helping others can be extremely valuable doesn’t make that skill useless. It just means you are not that suited to the guardian profession).
Basically: heal per second is not DPS equivalent. Heals need to be considered more tactically, because you usually don’t chain them.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Sorry Evan, you can’t buy my vote. I’m more than happy to exploit corrupt politicians and then vote them out. You did sway my vote towards Ellen even more.
Whose election was completely bought by another council member? Please, some consequence here.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
If you don’t appear as online, they don’t know you are online, you don’t get messaged by them, and their is no chance they will be offended by your not wanting to talk to them.
But they do know, since the area you are in is constantly updated, and it does show. So, the first time they’ll see your info showing a different area, they will know you are online even if the game insists you are not.
And there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
The “hazing” you mention of fraternity/sorority applicants is actually a good analogy. That also is a sadistic form of enjoyment.
And enjoy, I did. I’ve been on both sides. You’re demanding to join a sorority but refuse to endure the trials.
First, i don’t want to join a sorority – i just want to look at something that is in their building. Second, such “hazing” practices are actually illegal where i live. And the fact that you approve of them tells me a lot about you.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
I wonder why people believe that placing a content in a PvP area makes it automatically a PvE content. The logic really escapes me. PvP areas make for PvP content. Is that so difficult to understand?
As i have already said, when the best way to get that content is to avoid PvP, and no PvP is actually required, then arguing that it is somehow PvP content just for being in a PvP area is a very flimsy excuse.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
And which mechanics would that be? Because i haven’t noticed that.
Yes, guardians have skills and mechanics to deal with every problem – but so should any other class. And i wouldn’t call it “ignoring”.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
even the PvP players advise not-pvping there, but coming when there are no enemies and using stealth pools or mesmer portals? […]
So change it to “you’ll probably have to avoid PvP to complete the content”.
Finding ways to avoid combat when you’re outnumbered on the battlefield is PvP gameplay. It’s a big part of what I do every day in WvW.
You don’t go to WvW to avoid combat completely, though, do you?
I’m just saying, that when the best strategy for this supposedly “PvP” achievement is “avoid PvP”, then something is obviously wrong with the base assumption. And that, maybe, perhaps, possibly, this isn’t a PvP content at all.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
I’ll disagree with you that drops are terrible because MF exists.
Drops are just terrible because they have nerfed them to the point they are at now. This has absolutely nothing to do with MF.
It has a lot to do with MF. When they nerf drops, they use as a baseline not the normal players, but the farmers. People that (generally) run MF stat as high as possible.
It’s not “people get too much loot, nerf it”. It’s “people with 200%+ MF get too much loot, let’s nerf it”. Even more terrible drops for people not running MF are just collateral damage.
Mind you – i do not say that the drop levels that Anet seems to be going for are good. I just say that, due to existence of MF, for people that are not running that stat they are worse that they could be.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Its also strong in WWW and PvP and seems to not risk nerfs……for some reasons.
Because they are pretty much the golden standart for class balance already. There’s no reason to nerf/buff them too much (besides some minor tweaks here and there).
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
I keep seeing the argument. “Evon is a real Pirate” And “Kiel is a good two-shoes” But you gotta remember these two kittens will be in charge of our HOME BASE regardless of pirates or not, do you want a lying, backstabbing merchant setting your prices in Lion’s Arch and making decisions based on “His” Best interest.
Of course. He will keep it safe. In his own best interest. Kiel on the other hand doesn’t act in my best interest, but for the Greater Good. And paths to the Greater Good are always littered with Noble Sacrifices (and i have no intention to be volunteered for that role).
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Did you do the Kiel achievements beforehand? If so, then it lets you skip earlier stages of Evon – but you do need them to get an achievement for the last one. Just redo T1/2/3 on Evon before attempting T4 and you should be okay.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
I wonder why people believe that placing a content in a PvP area makes it automatically a PvP content.
Maybe because you’ll probably have to PvP to complete the content?
When even the PvP players advise not-pvping there, but coming when there are no enemies and using stealth pools or mesmer portals?
I’m also pretty sure that most of the PvE players that got there for the achievement didn’t PvP to get it (even better, for most getting involved in PvP meant failing to reach kite).
So change it to “you’ll probably have to avoid PvP to complete the content”.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Why would you get anything “for representing” on Claw? (unless that finished your daily, of course, but you did not said that). Remember, for “support” event achievements only Krytan (for kiel) and Ascalon (for Evon) events count. Claw is Shiverpeak.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Like for example people who play paintball, knowing full well it hurts when they get hit? Or going into the bump carts at the fair?
More like doing an RPG larp (say, a Vampire social meet), and then telling participants – “oh, by the way, we’ll be playing in the middle of the paintball range, and the paintball players were informed we are free targets. Have fun”.
Anet specifically and intentionally created a situation where lot of the players were going to the PvP area for reasons that had completely nothing to do with PvP. It should be no surprise to anyone that those people did not get any enjoyment from their one-sided participation in a gankfest.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
what was your motivation of getting them in the first place if you didn’t want celestial stats?
For all we know they might end up being required for ascended gear as well. Or any other future content.
Though most likely not – Anet doesn’t want you to use any currency you could have stocked up beforehand, no matter how hard o timegated the stocking process would be.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
It’s where the boat that takes you to labyrinthine cliffs is. The voting baskets are in labyrinthine cliffs, on the deck of the flying ship. If you’ll find out that you can’t get through the aspect jumping part of the area, just ask some nice mesmer for a portal to the second waypoint.
Yes, it would be more logical to place them somewhere in LA, since it is a LA Council election, but it’s not that tragic – and you do get an ingame mail with information.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Isn’t there a way to log in invisibly from the log in screen?
Yes, but if they have game messages enabled it will tell them in chat when you log on or off. And they can still see which map you are on if they check their friends list even if you are “invisible”.
That is actually a serious flaw in the invisibility mechanic. All offline AND invisible characters should always show “offline” instead of an area location.
Also, checking up on the location/activity of other people by adding them to your own friend/ignore(*) list without the ability of the other person to do anything about it is just weird.
(*) does that last one still work? Can’t check at the moment…
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
When doing the trial for each candidate Gnashblade says he wants the loot for himself and Kiel says she wants to return the loot to its owner. Why on earth would anyone want to elect Evon Gnashblade to “serve the people”?
The people she is to “serve” are for the most parts pirates. In the same Kiel cutscene you see, that her crew is already close to mutiny. What she is doing there is a clear publicity gesture at the cost of people that will be doing real work.
Instead of people that are prone to making grand gestures in the name of the “greater good”, without regard to the cost, i prefer those down to earth, that will make things better for all around them as a sideeffect of making it better for themselves.
Gnashblade is extremely unlikely to make LA a worse place to live, because he wants to do business there. Kiel on the other hand is completely unpredictable and has no qualms about upsetting the order.
(there’s of course the little matter of her being only a pawn of someone else, not a possible councillor in her own rights)
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
There’s three in Lion’s Arch. Unless you’re playing a charr or norn, all three of them are pretty easy once you memorize them. I’ll frequently do all three.
Weyandt’s Revenge is not too bad for Charr or Norn. The hardest part is the dark room but bring a weapon with an AOE reticle or adjust gamma and it’s easy.
Equipping a torch, a HoM flaming sword or Halloween mad King book backpack for an adequate light source is also an option. Or you can wait and only move through light flashes – they are quite frequent, so that’s not much of a delay.
So, who exactly is more disadvantaged here, the player who prefers PvE only, or the one who prefers WvW only?
The first one. No WvW content is taking place in PvE environment.
This is equivalent of placing siege equipment only in Orr temple event chests, and then telling WvW players that started to compain that obviously since siege weapons are obtainable in PvE areas then they are a PvE content.
Or having everything in WvW cost in dungeon tokens instead of badges.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
What we are discussing here is whether it is fair or not.
The answer should be obvious. No, the leaderboards are not fair. They were never designed to be fair. HoM case is completely irrelevant here, because it doesn’t change the situation even one bit. It’s not the case of some specific achievements having problems – the same general problem affects every one of them.
Of course, it is only a problem if you think achievement points are a competitive measure – because the problem i mentioned lies in the fact that they are not.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
I don’t care that I’m going to get to use combat stats while still having account-based magic find, there’s no way you’re going to convince me that I’m going to be able to have 180% base magic find like before. I don’t want combat stats, PvE is so friggin easy, and for WvW I use a different set. I’m glad for the opportunity to trade in some stats for better loot.
Better loot in general, or better loot than others? Because those two are completely different.
Me, i’d rather see MF removed with a general increase in drops for everyone.
Because yes, drops are terrible, but one of the reasons why they are terrible is because the baseline is not 0% MF, but rather the highest possible value.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
I don’t think too many people (any?) are saying WvW shouldn’t get Jumping Puzzles. The complaint, I believe, is that PvE content is being tied to WvW Jumping Puzzles.
Herein lies the problem…who says that achievements, in a general sense, are PvE content? If an achievement involves going into WvW, then it’s not PvE content.
If siege weapons are now obtainable through TP, does that make them a trade content?
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
I am kind of surprised they’re going there, though. Do devs often cave in to whiners?
Well, look at the ascended eq existence for an answer. Which is hopful for you, by the way, because it’s the MF defendants that are whiners in this case.
MF was a bad idea in the first place, that went against lo of what devs tried to achieve. It’s a wonder it took them that long to decide to remove it.
I don’t like the removal of the MF stat. It is one of the few choices we had in stats to put on armor. I liked Celestial for the balance between power and MF, but now there is even less reason to choose any stat combination other than berserker.
Removing MF wouldn’t be so bad if there were much more meaningful choices we could make when we assemble our armor. I just want MORE viable character customization options, not less.
There are lot of options. Berserkers, contrary to the loud opinion voiced often here, is not the only (or even best, in lot of cases) choice. You just need to do something more than farming events and CoF. And play other classes than warior.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
One day he suggested we go to the sanctum. The entire zerg ran in, cleaned up and everybody completed it. Shame you can not perform such things..oh wait.
Yes, this is definitely possible… if noone is defending at the arena. If it’s actively defended by more than 2-3 people, it becomes a deathtrap even for big zergs.
After all, it’s entirely possible that your story might have looked a bit differently: “One day he suggested we go to the sanctum. The entire zerg ran in, cleaned up everything in it’s path up to the arena entrance, and then spent 2 hours trying to force their way up against 5 enemies. After most of the zerg gave up, the rest decided to go as well.”
And the difference between those two versions? Completely not dependent on the skill of the people trying to force their way past JP, and beyond their ability to control.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
throwing a Jumping Puzzle and making it a pvp area
It’s a jumping puzzle tossed into a PvP area, not the other way around. Traps and chokepoints exist because this JP was designed for PvP.
And they happen to be a bad PvP design. Imagine, if all the access to the Stonemist would be through something similar to the Arena. It could never be assaulted, unless the defenders went to sleep.
The singular chokepoints between JP parts are okay. Multiple approaches to the next part of the puzzle, with the paths easier to traverse being also easier to block, are also ok. Single path, hard to traverse and trivial to block is a bad design.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
In a game of airships, dragons, teleporters, holograms, and talking trees, I for one am shocked that they’d have a bikini in this game! There has to be some sort of consistency, you know.
A holographic, talking swimwear on the other hand, would fit very well with the rest of the stuff.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
With diminshing return. Let’s say you can craft one t7 mat/charged crystal daily. If you want to craft more, you can, but each additional attempt will cost you double. Third attempt – double again (and so on). Then (in case of ascended gear, you can drop this step for celestial exotic sets) repeat the same with armor pieces, but on a weekly basis.
Now, someone that wants to farm like hell to get their gear set faster, can, but will soon hit ridiculous cost levels. Casuals are mostly unaffected (and if they want to get their gear just a little bit faster, it should also be within their reach.
Wouldn’t something like that be far better than what we have now?
Note: The above example is not too well thought out as far as precise mats calculations go. I am sure it could be designed far better, and finetuned to give reasonable time brackets (whatever “reasonable” would mean).
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Can be done, but not really through skill and practice. There were 3 ways to beat him. Mangos were disabled, the other cheat is based on hard to acquire object, and the third one is mostly luck.
Practice can only get you to get him a close victory instead of an easy one. Anything more is based on random-based changes to his general drinking pattern.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
the gate of arah dungeon are always open anyway, so preventing the event doesn’t make it impossible to do the dungeon
Actually, it does. We were surprised about it few days ago when we decided to run Arah and bumped on the closed doors and locked waypoint. Not sure when that change happened, as this is not a dungeon i visit often.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
I’m pretty sure they will refund you your laurels… as soon as you return not only the amulet and infusion, but also all drops and gold you got with them.
Seriously, it’s not like you didn’t get anything from your MF gear – and you can still use it to farm, because he change hasn’t happened yet.
Besides, they first said they are contemplating changes to MF in January. They were talking about removing it from armor as far as two months ago. It was long enough time for anyone to be prepared for it.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
It helps balance no life 24/7 gamers vs people who work for a living and enjoy gaming as a pleasurable hobby…
I work for a living, and enjoy gaming as a hobby. I’m still seriously irritated by the timegating. Especially since (due to work), while i am able to devote lot of time to the game during weekends, Monday-Friday is completely different matter. Especially if i pull an afternoon shift.
This time gating is not casual friendly. Casuals do not play every day, every week, every month all year.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
What if I want to be a super competitive player but not sure if I want to make a ranger my main? How’s the experience from 1-80, relatively speaking?
It’s okay. Unless you happen to also play other classes like guardian or warrior. Then you start seeing problems. In general, though, you will be okay on normal leveling. Dungeons, however… that might be another matter.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Karma boosts, the Orrian Jewellery boxes. I wish I had known about this before I got my Obsid Shards.
Isn’t the conversion rate a lot poorer than buying them directly?
With good stacking of karma boosters (bonfire or +50% from fortunes, banner, booster etc) you can get back most of the karma you put into boxes, while additionally getting obsi shards, possible lodestone drops and some cash from thrash objects. Buying directly is better if all you are interested in are shards, but this option isn’t that bad either.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Their mistake was that exotics were too easy to obtain, far too easy. I have 4 fully geared and 2 partially geared exotics toons. This is totally acceptable in a WvW environment, but in PVE it leaves something to be desired.
Yes, it leaves something to be desired. Content. Gear progression is not content – it’s only a cheap surrogate.
Well they’re to say that. And they have. They said they needed a bridge tier and once it was out they would switch to horizontal progression.
Untrue. They said they are going to continue their “item progression” initiative. Check Chris Whiteside’s Reddit AMA shortly after November release.
And there was no need for a bridge, because there was no gap. Besi,des this doesn’t even explain the higher stats on ascended gear.
They said they have no intentions of adding another tier. If they do then we have a problem, but it seems unlikely.
They said they have no intentions of adding another tier at the moment, and that they won’t do that this year. That’s all we were promised(*).
And that promise is worth as much as the old promise of not needing to grind for better stats, or needing to “prepare to have fun”. Remember, two of those promises were broken within first few months of the game.
Actions, not words. Words aren’t worth much these days.
(*) Also, remember, they also said they will continue item progression, and that they will definitely raise level cap.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
It definitely does. And if you manage to kill something with it, it’s likely because someone was arrowcatring into the same area and all those flaming meteors covered it visually.
…and yes, MS knockback would be funny, and i’d definitely trade damage for it.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
I’m sorry, but that i my point.
Why not have a choice between, say Gems, Gold or Boosts of your choice?
Why does it have-to-be Badges of Honor which only apply to a specific aspect of the game?
Because you do get gems, gold and boosts, in addition to badges and pvp skins.
The only change i’d make is – give us Pvp salvage kits in large chests.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
That is a highly irritating feature. It makes following conversations harder. It would be good if being in the login screen didn’t clear the chat log, and it happened only after logging on a char that is not representing.
Especially since the people staying in the login screen are shown in guild window as online, with correctly marked representation state.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
