Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone. Name’s Chris; I usually play a Guardian, but I’m starting to dabble with the less lighty (not a word) Necromancer. At first it’ll just be sPvP videos. As I level I may toss out some random PvE videos, but my “end-game” per se is WvW. I hope to put out some decent anti-zerg and 1vX Necro videos in that department soon enough.

I’ll try to keep the OP updated with my latest Necro videos as they’re released (though it’ll be a bit between videos). Please enjoy. :>
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PvP Videos
1. Necromancer sPvP: Part I – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41vUFyVdy94
2. Necromancer sPvP: Part II – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjyOI9kmfzQ
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Critiques welcome; I’ve got the whole of 16 hours logged on my Necromancer and virtually no serious PvP experience with any character. If you’re into Guardian gameplay, there’s tons of that on my channel. Some other professions are down the road as well.

Likes, subscriptions, and comments are greatly appreciated. <3

The weapon sets certainly aren’t set in stone for this build. Treat it more as a skeleton than anything. In addition to my GS/sword+focus, I carry a hammer and scepter. I have a staff, but it’s part of my zerker set.

Here’s my 2 cents on this patch.

I’ve never seen a horse in Tyria outside of the undead ones that Necrid Horsement rode in GW1 and the spectral horses of the…you know, spectral horseman. Where did the Norn/Human in the banner art get his?

I’ve seen it happen, but it’s extremely rare. It’s never gotten me killed or anything. It may have something to do with the Weakness condition, but I’m unsure.

Aggro is a little more complicated than you’re probably used to if you haven’t done any dungeons yet. It’s not quite like in other MMOs.

I personally find it more survivable than most AH builds, but I can’t say anything for before level 80. My Guardian was my first character and I pretty much just threw points around where I fancied and went on my way with map completion while leveling.

If there were tanks in this game, there’s no reason you couldn’t be it with this build.

If you did that, I’d use either Purity or Meditation Mastery + Contemplation of Purity over Stand Your Ground for condition removal. You could get away with it, but your damage would lack a little more with Mace/Shield.

Probably WvW buffs. I do have Soldiers’s Ascended ring/back items though.

16 seconds, actually.

I don’t know if this means anything to anyone here, but I’ve never even come close to losing to a warrior. Let alone two warriors at once. I’ve also never seen a Warrior do as amazing of a job at line breaking or at tearing down any player that knows how to counter burst as everyone seems to be implying.

On the subject of their damage output in a WvW/PvP application: a DPS warrior’s (as with DPS builds of most professions) strength lies in the faults of his foes. Figure out how to counter or avoid the damage, then clean them up.

I’ve also personally seen Bash outplay numerous foes, Warriors included, with little issue. Lot of needless, baseless flaming going on here.

I would absolutely love a re-introduction of the Underworld somewhere down the line. So many great memories both there and in FoW. I’d love to see the re-imagination of both places, even if it’s…you know, years from now.

Can you please source these rumors? I’ve already done everything there is to do in GW1, but I still play it occasionally out of nostalgia… I would hate to see it go.

Infernia.9847:

I don’t think Anet intended low level players being able to mine Ori but….. If there is a node in WvW and a lvl2 can get a pick using Karma, well then they can. This doesn’t seem any different.

Infernia.9847:

Still if I want to take all the alts there (lowest is lvl23) I should be able to. I just don’t feel like making a mad dash through the entire map. But if others like it, more power to them.
If they glitch to get there or find ways to mine it multiple times on a single char, that’s an exploit; this is not. And that is only my opinion worth so very little at the current inflation rate.

Quoted for truth. Is it exploiting if I bring all of my level 5-10 alts into WvW just to get the Ori out of the puzzle with karma picks? Don’t think so. And why, if I’m able to get there past a bunch of level 80 mobs with a level 2 character, shouldn’t I be able to go where I want as long as I’m doing it properly (no glitches or exploits)?

I didn’t think wells suffered from hard target caps.

I’m fairly certain they only mean the kind of AoE that lays various kinds of circles on the ground; the kind that actually suffers from the target limits.

If you can get your level 2 past the champion karka with a properly-powered pick, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.

This is sort of like asking if it’s exploiting if I’m able to beat a level 80 player in WvW with my scaled up level 60 Necro just because the skill difference is that large…I mean, if I’d ever done anything like that. My Necro’s only level 10.

The one thing that’s been really driving me nuts for the months since release is the status of the Mursaat and Seers…mostly the Mursaat, so here’s my biggest questions:

Q. Is there anything you can tell us about your plans for the Mursaat? I remember it being said that there were some really cool plans for them pre-launch; is there any way that you can elaborate on that now that we’re several months into the game? If these plans are still in the works, is there perhaps any timeline? Will the Mursaat (or Seers) be featured in a content patch within the next year? Perhaps in an expansion?

Really, any sort of mention of the Mursaat and Seers will be enough lore-fuel for me for the next long while. They are by far my two favorite races (I even go back to GW to play some Mursaat missions from time to time).

Q. Also of interest to myself and several friends is whether there’s any intent to make certain t6 mats, particularly Lodestones, more available? Charged stones and cores are particularly low in supply because of the very noticeable lack of spawn locations for air elementals, etc. So anything on that’d be cool too. But mostly the Mursaat thing.

Thanks a bunch!

PhilipRed.9473:

Hello,
I ve seen some of your videos, and you dont play zerg vs zerg in any of them, Do you think your build is useful to survive under that situation? can your build follow a commander under enemy heavy fire? i mean, your videos show WvW fights very similar to SPvP combat, but when i play wvw i usually play Zerg vs zerg full time.

I don’t post zerg vs zerg footage because it’s pretty cookie cutter and never that interesting (even with an organized group, most people have seen everything there is to see).

In zerg combat, I serve either as a line-breaker or I modify my traits and throw on a shield or staff and act as mid-line support for pushing into hostile ground. So yes, it can follow a commander under enemy heavy fire. I command with this build myself.

Edit: I’d recommend just using the build as a skeleton for…whatever it is you want to do. I know a few people who have tweaked the gear/traits to make it more of a group support thing, for example. Either way, if you play it correctly, you can easily be one of the most useful players in a zerg, especially when it comes to ZvZ combat.

Magnus Pym.2356:

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Dear SoR and TC,

Here are some brief moments from our mostly civilized duel event last Friday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvgN-L3jQbo

Please enjoy.

Yours truly,
Chris

Happy to see I took up half of the video’s length. We did have to stop though… It was becoming tiring, haha! You don’t die!

One of the better fights I’ve had, plus it was the most active footage I had of other people dueling around us, so yar. ^^

OH YES, thank you. +1’d and bookmarked.

Dear SoR and TC,

Here are some brief moments from our mostly civilized duel event last Friday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvgN-L3jQbo

Please enjoy.

Yours truly,
Chris

Two new videos! Guardian 1v3-4 and Guardian PoV duels. Please enjoy. :> Your Likes and Subscribes ensure that I continue to put out new videos (and get better at them)!

I’m also looking for ideas for new videos, especially in the PvE area. Anything is possible!

@George Steel, I definitely do need to work on my condition removal. It’s something I’ve been actively practicing actually. ^^

Right; so if you don’t feel like building stacks, I suppose you could just go with Force.

I use Bloodlust currently to make up for missing damage. I’ll be moving back to Life later when I change to Soldier’s weapons for higher power and slightly more health (unless they give us Ascended sapphire rings). I don’t have a problem getting stacks with a zerg before I end up having to fight people alone or in a small group.

That said, I haven’t even considered trying anything else.

The issue is this.

It doesn’t matter how hard you work towards your legendary. RNG has a bigger chance of making all of that work meaningless than it does of doing anything else.

After yet another 32 failures out of 38 attempts (in addition to my 19 10-set and other 9 1-set failures), leaving me with 9 clovers out of a possible 237, I am giving up on any legendary due to the sheer ruthlessness of the RNG. Small amounts of T6 mats do nothing to make up for the ceaseless grind for skill points.

I’ll try again if legendaries are ever even a LITTLE less RNG-dependent. This is the first (and hopefully only) time I’ll ever have this big of a problem with anything in a game.

imagangsta.1349:

I think it should add 25% movement speed! (joking)

Well, why not?

Indeed, I don’t think it’s a very…unique experience. It’s the same as any other grind, it’s just that the general costs of the gifts needed per legendary can be so insanely skewed (Light vs Color, for example) because of any reason from higher legendary popularity to, as is largely the case here, sheer lack of supply. That and the RNG in this case is absolutely merciless.

Vorch.2985:

You’re not interested in certain responses, but are still looking for an answer?

…

also, rng is rng.

I asked for thoughts, not the obvious.

Some part of me is sensing that you might not have a lot of combat experience (dodging, running some kind of condition removal for yourself via traits or utilities, etc). Lack of experience can make any game seem more difficult than it is if you try to do things you shouldn’t before you’re ready.

I’m not trying to insult you, it just sounds like this is the case.

When Ascended weapons are released, legendaries will be scaled up to match the stats of those so that they aren’t “out-dated.” They’ve stated that they are intended to stay on par with the highest available tier of weaponry.

(There’s no TL;DR, sorry.)

Mostly because of Mystic Clovers, but also in part to a few other things. I’m one of those people that’s always drooling after Sunrise because I play a Guardian and it’s probably the most amazing Guardian-esque weapon I can imagine having. I’m more than willing to sit through the grind for the money to pick up Dawn and the 100 Charged Lodestones and all of those t6 mats, but the one thing that KILLS me are the clovers.

I have put in a total of 12 single-unit attempts and gotten 3 clovers back. I have put in a total of nineteen (19) 10-unit attempts and gotten back a total of zero (0) clovers back from those. That’s 199 ecto, 199 mystic coins, and 120 skill points I am not getting back. And that’s just so far; I still need 74 clovers.

Now, maybe if I didn’t also have the insane cost of the 100 Charged Lodestones looming over me, I’d be a little more okay with grinding even more for what would likely be more disappointments in the clover area, but then I look at other legendaries… Bifrost in particular has caught my eye. Its equivalent of the Gift of Light, the Gift of Color, requires 100 Opal Orbs. Opal Orbs are 2.48 silver on the BLTP; that’s a grand total of 2.5g for all 100.

Compare that to the 100 Charged Lodestones which total up to 393.7g for Sunrise’s Gift of Light and all of the million RNG-based disappointments start to really beat down on you.

I don’t have a problem with RNG being a part of things like this. It’s an artificial time barrier, but I feel it’s needed to prevent everyone from getting legendaries too quickly, but when you’re already 19 10-set and 9 1-set clover failures in and STILL have to grind out almost 400g for not-even-the-precursor compared to most other legendaries, it gets a little (read: very) disheartening. I imagine those after Twilight and a few others have similar issues here, but I’m fairly certain that Charged Lodestones are the most expensive t6 mats by an irritatingly wide margin.

What bothers me more still is that the cost of these particular lodestones aren’t AS demand-based as they are supply-based. There are extremely few places to farm for these Lodestones, and most (if not all) of them require some kind of event to be completed to be available. Off the top of my head, there are the temples of Lyssa and Dwayna that open up spawn areas for high-level air elementals, and those are relatively obscure and not completed very often. And then they aren’t exactly open for long.

Yes, there are fractals. Yes, there are explorable chests. But we can get any type of lodestone and core from those things. The point is that there are many, many more places to farm the other lodestones (even Onyx and Destroyer) than there are for Charged.

So, I guess my major gripes with this disheartening grind are: 1) the RNG rate of Mystic Clover success and 2) the overwhelming lack of reliable ways to farm or increase supply of certain t6 mats (Lodestones) for some of the more expensive legendaries, such as Sunrise, Twilight, and Bolt. This lack of supply also lends itself to some rather insane non-legendary prices, in the neighborhood of 760g+.

There’s also the ever-inflating costs of pre-cursors, but I know that ANet is actively trying to work on that. I just wonder if, perhaps, there are any plans to try and stump the inflation of lodestone prices? I realize that there’s little chance of making Clovers any “easier,” but I may as well ask if there are otherwise any plans to make legendaries any less stressful, aside from the scavenger hunts?

Not to sound rude, but I’m not really interested in comments about how “RNG is RNG” or anything else you’d expect Captain Obvious to say. I’m just wondering what others might think about all of this. And perhaps a staff response to questions about lightening the load just a little bit on those going for the seemingly hyper-inflated legendaries.

Thanks. Have a nice day.

I only really have a gripe with it when it prevents me from winning a 1v3-4 against a group with thieve(s) because of stealth reviving.

Good luck and have fun all. :> Very fun fights so far.

We’ll miss you all! Was rather stressful trying to peacekeep that duel function, but it was fun as heck. :> Especially gonna miss SoR, but hopefully we’ll be able to meet on the field again soon. Cheers!

Hopefully people will still be up for duels when I get back from errands in 1-2 hours.

Choo, CDS, and whichever guild Bav is in at this time (lol), we at REV are going to miss you especially. Always fun to fight with, even though our numbers are always comparatively tiny. ^^ I’LL ESPECIALLY MISS YOU, ALPACA.</3 Props to all of the other great guilds on SoR as well. May we meet again in a few weeks, somehow.

In other news: we didn’t get to use our griffon zerg to full effect because we didn’t have as strong of a hold on the maps as I was hoping at our scheduled time. Not that we minded getting our hands dirty on BG BL. :> But alas! We’ll just have to try it again elsewhere…perhaps tonight before resets, or just in PvE zones. le sigh!

I’m personally a huge fan of sword/focus (I used to run scepter/focus). For personal survival I think it’d be your best bet. It comes with a decent 3-hit block and a condition removal/regeneration, as well as a teleport and projectile absorb/burst skill.

The trick is to focus down the weaker targets and secure a finish with some kind of stability or blanket blocks. Unless they’re thieves and they have a group that actually tries to revive them. It takes a kittening act of congress to get a finish off in that scenario.

Anyway, I’ll take another swing at the rest of the build in a bit. Been busy.

Edit: Would still love a hint on the runes…and the sword set sigils.

If you even know their character name you can just /join <name> them anyway, just like you can invite people cross-server anywhere in PvE with just their name. Not like there’s really anything wrong with this. The only difference is that they have a different name in the party windows and on their nameplate.

kuora.5402:

So you don’t like talking to me Chris?

-cries in corner-

Of course I do. :>

You can decline group invitations. It’s hard to preempt harassment via whispers, which is why account names in report boxes were removed. I feel like this is intended.

Denizens of Blackgate! As a little going away (from T2) fun-time activity, tomorrow night REV will be hosting a Plush Griffon zerg. Exact time and choice of borderland shall be disclosed…never! Just be online tomorrow evening and look for us. :> Plush Griffon tonics will be passed out, but we also recommend bringing extras for yourself!

Oh yeah, and you get to be on YouTube. Remember to look for the REV tags tomorrow night in WvW. It’s gonna be loads of fun!

Edit: The forums aren’t playing very nice lately…

I love logic problems… and math. Math is fun. Sometimes. I’m just going to look at the build from the first and last clips, since a different trait setup is being used in the middle of the video (30 in virtues). I believe slightly different gear is also used in the middle clips…

Regen: 256/tick = 130 + 0.125(1008)
Rejuv: ~181/tick = 84 + 0.06(1008) + 0.25[84 + 0.06(1008)]

1008 healing power; 300 from traits, so 708 from gear.

18,309 max health with no nourishment or fortress buffs. 11,909 base, 3,000 from traits. 3,400 from gear = 340 vitality from gear…

Retaliation deals 330 damage per tick without any stacks of Might.
Retal: 330/tick = 267 + 844/13.4

Therefore, we can tell that he has 844 Power over the base of 916 (total of 1760). 0 from traits, so it’s a total of 844 from gear.

7 seconds of stability from SYG. 15 seconds of Regen and Protection from SY. Therefore, we know that he isn’t using any boon/regen/prot duration-increasing runes.

328 base Burning damage + 100 condition damage from traits + 140 condition damage from 4x Might lines up with the 388/tick seen in the video. No condition damage runes.

So what we know so far is:
0/10/10/30/20
844 Power from gear
708 Healing Power from gear
340 Vitality from gear
No boon duration runes
No Cond Dmg runes
Sup. Sigil of Hydromancy on GS

I’m tired, so I’ll just edit this a bit later. Tell me if I get close though. :> And someone else figure out the runes…I’m too dumb for those.

Solid gameplay. I believe I use a similar build, considering the shouts and lower virtue cooldowns (though you’re clearly not 30 into Virtues…likely running more in Valor; good build, just not my favorite).

Looking forward to more.

A wild Guardian appears and places a Sanctuary and Ring of Warding in the middle of your turtle!

I don’t think they can be blamed for having a lot of active WvWers in their guild.

Israel.7056:

But you enjoy what Pain Train does?

Doesn’t really seem like it would be fun.

I dunno how you guys do that day in and day out.

I’ve never seen Choo just zerg around indiscriminately. They do an excellent job of acting intelligently to flip whatever points they’ve set their minds to and an even better (albeit annoying) job of holding what they take.

I have not. Mango Pie is really strong.

With BG moving up to T1 next week, I wish you guys’d started participating in those dueling events sooner. It was usually just me and 20-30 SoR for the longest time… Now we have to make new friends to organize fun stuff like that with in T1. :<

Spent some time with Alpaca and co. down at ze windmill the other day. See the end of the video for a taste of Alpaca’s cruel plushie-killing antics! :P Blocked in Germany, unfortunately. :<