Guild Wars 2

Copper ore is over 1s, wow. That’s a lot of bronze→ iron going on

Considering how many rich copper and iron nodes there are… mining should be good cash and exp right now for casuals levelling their alts.

1 rich iron node is worth ~1 ecto nearly.

Havok’s Heir is a bit cramped, yes.

It’s probably the same size as the Pact airship at Fort Trinity, which is fine when it’s empty but after a few crafting stations go in it starts to feel tiny. And of course we’re used to Toymaker Tixx’s airship being gigantic, which hardly helps.

Perhaps they could scale the model up 20%?

I do like all the facilities and the NPCs.

Another thing which causes cramping is when players start to fill the place up. Once you add 10-20 players in there, which is what’s happening right now, the airship quickly becomes a stuffed sardine can!

Just an idea: what if the airship was like the Hall of Monuments? A personal instance set high in the clouds, similar to Edge of the Mists, with the illusion of flying along like in the Highwind (woo, FF7!). Quick to load, no extra players to cramp it up, and for me… it wouldn’t cause my machine to run out of memory for once!

(32 bit WinXP frequently runs out of memory these days in Lornar’s, Bloodtide and Gendarran Fields after a few map changes, possibly to memory fragmentation)

I bought the medium armour for my norn ranger. I’m very happy with it!

It seems to dye very cleanly and I loved the vapour effect rising off the skin. It matches my legendary Frenzy extremely well!

The only thing about being underwater is that the headgear wasn’t bundled twice to serve as an aquabreather too.

The fuss about the female chest is silly. It’s fine.

According to the lore, the humans were brought to Tyria by the gods.

According to the jotun storyteller Thruln the Lost in Hoelbrak, there was a time long ago known as the Age of Giants. In this age the giants were given magic by the gods, and grew in power to rival them. In fear, the gods took magic away from the giants and their kingdoms fell. The jotun never recovered and devolved into the brutes they are now, whereas the norn turned to the Spirits of the Wild and received magic from them.

According to this jotun legend, the norn only gained the power to shapeshift when they turned to the Spirits of the Wild. The kodan are not even mentioned, and it is unknown if they are giant-kin. Likely they are not related, just as humans are not related to the norn either.

While humans are very pious, the norn are perhaps the most spiritually attuned race. The norn personal story “defend the mists” reveals how they can walk between worlds at will, while humans require the help of avatars of the gods to do so.

It’s also revealed that Jormag is not a spirit and has no power in the mists, nor any true shamans among the Sons of Svanir who can travel there.

Just listening to the twitch stream, the designers were talking about needing a really good reason to activate Healing Signet beyond it just giving a heal. At which point Keystone Signet came to mind from Guild Wars 1. That would make the active:

“Activating Healing Signet recharges your other signets.”

So, you could burn your healing signet to get another full condi cleanse from signet of stamina or a full adrenaline bar from signet of fury, for example.

“Heavies” is anyone who can survive and thrive in a hostile environment without their face melting off.

My ranger runs as a heavy, whereas my warrior runs fairly glass.

Kurzick 1k Heavy (warrior), first impulse.

That said, I owned various from these galleries.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Kurzick_armor
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Luxon_armor
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Vabbian_Armor

Also, how come no mention of the Celestial Compass?!

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Celestial_Compass

I have 6 characters, all L80 norn. Warrior, Guardian, Ranger (3 “mains”), Mesmer (becoming a 4th “main”), Engineer, Elementalist (2 “alts”).

Of these, the engie, ele and mes have partial ascended trinkets. The mes has become an important character and in time will get a full set of trinkets and likely, some weapons.

The warrior has full trinkets and 3 ascended weapons (sword, warhorn, longbow).

The guardian has full trinkets and 5 ascended weapons (scepter, focus, staff, trident, greatsword).

The ranger has full trinkets and 1 ascended weapon (longbow). She is due to get Frenzy (legendary), which is my current project (further ascended are on hold).

So I count 9 ascended weapons, one of which was a drop (the guardian’s assassin greatsword). Once the legendary is done, I plan on making more weapons.

I have no plans to make ascended armour currently, though I do have my leatherworker (the ranger) at grandmaster already, and she knows the 2 ascended backs should I want to make them.

Guardian has artificer? If you give them weaponsmith too, you won’t have to relearn inscriptions you’ve already learned as an artificer.

I discovered this on my armorsmith/tailor character who shares insignias across disciplines. It saves having to buy recipes twice.

Certain quest items etc should be soulbound, otherwise I agree with account bound gear putting ownership in the hands of the player. Items are still removed from the market, and quality of life is greatly improved for the player.

There is currently a workaround for moving soulbound gear to other characters on the account, but it is torture.

Example, I have an ascended back item I’d like to shift across, but to complicate matters is has a Desert Rose skin on it. Combined skin + item, it’s worth over 100g.

• To move it, I’d have to use a transmutation splitter to get the rose off.
• Then use a transmutation crystal with some white back straps to make the back item account bound.
• Put the item in the bank and draw it on the intended recipient.
• Use a second transmutation splitter on the back item, which soulbinds it to the recipient.
• Cost ~660 gems; still less than recreating the item.

The irony in my example is that I have an account bound ascended back from Southsun for which I don’ have to go to such extreme lengths with.

Ascended and legendary items in particular are so costly that making them account bound would be a great addition to quality of life, perhaps distinguishing them from lesser items that are trivial to acquire and replace.

Great ending.

The puzzle instance was a lot of fun and I got to play all the different permutations, so considering it’s just 2 rooms that was a lot of gameplay. Nice puzzles!

The changes to the zone are really cool. Updated heart quests are a lovely touch, I have to do these hearts on a couple of characters so I noticed the change right away. Great! Plus all the wreckage lying around and everything else… memories of what has passed.

Atlas.9704:

This all makes me wonder if Anise is just as powerful.

Anise does battle in the human story if you rope her in. She’s pretty good.

Bandit-riding Centaurs!

Centaurs riding around on bandits! The two-legs have been subjugated. Now they are mere steeds for our noble centaur knights, charging around on piggy-back. Lances ready! CHAAARGE!!

Wait… did I read that wrong?! :o

My warrior’s current look.

Just like Magnetic says, F&F dyes make metallics really pop. The metal parts of my gear are mainly done in Cinders, Nickel and Old Nickel depending how much of that “pop” I’m after.

edit: btw there are some great looking norn in this thread lately

In my day we’d be lucky to get a whole fragment! And we’d have to go uphill both ways to get it.

/grandpa

I slew the boss solo and didn’t get the achievement for no party members dying… which was odd, obviously… but otherwise it was a fun boss!

I love the tower too. The tower has these Resident Evil overtones, and I LOVE Resident Evil!

Biohazards in the air, odd machinery discarded by survivors, and a hybrid abomination that evolves during combat to list just a few of the things. Plus it’s hard to feel safe except in just a few places.

Brilliant!

So for those not in the know this is the warrior’s answer to Pure of Voice, the guardian trait that converts conditions to boons.

I’ve been running this trait for… quite some time, as my condi cleanse. Now an undocumented feature of this trait was that it converted double the number of condis in the description, whereas now it’s been “fixed” to just convert the one.

So my question is, is converting a single condition good enough for a master trait or should it be 2?

My gut feeling is that I loved the double conversion, and the single conversion is too easily overwhelmed. My 2c.

I love the longbow in WvW together with s/wh. What you need with the longbow is an adrenaline strategy to keep the bursts flowing.

I would need a 3rd weapon swap to use a greatsword. It just sits in my bag while I use twin fiery dragon swords, a staff, and traveller runes. But yeah… that greatsword, it’s always tempting.

Skritt + Tengu “Flying Rat” Alliance.

Ranger main-hand damage conditions

Off-hand dagger & torch are great to apply damage conditions. Main-hand options feel extremely power oriented and unviable for a condi spec. Seems a shame when the GW1 ranger was such a no-nonsense condition class.

• Consider a 1s poison on the first swing of the sword auto.

• Consider a 1s bleed on the axe auto.

Ranger main-hand torch

This is a more radical option, but main-hand torch environment weapons with 2 skills already exist.

• Consider similar skills to the environment weapon for skills 1 & 2. Add a suitable damage condition to the auto, i.e. a 20% chance for 1s of burning.

• Bring back Choking Gas in some form for skill 3. I suggest a pbaoe poison field with a 1s daze on creation, making it somewhat related to Chaos Storm.

• All resources necessary are already in-game. Dual-wield torches. Bring it.

Jon,

Symbol of Swiftness

• In WvW the symbol has the risk of putting the player in combat and causing a self-snare, which for a swiftness is terrible. For this reason I’ve already switched to +25% speed runes and use the symbol as a nuke / heal.

• What is Symbol of Swiftness really supposed to DO? 4s swiftness on a symbol… perhaps you should change the boon to vigor at that point to help allies dodge.

• You could put swiftness onto Line or Warding for group swiftness as there’s no risk of the guardian entering combat (mobs running into the symbol… “combat mode” self-snare… happens ALL the time)

Wilderness 5 Natural Vigor

• In WvW this is my only “vigor” besides Lightning Reflexes, which I’m obviously going to hold back for the stun break / evasive roll. The ranger can’t generate vigor-on-crit or endurance-on-burst, making Natural Vigor core to the ranger’s evasion with every weapon set.

• If the ranger is generating too much evasion, perhaps the problem lies elsewhere.

Hermes.7014:

They’re PvP glory (the purple trophies) and rank points (globs of ectoplasm) in negligible numbers. Though I don’t know if this activity top stat counts towards daily PvP achievements.

Glory and rank points… thanks! And yes, Top Stats did give me the daily PvP achievement. I’m not sure if this is intentional, but it’s an interesting twist.

The last run of clocktower I did gave 125 points and made me a rank 2 bunny! /flex (lol!)

Manasa Devi.7958:

Cirian.8917:

I’d be very impressed if anyone has scored 7!

See attachment!

It was a flawless run in an instance with no other players. There wasn’t time for more.

Wow! Very impressive.

Today I scored 5 points on clocktower and got something I’d never seen before (Daily Top Stats), and there’s some icons appearing on Top Player that I don’t know what they mean… I wondered if anyone could tell me what they are? They look like… 5 “purple trophies” and 5 “globs of ecto”. I wish I did get 5 globs of ecto! :P

I’m also wondering how high it’s possible to score on clocktower… I made it 5 times and fell twice, so I’m thinking 6 or 7 points is the max in the time allowed. I’d be very impressed if anyone has scored 7!

Ok I got a Mad King Finisher drop in the Labyrinth and that gave me 5 charges, enough to finish the achievement. Clutch workaround ftw!

Right, I’ll give that a go. Thanks!

… and breaking “A Stomping Good Time” achievement.

So it’s the weekend and I started Magister Tassi’s tasks, and the fist thing I got after leaving her dungeon instance was a complimentary 20 charges of the Scarecrow Finisher. Great!

I heard that you could use it in the Heart of the Mists to get the achievement, so off I went. The class NPCs that you can train against do give points towards the achievement “A Stomping Good Time” when you finish them, but the easiest place to visit to look at finishers is the field of downed soldiers in the very starter area.

These guys will consume the charges of the limited finisher without progressing the stomping achievement! Since you only get 20 charges and you have to do 20 stomps, my achievement for this is now completely broken. (joke time: unless I lay down 30 gold for the infinite… no I’m just kidding! That thought is quite depressing with my gold being tight due to ascended crafting and fresh 80’s.)

So anyway. Don’t waste your charges on the NPCs that I did!

StinVec.3621:

The local.dat file has been relocated.
The new location is at:
C:\Users\MyComputerUserName\AppData\Roaming\Guild Wars 2

“AppData” is a hidden folder.
If you require assistance to enable showing of hidden files and folders on your computer then follow these steps:

Make hidden files visible

1. Browse your My Computer to: “C:\Users\YourComputerUserName”
2. Then in the window menus (File-Edit-View-Tools-Help), click on “Tools” and then select “Folder Options…”
3. In the window that pops up, click the “View” tab
4. Select to “Show hidden files, folders and drives” and click ‘OK’ (attached image)
5. You should now see the “AppData” folder in your file listing

Thank you StinVec!

When I hit “Play” on the launcher the character select screen should load, but instead I’m getting the occasional BSOD informing me my graphics driver (nv4_disp.dll) just had a bad day.

Also occasionally, the character select screen’s background appears to be in negative (like a photo negative). Graphics corruption. So I restart the client and it’ll be okay, probably.

I’ve been playing since beta. This is the return of an old problem I used to “fix” by periodically deleting my local.dat file when it got too bloated (starting the launcher used to download a clean, unbloated version.)

My graphics card is a GeForce GTX 560 Ti running driver version 327.23 (latest at time of posting), on WinXP 32-bit. I went through a marathon last time around and the culprit was the local.dat, or at least periodically deleting it provided a workaround. There was no proper fix that I could find on my end.

Now, the local.dat has gone AWOL. The crashes are back. Is it somewhere else now or what do I do?

FateOmega.9601:

The other problem with rune of speed is that if you have 6 piece, the 2 and 4 piece is pretty much pointless.

Agreed. Bonus 2 and 4 could be anti-snare, so perhaps:

2: Reduces cripple, chilled and immobilize duration xx%.
4: Cure cripple, chilled and immobilize when using a heal skill.

Or… 2 and 4 could be cumulative like Runes of the Noble are with might stacking, e.g.:

2: Reduces cripple, chilled and immobilize duration xx%.
4: Reduces cripple, chilled and immobilize duration xx%.

Or… you could have an aoe cure and tie to the elite, e.g.

2: Reduces cripple, chilled and immobilize duration xx%.
4: Cure cripple, chilled and immobilize on allies within 300 units when using an elite skill.

Then again, the way speed is applied could be cumulative over bonuses 2, 4 and 6 for a slightly larger bonus overall, e.g.:

2: 10% faster movement speed.
4: 10% faster movement speed.
6: 10% faster movement speed.

For 30% total bonus, putting Runes of Speed slightly ahead of Traveller, equal to the mesmer’s Compounding Celerity trait with 3 illusions, but slightly behind Swiftness.

Or maybe something completely different that I haven’t suggested.

So many options!

Tybalt was my first mentor and I was very sad when he died. I’ve since immortalised him through he power of taxidermy as my backpack! It even has a little red apple on the label.

You know, every now and again I get attacked by some goons. Either they’re guards looking for Demi Beetlestone or undead taunting me about Tybalt. That silly cat had better have tricked them.

Sieran is a fun character. I refuse to do the battle for claw island for her own good… anyway, strictly speaking from my perspective the Order of Whispers beat the Priory to it and Sieran never dies

I quite like it. Silver and gold are a natural combo with black and white, it goes with your gold tattoos and it’s a pretty outfit.

The only thing I could suggest to improve it would be to play with the gold. If you’re lucky, you may find a near-colour that picks out the details better.

Or… you could even substitute the gold for another warm metallic such as something coppery… off the top of my head there’s various “copper” or “penny” shades as well as warmth, pale and far mountain. There’s a whole bunch of gold shades as well, and some less obvious near-colours like frosting (iirc that’s a white gold). Anyway, enough of my rambling… it already looks nice.

Lately I’ve dusted off my staff and decided to be a conjurer who sits in water attunement all the time, with conjure lightning hammer for my main weapon swap (traited for 25 charges). (trait point spread is 20, 20, 0, 20, 10).

It’s suiting me just fine; the water magic is traited for cooldown and gives me ranged attacks and support, while the lightning hammer gives me beastly close combat ability. I’m using the healing glyph traited for double regen, which on top of soothing mist is… really nice healing. More combat options are opened up by switching in Conjure Ice Bow and Greatsword.

Other than the inflexibility of conjure recharge rates, it’s a nice change from the typical 30 arcana. It does a lot. Also if you fight underwater, water magic does everything – heavy damage with healing and cc. All it takes is a practice with the ice detonations to see big numbers (well, for an ele).

I suppose other single element specs should be possible. It’s certainly not right that the ele should be forced to rotate attunements: that should be one style of many, rather than one style to rule them all.

Sure, you can make that face. It’s one of the standard faces. You just need to find that face in the character creator. If you want the other details like her exact skin shade, hair and eye colours then you’ll need to guess the shades, write down what you picked and then stand next to her and compare shades. Try again until you get it right, updating your notes as you go.

I’ll start you off with my own guesses…

Head Options:
→ Faces & Skin Color: 4th face in from top left. “Pale 1” skin colour.
→ Hair Styles & Color: 5th style in from the bottom left. “Black” hair colour.
Face Details:
→ Eyes: “Light Green” eye colour.

If it’s not right, well, delete and try again until it is

If you look closely at this torch you’ll see the glass holds a candle inside, and this candle has a little flame on it. So, there is a flame. It’s just really tiny.

I play a Norn. I was talking to a human player about kneeling at the spirit shrines for blessings, and he reported that it did indeed work. You can try for yourself at the wolf shrine after leaving Hoelbrak by the south exit.

Just type /kneel before the shrine. The spirit won’t always answer with a blessing (a blast of lighting happens and you get a boon for 3-4 minutes when they do), but you can try around at the various shrines until you get one

So, the short answer would be yes, the spirits of the wild will answer humans.

vinceftw.5086:

Cirian.8917:

The current looks of my Elementalist, Warrior and Guardian. I like to include cultural pieces if I can.

Does anyone know what gloves those are? On the warrior.

This is the picture. https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/58180/gw331.jpg

Those are Heavenly Bracers.

edit: So, the re-release of the F&F dyes inspired me to post my warrior again in her Clockwork Chaos-busting attire, Knight’s Aurora of the Mad King dyed in cinders, midnight fire and cinnamon.

Weapons are Eir’s Longbow and the Quiver of Swift Flight.

Pictures were taken overlooking Honor of the Waves in Frostgorge Sound.

Claw Island is the island of mentor death… my warrior lost Tybalt there (very sad).

But! Since this is where the stories converge I just roleplay that when another character of mine gets to this part, that’s the end of their story. The Order of Whispers has beaten them to Claw Island and my warrior is the one that carries on to do the rest. (RIP Tybalt! Your sacrifice will be remembered!)

Consequently my guardian, who has just been promoted to Magister, gets to live happily ever after with her friend Sieran. Yay!

Gixx will probably get mad about us failing our mission but oh well. Typical Gixx will forget about 10 seconds later.

I wonder what would happen if a player from the Priory parties up with someone from Whispers and they played the story together… surely only one mentor would die?

More than anything, speculating is hell of a lot of fun.

Plus the devs read the forums and might get inspired

SirDrygan.1823:

Queen Jennah : W…….
(loud bang)
Queen Jennah falls to the ground….

Her last word is a letter….W….

Logan : NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO……

Caudecus walks coolly onto the podium and announced him King Caudecus!…

That is what is going to happen!……

I sense a game coming on..!

Caudecus walks coolly onto the podium and announced him King Caudecus!…

Caudecus : F…….
(loud bang)
Caudecus falls to the ground….

His last word is a letter….F….

Logan : NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…… (he has to do this every time)

Hobo-Tron floats shiftily onto the podium is announced… King-Tron!

That is what is going to happen!……

next!

kiwiburner.2186:

Yeah I only had 30 hours played in that game (seemed like a lot as a 13 y/o) and no KOTR, so my 1 attempt at Emerald Weapon was I think a quad-9-clusterkitty.

RE: the discussion above though, is it accepted that FF7 had some kind of boss scaling for OP players? Because although I “aced” the Sephiroth battle (admittedly I did have some idea of what was coming, having watched my bro die on phase 2 repeatedly), but I vividly recall going to my friend’s house (who had 99+ hours played) and watching him KOTR Sephiroth repeatedly and eventually get wiped. I had to giggle

I never noticed any scaling… the fist time I did that battle was L67, and I’m pretty sure you can just stick to the basics to win. All the advanced stuff and flashy summons is showing off, not needed at all

Zomaarwat.3912:

Plus I couldve sworn Uzolan died in CM.

I’ve not played that dungeon, but wow, so he’s dead? He was supposed to be the great human inventor.

So, who made the watchknights? I think it was Jenna during the opening who specifically claimed it to be human technology.

More on the topic of Living Story touched on by Wooden Potatoes, that stuff about Thaumacore Inquiy Center and how the Inquest tie in with the Aetherblades, and then there’s Scarlet who we can see is a sylvari (and being evil therefore, perhaps originally of the Nightmare Court).

Well, just nearby to the TIC to the north is Fort Vandal, base of The Sinister Triad. TST is just a nickname for the alliance of Nightmare Court, bandits and Inquest, but you have to wonder what they’re up to. That whole zone is all about those three factions working together, and just think what they’d get out of working together?

The bandits make great suppliers to the Inquest, getting hold of whatever research materials and the like they might need, and also providing manpower and networking with pirate groups. The Inquest are presumably the masterminds of the alliance, and this is the Thaumacore region remember so whatever their grand scheme is ties in with that.

Then there’s the Nightmare Court and Fort Vandal, which has high triad activity. On patrol outside is an encounter with Ebon Knight Carriadar, who is the leader of a trio of characters including Operative Comakk (Inquest) and Bandit Chief Thorne. What’s interesting is that Scarlet is also a leader figure, like Carriadar, and also Nightmare Court. So, is the Nightmare Court as integral to the motivations of the Aetherblades as the Inquest? It might be that “the nightmare” gives them visionary powers useful to the Inquest, allowing them to act as oracles.

With respect to Fort Vandal specifically, I do wonder if it’s an Aetherblade base. Perhaps the original headquarters in fact. It’s in the right place, surrounded by the right villains, the right facilities, the works.

Also, check out the npc chat in the second screenshot. Would make a great Aetherblade dungeon?

Drakenvold.9761:

hope Scarlet is really Livia insane on Orrian magic from the scepter of Orr,she was still active 75 years prior to gw2 present day and surprisingly young too

Livia should totally make a comeback. There’s a necromancer called Bria who has a mansion, perhaps you know the one. She tries to steal charr children away and the area if full of shadow creatures stealing the bodies of charr lumberjacks.

Anyway! When Bria turns up (dynamic event), she has flesh and blood, but the Priory guy helping to stop her says she’s a ghost who died in the Foefire. But he continues, Bria is such a powerful necromancer that whenever the Foefire’s curse brings her back after death, she uses her skill to fully reincarnate. She’s immortal, like Palawa Joko. Only… better looking.

I wonder if Livia’s necromancy is as good as that?

A guy in the youtube thread was talking about watchknight technology and it reminded me of some Order of Whispers bonus material.

There’s an informant (see attached screenshots). When I talk to her on my guardian (Priory), nothing. But when I talk to her on my warrior (Whispers), she offers intel on Uzolan, the human inventor sponsored by minister Caudacus Beetlestone.

Uzolan built Uzolan’s Mechanical Orchestra (east of location on screenshot) and perhaps also the other mechanical wonders in Divinity’s Reach such as the massive mechanical solar sytem outside the palace and I presume he’s also claimed the watchknights as his work. It’s all the same kind of tech… mechanical, clockwork… that’s the advanced human technology theme. Only, Uzolan appears to have gotten hold of technology above his competence level.

So, while the watchknights are claimed as human creations they might not be.

Scarlet looks and sounds like a female sylvari, but a mesmer could disguise themselves as anything.

Assuming she’s truly sylvari, she could be Nightmare Court. If you cast your minds to the Brisban Wildlands, you may recall a trio of champions known as the “sinister triad” of Ebon Knight Carriadar (Nightmare Court), Operative Comakk (Inquest) and Bandit Chief Thorne (Human).

This triad operates in an area known as Vandal’s Claim, where there is Fort Vandal. The three evil groups have been operating here, impervious to the efforts of various lawbringers to break them down since the start of the game. Now, there’s nothing aetherblade about any of this other than the bandits working with the Inquest, but what’s really interesting is the Nightmare Court being here too and Scarlet being sylvari, and being involved with the aetherblades – who we know are in with the Inquest. This area could well be where Scarlet, assuming Nightmare Court, got involved with the Inquest and the aetherblades.

Of course, Scarlet could have linked up with the Inquest some other way, but this is the only zone I remember the Nightmare Court and the Inquest joining forces. The bandits would be ideal for providing the Inquest with supplies.

The other curio in this zone is Skrittsburg, the city of skritt. We know that skritt get smarter when they get together and the skritt in Skrittsburg are so numerous that they build golems and mecha-suits, and well, I bet the skritt have invented a thing or two and the Inquest will have stolen it. And being skritt, it could be anything.

Zeph.5927:

Honestly? Kiel won because she has had WAY MORE facetime and lore built up around her than what Evon has. She’s been in LS updates. Evon really hasn’t. She won simply because of the fact that GW2 players have been exposed to her more and know who she is.

Common sense really.

Evon’s been in GW2 since the start, standing in the BLTC in LA. I may even have talked to him in the beta. He’s always been in the background and it’s just now that he’s stepped forward and become more prominent. It’ll be interesting to see if he fades back into the background or tries another venture later on.

adrad.3125:

I’m pretty disturbed by the watchknights in this update.. I find it hard to believe that a Jenna, a confident, powerful female leader would endorse these glorified ‘fem-bots’.

I think it’s one thing for player’s avatars to be able to represent multiple facets of a particular gender (being living, sentient characters there’s an implication of personal choice, which i totally advocate), but an engineered construct that is overtly feminine (they even have high heels!) and overtly sexual (part of the art on their “anatomy” implies nudity) is worrying because they are representations of women with no agency of their own made to obey, whilst being thin, tall and busty, and worst of all silent. They are obedient, objectified women designed to serve.

I think I would less concerned if there was equal gender representation, but I’m yet to see any male watchknights, meaning that it’s a clear choice on the developers behalf. I dunno, I just don’t like it. It’s perhaps a small thing but I think it’s lazy and simplistic, particularly from a game that I think has some very compelling and engaging content that promotes collaboration, community, cooperation, compassion and a real sense of collectivity.

Interested in others thoughts.

What I find common is that if these robots were male and were “obedient, objectified men designed to serve”, there would be no such protest as men are often viewed as inherently disposable.

Imagine for one moment, the movie “300” with a queen and ripped semi-naked female warriors going to their deaths. Outrage! But if it’s men? No problem. It’s the usual double standard that goes with gender roles.

Can I be blunt on this forum? Both genders can be cynically boiled down to two equally insulting gender roles. Men are inherently disposable drones used for anything that involves dying, especially while they’re young. Women are inherently precious drones used for making babies, especially while they’re young.

So in the case of Watchknights you’re complaining about a female-looking robot being cast into a male stereotype of disposable, semi-naked fighting machine, as if, if they were male it’d be ok. Well, if it’d be ok for them to be male then in an equal society it’s fine for them to be female.

Also…

“I find it hard to believe that a Jenna, a confident, powerful female leader would endorse these glorified ‘fem-bots’. "

Confident, powerful female leaders are not insecure about their bodies. Neither are male ones for that matter.

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

Grimwolf.7163:

Hexxen.7216:

Seriously? Knights of the Round + Mimic = Cake Win. She was much harder. lol

Knights of the Round, are you kidding? It’d take you DAYS to win like that.
I had a hacked out Cloud doing like 200,000 damage every round with Omnislashes, and it still took forever to win.

You’re hyperbolizing. Badly. The fight is long yes, but it’s quite easy with the right set up. KoTR+HP Absorb+Mimic allows you recast it infinitely and heals you to full health at the same time.

KoTR is the slow way to win. Slow, because the summon itself takes ages… though it looks amazing.

The fast way to win is with 4x Cut and a Master Command+HP Absorb on one character, a Mega All and Master Command+HP Absorb on another. Even better is to have Master Command+MP Absorb as well on both of those for total overkill (you’re looking at absorbing 3996 HP and 396 MP per 4x Cut, and when Emerald Weapon has his “eyes” open he gets five hit locations so a Deathblow All will drain 4995 HP and 495 MP in 1 hit.)

Of course, those Master Command materia require materia melds using Huge Materia which involves quite a bit of grinding in the north crater

It helps if all characters have a base Dex of 255 from farming Speed Source in the sunken gelnika to give them around triple base combat speed and Big Guard for 6x actual combat speed compared to your basic L99 Cloud with 85 Dex. Plus every character needs access to Mime.

So, what happens is someone casts Big Guard and then Cloud does 4x Cut, and the other 2 mimic that attack for 12 attacks for the round, ~120K damage in under 10 seconds. Everyone keeps mimicking until Emerald Weapon opens his “eyes”.

Tifa (my Deathblow All character) does Deathblow All and the other characters Mime it for ~30K damage to each of the five hit locations in a single combat round, causing the eyes to close before they even get a single attack off (they have maybe 25K health each). Then it’s back to the 4x Cut routine until Aire Tam Storm.

Aire Tam Storm hits for 1,111 damage per materia equipped on your character, so 9+ materia means that character will die. I’m pretty lazy so I let the characters all immediately self-rez one after the other with Final Attack + Life 2, but you can fight with 8 or less materia per character to have them survive it. Final Attack + Phoenix is the other option if you don’t mind sitting through a lengthy summon. (3x Life 2 is faster…)

Once self-rezzed or whatever it’s just a few more 4x Cuts… whole fight is a couple of minutes when your party does 120K every 10s or so. I’m talking the Playstation 1 version, too. No hacks required, just a lot of grinding materia and sources to have a stupidly OP party

My favourite composition was Cloud, Tifa and Vincent. Vincent had the best Flash animation and Tifa did the best Deathblow All, so that was that. I kinda grew out of Limit Breaks, Magic and Summons because Command attacks are faster and stronger for the time spent.