Guild Wars 2

I <3 SAB! Yaaaaaaaaaaay!

PVStar.3658:

AntiGw.9367:

Tribio.8531:

if only a higher level area would have the same amount of events/champs/vets…

You have got to be kidding…

Queensdale – 6 champions

Fields of Ruin – 13 champions

Malchor’s Leap – 8 champions

Cursed Shore – 12 champions

Lots of areas – 5-6 champions

How often to the champs spawn in those other areas? Curious to know because in Queensdale there’s a champ up pretty much every 5 minutes, which is what the point of this is.

Fields of Ruin (L35+, low-mid area) has a bunch of chains in it with champions. In Ebonhawke there’s the prison break champion -> mad bomber champion, 2 champs right there.

There’s the Ogre Wars chain which (iirc) has a champ at each pre-event (not sure if you can kill both or just one), goes on to fight 5? more champs and tons and tons of vets, trash mobs and pets, plus some buildings to smash Also, daily chest like Maw, SB etc.

Then there’s the peace talks place that has 2 wasp champs spawn together quite often (champ wasp queen + champ wasp soldier)

I have a feeling there’s a branded fish champ in the NW, plus I know there’s a bunch of other quick repeating events all over the zone (skritt helmets, harpy kidnappings, settlement protections, escorts etc), plus some different gathering nodes to usual. Just a question of learning the map really, if you want to nail a rotation.

All of this is super easy access via the asura gate in DR that links to Ebonhawke, plus you get bank access and a TP all in one place. Pretty sure Gwen’s grave qualifies as a “place of power” to do your crystal charging too.

Yus!

I also love looking at all the Norn… especially while getting up to Norn things, which I had better spare from this thread in case the consumption of alcohol be frowned upon.

So, with the badge of honor mountain I’ve been inundated with from these… achievement chests… testament to my great Norn gloriousness I’m sure, as I expect all my glorious Norn brethren have been, I bought a few bits of WvW armour for my ranger and worked them into a combo with Norn cultural. Result? For Science!

I have as well gifted my ele with a T2/T1 combo, which I am most pleased with. Especially with a lightning hammer in her hand.

Hey,

So if you’ve not seen it, I’m referring to the podacast here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Adrenaline-Rising-July-14th-Stein/first#post2423262

… and I got inspired to start a constructive feedback thread and write some things down while they were fresh. Anyone with constructive feedback is welcome to add in.

Active Adrenal Health

So my first thought was about a “healing bursts” trait, and how this idea of using your burst skill and being healed per adrenaline bar had been floating around, how thieves get this on steal, guardians get it on dodge, elementalists get it on switching to water attunement, coupled with the idea of adrenaline being more of an active resource than a passive one.

Out of this I pondered Adrenal Health and how I had to build up adrenaline to get it to do anything, but then I’d burst before it really had that chance to do anything, and that this 15 point defence trait was the exact spot to be having a heal-on-burst active trait. It’s exactly where the elementalist and guardian get their heal-on-action; it’s the perfect slot for the warrior to have theirs.

So in terms of magnitude, as a starting point to go up or down (numbers are totally flexible), I was looking at 500 + 0.5*Healing Power per adrenaline bar spent . That would be 500-1,500 @ zero Healing Power, 1,000-3,000 @ 1K Healing Power. If you think about doing a burst, using Healing Surge (skill 6), doing another burst, that’s a fair chunk of health put back.

Shield Skill Compression

So, warriors are the masters of weapons, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. Oh so wrong – especially when it come to the shield, an engineer will make a warrior cry.

Let’s start with the warrior’s shield: we have a leaping stun on 4, with a 25s cooldown, and a 3s shield stance on 5 with a 30s cooldown.

On the engineer I have a toolkit with a Gearshield, which is a 3s block on a 20s cooldown – 10s shorter cooldown than the warrior!

But wait, because that’s not even the engineer’s shield. Both of the engineer’s shield skills are 2-in-1’s that represent excellent skill compression. Skill 4 is a projectile reflect that can be detonated into a blast finisher and pbaoe pushback. Skill 5 is a shield stance that stuns attackers, but before it ends can be thrown like the greatsword’s Bladetrail to daze foes in a line and then daze them again on the return – potentially a stun + 2 dazes on some attacker, and dazes on anyone in the flight path. Amazing!!

So, what can warriors do with a shield again? Yeah. Let’s look at skill compression.

The warrior’s skill 4 and 5 can basically be compressed into a single skill 4 on a 25s cooldown. You enter shield stance on your first press of 4, and perform shield bash on your second press of 4.

So, you could double-tap to just bash right away, or you could drop into shield stance, march to wherever and launch into a bash, or just let it expire. This opens slot 5 to a totally new skill, or even a new 2-in-1 skill.

My candidate for a new skill 5 is Protector’s Defence (remember that from GW1? ). What this does, is allow the warrior to block attacks aimed at allies within a small radius, say 120 units. This is like the bodyguarding from Dark Age of Camelot, and more intimate than the large magical effects the guardian provides.

Kit-like Banners

I think I mentioned this somewhere before but seriously, banners are not viable as clunky monstrosities.

The kit-like banner would be drawn into your hand when you activate the utility. It can be put back with either no cooldown, or your weapon-switch cooldown. The banner can still be planted using skill 5, which puts the banner on full cooldown even if you pick it back up.

The elite banner would not be kit-like and would stay exactly as it is. (probably)

I’ve got a pure Norn perspective, and living story has been pretty good. Charr and Norn evidently get on very well (thinking meatober fest, talon killpeace’s whiskey) even before F&F came along to cement things further.

The dredge are properly despicable and quite deranged. The Svanir have taken up the Stone Summit’s mantle of being generally cruel. The Flame Legion are the charr’s problem

The Settler stuff on Southsun added a bit more of a human dimension to it with the Divinity’s Reach characters and Ellen Kiel… and something of an Asura dimension to it too with the whole Consortium thing, plus of course the Consortium brought us Fractals of the Mists. Ellen Kiel is still too shallow for me to consider voting her onto the council; I mean ok she’s a good inspector but I could never imagine Dirty Harry running for public office

Evon Gnashblade is a much more pervasive character, ironic that he’s achieved it by just being there in the background instead of cut-scene after cut-scene. Every time anyone uses the gem store or the TP, there’s Evon Gnashblade. He IS the “black lion”. He’s also always been there in Lion’s Arch up the stairs from the TP merchants in the black lion trading company; he’s got history, like one of those background characters who’s always just been there, only now he’s stepping forward into the lime-light.

I’d like to see more of Ellen Kiel, but mmm, not as a councillor. She makes a good “tough cop” and if anything, failing an election would enrich her character more than winning one. Magnus can joke about it, the big ol’ norn! Also, we know next to nothing about Kasmeer except that she has some strange acquaintances. Wait… she IS the strange acquaintance. I wonder if she knows Demi Beetlestone or Riel Darkwater?

When the gates are shut there’ll be up to 3 meta events around Skrittburgh that need completing to gain access. When they’re all done the skritt will open the gates to their city and you can get the skill points. Be aware that from time to time an event to assassinate the skritt king will happen and if he dies, the city gates will be closed and the 3 meta events will have to be redone.

If you go visit the skritt king, remember to loot the 2 chests either side of his throne. There are 3 different assassination events that can happen should you feel like hanging around and protecting him.

Xenon.4537:

Viking Jorun.5413:

…What war, exactly?

Yeah, I’m confused as well. O.o

The charr war against the Flame Legion perhaps… or Primordus and the Destroyers… or the Elder Dragons in general… charr have their hands full

I feel a bit unusual in this thread having 1k+ healing power

My stat focus is balance, built around Celestial and Cleric, with just a dash of Zerker to liven it up. It’s a veritable guardian gourmet.

My build takes some ideas from Christos’s Healway and then runs a mile away. I use every weapon with it, but clearly the focus is Symbols and Permeating Wrath.

For every main hand and two-handed weapon I’m rocking a Cleric’s <weapon> of Energy, except underwater which is Cleric’s of Air and Berserker’s of Fire. My off-hands are either of Life or of Restoration. My favourite weapons are the Mace, Hammer, Staff and Greatsword, since they all have symbols to abuse use.

I’m posting a set of stats for each of my two Cleric’s armour sets. One set is more aggressive and uses Pack runes, the other is more defensive and uses Water and Altruism runes. I switch a signet to match the focus of the armour, but otherwise my stats are baseline for clarity. (no food/oil to distort them )

My trinkets are full ascended; Berserker back with Celestial for the rest.

I’d prefer Stronger Bowstrings and Burning Arrows to be in Arms, the Precision/Condi line.

• Access to Furious, Burst Mastery and both longbow traits for a x, 30, x, x, 30 archery build. Currently a grandmaster trait has to be sacrificed for Burning Arrows.
• Trade-off would be the sacrifice of melee traits such as Deep Cuts, Blademaster or Forceful Greatsword, plus the flexible sword/longbow trait, Opportunist.

I’d trade them with Unsuspecting Foe and Opportunist going to Tactics.

• Leg Specialist + Opportunist in the same line.
• UF would now be in the same line as Quick Breathing for Mace+Warhorn, and also in the same line as Lung Capacity and Vigorous Shouts for Hammer+Shouts.

Craftable armour that I actually want to wear rather than immediately reskin…

… so how about craftable armour skins that work like HoM skins?

Ditto weapon skins.

The pet menagerie. You could see all the pets you’d acquired all in one place.

Fort Aspenwood. Assault-the-base is a cool PvP format. A simplified slice of WvW; instant action with a strict time limit.

Oh wait… just ONE thing? Okay:

Henchies for dungeons.

There are already contenders in game. The descendants of the original henchmen live in Divinity’s Reach, ready for adventure!

My biggest problems are niggles that I’ve spent hundreds of hours with. They seem small at first… but their persistence grows the annoyance factor with time. As a Norn female character player:

1) The “tab” on female norn t3 leggings at the belly area. I have to look at this every day on two characters and I think, why haven’t they moved that bit onto the chest piece? For one it would get rid of it for my warrior’s armour mix and for two it would align the dye channels for my guardian who wears the t3 top but STILL gets a horrible seam because the dye channels don’t match. If the armour was cheapo then I wouldn’t care so much, but this is the top end cultural set and I want perfection!

2) Leather chests that are not coats. Aside from the exotic named set style (Zho’s etc), I can’t think of a top that isn’t a coat. And the one that isn’t is a skimpy leather bra affair. Something in-between that ends at the waist would have been nice.

3) Heavy armour skirts; wtb more leggings like Temple or norn t3 that don’t involve wearing a skirt and avoid a chunky midriff (which is what you get in Pit-Fighter… etc).

I stuck with cosmetic things for my three, this time. Cosmetics are those quality of life things that – got right – add a lot of feel-good and immersion to the game. That’s why I would like those cosmetic niggles addressed

Wolfheart.1938:

Are the two zones still istanced? The only reasons I can imagine for having them still istanced are either programming issues or possible changes during following living story arcs…and I’m intrigued by the second possibility.

I just visited both places after reading this thread, and it looks like the state of each instance is determined by your actions during Living Story.

I did everything I could achievement wise, so my instances are in good shape (say no more!). I’d be very interested to hear what these instances are like for players who missed the content. Is Cragstead say, a smouldering wreck for those folks?

I’ve made 4 ascended back pieces so far, one for each of my 80s. One was the apothecary one, which was easy and great for my ranger, and the other 3 were Mystic Forge recipes listed by the OP (Book of Secrets, Koss on Koss & Endless Quiver).

Unlike the amulets, rings and accessories, the backs are pretty much a straight money sink and feel a lot less gated. My guild commendations and laurels are time-linked in a much harder fashion than my gold, and actually I really enjoyed being able to make the backs as soon as I had the money together.

I’d be fine with backs being available in WvW for badges + (stuff); even a Mystic Forge recipe that used 250 badges or even better, the Gift of Battle!

Oh, and on a somewhat related note I would like more uses for the Gift of Mastery. I have one of these going unloved in my bank. If I could turn it into an ascended item… that would be sweet.

Dante.1508:

Fenrir.6183:

Funny. I thought you wanted to discuss rangers, not just SB and LB.
You do know we have access to other weapons, right ?

Not to be rude but if i wanted access to those other weapons i’d play a different profession..

I played a Ranger to use bows..

Well, there’s your problem. The master of weapons is the warrior. You can get yourself a longbow, a sword and warhorn, dress yourself as a professional archer and do very well in WvW and open world PvE right now.

The ranger is much more a master of beasts and the wilderness in this game. Their archery feels a lot more single target, like a skirmisher or a sniper… not the zerg-busting power of a warrior. When Barrage is on an 8s cooldown and doesn’t root the ranger, then it’ll be on par with a warrior

The one thing my ranger does really well come to think of it is crew an arrowcart or a cannon. That 1600 condition damage is pretty sweet and it’s not even a primary focus, really. Also the ranger’s superior sustain in beastmaster spec makes things a lot safer to crew things under fire, just pop troll unguent and carry on while the warriors melt or scurry to safety

My 2c.

The warrior’s longbow actually has traits that give +10% vs bleeding foes and other 10% vs burning foes, 33% chance to cause bleed on crit, 20% cooldown reduction, a 6th skill with potentially a +10% crit chance, +10% damage and 30% cooldown reduction and every skill is either a combo field or a combo finisher and they can all have 1200 range. For conditions it can inflict bleeding, burning, blind and immobilize.

Now, what can I upgrade my ranger’s shortbow to do again? Nothing nearly as epic as that.

The main gripe I have with shortbow is that there isn’t a trait to make the auto attack automatically inflict bleeding or otherwise load a target up with conditions. The poison fan has to be fired point-blank to get any decent duration on a target.

Compare this with an engineer pistol that inflicts aoe bleeds on auto attack and it can even be traited to pierce, the poison volley loads up on a single target (albeit it fires a little wildly), and after that the weapons diverge into quite different areas (engie pistols having confusion, blind, burning and immobilize on 3, 4 & 5).

Shortbow 3, 4 & 5 are pretty nice as they are; 4 & 5 are both strong, 3 not so much but an evade is an evade. 2 is weak; needs a trait to liven it up. 1 could be more condition focussed but it’s really better in power builds. There’s no way to make the bleed 100% reliable in a condition build; possible place for a trait.

My beastmaster wasn’t terribly hit it seems. (talking PvE + WvW)

• I runs a somewhat standard 0, 10, 30, 0, 30 spec (the 10 Skirmishing is Pet’s Prowess, +30% crit damage).
• Weapons are axe/torch & greatsword, which were slightly buffed (+1s chill on axe 3).
• Gear is a mix of apothecary and shamans. Undead runes. Corruption and energy sigils.

So, the patch changed a few things. No easy quickness on pet switch, that’s the biggest thing along with the nerfs to river drake, jaguar and carrion devourer. Raven and owl look a little stronger, and my personal damage looks the same.

As far as the bows are concerned, I gave up on shortbow pre-patch in favour of axe/torch for heavier conditions. Greatsword is there for mobility, block, evade, bleed and stun + pet buff. My warrior is honestly the better archer and she’s a pure archer at that without a pet tagging along. If any ranger wants to play an archer without a pet then you’re playing the wrong class: roll a warrior and rain zerg-smashing fiery death. (or if you just want cheezy aoe spam from 1500 range roll an engie and go to town on grenades…)

Ok, so back to the ranger. As of now we have… 1 build? Or 2 if you add the spirit build, but I hear that’s very passive and… dull?

In open world PvE I can run more zerker gear and use the bows, dual wield axes and such and that’s fun, but it’s also very casual and easy. Those are the only places those weapons seem easily viable, except perhaps the offhand axe has some niche roll in sieges with the pull + missile reflection skills.

My 2c.

So here’s my trollish blind counter, as we’re into theorycrafting traits:

Defence Trait: Blindfighting

Gain aegis and retaliation for 5s when blinded. (cooldown 5s)

Thought process: The warrior could trade misses with their opponent and reflect a certain amount of damage from subsequent attacks, somewhat like Spiked Armor but with a more niche trigger effect.

My 2c.

In terms of overall power level they’re quite even now. Even Stomp looks like a lot of fun. It could be pretty trollish to run all 3.

They do work together to give lightning fast adrenaline gain.

I would assume it’s a total of quadruple adrenaline gain. The alternative would be double then triple (or vice versa) for six times adrenaline.

A necro might be able to trait the werewolf’s lifesteal and fear… should work.

WvW

The warrior’s longbow build does very well with zerker/knight/celestial type gear, stressing physical damage with bleed + burning acting as damage adds. Might stacking adds a lot of damage.

The trait points would be 0, 30, 0, 10, 30 and key traits at the moment are Furious, Stronger Bowstrings and Burst Mastery.

Precision stacks, fury and a signet build (5 sigs + Deep Strike) allow this warrior to sit at 100%+ crit rate inside their zerg and shatter enemy zergs with heavy aoe every 8-10s. This character rolls in bags providing it never leaves the zerg, and you can pretty much forget about any roaming because it needs to be surrounded by allies to stay safe.

So, back to comparing this to ranger archery I think they both fit their archetype really well. The warrior archer is sitting in their army, being a military type like you see in movies with the 2,000 archers launching flaming arrow into the air, and the ranger is more your skirmisher or marksman gunning things down in close assaults.

For archery in close quarters, I don’t think there’s any debate that the ranger is king thanks to their amazing sustain relative to the warrior. The 900 range shortbow just reinforces that close quarters style. I’m fine with that.

Daecollo.9578:

Weakness:
25% Chance to miss our burst.

Since when does Fumble cause a miss? The attack lands and does half damage iirc. So, a hammer burst will still always stun, a sword will always immob etc. I am really not impressed by weakness.

Rising Dusk.2408:

The only change in this list I really hate is the nerf to Leg Specialist. Being able to tag an opponent in WvW with both sweeps from Bladetrail for a 2 second immobilize was so utterly valuable that it’s scary to think how it’ll be without it.

Now you’ll be able to Savage Leap into them (which has a cripple now), Leg Specialist kicks in for an immob, launch into Flurry for longer immob and cancel it after 1-2 hits with a weapon switch into greatsword and then Hundred Blades them

I’m a bit sad about the 5s internal cooldown on Leg Specialist because the double immob on Bladetrail after said combo isn’t going to work right away. Still, 5s is the timer on weapon switch so auto attacks, then Bladetrail for immob and immediate switching to sword for the new Final Thrust could be hot. Assuming the target didn’t die already of course, hehe.

ChillyChinaman.6057:

Finally, this one is off topic, but does attacking drop the stealth granted from Guard?

Yes it drops, unlike the jaguar’s stalk (F2) which stays up. You can use guard to get a jaguar in position and then F2 it to put its unbreakable stealth up, plus of course it gets protection to help its squishiness, should you have sent it into a hotspot.

Oh, I should say guard’s stealth drops when the pet hits, because if it misses it stays hidden. So if you use say… F2 on a carrion devourer to launch its poison cloud it will stay stealth until the cloud has actually exploded and hit something, during which time you could have recalled the pet out of sight with F3.

Another thing with the new 2k range leash on the pets is that a ranged pet with 900 range can still engage an enemy at up to 2,900 range. I did some testing a while back and the pet is smart enough to know if it can shoot a target outside leash range with a projectile. So yeah, if a melee pet won’t engage a distant enemy a ranged pet might as long as it can shoot from within leash range.

I really hope the pet nerfs are sPvP only.

In sPvP, players have less stats so it makes sense to drop the pets from PvE/WvW level stats to something sPvP appropriate.

However, in PvE/WvW players have higher stats, ascended gear and food, and the current power level of pets are perfectly fine. If they get nerfed, I am going to start demanding ascended pets and pet food (no just kidding!)

The 2 fire spells on focus ought to be on 15s cooldowns.

Flamewall would be a fine spell as a 900 range gtaoe on a 15s cooldown. It’s a fire field, but you’ll probably only land a tick or two on enemies where you cast it.

Flame Aura with a 15s cooldown would be mostly about the aura traits. The aura’s basic effect is so-so; it really needs sharing onto a character than can soak hits to gain might (water grandmaster trait), and/or traiting for protection (earth adept trait) or fury and swiftness (air adept trait). Any of those effects on a 15s cooldown flame aura would be fine; remember to take the focus means giving up the offhand dagger’s frost aura, which is already powerful without any traits!

The whole weakness thing is not making any sense. As I understand it, a glancing blow does 50% damage. So weakness is a 25% chance of hitting for 50% damage, which overall is -12.5% DPS for a couple of seconds… /golfclap? It’s not protection or blind, is it?

edit: and to be a bit more on topic, I wonder if the cleanse on burst happens before the burst, so that blind etc are auto-purged before the attack. That would be very strong.

• Huge Leg Specialist nerf; let’s explore how bad that 5s cooldown will be.

Greatsword’s blade trail won’t cc your target a second time on return. GG, target escapes.

Sword chain changes would have been amazing… with a cooldown on the immob, it’s only going to be amazing every 2 or 3 chains. For anyone who’s a bit slow on the uptake, new chain would be sever-gash-hamstring, which would be bleed-bleed-crip+immob… an amazing auto-attack chain. Spear does a similar thing already, as all the underwater leg specialists know… ;p

Potential to land an immob with Savage Leap is great, too bad the auto-attack chain’s immob will be hit by the cooldown… or vice versa of course.

Final Thrust sounds like a return to the GW1 version, which is sweet!

Riposte blocking ranged attacks for its full duration is amazing. A ranger can do similar on their greatsword and it’s huge for survival with the short cooldown.

So overall, more snares but Leg Specialist might be dead. GG… you were amazing while you lasted, especially on arrowcarts… RIP buddy.

• Other weapons -

Axe auto looks nerfed hard. Who lands their 6th hit on anything but mobs? Otherwise, axe looks buffed.

Longbow is buffed. For axe and longbow burst, I want to know if the new cooldowns stack with the burst mastery cooldown for 40% off that weapon’s burst. We could be looking at 6s cooldown Eviscerates and Combustive Shots!

• Utilities -

Dolyak and Balanced stance both look hot. Stomp could be the most lulz stun break in the game… I have to try this in WvW with the cooldown redux, which has been moved to 20 Str.

Condi gimmicks look like a joke. Except the cleanse on burst, which is hot.

• Heals -

Just kidding, warriors don’t have heals. I can healsig myself for 3.5k every 12s now apparently, with a trait… while my ele can ether for 6k and lose all condis untraited.

Seriously, warriors need supplementary heals such as on burst. Healing shouts are still grandmaster deep into Tactics, which doesn’t even give any healing power… move them to Defense already and make those hammer warriors super happy. Tactics is boon focussed and could easily take Spiked Armor (retaliation), which if it was retal + regen… well, now we’re talking tactical grandmaster.

Shortbow was 900 range in beta. I’ve already made the switch to axe/torch for superior conditions and if anything I was looking forward to a reason to reconsider the shortbow.

Well, the weapon I’m actually reconsidering is offhand axe… 1200 range pull with offhand training?! Axe OP!

Ralathar.7236:

They could use some QOL improvements such as being able to attack on the move. I’ve found them very useful on some characters though. Bear form can make even a glass cannon tanky for 30 seconds, wolf form is a good general purpose battle form with a leap knockdown and 2 aoe CC skills plus a great heal, raven form is much more CC and movement control based, snow leapord is well known for it’s stealth and charge.

They are not meant to be competitive with other elites being racial elites, but fact is the Norn Racial elites are actually better than many class elites used right.

This. Especially the use skills on the move part; I’d like to add transform on the move, because standing still to shapeshift is usually horrible. If I could shapeshift mid-dodge… yeah, that would be nice.

My 2c.

If discipline was half as good as arcana then nobody would complain about taking 15 discipline. Then again, eles complain about arcana because it’s too good not to go 30.

Brawn is still waiting for that rework. I really don’t think it should be damage. It could be something really disgusting like condition duration reduction (remember: Sturdy Body!!), or a subset of conditions such as the dots (bleed, burn, poison). Oh, I am so off topic now that I’ll just stop. Anyway, 15 discipline for 5s weapon swap is fair. It works very well with the 5 point trait too.

F2 defensive burst. Gogogo!

There’s a thread somewhere about this and yeah, an adrenaline use that isn’t just another HULK SMASH! is desperately needed for variety.

The one that really gets me is Trick Shot. It makes Physics cry every time a thief fires their shortbow.

Then again… ever seen an asura warrior do Death From Above into a group of burly norn? Dude!

At some point I just stopped asking awkward questions :P

Dual Shot is also giving double adrenaline over a single arrow. So, if you have one of those archers with 100% crit and the extra adrenaline strike on crit, a Dual Shot is 4 strikes of adrenaline for more Combustive Shots.

I was running a 0, 30, 0, 10, 30 build in WvW the other night with Burst Mastery as well (noobin’ it up with 5 signets lol), and yeah… dual shot is mainly there as an adrenaline builder for your real attacks. It is a double projectile finisher than can add bleed stacks too though.

Oh c’mon, the mispronunciations add character

So far I’ve learned a lot of tips and tricks from all of these class podcasts; I usually listen to them while doing something mindless in game, and then I’ll try things out afterwards xD

I got the hang of the quickness stomp; you pet switch and stomp in that order. If your switched pet is a raven, you can have it blind the downed target quickly (with F2) to help prevent a stomp interrupt; you might have to F1 first to cancel the pet’s own action.

So your raven combo would look like F4->F1->F2->Finish Them!

I prefer clicking on the graphic with the mouse instead of pressing F (yes, you can do that!) It’s how I avoid mashing random buttons on my keyboard lol!

The other pet I’m really liking right now is the River Drake. If you can land its F2 and have it bounce back and forth, it’s very heavy damage. Plus it’s amphibious like the jaguar!

My 2c.

-

• Offensive Burst (F1) / Defensive Burst (F2)

This was a great idea. F1 skills are pretty useless if you want or need to play defensively. The beauty of a defensive burst is that it gives us an option to spend our adrenaline to save ourselves or our team from a bad situation.

The F2 burst would be determined by offhand weapon, or be a defensive use of a two-hand weapon. Here’s an example: GW1 had a skill called Protector’s Defence, which allowed a warrior to block attacks aimed at themselves or nearby allies. An F2 shield burst could do the same thing for a time determined by adrenaline level, and/or a radius determined by adrenaline level.

Another example would be longbow: F1 is an offensive fire field, so F2 could be a short smoke field ideal for defensive combos.

The build options for a GW1 style linebacker are delicious. CC, knockdowns, snares – all ways to play defensively for a team in a style unique to the warrior.

-

• Trait: Healing Bursts

Here’s a trait I want to see: Burst Skills heal.

We have this minor trait that heals us for sitting on adrenaline, but I want to see one that heals us for spending it. Right now I feel forced into 30 Tactics for healing shouts because that’s literally all there is. Healing shouts are balanced around healing 5 targets, not for keeping the warrior alive. They are pretty poor as pure self-sustain, which is why “bursts heal” could be amazing for self-sustain.

Coupled with the F2 defensive bursts I could really see myself enjoying a warhorn or shield. Plus I could get my utility slots back for, y’know… actual utilities instead of clutch heals.

-

• Discipline passive effect

So right now it’s +2% damage or whatever, it’s useless. The easy option would be to make it 1% burst cooldown per rank. So, 20% cooldown redux @ 20 Discipline would be pretty common.

I’m aware that there’s a grandmaster trait that applies 20% burst cooldown and that’d have to change. I’d suggest Burst Mastery should allow burst skills to break stuns.

-

• Quick switching Banners

More like an engie kit would be sweet. Here’s how I want to use a banner:

Draw banner, use skills, stash banner. Back to hitting things with a hammer / whatever.

That’s pretty much it. Much of the time, the whole summon and then pick up thing is a colossal waste of time, and then leaving the banner behind is terrible. Switching is slick, and the recharge need only apply if the banner is planted.

I like the idea of being able to plant the banner – IF I want to – with skill 5, and have that skill trigger special plant effects such as the aoe rez of the elite or the Powerful Banners blast damage. Skill 5 plants the banner at the character’s feet, so to restore the 900 deployment range I’d add that effect onto the Powerful Banners trait.

So many armour sets here

So since last time I bought my Ele a Vigil outfit with a Havroun Circlet (cultural t2), I caved in to buying a cultural t2/3 mix for my guardian, a t2 / Reyna mix for my ranger, and some dye tweaks to my warrior.

edit: snipped an old set out.

Yes!

I’ve even done leap attacks at WALLS in WvW because I’ve clicked on some empty space and… oops no, it was a destructible wall inside the enemy keep / tower and the game thinks I might want to leap attack it! XD

“Clear Target” is desperately needed in fast paced WvW fights to avoid mistakes. I have lost count of my “suicides” caused by jumping into danger instead of where I’ve pointed my character, expecting to leap to safety.

I’ll look into the “lock target” Fishbait suggested for clearing my target although the name seems counter intuitive if it clears it Oo

I’d love to upgrade stones to crystals too. Via the mystic forge, of course.

Great idea! I have a whole row of my bank taken up with boosters in the hope that one day I will be able to convert them to something I want to use xD

Occasionally I use the karma booster. I wouldn’t mind transmuting all my other boosters to karma boosters… but then again I’ve got one eye on a permanent hair stylist contract, so swapping a massive pile of boosters for one of those would be even better.

Persistence paid off! Thank you!

You can harvest Blooming Passiflora 3 times per day per account, and there are 3 nodes in the zone.

The bpf allowance is in addition to the 15 Passiflora nodes you can harvest per day per character.

Because bpf’s are per account, you’ll likely hit this just by harvesting all the passiflora in the south-east region on 2-3 characters. If you only use 1 character and the bpf on the NW islet is annoying to get to, just guest on another server and you’ll get another 2 easier nodes to choose from (overflow works too). Don’t forget to grab the ori nodes and ancient saplings while you’re out and about as well!

You get an exotic Fervid Censor with exotic stats and an upgrade slot instead of an infusion slot.

I transmuted a clean Magi’s Spineguard from the Cathedral of Eternal Radiance with the Fervid Censor, choosing the exotic stats and the Censor’s skin. I was then able to slot an Exquisite Sapphire Jewel into the transmuted Censor.

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

Last night my cat 2-shot a guy with a 7.6k opener. Paper armour!? xD

If I had any trouble, it was getting quickness stomp to work. Maybe I’m doing it wrong; will practice more. Anyway, last night’s WvW felt great on a catmaster.

I got myself a carrion devourer for secondary pet, which works with all of the catmaster traits such as rending attacks and malice training. F2 is sexy with “Guard” for stealthy poison bombs.

I’m 100% happy with the voice. Every time she exclaims “I’m amazing!” I have to simper a little and think, “Yes. Yes, you are.”

It’s pretty funny because, even when she’s just murdered the last fluffy bunny for daily ambient killer, it feels like she’s been wrestling bears.

I submitted a bug about this a while ago; I hope more do the same because then it’s in their system and they will keep saying to themselves “Oh, there goes another player moaning about that tab on the t3 leggings! We should get an artist to fix that real quick.”

By popular demand they will fix it, so get submitting your bugs with /bug in-game!

PS: Also using the t2 top with t3 leggings

I had something kind of similar just now. I had every WvW and PvE map on the map screen explored 100%, but I was missing 1 Point of Interest. Guess what… not every map appears on the map screen. The PoI I was missing was so apt; I went to the mists and grabbed a bunch of PoI’s there, but they don’t count. I went to the Hall of Monuments to check the PoI there – I had it, but it made me think about the Orders. Each one has an inner sanctum. I’d mapped the Priory and Vigil bases, which left… yes, the Sanctum of Secrets, hidden in it’s own little instance was the final secret.

Ah, vitality. I started out in Magi armour with Cleric trinkets, and that worked okay.

Now it makes more sense to get Cleric armour right from the start with Magi trinkets from the Cathedral of Eternal Radiance, with a longer term goal of replacing those trinkets with all-stat ascended ones.