Guild Wars 2

Behellagh.1468:

Yeah. I have little idea how aggro works here even after a year and a half. There will be times I’m down at the edge of his range attack and the champ will still focus on me rather than the three guys whacking him with swords. I guess he really doesn’t like caltrops.

Lol.

Mobs do tend to zero in on anyone who is downed and the people trying to help them up, that much is certain.

But otherwise, it’s really difficult to know how it works, isn’kitten I sometimes pull aggro to me, only to find the mob randomly ditches chasing me and heads off towards some other person not even attacking it. Other times, like you describe, it will charge at me while it has at least three others standing in the way.

At best, I can only assume it’s randomised in the code or something.

I wouldn’t be surprised, actually, if a blade shard mining node didn’t become available as a meta-achievement reward at the end of the next LS. I am presuming people might need these to change the colour of their ascended back pieces going forwards etc.

But yes, it would be nice if these were tradeable, for both people who have so many they don’t know what to do with them and also for people who haven’t managed to get quite enough for their back piece(s).

Banning people for AFKing won’t work as, like Silent Avenger said, innocent people get caught in the crossfire. Maybe they stopped to manically sort out inventory space (that’s what usually causes me to stop for a while), or maybe they needed a bathroom break or the baby woke up etc.

Generally, I don’t really care if a few people are AFKing. If they’ve had the grace not to stop by an event and rather by the exit, they at least aren’t scaling the events to make them harder but not contributing.

Re the rewards, well, they’re not really significant rewards they’re getting. But I do think it is a good idea if you got rewards by contribution – obviously Anet can monitor that, as you get the bronze, silver and gold medals according to contribution (not a failsafe, but it’s there), so maybe the rewards should scale with that.

Ganathar.4956:

CrossedHorse.4261:

Don’t really see why everyone can’t do a little of both and get the job done, really.

People zerging the events are also helping as each defend (or maybe escort) event that is successful also delivers 35 citizens, so that adds to the count.

Also, people want different things from the event. There’s nothing wrong with having options.

They are helping but not enough. You see, most events can be done with five people but you usually have around 40 people running them. Also, the LA events scale in such a way that having more people makes them more difficult to complete.

I realise that, but every little helps. They are, at least, contributing in some way.

But, as I said, people are there for very different reasons, and some may be on limited time but want to farm a specific item for something etc. Some may indeed just want to run with a zerg.

There’s no reason why in between events they can’t break off and rescue some civilians etc (I do myself), but there’s equally no reason why they should have to.

Don’t really see why everyone can’t do a little of both and get the job done, really.

People zerging the events are also helping as each defend (or maybe escort) event that is successful also delivers 35 citizens, so that adds to the count.

Also, people want different things from the event. There’s nothing wrong with having options.

For the basics, you could try Youtube for videos. WoodenPotatoes and MattVisual do a “PvP for Dummies” series that is pretty comprehensive. It takes you through elements of building your class, gearing and how to learn the way the fights in PvP take place etc. Here is a link:

Re going into the details, there are several websites and vids to watch around for building classes, but I can’t direct you to one in particular (as I’m afraid I don’t really use them). I tend to just browse Youtube for that kind of thing if I want it.

re Guilds, you could advertise in map chat when you’re online. Also, many guilds use map chat to recruit, so keep an eye on it. A good advert will let you know what guild is recruiting, what activities they do etc … and then you can whisper the person for more details.

Always levelling new characters so always in need of some map exploration! If you’re on EU server, go ahead and look me up.

Both Ranger and Warrior will cover the things you want.

In terms of being fun to play, that’s a subjective thing, but generally:

Warriors are tougher and have higher health and armour than Rangers, so they might be a slightly easier option at the start. However, Rangers have pets which can tank for them and they can stay at range.

Both have ranged and melee skills. Personally, I find the Ranger’s melee to be better than their range (same with Warrior), and better than Warrior – or at least more interesting, as Rangers have this whole “nature magic” element to their attacks which makes them look cool. Warriors just do straight up attacks.

Both will do decent damage in PvE. If you are wanting to play dungeons later, then you may find that Warriors are more welcome than Rangers. That’s not to say a well-played Ranger can’t hold its own, but the assumption will be that if you are on a Ranger you will at the very least slow down the party. So it will be easier grouping with a Warrior, but don’t let that stop you rolling a Ranger if you find that class more interesting, as plenty of people don’t mind at all.

The best thing to do is to create one of each, then head to the Heart of the Mists where (after a short and easy tutorial), you can go through to the PvP area, which upscales you to level 80 and unlocks all your skills and traits (just for this section). Then you can try out different builds, weapons, skills (and also take a look at armour in the PvP locker) and see which you prefer.

For levelling, both are very easy and fairly quick to level.

Edit: Personally, I prefer Ranger as I just find it more interesting to play. Have tried a Warrior a few times, but never really got into it. But take any recommendation with a pinch of salt, as preference can only be personal.

I’m not quite sure which order you are referring to? Do you mean the meta achievement, or some other order within the event itself?

To get the event recognition you do need to have taken part in some way towards the freeing of citizens, but playing a part in any of the events or just encouraging one frightened citizen will do that for you.

Otherwise, I’m not sure I can help as I don’t understand which part exactly you are stuck on.

I really don’t mind if people can eventually earn any item in this game. My characters feel special to me, because I have either paid or earned what I dress them in, and I don’t really mind if someone else has the same stuff. Similarly, irl, I like to wear what I wear, and I won’t feel bad because someone else on the bus has the same jeans or handbag as I have.

I understand the presitge behind having items that only you and you alone have, but ultimately, I don’t really mind all that much if other people have it. I play this game for other reasons than having gear others don’t.

While I see what the OP is saying, I imagine it’s because Anet would much rather you buy a pass for each of your characters. It is a convenient item when you only have one character, and considering most of the items we have available to us seem to be designed without alts in mind, I would assume this to be the case here. As far as I can see, the nod to people who have several characters is to make this account bound rather than soul bound, but without necessarily adding in any change to the item itself.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

CrossedHorse.4261:

Someone got a Jade Weapon Ticket? Can you even spend those anymore, or will this person have to wait until next Dragon Bash? If you can still spend them, someone let me know where, as I have 4 leftover!

Take your Jade Weapon Skin Tickets to the BLTC Weapons Specialist and the vendor will show you a full list of the weapon skins to choose from.

Wow, 4, that’s a lot! Potentially a pretty sum of gold! =)

that’s weird, I keep trying those guys and can’t seem to see the Jade weapons tag though I have all the others. I thought they removed them for next Dragon Bash.

Thanks – I’ll try again. The gold was my thinking too! ;p

Someone got a Jade Weapon Ticket? Can you even spend those anymore, or will this person have to wait until next Dragon Bash? If you can still spend them, someone let me know where, as I have 4 leftover!

EOTM is a smaller map, I think – or at least it seems like it. So things turn over more rapidly there. Also, larger zergs etc brings in a lot of WXP and Karma, as the others have said.

EOTM is easier for beginners to get into, I’ve found (certainly is the case for me), and the terrain is nice as it’s mostly different assets from the things we have currently in open world PvE, whereas in regular WvW it’s mostly the same.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

You can solo supply camps and they drop Emp Shards

In EOTM at least, empyreal fragments drop from any champ chest at any keep, tower etc – I find you can obtain quite a lot very quickly in this area.

dietzero.3514:

Stop arguing over stupid trivialities…

The point is, many people like myself now have stacks of these things that are just once again wasting space. Let us trade them or do SOMETHING with them…

I agree, the thread is a little off topic.

On topic:

There are two groups of people. One group has blade shards but does not want/need them. One group wants/needs blade shards but for whatever reasons does not have them.

Allowing them to be tradeable would fix the issue very nicely for both groups.

You get to choose between Beserker or Valkyrie for the Ascended stats.

nagr.1593:

CrossedHorse.4261:

It’s not the most accurate way of measuring skill - more of measuring experience, or time in game, if anything.

I did say, however, that I don’t want to play with the sort of people who do that – not in a mean way. I simply mean that I am not looking for a speed run, or no wipes, or anything along those lines. Obviously, the people checking APs are looking to do those things, so yeah, I won’t want to party with them. But that’s cool as they won’t want to party with me either.

I agree, but can you think of any better way? Post for ‘exp only’ sure but you will get 1k AP idiots joining because they think they know what exp is. This includes 5 signet warriors who use rifle when stacking and other terribad examples of their class. Its much safer to impose something like either a gear check or minimum AP. You obviously have some bad experience with groups like this, but your making us out to be villains or cruel people when we’re not. After you run the same dungeons a couple times u will start to understand why these groups exist (i.e. 80 zerk only, be exp or kick, etc etc.)

No, no, you misunderstand. I was trying to be very clear that I’m NOT making these people out to be villains. Simply, we look for different things in a group, so naturally, we don’t group with each other – that’s the only point I was making.

I completely understand why people ask for various checks, and that’s totally fine by me. I won’t ask to party with people who impose checks I don’t meet and similarly they won’t party with me as they’ll see I’m willing to party with anyone. So no judgement.

My post was in response to someone asking why people were calling people who ask for AP counts idiots, and I was trying to say that though it’s not the most accurate way of checking skill, they’re not idiots. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

thaooo.5320:

CrossedHorse.4261:

That would be mostly a fair argument, except it is absolutely not their fault they aren’t someone either unemployed or a student with a lot of time. If they weren’t willing to put the time in, sure, it’s their fault, but it’s not fair to say it’s their fault for having to go to work. Some of us have to put in long hours.

You work for 16 or more hours EVERY SINGLE DAY of the week/fortnight/month/quarter/year? You have not even 1 hour of free time on ANY day?

I didn’t think so. If it was true, you’d change jobs or sue your employer.

I made the exotic backpiece after 2 runs (or was it 3? Let’s assume 3), and I had no idea what I was doing, each run is 45 minutes. Exotic is 425 blade shards total, ascended is an extra 500 shards, so you’re looking at 6 to 9 (9 being most, 6 or 7 being standard) runs to complete the shard requirement.

Assuming 9 runs, that’s 6 hours and 45 minutes of playing. You can’t find 45 minutes on 9 different days to play in a two week period? (or longer on weekends). Let’s say 7 runs, that’s 5 hours and 15 minutes over 2 weeks.

If you somehow can’t find 45 minutes to play on a couple of days… then… sorry, you missed out. But you aren’t missing out on anything necessary.

Everyone has jobs and other commitments, believe it or not.

There really is no need to be so aggressive or rude. And that’s great you managed to get to the exotic backpack in two runs – clearly I for some reason do not farm as quickly as you because I certainly did not get that far in two runs.

Like I KEEP saying, I am not making a QQ thread saying “oh I missed out, give me free stuff”. Not at all. If you properly go back and read what I’ve said and the suggestion, it is simply a nice way to give people who have lots of stacks a way to make a few silver, and people who haven’t another way to get to their backpiece.

You’ll also see that my client is crashing a lot as well, so a lot of time is wasted restarting, sending error reports and generally having FPS dropping down to about 5. Maybe that’s my computer (sure it’s not as it was completely fine running this game until the last update then stuff started going wrong), or whatever. Either way, that, restricted hours, other commitments etc, yes, that leads to not very long to play. I in no way suggested that people didn’t have anything else to do with their time. That is completely misreading the posts and also jumping down someone’s throat for no reason.

Well, it would be nice in general for people on both sides of the equation, I would have thought. The people who do have the time can make a few silver by selling their blade shards, and the people who don’t can still buy some and craft a backpiece.

Like I said before, I like this patch, so there’s no complaint. If this never happened, I wouldn’t be QQ’ing about it saying how unfair it is and how everyone should have something for nothing. I just thought this would be a nice way for everyone to be happy.

Wanze, to answer your question, I guess all pieces would be tradeable, except the gift of blades required for making the backpiece Ascended if people wanted to do that. But I’m not sure I see anything much wrong with that. My point was that the finished backpieces themselves and the Ascended versions wouldn’t be tradeable, so people still need to craft the item (if you don’t have massive stores of iron at the moment, which some don’t, it’s still a very expensive piece to craft).

Flissy.4093:

CrossedHorse.4261:

Well, there are people who DO get into Lion’s Arch, but it’s hardly their fault if their server/client keeps crashing. Or they have really limited time to spend gaming, is it?

Crashing no. Limited time to spend is absolutely there fault though.

It’s time to wash away the mentality of “I want that item and I want it now” and either put the effort in to get it, or miss out.

That would be mostly a fair argument, except it is absolutely not their fault they aren’t someone either unemployed or a student with a lot of time. If they weren’t willing to put the time in, sure, it’s their fault, but it’s not fair to say it’s their fault for having to go to work. Some of us have to put in long hours.

Well, there are people who DO get into Lion’s Arch, but it’s hardly their fault if their server/client keeps crashing. Or they have really limited time to spend gaming, is it?

That’s why I asked about the shards though, not for the back piece itself to go on the TP – I have no issues taking time to construct the back piece or earning all the other parts in time. But the shards are only available during this 2 week update, so it seems fair that those who have nothing to use them for can sell them and make a few silver, and those who can’t can access them.

This isn’t a complaint, just a simple curiosity that would seem appropriate to ask in this case. I love the update.

While I dislike BLCs along with a lot of others, I will say that technically, you always get something. Opening a BLC for something specific is never a great idea as the RNG will tend to be against you (sadly). But, if you are the sort of gamer who looks at all the possible items in the chests and thinks each one has worth to you in some way, then each time you open a chest you get something out of it.

Obviously, that doesn’t necessarily make the cost any less disproportionate to what you are obtaining at the end of it. But that’s a slightly different argument.

I think it would be nice if blade shards would become available to trade on the TP – maybe even after the current LS, just at some point.

I have been seeing a fair few posts from people not interested in making the spinal blades backpieces who are sitting on stacks of blade shards, while several others (like myself) for various reasons really want to make the back pieces but are very limited in terms of hours they can put in (eg work, my game crashes every session I can manage ever since the start of the last patch).

I am not asking for the backpieces to be tradeable (obviously, if they were, I would maybe exclude Ascended tier and only allow up to Exotic), just the shards needed to craft. I don’t think that would do anything but make a few people happy?

kokiman.2364:

Why do people call me an idiot because I use APs as a measurement of skill?

It’s not the most accurate way of measuring skill – more of measuring experience, or time in game, if anything.

However, I wouldn’t call you an idiot for using it as a base estimate if you’re looking for a particular experience level for a party to run a dungeon with, for instance.

I did say, however, that I don’t want to play with the sort of people who do that – not in a mean way. I simply mean that I am not looking for a speed run, or no wipes, or anything along those lines. Obviously, the people checking APs are looking to do those things, so yeah, I won’t want to party with them. But that’s cool as they won’t want to party with me either. Will I have a very happy conversation with them while waiting for an even to start though? Of course! Preferring to play one way or another, or having different experience levels or skill levels doesn’t make any judgement on the person. But we just have different objectives, so that’s why I said what I did.

I don’t think they’re useful for anything other than the backpiece. Wish people could trade them, as I need to make several and can’t farm the shards fast enough!

OP, I am on Aurora Glade too, and my experience has mostly been the opposite. I find people will always try to rez where it makes sense. Obviously, if rezzing is going to get everyone downed, then we wait until it is safe. Only once or twice ever, have I been left behind, but I think I went down towards the end of a big event and was behind the zerg at the time, so it’s fair to assume most people didn’t see me. In fact, I was running in WvW with a huge zerg at one point, and the commander we were following deliberately made everyone wait at the end of each event to rez dead players before we moved on. that, to me, is quite representative of AG’s community.

I always try to rez where I can. But I will say that I do not like people lying there, completely defeated, just repeatedly typing REZ at me. I WILL rez you when I have a moment, but do not demand it in capitals like a petulant child. That will only make me rez you last out of the others that need it too.

If you party with them or they’re on your FL, you hover over their picture and can see their AP points. Or if they’ve recently logged into your guild, and their name is up on the roster … quite a few ways to see, actually.

Character-bound infinite withdraws might make it easier to implement from the current system. Otherwise I guess if they made them just account-bound, they’d have to reimburse quite a few people for the multiple sets they may have already bought. Though, I would be reasonably happy to swallow this cost for the benefit of having an account-wide permanent access to the skins from now on. And would happily pay 1200 in future for each account-wide permanent access skin.

Khisanth.2948:

CrossedHorse.4261:

Yes! get the gift of blades recipe from the found belongings vendor in the camps – they’re 250 found belongings.

You can also get it from Miyani by the Mystic Forge for 5g instead.

Oh! That’s GREAT to know! One less grind for me to deal with! Thanks.

Redxon.6832:

Honestly, I just want to set aside all the living world and AP crap and just make a new Necro and take things slow and not worry about anything else – otherwise it feels like a constant race and people are always bragging about stuff and it makes my anxiety sky rocket.

Honestly, this is exactly what I did – right down to the profession choice. I have owned the game for a little under a year, and have only circa. 2k AP. And you know what, that’s totally fine! the people who would judge anyone for that, aren’t people I want to play with anyway – probably their playstyle isn’t very compatible with mine.

There are a lot of people who don’t care at all about experience, AP, or anything else, and just want to meet friendly players. These people are, however, often the less vocal ones, so they take time to ferret out. At the last LS update, with so many people gathering round for the Marionette event, my Friends List basically doubled with all the lovely people I met – who all invited me to party with them whenever we’ve bumped into each other since. They were all on around 10k AP, and none of them batted an eyelid at my measly 2k.

So just play at your own pace and do the things you find fun. It may take a little patience when it comes to things like finding a dungeon group, but it will be worth it when you find a group who like to play the way you want to as well.

I played yesterday and everyone was helping each other out all the time. If I ran past anyone, it wasn’t at all intentional – there’s a lot going on in these events! But if I ever noticed anyone needing a res, I would help as soon as the risk of me not also being downed came up. You can totally leave an event for the time it takes to res a person and not lose credit. I ran into and out of events the whole time yesterday and still got credit for each one, so I think that’s a poor excuse.

Sorry the OP had such a hard time, but I also think that way pointing isn’t that much of a deal if people don’t stop for you.

Would it? Can’t people just ignore the commander tags? I like to see them to see where people probably are, but other than that, if I’m not interested in whatever event they’re doing, I ignore them.

I do think we’ll get some more areas.

I heard they had already mapped out a massive area for the Tengu … that would be cool. It would be amazing if they kept it all secret though and then suddenly, just one day someone finds they can go through a random portal and find The Dominion of Winds …

But honestly, I don’t know. I’d like more playable areas, maybe another race, but I don’t know if that will happen. I’d love to go to the Crystal Desert … they could use assests from the Badlands in EOTM. Otherwise, I expect it will be more of the same.

Oh – I DO need more bank space, yet again!

For all the different things you want to do, Ele or Guardians can more than cover it (though, be aware that Ele has a much higher skill floor, so you won’t be great at everything immediately, but can be much faster with a Guardian). Necros are great and tons of fun, but if you want to be running fractals, people tend to choose Eles and Guardians over Necros.

Re WvW, all of them are totally fine for zerging – Necro especially shines here, as staff skills are pretty much all massively AoE, and you are pretty tanky, particularly fantastic for holding bridges against quite a large group. But they’re not as good for roaming as Guardians or Eles … Eles are squishier, so you should try and get good with one before doing a lot of roaming (unless you don’t mind dying), but they are so much more mobile than Guardians, so that’s something to bear in mind.

PvE, they’re all fine. Some people find the Necro less interesting in PvE, but that’s purely personal, I think. I love them in PvE. Guardians and Necros can be pushed further, I think. Particularly Guardians can take on mobs quite a few levels higher. Eles aren’t so strong right out the door, imo. But that changes later, and they are capable of higher DPS bursts than the other two. They are, however, very squishy, so you must be an active player, whereas the others allow a little more relaxation.

Yes! get the gift of blades recipe from the found belongings vendor in the camps – they’re 250 found belongings.

I love, love, love this backpiece, and the fact you can get it to ascended etc.

However, seeing the blade shard requirements I have a feeling they’re not the most alt friendly backpieces. Does anyone know if we will continue to be able to have blade shards drop after this LS? I don’t mind a slow climb to assemble an ascended backpiece, but it’s not really going to happen in the next two weeks (since I have limited playtime). Oh well if not, but it would be nice to know this is a long-term goal I can aim for. All I need to keep dropping are the shards … everything else I can accumulate over time.

I think you get to choose stats again at each stage of the upgrade process. So once you upgrade, the item will be account bound again (great, as maybe your character isn’t yet at a level to use exotics and you want to transfer to another who can), but once you select your stats again, the item is soulbound until next upgraded. It’s a pretty sensible process.

I’m sure you will. I doubt they’ll remove the ability to craft the item once this part of the LS is over, just possibly the means to do so as in, maybe the shards won’t drop anymore etc. So just get the 4 pieces of the plan together and hoard as many shards and other necessary crafting materials you can, and craft later.

I just find the randomly placed pieces of armor on the top half of the characters weird. It makes them look more scantily dressed than they are. I’m not sure if it’s an aesthetic I like yet, but I love the heavy armor. It’s not the amount suggested I find odd, just the random “support” under all the blue that feels random.

Personally, I’m far more perturbed by the fact the char will have her fact totally covered. How will she breathe?

I’ll say I was disappointed – not because of ANet, just because I get very excited on patch days, haha! But actually, being late to the party this evening just means that a lot of the bugs that might have arrived along with the update will be ironed out, people know what they’re doing so it’s easy to ask around to get an idea of where I should be going etc, some items will be up on the TP for me to get ahead with and … I’ve had a whole day more to get even more excited!

Lol, I was excited yesterday, saw it wasn’t updated and went and did something else. Woke up today and checked the forums to see the LS had landed, ankitten ow at work, unbothered by anything because I’m even more excited to see what’s what later tonight. So, I have to say, I don’t mind at all.

What do you mean by “rewarded”? If you get very good at Elementalist, you can wipe out pretty large groups by yourself, in which case, all those loot bags are yours. But if you mean in terms of the effort required, then that will depend on how quickly you learn the skills, I imagine. Yes, while new to the class, I imagine you’d get steamrollered a bit. But if you learn quickly, then soon you’ll be able to out-heal almost any other class.

In terms of sPvP, it’s true that Eles have pretty much fallen out of the current meta, but if you are a good Ele, then you’re very difficult to beat, imo. Just depends on your patience and ability to put up with hitting the ground a lot on the way up. A lot of people play Elementalists, but the good ones really, really stand out.

Necros are fantastic in WvW – though better for zerg play than roaming, if you ask me. Though, if you find a bridge, you can pretty much hold it indefinitely until back up arrives. I am fairly new to WvW, but I and one other guy literally held a bridge against 10 others for ages (we never got to see the conclusion as we got kicked out for server re-matching). I run with conditions all the way and no pets – they mostly get in the way. But Necros can be strong in sPvP as bunkers or some roamers. Wells are very strong, especially the well of corruption? I think it’s that one – that converts boons on your enemies to conditions … Necros pretty much serve as a direct counter to Guardians. I find I do better against Guardians on a Necro than I do on any other class. Conditions can be incredibly strong in PvP – cleansing skills are nearly always on cooldown, while a Necro can stack conditions so quickly with almost anything they do, and when health is low enough, they can get good DPS.

If you find the Necro too easy, then go for the Elementalist. The rewarding aspect of it is something that, sadly, nobody can really weigh up for you because it’s so subjective. If you find it just rewarding to become a great Elementalist player when there aren’t that many, then of course it’s rewarding. If you mean you want instant gratification and wins against people right from the beginning, then obviously you will be disappointed at first.

I in no way consider myself an expert on anything in this game, but this is generally what I have observed with the classes I HAVE played and my personal experience.

For me, it’s got to that point where I have started and re-started so many characters that levelling an alt really comes down to a) how quickly do I kill things and b) is it still fun to kill things like this?

So Warriors, for me, become rather boring. Nothing, except large groups of mobs, is too difficult, but things die too quickly. However, Guardians and Mesmers, no matter how interesting I think the classes are in abstract, spend far too long killing things that I get tired of them quickly (though this changes at later levels so if you can bear to be patient for a few levels, they can be fun classes).

I loved levelling my Necro, though people sometimes struggle with the mobility of this class. It can be slightly harder to disengage from a fight that’s not going so well with this class. But you have great survivability, access to so many conditions you literally melt your way through stuff and good animations.

I have started and re-started Thieves so many times. Yes, they’re squishy. But they are fun and they’re especially great for one on one fights. Groups can be a problem, but single target damage is just incredible.

Rangers really aren’t as kittenome people make out. They kill things nice and quickly but not too quickly, you have good range and melee skills (though sword #1 roots you in place, which is really annoying). A lot of people don’t play Rangers very well, however, and don’t understand that pet management entails more than simply collecting pets, so that is partly why they get a lot of hate. Also, if you must use a Longbow, in groups, stay away from skill #4 unless it’s really, really needed (ie, if EVERYONE is dying in melee and you all need a breather to heal or something – it’s rare, but it happens; or if you are asked to push a boss into a particular corner or something). I am in the middle of levelling a Ranger right now, and I’m really enjoying it.

Elementalists and Engineers – LOTS of fun, but to play well you are required to play more actively with these two classes than any other class. Engineers are perhaps a bit more forgiving than Elementalists, due to the fact that the way kits work, you aren’t waiting around for cooldowns so much and also the grenade kit is a nice ranged attack that can deal good damage. Also, despite what being attuned to the elements might lead you to surmise, Elementalists don’t spec very well for condition (much better at great DPS bursts). Engineers can do either pretty well.

I do sometimes, but there are usually people around. But then, I’m used to playing this game solo as I don’t know anybody who plays on PC (all my friends are console players only), and the people I do know in-game are usually concentrating on end game stuff so wouldn’t want to do all the levelling stuff again. So I actually associate most of the game with loneliness – not in a bad way, just used to running solo unless I’m on my 80 completing LS stuff or world bosses.

I feel it’s a good idea, but badly implemented.

I tend to think that the only people who will notice a significant difference in the case of either nerf/change, are ones who have become so used to relying on aspects of the Warrior and Berserker gear that it almost acts as a cushion and they forget that it is an advantage. This isn’t true for everyone, and I am not arguing that Warrior Berserker is a faceroll or that you don’t need talent to play it – that’s simply not true. However, for everyone that uses Healing Signet and no other healing skill on their Warrior, I do think it’s true that they don’t see the strength of it after a while because it becomes “normal” to them.

I think a change in the way crit damage scales was needed, and I don’t think a slight nerf to Healing signet will make any skilled Warrior significantly weaker. And I do think that these changes are the result of ANet listening to their players kitten many people have issues with the balance the way it is (yes, a lot of people don’t, but how they weigh up what side to come down on isn’t known, so we shouldn’t speculate). However, it IS badly implemented. ANet should have made these changes before releasing Ascended Armour into the game, for instance. Trinkets and everything you could get before the introduction of the armour aren’t so bad and are more easily replaced. But not foreseeing the problems surrounding the Ascended Armour stats was not a great move.

Engineers take a bit of getting used to, and IMO, don’t really get interesting until about level 40. But then, wow, do they get interesting! They’re very versatile, can be traited for perma-swiftness, can be specced for DPS or condition damage and are generally engaging to play. I find I can’t snooze at the wheel while playing my Engi.

Same, I hear, goes for Mesmer, but I can’t get to level 40 to find out, as I just find them far too slow. Their in-combat movement is great, but just running around the open world with them is pretty painful for me.

Re playing a Thief – if you know how to dodge well, then you should be fine. They’re pretty squishy until at least level 40 or higher, and if dodging is tricky then be prepared to die a lot (it’s why I no longer play a Thief, despite getting to level 35 on one). They have good movement, stealth and are quite fun, I guess, but I find their lack of available weapon choices a little limiting.

I love these weapons skins. Just wish I could outright buy BL tickets – or even the scraps. They could charge me a lot more per scrap than they do per BL key, I wouldn’t care. Just don’t want to open box after box to get the 4 tickets I want.

These are my new favourite weapons in the game! OK, the hearts could go, but everything else, the detail, the colour, the design …. Oh my word – I HAVE TO HAVE THEM! Just wish I had more money/gold for the chests …

They are definitely permanent, right? Not JUST every Valentine’s? Please be permanent …

I would like to know if this pick is a permanent addition to the gem store. If it is, then it makes a big difference to me.

The main reason I am wary of it is because of the sprocket issue. I just don’t think it’s a great idea to give people a means of harvesting items that will no longer drop in the world (I am leaving out the nodes because many people will not have participated in the LS, and newer players will miss it entirely).

However, if the pick is a permanent addition to the store I am less concerned. People who do not wish to spend real money on it will have TIME to save gold in order to convert to gems if they wish to have the pick. So in the end, the only advantage is a who gets it first.

If it’s a limited item (as all the others have been, and this is where I’m concerned), then many won’t be able to afford it – real money or gems. It’s not the point to say you don’t have to spend real money. We know that. But I do if I want the pick now (and if I have to have it now because it’s limited time only) because I don’t have enough gold to convert to 1000gems and I am not likely to have the time to play often enough to get the gold needed before the pick disappears from the store.

If they just made it permanent, it removes the restriction entirely because anyone who wants it will be able to get it, and it will only be a matter of time. That bothers me much less.

Keep the picks, keep the animations, remove the sprockets.

People who don’t think it’s P2W don’t seem to care about sprockets, and the people who do care about sprockets object to the pick. So just remove that effect and let’s go about our business as usual.

Unless sprockets are going to stop dropping in the game altogether, in which case, add other ways to get them into the game.