Guild Wars 2

StickerHappy.8052:

Good on paper, but a little bit too, not RNG. Having you pewpew on GS gets you might 1 might every 10 secs, 3 Every Gs2 untraited. 6 on swap, Runes of strength Duration and 1 more stack + might shatter so basically staying on greatsword gives you perma might. I think you didnt mention that it will only work in combat. so you can stack might OOC?

I’ve thought about all of that too, which is why i suggested cutting down the original 20 seconds to ten. As for the insane might comboing, that’s really more of an issue with Strength Runes being so good while alternatives are rather lackluster. I don’t want to jump on the “nerf all runes” train because I like how we can make builds with them as a keystone. Personally, I want them to buff barely used runes and add more good ones so Strength isn’t so much of a given. Counterplay, I feel, needs to come from making boon-stripping/corrupting more valid. I’m working on a thesis for that but the essence of it is, once you strip an opponent of a boon, they can’t get it back for a few seconds.

Miku.6297:

I kind of like the idea, but how does this work for sword + focus?

Do you just get one randomly or do you get both?

Both, which is the reason I cut down the boon’s length. I also kept boon duration increases in mind. I don’t want it to be overpowered but it has to be useful enough to consider the passive alone.

There’s a bit of a story with my image. A while ago, someone suggested that, between Jennah and Anise, one is the illusion of the other. A guy from Anet outright denounced the idea but I loved it so much, I decided to run with it. So, storywise, my mesmer has multiple personality disorder but her other personalities manifest as her illusions. This is all of them together.

At the moment, very few, if any, consider using the Signet of Inspiration for its
passive effect because the boon given is random. I consider this to be an elegant
fix to such randomness. This is how the description should read.

Signet of Inspiration

Passive: Grants a boon every ten seconds, based on equipped weaponry.
Active: Copy all of your boons to nearby allies.

Greatsword: Might (1 stack/10s)
Focus: Swiftness (6s)
Pistol: Retaliation (5s)
Scepter: Vigor (3s)
Spear: Fury (5s)
Staff: Protection (3s)
Sword (Mainhand): Fury (3s)
Sword (Offhand): Aegis (10s)
Torch: Regeneration (5s/650 health)
Trident: Protection (3s)

Number of Targets: 5
Range: 600

This allows players to choose which boon they want by which weapon is currently
equipped. That will increase the signet’s usefulness without changing its purpose.
I matched boons up by their weapon’s skills and/or the traits that affect them but
other players may see things differently.

DemonforLife.8546:

SilverWF.4789:

Also, to make it absolutely fair, they can remake it: damage of Retaliation will return some % of initial incoming damage.
Because now it pretty stupid: you hitting someone for 100 damage and receiving back 400? And someone who hitting for 9k and more damage will receive back 400 too?

So, let it will return, i.e. 20% of damage.
You hit someone for 100? Ok, take back 20 damage
You crit someone for 10k? No offense boy, but this is your 2k back.

And in this case they can don’t do anything else: no once per sec, nor condition damage etc.

you’ve never been full zerk ele in WvW, if that would happen all eles would not even bother using meteorstorm anymore cause of the often 4-5k meteors on 5 players

I see that as an anti-aoe tactic, which is a plus. If you want your eles to create craters where your enemies use to be, better get a few mesmers to Nullfield the area first.

SilverWF.4789:

Predictable, “successful classes” didn’t want to change anything. Also, most of posters didn’t read this thread before posting: make a dumb advice – profit!

So, Retaliation still must be changed.

I main a mesmer so I’m not exactly predictable. I also read the whole thread and I have yet to see a reason to make the change to retaliation as suggested. The point of it is to punish rapid attacks and auto-attacks. If anything, I feel its damage should be increased so it’s more of an immediate threat. On the other hand, I also feel that every profession should have a way to remove boons from their opponent or turn it to their advantage. For instance, if rangers had a skill that turned any boon an opponent had into 3 seconds of vulnerability, I doubt anyone would want to use a boon-stacking combo while facing such a ranger. The more skilled players may bait the skill’s use before boon-stacking. Either way, it would make for a more dynamic fight. Nerfing retaliation wouldn’t.

Azrael.4960:

No, Anet doesn’t “have” to do anything.

Once a permanent 33% speed boost becomes possible through traits/skills/utilities, then it becomes the new norm. What’s to stop players then asking for a 50% speed skill / trait?

That you have to trait / rune for speed boost is to prevent power creep. You have to give up something to gain speed. Slotting runes that give you permanent speed boost means you forgo things like increased damage / critical chance / ferocity / condition damage. I.E you forgo combat effectiveness to gain speed. Strength runes give you increased combat strength at the expense of toughness and vitality, Melandru runes give you increased survivability at the expense of combat strength.

That being said, I do agree that the mesmers got the short end of the stick in regards to getting swiftness from utilities.

Here’s the problem with your reasoning. I have a guardian that can keep swiftness running 100% using Retreat and running over the Symbol of Swiftness. To be fair, my guardian is wearing Pact Runes but she has been able to do this before I put those on her. Said guardian can also outdamage and is better at survival than my mesmer whom is wearing Strength Runes, even though both are wearing Knight armor. Please tell me how this is fair and necessary to avoid power creep.

Before you get any idea of bias, I will admit to it. My mesmer is my main. In fact, I have 3 of them, all with drastically different builds. I am certainly well-versed in the intricacies of the class so so it makes no sense how I have an easier time with a guardian as I’m only proficient with them.

You can show your dead horse animation all you want but you are going to keep seeing people ask because there’s always going to be someone else that wants mounts.

As for the alleged multiple ways of getting speed boosts, mesmers have one skill tied to an offhand weapon and that skill is the only one with a bandaid “fix” which further cripples its use. The only other way mesmers can obtain permanent swiftness uptime is to build for it. I know I can’t be the only one that finds it beyond stupid to be expected to slot my combat traits, runes and sigils for moving around outside of combat. That will never be an acceptable solution.

If they truly don’t want us to have mounts than they need to fix it so every profession has at least one weapon skill, one utility and one trait that work in such a way that two can be combined to obtain permanent swiftness. Let the players decide which two they want of if they prefer to use sigils and runes to do it.

If they want a real “bandaid” fix, they could easily create a backpiece that has selectable stats and gives 25% movement speed increase out of combat. Then make an ascended version that requires a legendary’s worth of materials but has a 33% increase. It would easily become the most sought after item in game.

I don’t know exactly how Anet does cutscenes but, as a programmer, I can tell you why they can’t simply “speed things up”. The layman’s technical explanation is the cutscenes are all handled with the in-game engine. This engine has its own physics and those physics rely on particular things remaining constant. Time is definitely one of them. If you try to get a character to perform a jump animation 5 times faster than normal, they might jump 5 to 25 times higher than normal do to gravity physics and would definitely not land where they are supposed to. If said character is female and wearing a dress, that could end up clipping through their body due to cloth physics. If the battle system is still active, the npc may die when they land, due to combat physics. If the person they were talking to happens to be an enemy but they game is treating as an ally to keep battle AI from interfering, the enemy may walk over and revive the npc while the cutscene’s audio is still playing. This could lead to odd things like Scarlet taunting Kasmeer while reviving Marjory.

All of this and more could happen from just one sped up jump animation and it would take hours just to fix that. Now think about every single action (from walking, drawing a weapon or even blinking) that every character makes being possible to mess up from speeding things up. Now imagine the hours it would take to reprogram just one 15-second scene to avoid all those bugs.

And if you think that’s bad, you should know that there’s almost always something going on that players can’t see. Many animators don’t bother to fix bugs that aren’t on camera. One famous example comes from Halo: Combat Evolved. At the end, Master Chief removes his helmet but the camera angle prevents the player from seeing his face. However, people have hacked the game to change the camera angle, only to find out that under Master Chief’s helmet is another helmet. That’s clearly a bug but there was no point in fixing it as it wasn’t supposed to be seen.

When all is said and done, the cutscenes are really just a glorified machinima and the npcs are merely puppets. Imagine the chaos of puppeteers performing a scene 5 times faster and you’ll be imagining what arenanet is up against.

Mystic.5934:

I realize what you are wanting and that you have honest intentions, but items will always be used every possible way they are able to be used. Someone will take this perma upgrade extractor, buy karma armor, and use it just to get the expensive rune out of the armor. that is the reason badge and karma items are not salvageable. it’s not so you can’t remove the socket you put in; it’s to protect the free socket that’s already in there.
I imagine they extended that to badges to protect the siege supply. If everyone were turning badges into ectos, then there would be far less siege blueprints in the game.

I imagine that anything extracted with a gemstore item would be account bound. This would minimize the effect you have stated. With that consideration, the worst I can see is Runes of Strength would be everywhere as they could easily be bought from the NPC in Southsun Cove. The price on the trading post would plummet to about 3 to 5g per rune, which would be the cost of buying an exotic with the strength rune and extracting it. Demand for fall considerably because people that want it would just farm a set for themselves. On the upside, Southsun would be would have a massive boon and the price of karka shells would skyrocket.

All things considered, it would probably balance itself out.

I would need to see the logistics behind the “special snowflake” mindset because I can’t imagine it would be profitable. A handful of players may love it but, in order to keep those players, you have to deny others the ability to buy the same item later. I imagine catering to the others would be more profitable.

This might be due to depreciating returns. There are particular nodes I farm very often, however, if I try to farm them more than 3 times a day, I only get one strike. On top of that, I actually work the system to be on difference instances when I do the farming so it may be possible that you’re only getting one strike because you are in a map instance that you have farmed before.

One way to check this is to leave that node alone for at least 2 hours before the daily reset and then farm it. If you get all 10 strikes, it’s likely DR that was preventing you from farming it beforehand.

I don’t see what the fuss is about. I looked at it once, decided I didn’t like it and didn’t bother with it again. It doesn’t matter if the outfit fits in or not with my idea of immersion because Tyria is Anet’s world, not mine. The one thing I will say is that I like having options and this outfit is another option. I would hope people would stop arguing against that.

I see toughness as an absolute must with the latest living story releases. During breach events, I often see zerker babies waiting just outside of champions’ range as if they are afraid to use their highly lauded attack prowess. Being that my guardian is full knights, it’s always me running in Leeroy Jenkins style to get the fight started.

In PvP, I’ve had a zerker thief ambush my rabid mesmer with backstab, only to take half my health instead of one-shotting me. He didn’t live long enough to regret it. I’ve also gone toe-to-toe with a proficient celestial elementalist using the same build and won. I barely won but a win is still a win.

I also have a bunker mesmer in cleric gear whom I made specifically to support my friends whom aren’t as skilled as I am. While it takes her forever to kill anything in pve, her HP level falls below 75%, even though I never use her heal skill. Her phantasms can heal themselves too, if standing close enough to each other.

Toughness works. You just have to know how to work with it. I find supporting it with passive heals to be highly effective.

One issue is that an adapt trait, one you could use at level 30, could have the unlock be in a level 50 area. Another, and the one I hate the most, is that the way you unlock the traits has absolutely nothing to do with the traits. They were all picked seemingly at random.

I like the idea of going out into the world to earn traits. What should have been done is changing the skill point challenges to teach players how to use the traits. Even excluding the ones in wvw and all the new ones in zones that came out after launch, there are more than enough to have one per trait.

The only thing I ask is that people don’t dub videos with hard rock, heavy metal or dubstep. If you just HAVE to, don’t crank up the volume. That is so annoying!

Malkavian.4516:

My most “wow” moment in this game was at the end of the fractal where you save a collosus from his chains. When I look at him and he was facing me, he bowed so I thought it was common courtesy to bow back. I had no idea there was an achievement for actually doing that, which I think was a very nice touch.

I totally forgot about that one and I actually smiled when I got that achievement. It was very clever.

Day one of the pre-release. After I created my main and got through the human tutorial, I ran into my very first dynamic event. Bandits chose that moment to barricade the bridge leading from the city to the farmlands. They never stood a chance.

Another happened during the first time I was in Blazeridge Steppes. After a giant shadow passed over me, I looked up to see what had cast it. I literally said, “OH MY GOD! That’s a dragon,” when I realized how huge it was. I had another later when someone informed me that the Shatterer is only a dragon champion and elder dragons are much bigger.

The most recent was when I was when I was collecting crystals during the Festival of the Four Winds. When I got one that was near the top of the airship, I happened to turn the camera towards the cliffs at sunset. Even on medium graphic settings, real sunsets don’t even come close.

Like most, I’m usually quick to cancel vistas’ camera sweeps when I’m mapping with new characters. The exceptions are any that play the instrumental of “Fear Not This Night.” I have to hear the whole thing. It’s amazing how just a few notes can compose such an emotionally gripping melody.

I feel coglin is wrong in the overall affects of the change but he does bring up one valid point. There are a lot of balance decisions to take into account. It’s not something that can be taken lightly but I can see how it would add depth to the battle system. Imagine pvp builds were the objective isn’t to capture or hold points but to delay the enemy party from moving quickly between them. I imagine a tank could force a 1vX in front of the enemy spawn while the rest of their team takes points and objectives.

From my understanding, you’re concerned about the disparity between the damage and speed of auto-attacks on ranged weapons. You feel that they are unbalanced. I dare say that you are right and they are meant to be so.

Here’s a general example. Mesmers have the greatsword, staff and scepter as long range options. The greatsword is undeniably the highest in terms of pure damage, speed and range. It’s my go-to weapon in pve when I need or want to keep distance between me and my opponent. However, if that opponent comes within 600 units of me, I switch because my damage drops off too much for it to remain effective. In wvw, I would only use a greatsword when I’m in a zerg or attacking/defending a walled structure. In any other instance, I consider every other weapon a better choice because players can close and create gaps too easily. Some players even do this on purpose because they know how much damage it loses. In pvp, I would never use a greatsword, regardless of its damage potential, because I’m constantly in the same situation where I would abandon it in wvw.

The staff is clearly weaker than the greatsword in terms of raw power but, out of my three mesmers, only one doesn’t have it equipped. The reason I favor the staff is because of its versatility. I can use it as a melee weapon, zone specific areas and turn it into one hell of a condition weapon as well as a decent bunker weapon. While I can’t kill minions with it as fast as a greatsword, I can actually solo champions faster. In pvp, I can win 1v2 with my condition build. One of the reasons why is because people only see the weak auto attack numbers and think they can take me. What they don’t realize is just about every time I or my clones hit them, they get a stack of bleeding. Within 7 to 10 seconds, they are losing 1k per tick. Cleansing does little because they can be reapplied easily and running is pointless because the stacks are already on them, not to mention clones will chase.

Now the scepter I don’t like. Personally I feel that anything it can do, the staff does better, even with the recent torment buff that everyone was excited/whining about. However, I do have a baseline understanding of its potential. I would not want to go up against a pro mesmer that knows how to utilize it. “Condition bomb” doesn’t even begin to describe what it can do at its finest.

The short version is weapons exists in what’s called a “perfect imbalance”. Each one has a niche. If you play towards their strengths instead of just considering their raw damage, you can do some amazing things. I believe it’s even possible with elementalist’s water attunement. If one day they gain the ability to weapon swap while sticking to just one attunement, an aquamancer may become THE meta bunker because just about every action they take would heal them.

azizul.8469:

wow.. how come no one mentioned HotW p1…

I don’t because I hate it. Too many bosses with too much hp.

I have to agree with the majority here. Last time I was in a zerker group, a guy nearly busted a blood vessel and came close to rage quitting because we killed a boss 2 seconds slower than the average speed clear. After the dungeon was done, all we got was a “GG” and a poof. That’s the virtual equivalent of wham, bam, “thank you ma’am”. That’s when it really hit me that all the zerker meta is doing is turning a game into work. I’m in retail and it’s the holiday season. I have all the “productivity” I could ever hope for. For that reason, I avoid all “zerker only” listings like the plague.

I prefer to play with a perverted friend of mine whom only has one level 80 and has to be carried through dungeons but has comical stories involving toys that aren’t for kids. I prefer playing with her younger sister whom has little to no emotion yet made a necromancer that wouldn’t look out of place in a My Little Pony episode… and then proceeds to nearly solo dungeons in record time with said necromancer. I prefer to play with roleplayers whom make jokes about the Flame Legion (Stay flaming, hotman!) while snickering about the undertones of Logan and Rytlock’s bromance. I prefer to play with people that occasionally say, “watch this,” and break the game in ways I can’t even imagine.

TL;DR; Yes, I could play with the zerkers, have over 3,000 gold and just about every item I could ever want. Or I could play with everyone else and have fun.

Ohoni.6057:

I couldn’t disagree with the OP more. Silverwastes needs at least one more waypoint for the space it occupies, placed somewhere along the current western edge. The run back from the existing one is far too long. A lot of the recent maps suffer from similar problems, Edge of the Mists is AGONIZING to play in because if the action is happening on the other end of the map it can take five minutes or more to catch up. When designing maps they need to clock the time it takes to run from the nearest WP to where you died, and if it’s more than a minute, add more waypoints.

I disagree because both Silverwastes and Edge of the Mists are warzones. It makes no sense to have a waypoint deep in enemy territory. Looking at it inversely, that would be like spawning mordrem in the Pact’s base just because they don’t feel like running across no man’s land.

Personally, I think waypoints have spoiled you guys. Death finally has a consequence, (inconvenience) and you want to take that away. Why? Where is the challenge and the thrill if can just get back to where you were?

I gathered 9 before I called it quits. I HATE it when the one thing I want is an rng loot drop that never drops for me. It’s turned me off of fighting Tequatl and I actually love that fight.

The whole area has “Fractal” written all over it.

I think it’s fine as long as players understand that Gaile is a community manager. She isn’t in charge of class balancing and even admits that she’s not an expert on it. I personally find it refreshing that she’s willing to acknowledge her class preference. As for verbal assaults and claims of bias, let’s face it. People are going to do that any way. I’d rather have a community manager that sounds off on her opinion than one that’s silent in hopes of avoiding ignorant confrontations.

As for the subject at hand, I feel the change is good, however, this is the opinion of an accomplished and sadistic mesmer. I have more reflections than Glint’s lair. I soon acknowledged the new threat and how to better utilize my skills. My reward is enemies that kill themselves for me.

Glamorous Recovery could turn one condition into regeneration per second. I see no problem with that. In fact, it might even be better that way since players will know for sure which boon they will receive. I’m certainly not against lowering the absurd amount of rng in the game.

I stand behind my opinion to scrap Disruptor’s Sustainment. While I have seen some good ideas about what to replace it with, (heals on disruption sound very enticing) I also feel that staying with its theme is very limiting. I never would have come up with Glamorous Recovery if I stuck to the theme.

Personally I say scrap it and come up with something else. My ideas:

Symbiotic Relations: Any boon an illusion receives is also given to the mesmer.

Glamorous Recovery: Entering glamour fields turns conditions on allies into boons.

Strength in Numbers: Every 10 seconds gain 1 stack of might for every active illusion.

Safety in Numbers: Every 10 seconds gain 1 second of protection for every active illusion.

Out with a Bang: Phantasms shatter using Mind Wrack when defeated.

Shock and Awe: Clones defeated with a single hit with daze their attacker for 2 seconds. (cooldown 10 seconds)

Agreed. If we have to use more than 250 of anything, it should have a wallet space.

My problem with leveling is I have to be 80 to unlock grandmaster traits. I releveled my Guardian as an Asura but my build had almost all of my condition clears on a grandmaster trait. Considering the amount of muscle memory I placed into this build, that made leveling very, very, very painful.

I feel people are stereotyping the races too much. Why does every member of the legions have to be atheist? Wouldn’t it make more sense if a small faction of them believed in the Spirits of the Wild since the Norn and Charr both share the philosophy of personal growth through combat?

Speaking of which, do the Spirits only watch ovre the Norn? Let’s say an Asuran child was lost in the jungle. Why wouldn’t… say… Monkey take pity on the child and lead them to the nearest Asuran encampment?

If the Eternal Alchemy is a scientific theory then what’s to stop anyone with a scientific mind from believing in it, even if they have religious beliefs as well? Personally I feel that anyone deeply spiritual would have a strong desire to want to know how the universe works. If they believed that one being or eve a subset created it, then the complexity of nature would only strengthen their belief in how strong and skilled their deities are.

I also imagine that anyone enthusiastic about nature would kill for the chance to serve the Pale Tree, even if they weren’t born from it. The Sylvari are one with nature, so much to the point that they literally grow their clothing and tools. I can think of a lot of humans that would love that lifestyle. I imagine quite a few norn would too. You could even toss a few Koda in there for good measure.

Personally I feel it’s well past time we stopped insisting that there are set, cultural differences for the 5 main races. It’s more natural if there was some intermingling and individuals flat out challenging accepted norms. That would make the world feel more connected and alive.

It would also be a good place for drama to arise as there will always be people whom don’t want things and those around them to change.

1. I have not played a warrior in over a year but, to my understanding, there use to be little to no penalty for missing adrenaline skills and the depreciation of it was way too slow. The nerf was needed. I can’t tell you my opinion how how well the new balance is as I don’t play warrior.

2. Actually they had permanent content within the first year. Like it or not, Southshore Cove and the Fractals are permanent. Now if you’re really arguing that they’re finally focusing more on expanding the game instead of changing what we already had, I wholeheartedly agree.

3. I’m half and half on this issue. While I do agree that the community makes a lot of interesting, needed and sometimes even impressive suggestions, I have not only seen but even contributed to the less charitable aspects of the forums. If we really want Anet to change their ways then we, as a community, need to change ours as well. We can’t hold them to a standard that we won’t match and it would be childish to demand that they change first.

4. If you are referring to ferocity, it was more than a nerf to berzerker gear. It affected every gearset that uses ferocity. In that perspective, yes, it needed to be changed so it could be balanced just like all other stats. The only problem is that more changes were needed (healing power in particular) and those changes didn’t follow suit.

5. This is another distinction you have have to step away from and look at from a wider perspective. The new player experience did improve the game for new players. What Anet did wrong is that it was extremely detrimental to veterans whom like to make alts. I have tried it personally and have come to hate it so much that I just can’t be bothered to max another toon while it is in place. On the other hand, I’ve tried ArcheAge and actually found myself taking 45 minutes to complete a mission that should have taken 3 all because I don’t get credit for monsters that someone else hits first. That made me very thankful for how tagging works in Guild Wars 2.

6. Yes, they have said they will re-implement the ability to make specific gem exchanges. The real issue is that they didn’t ask the players about the change before they made it. That would have avoided a lot of drama.

7. The devs are dead-set on making the living world work. I too would prefer expansions but I’m going to give them to the end of season 2 to see if they have truly learned how to make it work properly. However, I am very hopeful because the logistics aren’t adding up. They have stated they have over 200 employees but we haven’t seen 200 employees’ worth of work for the past few months. They just might be making an expansion.

This sounds like fun. I need to be on a better WvW server for it though.

I agree that Time Warp should be a glamor and it should chill enemies inside of it. That would make up for the 50% quickness nerf that it was never compensated for. Mass Invisibility, on the other hand, needs a lot of work as Thief’s Shadow Refuge does the same thing but better. What’s worse, not only is it a normal utility skill but it has a shorter cooldown.

Yoroiookami.3485:

Work towards a goal? The process of making Mawdrey:
- Grind geodes for recipes and claypot, or grind gold to buy them
- Grind some more gold for the ingredients, because actually looking for them takes more time, effort and is frustrating.
- Craft one part of the Mawdrey each day, for 7 days. (fun)
- Combine Mawdrey in the mystic forge with few ingredients that actually didn’t require grinding. (surprisingly)
- Repeat either until you ragequit, get poor, or someone lets you know how it’s not even worth doing
- Make sure to grind some more gold to get your crafting to level 500, in case you want an ascended Mawdrey.

Yeah, SOOO MUCH WORK put into this. I can feel all of the joy…
Yes, I’m being sarcastic. That’s not how working on things should be.
The only enjoyable part of creating Mawdrey for me, was the process of gathering ingredients and upgrading them. (Like Vial of Oasis Water etc.)

That’s because you weren’t efficient about making Mawdrey.

I got the geodes I needed in about 3 hours and I barely did any grinding. I found a map full of people willing to push Zephyrite Favor as high as possible and I helped them towards that goal. I only started grinding geodes when the sandstorm came as those events give a lot more. Being as I was jumping from event to event the entire time while coordinating with others to do it efficiently, it certainly didn’t feel like a grind.

I did grind for Foxfire but I was smart about it. I parked 6 of my 7 characters by a ring of elder saplings and rotated though them once an hour as that is their respawn rate. It took about 3 minutes to go through them all. The rest of the time, I did whatever I wanted. Sometimes I’d just sign on, gather and sign off. I also sold Foxfires and plantfood at first because it was permanent content and I could do it whenever I wanted. It was far more profitable to cash in on those that just had to have it first.

Crafting plant food once every seven days just insured my profit margin window lasted longer. I took advantage of it as long as I could.

I actually enjoyed hunting down the individual pieces because they took me back to places I had forgotten about. Sometimes, after collecting, I would stop and take in the scenery as well as a few screenshots. Some corners of this game are truly breathtaking, even without a bleeding edge graphics engine.

There are ways to get crafting to 500 while actually making money. It just takes knowledge, planning and patience.

In the end, I crafted my Mawdey 2 months after it was released, made about 50g in profit and didn’t experience a bit of burnout. In fact, I was achieving other goals while doing this one.

Now consider the contrast of trying to get the Sunless staff which is a completely random drop from Tequatl. As much as I enjoy that battle, I’m left a little bit more bitter than the last time because I have yet to get an ascended chest and no amount of knowledge, planning or patience is going to get me any closer to getting it.

kitten .9460:

It’s buttcape #90384901723712089472390486189312609816491623189236129046

with a cool hat.

Some of us happen to like buttcapes. Especially us City of Heroes refugees.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

Be sure not to run with it…

Bah! Everyone knows it’s the heels that stop you from running!

I have no personal stake in this but I’m always for more options.

Monday I was fretting for hours, trying to put together a classy look for my fourth female mesmer. While I did whip up something super sexy and sure to turn heads, it just wasn’t good enough.

Then Anet releases this on Tuesday and I’m like… “How can you NOT buy this?!”

If the devs truly care about the heart of the story, Lion’s Arch will be rebuilt. The point of it being rebuilt the first time was Coby making a home for outcast and sticking a proverbial middle finger up at Zhaitan and his Risen constantly attacking coastal cities. While Coby isn’t with us anymore, I’m sure there are plenty of people there that want to carry on his legacy of not on surviving in the face of adversity but thriving.

Personally, I feel Lions Arch should be rebuilt differently than what it was. Something slightly more grandiose as a way of flipping off Mordy. It should have more fortifications, cannons and the godfather of all emergency bunkers as well as hundreds of evacuation tunnels!

Let’s face it. They need to be ready because, at this point, taking out Lions Arch is the status quo for anyone harboring maleficent delusions of grandeur.

I don’t understand. Why would someone want to turn off a feature that tells you what your skills do? Granted, I have an ele and it does look ridiculous but I would prefer a paging system instead of turning it off completely. Better yet, have it only show fire related info when I’m attuned to fire with a small note saying that other elements have different affects.

I personally like female humans because they chant the Mantra of Pain like they mean it!

I’ve only found it useful in WvW where it would always teleport me away from the person that wants to spike me. Ironically, in pve, it always teleports me directly under the enemy that downed me. I too, prefer that it be more like the thief skill, especially considering that the nerf to confusion also hurt this skill.

BlackDevil.9268:

It would take away all its potential of dealing damage in pvp and only be used as shield or distraction then. Bit sad for a phantasm that has the highest dps.

I would say you won’t lose any damage potential simply because of the way it works. Regardless of how it is summoned, it will be immobile while attacking so anyone whom doesn’t want to get hit will simply move away from it. Range attacks are useless at best and self-depreciating at worst if used while iWarden is attacking. Melee fighters either have to eat a few hits to kill it quick or wait until it’s idle to attack. Either way, the iWarden is still doing its job of zoning and dealing damage. Even better, a ground-targeted iWarden can be place ahead of a retreating enemy to guarantee a few hits instead of trying to chase them down.

BlackDevil.9268:

The original iwarden or the one I suggested? This wouldn’t work with the original due the short aoe radius combined with the casting time.

The original would work because it could then be used as a shield or even a distraction. Not everyone uses it just for damage.

The Zhaitan fight was rushed. The devs have already admitted this and further proof is in the dungeon as it has an inaccessible area that certainly looks like it would stage a better fight.

I also have to repeat what Healix said. You spend much of the last two arcs weakening Zhaitan. By the time you face him, he’s been starved, poisoned, crippled and driven into a corner. You’re also not alone as you have the full force of the Pact with you along with a fleet of airships, Destiny’s Edge and just about every hero npc you ran into during your personal story. Even with all that, the Pact sustained heavy loses before they even made it to Arah. At launch, one of the biggest complaints about the personal story was npcs died way too often. This happened sometimes within the same mission that we meet them so it was nigh impossible to care when they get cut down.

For contrast, we face Tequatl at his full strength with a handful of Vigil soldiers, a megalaser, a few hylek clans and one crazy quaggan. Considering the Vigil is just 1/3 of the Pact, we don’t have anywhere near the numbers that was going up against Zhaitan.

If that doesn’t give you a proper scope of how different the battles were, remember that champions just like Tequatl were flying around, taking out airships. I know there’s at least more than 3 because I targeted them and noticed that they have individual names. I also noted that Tequatl wasn’t among them.

I’m with DaShi on this one. Every time they decide to tinker with illusions, something breaks and doesn’t get fixed for months. In this case, no news is good news.

I can understand your plight as, lately, I get eye strain looking at my computer monitor. However, I also love that Cobalt is a light source. I wish more weapons did so.

TheFool.4589:

Problem with this idea is…golems can’t jump…

They probably can. I’ve seen them swim and they have specialized finishers so I’m sure they have a jump animation. We just don’t have access to it.