Guild Wars 2

In all this wall of text I’m missing 1 thing: the moment where you tried joining a guild of like minded individuals.

I get it, you started playing with friends and some left, others changed their gaming habits and now you feel alone. Why not try joining a guild and doing stuff with guildies? Seems very wierd to me because it’s the most obvious approach.

Fluffball.8307:

There were no guild wars in the first game either, it’s a reference to a historical period before GW1.

Edit: Also I imagine it’s because it sounds cool.

This is the correct answer.

Combine with franchises keeping their names and you’ll understand.

No, it had nothing to do with the GvG aspect of GW1. If you want to know more, it’s in the wiki.

Mesmer shines in group support and utility. It’s the lowest of all damage specs and due to the nature of phantasms one of the more difficult builds to play in solo pve.

That being said, condition builds with trailblazer or a combination of condition damage with toughness is nearly unkillable in most pve maps. Still many other classes would outperform a mesmer with this kind of gear.

Full glass canon build meeting someone who is asleep on his dodge skill.

For more details, read OriOri’s analysis.

OriOri.8724:

Because you can still apply quickness directly to other players without using SoI. Tides of Time will grant quickness to allies that it hits, Well of Action will grant 4 sec of quickness on the third pulse, and if you use it, TW will grant quickness each pulse. Boon duration affects all of these sources of quickness for allies

This.

Also SoI only copys boons active on you. Boon duration helps with this. Besides that though, as OriOro said, to increase boon duration provided from non SoI sources.

phys.7689:

Cyninja.2954:

Kingsdavid.3598:

So as I (not you angry guy/girl on the keybord preparing to write and angry comment) see it the Mastery system is a failure. I am talking about the system itself and not the masteries themself.

Not everyone who disagrees with you (and there are enough reasons to disagree) is mad or angry, they simply have a different opinion.

Kingsdavid.3598:

First, remove the experience bar and leveling system (Time Wall) from the Mastery system. Make the masteries only a point system. Make it a fix number for unlocking every new Mastery skill (not that the first cost 3 then the second cost 5 etc, all of them cost 3 Mastery points).

So that people can hit max mastery level 1 day after the content got added? Thanks pass. See all those threads from people complaining about lacking mastery points? Imagine how big the outcray were if all those threads came up at once? The internet would explode. A minor timegate in form of experience is fine, if only to not make people feel required to constantly grind mastery points.

If at all, they should globalize mastery points and not split them between content to give people more flexibility.

Kingsdavid.3598:

And most importantly, make it a character based system and not account bound system (no need for account based once you remove the Time Wall from the picture).

I have 22 characters, you do not. See how this could become a problem? The current system scales to an infinite amount (well 69 or 70 max since that’s the cap on characters per account) of characters, your idea does not. So again, you are asking for an inferior idea to get implemented.

Kingsdavid.3598:

After playing Zelda Breath of the Wild, a Role Playing Game with not level and expirance system, it open my eye.

Come back when you’ve spent 3, 5 or 10 thousand hours playing BotW, oh wait, it’s a single player game. Notice the difference?

Kingsdavid.3598:

If you think of it the more expansion GW2 will keep doing the more time it will take to all of them. If someone want to join the game in the next expansion or the one after that, you really think he will spend all this time to unlock all the new masteries and the old ones?.0 NO, He will say kitten IT I AM NOT DOING THIS kitten this will take me ages, and go play other game. And then Anet will sell a new expansion with all the previous masteries unlocked which ruin the game even more

First off, no one says HoT masteries will be required for the next expansion. Second you are completely exagerating how long it takes to complete masteries, especially with more and more experience rewards from story missions. Most people were mastery caped within 3-6 days after the expansion hit. If a hardcore gamer can hit max mastery in that time, a casual gamer can do so within a reasonable timeframe. This was before they started adding massive experience boosts left and right.

Kingsdavid.3598:

My reasoning for making it a the mastery system a charactrer base and not a account base is that the mastery system will keep feeling fresh even after you done them for the first time. Not making it a chore you must complete and never see or think of it again.

Flawed reasoning. It would make every character feel fresh (well the first 2-3 maybe) if there were choice or difference between characters. The way the system is implemented now all it does is take away something from future characters if it were changed to character based. I highly doubt this is “fun” to people who play multiple characters.

What you see as a chore, I found super fun since no matter which of my characters I played I could work towards my next mastery at my own pace.

most people were not capped 3-6 days after the expansion hit. Most people were not even in drgaon stand 3-6 days after the expansion hit.

this leads me to believe your idea of the average gamer, or most guild wars players is a bit skewed.

Please show me were I said average gamers were caped 3-6 days after the expansion launched. I specifically mentioned hardcore gamers right after that sentence. The sentence right after the one you are refering to…

Abelisk.4527:

The only class I’ve seen that was able to out condi-cleanse a condi mes was Ele with DS + Auramancer, and in some cases Guardian.

Mesmers have neat condi cleansing so against Necromancers they have 0 issues. The thing about Mesmers is that they constantly apply huge stacks of confusion and torment coupled with doom and in some cases bleed from geomancy, as well as vuln, immob, and cripple.

Careful there, you are swaying over into the area of a class that can do everything at once all the time.

Yes, mesmer have
- nice condi cleanse, if traited and sloted,
- and they have nice conditions, if traited and geared for
- and they have huge stacks of confusion, if traited and equiped
- and they have nice burst skill, if traited and equiped
- and they have lots of survivability and life, if geared for
- etc.

No one has to out-condi cleanse another class. It’s sufficient to cleanse to an amount enough to survive the other classes burst and give yourself enough time to apply your own burst. If you expect to stand there and infiniately take a beating without retaliating, yeah that’s not going to work.

Doam.8305:

One class hits a button and does an immediate action

The Mesmer hits a button that creates a resource(clone) then they have to hit another button to use that resource. Then that resource has to run on foot and through the terrain all the way to the target. They can even be destroyed before they reach their intended target.

When a ranger shoots an arrow its an instant action and it flies through the air ignoring the ground till it hits its target. I don’t see anyone saying they should outrun arrows, spells, or bullets yet for some reason they want to outrun mesmer attacks. If anything clones should be buffed baseline swiftness or even shatter where they stand to toss the broken shards at you as fast any projectile and just as indestructible.

Doam put in words exactly what I was getting at with my question which other class you expect to outrun as counter measure.

Mesmer Illusions are a ressource. This ressource can be a boon or disadvantage. If you let the mesmer build up his ressource over and over, you are essentially giving him an advantage both offensively as well as defensively.

Here my question, have you ever tried killing off a mesmer phantasms/illusions until they are on cooldown?

I’m not saying mesmer is weak 1v1, simply in my experience mesmer is one of those classes where people have a very hard time to counter play (even when mesmers were absolute trash tier) because they don’t understand what they face.

Also sorry but I have to laugh at your mesmer versus necromancer comment. There is a reason why condi necro is one of the god roaming classes (granted mesmer is strong too). Have you ever heard of https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plague_Signet ? I’m sure your uber mesmer will apply all his conditions, clear all the necromancers conditions, clear all his own conditions again while staying inivisible, immun and super speeded at all time while killing the necromancer through his normal and death shroud lifebar.

Vayne.8563:

I think there’s no net benefit if more people leave the game than stay with the format you’re “forcing them into”.

That is to say, over all, if 5% of the playerbase is really annoyed by it, but 1% of the playerbase ends up liking a format they’ve previously avoided, then the benefit is a negative. I’m thinking about it from a business point of view.

If I make changes to my shop and I sell less because of it, even if a small percentage of customers like the change, then there’s no benefit. The benefit doesn’t exist.

My argument is this sort of thing hurts the game, thus there is no benefit. Some people may like it but that doesn’t necessarily benefit the game.

Makes sense, all we can assume is that arenanet does exactly that and keeps an eye on their statistics and data and make business decision based on what information they have.

Since raids are currently still going strong and arenanet has shown no signs of changing their approach, we must assume that business wise they feel their approach is sound.

apharma.3741:

I don’t entirely agree Cyninja, you should always take moa on escort for the wargs….

Joking aside I usually take GW for sloth as we don’t lack the CC mostly and it’s useful to throw on slublings near the end to give you some respite when people don’t rotate as quick as they should and some go down.

I also sometimes use it on gorseval for the adds so they get constantly CC’d when pulled in. Your reasons are not wrong just saying I sometimes take GW for add control as we have a few people in my group who seem to always be in the wrong place getting hit by a lot of that stuff.

Oh absolutely, if that works for you go fot it. That’s the reason I tried to give a brief overview what the 3 elites are good for and which criteria are important when you decide to pick one.

The reason I was slightly ticked at Asgard Ragna.8165 was he picked 1 quote from person A and half a quote from me and decided to go with explaining why Moa is a must pick for mesmer. It’s not, it’s a high value pick on many fights (very very high value on some making it “must use”) but you always have opportunity costs with mesmer elites which gets dictated by the boss and group composition and ability of your raid.

Asgard Ragna.8165:

I’m kinda shocked how many people here don’t understand the value of the moa signet.

“Moa signet is really only for when your team can’t break a bar to save their life.”
“This is the setup I run when raiding. Moa helps if your team members are sleeping on cc,[…]”

You did notice that my sentences went on right? Conveniently placing a … and leaving out the exact quote in my sentence which you are complaining about is, well petty. Here let me requote my full sentence:

Cyninja.2954:

Moa helps if your team members are sleeping on cc, the breakbar is big and/or important like on Matthias or when basic rotation is very easy.

Easily put you Moa when 1 or more of the following conditions is met:

A. your team sucks
B. the breakbar is big
C. the breakbar is important

Asgard Ragna.8165:

On almost all bosses with bigger breakbars it is your duty to break bars efficently. Moa is an almost instant 1000 breakbar dmg skill that does NOT require you to interrupt your rotation or swap weapons (I can’t stress this aspect enough, also it’s ranged and does not need to be aimed).

In which case the effort they have to bring is in direct contest with the amount of damage TW adds to the group if no perfect rotation is possible. If the breakbar is small and not important, TW can easily come out on top.

Asgard Ragna.8165:

Basically any other valuable cc does require people to interrupt whatever they are doing or even delay their rotations.

Again, the delay and loss in dps others take is competing with the loss your group has without TW (which I already mentioned is small the closer you get to a perfect rotation).

Now let’s look at what I had posted about bosses:

Wing 1 –
VG – Moa or TW, usually Moa especially when I’m tanking
Gorse – Moa, keeping up perfect rotation is quite easy so TW is not needed
Sabatha – TW – TW far ourscales Moa as far as Knuckles breakbar versus damage loss goes, no Moa

Wing 2 –
Sloth – Moa
Trio – TW – both work but the breakbars on Trio are not important and not big, TW again wins easy due to the nature of not stacking in this fight
Matthias – Moa

Wing 3
Escort – TW – no breakbar, no Moa
KC – Moa
Xera – Moa

Wing 4
Cairn – TW – no breakbar, no Moa
Mursaat – TW – no breakbar, no Moa
Samarog – Moa or TW, usually Moa
Deimos – TW - should have added I usually tank Deimos, but when every team I’ve been here with manages to break Sauls breakbar in the time it takes me to activate Moa, TW is a viable replacement even as utility mesmer

Asgard Ragna.8165:

I’m kinda shocked how many people here don’t understand the value of the moa signet.

Yes be shocked as much as you like, but you are putting words in peoples mouths which were not said that way.

Kingsdavid.3598:

So as I (not you angry guy/girl on the keybord preparing to write and angry comment) see it the Mastery system is a failure. I am talking about the system itself and not the masteries themself.

Not everyone who disagrees with you (and there are enough reasons to disagree) is mad or angry, they simply have a different opinion.

Kingsdavid.3598:

First, remove the experience bar and leveling system (Time Wall) from the Mastery system. Make the masteries only a point system. Make it a fix number for unlocking every new Mastery skill (not that the first cost 3 then the second cost 5 etc, all of them cost 3 Mastery points).

So that people can hit max mastery level 1 day after the content got added? Thanks pass. See all those threads from people complaining about lacking mastery points? Imagine how big the outcray were if all those threads came up at once? The internet would explode. A minor timegate in form of experience is fine, if only to not make people feel required to constantly grind mastery points.

If at all, they should globalize mastery points and not split them between content to give people more flexibility.

Kingsdavid.3598:

And most importantly, make it a character based system and not account bound system (no need for account based once you remove the Time Wall from the picture).

I have 22 characters, you do not. See how this could become a problem? The current system scales to an infinite amount (well 69 or 70 max since that’s the cap on characters per account) of characters, your idea does not. So again, you are asking for an inferior idea to get implemented.

Kingsdavid.3598:

After playing Zelda Breath of the Wild, a Role Playing Game with not level and expirance system, it open my eye.

Come back when you’ve spent 3, 5 or 10 thousand hours playing BotW, oh wait, it’s a single player game. Notice the difference?

Kingsdavid.3598:

If you think of it the more expansion GW2 will keep doing the more time it will take to all of them. If someone want to join the game in the next expansion or the one after that, you really think he will spend all this time to unlock all the new masteries and the old ones?.0 NO, He will say kitten IT I AM NOT DOING THIS kitten this will take me ages, and go play other game. And then Anet will sell a new expansion with all the previous masteries unlocked which ruin the game even more

First off, no one says HoT masteries will be required for the next expansion. Second you are completely exagerating how long it takes to complete masteries, especially with more and more experience rewards from story missions. Most people were mastery caped within 3-6 days after the expansion hit. If a hardcore gamer can hit max mastery in that time, a casual gamer can do so within a reasonable timeframe. This was before they started adding massive experience boosts left and right.

Kingsdavid.3598:

My reasoning for making it a the mastery system a charactrer base and not a account base is that the mastery system will keep feeling fresh even after you done them for the first time. Not making it a chore you must complete and never see or think of it again.

Flawed reasoning. It would make every character feel fresh (well the first 2-3 maybe) if there were choice or difference between characters. The way the system is implemented now all it does is take away something from future characters if it were changed to character based. I highly doubt this is “fun” to people who play multiple characters.

What you see as a chore, I found super fun since no matter which of my characters I played I could work towards my next mastery at my own pace.

Massive problem with legendary armor - https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Massive-problem-with-legendary-armor/first#post6578112

Gargantuan issue with Guild Halls - https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Gargantuan-issue-with-Guild-Halls

What’s next?: “Huge imbalance in sPvP map rotation, lacking pure underwater map!”

I feel you, you are part of the very very very small community of underwater fetishists and the game has not delivered on this game type. Unfortunately I doubt it’s on arenanets radar.

zealex.9410:

tbh the balance in the arena should be that of wvw or pvp. Since some classes are plain broken in player v player in the gh. And the arena was meants for group fights or duels so yeah pve balance working there is bad.

This suggestion makes the most sense. Ideally arenanet could add a NPC who can toggle the rule set used for the arena area. For that to become viable ressource wise though they would have to increase interest in GvG or group pvp content.

Maybe add a GvG mode to spvp so that people don’t have to self organize these events. Getting off topic though.

Yes, yes they are OP.

My suggestion: go play one.

Once you’ve been countered while playing thief, make sure to message the person who killed you and ask for advice which hacks he was running in order to beat you.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

You need to distinguish between training raids, static groups, and PUGs. The most important thing is learning the mechanics, not the build or the gear.

1: How Flexible are raids with regards to deviating away from the metabuilds?

• Training: harder for commanders if there’s deviation, but doable.
• Statics: no problem; just make sure there’s synergy
• PUGs: problematic — commanders want to find a group likely to success, so they hate the idea of deviations.

2. How important is the profession composition of the party?

• Training: the ‘meta’ for training is different for that of statics and again, make your life easier on your commander by sticking to the plan.
• Statics: no problem; just make sure there’s synergy
• PUGs: problematic — commanders want to find a group likely to success, so they hate the idea of deviations.

3. Finally can you complete the raid with less than 10?

• Training: silly to try, in my opinion.
• Statics: no problem; just make sure there’s synergy
• PUGs: problematic — commanders want to find a group likely to success, so they hate the idea of deviations. (you see the pattern?)

This! So much this, I love it.

Most fights are not heavy on the dps check, hence if people know how to avoid dying you usually have a lot of spare time to finish the encounter. It’s also a reason why 2 heal druids works on many encounters for less experienced groups where usually most static groups bring only 1.

For some fights even the enrage timer is not bad IF people know what to do, say for example half your dps decides to run head first into a ghost in the Matthias fight leaving you stranded with only 5 people going 2 minutes overtime…. ^^

The one to Rule.2593:

fishball.7204:

They said 150 insights to make the precursor into legendary armor. They never said how many insights to make additional sets of precursors and it could’ve been 10000 magnetite shards which is worse.

There is no bait and switch and if you got baited it means you can’t read.

Oh please, it was heavily implied it would be this way for all the armor. Nice white knighting though

Please provide a link which supports your argument. Until then, don’t call out people on white knighting when you’ve not even established your assumption could be in any way correct.

I was never under the impression that arenanet implied future armors would also cost 150 LI. As a matter of fact, I was already worried how expensive they would make the precursors because the entire armor was quite cheap gold wise.

The one to Rule.2593:

Talindra.4958:

YES I am ok with 300 li for second set and so on. 25 li for an insignia per piece. I am into my third piece of second set (due to provisional token time gated for further pieces). it has to be this way or raid will die in a few months time.

I mean if you’re okay being lied to, fine by me, but I’m not. There are also other reasons people raid and constant newcomers, it won’t die regardless

You’re angry because the armor will take longer for you to get than you expected, which is understandable. Now stop shifting blame and pretending it’s due to other reasons. If you had enough tokens now you would not have cared about the 300 LI cost.

Abelisk.4527:

That’s the thing. You dodge shatter number one. You take Scepter 3. You dodge shatter two. Then three. Then you get hit from torment from scepter 2. Then you get inmobilized, shattered, recovering.

Eventually you run out of dodges and these illusions keep harassing you because you can’t outrun them. With chronophantasma and illusionary reversion this is pretty ridiculous.

Swiftness isn’t too bad honestly, as it actually allows counterplay. Your typical condi mesmer has a countless stream of shatters at your doorstep. This is coming from someone who’s extensively played Sword/Torch + Scepter/Shield condi mes. I feel bad for people I duel =/

And exactly how many other classes are you counter playing in the exact same way? Maybe Necromancer and Engineer by not fighting in their pet range.

If you allow a mesmer to get up 3-4 sets of illusions and phantasms without applying pressure and/or focusing some of his illusions and phantasms if need be, you deserve to die.

The entire scepter rotation mentioned can be summed up by:“You didn’t bring condi cleanse.”

Reaper.5698:

thanks for the feedback. looks like its down to guard or ranger. When I left over a year and a half ago it felt like you couldn’t run high level fractals w/o a guard. Does this still hold true or have druids filled that role?

Fractals have changed a lot and are in general easier than in the past, even the very high level ones.

While there are meta comps, basically any combo of 5 characters can run them and people are less uptight about group comp currently.

Rednik.3809:

I’m not going to bring up “4 wings 2 fractals 0 dungeons” topic again, because okay, maybe raid team had astonishingly high performance, and other teams took a yearly vacations, along with company supervisors.

Again, it’s not 2 fractals…

Since then, the Fractals have seen the addition of two new fractals (Chaos Isles and Nightmare) and numerous quality-of-life changes in order to make them more engaging. Major highlights include the streamlining of Agony infusions, and reworks to the Cliffside, Swampland, Snowblind and Thaumanova Reactor fractals.

- https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractals_of_the_Mists

It’s at least 6 fractals because those redesigned fractals are completely reworked mechanic wise (and layout too in some cases). I just don’t understand how you can keep coming with the same mantra when you are factually plain wrong and have been pointed out on the fact that you are wrong.

That’s not counting all the changes to the fractal entrance area, the changes to agony resistance (which likely required coding changes accross the board) and all the other things that got added to fractals with reward revamps, etc.

Blaeys.3102:

TexZero.7910:

That’s your claim that you feel an easy mode wouldn’t diminish raid content. Personally i don’t buy it. I’ve seen first hand what can happen when you have to design and test variable levels of content. Ultimately it drags down the quality and potential complexity. Whether or not Anet is able to find a decent solution or not is also up in the air.

I disagree with your logic here. First, I have also seen what other games have done first hand and argue that, done correctly, the system works. However, we can argue this one until the end of time – it is extremely subjective with anecdotal evidence to support both sides of an argument.

True, yet you are already quantifying your respons which shows that you are well aware that the solution of adding multiple difficulties has not gone over well in other MMOs.

Which in turn means the effort to implement it in a proper way is more than just some easy number changes here and there running against the argument it can be done easily.

My guess is they will stick to having challenge motes and just keep the fights tuned down slightly. How well this works out and how the addition of more raid wings affects longevity only time will tell. I’m just happy the entire disscussion has died down a bit with some people deciding that they dislike the legendary armor look (and thus not caring), and others giving raids a try. In both cases it’s less people theorycrafting in circles on the forum.

HollowDean.5134:

Rasimir.6239:

HollowDean.5134:

I really hate doing achievements, it ruins the game for me.

Could you explain what you mean by this? Achievments by themselves aren’t really a specific activity but just this game’s method of listing stuff you’ve done in game. Whether it’s reaching a certain character level, exploring a certain area, taking part in a specific event, channeling a mastery insight, finishing a step in the story, or finding a bunch of knicknacks (tied together through a collection), the achievement panel really only gives you (and the game) a way to track whether you’ve “been there, done that” or not. The activities that are tracked through achievements are as varied as anything you can do in game.

Have you played all the stories available (personal, HoT, living world season 2+3)? Explored the map and taken part in events you come across? Explored the maps for hidden items and places? If you don’t want the guidance of the achievement log to get hints as to where mastery points are located, going out into the world of Tyria really is the only way to do it .

Most importantly: just do whatever you enjoy. I rarely check the achievement log, and achievements still get done more often than not, without me worrying about them at all. This game is great that way, that you get most of what’s available without the need to farm for anything specifically.

I loved first season of LS, then came S2 and I did that as well, but I only did it once. If I go to my achiev panel and look at season 2 LS, I see 8 Tyria MP I can get, but I need to complete all achievements. That’s so stupid to me. I feel forced to do it if I want those points.
Under HoT 4 acts (story), again, bunch of achievements for only 4 points. I know each HoT map also has bunch of achievement, and I’ve done some of them, but not all of them.

Tyria mastery points are a bit tighter to get, mostly because they got added retroactively.

HoT mastery points are all over the place. Someone already linked to the wiki and there is tons of guides out there which help with locating the easy mastery points. Some are as easy as running up to them and collecting them via channel or chest opening, others require minimum effort in easy adventures (note that the HoT adventures range from “easy, I did it first try” to “this is impossible”).

cptaylor.2670:

So, knowing what you know now, what would be your personal theory on the next episode. Ranging from plot points to map location.

Currently open plot points which might show up in the last episode (off the top of my head):

- Rytlock getting recalled
- Braham doing his thing
- the humand gods returning to Tyria
- Aurene and her developement

I think one of the next big temporary problems we will be running into (and which has been heavily hinted at) is the devotion humans are going to show their gods. Kasmeer abandoning us mid scenario, the idle chatter of human soldiers in the new map all point towards a potential rift between what the 4 other races would want to do versus what a majority of humans wants to do. This might function similar to Mordremoth taking hold of a big part of the Sylvari forces pre HoT.

My guess is we might have to resolve this issue before we get to move on towards the main objective.

Acnologia.6934:

Axe/hammer ls a combo that can only be used by warriors if i am not wrong.

and revenant. Both not in the pve meta.

Reaper.5698:

Looking to play a primary damage build with decent support options. I currently have a fully ascended necromancer and guardian and I am wondering if I should change classes for HoT. I started leveling ranger/elementalist to get back in the grove of things but I am struggling to choose a class. I have Frostfang as well as The Colossus in my bags and would like to be able to use those. Are any meta’s currently using axe/hammer? Thanks for the feedback. As a side note, I would like to get into WvW more as well as raiding.

Maybe give ranger a try (which you’vce already started) since it provides a very solid condition damage build (using axe mainhand) and is very sought after for druid support.

Otherwise Hammer guardian provides one of the simplest rotations (only autoattack) with decent dps.

Labjax.2465:

I don’t think I conveyed myself clearly. It was not my intention to criticize those who seek difficult-to-attain items. I was commenting on status symbols and how it is unfulfilling to seek a status symbol, since it is ultimately just a symbol and doesn’t fulfill one’s needs. I was not referring to the process of completing a goal, which can fulfill one’s need for fun and recreation.

The difference in what I’m saying is in what the reason is for which one does the activity. If someone completes a collection for the fun of achieving a goal that is different from completing a collection to gain a status symbol; when completing a goal purely for the status symbol, the person is unlikely to get any satisfaction out of the process or the results and may come away upset that it didn’t provide the satisfaction they thought it would. When completing a goal for the fun of the process, the person will be getting satisfaction as they go along and then get a sense of satisfaction when they are finished, before moving onto another goal or something else in their life.

I have a question though because it seems to me that you’re saying you are in it for the goal completion. If there was no reward, would you still try to complete them?

You keep missunderstanding, some people enjoy achieving or gaining a status symbol (not only ingame by the way, ever notice how all those million- , biollionaers compete about who has the biggest yacht? Or car, or anything for that matter. It;s not only the super rich by the way). Others enjoy the process they take to achieve such symbol. Big parts of live are status symbols bye the way. How else would you explain expensive sport cars. Yet those who own them take pleasure in owning them.

Only because you do not place value on such items does not mean others are wrong about chosing to do so. This entire game is an absolute waste of time unless you get enjoyment out of it. To argue that other peoples enjoyment is less correct than your own is insane.

Arenanet provides a canvas with different colors (aka different things people can do and achieve). How you use those colors and which colors you use is up to each individual to decide.

As far as myself, I stick to things I mostly enjoy. Some of which provide bigger rewards, others fewer. I take breaks when I’ve had my share of GW2 and come back weeks or months later when I feel like it. Would I do jumping puzzles if there were no achievement points associated? Sure. Would I do dailies if there were no achievement points associated, probably not.

Ashantara.8731:

@OP: +1, I couldn’t agree more to every single thing you wrote (except that I kind of like the map, it has grown on me)… but had it been me voicing my opinion like that, you could be sure the post would have been deleted in no time.

P.S. LOL @ “deus ex machina”, best pun so far describing this monstrosity!

Cyninja.2954:

Persoanlly I love the new direction the story has taken (in my opinion away from the dragon threat towards a more GW1 esque scenario

It would have been great, had it been done differently. The OP is right to call it sloppy/“brainless” writing.

That’s the problem with writing, if some enjoy it or not is subjective. Especially when it’s constricted by format.

It’s silly to argue over subjective things though. You agree with the OP, others (like myself) do not. No amount of arguing is going to change someones mind on this subjective matter.

If they approach balance this 2nd elite specialisation the way they did the first, most classes will get a similar amount of new skills and mechanics.

Since many classes get a new 1 hand weapon with some exception getting 2 hand, it seems highly unlikely that elementalist with their inherent higher skills per weapon would get a main AND offhand weapon.

Your rational behind sword being melee is flawed. There is enough examples of “melee” weapons having range on multiple characters (mesmer – greatsword, necromancer axe, ranger axe, etc.)

In the end it will be up to arenanet to decide (which they already have by the way) which weapon to give each class. No matter of arguing or complaining at this point in time will change that.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

what sort of sickens me in this whole situation is that seemingly everyone who bothers to write in this forum does not pay even remotely enougth attention to actuall story unfolding only to then jump to bashing it because something didn’t play out the way they expected and nearly no one actually putting an effort to try to decipher writer’s intentions about meaning of all of this…..

This.

The amount of missunderstanding and complaining can most often be attributed to people not knowing the most basic lore of GW. I will add though that this is in part also arenanets fault since not every player has played GW1 or been involved in its story throughout the entire process.

Persoanlly I love the new direction the story has taken (in my opinion away from the dragon threat towards a more GW1 esque scenario where the gods and the mysts become more important). I understand how some newer players might feel about the story resolution and I wish arenanet had placed some more pointers here and there (I’m still advocating some kind of lore book which players should be able to flip through and read up on GW lore ingame without having to run ti the wiki every 5 minutes).

I think it’s very clear that arenanet are trying to build more and more bridges between GW2 and 1 lore and story wise, which I am all for.

Labjax.2465:

Vayne.8563:

Dindin.2378:

To expand on my post, progression is not the only thing lacking from the game. There is no rarity. Everything is obtainable and crafting is not the same as in other MMORPG’s. There is no excitement when killing a mob to drop a really unique item. Yes you can drop precursors, but I do not think these are enough. Maybe its tied to the lack of progression. If Legendary Weapons would REALLY be Legendary I would understand. But they are not, everybody is walking around with them. They have mediocre stats and do not make you all that powerful. There is no prestige or status left anymore with having one.

Boy am I glad I don’t play this game for status. There are skins that very very few people have btw.

99% of the players of the game probably don’t have pinnacle weapons. I have them and almost never use them. Because I just want my characters to look cool. I don’t need status to enjoy the game.

The status situation is what I dislike most about the addition of raids to the game. I thought the game was a better game before legendary armor became the new status symbol.

I would like to celebrate on this rare occasion that I agree with you completely on this one. Status symbols don’t fulfill people in my experience, but people nonetheless seek them as an attempt to fulfill unmet needs and then they don’t get what they want out of it. But they are a great way to prey on peoples’ unmet needs, whether knowingly or unintentionally.

And for those who want to fulfill their need for creativity with a greater quantity of options, the focus on status makes options more inaccessible, making it more difficult to fulfill that need for creativity through this game. That is just one example I know from my experiences where it can detract from the fulfillment of peoples’ needs rather than adding to it.

I have to disagree. Exchange the word “status” with “gear treadmill” and “level treadmill” in your post and you could say the exact same thing about MMOs that keep increasing the level or gear cap (which most other MMOs do). Yet many people crave exactly this kind of progress because they enjoy it.

Fact is, the game is supposed to be fun and if people enjoy aiming for something or want to chase after some arbitrary carrot, if they have fun while doing so they are doing it right. This has nothing to do with some kind of unfullfilled “need”.

The big difference is, GW2 aims to offer players different types of goals to aim for without seting up the requirement to keep playing just to maintain a staus quo equipment wise. This is the core point which most enjoy. Having the developers add different arbitrary goals is fine. As is, skins are optional and if you do not enjoy hunting for them because you do not enjoy the process that’s fine. Don’t look down on people enjoying the collection process only because you approach the game differently though.

Wing 1 –
VG – Moa or TW, usually Moa especially when I’m tanking
Gorse – Moa, keeping up perfect rotation is quite easy so TW is not needed
Sabatha – TW

Wing 2 –
Sloth – Moa
Trio – TW
Matthias – Moa

Wing 3
Escort – TW
KC – Moa
Xera – Moa

Wing 4
Cairn – TW
Mursaat – TW
Samarog – Moa or TW, usually Moa
Deimos – TW

This is the setup I run when raiding. Moa helps if your team members are sleeping on cc, the breakbar is big and/or important like on Matthias or when basic rotation is very easy.

TW helps keeping quickness up for fights were perfect stacking is not that easy, getting perfect rotation is difficult. Yes it is useless IF you have pefect rotation and play, in all other scenarios it’s up to 40s of quickness (with 100% boon duration) to bridge those gaps which happen.

GW is a small dps increase and theoretically useful if you are nearing perfect rotations and perfect team play. I wouldn’t recommend it in pugs and even with fixed raid teams I’d not recommend it until you are reaching those permanent 90%+ quickness uptimes on all fights.

Persoanlly I’m at 85-90% quickness+alacrity uptime on most fights without TW (with a low 70-75% on Sloth) and 90%+ on fights were I bring TW. There is room for improvement but it’s good enough for my group.

My rationale is that playtime is one of the most objective ways to compare effort in a video game. I’ve tried to point out that arenanet have balanced armor around less direct cost (aka gold) and via more time gating. It’s balanced, just not in a way you like.

insanemaniac.2456:

please, show me some reasonable calcs for your time factor. as far as im aware, we can make around 30-40g/hour in the best farm currently, and thats excluding playing the tp which has even better returns. so farming an armor set would take what 15 hours? compared to 12 weeks for 150 li? how many orders of magnitude difference is that again?

Yes and those 12 weeks are about 25 hours (let’s make it 30-40)worth of raids for most groups that do a full clear. Unless we add time for ineffciency in which case we could subtract some time from the gold per hour farm.

15 to 40 hours is what, 0 orders of magnitutde worth of playtime?
Now let’s look at how long it takes to get a legendary weapon and compare its stat advantage versus a full set of armor….

insanemaniac.2456:

Cyninja.2954:

insanemaniac.2456:

Cyninja.2954:

insanemaniac.2456:

legendary insights and provisioner tokens are the grindiest things in this game by an order of magnitude. its ironic that anet joked about swinging your sword over and over and added these 2 systems into the game.

unfortunately, since they’re attached to acquirable legendary items, the window of opportunity to change is probably gone. and anet rejected the argument that the grind is ridiculous a year ago (I tried back then).

sucks.

Actually they are the most time gated, not grindiest. There is a difference here.

Provisioner tokens and LI have daily/weekly time gates but are not hard to aquire time wise (assuming you do raids for LI).

If they were grindy you’d have to spend way more time on them. Personally I prefer time gates over grind. Why? Because I’m mature (literally talking about my age here) enough to wait for stuff I want, something lost on many players nowadays.

when a time gate is drawn out to an order of magnitude more than anything comparable, it is a grind. it becomes unfun and tedious and “gotta do it yet again”.

i am offended that you seek to imply i am immature and you are not simply for complaining when there is a mathematical basis for this complaint: if you look at the difference in expense between ascended and other legendary items, its about 1 order of magnitude. there are ~2 orders of magnitude difference in these 2 time gates versus other ascended time gates, and ~1 order difference compared to other legendaries.

this is what guild wars 2 was advertised to shy away from.

please also note that im not sure it should be nerfed now that its already out. showing that maturity and deliberation you so desire.

And in your mathematical basis you have also considered the difference in gold cost as well as account bound items?

I don’t think you have. All you did was focus on the time gate. Let’s look at gold cost for example:

- 1 ascended weapon costs about 50 – 100 gold
- cheapest legendaries start at 2k gold

Now let’s look at armor:

- 1 full set of ascended armor costs crafted easy over 500 – 700 gold the cheapest coming from weeks of farming fractals (and not guaranteed with a cost of close to 200 gold or more for switching to desired stats on top of the time gate)
- 1 full set legendary armor costs about 2k – 3k gold

Let’s look at Mystic clovers required:

- 1 legendary weapon = 77 Mystic Clovers
- 1 full set of armor = 90 Mystic Clovers

Don’t throw around words like mathematical unless you either make clear what your basis is, or account for all variables please.

The mature comment was not directed at you but was ment as a general statement which many more mature gamers might agree with. It does say a lot about you though that you thought it was aimed at you.

an ascended weapon costing ~100g vs a legendary costing ~2k is 1 order of magnitude.

an ascended armor set costing ~500g vs legendary costing ~3k is 1 order of magnitude.

neither is anywhere the kitten near 2 orders lol.

I never said they were, but let’s be a bit more eaxct please since you are conveniently leaving out that weapons are close to a magnitutde of 1.1 and armor at 0.6. Now factor in for time to farm that gold difference versus time to farm the time gated materials and you’ll realise that armors are balanced time commitment wise.

insanemaniac.2456:

Cyninja.2954:

insanemaniac.2456:

legendary insights and provisioner tokens are the grindiest things in this game by an order of magnitude. its ironic that anet joked about swinging your sword over and over and added these 2 systems into the game.

unfortunately, since they’re attached to acquirable legendary items, the window of opportunity to change is probably gone. and anet rejected the argument that the grind is ridiculous a year ago (I tried back then).

sucks.

Actually they are the most time gated, not grindiest. There is a difference here.

Provisioner tokens and LI have daily/weekly time gates but are not hard to aquire time wise (assuming you do raids for LI).

If they were grindy you’d have to spend way more time on them. Personally I prefer time gates over grind. Why? Because I’m mature (literally talking about my age here) enough to wait for stuff I want, something lost on many players nowadays.

when a time gate is drawn out to an order of magnitude more than anything comparable, it is a grind. it becomes unfun and tedious and “gotta do it yet again”.

i am offended that you seek to imply i am immature and you are not simply for complaining when there is a mathematical basis for this complaint: if you look at the difference in expense between ascended and other legendary items, its about 1 order of magnitude. there are ~2 orders of magnitude difference in these 2 time gates versus other ascended time gates, and ~1 order difference compared to other legendaries.

this is what guild wars 2 was advertised to shy away from.

please also note that im not sure it should be nerfed now that its already out. showing that maturity and deliberation you so desire.

And in your mathematical basis you have also considered the difference in gold cost as well as account bound items?

I don’t think you have. All you did was focus on the time gate. Let’s look at gold cost for example:

- 1 ascended weapon costs about 50 – 100 gold
- cheapest legendaries start at 2k gold

Now let’s look at armor:

- 1 full set of ascended armor costs crafted easy over 500 – 700 gold the cheapest coming from weeks of farming fractals (and not guaranteed with a cost of close to 200 gold or more for switching to desired stats on top of the time gate)
- 1 full set legendary armor costs about 2k – 3k gold

Let’s look at Mystic clovers required:

- 1 legendary weapon = 77 Mystic Clovers
- 1 full set of armor = 90 Mystic Clovers

Don’t throw around words like mathematical unless you either make clear what your basis is, or account for all variables please.

The mature comment was not directed at you but was ment as a general statement which many more aged (edited from mature to avoide confusion) gamers might agree with. It does say a lot about you though that you thought it was aimed at you.

insanemaniac.2456:

legendary insights and provisioner tokens are the grindiest things in this game by an order of magnitude. its ironic that anet joked about swinging your sword over and over and added these 2 systems into the game.

unfortunately, since they’re attached to acquirable legendary items, the window of opportunity to change is probably gone. and anet rejected the argument that the grind is ridiculous a year ago (I tried back then).

sucks.

Actually they are the most time gated, not grindiest. There is a difference here.

Provisioner tokens and LI have daily/weekly time gates but are not hard to aquire time wise (assuming you do raids for LI).

If they were grindy you’d have to spend way more time on them. Personally I prefer time gates over grind. Why? Because I’m mature (literally talking about my age here) enough to wait for stuff I want, something lost on many players nowadays.

Shortage.5427:

In any other game weapons have a name. But in Guild Wars 2 they mean nothing. Just another skin. With enough cash you can get enough gems to buy gold for everything you need.

So no need to come up with your memes “Muh legendary is hard”.
The game is on decline, after failing at China NCsoft have completly abandoned GW2/Anet from expanding further to NK and JP.

This game had a good concept, but didn’t deliver.

Yep, but you’re still barking up the wrong tree.

Arenanet was very clear on what GW2 would be. Coming now and complaining and asking for them to change one of the very core aspects of their game only because YOU want it that way will accomplish nothing.

From a pure business perspective, why should arenanet risk alienating a big part of their playersbase only to accomodate you?

Cevni.2049:

Amaimon.7823:

The last story even mocked us by saying “you’ll die if you touch the water” so I wouldn’t be too worried about the breather for the coming 25 years

As a dedicated underwater WvW roamer, having my breather be futureproof for any coming statcombos and/or balance changes would have been a massive boon, I already had to deal with no underwater in the guild arena, which was a complete spit in the face of the active underwater GvG community.

I’ll be brutaly honest, the very big majority of players dislikes underwater combat. I’m afraid you might have to get ready to wait a very long time until this gets addressed (if at all) and I doubt many will share your plight.

Zlater.6789:

There is a lot more to say about this then what I will say, but this would allow for us to:
-Farm the LIs

How does the ability to farm the LI keep it’s prestige? All this would do is have people who are interested in the legendary armor boringly chain grind out of the LI rewarding content and maybe even burnout on the game.

Zlater.6789:

-Give the Devs more control over acquisition

This is a direct contradiction to your first point. If LI are farmable the devs lose the ability and control over LI aquisition.

Zlater.6789:

-Incentivise players to go for legendary armour and second sets

The sets are incentive enough and to be honest, the raids and the fun they provide should be further incentive. If you have to create incentive via adding repetative grind, you are doing it wrong.

Zlater.6789:

-Remove LI’s from latter wings and open opportunities for the developers to add new rewards.

More unique raid rewards, yes I’m sure that will be greatly appreciated by the non-raiding crowd.

Most regular raiders are at 400+ LI. Most raiders who started late are at 100-200 LI. The first set takes 150 LI to make since the precursors are free with the collection. Yes, if you just start now and want all 3 sets it will take a while to get them all. No 3 full sets of legendary armor should not be available within 1 or 2 months.

LI aquisition is fine and will increase if/when they add more raid wings. Until then, get your first set and stop worrying about something like 3 legendary sets when you haven’t even started on the first one.

Shortage.5427:

After 1.600 hours into the game, getting full ascended builds on ever char, i find myself having no motivation to play any further.

Congratulations, you now have almost half my played time and about 1/7th to 1/8th of what most serious GW2 gamers have (with many having over 10,000 hours played).

Shortage.5427:

So the game is plagued by casuals who want to downgrade this game to a fashion contest. This actually quiet sad.

You seem not to research the games you play. The no gear progression after the initial setup was a central unique selling proposition of GW2 much the same way as it was in GW1. It was communicated very clearly that there would be no horizontal gear progression.

It is also one of the reasons why many people call GW2 endgame fashion wars. Sorry you missed this. Next time, instead of getting insulting, maybe get an overview of what game you are actually playing. You are in luck though, there is a lot of other MMOs where you can happily chase the carrot as long as you want and never run out of chase.

theodor.3480:

What if i go for full commanders? Both armor and trinkets with leadership runes and zerk weapons? Won’t that basicaly work well as a compromise across open world/fracs? I don’t think i’ll touch wvw with mesmer except maybe for eotm, but that’s something else.

Yes that would work, I’d advice against full commanders though since the toughness does become disadvantage eventually if everything starts focusing you (toughness works as a tank mechanic which draws enemy agro/attention in many areas). Full armor commanders rest berserker works very well. Thena gain, open world full commanders would make you very very durable (maybe only beat by Minstrel).

I’ve made slight adjustments to your build and added some more meta traits to run:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhEQNAseRncfCFohlfC+fCEgilUj6cIaiqjcAKhAoeZr2rF-TRCBQB5RfACV/5MKBBwpAALKz63+D6TDTAeCAYUpBpAiYmF-e

Feel free to keep all trinkets berserker, I just added the 2 commander rings for the added boon duration but berserker is fine on those slots and easier to get.

The benefit here is you could take this set out to wvw and be mostly fine.

Irbis.4932:

Angel.6085:

This would make it so non-expansion players are at a disadvantage.

Elite specs say hello

Yet still some vanilla builds work out fine.

How does 1 ascpect being in favor of the expansion justify an even bigger step in that direction?

That’s like saying:“Oh I broke my arm, better break my second arm too because it’ll be the same no matter if I have 1 or 2 broken arms.” The difference is huge though. Have you ever tried to wipe with 2 broken arms?

theodor.3480:

Well i intend to use it mostly for PvE, open world and maybe some fracs, but that’s a big maybe.

Yes it would work for that. Might I suggest though you move away from Marauder and switch to a combination of Berserker or Assassins (for armor) and Valkyrie or Knights (for trinkets) if you want survival?

That way you can get a 2nd pair of trinkets with other stats to adapt to other game modes like fractals or even wvw while not running Marauder armor. As mesmer you really want to be using Berserkers or Commanders as your first set (or potentially Trailblazer for wvw).

Yes I know, total stats of Marauder is higher than Berserker and it’s one of those new shiny HoT sets, but it’s not needed on mesmer. You already have a medium hitpoint pool and massive amounts of distortion, evade, blocks and dodges (more than any other class). As far as survival goes, toughness in open world would make a bigger difference than some mroe vitality.

EDIT: this goes for just about all classes and can be viewd as general advice. The first ascended armor should be as close to maximum useful as possible. Stat changes should be done via trinkets since those are thousand time easier to come by and cheaper than getting a new set of armor. Unless you plan spending multiple hundreds of gold strait off the bat on multiple sets.

What is the main aim of this build?

Is it a jack-of-all build for minimal switching of gear for all game modes? It looks very much like that.

WvW
If it’s a wvw build you’ll lack the toughness which condition builds bring. For a power wvw build it might work for slight poking but lacks support and utility skills.

Marauder is a nice set for guardians or warriors, not so much mesmers. You’re already at the very bottom of the damage food chain (and I mean very bottom). Might as well take Commanders if you want to run power wvw.

PvE
Leadership runes scream pve build, but you are all over the place here. You have no boon duration worth mentioning, some of your traits require replacement pve wise (Illusionary Reversion over Improved Alacrity, no no no), (Furios Interruption over Blurred Inscriptions?). Greatsword is not a pve weapon for group content. You run dueling with Harmonious Mantras and all you bring is 1 mantra.

I’d recommend you take a look at some popular builds and read up why different traits are picked and for what builds, then decide for what you want to make a build.

Open world
As far as open world survival or open world events, just about everything works here. Marauder will definately work nicely in keeping you alive, but so would full commanders or trailblazer.

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

But hey let’s continue using faulty analogies to push our own agenda’s okay ?

I’m just using one of the arguments that are most commonly brought up by raiders (not you, actually, but you are an exception here, not the rule). The argument being that if the rewards will be available through other means, it might significantly hurt raid population, due to people going for those rewards elsewhere.

So, you are saying that this argument is bunk, and i can safely ignore it next time someone will bring it up?

You keep repeating this but I honestly have not seen this argument made or at least not made very often. The most arguments revolve around raid difficulty, not rewards.

The most one could argue is that a big part of the raiding crowd is against senseless dumbing down of content to appease people who want easier access to rewards, but asking for a status quo to remain is not the same as denying others rewards. Most raiders I’d wager wouldn’t care for other means to get legendary armor since it would make the process of gaining additional legendary armor more interesting.

So I have to disagree that this argument is being brought up commonly by raiders. You are the only one I’ve been seeing bringing this topic up as an argument from raiders.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

As stated above, I don’t believe you can find Season 3 Episodes in the Gem Store; only for purchase via the Story Journal.

In other words, should someone open the Gem Store searching for the Season 3 Episodes to purchase, they would not find them there; only in the Story Journal.

Yeah this I am unsure off since obviously I have them unlocked. I added the story journal just in case. It might well be that we won’t see Season 3 in the store until they are complete and put up with a discount. The story journal will work though.

Living World Season 1 is not avaialable.

Living World Season 2 is up in the gem store for 200 gems per episode (8 episode total) (or 1,280 gems for the complete pack) or purchasable straight from the story menu.

Living World Season 3, episode 1 – 4 are up in the gem store or straight from the story menu at 200 gems each. Episode 5 unlocks automatically currently since it’s the newest one and will be available to you once you log in.

That being said, take your time, enjoy the game. Try out some of the different classes. Don’t skip the story, it’s quite engaging the first time around.

That being said, if you are coming from more traditional MMOs realise that GW2 has active dodge mechanics. You need to read your enemys attacks and dodge them (or simply not stand in range). If you start trading blows with enemys you will soon lie head first in the grass.

Feel free to ask people in map chat (/m). Especially in the starter areas you’re likely to get someone to answer. Try to socialize and if you happen to find some friendly individuals, feel free to join their guild (it costs nothing, you can be in up to 5 guilds and you can leave any time you want).

What Ardid said is sound advice. Here is a general overview of how the story is structured:

1.) Personal Story
This is the story you start out with. The choices you make during character creation will change which story you get for the beginning 20 levels (story steps are marked via green markers and pointers). There is no right or wrong, just pick stuff you think fits your character. Every 10 levels the story continues. There are branching paths and you get to make choices which will affect how the story plays out. It all leads towards the same end though.

2.) Living World Season 1 – not avaialable any longer.
These were timelimited events released during the beginning of GW2. You currently can only watch a short synopsis of what transpired.

3.) Living World Season 2 (Episodes 1 – 8 ) – continues the story post Season 1.
These are 8 purchasable upgrades costing 200 gems each. They lead right up to the beginning of Heart of Thorns. They are of way higher quality than the original personal story. Starting with LWS2 story steps are replayable and in general come with a multitude of challenges and rewards.

4.) Heart of Thorns –
the first expansion story which starts right where Living World Season 2 left off. You will have this unlocked once you reach level 80 no matter if you have Living World Season 2 or not or if you have finished the original story.

5.) Living World Season 3 (Episodes 1 – 6) –
We are currently in Episode 5 of Season 3 and you will have this one unlocked free of charge the moment you log in (since it’s the currently active story step it unlocks for everyone who logs in for free). Episodes 1 – 4 cost 200 gems each same as LWS2 steps. They continue the story post HoT and towards a future expansion which can be expected end of the year.

If you don’t want spoilers you’ll hve to finish LWS2 first, then start HoT. You won’t be able to unlock gliding without startin HoT so it’s an either – or scenario.

Before you activate masteries you get spirit shards for each time you “level up” at level 80. This changes in that once you unlock masteries your earned experience goes towards different mastery tracks. Once a mastery track is full experience wise you can learn it via mastery points (which you get seperate for Tyria and HoT). You won’t be able to gain spirit shards for a long time though via leveling.

Gliding does help with jumping puzzles in Tyria, but it was never required before and is not required now. I’d say finish the story, move on to HoT and then go from there.

Loved it.

Map is gorgeous.

Would have loved 3 story steps (yeah I know it’s usually 2 but one can keep hoping).

Looking forward to Episode 6 and the expansion.

Uzunari.1964:

So just to sum it up. If you are not intersted in raids (or maybe you are) but you find the legendary armor tempting, well if you start from 0 on the LIs then you are gonna make in in freaking 12 weeks (If I am talking about something that will happen in 3 months long timespan I don’t even consider it a serious business!). It’s just a journey that most people are not willing to make.. (THREE FREAKING MONTHS!).

Actually no, it will very likely take you longer unless you assume you can start with raiding and go straight from 0 to all 4 wings cleared. A very unrealistic assumption.

Then again, arenanet was very open about LI requirements from the very beginning and the requirement of 150 LI was announced as far back as the first raid wing opening up.

Uzunari.1964:

So you spend the time doing basically “weekly’s” and you know what? You are not getting closer to getting the armor! Well unless you spend a lot of time outside of raid as well, you probably won’t have gold and materials to craft the armor yet. Do you know why? Because there is no synergy in between gifts and LIs! You do get magnetite shards for killing bosses but once again, do you think that they will draw you closer with gold or material requirements? Well you guessed wrong. You can purchase an ascended items you no longer need at this point (probably). Do you think you can sell them then? No.. You are literally getting rewarded with something that has no use for you.

A 4 wing clear will provide you with:
- around 50-60 liquid gold
- 150 magnetite shards (potentially more if you get minis as drops which you can exchange for more magnetite shards)
- quite a lot of loot bags
- potentially some ascended items and or ascended crafting items which are all worth multiple gold. If the ascended items are not needed you can salvage those for potentially more items to sell
- quite a few exotic items (I’d assume between 4-10. Going by my luck lately it’s closer to 10 but I’m making assumptions based on people with less luck)
- quite a few rare items (10+)

Uzunari.1964:

Could please someone from R&D tell me why:
- You can get only 13 LI’s a week?

When wing 1 came out the weekly LIs were 3. After wing 2 it was 6. After wing 3 it was 9 and now it’s 13 since wing 4 is live. What you are essentially complaining about is that they haven’t added enough raid wings completely forgetting that many of the people regularly raiding have spent over 6 months or more to get their LI together.

Uzunari.1964:

- You don’t get decent material rewards from doing Raids? (that would matter and draw you closer to getting legendary armor).

Untrue, see top.

Uzunari.1964:

- Are legendary insights account bound?

The chests from raid bosses can only be looted once a week, therefore an account can currently get at most 13 Legendary Insights per week. – https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_Insight

Yes they are.

Uzunari.1964:

- There is no trade ration in between Legendary insights and Magnetite shards?

Most regular raiders or the ones raiding from the beginning are at over 5k or even 10k magenetite shards. What would be an exchange rate you’d be happy with? 50 Magnetite shards per LI? Maybe 100? Either way, longtime raiders would have instant access to entire sets of Legendary armor and while I’m sure many would love that, the way the system is balanced right now is fine.

Druid (Ranger elite specialisation) seems to be the best fit. I’d still read up and watch a couple of guide videos if you plan to stick to only 1 class though.

Chronomancer (mesmer elite specialisation) works too but mesmer in general can be a bit tough for newcomers.

Guardian is very straight forward and is quite supporty, gets run as pure damage in raids though.