Guild Wars 2

Also, keep in mind this is a game invented in part by the Norn. It sounds to me like they just went “We need a name for this! KEG TOSS + CRABS = CRAB TOSS. DONE.”

Well you can get Beserker / Valkyrie, which is lame.
Or you can do what I did, which is get Cavalier instead. It’s just like Valkyrie except with Toughness instead of Vitality. If you are loaded up on Valkyrie armor or gems, you probably have more than enough Vit already. Might as well mix some Tough in to make that nice big HP pool last a bit longer.

Edit: Although having double-checked to make sure I wasn’t misleading you (haha sorry), it turns out Valk is Power primary and Vit secondary, whereas Cavalier is Tough primary and Power secondary, so Your Mileage May Vary. (I like my characters tanky, so I <3 Cavalier.)

Oh god how did I never notice!? They do the exact same little dance as lightning bugs!
Dancin dancin dancin.

Woodsman.3461:

DaMunky.6302:

..

Not true. If people took the time to count instead of immediately coming and crying on the forums they would notice that there is in fact 11 dailies to choose from now, one more than the 10 before the patch. If you ignore the crab toss achieve you have the same amount of dailies to do as usual, if not you have more options. Nothing really to complain about here.

Huh! I retract my complaint then. I wasn’t able to count before I made my last post, because I mostly visit these forums when I’m at work, during my lunch break.

Lord Faren is amazing.
The fact that he’s got an in-lore connection to Chauncey von Snuffles is amazing.
It’s all just too much. I cracked up for like 5 minutes.

FAREN FOR PRESIDENT.

Chopps.5047:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

…

Hey, I don’t know if you did it, but thanks for the whip in SAB. That was a cool gesture and—call me weird—but I loved the animation. I don’t know if you guys remember the whip animation in SAB but it was hysterical. To me, that indicated that you guys heard “we want whips!” and said “who cares about the animation? Let’s get them a whip” and that’s just plain cool. You guys rock.

I loved the SAB whip animation, it really felt like it came straight out of the early Castlevania games.

Yeah, but there’s only so many dailies to choose from, and when Crab Toss is taking up one of the slots every day, it makes your daily harder because there’s fewer (non-BS) options to choose from.

Engineers are an “Adventurer” profession. Indianna Jones is an adventurer. We should have whips so we can pretend to be Indy. BAM, EXCUSE’D.

Call it the CHAOS REALM, and have all living world events running simultaneously at all times. Imagine trying to run around in the open world with Halloween doors, SAB boxes, and Xmax presents all active at once. It’d be crazy.

(And probably also a nightmare to manage, haha.)

I think it makes sense that the last level was a dungeon, because otherwise how can you kill Zhaitan at both the end of the story and the end of the dungeon levels? But that said, they should have made it scaleable down to single player solo runs.

I’m hoping they do a mini-dungeon, like that big Flame Legion area. Forget what it was called.. but I love that sort of thing, where it’s like a dungeon with tons of puzzles and stuff, but instead of it being an instance it’s a huge dynamic event chain.

I think they look GREAT, but are not good for just any character. You’ll have to have an outfit that fits with them stylistically. I am saving my ticket for whenever I get around to making an Ele.

There are definitely things they could have handled better, and I’m not saying I agree with their gameplay decisions. They could have made the chase more exciting, certainly. All I’m saying is I agree with it being a chase as opposed to a fight.

Here’s how I would have LIKED to see it end:
(1) Same chase / laser cut-scene fight as usual. Laser overheats / breaks after Zhaitan is shot down. Cannons fail to do fatal damage. He regenerates and starts getting ready to fly away again.
(2) In a desperate last-ditch action, we fly that big airship directly into his neck, impaling him. All the players run down the ship and must spam melee to literally chop his head off. (How do we kill zombies? Remove the head!) During this whole process we have to dodge breath attacks and fight off summoned minions.
(3) Airship is toast, and we need a new way out. Run across his decapitated body INTO that building he was clinging to, and you fight your way down through different Risen-infested floors to reach the ground before the whole tower collapses.
(4) Fight your way across Orr to an extraction point. (Those helicopters are way too cool to not use as an emergency escape vehicle.) The death cries of Zhaitan have drawn HUGE swarms of undead you need to fight through.

Special bonus: If they want to bring Zhaitan back later, we just hacked his head off is all. Who knows where it landed when it fell, or if that actually killed him for sure.

I think this would do a better job of empathizing that Zhaitan is not the real problem. His ability to summon and control huge hoards of dangerous minions is the problem. At the same time, it would be way more exciting and involve far more actual fighting than what we did get. (I like my version way better. I am rewriting it in my head. That is how it actually happened, as far as I’m concerned.)

They already have everything they need to make polymock:

— The area in Rata Sum is complete: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qytc_dVt7U
— Costumes / transforming complete with combat moves is in. (Costume Brawl)
— The structure for random PvP matchmaking is in. (Every holiday minigame so far.)

They just need to get around to tying it all together.

Having literally JUST played that mission for the first time, infamous cannon fight and all, I think I finally understand it.

The final showdown with Zhaitan ISN’T a fight. People all get disappointed because they’re expecting to fight him, but think about it: when was Zhaitan ever a fighter? All along, he was a chessmaster, using a large and varied stable of minions to put pressure on the heroes. Once you defeat all the pieces, he’s nothing but a helpless King. He can move one space per turn and he loses automatically the second you corner him.

The final mission isn’t a ‘fight’ with Zhaitan. It’s a chase scene.

That said, I am totally expecting we will be ‘fighting’ Primordious in the traditional sense. If that one isn’t a Warrior I don’t know who is. And I SWEAR TO GOD if they give us another “throw rocks at the boss” battle I am going to be super irritated.

Sil.4560:

ThiBash.5634:

A well timed kill shot will be blocked by Aegis fortunately.

Apparently that’s what Signet of Might will be for. Unblockable, boon-hating sniper rifle. HEAD SHOT.

Let me fix this for you:

BOONS, HEADSHOT!

Hi guys, thanks for the feedback!

@Silver: As much as I like Descent into Shadows, I think you’re right, I could probably be using my acrobatics line better. Today I’m going to try Vigorous Recovery + Power of Inertia with a slightly modified opener:
SoM -> dodge rolls -> HS+BP+Infiltrator’s -> begin backstab loop

That should get me up to 13 might for my first backstab, and then keep me hovering around 4-6 for the rest of the fight (from rolls) and back up around 13 when I pop signets to shadowstep+backstab.

Edit: Yeah just for the record that worked pretty great. I was just playing WvW for like 3 hours and all the might I was stacking was really nice. I was just ENDING people when I managed to land the backstabs correctly.

@Frenk: Your build, while perfectly sound, would require me to re-do all of my armor! (The main difference between your build and the one I was running before is that you’re wearing a lot of Beserker’s and I’m wearing a lot of Soldier.) I’m a bit of a filthy casual and haven’t got the gold to buy a whole new set of exotic armor right now, but I will keep your suggestions in mind for if I decide to move away from signets entirely.

Hey Arganthium, thanks for weighing in!

Let me explain my individual trait choices and then you or somebody else can tell me if it still seems totally stupid.

Hidden Killer – This is the foundation of the build, because I refuse to rely on Precision for crits. I basically never see non-guaranteed crits go off no matter what I build. o_o I am using this plus Prowess to boost my damage so that I can focus on P/V/T otherwise.

Signet Use + Infusion of Shadow + Quick Recovery – These are here for helping with Initiative spam, which I sort of need to use BP+HS as often as I want to. Also great for sprinting away from zergs with my shortbow.

I did test HS+BP+Infusion of Shadow, and it does appear to work. Here’s what I did:
– Temporarily switched out Quick Recovery so it wouldn’t interfere.
– All tests done starting with full initiative (12).
– Used BP > HS > HS > HS, stacking stealth three times off one BP.
– Tested this three times. When finished, initiative was at 6.
– Used BP, stepped out of the field, used HS x 3 without stealthing at all.
– Did this as close as possible to the same speed as previous test.
– Tested this three times. When finished, initiative was at 1.
So it does appear to make a difference.

Signets of Power – I don’t actually like most of the traits in the Critical Strikes line. I’m only in there for Hidden Killer. This trait is the closest one to being useful for my build, and the 5 stacks of might are very nice for when I use Infiltrator’s to land my backstab, or when I’m just spamming the heal signet every 15 sec.

Shadow’s Embrace – I’ve yet to find a more reliable or spammable condition cleanser. I think this will be part of every build I make forever.

Descent of Shadows – I am a noob who falls off cliffs now and then. This has saved my life more times than I care to admit. It’s also great in all sorts of situations for WvW.
– Being chased by a zerg? Jump off a huge cliff. I will either die to fall damage (no armor penalty) or survive and anybody following me who hasn’t got their fall trait on dies.
– Getting diced up near a ledge? Jump —> fall damage --> cleanse a condition, in case you were crippled / chilled —> baaaail.
– Doing keep / tower defense? This is GREAT for jumping off the walls and then shadowstep-backstabbing somebody.

So I guess what I’m saying is that I realize these traits aren’t OPTIMAL or min-maxed fully, but I think they fit my playstyle better than more sensible choices might. I am however, always open to suggestions! For example, that Scorpion Wire you seemed a bit offended by is the slot I often like to switch around. I’ve been running with Shadowstep in that slot tonight (as suggested earlier) and it’s been pretty darned nice.

Hm. Well I’m not really sure I want to go Beserker’s, since I just am not a big fan of Precision at all. My feeling is that my luck with random chance / RNG is godawful, so I’m not going to count on crits unless I have a 100%+ chance of getting them. – This is why I’m building around Hidden Killer.

If anything, I would like some Cavalier armor, so I can trade some of that excessive vitality for more Toughness, but they only make accessories for that set, and not armor. -_- I’d also like to pump up my critical damage a bit more, but I’m not sure how I’d really do that other than just wanton swapping of Soldier > Valkyrie.

Hey Sunflowers, thanks for the feedback! Trading fight-resets back and forth seems to be how it usually goes when I fight attrition builds, and it just continues like that until somebody gets zerged or makes a stupid mistake and dies. I think my response to that will have to be to just keep improving my rhythm and overall skill level so I can wait until they make the stupid mistake first, rather than making one myself. One build can’t do EVERYTHING well, right?

I like to swap around my second utility slot (the one which is by default Scorpion wire in WvW and Ambush Trap in PvE), so as per your suggestion I might start using Shadow Step for roaming. Having three skills that are a shadowstep / stunbreak seems just too trolly not to do.

That said, I’ll probably always use Scorpion Wire for when I’m running with a zerg, because it’s just SO GREAT at ruining peoples’ day.

You aren’t supposed to use blinds to block normal attacks.. you are supposed to use evades against those. You’re supposed to drop a blind when somebody is winding up for a big single-hit attack..

Hey Rayya, thanks for the feedback!

D/D eles are an issue because they’re tankier + have heals, right? (I don’t know that much about eles because I haven’t had time to play as one yet.) I’ve fought a couple and noticed I managed to stab them pretty good, but then they tend to run away or reset the fight. I think I’ve killed a D/D ele once or twice but they may have been terrible or an uplevel? I don’t remember.

I was hoping most of my sustainability would come from the Blood Sigil on my pistol and the fact that I’m either healing off the Signet of Malice passive or spamming it every 15 seconds.

Generally I don’t stay in a fight for more than a minute or two, if I haven’t won by then I bail with shortbow and rely on out-of-combat healing to save my noob kitten. Are you saying that with regeneration I’d be able to stay in a fight indefinitely without dying? If so, what is your recommendation as the best way to get regeneration? Will it still be any good without being built into Healing Power at all?

Is there anything I can really do against bunker / attrition builds with this strat / stats, or is not being able to fight them a tradeoff I’ll have to deal with?

Hey all, this is kind of long, but if you want to just skim it I’m not going to cry. Looking for any constructive criticism for improving my stats and strategy overall.

—Build Links—
v2: http://tinyurl.com/dyrqat5
v3: http://tinyurl.com/c3gmvn4
These go to GW2BuildCraft.com, I’m using tinyurls because I know the forums tend to chew up this kind of link.

—General Build Direction and Explanation—
The basic idea is to have a nice, solid middle-of-the-road build. I want to be survivable but still pretty stabby. I am treating Precision as a dump stat because I have Hidden Thief for guaranteed backstab crits. Instead I am building P/V/T with a bunch of Soldier armor, and then supplementing my CritDmg with Valkyrie upgrades and trinkets.

I am running D/P for the MAD BLINDS YO, and SB with hydromancy because it’s great for when I need to break away from a fight that’s going badly and outpace anybody chasing me.

I’ve slotted Shadow Refuge because it’s an amazing “panic button” move for any situation, as well as being great for stealth stomps. It’s an especially nice crutch to have because I’m not terribly good at stacking long stealths off of Black Powder.

I have Scorpion Wire because it’s great for pulling somebody who’s running, or somebody who I just want knocked down and in my smoke field.

Infiltrator’s signet because I love me some initiative spam, and having a second shadowstep to set up additional easy-mode backstabs is nice.

I plan to stick with Valkyrie exotic accessories, because I’d rather have straight Valk than the Beserker/Valk upgrading to ascended would force me to take. The others are a mixture of Soldier and Valkyrie again.

Coriander Crusted Meat Dinner because it’s decent +CritDamage and also really really cheap on the Trading Post. The Hardened Sharpening Stones are just for special occasions because they are PRICEY.

—Combat Strategy—
Generally I will initiate with either Scorpion>BlackPowder or just run up and BlackPowder. Often times I’ll have a stealth move on my F1 stolen from a mob before the fight, so if I’m just running up I go stealth to avoid scaring them off.

From there, I just loop Backstab > BlackPowder > Autoattack x4 > HeartSeek > repeat LIKE A BAWS until downed.

If they start to run off I shadowstep with Steal or Infiltrator’s strike to land the next backstab easily and stay up in their business.

—General Feel and Gameplay—
Hidden Thief has been a great quality of life change for me, since I couldn’t hit decent damage at all without it, and I’ve been treating Precision as a dump stat forever. I can 1v1 just about anybody no problem, and they’ll go down in 3-5 backstabs, usually 3 or 4.

I can survive in a 3v1 easy and unless they get organized and start chaining CC on me I can almost always kill one person before I need to bail and reset the fight. I can survive mobs of around 6 – 8 people all trying to kill me if I’m playing fully defensively, but it’s unlikely I’ll kill anybody like that. (Basically I stop backstabbing so I’ll never have the revealed debuff, and then Black Powder > Heartseeker every time I’m visible.)

I still feel pretty survivable, and I stab things pretty well; but how can I stab things BETTER? Let me know if you have any ideas!

Because if you don’t like the current lines, you should still be hoarding WEX-PEE to spend on new lines that do matter to you later. That’s what I’m doing. ;p

These nerfs didn’t affect me AT ALL, because I was never abusing culling in the first place. I just abuse blindspamming.

Basically all I’m doing is D/P: Black Powder, autoattack x 4, Heartseeker, backstab, repeat. And if they try to run I shadowstep using steal or Infiltrator’s during my backstab phase. I only ever die if I do something stupid and get in over my head.

Esplen.3940:

The Mini-Pets are holograms/projections. It would be weird having a projection projected in a projection’s projected reality, would it not?

Hm. Now that you mention it Nevir, my mini never does keep pace with me like other NPCs (Thieves Guild in particular) do. The only time he’ll be able to catch up is if I’m staying still for a Shadow Refuge, in which case they know I’m prolly in there anyway.

And if declan is right instead it’s a non-issue.

I guess I’ll start WvW-ing with my mini out and see how it goes. I’m really amused by the idea of the griffin drawing enemy fire while I sneak up to stab people, and being actually combat useful even though he’s not supposed to be.

Well I mean maybe? But by that logic I’d never see anybody with a mini anywhere. I use an invisible bag for my mini, and also for organizing stuff I want to stay at the bottom of my inventory when I compact. I’m sure I’m not the only one..

Hey guys, as a thief main who’s getting back into WvW more, I was wondering if having a mini-pet will give me away while I’m trying to sneak around in stealth.

I know my mini doesn’t stealth, but I was wondering if maybe they aren’t seen by enemy players regardless? Because I don’t think I’ve ever seen an enemy player with a mini out. Can’t find the answer anywhere. Anybody have any ideas?

It’d also be nice if we can actually have a mini-pet with us while we’re in the SAB. I love this mini-game, but it makes me miss my mini plus griffon.

All things said, it seems silly that you can befriend a pixel creature and then not have them follow you around in their own homeland. (Or can you? I don’t have any SAB minis yet, and I’ve only tried to bring my griffon..)

I imagine it being like a hat they wear, same as the Toads from Super Mario.

Makes more sense that way, because the mushroom head gets hidden when my character wears a different hat.

Just a couple of generic alternate hair for each race which you get swapped to when you put on a helm would be fine. Mostly you just need the bangs to be accurate, and the hair just needs to cover your scalp inside the hood / helm so you don’t see skull if the camera angle is letting you peek under.

It wouldn’t work perfectly for all helms, but it would be a heck of a lot better than it is now, certainly.

Dragon events are a big chunk of the PvE endgame. If they turned these into a mandatory PvP thing, ANet would get just.. SO MUCH RAGE from all the PvE-only folks.

DOLYAKS FOR NEW PLAYABLE RACE.
You can’t equip weapons or armor. You just have one button to graze and another to moo.

MAKE IT HAPPEN ANET.

This whole Flame & Frost story feels like it was haphazardly thrown together in three seconds, so I really don’t think they put much thought into it beyond “Dredge are badguys, Flame Legion are badguys, let’s make them be badguys together”. But you’re right, basically the whole story makes no sense.

You know you can just use any of the crafting stations for their bank tab, right?
“I’m using this leatherworking table to deposit my karma jugs and badges, durp hurp!”

Some people may think I’m taking this a bit too far, but I would argue that if you can dupe enemies into hitting your pet instead of you, those should count as dodges too.

Currently Daily Dodger is the least intuitive daily ever. If you avoid an attack by running out of the way, dodging out of the way, or using blind / aegis, it does not count.

The only way for a ‘dodge’ to count is to get hit while evading. Let me reiterate that:
Rolling out of the way is wrong.
Rolling into the way is right.

That just.. doesn’t make any sense at all. Even slightly.
Here’s how I think Daily Dodger should work:

Any time any enemy tries to damage you and 100% of their damage fails to hit for any reason (dodge rolled, blinded, aegis, too far away, etc), it counts as a dodge. You may need to increase the number of dodges required to balance this out.

Doesn’t that sound much more sensible?

I’d rather see Dungeon Tokens / fractal relics / badges of honor / etc get their own collectibles section. They are a type of item that you collect. It just makes no sense that they aren’t.

For the other currencies, however, I wish they would try and reduce the number of different types we’ve got flying around.

Agreed! And I want one of these:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightning_Bug

It doesn’t look like much in the picture, but that’s because you can’t see him DANCING. Lightning bugs in GW2 dance constantly and it is adorable.

Clearly that’s where Zhaitan sleeps when he isn’t trying to eat you: below the terrain collision! (He’s so powerful he can use noclip.)

I love that my daily resets at 7pm. That means it’s ready for me after I get home from work, but if I want to skip it on a Friday or a Saturday I can still get it done before 7pm the next day. Works perfectly for me.

Turial.1293:

“Let’s add pokeballs or croquet, nobody will miss them.”

Bahahaha. This gave me the mental image of capturing Zhaitan with a masterball. MAKE IT HAPPEN ANET.

I love the idea of this as a collectible card game, but I HATE the idea of having to kill the same monster over and over again to get their card, especially if it’s a boss that I need to run a whole dungeon just to get one swing at.

Here’s a better idea for obtaining cards: when you kill enough monsters to get their related ‘slayer’ achievement, you get a booster pack containing all the cards relating to that group of monsters. So when you get “Bandit Slayer”, you get a pack of cards containing “Bandit Scout”, “Bandit Outlaw”, “Veteran Bandit Leader”, etc.

For dungeon bosses, you get their card after the first time you beat them. Or if we want this to be harder, you get cards for all bosses of a dungeon after you beat story + every explorable path of that dungeon once.

That’s how I would WANT to see it done. I know what would ACTUALLY happen is ANet would lock all the good cards behind a monster-killing-grind and then optionally let us buy them from the Gem Store instead. (And/or make us use a dumb Gem Store RNG to get them.) -__- This whole thing would just become total Gem Store fodder like the Wintersday minis were. Which is sad because if they did that I totally wouldn’t bother trying to participate in it.

As a computer programmer myself, I can tell you this would be pretty easy to do, from a technical standpoint. All they do is put invisible fences in a certain distance from where the map ends, and when you pass by those they load the next map. They are already doing this for Personal Story instances. The only difference is they’d be loading a new map as opposed to the-one-you’re-already-in-with-different-parameters.

As for tracking what point you were when you left the previous zone, that’s just a single number in the system. (Doesn’t even need to be a full x,y coordinate, since they know one of your coordinates is equal to the border of the map.)

The REAL reason they are using all these mountains is they want a greater degree of control as far as choke points and routing players along predetermined paths goes. But it’s definitely a game design issue, not a technical limitation issue.

At any rate, my personal feelings are they could have taken a more open approach to designing the map.

Narcemus.1348:

I do want to point out though, that the power of necromancers doesn’t come from the gods. It comes from the bloodstones.

Ah, yes. I think you’re right, upon re-reading the wiki’s page on Magic again more closely. This would be why magic is a finite resource that can be consumed, as covered in the Asura personal story. It’s worth noting however, that some magic is made from scratch, and does not need to draw on the bloodstones.

I honestly don’t know why they don’t just let us cross from one zone to another at any point, and just hit us with a load screen when we’ve gone a few feet into the next map. Just have the borders of the map display a little shimmering fog that serves as a warning; “here be loading screen! turn back if ye are still working on the map you’re in!”.

This has been covered before, but here we go:

Mortals get their magic through gods or more powerful beings. Player necromancers are drawing on the power of Grenth, the god of death. Like Necromancers, Grenth is fundamentally creepy, but he’s a good guy overall. When you get killed and respawn, that’s Grenth doing you a favor right there.

Grenth’s necromancers create minions using corpses as materials, but they do not steal the will of the corpse’s owner. The minion is a new, separate creature who is coincidentally made out of previously dead flesh and bone. This is no different than an elementalist summoning a rock golem, except using corpses instead of rocks.

Zhaitan is a different story. First off, he’s strong enough to have his own magic, without any help from the gods. That means he doesn’t need to follow Grenth’s rules. Like the other dragons, he doesn’t just take the body. He takes the mind/soul as well. When a corpse becomes a Risen, the previous owner is trapped within and bound to the dragon’s will. Zhaitan isn’t just a big dragon necro. He’s also a soul-stealing slavedriver.

Yes, I know you sometimes find ghosts around who say their body became a Risen. I suspect that just depends on how long you were dead before Zhaitan raised you. This could also explain why some Risen seem ‘mindless’, whereas others seem just as smart as any other speaking race.

Sorry if this was said already, but I can’t finish reading the thread with my lunch break about to end.

Here’s the easy answer: Bags of holding. How can a 20-slot starter backpack hold 5000 items? (250 × 20) How can a character cart that around without even slowing down? Because it’s a magic bag, that’s how.

I figure the engineers just carry all their stuff in a hidden bag that renders it weightless and massless while stowed. Ever play Legend of Zelda? Link basically does the exact same thing.

Haha. Yes. I also pictured my character chewing up and swallowing the picture. “Double click to consume” indeed; I cackled madly while I did it. But then that may be in part because I hate children.