Guild Wars 2

You do not have to do the HoT story to progress your masteries, but you do need to do the very first bit of it to unlock them and start training them. You then have to get xp in HoT maps (Bloodstone Fen counts, and has an xp boost available iirc) to progress them, and you have to get HoT mastery points (many just from the first time you open lockboxes) to buy them once you have the xp. The xp comes from exploration and events.

To get to Bloodstone Fen you have to do the first part of the first LS3 story, just enough to get to the first waypoint. So there will be some spoilers involved. Once in, you can get a pass that gets all your alts in without them doing the story as well.

For progressing your elite specs you need to get HP from either Pact Tyria (1 hp per location) or from the HoT maps (10 hp each). You need 250 HP for a full unlock, so 25 HoT HP does that. Keep in mind that the events in the maps are twined with the HoT Story, but I think having done them will just enhance your understanding of the instanced parts and you can save Story for later without detriment.

If you want the various mobility masteries you will need to at least poke your head into several HoT maps to unlock them. But then you can just stick to Verdant Brink (and Bloodstone Fen, if you go there too) for your xp. For the HP you will need to venture into Auric Basin and Tangled Depths, or grind the heck out of core map HP. Since you get enough HP for a full base spec unlock just by being 80, however, all the core HP will go to your elites.

Hopefully PoF will contain enough further HP for a second full elite unlock.

Short form: Do the barest bit of story needed to unlock things, then get as many Mastery Points as you can while gaining XP in the HoT maps so you can buy masteries as you go.

Or do as one of my friends has done and put off gliding et cetera until you’ve finished PS and LS2. He’s super close to enough xp for his first glider now, and while it’s taken a lot of calendar time due to his RL conflicts, actual play time has not been huge (I’ve been partnering with him to help him with the instances and watch his gleeful reactions). I did take him to a bunch of HP so he could unlock Berserker and that hasn’t seemed to affect his enjoyment of the story parts even though he’s been absolutely adamant about not skipping ahead in the story for any reason.

I would like to express my pleasure with ANet for the blogs saying what will be on sale during the coming week. It’s a clear list, with dates and amount of savings, and allows people to plan without having to scour the forums and gem store every day just after BLTC reset.

Sure it doesn’t tell us the whole sale, but a full week’s notice is so much better than before. Kudos and thanks!

Most of the items you buy with the tokens are cosmetic. The ones that have further use are:

The Airship and Terrace Passes — normally 1K gems I think? (when available) — my Terrace pass is a game changer for being able to quickly get any alt out of aggro areas and park by vendors/BLTC/crafting stations etc. It does not have an activity NPC and during Wintersday it loses the makeover NPC, but I still love it.

Mats — all obtainable in game, but you could save time and resources using your tokens if you really need Gift of Ascension, Glob of Coagulated Mists Essence, Gift of Blades (uses a number of ascended mats and goes into the Tempered Spinal Blades).

Recipe — Starcake — Celestial Stats food, the food itself sells for over 1/3 gold, but do check the mats that go into it before you decide you want to make it for yourself.

Overall I’d say you’ll get the most use out of a permanent pass (especially if you have a shared inventory slot to spare to hold it). Check https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Black_Lion_Commemorative_Sprocket and follow the individual links to see more of what each item does for you.

Oh, and as of my earlier check today the high bids on the Decorative Molten Jetpack were over 400 gold, sell orders over 600. If you have 100 tickets and want to clear some gold before the market collapses on those, that could be beneficial depending on your needs.

I’d say the only difference you can’t catch up with via anything but time (and effort during that time) is the AP rewards. Every 500 AP you get a chest that has some cool things in it, some boring things, but an overall accrual of account bonuses to xp, karma, magic find, gold from kills, etc. So players that have sought out the achieves and done the dailies will be earning a little more per play session than those who have not.

Not game breakingly more, but more.

This is also just the start of Elite Week, so it’s an overview. The first video is also a behind-the-scenes look at some of the design decisions behind the new elites which I had not seen before. That includes some of the dev excitement, Blaeys, albeit in truncated form.

Since I decided against the Mistlock Observatory Pass, I tossed gems at 10 of these boxes instead. I ended up with 117 tokens as well as an infinite tonic and some pricey minis. Now I have a Molten Jet Pack! Which likely I will use myself though I could get hundreds of gold for it (until the market crashes), once I figure out the right alt to wear it.

I also spotted that the assault knight cores could be easily gotten, so I’m on the verge of Dynamic Blades at last.

Color me pleased.

Hey guys. I have an issue with my launcher, in that it completely hangs. I have been using a workaround by adding -(string of numbers) to the launcher command line as per the DDOS solution a dev posted.

I thought hey, maybe a -repair will work -- but even with that attached, the launcher hangs. So I’m considering doing a -repair on the workaround address. Can I just add -repair to the -(numbers) with a space between them and have it work?

My Support ticket on this semi-timed out, when I sent a reply rather late to them they just asked for the same files I’d previously sent and when I asked if they needed newer versions I never got a response. I’m sure they’re swamped, and I was very slow to reply on my own part as I was dealing with a three week visit from my mother and the workaround has continued to work I’d rather not pester them if a repair will do the trick but I am not sure how to make it start repairing if I can’t combine – commands.

Sorry if I overstated. I did do a quick Google to make sure I wasn’t mixing up the site with other dodgy ones that have gotten accounts banned before I posted. But since apparently it has happened enough with that site as well as other third party distributors that the risk is real, I did think perhaps a strong warning might save someone from falling prey to it.

Just imagine the sick feeling if you buy a cheap key to upgrade an account you’ve been building for years only to forever lose the account thanks to an illicit key. That’s not worth saving a few dollars.

Danikat.8537:

I’m happy with it. I like that the NPCs aren’t too spread out and that it’s a fairly open space inside, which means even if it is busy it should be easy to move around.

My one concern at the moment is that I like to keep the camera zoomed out above and behind my character and I’m not sure that will be possible with the ceiling so low. But it’s hard to tell from outside, sometimes it’s fine in buildings, sometimes it’s not.

But if I want a change I can always go into Amnoon and use the bank, TP etc. there instead.

This. I was worried even before I saw it that it would have the same camera issues as the Captain’s Pass airship does. My hope was that it would be an open-topped barge or at least have open areas along with roofed sections for respite from the desert sun.

And yeah, per other posters, it does look unimpressive from outside as seen in the preview weekend. I wish I could have previewed the interior. I have chosen not to get the Mists pass even though I looove the idea of the low gravity there, given the imminent availability of the Lily, but if the Lily makes me queasy due to forced camera zoom I’d have spent the 1000 gems on the Mists one before it poofs tomorrow. I’m not spending them on spec, though.

Most of the points I would raise have been mentioned above (consider me more on the positive than negative side though I agree mounts need to do something when strafing even if it’s just turning, my mouse button side keys aren’t helping me move on a mount. Also I would like rarity assigned to unid’kittens).

But here is something that’s nagged at me: The Elonians sound just the same as any Joe Schmoe from Kryta. “Ahai” is the only cultural phrase I’ve spotted. I know it would more likely come across as cheesy or stereotyped if you had your VAs use any sort of accent, but 250 years of isolation should cause some linguistic drift. It doesn’t feel nearly as much like a foreign place if we all share the same colloquial speech patterns.

Huh, without taking the test I checked the Wikipedia entry on your result and it mostly described me.

But the professions don’t really fit the types, as such, since you can conceptualize each of them outside their stereotypes. When I made my first necromancer, it was mostly to get female human light armor, but she’s had a ton of very rich RP. I call her the “cheerful woman of Grenth” because she has a lot of common sense and optimism, loves people, and dresses very brightly. My main RP guy is a Thief, but he’s an egotistical super charming showman/conman ladies man rather than a shadow magic skulker.

My main in PvE is my Sylvari necro (now Reaper) who started as a researcher into rot, decay, and toxins in an effort to work against any attacks on the Pale Tree’s roots. Reaper is gloriously tanky but still effective in a fight, so I’ve found the HoT maps relaxing on her. While Reaper doesn’t offer much support to other players mechanics wise, being so hard to kill means I can really help others get through the maps and story and masteries. (I suppose that one of the more designed-to-help professions is Druid, which heals and buffs everyone around it while doing damage to foes, so you might want to look at that).

I say pick a profession that feels intuitive and relaxing to play, then form a character concept around it. I will note that Thief is squishy, not usually group-helpful except for doing good damage if used right, and might frustrate you so perhaps that one should be nixed for you. My Thief gets first dibs on all new content, after which I put him away for PvE and deploy the Reaper to really dig into things

This is the place to ask. What you need to do:

Specify NA or EU, and give an idea of time windows when you might be able to make the attempt. Perhaps also say which hall you are trying to get as people who have access to that hall can more easily get to the entrance. (Keep in mind that as of Sept 22 there will be a third hall available; while you can swap halls and keep upgrades, you do have to buy a new mission and reclaim the hall. Presumably this will be the case with the PoF hall. So you may wish to wait a tiny bit longer to see if you like the PoF hall more, plus it may have different claiming mechanics for all we know).

Have the mission triggered. This means you’ve accumulated the favor and gold and spent it at the NPC.

Have five to eight people ready to help you, preferably at least one of them able to commander tag if you can’t (you want 7 to 9 people in the claiming group for optimal efficiency but six effective sorts can manage it). Make sure they have updrafts if doing Lost Precipice or bouncing mushrooms if doing Gilded Hollow. They do not need a guild invite but they do need to be in party or squad with someone in the guild. The guild person must fully load into the hall first, after which everyone else can join by selecting the hall with your guild tag from the drop down when they walk into the portal.

The biggest stopping point for people wanting to help is that if they are the first one to join you they’ll be twiddling their thumbs for possibly over an hour waiting for enough to join. So gather up your volunteers here until you have a critical mass, then they may be able to haul in one or two more friends to complete the group in a short time frame once you all convene at the portal.

I can likely help if you are NA and doing the claim midafternoon to evening Eastern time, depending on exactly when you want to do it. I’m even willing to do some thumb twiddling, though an hour might get annoying

Copper: Under “Racial” you should cross out Charr Da Vinci since we do have a Da Vinci style glider now that all can use.

The better reason not to buy from the site you listed (and likely you should edit it out, since you just gave them free advertising) is the probability that their keys are cheap because they are bought with stolen money/credit cards and accounts using said keys will rapidly be permabanned once the original purchase falls through.

The two best ones imo are Ebonblade and Cobalt (Cobolt? there’s one of those too — I mean the one that is Ebonblade with a blue flame when drawn). They look real!

Privateer is also lovely. I’m slowly filling in my Privateer collection — when a new BL set comes out that I don’t like, I spend a ticket or two on Privateer instead. Likely I will get rifle next, since I like the compact nature of the Privateer rifle as a weapon for my Thief/DD in case he specs into Deadeye.

I found a dev comment that might be a factor here. It’s in http://www.gamereactor.eu/previews/576923/Guild+Wars+2+Path+of+Fire/ (which is linked in ANet’s News page in the Coverage Roundup article).

In the Mounts section, Roy Cronacher says “We created custom physics for every single mount so they all move differently, which matches their anatomy. We spent a lot of time on their animations to really add personality to every single mount. Added like a new camera system to help make the experience smoother. So it’s a lot of little things that really just add up to the whole.”

So the mount camera actually is different. Perhaps we could request a more detailed explanation of what changed, in order to help narrow down the cause-and-effect of the motion sickness some are experiencing?

I just saw this in the News blogs and since many don’t read those I thought I’d highlight it.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/coming-up-elite-specializations-week/

August 15 – Elite specializations developer diary video and blog
August 17 – Elite specializations on Guild Chat
August 18 – Elite specialization preview weekend begins
August 28 – Mount Week begins
September 3 – Crystal Desert and Story Week begins

It looks like we have lots of blogs and articles coming up as well.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Sartharina.3542:

Kal Spiro.9745:

It’s all garbage loot. There are no rares and exotics, that’s the point.

Except there ARE rares and exotics. That’s the problem – I ID’d 33 Unid items from a Forged camp, and I received 4 Rare Elonian weapons and 2 Exotic Sunspear weapons.

That makes sense. This is for getting skins. Has anyone gotten an exotic out of these? People keep saying rare and exotics, but the only rares I’m hearing about are weapon skins, effectively.

Yes, in my few hours of play yesterday I got an exotic Sunspear sword out of identifying bags. And in one of the threads about this someone posted pics showing they got the exotic … focus? Torch? Whichever the genie lamp is

Since account MF matters for the bag contents, my base is … uh … 225%? 250%? One of the two. It recently dinged but I don’t retain numbers well in my head and I don’t care that much about the stat so I haven’t memorized it.

Jaken.6801:

However I have to agree that Holosmith might be more bound to Tyria and it`s citizens, as we have seen great strides there. It does make sense as a franchise, but for that region I would have called it more something like “Lightsmith”, as they are forging weapons by bending and forming light to their will. Maybe a “Sunsmith”? Any other name for light?

I really like “Sunsmith” given the lore for the profession. Maybe ANet didn’t want “SS” as the inevitable acronym? Also “Holosmith” is something modern English speakers will understand more readily as “Shaper of Holograms.” Certainly the name fit the visuals of the skills as presented in the promo video. But you’re right, Lightsmith or Sunsmith feel more flavorful now that you’ve suggested them.

Alas, history tells us that ANet doesn’t change an Elite’s name after announcing it. At least “Holosmith” isn’t horrible, it just isn’t completely accurate.

You mean craft skills? (Nomenclature here is weird: Necro is a Profession, Chef is a Craft).

Light armor is made with Tailor, and you need max Tailor to make Ascended Light Armor, so that’s likely a good choice. Weaponsmith and Artificer will make most of your weapons. Jeweler is for trinkets, Chef for consumables. Don’t worry about Scribe, that is super expensive to level without a guild funneling you materials and not at all needed for regular play.

You can buy extra profession slots on one character, or learn two professions on each of five characters, or learn all the professions on one character and pay some coin to activate the ones you need each time.

If you don’t want to make Ascended gear, you can save your money. Crafting is only lucrative in certain niche cases and only for those who really know how the market works. If you sell your mats on the Trading Post instead of hoarding them for yourself, you’ll easily have the coin needed to buy any gear on the TP you want except ascended. Which is gear you need for high end fractals or for max efficiency in raids but is only a small increment better than Exotic for normal PvE.

TP advice: Never sell to vendor what you can get more coin for on the TP. Bear in mind that between listing fee and sales tax, you will get a payout of 15% less than your listing price. If that’s still higher than vendor, it’s worth it. Also don’t sell to highest bidder unless you are feeling generous. The TP is global and most everything you list towards the bottom end of sale offers, even for items with hundreds or thousands on offer, will sell very quickly.

As to buying HoT — no. I mean, not on its own. If you buy PoF (newest expansion) for 30 bucks, you can add 20 more bucks and get HoT included, a ten dollar saving over buying separately.

I believe Revenant is included in PoF even without HoT. But as Sadismo said, gliding comes from HoT and is a serious game changer. It has to be leveled up in HoT maps, too (and that can be done in some of the LS3 maps as well, you’d need to buy those separately but can do so with gems bought with gold).

I don’t know how Maguuma is for WvW. If you don’t care about World vs World your server is now irrelevant, everyone gets jumbled together. (Oversimplifying a bit there, but the only unavoidable segregation caused by server choice is in WvW and in region — NA/EU can’t play together).

Necro vs Ranger: I love Necro (and its elite Reaper) far more than Ranger. That however is a highly personal opinion. Every profession has those who love it most and those who really dislike playing it. You’ll have five character slots, so make one of each and decide for yourself. You can enter the PvP lobby (the Mists) on a new character and go attack golems to try out level 80 builds to help you choose your favorite. Necro being light armor has a lot more options for appearance; medium armor is almost all “trenchcoats” ie long skirted coat tops that mostly hide the pants.

Race: Cosmetic only. Norn and Charr feel slower when running since everyone covers the same ground. They also have harder to deal with cameras in enclosed spaces such as jumping puzzles. Racial skills are designed to be weaker than profession skills so people don’t feel pushed to making any one race. You cannot race change later, though, so take a little time to decide if you like the animations and voices of your selected characters. (Note: They lost the VA for male charr, so his voice will change rather disconcertingly between combat and raid/newer story comments).

Each race has a set of cultural armor bought for gold that can only be equipped on that race.

As I said you do get five slots to start, and you can buy more. Usually it’s ten bucks per slot, sometimes there are sales. The current PoF preorder Deluxe edition includes some digital goodies as well as a character slot, but you still have to pay twenty bucks beyond that for HoT so you may wish to keep expenses down. Anyway, max character slots is around 70. (You shouldn’t delete your 5 year old characters, though — they will be receiving some pretty nice birthday gifts).

Welcome back!

WARIORSCHARGEING.2637:

… in the new pack pof they put in the living story mechanics from the map Draconis Mons with out any warning what so ever at all . I found a spot with a I thought might be a mud pit of some sort . that I could get past to the spot I wanted to go check out
as soon as I tried to do that well for get that idea just like the living story map Draconis Mons as soon as you hit the water you die and forced to spend money to way point back to life .

they put this same thing in the new pack pof which is for me another turn off as I died fast as I hit the mud pit . and was forced yet again to way point back to life and forced to spend 1 sliver and 60 copper to come back to life .

that and all the other stuff just is not what I want in a new pack at all . and why I will not be spending my hard earned money for at all . and what I do not play a mmo for at all .

It seems clear that there will be two ways to deal with that quicksand pit. Either get a skimmer mount (can’t do so in demo) or follow the advice of another poster and climb to the top of the pyramid atop your entry point and glide on over to the mastery point.

It’s not unusual for MMOs to have places you can’t stand without dying. That’s why “Don’t stand in the fire” is a catchphrase (sometimes rendered as “don’t stand in the stupid” given that savage literalists might say “it wasn’t fire …”). Vanilla GW2 has lava that can burn you to death. Dry Top has a quicksand river near Prosperity that you need a fire dash to cross. HoT’s Verdant Brink has instant death vines at the bottom of the chasm (there are more of them in a spot in DS too).

No warning? That quicksand pit looked lethal to me. I tried to cross it nonetheless to see if I could cheese it with Reaper auto-shroud, but it did me in. Even so, I didn’t die the second I touched it, I could have backed out when I saw yup, it’s dangerous.

As to DM’s boiling sea, it’s visibly boiling. And the first time you die in it, you get an achievement, so you get both a learning experience and a reward.

I’m not saying you have to stick around and play more PoF if you don’t want to. If the game’s not fun for you, so be it. I just hope it will be due to a more general dissatisfaction on your part than not liking an easily avoided damage spot.

Dante.1763:

Fox.3469:

I totally get that some people may have a problem and i do hope they add something for it, as long as the base mount animations aren’t changed for the majority.

As for strafing, that’s just not natural on a riding animal.

exactly, a toggle to change the animations to match them closer to the base game would be one of the better options i think, if its possible of course, but if nothing works out that way and they do have to change the animation, then so be it, something thats mandatory(which im assuming mounts will be) shouldnt cause problems.

Also, horses can be trained to “strafe”, ive seen it done, so its not that unnatural.

The mount wouldn’t even need an unnatural strafing animation, not exactly. It could turn in place and move to the side then revert to facing forward (without swiveling your camera in the process, of course). That way you get the expected camera motion that matches your on-foot strafing.

There might be some finicky detailing in making the turn look smooth while happening fast enough to match player movement, but this would remove the “clunky” keyboard turn some have discussed and definitely help with the unwanted camera action that’s tilting so many inner ears.

Ashley.9304:

TFW you just installed the game for the first time in forever because the new expansion looks cool then you see this thread and walk right back out the door because there is no way I’m going through the World of Warcraft experience again.

Been there done that.

Don’t give up! There’s lots to do in the game that doesn’t involve elitists with meters. I spent 7 years in WoW, including raiding, and I promise that it’s not at all the same here. Unless you are driven to do the top end of PvE in GW2 you’ll see not a peep of it except in occasional forum threads. Even if you do want top end, you just need to do it with a guild instead of PuGging.

I know my dps will never be the best. /shrugs — I tend to build for staying alive, not for big numbers (love my tanky Reaper). But I will drop hard cc on defiance bars at the right time, help the downed, pay attention to the fight and go to the right place at the right time (usually), and when on supporty characters I will by gum support! I’ve seen the same sentiment expressed by many others on these forums.

So please don’t let a tiny smidge of sourness turn you away from the sweetness most of the game offers. You’re not alone in your disdain for the snobs.

(Disclaimer: not everyone who uses a meter is a snob or jerk. In one of my guilds we worked hard to do some raiding, and the leader did keep a meter running just as a benchmark for how close we were to success. He only told people their dps if they asked and didn’t boot anyone for being low, he simply worked with them to tweak their build and rotation to improve).

Proof, hmm. I don’t think I bothered to screen shot it since I’d already seen the skins via That_Shaman’s and Dulfy’s links. But from identifying all the bags from a few hours of play I got, iirc, rare quality Elonian Pistol/Hammer/2 Longbows and exotic quality Sunspear Sword, possibly one other item. I unlocked the skins to trigger the collection. I tried to give the spare Longbow to another player and that’s when I found out there is no trading by beta alts, mail of items/gold is blocked even to other beta alts.

As to 1, the weapons: No, you’re not forced at all. Your beta character’s bags hold 3 boxes of gear. Each box has a complete set of armor and weapons (exotic) with selectable stats including all the HoT stats. So open one box — just one, you don’t want to clog your bags — right click each item to choose your fave stats, equip the armor, trinkets, and your chosen weapons, voila! Then open the runes/sigils box to get your choice of, well, runes and sigils. Only 12 of each, so adding a 7th to the set in the breather may mean not using the same set again if you decide to do a separate stat set using another gear box. There is also a box of food that includes a higher tier of the provided one.

I suggest doing all that before you even jump off the boat to start the story instance. Plus you can freely choose your traits and utilities, they are all unlocked. No need to stick with the default set and build you get at initial beta alt creation.

Aerinndis.2730:

Ashantara.8731:

What is this thread about exactly? What soup pot? And what does MP mean?

I’m confused.

Soup pot is in the city where you have to comple the mini game with the chef and it gets you the mastery point. MP is Mastery Point. This is in regards to the Demo area.

Apologies, I had to shorten the title to fit in the 45 character limit and then I had the abbreviation in my head when typing the first paragraph. I should have spelled it out.

I haven’t heard anyone saying they had trouble with the Teleporter one (besides my own initial confusion due to facing the wrong direction to see anything light up). I just thought I’d include a short guide to it just in case. There may be more puzzle MP’s … er, Mastery Points … later on so I made the thread more generic.

I noticed this too but thought maybe the skill 1 on the bar isn’t what’s meant by mount special action 1, since why would we need a different keybind if our weapon skills are replaced anyway?

Note that the third mastery tier for raptors gives them a longer jump. Could be that once you have both the regular and long jump available then you’ll be needing to pick which to use via the hotkey.

Did you use auto snap to target? Guaranteed to hit him if he’s standing still (unless latency is an issue, perhaps). I drafted a rather long-winded guide at https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/PoF-Spoiler-Puzzle-MPs-Tips-Tricks/first#post6691935

This has been asked in https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-no-elite-spec-testing-I-m-PvE

You may wish to review that for discussion, though there are no dev responses and there is some acrimony.

Noa.7490:

Can someone please tell me how to access the Crystal Desert? There’s nothing in-game about it, no email, no notification. I asked on the Facebook page and no one answered me.

In your character select screen look to the lower right and click the Create DEMO button. Then make a character. Once you name the character and click next, you will be tossed into a cinematic of travel to the desert and find yourself at the start of the story instance. Play through that and you’ll be there! (Note — take your time on arrival before you leave the ship and reset your traits and weapons and stats to what you prefer, using the gear from one of the provided boxes. The other two boxes are duplicates to let you rework at need).

I have seen some reports of people jumping off the ship and out of bounds and getting just dumped into the beginning city in the desert without finishing the story, too, but since the story leads you to getting the mount you’ll need for exploring, likely you should do the instance properly.

I went to DS last night at 9:20 eastern. The entry waypoint was surrounded by people. I spotted a blue tag and squadjoined it, finding myself in a nearly full squad aimed at North lane. Didn’t even need LFG. Bantered with the squad until we taxied to the new reset map (and people in squad volunteered to tag up for Mid and South), then hopped over to Mid lane and joined the tag there since I was doing the run to get an electric wyvern pet.

We just steamrolled through. Thornhearts melted in seconds, Wurms only needed two or three Vinetender kills, mordrem boss went down super fast so the boss team went to help South finish its zerg, Mouth was done in two burns.

So no, far from dead.

Though I was surprised not to need to check LFG; I just happened to land in the map that was organizing, but the commander did put up a notice so others joined from elsewhere. I even got a guildie into my Mid squad just as events started when I was worried things would be too full for her.

I do prefer the organic nature of Silverwastes where player action advances the meta, but every time I feel like a DS run, I find a successful one — even if I have to tag up and lead North myself to make it happen.

Not only does he tell us he’s learned to deal with the voices along with seeing things, the devs told us early on that Revenants aren’t actually blind, they just cover their eyes to help filter the barrage of information and rely on other senses to observe the world.

It’s not actually a bows/pistols thing, bizarrely enough. It’s more for ability charges — check Mesmer Mantras for samples, I believe.

They are and they aren’t — you get one dye channel. The blue portions on my picture above are the parts that dye. The rest stays at default color.

When in your dye panel you will see a sort of horseshoe icon in a box at the top next to a main dye panel box. Click that to swap to mount view; click the main icon to go back to armor/glider dyes.

I agree we need a PoF section, like, immediately. It’s been handy having a HoT sub forum and right now it would be especially good to relegate PoF chatter to its own area to help prevent spoilers for those trying to hold out until Sept 22.

I’ve seen some comments about problems with the soup pot, so I thought I’d set out how I managed to handle it along with the teleporter MP. These are things that worked for me, and may not work with other mental approaches, but hopefully it’ll help someone.

Soup Pot – Maybe do a few tries just to learn where the ingredients are. Once you have that down:

Make sure you have the auto-snap-to-target option on for ground targeting. Set target on the chef.

Trigger the pot then go stand at the end of the counter by the shark meat while the chef does his spiel. This will put you in the middle of all the options.

His dialogue shows up both in audio and in a speech bubble. You can read the name of what he’s asking for before he’s done talking and be on your way. You will have a green bar over your head that shrinks and turns yellow, then red; that is your timer. It refreshes a good amount each time you toss the right thing at him.

So head over to the correct ingredient, face it or click on it to make sure you’re getting the right one, and pick it up. Then run to where you have a clear LoS to the chef (counters will block you). If he’s moving, wait for him to stop, then tap 2. Your auto target will lob the ingredient right onto him without you needing to aim. Your timer then refreshes and you rinse and repeat.

I don’t know how many ingredients he asks for, I just finally got them all right enough times for it to succeed.

Teleporter – at first I didn’t even know what I was looking for because the puzzle procs behind you when you face the ghost to talk to him to trigger it. So turn around and look for the set of six little pyramids in the sand.

Stand at the base of the triangle suggested by the two converging lines of pyramids so you can see all six of them, looking down from above as much as you can. I mentally assigned numbers to them: 1 2 3 starting at near left, then 4 5 6 starting at far right and coming back to me.

The pyramids will light up with a pale blue glow in sequence. It’s a really big glow, enough to make it unclear which one lit up unless you pay close attention and are zoomed out and looking from above. I muttered the number of each pyramid to myself as it lit up, then repeated the sequence out loud as I touched each one in turn.

Keep in mind you must actually touch them, that means running to each correct one in order and pressing F. Since there will be more than one sequence, get back to position right away. The MP succeeded for me when I completed a six-number sequence.

Short form: Soup Pot — Set snap to target, Target chef, proc soup, station yourself at the middle, then pick up each ingredient soon as he says what it is; toss it at him when he is standing still.

Teleporter — Use mnemonics to remember which one lit up in which order, run to them to touch them in that order.

Too many hues blended right into the default colors for me. I found that Cyanide gives a very nice contrast — and yes, I do like all the shinier dyes for the scales, so I also looked at various Enameled colors.

Zoria.1392:

Part of the problem is probably that the camera ZOOMS OUT when you mount and ZOOMS IN when you dismount. I don’t have motion sickness but I HATE the zooming in and out. I have to keep zooming back out after dismounting.

I didn’t notice this. I’m not saying it didn’t happen, maybe I just reflexively spun my mouse wheel to zoom out, but normally camera yo-yo’s like that bother the heck out of me.

I posted my camera settings early on the first page of the thread. In that post I didn’t mention one other key thing that I have seen others talk about here: Screen Shake. I’ve had that disabled since the Engineer revamp that let them make everyone’s screen shake repeatedly. I wonder if that is part of what people are reporting with the slewing around as the raptor stops?

Zoomed out with a wide FoV as I am, along with vertical displacement maxed when zoomed and camera shake disabled, my camera doesn’t change much if at all based on what the raptor is doing.

I took this shot due to amusement at all the racers just letting the Choya barge in rather than lose their slot in the race but it shows how distanced I am from my mounted character — I’m the one in the middle back of the pack with the Devoted greatsword on my back (golden blade with sunburst hilt for those unfamiliar with it). The camera settings make it very hard to look straight down to hit targets like the Draconis Mons bucket but hey, I’ll take that over motion sickness any day.

One against a Page 2 forum bug

I’ve seen some good and helpful advice in this thread. I would say the main thing is something not made obvious in game, something I knew only due to having done the HoT betas: as per the fashion-minded poster above, take time to set up your character to your taste. This is counter-intuitive in this release since you’ve got a path waiting for you; in HoT you were inside a fort with an NPC talking at length and it felt more natural to bolster your defenses before heading out into the enemy area.

And only open one of the Gear boxes — they are three identical things, the other two are there in case you don’t like the stats you picked after all.

I probably should have made a Thief/Daredevil to test since my DD will be my first in on live release and he always suffers on first story run-throughs … but since I love Reaper, I made my test character into one of those in full Viper, used my main Reaper’s build, and plowed merrily through the mobs while stepping out of the big orange Herald telegraph at need. Profession and build probably has a high impact on the instance’s survivability.

I can see how new players might find it baffling, but that’s more a concern with tossing brand new people into the level 80 deep end. To this day, despite having well over a stack of Tomes, I prefer to spend some time at lower levels testing out various weapons before I get a less familiar profession to 80.

I’m curious, any truly new players here? How easy/hard was it for you to figure out gearing your character, dealing with the mechanics, etc?

I’m someone that gets motion sickness incredibly easily from screen motion. And the raptor was no problem for me. I use the settings below. They keep me well zoomed out with a wide field of view. I also happen to have my Motion Blur (bottom of the Graphics Settings tab) fairly low, near the start of the first bit of thick white line.

Try those settings, those who are getting queasy. It means characters are tiny so you may miss out on clothing and face details on others nearby, but it’s so nice not to puke!

I did the highest gamble twice and only got 50 gold back, though I more than replenished my ectos each time. It’s ok, I only did it due to being in the demo. I keep my ecto gambles down to 5 gold now and then otherwise.

Couple of things to do. One, just start working on a heart. If it seems super familiar, you likely did it before. Two, go do the two southmost hearts in Doric (Seraph camp and the town across the lake). Those got bugged in the conversion to permanent map credit for repeatable hearts, and might need to be redone just to fix that.

And if you end up doing all the hearts, well, that’s all the more daily karma purchases of map currency you can make! (Just make sure to complete them before reset so you for sure know what needs doing).

Blockhead Magee.3092:

A minor annoyance – the wind blows the sand one way, but the flags wave another and smoke on campfires a third.

I didn’t notice but now I will forever see No doubt it will annoy me as much as the stern flags on ships blowing backwards while the sails fill with wind pressing the ship forward …

Your answer is in Gaile’s first comment in https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Preview-Weekend-Live-or-Ephemeral-Ans-Eph/first#post6686026

I’m also almost purely PvE. I still expect to have fun. Remember, you don’t have to go fight other players to test the specs next week, there are practice areas in the Mists Lobby for that.

It’ll be super crowded, sure, but unless you drop into the free for all arena you won’t get ganked.

It does affect what your sister looks like when you see her later, but you don’t see a ton of her and it never comes back in game in any important way. I just did that storyline on my new Elonan Ranger. They didn’t update her appearance, though. She’s still a slightly darker skinned flat faced straight haired sort.

This is the Elonan version of the sister:

I know it’s still there since my chosen keybind of “U” (for Use, lol) still works. I’m not in game to find where it is, though. Keep looking? Hope you find it.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/

6. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

You acknowledge, and further agree, that You have no IP right related to any Service, Content, Game, or any combination of the foregoing or parts thereof except the limited license provided in Section 2 above.

…

10. SERVICE AND AVAILABILITY

You acknowledge that ArenaNet may in its reasonable discretion provide subsequent versions, enhancements, modifications, upgrades or patches related to any part of the Service.

…

Those are the two most pertinent sections I could find on a quick, tired scan (hours in a HP train can be taxing!).