Guild Wars 2

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQRAra8dnsISja2hGOoBzaIJOpI6LHlir7dyHUd5D4G-TwAAzCqImRBjDGzMSfs+MCYFwOgZAA

Just felt like I should post this before the patch goes off given it worked pretty well for me.
It’s a condi-phantasm build which focuses on Sharper Images for bleed damage, along with some decent Anguish and Confusion from scepter. I think I calculated everything pretty well to get the most blood out of the enemy, but want to know whether it could get better. Defense is pretty solid with the treated focus and Signet of Ether. Reason it won’t be viable after the patch is the runes; mixing and matching to get max Bleed duration. I used the pistol and focus since their phantasms hit the most in bursts of damage to gain up to 7 or 8 bleed per phantasm. I’d usually start the fights with a Magic Bullet Stun, then summon the Duelist for instant bleeds. The rest is pretty self-explanatory, I think. Thoughts?

Mimic 4
Absorbs all incoming projectiles within it’s duration. On the use of Echo, you release all the projectiles onto a single target.
Casttime: 4s
Cooldown: 35s

-Range: 600
-Damage for a single projectile is whole. Damage for more than one projectile will be halved(1=1, 1+1=1, 1+1+1=1.5, and so on).

Don’t releases usually come at 12 or so?

It’s the job of mesmers to trick people. .. I guess. Still frustrating.

BobbyStein.2315:

Part of the development process is prioritization, so I’d like to know what you feel are the highest impact items you think would improve our storytelling delivery. What are your top three requests?

1. Decide, once and for all, when the Living Story is. Personally, I think it should be definitively set after Zhaitan and just warn newer players that they will be assumed to have completed the personal story. While I’m not saying spoil the whole ending for them, just place them at the head of the Pact and have them seem like they know what they’re talking about. You can even go so far as to say that the Personal Story is within a time-bubble which is set before the Living Story, not within the timeline that the Player him/herself plays it in. This adds more dialogue and character to our own characters
2. Add some complexity and structure to how magic works, maybe give a few interesting facts from magic-users that points towards certain rules of magic or perhaps how it is acquired in the first place. Like, why are there necromancers and mesmers and elementalists and no mixed necromesmers or elemesmancers or whatnot. Even to how dragon energy and chaos energy are different versions of magic. Are they like different magical particles, or magic energy on different wavelengths?
3. More side characters with character that can be brought into the story when relevant. Don’t force yourself to work with what you have or to be forced to create a new character on the spot, just add a variety of different characters to give yourself some ammunition preemptively. I recommend shining some light of epic-ness on these minor characters once in a while, like a set of sub-iconics that do their own thing until it actually corresponds with what you’re doing, in which case you can just add them in to give more flavor to the story than having them be an essential person to the plot from the get-go.

BUMP
/15 char

Pyroathiest.4168:

Dondagora.9645:

but I think it can give some good spikes of health with automatic heals like Signet of Ether and the Regen from phantasms.

If by ‘spikes of health’ you mean 125 hp from the signet and 500 hp from regen, then yeah…

Okay… not so much “spikes”, more like lumps… Well, meh.

Mesmers, masters of illusion.

I’m voting Canach. While the others are strong, Canach is has guerrilla cunning and would likely add some strategic flavoring to the group, given that, so far, they’ve just been busting through everything by chance. Plus, he’s kind of redeemed and has too unique of a look to be locked up for so long.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQNArcWnsISNaWmGWqB3aGJO9I6SHAkeYaVv6SFwNA-TsAgzCmIkSJlTKjUSpsSNAZZw8CA

Hey, was looking at the new traits and tried some theorycrafting, so want to know whether this idea looks viable to you guys or not. A [30/10/0/30/0] Lockdown-Phantasm build for 1v1s that uses the new Inspiration trait that gives 1000 heal on interrupt. I won’t take a stand on it just yet, but I think it can give some good [s]spikes[s/] lumps of health with automatic heals like Signet of Ether and the Regen from phantasms. If you pump out three phants, mainly the Swordsman for melee range, Defender for, well, defense, and the Warlock for ranged, you can break the enemy’s health while at the same time keeping yourself plentifully healed and safe. On the same not, to prevent your opponent from doing anything to destroy your phantasms, or you, the Mantra of Distraction can daze and interrupt them while healing whatever damage they might have hit you with before you stopped them. You can also support your phantasms from afar with the Staff’s Chaos Storm, probably adding another daze in there, or the sword’s block-daze and scepter’s block-torment/blind.
Along with the heals and the CC, this build also increases the general damage of your phantasms. with 30% increase in attack and a 31% critical[whether that will be viable with Ferocity or not is unknown], these phantasms will be able to produce a decent amount of damage.
As for how it’ll play, I’m thinking of using the scepter/sword blocks first, then summon the iSwordsman and iDefender between them. Switching to staff, escape with the Phase Retreat or blink away from the skirmish with the player, buying time to summon the iWarlock. With this, you’ll have three phants out and can continue on from there with various dazes and some support/condi from the staff and scepter from afar.
I think it’ll work, but want some more experienced opinions on this idea.

Shatter Chain: When hit with a shatter skill, targets hit will create a shatter effect around them as well.

I think it’s fine. What most people might be missing is that you don’t need illusions for it. In which case, we can activate Might, Retaliation, Regeneration, and Fury nearly simultaneously. I think the devs realize that Chaos isn’t a shatter line, so they gave the shatters skill buttons an alternative use as reliable boon generators, which is what I believe this trait is supposed to be used as.

Haven’t read all of the thread yet, so I’m not sure if anyone’s brought this up, but with Chaos, if it’s upon Shatter activation, wouldn’t that mean we might not actually need illusions to use it? For instance, just hit all the shatter skills at the beginning of the fight or when you actually want to shatter and gain all the boons at once. I thought that might be an interesting treat that ANet might have thrown in with the wording.

Just tried an anagram solver, Mursaat can also be “Traumas”.
Kinda interesting, given their agony.

Good job making those connections.

My thoughts on Heal-o-Tron are that they possibly want him to repair/enhance the Watchworks? They’re machines that were based on something beyond human engineering, so perhaps they want to use the golem to help build their mechanical army again.

5/10 for the first half or so, understandable because it was new. Some good, some bad, but not overwhelmingly one-sided like some people are making it out to be.

8/10 for the second half or so as content became progressively better and the story-telling picked up. Some people complain about the bugs, but not everyone experienced it so I can’t speak for that part.

Over all, I think Living Story was good and did a decent job for it’s first go around, but my expectations for the second season, given the “experimental” first season, is higher.

And heard this dialogue, which I don’t remember nor find any relevance to any other part of the story. It went more or less like this:
1: I’m not sure if these nightmares ARE from the nightmare court or something else
1: I think it’s a symptom of the darkness in my heart
2: Don’t think like that. You are kind/good and gentle. Don’t lose yourself
1: I’m not even sure who I am anymore

It’s right by the Asura Gate, wondering if this is new on the account of the awakening of Mordremoth or just a random Sylvari with bad dreams.

Add Spoilers to the title!

BUMP

/15 char

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Dondagora.9645:

-Flame+Dredge: Sonar technology plus fire magic, an allusion to combining technology and magic in new ways

Some weapons, yes, but not the main purpose of the alliance. Scarlet needed the Flame and the Dredge for one single purpose; to make her gigantic drill. With Flame’s forging ability and Dredge’s drill design, it’s the best partnership to get the job done.

Pirates+Inquest: A use of henchmen and advanced technology with air magi-tech. In this way, I doubt every pirate Scarlet has on her side is an elementalist, so they have magic weapons that are easy enough to reproduce in mass and for common people to use.

Not quite. Pirates build ships, Inquest makes it fly. Pirates make weapons, Inquest makes them more potent. Obviously, the Pirates are to build ships and weapons and the Inquest are to create a power source for both. Their combined effort made the giant drill a floating mother ship.

-Watchwork+Steam: Both using the same basic design, industrial-type asura-like weaponry. Likely used to simply bolster her army.

If you observe the watchwork carefully, you’ll find that they are disposable and at the same time, they have a repair bot flying around. When dealing with Asura technology, things blows up and history tells us that there’s a lot of Asura, Bookah, and other species have died as part of an Asuran experiment. So to minimize casualty, it’s obvious that the watchwork are not mainly for her army, but also built to handle hazardous materials and risky experiment. When things blows up, nobody dies and the watchwork gets repaired.

Added your points in, thanks for the contribution.

So, I collected all the evidence and knowledge we have on Scarlet at the moment and compiled it into lists to help people speculate viable theories.

Scarlet’s Plan Includes:
-Dragon Energy
-Leylines
-Bloodstone/Obelisks[?](Similar properties)
-Four Main Elements[Earth(Dredge), Fire(Flame Legion), Water(Krait), Air(Aetherblade)]{Other Elements? Plant(Sylvari), Chaos/Illusion(Krait/Sylvari)}
-Synthesizing Machine and Organic[Watchheart]
-The Mists[“The Dream”, Eternal Alchemy]
-Evolution[Tequatl, Prophet/Hybrid]

Connections Drawn:
-The Mists: It is said Scarlet looked into the Eternal Alchemy, or something even broader than the Dream, apparently the world itself. You know who else is said to have done that? Kerrsh of Guild Wars. Possibly something about gods, dragons, spirits of nature, mursaat, or whatnot?
-Dragon Energy: Apparently flows through leylines and is very similar to chaos energy
-Flame+Dredge: Sonar technology plus fire magic, an allusion to combining technology and magic in new ways. Also, with the forging abilities of the Flame Legion with the Dredge drill design, Scarlet was able to create the probes and the Breachmaker Drill.
Pirates+Inquest: Pirates used as the brute of the working and fighting force, building ships and doing grunt work as the Inquest design, build, and power both the airships and the air-lightning magi-tech weapons the pirates use.
-Watchwork+Steam: Both using the same basic design, industrial-type asura-like weaponry. Likely used to simply bolster her army. Easily replaceable, easily repaired, very expendable. In short, good for the dangerous jobs that people wouldn’t go on.
-Evolution: Created a Krait “Prophet” with a trait to spontaneously evolve at rapid speeds. It is presumed the same was done to Tequatl, drawing a connection to tweaking with dragons.
-Watchheart: The combination of plant and machine
-Krait+Nightmare: Created new, lethal plant life that can poison the air and cause mass hysteria
-Obelisks: Similar in property to Bloodstones, which contain Uncorrupt Magic. Perhaps it can be used to make Soul Batteries?
-Hybrid/Prophet: The Toxic Hybrid is a “hybrid” by name, but a hybrid of what? Krait and Sylvari? Krait and Dragon? Krait and Sylvari and Dragon? Normally, I’d assume the first option of being from both parties of the alliance, however mixing in dragon magic may still be a viable possibility.
-Miasma: Apparently not the same as the Tower of Nightmare’s toxin/pollen. Corrosive and lethal. Possibly from Tequatl, so says one theorist.

If I missed anything, please let me know.

Don’t forget the purple. Mesmers, whether they’re getting married or going for a walk, should always have purple on them, or else their mesmer powers won’t work, and they’ll just turn into any other profession.

How many people using quaggan potions can you fit into a single picture?

P.S. I didn’t realize caps-lock was on as I typed the title.

Zaxares.5419:

Didn’t Evon reject Heal-o-Tron’s request for an improved chassis? He was at least open to the idea until Heal-o-Tron admitted he had no money, after which Evon told him to shove off.

A businessman to the end, Evon.

Then Evon found a profitable end to giving Heal-o-Tron some free upgrades, which is as of yet unknown. Still, helping both himself and others, the way of the trade.

Well, the Lionguard need supplies, Evon has them, and they don’t have the wealth to purchase everything they need in the emergency, so Kiel’s order was pretty reasonable given the situation.

Though, now Evon’s doing something awesome with Heal-o-Tron for free[despite it probably ending in his ultimate profit], hooking him up with some Hero-Tron gadgets and gismos.

Where’s he?
1515151515

The smoke cutting off your sight seems like a nice touch, giving a sense of scrambling like you’re still just trying to find out where everything is despite knowing the city.

The Kurt.2518:

I personally hope they won’t go with the template of a member from each race in the team, it’s way too predictable to be especially exciting :P

Well, now they’ll have two humans and a golem and a devourerer
Completely different from two asura and a golem and a wolf

dreadicon.5840:

I wish it would be a new zone, change the world permanently, give us NEW LASTING CONTENT….. but this will not happen. I predict by halloween, LA will be all fixed up and pretty much the same as before.

“It was just a matter of knowing the secret of all television: at the end of the episode, everything is back to normal.”

Ha, I’d love it if it stays destroyed and the Madking comes around again and realizes his crowd is dead and gone. He wouldn’t even see it coming, it’d be hilarious.

Perhaps, in Season 2 of LW, we’ll see a number of Scarlet’s discoveries or creations being adapted by societies, cooperations, or the antagonists/protagonists. Just a thought, but according to everyone in the story, Scarlet was a genius who made multiple breakthroughs, including news combined magics and greater magitech than before. The Orders may even use her research on dragon energies and leylines, while Rytlock and the Charr might try to scavenge more of the magically imbued dredge tech to fuse into their own industrious designs. I was just thinking about this given the impact on the apparent scientific, engineering, and magical community she had, it wouldn’t be strange for what she left behind to find its way back into the story again.

Or Gnashblade could buy him as an asset in the situation at hand.

Saw this video on teleports by WP and wanted to share it with my fellow Mesmers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35ozCg25--E

I’m hoping he combines with Scruffy as the “head” of the golem.

Also, for the “Fist” weapon, how about for having no-weapon in one hand you get extra utilities? No-weapon MH gets you 3, no-weapon OH gets you 2.

Yeah, cards seem a bit too specific. Maybe daggers, then later card skins for the daggers.

Bumping.
BLADHOUHEWWFAEAGDBKJG

6 Gates, 6 Gods? Who knows…

If he does create a defense force with his wealth and influence, I’m hoping for them to be the “Black Lionguard”.

Quaggan Rune is OP. Nobody would want to kill it.

Probably means they’re not needed anymore since the Lion’s Arch probe found the ley line.

Thought for a bit, and felt that rather than a normal Fear, which terrifies people into fleeing, a manipulation skill, maybe an Elite, called “Attract” might actually force the target to run towards you instead of away. It could help shatters hit and could, given manipulation is meant to turn the tides, literally force the opponent into the corner you yourself were just in. I feel this is more “Mesmer-y” than Fear.

I feel fear would be too much for the Mesmer, which already has a bunch of control. Besides, it doesn’t have that “elegant” feel mesmer skills usually have, if that makes sense.

deathTouch.9706:

Dondagora.9645:

deathTouch.9706:

Sages.3496:

deathTouch.9706:

Sages.3496:

Everyone stop raging about The Edge of the Mists map being down, you dont know how hard anet is truely working on it and should give them credit for even trying. they do not have to do so at all. it will be up when it is up, stop crying about it.

And yet in my profession, no matter “how hard you try”, at the end of the day if you have a bad outcome that was entirely preventable on your part, you are usually on the receiving end of a 6-7 figure lawsuit.

We are consumers of a product who have paid, and continue to pay, hard-earned money for working and functional content. The release success rate of these pieces of content are unacceptably low, usually causing high degrees of collateral damage to other aspects of the game, and simply represent rushed timelines in the interest of maximizing quarterly earnings.

I’m tired of being abused by company executives who are banking on this bizarre notion in gaming that completely unusable content is somehow acceptable as long as “it’s eventually fixed”.

Look buddy, if you have a problem with it, fix it yourself or just let them do it as best they can. Anet has been hard at work on alot of content, they do not have to put out another living story and they could just shut down GW2 entirely if they felt like it.

Fix it myself? Are you unaware as to how a basic economy is designed to function?

Let me clarify. I don’t care how hard they work, I care about results. I work 8-12 hour workdays with periodic 20-30 hour overnight calls for which I am paid to do my job well and obtain good results. Working hard is a basic prerequisite to obtaining consistently good results, not the end metric by which I am assessed. I then use this money that I earn in part to pay Anet with the expectation that they will do their job well.

The 2nd half of this agreement is consistently failing. This is not an isolated incident, it is yet another chain in a repeat of incidents that has happened with every major content update, since and including, release.

You paid for what you got; Guild Wars 2. Now, they’re giving you free extra content with even a monthly fee. Even expansions for most games have to be bought. But not here. If their gifts to us aren’t working properly at first, it isn’t our place to say that we’re not getting what we paid for. We already got that. We should try to be supportive of the efforts ANet put into Guild Wars 2 to keep us interested instead of leaving the game to die, which would simply be giving us what we paid for until we got bored and left on our own. Be thankful for the Living Story and ANet’s hard work instead of giving nonconstructive criticism that does nothing to further the situation.

The living story content and accompanying microtransaction content actually nets companies more per player, on average, than a subscription-based service, which is why almost every major publisher has incorporated microtransactions into their payment schemes. I’d be happy to pull the literature and studies that were done on that if you want.

So I’m not sure why you think this content is “free” or are “gifts”. In fact it’s done because executives at NCsoft have figured out it’s the most efficient way possible to extract money out of the playerbase, mainly because people are unable or unwilling to track how much money they spend on microtransactions on a monthly or yearly basis compared to a recurring subscription.

Ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that you were forced to pay micro transactions, or that those purchases got you nothing. Ah, that was sarcasm, since it’s hard to convey in text. You bought skins or minis or whatnot with micro transactions, still getting what you pay for. Living World, however, does not force you to pay anything, thus it is free. It helps the company get more players? Well, no kitten, yet it works because it’s free and appealing. It’s a plan by the company to make more profit? I don’t care. I’m not being robbed of my cash, nor am I forced to pay to use it. Again, free. You get what you pay for, and more. I didn’t read a thing before release about Living World updates. I bought the game, got what I wanted, and ANet went and kept giving. Insulting them for giving you more than you paid for is spoilt. Doesn’t work at once? No big deal, you did not pay for it to begin with. You can go do things you did pay for if you want; dungeons, personal story, etc.

deathTouch.9706:

Sages.3496:

deathTouch.9706:

Sages.3496:

Everyone stop raging about The Edge of the Mists map being down, you dont know how hard anet is truely working on it and should give them credit for even trying. they do not have to do so at all. it will be up when it is up, stop crying about it.

And yet in my profession, no matter “how hard you try”, at the end of the day if you have a bad outcome that was entirely preventable on your part, you are usually on the receiving end of a 6-7 figure lawsuit.

We are consumers of a product who have paid, and continue to pay, hard-earned money for working and functional content. The release success rate of these pieces of content are unacceptably low, usually causing high degrees of collateral damage to other aspects of the game, and simply represent rushed timelines in the interest of maximizing quarterly earnings.

I’m tired of being abused by company executives who are banking on this bizarre notion in gaming that completely unusable content is somehow acceptable as long as “it’s eventually fixed”.

Look buddy, if you have a problem with it, fix it yourself or just let them do it as best they can. Anet has been hard at work on alot of content, they do not have to put out another living story and they could just shut down GW2 entirely if they felt like it.

Fix it myself? Are you unaware as to how a basic economy is designed to function?

Let me clarify. I don’t care how hard they work, I care about results. I work 8-12 hour workdays with periodic 20-30 hour overnight calls for which I am paid to do my job well and obtain good results. Working hard is a basic prerequisite to obtaining consistently good results, not the end metric by which I am assessed. I then use this money that I earn in part to pay Anet with the expectation that they will do their job well.

The 2nd half of this agreement is consistently failing. This is not an isolated incident, it is yet another chain in a repeat of incidents that has happened with every major content update, since and including, release.

You paid for what you got; Guild Wars 2. Now, they’re giving you free extra content with even a monthly fee. Even expansions for most games have to be bought. But not here. If their gifts to us aren’t working properly at first, it isn’t our place to say that we’re not getting what we paid for. We already got that. We should try to be supportive of the efforts ANet put into Guild Wars 2 to keep us interested instead of leaving the game to die, which would simply be giving us what we paid for until we got bored and left on our own. Be thankful for the Living Story and ANet’s hard work instead of giving nonconstructive criticism that does nothing to further the situation.

They’re the most influential. For instance, if the charr do something it’s more notable than the grawl doing something, because they influence the flow of events more than the rest. This means that what they do touches every race more than the rest and they have the strength to back it. Granted, the Kodan, Tengu, and Largos have the apparent cultural level of a Great Race, but the Kodan were crushed and scattered, not rebuilt yet unlike the Norn, and the Tengu and Largos keep to themselves too much to become a major power in Tyria.

The fifth element is heart!

I’m placing my bet on Canach. He’s already developed, and it seems too late in this season to introduce another main character so soon after Taimi in such a random way. I think A-Net will use the “We don’t like it, but we need him” card for when Lion’s Arch is attacked and the guard or our team needs his expertise to save the day. Then he’ll help, escape in the midst of it, and show up in times of need again, or possibly be pardoned.

PeterThomas.7243:

Lutinz.6915:

People complain there isn’t enough hard content in the game and the moment they add a hard fight people complain that the content is too hard.

Hmm, that’s funny, I don’t recall making this complaint at all…

If you can claim to be more than one person who writes every single complaint, then that might matter. If not, then you were simply satisfied with the content while others weren’t.

I’m wondering, if we translated the text on the paper, would it actually say anything?

^^^
ANet’s just more considerate to players than other games.