Guild Wars 2

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Several hylek in GW2 mention that they’ve been there for hundreds of years – including, I note, the hylek in Kessex Hills.

Note that with the possible exception of those in Caledon Forest, all hylek grouns are in areas that were fogged in GW1 (including the Kessex Hills fellas, I think).

So it was us moving into their territory.

The reason why the hylek are a “new” threat to the Shining Blade in EN is because the Shining Blade are new to the area.

This, However, some Hylek (i can’t remember which ones exactly) migrated to new lands as well due to the risen (and sometimes krait) invading their original homelands and forcing them back. Anet named a few examples in their blog post i believe, but idk any off the top of my head.

Son of Elias.5420:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Otherwise, I’ve never once seen an asura say “they get smarter because they talk fast.” It’s all about figuring out why they get smarter when together, the limits, and how they could duplicate it for the asura.

That’s not right. I’m positive that there was an event in the Asura 1-15 zone where one of the NPCs explicitly mentions that the skritt gain intelligence by communicating in chirps, and that they could use that to develop better golem technology.

Edit: Mm, wandered over to the zone quick and checked the nearest skritt heart. I found this, where an asura says the intelligence increase is caused by ‘expedient communication’. I feel like there’s another NPC who mentions high-pitched chirping, but I couldn’t find them in the ten minutes I glanced around.

Oooooooh i know what you’re talking about!! Yeah they don’t say they’re -smarter- from that they say something about how they’re “geniuses” for making key plans in chirps, IE if they’re going to raid a camp they’ll plan it in chirps instead of in a language everyone else knows.

Son of Elias.5420:

To a degree, it also depends on which personal story you had – for the first part of it, at least. I know some involve more traveling than the others, and some involve a series of events that would logically take place over days instead of weeks or months (while some are the reverse).

But once we get to the Pact and the unified storyline, it seems to only be a couple weeks.

Yeah, i think the Sylvari one is pretty quick, i pretty much came out of the pod and they were like “get to work!!” and it was pretty boom,boom, boom,after that.

domxnik.1453:

Hmm, I don’t know. In my opinion, the glass cannon with a lot of vitality still might not be as effective since you have no toughness to back it up. I’m trying to make a build that has good survivability but also has good damage, but in the end I think you always have to sacrifice something.

I don’t like using these build websites too much because there is no pve gear, so I don’t think you can get too much of an accurate build. Someone really needs to make a pve build tool.

Well if you want good damage and really good survivability go with Soldiers gear, but sadly this wont help you if you use conditions. I personally only use toughness and i don’t go down very easily, a good way to look at it is that toughness = really good against raw damage, vitality = really good against conditions, mix of vitality and toughness = decent all around survivability, but it’d be better to put a large amount in either one or the other (or both via soldiers gear).

@OP: I think your guild looks pretty good, however i’d say go with PvE Valkyrie armor because it gives high amounts of Power and Crit damage, pair that with a red moa (or another source of Fury) and you have a 20% chance to just destroy some poor enemy with each hit, this would ALSO give you more power for the vitality bonus you get from the armor giving you a good amount of survivability, and since you are clearly a ranged ranger you should have ample amounts of utility to just flat out avoid raw damage (your mortal enemy as a high vitality user).

It looks like an all around good build, however i’d drop Sharpened Edges and go with something else, that’s just me though.

Vecuu.2018:

It really depends on the type of Thief you fight and the Type of Ranger you play.

Rangers can go toe-to-toe with Thieves. The biggest problem is our difficulties in chasing one down to decides to disengage. Entangle is great for this, as are the Shortbow, Axe+Warhorn, and Greatsword weapon sets.

I play a D/D+SB condition Thief primarily for open WvW, and I hardly ever struggle to fight a Ranger, as a Ranger main, I know that Healing Spring is a powerful ability and don’t fully commit to a kill until after I see it drop.

You’re one of -those- thieves… I see how it is…

Against most thieves I try to not heal until low health because I know I can purge their poison and eat their burst, and because of kitten holes like this guy who purposely wait xD.

PS: I’ve noticed Guard is pretty amazing against thieves because they second they show their ugly face the pet B-lines it to them an continues their man handling of the thief.

1) no, I feel empty without my mortal enemies present in the battlefield, I suppose I can build a new grudge against a new prof…
2) no, being forced into healing because no one else I knew would do it was bull kitten, never want dedicated healers back.
3) Yes, I’ve noticed bad players think the game is unbalanced but I have yet to see anyone worth their salt say so, I think it’s in a good spot.

Khyras.8021:

Durzlla.6295:

Khyras.8021:

Entire e-sport idea for GW 2 is bad imo.People who play MMORPGs dont play them for e-sport features.Played AoC, WoW ,WAR,SWTOR and i dont remember devs in those games trying to force this e-sport “find a team or dont pvp at all” nonsense on me or other players.I was doing pvp in those games because it was fun, and i could pvp when i wanted be it alone or in a group.

Um it’s the same as in E-sport games, you can PvP by yourself but you’re not going to have any sort of spotlight that way.

I’m iffy on the whole custom arenas atm because of the whole renting aspect, is that gonna be via gems? Gold? Glory? What?

A .. spotlight? I dont want a spotlight i wanna fun to play pvp, as most people who play pvp in MMORPGs do.

Well I personally love the PvP and I sure as hell don’t have a team anymore (RL is a kitten), so idk what you’re not enjoying from it.

For the love of god don’t give it to rangers… I have a hard enough time finding a tPvP group as is (a ranger + few hours of playtime pet week) being a prof with portal that doesn’t wanna use it sure as hell won’t help!! I had to give up trying to do tPvP on my mes because everyone’s stupid enough to think portal is mandatory….

Khyras.8021:

Entire e-sport idea for GW 2 is bad imo.People who play MMORPGs dont play them for e-sport features.Played AoC, WoW ,WAR,SWTOR and i dont remember devs in those games trying to force this e-sport “find a team or dont pvp at all” nonsense on me or other players.I was doing pvp in those games because it was fun, and i could pvp when i wanted be it alone or in a group.

Um it’s the same as in E-sport games, you can PvP by yourself but you’re not going to have any sort of spotlight that way.

I’m iffy on the whole custom arenas atm because of the whole renting aspect, is that gonna be via gems? Gold? Glory? What?

@Dalindica, I’m pretty Anet flat out said these features wouldn’t be out at release but they’d try to put them in quickly afterwards… So yeah…

And watching LoL (and playing it) is kinda dull outside of the 4 seconds of team fighting which mostly consists of “Who has the stronger Ultis?!?!?” And then it goes back to watching them kill minions….

Well spirits have always been scaled down oak hearts and unlike in GW1 they have a fancy particle effect around them….

And I’m not sure whether or not I like your suggestion, could you go I to more detail as to what it’d do?

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Durzlla.6295:

That being said, i’m kinda curious why Engi can’t use maces…

Yeah, especially since a main hand melee weapon would work fine with an off hand pistol. Blowtorch deals more damage the closer the targets are and the snare from Glue Shot would be great for chasing.
And the shield would be much better for melee oriented fighting too, imo. It works as a ranged weapon, but usually the attacks that need to be blocked are the more powerful melee attacks.

But I think polearm could work too, see the stick Kranxx is using in GoA. Just give different settings to the thing, electric, magnetic and maybe even sound based and you have a new weapon.

Ah you have a good point… I personally pictured it more as a staff myself (also surprise engis don’t have that for a second 2h)

Narcemus.1348:

Yeah, Konig’s definitely right here. I do not know exactly why the Harathi are placed down by Kessex honestly, unless they were more widespread and got cut off by the human forces. It makes very little sense that they are being fed reinforcements from the Maguuma though. You also have to remember quite a few races have migrated since the original game. Harpies were never found in Tyria and they have moved north for some reason (prolly related to Joko). Hylek were also never seen in Tyria til Eye of the North, so this could have been the beginning of their migration, or perhaps just moving into their territory. It could be that when the humans moved further west the centaurs regrouped east and started progressing from there.

Nah Hylek were all over the swampy areas of southern Tyria, they probably just moved during the 250 years.

I thought that the once waring Centaur Tribes united to kill the Humans, if this is true it’d make perfect sense as to why they’re getting forces through Maguuma. That and it’s possible that the Harathi Centaur have moved (or a large amount of them) to the Maguuma jungle to help strike the deal with that tribe?

Well, Guardians would -have- to have access to spears if added, seeing as how they are a combination of the Paragon (-the- spear user in GW1) and the Monk lore wise.

I could also see Ranger, and warrior using it and would be -very- surprised if they didn’t.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Thief, ele or necro used them, but i wouldn’t be surprised if they couldn’t.

And i doubt engi or mesmer would use them, they just seem to clash with their fighting style.

That being said, i’m kinda curious why Engi can’t use maces…

Bishop.5938:

Hello guys i have been looking for a pvp team for roughly 2 weeks now. I have posted in the LFG thread and i have made my own threads.

How do i go about getting a proper TPvP team going. I have played other mmos and it was easy to PvP and find a team.

Anyway any advice will be great and if you are looking for a team send me a tell.

My in game name is Jimboz Snow

thankyou

I’ve been looking for one myself, but due to my “casual” play style (not having much time a week i can actually play) a lot of people aren’t really wanting to bring me into a team, if you’d be ok with that though i’d totally join up with you, then it’d only take finding a few more people from there…

EDIT: Character name is Durzlla if you wanna just message me in game i’ll be on for sure Monday/Tuesday.

Acandis.3250:

Short of asking my team for assistance, how do I deal with you on Kyhlo CT when you’re nuking me from a window/ledge and I’m fighting someone on point as a bunker guard?

is this a 1v1? if so, walk off the point, and if he tries to jump on it just man handle him away from it like you’d do if he’s on the point. If this is a 2v1 (bunkers get into these situations after all) then throw the other guy down the stairs and get off the point until you need to get back on… pretty simple stuff…

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The only bit about gods and ascension that I know of coming from NPCs – or, in fact, anything related to Nightfall other than possibly interviews – would be the Apostate saying that Abaddon had a predecessor. And even from non-Nightfall stuff, I can’t think of anything where it mentions three are not Ascended beings.

What I DO know in relation to the Six Gods and the number three, is that there’s three gods presented in the concept art with King Doric pleading to the gods to take back magic. And that, because of said concept art, people have long believed that only three gods were in Arah at the time (usually believed to be Dwayna, Balthazar, and Melandru – given Grenth’s and Lyssa’s influence in Cantha and Vabbi, respectively).

I don’t think it was that concept art to be honest because i hadn’t seen that until today…. i do know it was in GW1 though, i don’t know where for the life of me i heard it now though… i thought it was from the muse, but that’s clearly not where…

mercury ranique.2170:

I really enjoyed my personal story but was a bit dissapointed about the personalisation. Yes there are different branches and routes you can follow but in the end it all comes to the same point. I really expected that you choiches determine the outcome. Join the vigil and you have to take Zhaitan on heads up. Join the priory and you find some mystic weapon in an ancient tome that kicks all of his behinds. Join the order of whispers and you find out bout his weak spot. Something in those lines. Having said that, I also have to admit that these where expectations. Even as it is right now I think the entire personal story (and I think I’ve played roughly 90% of all possible story lines) is very well done and epic and a good story.

Ugh no, when something like this happens you end up with a total MESS when it comes to lore “Well what the kitten actually happened?” is the case for all of those types of games. I’m very happy Anet went with the route where every main plot point has one specific scenario where everyone shows up at (Claw Island, Cleansing of Orr, etc).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Durzlla.6295:

Oh it didn’t say anything about any specific god other than abbadon, she just said something around the lines of Abbadon, like several others, ascended to god hood and wasn’t placed there naturally.

Can you find where such is said? Only place in Nightfall I ever recall Lyssa’s Muse (her avatar) saying anything to players is the Gate of Madness cinematic which says nothing of the like.

Durzlla.6295:

I agree fully with this, even Grenth (who we ALL know was once human by now) transcends -some- human pettiness where as balthazar is like “lawlz why would i do that?”

@Konig, btw that asura refers to Balthazar as the god of MASS murder, not just murder, geez get it right xD.

Grenth was half-god – never said to be human, or more acurately, half-human. We don’t know who his father was even if it’s heavily implied to be Malchor.

Also: Gixx: “So we must discover the unseen, hm? I believe the Priory has an artifact that will aid us: an idol of Balthazar, the human god of war, murder, etcetera etcetera.”

That’s the line I was going off of – I see now he later says mass murder, but here he just says murder.

Oh i know, but Mass Murder fits Balthazar a lot more than just Murder xD, can’t sell him short!!

And i’m going to have to dig through nightfall again, i think it might’ve been in .dat files tbh which as said before wasn’t canon, i think i just mixed it up with what the muse said.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The seer met in Ring of Fire mission was the same one as the one seen in the Shiverpeak Mountains – it outright tells us that it met us in the Shiverpeaks there – and presumably the same as seen in Abaddon’s Mouth and Hell’s Precipice (if it followed players to the ring of fire islands, why not all the way through?).

There are, at most, four seers (Shiverpeaks/RoF mish; Abaddon’s Mouth mish; Hell’s Precipice mish; WiK), but more likely to be only one or two (Proph; WiK).

Do we know if the “second” Seer in the Shiverpeaks is the same one that infused our armor to begin with? And i knew that the “last” seer we talked to was also the first one we saw, i wasn’t sure about the others ones though.

Agadar.4931:

I don’t play burst anything. If I want to do oneshots I’ll go play a shooter. I play BM bunker build.

Well it’s not a one shot, it’s more like “Our attacks will block out the sun!” i did play a lot of BM bunker (well sturdy BM roamer, my old team fleshed out a new role for me because i refused to reroll to something else xD, worked really well though… i’ll tell you more via PM if interested) but now i don’t have anyone i s/tPvP with anymore due to real life stuff going on with all of us, so i just said “Screw it! burst builds are better in the special olympics!” so i made a burst build on my ranger to PvP on.

Agadar.4931:

I find Sick Em pretty useless. Perhaps of the pet could deal more consistent damage it would be alright, but not in the current state the pets are in. Hell, I’d take Protect Me over Sick Em any day of the week.

Are you a BM burst build? Because in sPvP that’s what i’ve been playing and there’s no way in hell i’d even CONSIDER putting Protect Me! on my bar let alone actually use it. Sick’Em makes your pet do 40% more damage for 10 seconds and if you’re in melee range (like most BM burst builds are) your pet will be right ontop of the target with you…

Guard is quite strong in sPvP, stealth and protection? Yes please! it’s great for putting your pet in a location that your enemy can’t see them (even without stealth) for using a long cast powerful attack (IE canine leap, or lightning breathe). Oh yeah, Surprise Wolf on a capture point is pretty great (one they get within 1200 radius the wolf will dart off and knock em down before then get there, delaying them to the point)

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Well humans aren’t very fond of Grawl, they never were. Charr don’t like them too much either, but they were even during GW1’s times, known to ally with the Grawl due to their shared dislike for humans.

Btw: I liked that Norn couldn’t pick Quaggan, those cutie-pies have enough friends. Grawl ftw!
(Does anyone else think it’s unfair that 4 races can choose Hylek, but only 2 ogres?)

pouts YES!!! I wanted to align with Ogres but noooooooo you’re a sylvari you can’t align with either of your two favorite races! Pick Quaggon, Hylek or Skritt instead!

Konig Des Todes.2086:

If by “how” you mean “they get smarter when closer together” then, sure, you’re right.

Otherwise, I’ve never once seen an asura say “they get smarter because they talk fast.” It’s all about figuring out why they get smarter when together, the limits, and how they could duplicate it for the asura.

And I’ve gone though multiple events and hearts where they talk about skritt intelligence and experimenting on that principle.

I did an event a few days ago where they discovered that skritt essentially work like Pylons in Star Craft where as long as there are some skritt within a certain proximity to a HUGE colony of them they will retain a vast majority of the intelligence they’d have in that colony.
(i believe it was in Brisban)

Martacus.4085:

Well, to be fair, he is kind of supposed to be hot-headed and impetuous as the war-god. But this goes back to my original point in this thread (but more specifically) that Balthazar is, I would argue, the most human of the gods in that he displays the most of humanity’s vices. Melandru and Dwayna especially seem to transcend most human pettiness.

I guess I had forgotten that some of the gods did ascend to their positions and so didn’t really entertain the thought that Balthazar might actually have been human.

I agree fully with this, even Grenth (who we ALL know was once human by now) transcends -some- human pettiness where as balthazar is like “lawlz why would i do that?”

@Konig, btw that asura refers to Balthazar as the god of MASS murder, not just murder, geez get it right xD.

I still wish that they make Utopia sometime… i was upset to find out it was canceled…

BuddhaKeks.4857:

4 or 5? I think not even that. We only know of a seer, an ancient seer and a seer corpse during the War in Kryta. That’s 3 at best, if the corpse did not belong to one of the afore mentioned other two. They could have been different seers of course, maybe they look just all the same to us (that’s so racist! xD), but I don’t think so. At the same time, the seer and ancient seer could have been the same, I think the ancient says something like “We meet again” on the fire isles.

xD were all those Seers the same one? I coulda sworn that we were finding a new one each time!! I know there was one in the zone outside of Manhans Grotto (or wherever that place is that you get your lv 20 armor). And in all Fairness, all the Mursaat look the same to us as well, so it wouldn’t be any different if Seers all looked the same to us too…

PS: this is REALLY off topic but i’m going to be scared when we finally encounter the Mursaat in GW2.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

I can’t recall Lyssa’s Muse saying anything about any god’s ascension. During GW1’s time we only knew that Grenth ursurped Dhuum and Abaddon had a predeccessor, however no name was given to that and that Balthazar has a half-brother.
Any mention of Arachnia is in the gw.dat only, which we can not count as canon, unless Anet would say so.

GW2 gives us a little more info, with Grenth being Dwayna’s son and also a demi-god at the beginning of his life. However it does say nothing abot the other god’s origins, only that they came through the Mists and arrived in Orr and that Melandru is the oldest of them.

Oh it didn’t say anything about any specific god other than abbadon, she just said something around the lines of Abbadon, like several others, ascended to god hood and wasn’t placed there naturally. Lyssa, Melandru, and Dwayna being original gods was purely speculation on my half, mostly because we KNOW 2 of them are ascendants, and then balthazar just behaves way to human for me to believe that he’s an actual god.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

There’s two things I generally disliked:

1) Some story arcs, especially the lvl 1-10, 10-20, and 40-48 ones (race-specific and racial sympathy storylines) felt far too short, and would have preferred twice as many steps in them, and more exposition in the racial sympathies (you’re just told to go somewhere dealing with a race, no foreknowledge on what the threat is, and the reasoning presented for chosing the race (e.g., grawl psychology) is never once brought up in some of the storylines). They were a good means of having a nice storyline that’d be more unique, squandered. The other story splits didn’t seem that bad, since they tied in more with other plots, but the first 20 levels worth felt too disconnected and irrelevant, with only some NPCs appearing later if you chose properly later on.

2) Story mode dungeons – yeah, not personal story, but still, they felt to… impersonal. I know they’re a “side plot” but it’s a plot where you only see pieces of it. I’d have much rather preferred that Destiny’s Edge comes and goes into your own personal story, rather than just leaves at lvl 30. As a charr, I felt no need to help Logan at Caudecus’ Manor or help Zojja at Sorrow’s Embrace. Even if it meant pulling the guild together – and in Arah, even if I didn’t help pull DE together, they were all there – unlike what ArenaNet said.

And yes, probably wrong forum.

I 100% agree with the Sympathies, i would prefer it if it wasn’t a choice of 3 but a choice from all of them, because i REALLY wanted to do ogres or grawl, but being a Sylvari neither were options… that being said though, the Hyleks were and they’re pretty amazing. My opinion aside, i do think that we coulda got more reason for why to help just one of those 3, and some background about each race. Like for Hyleks they pretty much said, “Hey they’re frog people and they use alchemy! they could be useful!” and then the story had nothing to do with their alchemy and was all about their religious system and why they have to listen to their champions (i’m trying to give away nothing and it’s hard xD).

As for the 1-10 and 10-20 parts i was 100% fine with it in the Sylvari one, but with my Human and Asura i felt like the 1-30 sections were WAY to short.

For the Storymodes though, i thought those were fine, the whole point behind them was that it -wasn’t- our story. We were just tagging along for the ride, and as such it’d play out whether we were there or not, which makes sense as to why they’d be united regardless of if you were there. As a Human, and Sylvari you’re kinda told that you need to help unite destinies edge several times. Hell as a Sylvari you even get letters from Caithe on a regular basis talking about how she’s set up an arrangement for the destiny members to meet up and she wants you there to help things go smoothly.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but during Nightfall doesn’t the Avatar of Lyssa say that only 3 of the Gods were not Ascended? If I had to place my money on go those three were its be Lyssa, Melandru, and Dwayna.

Melandru is just Melandru and therefore is a tree with a human upper half, and in some cases wings…. Which aren’t common attributes of humans…. Lyssa is constantly described as two twins that are melded together, yet has been depicted as separate entities before, however she’s the goddess of illusion and according to Malchor he doesn’t know if he’s ever actually -seen- the goddess Lyssa or if he’s only seen what she wants him to. And then Dwayna due to all the reasons mentioned above.

PS: Abbadons predecessor was certainly not human seeing as how he was a giant spider whose corpse was one of the zones in the realm of torment…

Well we know Seers (around 4 or 5 of them) were still present during GW1, which means as a race they held out for quite sometime, and seeing as how we didn’t go to all of Tyria there are likely more!

And I REALLY need to do those explorables….

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Durzlla.6295:

BuddhaKeks.4857:

The old races did not defeat the dragons, the Mursaat fled Tyria and the other races were hidden by Glint. We don’t know who injured Kralk and made him bleed.

Says who? Because the Priory Scholars say different, and if the Mursaat fled, why did they come back?

I don’t know what Priory scholars you talked to, but none say that they defeated the Elder Dragons – just that they survived. And those in Arah explorable elaborate on that, telling us that they survived because Glint hide them after the forgotten freed her from Kralkatorrik’s control, and that the mursaat fled the world after betraying the other races.

There’s some scholars in the Priory HQ that if you talk to talk about how “It’s unfair, that it’s 5 against 6 and that if the ancient races could band together and defeat them we’ll find a way too!”

I have not done the explorable yet for Arah (i have a few explos i still need to do, i dislike pugs due to their constant skipping of everything), so if they say otherwise in Arah i’d imagine that is a more accurate and truthful lore source than a random Named Priory Member that is never doing anything of importance during the entire personal story.

@Konig (cont), yeah that’s where i learned that bit about Jotun from, i haven’t done my norn storylines at all yet (where i’m assuming Jotun are talked about) so i have no idea how truthful he was, i was just assuming that it -was- truthful. And they had to be fairly close to Mursaat strength (at least with their infusions) due to how long they held them off.

And that is a VERY valid point as to why the Dragons would just WTFPWN the ancient races.

Taym.8326:

Durzlla.6295:

i personally think that ALL the trap traits should be moved to Marksman and ALL the signet traits should be moved to Skirmishing, that just makes more sense to me.

I am personally more of a fan of swapping marksmanships condition duration for skirmishings critical damage. This would allow there to be a point of having a crit to bleed skill in skirmishing. This would also allow condition spec’d rangers to have access to swiftness (Warhorn is a power weapon) and fury which is severly lacking. When you compare these minor traits to Opening strikes (5 stacks of vulnerability) for you and your pet and opening strikes are always criticals its obvious that Marksmanship is not the place for conditions. Swapping the sub stat bonus’ for Marksmaship and Skirmishing will also minimally impact most of the developed builds as power usually spec’s far into both Marksman and Skirmishing (20/25/20/0/5).

Um, it kinda hammers home the whole condition thing, what a lot of people don’t realize is that condition duration is A LOT stronger on conditions that don’t deal damage, AKA cripple, chill, vuln, blind, weakness, fear(we don’t really have much of that), and in some cases poison is better with condi duration than damage due to the whole it reduces healing thing.

And idk why having an adept lv trait that procs bleeding on crit -doesn’t- belong in the crit tree, you know, it kinda does damage REGARDLESS of if you have condi gear or not, and just because you put points in the crit tree doesn’t mean that you can’t wear condi gear, i know my condi build didn’t even have WS traits, and there’s always Rabid/Rampagers gear…

PS: Warhorn can easily be a condi weapon if you take Sharpened edges, you have a guaranteed 20% crit from Fury, and 35 condi damage from might, and then you have Hunters Call which hits like 16 times in the course of a 2 seconds or so, which even with mediocre crit can throw a ton of bleeding up really fast.

So almost a year?

BuddhaKeks.4857:

The old races did not defeat the dragons, the Mursaat fled Tyria and the other races were hidden by Glint. We don’t know who injured Kralk and made him bleed.

Says who? Because the Priory Scholars say different, and if the Mursaat fled, why did they come back?

Son of Elias.5420:

Gaudrath.6725:

She said she will not make another Caladbolg. Why? Who knows. Doesn’t matter. Caladbolg is unique. And good luck making the Pale Tree do something she doesn’t want to do.

But that’s just an artificial limitation. It’s as though the inventor of the laser cannon and the only one with the blueprints burned them and said he doesn’t want to make a new one. The fact remains that it would be just as easy, if not easier, to mass produce Caladbolgs as it would be to mass produce laser cannons.

Except where as with laser canons anyone could build them Caladbolg can be made by only one being in the world, and no matter how you imitate said action of making one you will never have a second.

Oh yes I know this, I’m trying to figure out just how old my sylvari is (who was born at the start of my personal story) and I agree, it didn’t feel long at all, so it probably wasn’t that long especially seeing as how the karka invasion did happen POST personal story.

I’m throwing my 2 cents in real quick, Anet devs have said pre launch he is composed of dead dragons, and the whole “maybe all the dragons are made up of their element” theory is quite possible.

In the Edge of Destiny book (which is cannon) Caithe picks up drops of crystal blood from their fight with Kralk, which would imply he was bleeding crystal, this could explain why despite being defeated in the past by MUCH stronger races than now that they were still capable of returning.

I mean for kittens sake, Mursaat were believed to be gods and were only eliminated due to the Titans, Seers were just as strong as Mursaat (well weaker but close) Jotun were so strong that the human gods feared they might be outmatched so the sent them back to the Stone Age, and then the Dwarves and Forgotten were nothing to scoff at either.

I’d be surprised if Zhaitan is truly dead, I mean kitten… He ate through his minions and only ate magic!

So me and my friend were trying to figure out how much time has passed between the start of the personal story, the death of Zhaitan, the rise and fall of the Karka, and then the winters day/Halloween events, like has it actually only been a few months since the start of our characters story? Or really much longer?

Thanks!

Unspecified.9142:

Pneg.7302:

Wall of text,

Sorry about that, I tried to format it a bit but I find the formatting options to be severely lacking here. There just isn’t a good way to really break it up with sub-titles, titles and indentations that I’ve found (maybe I’m missing something).

Durzlla.6295:

PS: I know it sounds like i disagree with all your points, which i don’t, i just disagree with a lot of your solutions and a lot of your reasonings as to why traits are bad.

That’s fine with me. I actually learned a few things from your post that I didn’t know (e.g. what makes enlargement good). It’s also never a bad thing to have multiple suggestions about how to possibly fix traits that are lacking.

I guess I can understand your point about not wanting traps to be ground target but I’m just so used to them being ground target I throw them at my feet if that’s where I want them.

Your suggestion to swap traps and signets would definitely make sense. Given that signets are best in a power/crit build and traps would at least get condition duration there (which is the only thing that helps frost trap).

Yeah that’s why i suggested making traps have larger range by default (or hell maybe roll that into trappers defense? ) and then just have a trait (trapers expertise) that keeps it able to made into a thrown.

Omg yes, i’d love to see what conditions and boons my pet is affected by!! Sure i can see when he has prot and poison (due to the whole it has a swirly aura around for prot and the whole being green from poison.) i wish we could see what they have on them easier… maybe over their healthbar? Or maybe a copy of it appearing next to our boons/condis but with a different tint to it instead of what it is normally?

Pneg.7302:

Durzlla.6295:

Pneg.7302:

Durzlla.6295:

Pneg.7302:

Durzlla.6295:

Pneg.7302:

Protect Me is counter-productive.

ArenaNet tells us to use pets, micro them and have them live through a battle.

Adds Protect Me.

Pet dies.

There are so many flaws to this skill, not just balance wise, but concept wise.

This is exactly what i’m getting at with why it’s a horrible skill.

I don’t think what you’re suggesting is the answer though, it still seems to damage your pet (who already has lots of problems staying alive during most scenarios). Id like to see something in the line of a “as One” type of skill. Like your suggestion, but going both ways or such (your pet transfers 50% of the damage done to it to you and vice versa).

Not sure how that one would work, i was trying to keep the skill on the same lines as how it is now (sacking your pet to keep yourself alive) and with the way i suggested it’d certainly do that, but your pet wouldn’t be punished as badly from doing it…

I’d -prefer- if they just sacked the skill all together and we got a skill closer to the lines of Otyughs Cry from GW1 where it gives defense and offense to your pet (can’t work exactly the same because in GW1 it buffs their armor and makes your pet unblockable).

Ah I see,

well then we differ on that point.

I think the skill itself and the purpose it serves has no place on a Ranger skill bar. There is simply no way that I’d like to use a slot on a skill that doesn’t serve an actual purpose with regard to increasing the Ranger/Pet synergy. This skill makes me go “Ooooh allright Ill just have to kill you then”, but I really dont want to kill the pet. At all.

Oh neither do i, i’d rather they just scrap “Protect Me!” and add in another skill to take its place, as you said it just flat out goes against ranger. I really hate the skills (and traits) that essentially throw your pet under the bus for the good of the ranger, like Empathetic Bond and Shared Anguish, i mean for kittens sake, i thought we were supposed to be bonded with our pet not trying to sac em at every chance we get!

Ditto!

Make us and the Pet an awesome duo!

Aquaman + household cat = not an awesome duo.

I think we need another “As one” skill myself, maybe prot + Retal + Might on both the pet and ranger for a short duration? I think that’d be slightly fitting for “Protect Me!”

PS: That’s literally off the top of my head so don’t be all “Zomg blah blah blah!”

nerva.7940:

they said they were reworking shouts and spirits. what did we get?

- sic em slightly buffed
- +15% proc chance to spirits

lolzworthy.

This isn’t blizzard who just super buffs/nerfs things until they finally (never) get it right, anet fine tunes things very, very, very, slowly until it’s at their liking, so we’re likely to see a few more buffs to spirits and shouts before they’re in a good place…

Btw, S&R got buffed in both your pet gains 50% speed increase approaching the target, and it heals for more health than it used to, so SHUSH since you clearly aren’t paying attention to buffs.

Pneg.7302:

Durzlla.6295:

Pneg.7302:

Durzlla.6295:

Pneg.7302:

Protect Me is counter-productive.

ArenaNet tells us to use pets, micro them and have them live through a battle.

Adds Protect Me.

Pet dies.

There are so many flaws to this skill, not just balance wise, but concept wise.

This is exactly what i’m getting at with why it’s a horrible skill.

I don’t think what you’re suggesting is the answer though, it still seems to damage your pet (who already has lots of problems staying alive during most scenarios). Id like to see something in the line of a “as One” type of skill. Like your suggestion, but going both ways or such (your pet transfers 50% of the damage done to it to you and vice versa).

Not sure how that one would work, i was trying to keep the skill on the same lines as how it is now (sacking your pet to keep yourself alive) and with the way i suggested it’d certainly do that, but your pet wouldn’t be punished as badly from doing it…

I’d -prefer- if they just sacked the skill all together and we got a skill closer to the lines of Otyughs Cry from GW1 where it gives defense and offense to your pet (can’t work exactly the same because in GW1 it buffs their armor and makes your pet unblockable).

Ah I see,

well then we differ on that point.

I think the skill itself and the purpose it serves has no place on a Ranger skill bar. There is simply no way that I’d like to use a slot on a skill that doesn’t serve an actual purpose with regard to increasing the Ranger/Pet synergy. This skill makes me go “Ooooh allright Ill just have to kill you then”, but I really dont want to kill the pet. At all.

Oh neither do i, i’d rather they just scrap “Protect Me!” and add in another skill to take its place, as you said it just flat out goes against ranger. I really hate the skills (and traits) that essentially throw your pet under the bus for the good of the ranger, like Empathetic Bond and Shared Anguish, i mean for kittens sake, i thought we were supposed to be bonded with our pet not trying to sac em at every chance we get!

Pneg.7302:

Durzlla.6295:

Pneg.7302:

Protect Me is counter-productive.

ArenaNet tells us to use pets, micro them and have them live through a battle.

Adds Protect Me.

Pet dies.

There are so many flaws to this skill, not just balance wise, but concept wise.

This is exactly what i’m getting at with why it’s a horrible skill.

I don’t think what you’re suggesting is the answer though, it still seems to damage your pet (who already has lots of problems staying alive during most scenarios). Id like to see something in the line of a “as One” type of skill. Like your suggestion, but going both ways or such (your pet transfers 50% of the damage done to it to you and vice versa).

Not sure how that one would work, i was trying to keep the skill on the same lines as how it is now (sacking your pet to keep yourself alive) and with the way i suggested it’d certainly do that, but your pet wouldn’t be punished as badly from doing it…

I’d -prefer- if they just sacked the skill all together and we got a skill closer to the lines of Otyughs Cry from GW1 where it gives defense and offense to your pet (can’t work exactly the same because in GW1 it buffs their armor and makes your pet unblockable).

capuchinseven.8395:

Agadar.4931:

It’s such a peculiar ability to begin with. It reflects projectiles, so coming to the conclusion that it’s an anti-projectile ability is merely logical. However, it also applies vulnerability to targets that are in melee, on top of dealing melee damage. It’s plain weird.

It would make sense however if you were to be able to move while casting it, because then it would essentially be a gap-closer against projectile-users: you’d be reflecting their projectiles on the move and once you’d reach them, you’d start doing melee damage and applying vulnerability.

As it is right now it sucks. The no.4 sucks as well. It’s pretty sad, considering I absolutely love both abilities, but only purely because of their animations.

Yeah I agree with all your points, I use an off hand axe but the 4 is useless and 5 as awesome as it is, is kind of a strange attack.

fishergrip.4082:

@ Agadar.4931

It does not reflect projectiles, it only blocks them. There is a big difference.

Tell that to the warrior that killed himself with his own killshot that hit my Whirling Defence last night.

So much yes with the slaughtering warriors with their own kill shot! I wish i got sPvP match recorded where the stars (and thieves) aligned and i reflected a piercing kill shot through 3 glass cannon thieves that were stealthed and on their way to kill me and the warrior killing them all xD oh it was glorious… if only i had actually planned that….

It’s the most fun when you hit the skill mere seconds before it’d hit you so they have no way of stopping their inevitable death!

PS: I will give my arm and my leg if path of scars becomes how the Chieftans works in Forest of Nifhel (when it returns it knocks them down)

Pneg.7302:

Protect Me is counter-productive.

ArenaNet tells us to use pets, micro them and have them live through a battle.

Adds Protect Me.

Pet dies.

There are so many flaws to this skill, not just balance wise, but concept wise.

This is exactly what i’m getting at with why it’s a horrible skill.

Instinctual bond -was- amazing, but they nerfed it to hard, now no one uses it, they need to buff the quickness it applies to your pet and lower the CD.

Don’t MERGE those 4 traits, remove their restrictions, make it so regardless of what pets you’re using it will have that effect, IE "If your pet is CCed it gains 3s of Stability (still on the 10s ICD), if your pet crits it applies bleeding etc.

Don’t you kittening touch my enlargement, it’s an amazing skill, it makes your pets hitbox bigger as well, this means your pet will eat more ranged attacks for you as it’s immune to CC and deals more damage. Leave it be unless you know what it actually does.

Evasive Purity needs some help, it has a 10s CD that is triggered on Dodge Roll not the removing of one of the 3 conditions it removes (it turns out it also removes chill, weird, but idc), i think it should remove weakness as well, that’d be 4 (really kittening annoying conditions) that would be purged on a dodge roll, and also make the CD not trigger unless it removes a condition.

Circle of Life triggers on Downed, however i think it should be merged with Healers Celerity, Strength of Spirit, Nature’s Bounty, or Nature’s Protection (that may make it to strong if it’s merged with Nature’s Protection)

Healers Celerity, WE ARE NOT DPS, do not think that every trait needs to up our damage, this trait is not designed for damage it’s designed so that you will rez your allie and then the both of you can quickly get out of harms way, and for that it works really well.

Hide in Plane Site, it’s a really powerful and good skill, i do however think it should teleport your backwards or maybe even in a random direction so you’re not still eating melee attacks if you get nailed with a stun as part of say hundred blades combo.

Trappers Expertise , For gods sake don’t make it a ground target by default, the only reason i don’t take that stupid trait -because- it makes it ground targeted, i want traps to be placed at my feet, i never liked the idea of throwing them ever since they made it so they couldn’t be placed on walls anymore. They should just make it so the traps have the AoE size the trait gives them by default and make them thrown if you trait it because plenty of people don’t want the traps to be thrown because it’s just not that useful for their play style.

Trappers Potency is fine, it’s a good grandmaster trait and it really really deserves to stay there (i personally think that ALL the trap traits should be moved to Marksman and ALL the signet traits should be moved to Skirmishing, that just makes more sense to me).

Trappers Defense is used by me in a few of my builds, it’s a lot more useful than you think, is it ZOMGWTF amazing? no, it’s not, it’s an adept trait, it’s good against melee trying to come cleave your face off due to the immob, but it -could- be better, or at least be a super buffed radius for it (say double of what it would be if you have trappers expertise) to make it a lot more of a defense instead of a “i’ll stop them mere inches before they can hit me!”

Moment of Clarity, i think you and your pet dealing 150% more damage on your next attack after a stun and interrupt AND Stuns and dazes lasting longer (this applies to your pet) is a REALLY powerful trait, i personally think they need to throw a stun/daze (or pull) to the path of scars skill like it is with Cheiftan, which would make it useable with all mainhand weapons minus harpoon gun.

PS: I know it sounds like i disagree with all your points, which i don’t, i just disagree with a lot of your solutions and a lot of your reasonings as to why traits are bad.

Dahkeus.8243:

Eh, I don’t think they need to do anything to the skill. It’s definitely not a good choice for most if not all PvE, but it does work well as an sPvP skill.

It’s a horrible skill all around, it’s only -ok- in sPvP, but you’re still sacking your pet, if you’re not using a bear (or any other high VITALITY pet since it uses -your- armor not its own armor) your pet has a 100% chance to die unless it has protection, regen, and a heal thrown onto it.

cerulean moth.2743:

Think there was a glitch that caused the pet to climb things when you used the Guard shout, but I don’t think that works anymore. That also may have been what you were seeing.

If you use “Guard” your pet will go the center of the targeting reticule, if you use this on a location that you the player can get to but it requires jumping your pet will teleport to the location. You can use this with ANY pet, i’ve done it several times in jumping puzzles (especially the Cat-a-sum fractal) to send my pet over to an area with a ranged mob, very nice and useful skill.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

ChillyChinaman.6057:

Maul being blast won’t make it a blasting “class,” since it, not counting drakes, because it’d be our only blast. And it’s close range as well being on a non-damage weapon.

really low CD (the only field a scepter guardian can self combo in is fire, guardians hammer blast has low CD but again; only might/retaliation) rangers have a surprising amount of variety in their combo fields which i dont believe should be complimented by easy access (well… any access outside of pets; comboing with your pet is pretty ranger~y… though sadly hard to predict… i would like to see more F2 finishers)

ele can blast into a staff water field; but eruption is a shoddy blast finisher and attunement cooldown stops them switching and doing it more often (could run arcane… wave?blast? i get the two mixed up, but ele has really useful utilities theyd have to give up -cantrips)
engineer can blast into a water field a few times if they have amazing timing, no lag and their turret isnt brutally mauled to death by anything, and the rest of its self combos are very rigid
thief can self blast combo for stealth, weakness or blindness (i think shadow refuge is a dark field? too lazy to check) all of which the thief can easily access on their own
healing spring>maul(5s)>swoop(10s)>wait a short while>maul>swoop = 4 packets of healing on top of healing springs heal (and cond removal/regen)

Um…. engi have a blast finisher on a 1s CD when they have Med Kit + the “Create skill on kit equip” trait, so you can super heal people if you have a med kit, i found out about that yesterday. And before you say “But medkits a bad heal skill!” it’s not, it has an AMAZING toolbelt heal, 3 other heals while kit is on, a fury + swiftness boost, and a condi purge.

Us having ONE blast finisher on a melee weapon wouldn’t put us into any super powerful position. We wouldn’t be able to blast nearly as much as other profs can, and guardians don’t have many fields or finishers because of all their utility skills that pretty much make it so they don’t NEED them… Rangers on the other hand… our utilities are kinda -meh- at best for support, so us having a lot of finishers and fields can easily make up for that.