Guild Wars 2

I prefer stabbing people in the heart/chest with a flag or my Watchwork Spike.

Sounds like a personal problem, dlonie.

Have you tried joining a dungeon running guild or advertising for groups during peak hours?

It’s actually pretty fast leveling if you do it the “normal” way. Faster than before, ironically.

Gating all the weapon skills.

While the old system wasn’t super effective and didn’t give a lot of time to learn each of the skills (I like the automatic unlock of all the skills, maybe a best of both worlds having both systems in place? You automatically unlock all at certain levels, but if you use a weapon a lot, you’ll unlock the weapon skills. This will help newer players (or players with lots of skills, cough Elementalists cough) while not slowing down veteran players. Additionally, if a player enjoys a weapon skill a lot, they will unlock the skills for that weapon.

This would require a lot more kills to unlock each skill to work effectively, but it would be nice.

Preventing offhand weapons until level 7 (unlock of 4th skill).

This actually hurts all players. Two handed weapons give more stats (stats not attack) than one handed weapons. Players will have less potential stats which doesn’t make a big difference, but then the real problem is with Thieves. Thieves have different 3rd skills based on their offhand weapon. Since offhand weapons are disabled, they effectively don’t get their third skill until they unlock their fourth skill. (Yes, there is the 3rd skill for no-weapon in offhand, but that was added as a last minute to allow players to have 3 skills in the Tutorial Instance which won’t happen anymore.)

I really do like the third skill in the thieves weapons, even without them holding an offhand, but since they’re not only watered down, they also cost a lot and have long cast times (in some cases). This, however, is a complaint from me since the beginning of the game. Oh well, one can keep wishing.

Just two things that could be changed to improve the NPE, in my opinion.

Yes, I agree completely. The entire system for that heart is both cute and more fluid than before without worrying about other players stealing your Nodes.

But my point was that they did a great job implementing that, while also removing things that weren’t necessary such as the RC Chess.

Actually, the Golem Transformation Heart is now a Golem Pet Heart which does everything for you, meaning you run around pressing F. While spamming F is less immersive than becoming a Golem, the transformation was not very friendly (lots of delays, roots, and other non-GW2 combat things).

I enjoyed having the pet golem, though. It made me think of what I really wanted as an Asura (having a permanent golem following you if you have the elite on your bar, think Mr. Sparkles or Scruffy).

It hasn’t? I thought I remember seeing it on my old Asura Thief.

I both do and do not understand the purpose of attaining only 50% crit chance on Thief.

Having every other attack (in theory) be a crit is good, but is there any reason for it not to be higher?

The way I see it is that if you’re trying to minmax, you’re just going to be pushing the Power sliders (PPF) all the way up. Anything other than that is just a tradeoff for a little bit of relaxation on your playstyle.

I’d like some insight as to why Thieves tend to aim for 50% so I can understand and improve. While I do understand, at least number-wise, why getting 100% critical chance is not very efficient in terms of stats, I don’t think I understand fundamentally.

Maybe I should just make a spreadsheet and do the numbercrunching myself so I can see where the line is drawn on Power vs Precision (or Vitality vs Precision, in a more literal translation).

Actually, with the update to the NPE, I found a lot of the events that lost their bundles to be more… reactive and immersive. It’s a step in the right direction, but the removal of all bundles and similar things (RC Chess) was a bit too far.

An example, in Metrica Province, would be the Aerodynamics Lab Heart. Instead of killing Sparks to grab Charged Nodes and powering the Beacons, you now kill a Spark, gain a buff that lasts around 20s and gives you a noticeable character effect, then can transfer the power to the Beacon without picking up anything.

It’s more fluid, but it did have the nasty side effect of removing fun things (although I think the cows are a bit too fat now).

Loki.8034:

No-one has mention that exotic items can be bought with Karma but only in Orr has the Level 80 exotics from my understanding.

Use this link: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rubicon_Shoulderpads#item2

The type of gear will depend on your class and build.

It was mentioned, but it’s recommended not doing this because you can’t salvage the items. I have a few Bloodlust and Perception Sigils stuck in a few weapons from before the patch that made this a thing.

Oimmuk, I highly, highly suggest starting a new character from level 1. Play through the game and keep your mind as open as possible.

What I’ve found with the current NPE is that it’s actually really, really good. The problem is that it wasn’t in place at the very beginning of the game, so us veteran players have tasted the forbidden fruit and can’t forget it.

I’ve made a few characters, but always brought them to EotM to try out the NPE. This defeats the purpose. I finally made a character and played it for a while. What the leveling felt like was… well, the first time I played GW2, both in Beta and after Release. It was a nice experience. I had to suppress my knowledge of the game, though, and just let the game give me things bit by bit.

Additionally, after 99% completing my starter zone, I was level 13, which is really, really good. Both in Beta and Release, completing all towns and then finishing the starter zone would leave you at around level 11. This is after the “experience fix” in/after Beta because starter zones would leave you underleveled.

The reason I 99%ed the map was for quick leveling later, but it’s not necessary. Getting to 100% is fine, as well (it’s just preferably to leave towns at 99%, at the very least. If you wanted to min-max your Map Completion + PvE Open World Leveling, you’d also minimally map towns, but that’s a bit more in-depth).

Thief dodge having blur has been in place since the release of GW2.

dlonie.6547:

Ask Rob there for some help. Maybe he can show you.

HIS NAME’S ROBB. I still haven’t found him!

Also, you get transformed in Metrica Province as well, which is… kind of annoying. I really never liked that heart, anyways.

dlonie.6547:

60 per path, once daily.

So run paths 1, 2, and 3, you get 180 tokens. Wait until server reset and go do all three again, make another 180 tokens.

You can run the paths multiple times in one day, but you’ll get far fewer tokens after the first time (I think it’s something like 20, 10, 5….?)

It’s 20 + 40 the first time, and 20 on subsequent runs. I don’t believe there’s any DR anymore.

kokiman.2364:

Novalitus.7382:

yea they run the cash shop as if GW2 were a F2P game but it’s not.
They should have all cash shop content out at all times to maximize their profits.

I am pretty sure they know what they are doing. The BLTC team has one of the most experienced people in the monetization department.

This.

Just because you don’t like it and it’s not how you would do things, doesn’t mean it’s not working as intended.

Zaxares.5419:

The Asura pole dance they do when they cast channel skills with a staff. XD

This one is pretty good, but I also like…

Evasion.

Heartseeker.
Death Blossom.
Twisting Fangs.
Hundred Blades/Blurred Frenzy/Pistol Whip.

Since you’re leveling up and only level 33, your traits won’t make a difference. Heck, they won’t make a difference until you’re level 80, but at level 60, aim for Deceptive Evasion in Dueling (X).

Distortion is kind of a panic-button/extra evade. The builds are extremely niche and should not be ran while leveling up.

Shatter is an appropriate route, with your level in mind.

For your first trait point, I would suggest placing it in Dueling for the Vigor on Critical Hits. Not only does this give you Vigor for evades, it also gives you Critical Chance and Critical Damage. It’s a nice balance of Defense and Offense.

If you need to have more defense than that, put your first point into Chaos for the Regeneration. It will be helpful, along with the Toughness provided from the line.

Bukkebruse.2810:

Yeah, a whole month’s worth of laurels sure is a fair price for a single account bound earring with terrible stats.

Arah and CM give assassin’s.

phys.7689:

Esplen.3940:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

The big value of Ascended, however, wasn’t really the stats, in my view – it was the ability to get Infusions and hit higher level Fractals through the Agony Resistance. There is no other way short of insane dodging skillz.

Other than the auto-hit by Agony sections of fights, yes. I got to around 24 before getting my first AR (pre-fractured).

Even the +5 stats aren’t that big of a deal, even if you’re a min-maxing.

i noticed a lot more unavoidable agony after fractured, so i would say agony resist is kind of necessary now.

Only in Jade Maw/Mai Trinn/Molten Twins which was the same pre-fractured.

@Rasimir, you can sell Ascended to NPC’s!

What’s a bundle?

How do I use it?

WHY IS EVERYTHING SO HARD?!

But Joe, they did play Shatter… during the 3clone Diversion Mirror Image roll Mind Wrack macro period. Because 7 hits of Mind Wrack on 32s cooldown is too strank.

LordMorgul.9845:

nice speech path sellers but i stay whit my idea

Welp, we’re done here. The canadians dungeon sellers terk his jerb.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

The big value of Ascended, however, wasn’t really the stats, in my view – it was the ability to get Infusions and hit higher level Fractals through the Agony Resistance. There is no other way short of insane dodging skillz.

Other than the auto-hit by Agony sections of fights, yes. I got to around 24 before getting my first AR (pre-fractured).

Even the +5 stats aren’t that big of a deal, even if you’re a min-maxing.

LordByron.8369:

Stooperdale.3560:

Streaks, droughts, and long leads are features of a random sequence. That’s a mathematical fact. MMO players see streaks and droughts in a random results and decide that the RNG is broken. That’s human nature.

Quite not true.
According to what you said (and what I said before) newton would still expect an apple to fall in the sky into the outer space….

And this is why essentialists will always be skeptical of prometheanists.

RiverSong.5067:

How would you feel to pay 30k$ for what you think would be a luxury car only to find out you get a used honda? The effort in itself should justify an adequate reward. Hell ANY reward. This thing is a pink exotic…

A more appropriate analogy would be paying $30,000 and getting a car that functions the same as the car that was purchased for $5,000.

Wait, that can already happen? No way!

Your head hurts because other players increased prices while you were busy getting gold and you’re blaming arenanet?

Swiftness on Dodge, Swiftness on Steal, Signet of Shadows, Swift Shadows.

Heartseeker spam (press 2 when you finish the animation, don’t just mash the button).

Infiltrator’s Arrow spam (can be spammed mid-animation, but be careful).

HS for plain travel.
IA for height travel.

Swift Shadows for fastest movespeed in game (movespeed, not travel distance).

Dear Arenanet,

I have a couple max-level characters, but only one of them has total map completion. The only areas in which I’m missing Points of Interest, Skill Points, and Vistas (“map completion nodes” or “MCNs”) are the Borderlands and Eternal Battleground (“EB”). Now, I understand having to collect these map completion nodes in all of World vs World. To be required to enter PvP areas to collect MCNs, however, is redundant, tedious, and a royal pain in the kitten .

Please, for the love of all that is good, change map completion! Take out the PvP in World vs World in order to get 100% Map Completion. Having to do so just is not fun. I play the game to have fun, not because I want a second job for which I do not get paid. I know there are many other players that feel the same way I do.

Warmest Regards,

Esplen.3940

You forgot to include incoming healing as well.

Outgoing healing is healing you give to others, but not yourself. Incoming healing is healing that you get, whether it be from yourself or others.

Poison affects incoming healing.

Healing Power affects all healing you do but not all healing you get.

If you are poisoned, you will heal allies for the full amount (as long as they are not poisoned) but you will not heal yourself for the full amount.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

And if all harpies are female how do they reproduce? Stimulation that induces pregnancy?

Same question for grawl, if they’re all male how do they reproduce?

Harpies reproduce by kidnapping male Asura and kitten them.

As for Grawl, they seem to be an offspring of Charr and Humans intermingling, but it is unclear. They reproduce normally and I believe the lack of female models is simply an oversight/cutback (saves resources versus making a female model of an NPC that is for RP/Lore purposes).

It’s good design. The fact that it feels bad for the players getting denied is the sign that it’s working well. If cutting off reinforcements by using tactics is bad design/tactics, then… well, you might want to rethink how battles are fought.

My engineer doesn’t yet have speedy kits unlocked. What I do is run Slick Shoes and Rocket Boots. Also use Elixir heal for the chance of swiftness.

Super Speed + Rocket Boots will give you the largest mobility off a single skill in the game. Activate Slick Shoes to see a nice trail of gunk behind you. (Slick Shoes is necessary for the Super Speed).
Can also use the Gadget Rocket Boots for a tiny leap, only worthwhile if you have any form of speedbuff because the displacement has big delays.
Rifle5 is nice if you don’t have speedboosts.

Okay, you do realize both the sources you listed did not say anything near what you wrote. In fact, if you take an actual quote from your source, it’ll say:

In other words, Critical Chance is 0% when Precision is 832, and increases by 1% for every 21 Precision above that. Since the minimum value of Precision at level 80 is 926, this means the minimum Critical Chance at level 80 is ~4.476% and is displayed as 4%.

What is displayed is not always exactly what is being used in calculations.

Also, FGS4 now doesn’t charge as far as before, but FGS3 charges a further.

mompen.7952:

You are new, stick to Sword Pistol with Signet of Malice (SoM).

Nice blinds, evades and cleave paired with heal (SoM).

As someone has mentioned, D/D cleave is weaker then Sword cleave.

Shortbow offhand.

Wooo, my input means something. Information is here.

Esplen.3940:

Dagger DPS is high because of Backstab and Heartseeker. The auto chain is pretty weak if you have to go through the entire chain.

If you could have a skill that you can cast, AoE, in between the auto 1-2 you could improve the 2target dps, but #2345 are all single target, bar Death Blossom and Bouncing Blades, both of which aren’t going to be good for power DPS.

Sword, on the other hand, cleaves to 3 targets as opposed to 2 and also has AoE on Pistol Whip. All other skills are going to be single target, bar Bouncing Blades.

Also, just to note: I have been camping double daggers recently because I’m too lazy to maintain my inventory swapping between 3 and 4 weapons being used (it’s really annoying).

Sword/Pistol is a great set for learning because you have access to evades, blinds, and cleaves.

The only downside is you can end up playing too defensive and just spam pistol 5 for permanent blind.

I used to do dagger/pistol when I was leveling up, but that was slow. You can also use Dagger/Dagger + Caltrops and spam Death Blossom after aggroing a lot of mobs. But only for leveling up.

But, but, but… in Karl’s words… Warriors have great mobility so let’s look at their condition removal!

kokiman.2364:

Consoles can’t handle GW2.

And no, turning every graphics option to low is not a valid argument.

Wouldn’t even work, anyways.

The Wiki has all the information stated on the update thread with pictures and such.

Black Lion Trading Company Gem Store
[edit] New Items and Promotions

The Miniature Chieftain Utahein and Miniature Svanir 2-pack has been added for a limited time to the Toys category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
Random Mini 3-packs from Set 1, Set 2, and Set 3 are all available for a limited time in the Toys category of the Gem Store for 300 gems.
[edit] Improvements

Black Lion Chest Changes:

Removed the following items from Black Lion Chests:
Scroll of Knowledge (+1 skill point)
Essence of Luck (50)
Essence of Luck (100)
Basic Dye Pack drops rates have been reduced by half.
Added the following items as uncommon drops from Black Lion Chests:
Flame Dye Kit
Frost Dye Kit
Deathly Dye Pack
Toxic Dye Kit
Metallurgic Dye Kit
Lion’s Arch Survivors Dye Kit
Lion’s Arch Commemorative Dye Kit
Heavy Crafting Bag
Large Crafting Bag
Medium Crafting Bag
Utility Primer
Weapon Tickets and Weapon Ticket Scraps have increased drop rates.
All minis, backpacks, endless tonics, and permanent contracts have slightly increased drop rates.

There are no html links so just scroll down to the bottom of this page and read upwards.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/September_2014

Don’t buy it, it’s a lot cheaper to craft it.

Heck, buy Cores, upgrade to Lodestones, and then buy Ores and craft Ingots -> Blade Hilts.

It’ll cost you about 700-800g depending on how greedy you are.

Get real money. Buy Gems. Convert Gems to Gold.

Can even do this while in the middle of a PvP match if you have to make money while doing PvP. wink

Yes

One person runs the spider gauntlet, everyone waypoints.

Also the waypoint was/is directly on the inquest turret, causing players to take damage immediately, stopping other players from waypointing and/or killing players.

Originally, the reason against it was for WvW and PvP since you couldn’t see the profession in WvW and in tPvP you were supposed to pay attention to animation and clothes.

Then outfits became a thing in the April patch.

All gear gives the same stats bar armor, aka slight bonus in toughness.

Mix and matching armor by weights wouldn’t be wearing armor in other weights it would be transmuting, thereby removing the toughness gain/loss.

Nope, can’t do that.

Ghostwolf.9863:

Esplen.3940:

Actually, you can have half-percentile stats. The number will be rounded down in the equipment menu, but it won’t mean you don’t have that critical chance…

Source? Never seen it tested so I was assuming the game engine is as limited as the UI.

Not critting at 100% UI crit chance whilst always critting at 101+% UI crit chance.

Think about it for a moment, does it make sense that your crit chance is at 99.5-100.49_% crit chance, or that you’re simply at 100% crit chance if you have a very, very small chance of not critting?

If your UI shows you at 101% crit chance, you would have between 100.5 and 101.49.

Well, Necromancers technically have a health pool larger than that of Warriors… :/

DonQuack.9025:

hmmm. Didnt know all meta builds had some form of reflects in em. my apologies.

oxtred.7658:

Feedback isn’t tied to any build, you can always drop a mantra.

Basically this, can also slap in Mirror or Summon D Series Defensive Golem (Shield of Absorption for Asura) if necessary. Focus, whether or not traited, is still Projectile Control because the Wardens will either destroy projectiles (untraited) or reflect projectiles (traited).

They fiddled with temporary items during the first Halloween event. Never again due to players complaining that they’ll do things like this where Gem Store items would be released and available time-gatedly through ingame currency instead, iirc.

He asked for a 2step verification or something similar. Even if the person hacking had his email, it’s usually done by bots and other programs to make it faster to go through their database of information. No reason to double check an email account just to try to get into an account because it has 2step (especially if it’s on the phone).

Also, Arenanet logs the IP where you’re logging in from, and that should be getting sent to your email in the 2step if you’re doing email 2step. (I highly recommend the phone one because you can check login IPs on your account page.)

Additionally, if a hacker has your phone, your password, and your email, you might be suffering from a multiple personality disorder (although since that person retains some of your memories/knowledge, it might be even more than that).

SFShinigami.2015:

EotM is not World vs World. Its World + Worlds I was allied with or fought against last week vs Worlds I was allied with or fought against last week so….

W+WIWAWOFALW vs WIWAWOFALW

Thats clearly not WvW so it must be PvE.

Umm, you’re not going to be allied with worlds you’re fighting against because your color in EotM is the color of your world. You might be going against people you’re also going against in WvW, but there are also others that are not a part of your matchup.

It’s not World v World. It’s Worlds vs Worlds. The intention for EotM was to be a practice ground for WvW in addition to a filler area while you’re in queue. Currently, it’s a PvE Zerg Train. Any and all PvP fights are simply loot farm events in level 80 zones. You’re killing other Risen erm… Karka errr… Players, just for their loot, not for anything else.

Kako.1930:

You might find guardian pretty fun. I really wish I had a guardian but the new leveling system totally killed my will to level another character to 80 lol.

sPvP/tPvP/EotM.
First two can be done on a different character. Third one can be done on your intended character.

You can also swap characters at dungeons for completion rewards (70% of current level) or just pay to have dungeon completions (typically the reward gold).