Showing Posts For Feywray.4351:
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The jury is still out on that one. Somewhere in production AN stated that they would have anti farming programming in place to prevent overfarming of the same mobs over and over, but as you can see with the crafting professions, farming is certainly needed, whether you’re allowed to or not. Some argue it’s there, others argue that it isn’t. Still waiting on AN to confirm.
cont
I dinged level 62 today. I started out at level 59 yesterday. So in two days, I’ve farmed 3 high levels on noob exp. or basically HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of exp in noob’s land Queensdale, JUST to grind out the mats for the second tier of armorsmithing, and as you can see, I’m not even half done yet. (This doesn’t include the levels I ground out farming the copper for the first tier.) If this was a fresh toon, I would have easily spent the first 20 levels grinding out these mats, if not more. So this tells me two things. One, there’s no way in hell you’re going to keep your profession up to speed with your character level. Even if all you did was grind mats and learn new recipies, I still don’t think you could do it. So the only reason you have to learn a tradeskill is for the benefit of gearing up a later toon, or because of the gear you’re able to make at 80. Since I haven’t concerned myself much yet with what’s at level 80, idk if that to be true or not. Second, learning your professions is a MASSIVE grind. FAR more of a grind than it ever was in WoW. At least in WoW, you could ‘shortcut’ the skillups just by learning basic recipes and making the easiest items, and worry about getting all the fluff recipes at the end. Since you always had to wait to get to the next zone before you could farm the mats you needed for the gear level you were going to be while in that zone, your gear always lagged about 10 levels behind you. But at least you still had enough time to run around and do quests, dungeons etc. Here, I don’t see you keeping it anywhere NEAR your level, and you definitely wouldn’t have time to do anything else other than grind and craft. So yes, the tradeskills are nothing but one big massive grindfest.
I’d say the fix for this would be to reverse the chances of crafting materials (fine ingredients and salvageables for leather, cloth) and item drops… make pre-made gear the rarer drops and crafting materials abundant. That way material prices would drop and finished products would be more in demand.
THIS THIS THIS
Let me explain to you how bad this has really gotten.
I’ve been leveling my Guardian, my first toon, and have been buying karma gear in the various zones as I went along. The problem is, I’m finding less and less gear with the stats on it I need for my build so a few days ago I decided to get my armorsmith profession up so I could make my own gear. I pretty much had enough rare mats to get through the first tier of armor just from running this toon and another through Queensdale, with some help from the guild bank. The only thing I was in short supply of was copper, so I spent the better part of an evening running around farming a stack of copper to use, and got up to the second tier of amorsmithing.
Now there’s 6 pieces of armor per tier – head, shoulder, chest, arms, leg and foot. Now there’s 8 different sets of armor, with the corresponding stats that you have to discover per teir. Each set and it’s attributed stats are designated by a type of jute insignia that you have to craft as a foundation piece, which are also the pieces that require the rare mats. There’s 6 different types of jute insignias, malign, healing, precise, might, vital, and resilient. So, to discover all the sets of armor in a tier, you need the rare mats to construct each of the 6 types of insignias, 6 times, for the 6 different armor pieces. So, after my initial push a few days ago, I got to the tier 2 armor set, which requires Embroidered Jute Insiginas. Each type of jute takes 8 each of a rare mat. (Each type has it’s own associated rare mat. Mighty-Blood, Healing-Totems, etc etc) So, for me to learn all 6 different armor pieces, that means I need 8×6 of each rare mat, or 48 of EACH RARE MAT. At 6 different armor sets with their corresponding rare mats, that’s TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY EIGHT RARE MATS just to discover all the tier armor sets before the next tier in the profession. Keep in mind, the amount of rare mats you need as you increase the level of the profession also go up each tier, so whatever the next tier armor set is, I need even MORE mats than I will this one.
So, 2 days ago, I was at level 59 and had just managed to get to the second tier of armorsmithing. The second tier of armorsmithing with the Embroidered Jute Insignia require the same rare mats the the first tier did, but just more of them, 8 versus 3. So, beings the fact that I don’t work, and I can afford to play this game all day (and I do) and I have literally spent the last 2 days (and I mean DAYS,) grinding out the 288 rare mats to get me through the discoveries for the next higher tier of armor set. After 2 days, or roughly 26 hours worth of grinding, this is where I’m sitting at:
Bone Chip – 16
Weak Blood – 64
Tiny Venom Sac- 56
Tiny Scale – 7
Tiny Claw – 12
Tiny Totem – 15
Keep in mind, Some of this was leftovers from the grinding for the first tier. Also, as you can see, the items drop at massively different rates. Now the little bags of goods that you get can and will drop all of the different mats, but I tend to find that they largely correspond to the drop rates of the actually items off of the mobs.
continued
Except you can’t salvage items that are soulbound usually.
I really liked the runes of divinity [ 1)3 all stats +1% crit damge 2)3 all stats +1 crit dmg] that came on my seraph armor. Problem is now I’m leveling passed that armor and I’d really like to be able to get some of these ( or even better ones) for my next set. Is there a profession that makes these? If so which one? thx
What I’m shooting for is to fill out my virtues line for Master of consecrations (although, if what I’m understanding from the burn mechanics, not entirely sure if it’s worth it), Supreme Justice, and especially, Permeating Wrath. The Honor tree was the other one I intended on filling out, not for any particular skills per se, but I really liked the health increase. Also Battle Presence is pretty nice. Then of course, 10 points into valor for defenders flame. I might end up swapping out the Honor tree for something else, but I’d really miss that extra health.
(edited by Feywray.4351)
You know I honestly haven’t played much with the focus and torch since grinding out the abilities in the early levels, think i’ll go pay them a visit again. Thanks for the advice
Therein lies the problem, your crafting skill will never be at the level you currently are. If you need to craft level 40 gear, then you need level 40 mats from level 40 zones, which you can’t enter until your level 40. By the time you’re done farming the mats to learn the recipies and make the gear for level 40, you’re level 50. So you never catch up till you’re at 80.
Yeah I was actually just looking through the wiki when you posted that, if there’s not passive ability to block, then quite frankly a shield is just plain stupid for a protector to even use. I don’t even think it gives a boost to armor in it’s stats. As for abilities, aegis, icbat, is actually a buff granted to us once every 40 seconds from one of our virtues, which are essentially another type of buff. But that’s one attack every 40 seconds, and it doesn’t even require a shield, as it ‘creates’ a shield for me (the blue glowy one you see us running around with on our left arm) It does this even when I’m smashing things with a great sword.
@Ginwean- The ability you’re thinking of is Protectors Strike- “Surround yourself and nearby allies with a shield. Damage foes that strike protected allies. Grant protection to yourself and nearby allies if you are not struck.” (It’s the blue halo that surrounds an area around us and we cower down like we’re blocking. It works for us and anyone else that is in that area as well) That’s not a shield ability though, that’s an ability granted to me by my main hand mace. In essence, I can’t make attacks while it is active, but it will automatically block the next attack and causes an immediate counter attack if struck while it is up, or if I’m not attacked, it will give me and any allies in it protection for 3 seconds (-33% dmg). Many mobs actually refuse to hit me when it’s up, I’ve even seen them sit there and not attack me when solo grinding when I’ve put it up many times. But like I said, that’s a mace skill, and it doesn’t require a shield. It also has a fairly long cooldown, like 20 or 25 seconds.
The 2 actual abilities that a shield does give me are Shield of Judgment- Create a shielding wave in front of you that damages foes and gives protection to yourself and up to five allies. So basically it’s a shield bash that also grants me protection for like 5 seconds. And the second ability, which I’ve found to be mostly useless, is Shield of Absorbtion – Create a dome around you that pushes foes back and absorbs projectiles. As a mele tank class, I’m not overly fond of pushing the mobs away from me too often. About the only good things I’ve found this for is to buy me a few seconds to heal if I have a lot of mobs on me, or to force mobs into an area that will allow me to corner them in dungeons. It’s not really an ability I find myself using too often. It says in the tooltip if I blow the shield early, it gives a heal, but I’ve never noticed it. Hell warriors get far far better abilities from using a shield. They get a bash that also stuns, and they get an ability that allows them to block for 3 seconds, or basically a true block. Quite frankly, mine rather suck in comparison.
It’s kind of a big deal because up until now, I’ve been going for a burn build with my Protector by filling out my honor and virtue trees, and putting 10 points into valor specifically for Defender’s flame, which will give me a100% chance to burn attackers when blocking. I figured if I get gear with vitality, toughness, and effect damage, I’ll be tough and put out good damage over time with burns. But, if there is no passive block, that means I’m only gaining 3 blocks every 40 seconds. 2 from my mace’s protectors strike and one from aegis. I’m not sure if that’s worth 10 points or not though. I’ll give it a shot and see how it works when I hit 80 I guess.
I think that’s what he’s trying to say, as in, If he becomes a member of say, the priory, on his second toon, can the first toon now then buy items from the priory even though it is a vigil member?
Ok, I was watching the video in the game guide below on combat, and in there it stated that you could make your character do specific things, like “dodge” and “block”, and they specifically showed a character with a shield blocking. Now I know the character can roll, which will ignore damage from attacks (although not necessarily damage from environment). When I looked through the keybinds, I also saw the “dodge” command which I promptly keybinded, only to find out it really is just a roll backwards. But there was nothing there for blocking. Did they just decided to drop that out of the abilities you can command? I’ve noticed my protector blocking before, so is it just given a certain percentage chance that you will block an attack? If so, is this just a static percentage? or can you raise it with abilities stats like defense?
I know ferocity is supposed to raise your attack power, I forget what the other two were supposed to raise. As for me, i just pick whatever answer I think will get me the best result.
Karma dealers generally have good gear for leveling, but it’s very hard even then to get the gear fast enough for your current level. I’ve never seen an MMO where you could craft your own gear relevant to your current level. By the time you are actually able to farm the mats for the gear, you’ve already out leveled it. The fact that in GW2 you actually gain exp when you raise your crafting skill only exacerbates the problem.
The problem is, there’s utilities lacking that are badly needed if AN actually wants people to do dungeons the way they’ve designed them. Everyone is crying about how every one else is dps and aren’t building their builds more uniformly. Well no kitten Sherlock. The vast majority of your time spent is killing trash. The most effective way to do this is to build high burst dps builds because trash is generally weak so if you kill it fast, you don’t take much in damage. If you do happen to come across a tougher than average mob, it’s typically not anything you can’t kill with some other players. So naturally people are just gong to build dps builds, whether you want them to or not. For the player to do otherwise would be counter-productive to his level grind. Likewise, it’s just not worth paying to respec every time you want to run a dungeon either. It may only cost a silver or 2, but silver right now is a lot of money. Maybe in a year or 2 when the realms settle down and the economies are set up in full swing it might not be too bad, but as for now, I’m not spending even 1 silver just to respec because I’ve got a quest to go do something in this particular dungeon. Oh, and as far as stats are concerned, all the gear running around out there is attack power, precision and effect damage gear, so naturally everyone is going to build high damage specs and AN obviously planned for them to do this, or else they wouldn’t have put all that gear out there. What there isn’t a lot of out there, at least in the lower levels, is a lot of vitality and toughness gear.
If you want people to run your dungeons and to build flexible builds, then you need to give them easy ways to maintain their flexibility. Give them the option to build multiple specs and to be able to change between them with the click of a button, like you can with weapons, and you’ll see more people playing support roles in dungeons. There were reasons Blizzard did some of the things they did, and it all wasn’t just because that’s how they wanted to design their game. It took them a little while to figure it out, but once they did, they realized, if you want people to be flexible, then you need to give them the abilities to be flexible. I remember the days when it cost 50 gold +spells/talents every time you wanted to respec to do dungeons in WoW. The dual spec came about simply because people were tired of paying to respec their toon multiple times a week. As soon as they came out with the dual spec feature, you started seeing a lot more support classes being played, especially while leveling.
What I find the most ironic in all of this, AN wanted to do away with the trinity because it made it hard to find groups, especially tanks and healers. Every plate wearer wants to be a tank, but very few could pull it off very well. It takes a certain type of player to tell the group they’re gonna pull the entire room and tank it, and then do it. Do it well, and do it well repeatedly. But tanks weren’t necessarily as hard to find as healers. Tanks LOVED their jobs, but not too many healers were very fond of healing. Yet, out of this whole breaking of the group trinity thing that AN is shooting for, I find it funny how the one support group that makes the dungeon runs easier if your lucky enough to have one, is a player that’s willing to be a full on support/healer.
While I understand what you’re saying about ‘game detachment’ I have to disagree. Mounts are always a good idea, if for no other reason then they’re just plain cool. As for teleporting around everywhere, it’s ok, but quite frankly it’s just flat out ridiculously expensive. Where it really gets me the most though is in BGs. I understand why they did it like they did simply because if you die and you can res in fairly close proximity, you get in the fight much quicker than if the other side has to run farther to get back to the fight, meaning you can win just by shear attrition factor. The maps we’re playing WvW on are HUGE, which is cool, but only having one waypoint to spawn back at and having to run all the way back across the map to get to the battle is really quite aggravating, and makes for some very dull pvp. Besides, taking a fortress that has a waypoint in it would be a huge tactical advantage and make for a great reward for a team that is willing to put the effort into taking it. But without more waypoints, WvW is definitely one place where mounts would be a big boon.
(edited by Feywray.4351)
You’ll notice if you cursor over your skill, it shows info windows for each type of skill attack it goes through. (and this is true for all classes.) When you start auto attacking, it rotates through the skill set automatically. Each attack has a different pic associated with it and if you watch while you’re attacking, the symbol for that skill will change to whichever attack it is using next. i.e. On my protector, using mace and shield, my mace has 3 different attacks. 2 basic attacks followed by a third that does heavy damage and heals me. As it goes through the attacks, the pics on it change towards the next attack so I know what’s coming up next. Rather important if I want that third attack, as my shield abilities can take a bit of time to cast.
Let me beat on you for a little bit then you tell me how fast you move.
Good question, but I doubt any one is really making any good money with the auction house being down all the time, since that’s where most of your income comes into play in MMO style games.
@ Setch- H? When I hit H in game it brings up my hero tab. Did you mean another key command?
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