Guild Wars 2

Dog.1472:

What are you, skritt? It’s asura, not asuran.

Asuran: of, or pertaining to, asura, either as an individual, or as a community. Examples:
The Infinity Ball was made by an asura. It is of asuran design.
It is scientifically proven the asura are more intelligent than any sentient race yet discovered on Tyria. Asuran superiority is therefore confirmed.
The College of Synergetics houses the foremost asuran thinkers.

It’s reasonable as a stationary defense in WvW, as it can be placed where it doesn’t require LoS to the bombarded area which means it’s impossible for the enemies to take it out. Added bonus that you can lob grenades or something while a non-engineer uses the mortar. Also the cooldown is identical to the duration, so it has in essence a 100% uptime. Outside of that very niche use, though, it’s pointless.

I like to switch to it when I’m defending forts, but for everything else, there’s Supply Drop.

KeyLimPi.9031:

I don’t know if I just never noticed this before, but “Oil Slick”s toolbelt skill skill is a stun breaker. Runs at double speed for 5 seconds as a stunbreak? That seems crazy useful xD

Is it really double speed though? I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall reading at some point that tests indicated the speed gain to be about 40%, a far ways off from 100%.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Launch_Ice_Mortar

Skill #4 on the Mortar elite environmental weapon.

Girl’s got the jumps.

lynspottery.6529:

I do wish it would NOT bounce to non-aggroed npcs at all. I do not wish to have moas, wasps, etc., to join in my fights unless I want to target them.

Winds o’ Chaos be chaotic. :P

That said, I agree with you. The lack of control any character with a bounce mechanic has, particularly those for whom it’s their auto attack, is a cause for concern.

Relshdan.6854:

not fixed……i just watched my bounces go from enemy to non-activated dragon hologram object.

I would hazard a guess that this falls in with the above reports of bouncing to neutral NPCs, of which I’m pretty sure the hologram projectors are one.

Personally, I don’t understand the reasoning behind putting single-target loot as a higher priority than multi-target loot. After all, if the user has checked the by-default unchecked checkbox to allow AoE looting, they’re probably interested in looting all surrounding bodies with one click. Thus they shouldn’t complain if that’s exactly what happens. Conversely, if people (for some reason) do not want it, they leave the checkbox unchecked, and AoE looting will never occur unless they specifically bind it.

So, what’s the issue with the priority being Harvest > Talk = Investigate = Revive = FINISH THEM!! > AoE loot if ticked > Search?

Don’t get me wrong, I love the function, but you know what would make me love it more? Not having to run away from the battlefield in order to collect my spoils.

Was the door at 0 HP but not graphically breached, or did it actually have health left when you passed through? I see in the picture that there were reports of the gate losing HP, going below 10% at least, that’s why I’m asking. Not critical if it’s just a graphical glitch, but if the gate still had health left, that’s quite the exploitable bug.

Well, if I were to hazard a guess (being an avid gamer with interest in game development but not actually part of a development team), character attack animations are probably used in bulk – the same animation being used across multiple skills for multiple professions and even hundreds if not thousands of NPCs. And further speculating, the animations are most likely designed with the specific idea that the character is not supposed to be (mechanically speaking, not necessarily graphically) moving in any direction of the 3D space, because that’s the only way to actually make an engaging and accurate representation of attack animations. Sure, Hollywood and medieval action games gives a stunning depiction of burly men in plate armor running around a battlefield at 20 km/h swinging a greatsword around like it was made out of paper, but real combat didn’t go that way. It was typically two people in armor so heavy they could hardly move, standing with their legs firmly rooted in the ground, not even lifting their weapons unless they saw an opening. Of course that doesn’t make for the best gaming experience, but that’s the boundary between realism and enjoyment that game designers have to balance on. For those of you who’ve been in the army, for example, you know that you don’t run towards the enemy (even if the enemy lacks the ability to return fire) and unload with your rifle from the hip while mobile. You take a stationary firing position, take aim, and then fire. Again, that’s not always the most enjoyable combat for games, hence why “run-n’-gun” games are so numerous.

But I digress. Back to the core of the suggestion, to give that one attack a different animation (I assume you mean altogether so that it works both when in transit and when stationary), I believe the design team have considered that during initial development of the animations, yet decided to go for the engaging and reasonably meaty feel the animations give you if you stand still. Personally I’d agree with such a choice, as I feel the amount of connectivity I have with my character (while not so emotionally connective as a mo-cap dog) is much more important to my enjoyment of the game than immersion, and I would personally not be willing to risk sacrificing it in return for less immersion-breaking yet more boring and underperforming combat.

I apologize in advance if I’m not making as much sense as I could have, it is quite late and I really ought to have gone to bed a good two or three hours ago. But to sum my post up, I don’t think altering the animation is a good idea, I’d imagine the design team has considered that, and unicorns are without a doubt pink. I’m sure I mentioned that somewhere in here.

G’night.

Interestingly, I looted one a mere five or so minutes ago while testing another bug, and it was named as it should be, “Dragon Coffer”.

Le edit: Attaching a quickly taken screenie.

When trying out my mesmer today to see if the patch fixed the cancel-autoattack-after-dodge bug, I noticed my staff bounces went to me rather than my dodge-created illusions. Exception seemed to be when they were significantly closer to the mob than I was, but that might’ve been me being out of range of the return bounce to begin with. Anyone with more time that can confirm my observations?

Seems to be fixed with today’s patch. Admittedly I only had a limited time to test, on about eight mobs with excessive dodging, but the auto-attack resumed after every dodge. Even noticed one time when I managed to dodge just as the auto-attack began, the auto-attack carried on through the dodge. Potentially exploitable. Didn’t have time to fill in a bug report though.

nakoda.4213:

Sam.7269:

Just sayin if you wanna be decent at pve listen to my advice. If you wanna have fun and do 1k dps listen to the other lvl 3 fractal advise that was given.

yo, u whack, man.

I know, right?

Heh, yeah. I’ll be honest, when I’m running with the other ‘lings with my toolkit build, I try to save the pull for when the enemy ’lings are on the run. I don’t know why, but there’s some sadistic pleasure involved in just seeing an enemy launching backwards and finding himself surrounded by enemies.

And of course, my build-independent favorite move is the shield #4 ability while on a cliff and engaging a hostile zerg. I can’t pass up the opportunity to insta-kill over 40 enemies with one ability.

But yeah, toolkit is amazing.

Wolfbeil.6805:

Interesting, it’s been like what now almost 2 months?

27 days exactly.

It’s so cute that you think I get mad that easily.

It’s your opinion that there’s only one viable build. Or, more accurately, there’s only one viable build that you can use. Still doesn’t mean more skilled engineers can’t use more than one build, sorry.

@Yobculture: On the topic of WvW, I’d suggest trying a bomb build, or maybe even a toolkit based build if you’re feeling adventurous. I’ve had great success (and more importantly lots of fun) with both of them. Particularly the toolkit build, very few opponents expect it and know how to properly counter it. Better for skirmishing than rolling in the ball of zerglings, of course.

One of the sacrifices of making a game that doesn’t root you while casting, I’m afraid. You’ll have to make movement animation (lower body) independent of attack animation (upper body). The result is at best “floaty” movement and combat without any weight to it, at worst immersion-breaking and outright impossible character animations.

Naturally I use the only viable elixir and the only viable weapon, with another only viable weapon for when I feel like switching things up. I also use the only viable traits, and occasionally I bring the only viable training manual for the only viable quick respec when I desire something fresh. I use the only viable weapon kit, and the only viable elite skill, and in my third utility slot (which is the only viable utility slot) I have the only viable gadget. I’ve also got a full set of the only viable stat allocation, of the only viable rarity of course.

If you do not use this build, you are clearly a scrublord who bought the account on the only viable eBay yesterday.

Let me guess, “fractals is the only viable PvE”.

And you’re using the only viable profession in the only viable game, from the only viable computer in the only viable country.

This is highly entertaining. I can see why you do it.

But yes, fractals are fun. Five builds in fractals is even more fun. You should try it some day – broadening your horizons is a positive thing.

Though I will admit I rarely – maybe one time out of twenty – use the flamethrower build in fractals. So I guess that one viable build isn’t as viable as the other four one viable builds.

Sam.7269:

Forgot to mention but the only viable build for pve for engis is rampager or zerk grenadier/flamethrower so if you are using rabid or carrion as a engi you are going to do even worse damage and the extra vit/tough wont help.

Heh. This one cracked me up. Let’s watch it again, in slow motion.

Sam.7269:

the only viable build

This regarding the one class in the game that is universally acknowledged as the only one to have more than 1-3 viable builds. Personally, I find myself rotating between five different viable PvE builds based on my mood.

The Aetherblades you encounter as part of the early Dragon Bash story also have Inquest golems with them, as identified by the red markings as opposed to the traditional blue.

I don’t see how it contradicts the overall story of the game though, certainly not any more than an alliance between dredge and Sons of Svanir. Also, I reckon it’s too early saying that the Inquest are behind / allied with / in need of / assisted by the Aetherblades. For all we know, it may be a simple case of purchasing technology from the one organization with the goods and willing to sell to them.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news

Have fun reading.

Well, if we’re going to be that picky, nothing the engineer has access to, including the mortar elite skill, counts as heavy artillery (using the accepted standard of >155mm caliber munitions).

Fenrir.6183:

Anyway, when there’s a mention of uniqueness on an item, why buy 2 ?

Because:

This is a silly issue that ANet assumes everyone knows what ‘unique’ really means. Unless you have played other MMOs, there is nothing to lead one to believe you can not equip more than one of these things.

But it goes beyond that. For those of you as ancient (25+) as me, recall the days when all you played, day in and day out, was Diablo 2. Remember the items that were categorized as Unique? You could equip several of those, it was just a case of the drop rate being very low.

So what we’ve really got here is a soup of confusion between people who’ve seen terms like “unique-equipped” and “soulbound” from other MMOs and correctly apply it to this game, old-school gamers who think of “unique” as “oh, this one is really rare, I should get as many of them as I can”, and the people new to both interpretations who probably do not even realize that one single word in a tooltip can mean you’ve just wasted a ton of time and resources if you decide to double click.

IMO, ANet should add one of their fabulous hints at the very least. First time you obtain an item with the “Unique” tab, have a popup show up saying “Hey, you’ve got a unique item! Be aware that you can’t equip two of them at the same time!”

The argument has already been dissected at length.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/races/asura/Asuras-have-advantages-in-PvP

Hard to say before the new/changed traits are announced, but as it looks now, I’d say Automated Response. It’d help significantly with pure condi builds, particularly necromancers and other engineers, and unless I’m much mistaken it also renders you immune to all soft and hard CCs, which the smart guys will start trying to use on you at around 30-25% health anyway.

That’s my own opinion, though, and is based mostly on the fact that you said you’d be doing mostly WvW.

PS. Bring a condition remover as well, Automated Response doesn’t make you immune to conditions you already have on you, only new incoming ones. You’ll want to ditch any conditions you have once you hit that 25% limit.

Kaos.9162:

Glychd.2314:

So I have a Razer Blackwidow, it comes with 5 macro keys on the side. This means i can record songs once, and just use that button to play them in the future. Is this against the rules? My guildies have been warning me, and I don’t want to get in trouble. Does anyone know if this is allowed? I love the idea of having a Lord of the Rings button…especially since I paid 10 dollars for this virtual horn. I would really appreciate it if someone could tell me the official stance on this.

There have been threads asking the same thing, and from what I’ve seen it’s a bit of a grey area until we can get an anet response on it. The policy is generally one press one key activation, but there’s mention that that is so you don’t gain an unfair advantage over other players, which in this case you wouldn’t.

And I can’t imagine we’ll ever get an answer to it. Like it or not, the gray area is some manner of protection for ANet. As long as they don’t specify the exact rules, they have some leeway in deciding what’s acceptable and what’s an offense. But as soon as they come out and confirm, black on white, exactly what’s permitted and what’s not… people will have boundaries they know, and like children, they will begin testing them. At that point one of two things will occur: either ANet gives in and the game suffers for it, or ANet stands their ground and shifts a lot of their time and effort to managing the wave of suspensions or outright bans, giving them less time to focus on actual gameplay improvements and content. Either way, everyone loses.

But those dark thoughts aside…

I acquired the horn yesterday, and I’m overall happy with it. Tried a couple of the songs here, but to make some of them sound genuine (ginge-you-whine) you really need to have a macro or somesuch to insert a quick ESC if you’re going to repeat the same note twice in a row. It’s doable without it, but worth pointing out.

Also worth pointing out, slower songs (with longer notes) are much easier to play than short, staccato-noted pieces (such as The Final Countdown that I saw was requested). Just something to keep in mind when making requests or trying to make your own song – it’s not impossible, it’s just harder.

Once the midsummer celebrations are over, I’ll see about making some Irish-themed notes with specific time measurements. Not that I’m suggesting that you should use a macro (or that I use one myself; oh no, not me, perfectly macro-free over here!), but if you just so happen to have both an internal chronometer and the reflexes to carry out the instructions on a 0.01 second accuracy, I shalln’t hold you back!

Musical pieces currently being contemplated to include:

• A Jug of Punch
• Scarborough Faire
• Wild Mountain Thyme
• Whiskey in the Jar
• Wild Rover
• Bog Down in the Valley
• Rosin the Beau

Nice. Might stick the wings and the heavy helm on my warrior then. Thanks.

Flintbrow.7985:

Plixxa with juggs.

I’ve never seen that armor before. What is it and how can I acquire it?

Le edit: Is it the Primeval armor skin from the store, with some brighter colors?

Dual.8953:

Engie’s pistol can apply a wider variety of conditions with ease, and hit more opponents at once. Couple that with the traits Coated Bullets and Incindiary Powder and Engie can apply a load of bleeds, burnings, poisons and confusions to just about everything in front of them.

Actually, that’s not really a good example of condition spreading over multiple targets.

Explosive Shot does indeed hit multiple targets in a small AoE when it hits an enemy, but it doesn’t cause bleeding to anyone but the primary target, so you don’t actually spread bleeds around any better with Coated Bullets unless you actually hit a second target directly, in which case you’d bleed that person as well as the first direct hit.

Incendiary Powder, due to its cooldown as stated in the trait tooltip, will only ever burn one target every ~10 seconds, so you can’t spread that around either. Also it’s reliant on critical hits, which if you’re building a condition damage engineer you’re unlikely to use as condition damage doesn’t crit (feel free to correct me on this).

Static Shot, of course, is unaffected by Coated Bullets and will not hit any more than the three targets it’s initially connecting to. Blowtorch and Glue Shot aren’t projectiles, so they, too, are unaffected by Coated Bullets.

Coated Bullets do benefit Poison Dart Volley though, so you do have some extra poison to spread around. Not sure if that one condition makes it worth the 30-point investment though.

All in all I feel both Coated Bullets and Incendiary Powder are subpar traits to pick for a condition damage build. I would personally go for Shrapnel and carry a bomb, mine, or grenade kit with me, and only go far enough into Firearms to get Hair Trigger (unless I wanted to play with either the elixir gun or flamethrower, or both). That seems like the best way to spread conditions over multiple targets, to me.

tigirius.9014:

I personally would love an explanation on this from the balance team. Why is our Poison Dart Volley not like the Warrior Rifle Skill Volley where every shot hits?

Because the warrior’s Volley does only direct damage, whereas the engineer’s Poison Dart Volley does direct damage, damage over time, AND reduces healing by 33%.

That’s the balance reason, at the very least, and a very obvious one IMO. The technical reason is that the warrior’s Volley is a single-target attack, whereas the engineer’s Poison Dart Volley is a target-targeted (is there a better word for that?) cone-shaped AoE. Think of it as, say, a thief’s default dagger sweep but with a 900 range.

Le edit: Actually it’s easier to explain by comparing it to the flamethrower’s Flame Jet ability, the difference being that Poison Dart Volley is a projectile-based attack meaning the projectiles need to connect with the target in order to register as a hit.

Terrahero.9358:

Kits are not our profession mechanic. You said it yourself “we can opt not to use it”. Toolbelt is our profession mechanic. Its unique to the Engineer, you will always have it, and it is the thing that gets enhanced through the bottom Trait-line (like every other profession).

Quite so. The profession mechanic is always present regardless of weapon equipped, utilities selected, or even level. It occupies the space on the top left of your action bar and is (default) bound to F1, potentially all the way up through F4. The rangers have pets; elementalists, attunements; thieves, stealing; warriors, adrenaline; guardians, virtues; mesmers, shatters; necromancers, death shroud. And, of course, engineers have the tool belt.

And so it begins…

http://xkcd.com/1220/

Oh, by the Eternal Alchemy…

To bookahs it may concern,

Kindly disregard the Inquest cohort. The Inquest and their ilk will be dispatched in a most satisfactory and vicious manner as soon as possible. Howbeit, judging by the subpar comprehension of its representative with regards to foreign relations, it would appear there is naught for you to consternate.

As a substitute, undersigned offers numerous advantageous contracts within an asuran krewe to bookah migrants. We are forthwith approbating applications for test subjects in scientific pursuits. Several benefits are offered, including, but not finite to:

• Minimum emoluments
• Hibernation installation
• Sustenance of intermediate-to-eminent quality
• Lenient commision schedules
• Protection from foreign hostile forces, limited to singular-head hostiles only
• Carnassial supervision and treatment
• Personal assurances on a regular basis that all experiments cause no permament* injury

Observe that employment contracts do not include you as a krewe member.

Inquiries are directed to Recruiter Dlixx of Gravinomics.

Signed,
Tetrapyloctomist Jigain, Sr Intructor, College of Synergetics

*subject to change

I’ll be honest, I’d feel a lot less disappointed if not for the fact that the people (note the plural) who’ve been assigned to watch this subsection of the forum and relay all bugs on to the development team did not relay this particular bug to the dev team, despite it being on the first page at least once daily.

That it takes time to track down, I can understand. That it takes time to fix it, I can understand. But when multiple people with the explicit duty to watch these threads miss this thread every day, (hopefully?) multiple times a day, for almost two weeks… I cannot understand how that is tolerated. Add to that that multiple people reported the bug in-game as well and it’s baffling that the bug “hasn’t existed” for as long as it did.

Well, what’s done is done, I suppose. I’m glad it’ll finally be fixed, for what it’s worth.

Zizi,

Your formula looks like something scribbled in the corner of a Dynamics’ workbook; it barely holds up to inaugural audit. Surely I educated you more prominently than this!

The individual processing celerity k is clearly not a contant but a variable, as you yourself fortified with the sentence “could be anything between instantaneous or several weeks”. Furthermore, dividing with the population number decreases the total processing celerity, which is inconsistent with existing data that clearly shows total processing celerity increasing with a bulkier amassment of skritt.

Have you already forgotten my first lesson? “If something is worth doing once, it was not worth doing once if it cannot be replicated when done twice.”

Tetrapyloctomist Jigain, Sr Instructor, College of Synergetics

PS. Theory interesting. May have uses when formula works. Well done.

Sr Instructor Jigain

We’ve got pistols firing… fire.
We’ve got rifles firing nets.
We’ve got grenades filled with ice.
We’ve got shields AND wrenches that act like boomerangs.
We’ve got bombs filled with glue.

And you’re complaining that it isn’t realistic a bullet fired from a pistol travels at the same speed as a bullet fired from a rifle? Or is it the firing speed you’re referring to?

I disconnected during a race. When I logged back in, I had three vouchers waiting in my mailbox as the moa I had bet on came in second. So it seems to work just fine for me.

This is from a little over 24 hours ago, by the way.

If it can be identified as being directly connected with an attack by a hostile mob, it is most likely NOT related to the grenade kit unequip bug, which happens regardless of what you’re doing (or even if you’re doing nothing at all).

Scroll down to the first comment and wham, there’s the image I linked.

It’s a better one as it shows how it looks with actual coloring.

Le edit: Here’s another good picture that doesn’t feature the garish default coloring:
http://i.imgur.com/cv0ws6B.jpg (medium, blue and brass-ish, human female)

I, too, deny it.

Medium armor looks like proper engineer armor. Aviator cap, items actually hanging from the belt for once, and by long Johnson, those gloves and shoulders look delicious. Light… just looks like someone took a skirt and painted some gears on it.

Of the heavy variant, I only really like the gloves anyway.

http://i.imgur.com/CX0yXE0.jpg

Are you saying they have a real emotional connection with the profession?

#TrendingMeme

I’ll be honest, after all the MMOs I’ve played I’ve kind of grown desensitized to clipping issues regarding clothes/armor and the character. ANet is actually one of the better MMO devs when it comes to clipping, IMO. I can forgive them.

As if Klor Island wasn’t bad enough, now Trahearne is meddling in the names of candy.

Jorbreaker.

tovadaun.6304:

Buying candy to buy a skin and then reselling it… most definitely defeats the purpose of gaining money.

Actually, “buy low, sell high” is the underlying basics for ANY profit-making venture. If I wait until the price for the candy is 2c each, I can get wings for 20g. Then I sell them once they are no longer obtainable for 60g, maybe 80g, and suddenly I’ve made a 40-60g profit.

Taegos.4132:

On a side note, she is going to see if she can get a dev to respond to this with a possible time frame on this crap.

We’ll see though, not really holding my breath at this point.

Yeah, I’ve kind of given up by now. Just like the bug with my thief that makes it unplayable, I’ve come to accept that this’ll never actually be fixed.

If it does, I’ll be happy of course. I just don’t expect it anymore.

Not sure if it matters, but I believe the Whirling Axe skill has been reported more oftenly. If you can’t see it with Hundred Blades, take a look at that (offhand axe skill #5).

I’ll be perfectly honest, I don’t have any asura characters with a flurry skill. Unless maybe my necromancer has one with her axe. All my information comes from friends, map chat, and the Bug Reports section of the forum.

Entirely disabled? As in, you cannot consume them at all in the game until further notice?

I have to say, that’s a brilliant quickfix until the issue has been properly sorted out.

You think you know me?

I’m on top of the fort you’re trying to capture. Oh, what’s that red circle? Probably nothing. Now you’re choking on my gas grenades, and you can’t roll far enough to take you out of it because your body is numb with ice. Something flashes, you can’t see, where am I? I’m right behind you, setting you on fire. Finally you find yourself able to run away, what’s following you? A ball of napalm, that’s what. It explodes, it burns, it hurts so much. Then the hurting stops. You’re lying on the ground, gasping for breath. A wall of fire spreads on top of you. Do I keep up the assault? I do not. I’ve already dismissed you. What am I doing? I’m dodging through all of your friends, I chug a potion. I deploy a turret, where did it go? I destroyed it. Suddenly I’m back up to full health, and your friends shouldn’t have stood so close to the cliff. Some of them are smart enough to dodge through me when they see the bubble appear. Most aren’t. Half of your friends just went flying, what’s on my screen? Numbers, many numbers, high numbers. That’s the experience coming in. Your friends start falling back, what do I do? I pull out the rifle. One of the poor suckers get netted, I turn the rifle to the ground, and within the blink of a moment I descend upon him from above like a thirsty vampire. Before he can react he’s already taken a Blunderbuss at point blank. He turns to face me, where am I? I’m already gone with an overcharged shot. I get up, he gets up, supply drop goes down. Netted again. I leave the turrets to finish him off as I head to meet up with the commander.

You think you know me?

I am Engineer. I embody versatility, utility, cunning. Adaptability. I am dynamic, flowing. I shape the battle in my favor using every tool at my disposal.

This is who I am.

kurtosis.9526:

This is interesting, was not aware. What do you mean by “visually dealing half damage”? Are you saying Asura Flurry abilities are dealing the correct damage, but not showing it in the numbers they pop up? Or something else?

Yup, that’s precisely what I’m saying. It is as of yet unclear whether or not it actually deals less damage or not, but the majority of reports indicate that the damage dealt remains the same regardless of race, so Occam’s Razor on that too. It is confirmed, however, that any flurry attacks (mostly prevalent in the Warrior profession with Whirling Axe, Flurry (1hSwd adrenaline) and 100 Blades as examples, but also present with Thief Dagger Storm and Mesmer Blurred Frenzy and probably a good 3-5 more I can’t think of at the moment) will visually only hit with every 2-3 attack. Essentially what this means is if a human uses one of these skills and racks up a number of, say, 700 damage, an asura under the same conditions will see half or even down to a third as much damage.