Guild Wars 2

Wolfgang Hype.8970:

This is a problem with the entire game and has been there since launch.

A large number of NPCs in the late story briefly acknowledge your past in the early game. There seemed to be less recognition with my Sylvari than with my Humans or my Norn, though. I go around and talk to every named NPC I get a chance to talk with.

I did not design the achievement system nor the incentive system. Unless ANet tells me not to do it, it is fair.

In fact, there are numerous “cheats” on puzzles. I can go to YouTube and watch a movie for any puzzle I cannot figure out. I can follow someone who already knows how to do it. I can bring my engineer, eat dinner near the computer and make the next jump every 20 seconds with my rifle. Arguably any or all of these tactics dishonor the spirit of the game. As I said, I never designed the incentive system. I just follow the incentives I am given.

Alexander.4827:

Any chance for some unique dialogue later for us nobles?

On another thread they said they had intended to include this, but it somehow got left out.

Two interesting lore questions came up if you talked to NPCs at the end:

I want to know the identity of the “snake-nosed trickster” the dredge prisoner in the stockade in the Black Citadel mentioned. I thought maybe Kudu from Sorrow’s Embrace, but his nose doesn’t look very snake-like.

The Flame Legion prisoner said they would survive even if the dragons won. What is the plan of the Flame Legion?

I enjoyed Flame and Frost. The dungeon is really fun.

Kaaboose.3897:

Number 7: Personal Story – 8:22

Your video annoyed me at this point. To explain why, imagine you were watching a critque of the Star Wars trilogy and the critic said “We learn in the first movie Han Solo is a smuggler involved in organized crime, but his criminal past never comes back to haunt him again. That makes no sense!” Would you take the critic seriously?

From the loss of Claw Island to the end, the story is populated with NPCs from personal stories from levels 1-47. They are everywhere. It is rare to find an NPC from level 48 on who did not show up in some personal storyline earlier. You even complain about them not being in Fort Trinity at the end..? In fact, it is difficult to find anyone from your personal story who is NOT in Fort Trinity at the end.

Of course, you acknowledged what you were saying was not true, but dismissed it saying they did not acknowledge knowing you. Did you click on them, walk up to them and press “F” to talk? Because I did. Every time so far they have acknowledged our past.

Havana.8625:

It was hovering by 3.6 for a bit but now it’s crashing down towards 3. I can’t figure out what is causing this. It shouldn’t be too tied to the price of Ectos as you need both Ectos and Ori to craft exotic gear. It shouldn’t have to do with the release of the new pick, as not enough people have bought the pick to cause an Ori mining rampage (and their decision whether to mine hardly should be influenced by this as it is profitable to mine Ori regardless.) Any ideas as to what is causing this?

I would say the two false assumptions John Smith referred to are:
1. “you need both Ectos and Ori to craft exotic gear” Not all exotic gear requires orichalcum. If orichalcum becomes too expensive, more exotic weapons are acquired through dungeon tokens, trading post and wherever else. Furthermore, ectoplasm has many, many uses that have nothing to do with exotic gear. It is used in so many mystic forge recipes, for example.

2. You are assuming people who bought the new pick are mining more orichalcum than they did before. To me, the value of the new pick would be to clear up inventory space, not to get orichalcum for cheap.

Fighting Nokk: since I did this path on a guardian and was warned beforehand, I went +80% boon duration and brought my best stability setup. That helped a lot. However, as I told my party members when I showed them the fast run: be directly down the ramp or directly up the ramp. Never put yourself between the lava and Nokk (or should I call him “knock”?). He takes awhile, but can be beaten as long as you position yourselves so he won’t Nokk you into the lava.

Awesome! At that point, does agony resistance even matter? How long do people predict it will be until we see our first 100 level fractals groups? Or has this already happened..?

No professions are poor. However, only some professions will have a “meta” build.

This happened in GW1 and it probably happens in every MMO. There are two issues:
1. What is a time-efficient run.
2. What is easy to screw up and what is easy to get right.
The confluence of these two factors determines the “meta.” Some dungeon paths can be done extremely quickly by certain builds of certain professions with low chances of failure. You see them dominating searches on gw2lfg.

For point 1, certain runs cannot be done quickly (e.g., the Forward/Forward path of Twilight Arbor), so you do not see many people doing them. Certain runs don’t lend themselves to the “meta” build (like path 2 on Sorrow’s Embrace), so you don’t see many people doing them.

For point 2, all professions can be done awesomely. BUT… certain ones are easy to screw up. Thief can be done poorly. It takes more skill to do massive damage on a thief than a warrior. It also is easier for enemies to down a poorly played thief than a poorly played warrior. Therefore, people looking to get done quickly are sometimes reluctant to take thieves. Also, condition damage professions don’t stack well (you add poison duration to your enemy, but two people hitting the enemy doubles the damage over time).

If you don’t care about being a super dungeon runner, don’t worry about it. It will just take a bit longer to find groups. If you want a super dungeon runner, make a warrior, guardian or mesmer. It does not have to be your main character.

No matter how the game is designed, this will happen. With game changes, the super dungeon runner profession may change, as well. One day it could be that every pro dungeon run needs a thief in full clerics armor and a sylvari ranger for double binding vines attacks. Who knows? Assassins in the GW1 meta went from almost useless to awesome to almost useless to essential and awesome over the years.

Professions that have the most difficult time getting groups, roughly in order of “meta” hate: necromancers, rangers, engineers and fourth place is a tie between thief and elementalist.

That said, I did a fast fractals run the night before last with 2 engineers, a ranger and a thief with my guardian (I guess I spoiled it by bringing a meta profession, huh?). We kicked their rears with little difficulty. All professions can do it.

Paulytnz.7619:

It’s obvious which classes were made first (Warrior/Guardian) and all other classes after and given less thought with regards to ease of use or balance for some areas like dungeons etc.

No, elementalist came first followed by warrior, ranger, necromancer and then guardian. Guardian was in the last half.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

The problem does not lie in the system, but rather in other factors of the game’s design. There is little adaptation because the current dungeon design doesn’t require nor particularly encourage it.
… As a result, instead of a tank, healer, and dps, we now have 4 dps Warriors, all of which are more or less self-sufficient, and a support, such as a Guardian or Mesmer.

While there is something to your argument, it has one major flaw: this does not happen in “dungeons.” It happens in a few paths of certain dungeons that lend themselves to this play style. Path 1 of the Citadel of Flame is extemely popular because of this, but not every path of every dungeon is done this way.

What you are talking about is the same thing that happened in GW1: a certain set up is difficult to screw up and highly effective for a few lucrative runs. It becomes “meta.” Places where it does not work are dubbed “impossible” or “poorly deisgned.” In GW1 I remember breezing through Shards of Orr in hard mode in under 40 minutes with no consumables and never wiping. Maybe 2 people fell the whole way through. Yet this was an “impossible without cons” run (at that time it was, before the Bone Dragon Staff craze). It was not impossible. It was quite easy if you understood the mechanics. The easy, low or moderate skill one size fits all formulas did not work.

I go onto gw2lfg and <20% paths make up >50% of group requests. A large portion of them only want “warriors or mesmers in full zerker gear, ping gear.” If those are what you like, then, cool, have fun with them. For you, however, I suggest you look at the other 80%.

MMOs will always follow the 80/20 rule (80% of the time people are doing 20% of the level-appropriate content). It will happen whenever there is a confluence of high reward and quick path with easy build.

pbjustin.6154:

join WarCry here’s are website http://thewarcryguild.com/

I appreciate the suggestion, but I was quite clear that I would represent 50% of the time. Unless WarCry has changed this policy but not their web site, I do not meet the requirements.

Hi, I am looking for a guild that does guild bounties, missions’ etc. I am on Blackgate and have 8 level 80 characters including one with “Been There, Done That” (important for guild bounties).

I am willing to represent 50% of the time.

PM: Daniel Barton

Polarbear.5896:

I’ve always thought items bought from the auction house in any game should become soul/account bound. This also would facilitate removal of items. A certain other recent game has an utterly failed economy with hyperinflation, due to econ-players and lack of item removal.

This would cause inflation in two different ways:
1. It would remove a gold sink.
2. It would increase the ratio of gold : items that can be traded for gold.

It would not combat hyperinflation, but might cause it.

Versepelles.1972:

What do you think about flipping?

I find it dull to do, but I like its existence. Every flip of an item I do not intend to buy increases the value of my gold. If someone buys 1000 copper ore at 6 copper each and resells for 1000 for 8 copper each, a total of 2100 copper are removed from the economy. Only 900 would have been removed without flipping. Every copper that is removed from the economy increases the value of the copper in my bank. Every copper not removed from the economy adds to inflation, decreasing the value of copper in my bank.

Ioflux.4369:

Yet you created content that can be trivialized by having quantity over quality. It’s doable with less people with communication, but even more doable with more people with no communication.

From what I have seen, larger guilds often complain about failing because a lack of coordination causes them to flood guild chat with irrelevant info, burying the important information like the nearest waypoint to the bounty.

Coordination wins this content. A sufficiently large group can make up for their disorganization, but 20 people who all know what they are supposed to do beforehand > 100 people who all just sort of show up with 4-5 who know what they are doing trying to direct them.

shambo.3842:

here is a link to a video guide for every dungeon path.

Thanks, but you are completely misunderstanding the nature of the problem. The problem was not how difficult it was, per se. The problem is that we get on when job/family obligations allow and would rather not spend hours doing something only to learn we did not have enough time to complete it. Time is what I need to know.

One guy had problems with his wife because she did not expect him to be on for over 2 hours, but he did not want to leave us high and dry, either. Spending time with friends on a video game should never be the cause of a family argument. The whole problem could be avoided if we had an idea of how much time it would take.

We were blindsided by the time requirement. The long F/F path of Twilight Arbor, when none of us had done it before, did not take that long. He tells his wife “I will be done in 2 hours, 2.5 tops” and thinks he is telling the truth based on experience. I told people at work I would meet them early. Who knows what other problems the other 3 had. This is unnecessary and part of what gives video games in general and MMOs in particular a bad name.

Note I do not mind that it takes a long time. We can plan for that, but not if every thing we have seen says “under 2 hours” and we are over 2.5 hours in and no end in sight.

We attempted Arah path 2 last night. One party member had done different Arah paths before and the rest of us were newcommers to Arah explorable. I figured I had up to two and a half hours with someone who did it before, so I had plenty of time, right? Nope, not even close. While our experienced person was not always good at explaining things and parts lacked instructions (trial and error were required to get through the spider cave – it had changed since he had last done it), even with better guidance it would have taken a long time. We were all adults with jobs in the morning and 3 of 5 were married with kids and did not like accomplishing nothing in almost 3 hours, not getting enough sleep and irritating those we live with (in a game advertising itself as friendly to casual players). This could all have been avoided if we had any guidelines about how long it was expected to take the first time.

Are there any guides on this forum that will help us avoid this situation in the future? If it is expected to take >2 hours, we really need to know that.

Oak.4978:

a friend of mine said they would likely have shorter lives than humans being big cats who are mostly carnivorous.

There is no reason this should be true. If your friend is comparing Charr to big cats, then we should be compared to assorted apes which all have much shorter lifespans than Humans. Also, Charr have features not found in cats (e.g., horns, different ears, reversed knees on hindlimbs).

If he/she is talking about being carnivorous, their physiology is presumably well adapted to being carnivorous. You cannot compare them to Humans that eat meat-heavy diets with few plant-based foods. While it is clear Human life span and diet are related, it is unclear exactly how different dietary factors are related to lifespan. Chronic overeating reduces lifespan and assorted nutritional deficiencies (e.g., not getting vitamin B1 or not getting enough lysine) will shorten lifespan. Chronic caloric restriction without the loss of essential vitamins and minerals with increase lifespan. That is all we know for sure.

Otherwise, it gets complicated. For example, poor rural people moving to cities have very different outcomes. They switch to a diet heavier in processed grains, fats and fatty meat. People switching from a grain and vegetable heavy diet tend to maintain their weight and live longer, but people who switch from a more meat-heavy diet (e.g., traditional Inuits moving to cities) tend to get obese very quickly and die young. Furthermore, it has been shown in Humans and rats that how somebody’s grandparents ate the year before their parents were conceived can affect lifespan (cutting it by as much as 30 years in the case of Humans). Yeah, how you eat this year may affect the lifespan of the children of the children you sire or bear next year…

As for maturation rate v lifespan, they are not necessarily closely related in nature. In the plant kingdom especially but also among mollusks there are organisms that grow up over many years or even decades, reproduce once and die. Many animals start aging rapidly at the end of their reproductive lifespan (e.g., mice), while others continue living for a long time afterwards (a process called senescence, seen in for example Humans, many reptiles, fungi). It is possible the Charr start reproducing in their teens, finish in their 30’s and die around 40-45. Or their lifespans could be similar to Humans.

timecookie.8570:

This Siamoth made my night.

Spider pig/spider pig/does whatever a spider pig does…

Khisanth.2948:

It is possible to sneak you way up to that vista without ever aggroing the champion …

I don’t see how. It hangs around directly beside the ramp and comes for you immediately upon getting up to the platform. I kept trying to run by dodging until I finally got it. Took maybe 4-6 tries. Maybe it was differently positioned for you, but where it was sitting going right through melee range was impossible went I went by.

Run by doesn’t even address situations like in the Collapsed Observatory with the ooze that shoots you and goes invulnerable right after you attack it, forcing you to jump off the path to kill it.

A previously slightly annoying problem has become a serious obstacle. I cannot exit combat anymore by relogging. There is a champion there, and not a pushover one, either. I need a party to defeat it.

I used to be able to log out and log back in to do vistas or jumping puzzles when an enemy would tag you, go out of combat and you would be stuck in combat. Now when I relog, even after logging into another character, I am still in combat.

Was this intended by the patch? Are we now supposed to need parties to get certain vistas or jumping puzzles?

Using “Shake It Off!” followed by “For Great Justice!” my warrior shouts “shake it for great justice!”

Quaggan (sounding hurt): The Jotun are Foo, and won’t share with Quaggan.
You: The Jotun are Foo, all right.

Any time I see someone in chat write “wwwww2wee4444eeddwwwdddeeeed” Extra lulz if they say they were defeated a moment later.

I walked out of the south gate of Lion’s Arch the first time and asked in Guild chat “Frog Juicer?”

I was at a vista in Malchor’s Leap and did not want to walk down. However, the building beside it had a spire and a sloping roof that looked like I could jump down. A might leap on top of the spire… to discover that it was just a graphic. I saw myself falling down a pole. For a long time…

I found that in PvE it is a nice damage add but doesn’t do what bleeding and burning can do. You need traits and condition damage to really use it since it will only hit most foes once. I think in PvP it would be devastating because we spam attacks. It hurts when used on players in PvE because it can be hard to get your character to stop attacking. I usually only melee when I can against confusers since I can always back away and wait for confusion to end.

Jenosavel.1756:

That doesn’t change the fact that the largos are one of the only species in this game that blatantly ignores the relationship between real world anatomical structures and the creature’s environment.

Among other creatures that blatantly ignore real world anatomical structures:
Griffons, harpies, bats, fireflies and other flying critters – their wingspans are far, far too small for creatures of those sizes to stay aloft. Maybe Tyria is low gravity? That would explain a lot in game, actually…

Norn, Ogres – the legs would have to be thicker or made of something Humans don’t have to support a running, jumping biped of that size (about 80% thicker than Human legs, or 30% thicker in proportion to their bodies, assuming they are a 50% scaled up Human anatomy).

Giants – Like Norn and Ogres, but more so.

Jellyfish – not sure how they are achieving that rapid forward motion. Their umbrella membranes clearly don’t expel any more water than a normal large Cnidarian, but they move much, much faster. I am not sure how they eat enough, either. Their body structures resemble small Cnidarians, but larger ones need much longer stalks and more epidermal structures to catch and digest enough food and distribute nutrients.

How do those tiny aquabreathers extract enough oxygen from water to support a Human who is fighting? Not to mention what the requirements of Norn or Charr must be… Oxygen must be a lot more soluble in Tyrian water than Earth water.

Speaking of aquabreathers, it is worth noting that Largos seem to wear aquabreathers. This suggests they might not be naturally aquatic.

I have played through on 8 characters, I think 6 of them solo, and this did happen once. The Tenstrikes mercenaries were following me and we got to the courtyard and defeated the first group of undead. I went into the next group and gathered aggro to myself and began dodging. The Tenstrikes mercenaries and Pact soldiers that were following me stood there and did not engage. I was overwhelmed and the undead attacked my companions. They did not appear to be fighting back against the undead who had come up to them and died very, very quickly after I was defeated. When I ran back from the checkpoint, all were defeated and I could not recover. I restarted and it went off without a hitch.

Size affects jumping puzzles, but nothing else. I get used to the scaling of any race fast.

Across my 8 professions I have 3 Humans, 2 Charr, and one each of Sylvari, Norn and Asura. Obviously I know the Human storyline best and the Charr second best.

I found the storyline quality is very much a matter of personal taste and enjoyment varied tremendously for me. I liked the Noble and Commoner storylines but not the Street Rat. I liked the Floating Grizwhirl and Dead Sister, but I never figured out why they were interested in killing me (thereby exposing themselves) in the Unknown Parents.

For the Charr, the Blood Legion story line showed Charr society was self-destructive. Every time something goes wrong, they blame each other and start killing each other. The Iron Legion storyline showed that they could cooperate with each other, at least, but I did not like so frequently having to use an alternate skill bar and one-mission turrets while I was still learning to play my engineer. The Loyal Soldier storyline taught me that Charr apparently don’t inform their superiors about what they should and they leave valuable stuff out where others can and do find them for no apparent reason. The sorcerous shaman storyline was interesting to me, though.

The Asura Statics/Weather Converter storyline was funny. I liked the slightly alien mind set of the Asura that personal reputation was more important than personal safety and MUCH more important than anyone else’s safety. However, if someone else was doing something dangerous, their disregard of others’ safety was unconscionable! Lol!

The Sylvari storyline did not do much for me (All Things Have a Right to Grow/Shield and Moon). It was sort of generic adventure defeating evil because it is evil.

I liked the Norn storyline (Protect the Spirits/Blacked Out). It really showed that Norn fight hard and party hard, but they are not unthinking brutes. I also enjoyed the Norn Orders storyline more than any of the other 4. It had more mystery and choices that better reflected the different Order’s philosophies (particularly when it came to battle). If I were to make a new character, it would probably be a Norn. I don’t have a female Norn, but I played an intro with one to generate an engineer headpiece skin. I loved how fierce the Norn woman sounded without being overblown. Just listening to her, even when she was not boasting, said “don’t mess with me.” Charr sound like that, too, but they are overblown and hammy about it.

Curuniel.4830:

when someone starts sabotaging/attacking your character, and Trahearne and the PC agree that it’s obviously to get at him…somehow.

It makes perfect sense. The reason the Pact can hold together is that they can agree on a leader not affiliated with any Order but who is respected by all 3. As far as is known, Trahearne is the only one that qualifies. His second in command (you) is affiliated with an Order. If you want to break an enemy alliance, kill the person holding the alliance together. Zhaitan strikes at enemy leadership over and over again: Queen Jennah and the leaders of the Orders. In an obligatory mission in Timberline Falls, a major leuitenant of Zhaitan orchestrated an elaborate plot as an apparently random attack on an archaeological dig just to lure Trahearne into a trap.

That said, I feel that Trahearne risks himself far too much as a military leader. This may be because of Sylvari naivitee, or the fact that video game conventions often have leaders fighting on the front lines far more often than you see IRL.

In GW1, people constantly complained about various NPCs who were featured a lot: Prince Rurik, Master Togo, Mhenlo, Kormir and Dunkoro. However, when they left players to read mission text or NPC text to find out what was going on, people who did not read complained that it all made no sense. No matter what ANet did, they would get complaints. I would not worry overmuch about it. Remember, lots of people write: “I love this game” and do not single out any particular aspect, but when people complain they often single out one or a few aspects.

LowestTruth.2635:

It’s most obvious when you’re trying to piddle around in something like DCUO — let me tell you, Superbatman135553737 starts to look pretty good as a name after you hear a cheery computer say “ERROR!” name-already-in-use fifty times.

Superhero names are different. I never have had a name already in use error in GW1 or GW2. Having a given name and surname ensures this. Now, one of my GW1 characters had a “forbidden string” in GW2 for reasons unclear to me, but none of the others did.

I am wary of people who have offbeat names because my bad experiences in interactions have been strongly, disproportionately with people who have names like Shaves Bellow or Shiver Runner or Meat Stabber. I will group with most people, anyway, and there is usually not a problem.

If a game ever comes out where the in-game dialogue can pronounce character names, there are people I will not be grouping with.

Wolfgang.6489:

I see a lot of people who think that the idea of a Norn thief goes against a “code of honor” or some other belief system that the Norn have, but if you really take a look at Norn lore we’ve been shown that they don’t adhere to anything like that at all. It’s more a case of individual achievement and character than anything else.

Absolutely right.

If you read the Norn lore on the main web site, it is obvious that being sneaky, devious and striking from shadows is perfectly legitimate for Norn. The whole story of snow leopard helping gain vengeance is based on this. The taunt was “you have to sleep some time.” Yeah, that means stabbing an enemy while they sleep is perfectly acceptable to Norn if that is your fighting style.

Mesmers are one of the two professions with the steepest learning curves (the other being thief, but IMO mesmer is steeper). A necromancer is easy to learn well enough, but it is easy to fall into bad habits.

I am not sure what they mean by necromancers being weaker. In large events they have trouble ramping damage due to condition stack limits, but, really, large events are about staying alive more than doing massive damage. Mesmers are super-useful for some dungeons for their ability to teleport the team and an unparalelled ability to distract foes. The main problem I had with necromancers is I cannot figure out how they fight as effectively as other professions underwater (I guess I am too dependent on wells). So of course I took the sea invasion of Orr quest line on my necromancer.

Ema.4953:

Where are the giants? Are they the big bloated dudes that explode at the teq dragon or somewhere else?

I have only found 3 giants you can fight. One champion spawns to start an event chain in Hidden Ouberon (sp.?) in the Harathi Hinterlands. One champion attacks Nageling Village in the Diessa Plateau during an event. A non-champion sometimes spawns in southwestern Brisban from the Thaumatova reactor bleed-over.

Nageling is most reliable. I have only once been able to get people to come for the Harathi HInterlands event. I came to fight the giant in southwest Brisban a couple of times, but it had already been defeated by the time I got there.

Soulmyr.8094:

I saw a player with at least 6 legendaries and I’ am just wondering how that is even possible? Just for the info.

I would just ask someone with multiples. I suspect skilled day trading, myself. In GW1, I found people were usually happy to chat about how they got what they did.

Khyron.8735:

Asura are constantly backstabbing, stealing from and sabotaging rival krewes to get ahead. They aren’t a peaceful race, they’re a race in a constant gang war with each other.

A hylek calls out an Asura on this in Metrica near the crafting stations. The Asura asks why hylek tribes constantly fight. She replies that all hylek want the same hunting grounds, breeding grounds, etc. and there is not enough to go around, so they kill each other to see who gets it. The Asura said it seems wasteful. Couldn’t they work it out by talking? Couldn’t they cooperate? She asks “You mean like how different Asura labs cooperate?” He stumbles trying to come up with a response, then says “You’re right. Point taken.”

The main problem I had was when we were presented with false choices. For example, the human/choose an order defending the queen from Kellach forces you to choose one of three plans. However, the Priory’s plan can be executed alongside the Vigil’s or the Order of Whispers’ plan. So, why not do both the Priory’s and Vigil’s plan at the same time? Indeed, you could combine elements of OoW’s plan by having them hide the queen and replace her with an illusion. This is a prime example of a false choice. It would be easy to fix, too. For example, a single pice of dialogue: “The undead have been attacking outlying settlements to draw the Seraph away from Divnity’s Reach. They have snuck two forces into the city. Two of the orders will deal with those forces while the third protects the queen.” Ta-da, false choice gone.

The end of the Norn storyline against the dredge weapon was a similar false choice. Recruiting the quaggans against the dragon had another false choice. Most PS choices were not false choices.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

@Narcemus: Interviews pre-release said they work on clockwork technology (springs and gears and such), but there’s a charr in the Black Citadel talking about an alternate energy source besides steam powered.

Clockwork? Lol, I would love to see the torsion spring that can power a helicopter.

As I said, Charr technology is magical.

2 general tips: there is no one answer in GW2. Everything is situational (What do the enemies do? What can my teammates do?). Second, your first job is to stay alive and in the battle and any build and play style that does this first job well will really help out your team.

You cannot go full support in this game. However, well-placed support can make a huge difference. One my my guardian’s armor sets give +40% boon duration total, and with my normal trait set and consumables it bumps up to +80% boon duration and this can help a lot (being able to maintain stability with consecrations and shouts well over 30s can be huge in some situations, for example). However, full support will not save a team mate that does not know how to avoid damage. I found the most important forms of support in order of importance are:

1. Helping others remove conditions. In high condition areas, a guardian is one of the few professions that can sustain enough condition removal to matter over the long haul, and you can remove them from your whole team. This includes light combo fields.
2. Stability in high knockdown, push/pull, daze, etc. areas. Guardians excel at this and it can make a huge difference.
3. Aegis and protection because not all damage can be avoided (note: Aegis is usually applied from “Retreat” and much less so from your virtue where the duration is short).

Miscellaneous: Healing to mitigate what damage people do take. If they avoid a lot of the damage, this does make a difference. Swiftness + Aegis + Stability (iow, the shouts “Retreat” + “Stand Your Ground”) in many areas where foes are being bypassed. Might to increase damage output (the duration bonus is huge with staff using Empower).

Remember that all boons help a little bit, but your main job is to stay alive. You also need to look at your team. 2 guardians, 2 mesmers and a ranger? Go full-bore damage. 1 guardian, 2 warriors, a thief and an elementalist? Try to support them and keep your enemies distracted and inside damaging AoE while the team destroys your enemies.

Bloodstealer.5978:

Strange, having played since Beta I can’t even think of one guild across any server that has stood out as awesomesauce….

Oh, I can. In the western Blackgate Borderlands we held the keep and a fairly small group (maybe 30, not a huge zerg) of mostly [Agg] got in by mesmer portal. We had maybe 25 defenders. With the keep, the NPCs and their inability to get reinforcements to replace losses, we should have stomped them, right? Nope. We nearly lost and it took a long time to defeat them (1 or 2 defeated every couple of minutes, while they mowed down 6-10 of us and we had to run back from the garrison and we watched our gate health drop and drop). They were well organized and devastating. I felt like we were a militia fighting a professional military. I rarely WvW and have only seen this once, but boy do I remember them.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It bothers me that someone who should be close to my character, who should mean something, just kind of disappears from the world and reappears with no fanfare or hint.

Letters from her during the other chapters wouldn’t have hurt. I mean, Logan saw fit to keep sending them and to my ranger he’s a close ally but not on the same level as his long lost sister he saved from captivity, believed dead until recently.

I did read your post and I understand it. The problem is that even fairly small things like letters take development resources away from other things*. They could have set up your home instance where you go back and visit your friends, order contacts and those you met in your level 11-20 arc, or set up letters or whatever. However, remember (1) they are making the game for everyone including those who pay attention to the story and don’t (and I remember the complaints about GW1 Prophecies when they showed sotry or forced you to read dialogue to know what to do next) and (2) everyone does the gameplay. So developers focus their limited resources on the gameplay when the story is good enough.

I just assume my character is in touch with others. My Charrs write their warbands, my Humans write their childhood friends and sister and my Asura writes her mentor and Krewe. Also remember that the more communication you have with NPCs, inevitably the more words they are putting into your characters mouth (I remember finding this annoying in City of Heroes/Villains especially).

*The messages need to be tested under many circumstances, and even a small problem can lead to lots of need for debugging.

I am not sure what bothers you about this. If you pay attention to the story, this gives it replay value. Presumably your character knows a lot of people that are not mentioned in the story. This doesn’t mean (s)he doesn’t know who goes to Orr.

I stood right by where the second farthest one from the stack of players spawned (second from left) so it would pop between me and the Shatterer and I could not miss it. I used ranger with axe to hit multiple targets. Maybe I just got lucky, but I got it on my first try.

The copter in the fields of ruin had two top-mounted rotors and both spun clockwise. They also had a bunch of spines on the rotor tips for some reason (maybe to create more drag..?).

The charr choppers are probably the most comical “technology” design in the game. One of the problems (nothing to prevent counterrotation) is mentioned above. Some other problems:

The aspect ratio (width of the rotor compared to the body) is small. Much of the thrust is blown on to the body, negating the lift.

The blades are tilted downward. Note: they are not blades with a flexible joint, they are bent downwards. The reason they design wings this way is to reduce stability if a plane is so stable it has toruble turning. So the charr built it this way, apparently, so the choppers are easier to crash.

The downward bent blades also increase the stress on the blade since the blades are always being pulled out to be straight. The Charr apparently designed the rotor of their combat aircraft to make it easier for enemies to shoot off the rotor.

Also, I am not sure if they can alter the pitch of blades built like that without them losing all their lift (altering blade pitch is how helicopters tilt and maneuver). This would mean the choppers are designed to tumble and fall when they try to change their pitch or roll.

I must conclude that Tyrian physics are weird (this certainly would not be the only case of bizzare physics) or that the choppers are magical devices that happen to look like helicopters.

Let’s not even get into how the Charr built a compact, light enough steam engine to power a helicopter. Normally helicopter engines are air cooled to save weight, and these guys have engines that use water as a propellant!

Lightsbane.9012:

on any server.
1.) what made you choose and stay on the server you’re on?(other than friends)
2.) what will it take for the wvw players to get you into wvw?
3.) wvw benefits your dungeon runs, do you not agree that helping us get the buffs you benefit from is the right thing to do?
4.)is it the repair bill that scares you out?(i farm maybe 2 hours a week and that’s a 7g profit each week i’m sorry but i can’t see that as valid. to each their own maybe)
5.) why would a risen priestess of milandru be impressed with your Legendary?
6.) to my GOM bros specifically, some of the PvE guilds on our server are upwards of 300+(and active), can you grasp how much of a difference just 1/10 of your guild members would make if they were active in wvw daily?
7.) World Vs. World is one of(probably the) best way for your guild to not only get recognition, but respect. if your guild is influential enough here…you get the point.
Something i’ve realized, that the fact of the matter is, PvE heavy servers will stay that way until WvW’s incentives surpass PvE’s. That or thief gets nerfed hardcore.
However, if open world pvp were introduced…the tune might change quickly.
k, gripe over.

1. Friends is all.

2. If WvW was more about winning territory and less about ganking and there was more incentive to not get most players into a zerg, it would be interesting to me.

For me, the experience that best defines WvW: I was mapping. I came up to a tower with about 20-30 attackers and 3 defenders. A half dozen prospecitve defenders were waiting nearby, but dared not approach for being cut down. I ran by to get to the POI I desired and found myself being run down by over a dozen foes, maybe over 20. Since I was a guardian, I got pretty far beofre they downed me. The other prospective defenders ran inside during my (unintentional) distraction and repelled the attack. Lesson: many people who play WvW care less about winning the big objectives than ganking. That mentality does not interest me.

3. I don’t think the WvW people are in it to give me buffs. They like WvW, just like I like my PvE. I would PvE without those buffs, and they would WvW if it did not give buffs.

4. Are you saying you earn 7 gold in 2 hours of farming? I don’t believe that. It is not repair bills. It is that the objective of WvW (capturing territory) is second to ganking.

5. And other players are impressed? I was unaware I was trying to impress anyone. My experience is that people who notice your gear as oftenclaim you have no life as they admire what you have.

6. Sorry if you are on a weak WvW server. A lot of people on my server like WvW.

7. If you are into getting guild recognition, that is great. I don’t care about guild recognition.

I was wondering if any guilds that often have less than 15 players on per night were banding together to do guild bounties. Here is how it would work:
1. Members of both guilds join the other.
2. When one guild wants to do a bounty, members in both guild represent that one. Then, there are enough players to start the bounty and work on it.
Is anyone doing this? How is it working out for you?
Thanks!

In GW1 Lore, the battles in the Hall of Heroes happened because after the spirits in the Hall learned to defend themselves from mortal invaders, they sought entertainment in pitting mortal groups against one another in death matches. WvW could also be something similar. A group of beings in the Mists decide to pit armies of mortals from different places against one another for entertainment. The mortals have not caught on, or are so bent on conquest, glory and rewards that they don’t care

Wild speculation: a group of Mist beings wants to invade Tyria and desires to study how Tyrians fight before the invasion. They set up the Mist Wars to observe everything about Tyrian warfare before they attack (this will, of course, be the central conflict of Guild Wars 3).

Zenith.7301:

I supposedly healed Orr with Trehearne and killed Zhaitan, yet the entire Orr map is the same. The NPC’s behave as if I hadn’t achieved any feat. I get nothing extra from how the game world responds to me for finishing my personal storyline.

When character actions changed the explorable maps in GW1,* people complained, too. This time, at least, they made it clear that it would take a long time for the cleansing of Orr to spread and that a large number of Risen were still left.

Remember, this in an MMO, not a single player game. Changes you ask for could exclude people from content. Maybe one day they will come up with alternative, “cleansed Orr” maps (just as long as I can go back to the current ones, too).

The game seems to have launched before the NPC reactions system was finished. I do not mind that. I would rather have the game released earlier and get that flavor content later.

*Examples: inability to return to PreSearing, the War in Kryta, the Afflicted being wiped from Cantha.

Not everyone will like everything in the game. If you don’t want to pay attention to the personal story, that is fine. You can always go back and read the summary on the hero window.

Zaxares.5419:

The Krait seem to be somewhat retconned in GW2, having seemingly lost their metamorphosis ability that was the cornerstone of their special abilities in GW1. Now they seem more like an evil, extremely bloodthirsty variant of the Naga from Cantha.

The GW1 descriptions of the krait said they were evil and bloodthirsty:
“the Krait rival even the Charr for viciousness and cruel ingenuity. These semi-intelligent creatures are vicious and xenophobic, attacking all other species on sight.”

They no longer shape-shift, but this is hardly the only change we have seen in races in Tyria over time. Charr, Tengu and Grawl could not, apparently, make human speech in Prophecies. The Jotun were mostly mesmers with a few warriors. Griffons used to wield smites and symbols, the precursors to meditations and symbols, but do not anymore.

Conncept.7638:

The Flame Legion won, the Charr (as a race) rely on no one but themselves and as such have no right to take credit because the majority of the power behind the flame legion was not theirs. As much as they claim to be so great, they charr never accomplished anything without help from otherworldly powers.

In Eye of the North, I noted what whiners the Charr were. They kept talking big, but only fought once (and relied on humans, Asura and Dwarves to prepare for that fight). They admitted that they needed bribes to be set free if they were captured and the Humans were not around to rescue them. They refused to surrender and would try to take everything down in defeat (kind of like the Foefire they would later complain about). When the Dwarven, Asuran, Human and Norn forces prepared to attack the Destroyers, Pyre sat there and never offered the help of his Warband. After the fight, Pyre lectures you on finally learning what it means to be a hero. The Charr constantly belittle their allies every bit as bad as the Asura.

Fast forward 2.5 centuries. The Charr used treachery to overthrow the ones who won all their wars. They have the nerve to call the ones they backstabbed the traitors. Then they claim they are so great having killed their gods and built and conquered all of this. I found the Charr introduction laughable. I said “Yeah, they are still big talking whiners.” I find this find for a game, of course.

Pants.8315:

I’m also finding it hard to believe that you’re suggesting genocide (the foefire). Is more justifiable than the Charr turning to higher powers (the titans), and committing the searing, to gain lands that were once theirs.

The Charr ate, worked to death or killed for sport every human they captured. GW1, especially the bonus mission pack, made that clear. GW2 reinforced the stupidity of surrendering to the Charr. The Charr conquered a lot of human land, but where are the human descendants of the slaves they took?. Surrender was never an option. The Charr would have killed every human the Foefire did, anyway. The Foefire killed people that were about to be butchered, be worked to death or suffer other atrocity and it killed a military force. The Searing destroyed everything – the civilians, the towns, the forests, the fields – everything. Rytlock complained that Aldeburn would not surrender, but, let’s face it, the Charr never gave them that option. The Foefire was like the victim shooting the killer as the victim dies.