Guild Wars 2

Nothing? I expected at least someone having experience with the trait :S

The op user account is gone if you try to click it. I hope he didn’t erase it or something because of how I unveiled his build, I wasn’t trying to be mean to him, I was just trying to show him sharing knowledge is nice for other users and how there aren’t secret builds at the end, so there was no reason to not share it as it was easy to discover anyway. If I offended him and that’s why the account is gone I’m sorry, it wasn’t my intention.

But that said, it would’ve been a bit childish to overeact and delete an account just for that. I guess he might have had a problem with his account or something, if that’s the case I hope he recovers it quickly and he doesn’t have any problem with that.

The +10% damage applies only to enviromental weapons? Or having your F1 key slotted with a stolen skill also triggers the damage increase?

The description is a bit misleading.

Aditionally: Does it make you do +10% damage when using artillery?

Kaiyanwan.8521:

To be honest, I am a solo PvE player and I like Orr the way it is, all of it. It just misses some population from time to time, but this could have simply been adjusted by better rewards.
Now another three zones will get as easy as the whole game already is…
If all three zones become a cakewalk, what is the reason for still playing them. Some people like a bit of a challenge, and yes, you can do most of the DEs in Orr solo, it is just not brain-dead easy some times.

This. Except for temples nd their pre-events, it’s 98% solo-able.

They said there would be an introduction for a big event running on Feb an March. I guess that introductionn is Jan locked event.

Sword already have Main Hand attacks which I don’t think will be changed as they work fine, and clones are a Mesmer mechanic so I don’t think it will be given to us.

I don’t understand half of your text some ideas are very chaotic the way they’re written O.o

I think you’re using a lot of complicated mechanics, with many if/if not, and chains of 4 stages which aren’t part of the game (and stop you in the middle of the auto-attack chain). Most weapons in this game follow a patern of what things can be done and what things don’t, and it’s expected that new inclussions would follow those rules.

If we’re going to propose /S skills here are mine:

4: Parry and counter with a Shadow Blade (ranged attack) that apply Weakness if it hits the opponent. The reason for this attack to be ranged is that this way P/S could benefit from it without needing to go melee. If not attacked gain initiative (like Spear parry skill, same way than Warrior’s on-use parry all do the same). A reusable parry is great and would allow a lot of defense as seen in underwater combat, and applying Weakness with the counter lowers the damage you receive if you don’t block it.

5: Draw a circle in the air slashing your sword rapidly causing a pulsing area effect (you slashed so fast the wind in the area literally cuts your opponents) that applies Bleed. It’s a Dark Field combo. This makes the Thief able to easily control his area with bleeding pressure and synergies well with condition builds. Being a Dark Field you can steal some life with ranged attacks and blind opponents with explosions.

/S is supposed to be a defensive set able to hold its ground with a parry and an area effect.

Dual Skills:

P/S: Slash your opponents shins with your sword and shoot him point blank in the chest pushing him back.

This way you get a way to keep opponents far from you with a push (not knock back, just push) + snare. You can keep your distances and block+counter ranged attacks, and Sword 5 synergies with the bleeds from your first skill.

S/S: Teleport 3 times to your opponent, striking him with each attack, and knocking him down (0.25 seconds) with your last hit falling over him. I want S/S to have a Nightcrawlerish feel, and this skill would help that. Teleporting to the opponent with each strike means he will need to evade separately each strike because you recover the distance again. 0.5 knockdown AFTER a full long attack animation isn’t OP (it can be predicted and S/P has a stun at the start of the animation so it’s not the first case). The knockback is really here so the opponent saves endurance for the third strike as it will become previsible, but it means you will hit with the other 2 strikes.

S/S becomes a set with acces to well defense and that can glue to his opponent easily and make him suffer.

D/S Impale your opponent with your sword, immobilizing him, and deliver a flurry of dagger strikes that syphon health from your target.

D/S is a set meant to make your opponent suffer with changes in tempo, with venom in the main attack, bleeds on the 5, defense on the 4, and a way to heal and keep him in place in the third attack, so when he’s under 25% health you change the tempo of the fight and deliver your skill 2 spam.

/S would be a set usable with any main hand weapon and gives 3 new combat roles (ranged defensive set, superglue annoying tank, and tempo-changing duelist).

Wait, what’s wrong with Steam Punk? Steam Punk is great!!! And it fits the evolution of this game.

Yeah, spirits are cool when you use it in the PvP lobby, but as soon as something stares at them, they explode.

I want to run a spirit herder build with my ranger, but currently that’s simply not viable.

It would be really cool and more usable if 5 would be insta cast (like Focus 5), so you can be hitting stuff and cast it without interrupting you chains. I’m sure many people would be using it then because it no longer lowers your dps and hey, maybe being there would be useful. Plus if an opponent knocks you back, you can pop it so you have time to get up before he runs over your knocked body again. It would be cool also to combo it with Vanish, as you could place the cage during Vanish animation and stop the opponent fly, leaving him at your feet to smash more instead of having to run after him (that’s the reason I don’t use 4 in PvE, because I have to chase the opponent after it, this way I would be using 4 and 5 a lot).

Inoence.6907:

4 seconds of daze and 10 seconds of chill are very powerful! I don’t know why you consider them weak!?

Compared with all the boons in the game for 10 seconds (including 33% movement speed and -33% damage received), breaking an entire fight with AoE fear (3 seconds of disabled skills to everyone there without needing to hit), being able to sustain regeneration for an entire fight (or if needed, spalsh cluster shots on the water field to recover 1.2K health per second without wasting your healing skill)… Then yep, they seem weaker in comparison.

Siva Mira.3546:

LOL 10sec chill on Ele? Sound awesome?
In practice, landed it on Ele but after 1 or 2sec later I saw that same Ele move faster than me while seeing no condition on him. Playing condition with 45sec CD with Ele at the moment is like a joke.

THIS.

10 sec of chill might sound cool, but everytime you use it, suddenly the elementalist is either throwing lights of vapors or something and moving at high speeds and you’re wondering “did I really land a snare on that guy?” but the condition is nolonger on his bar.

Just 1 note: Unless it was fixed in a recent patch or something, Ambush doesn’t trigger Corrosive Traps. It’s my favorite trap but only one of your traps is working with the trait.

Unlikely because of reasons posted above, but from “it fits the them” is probably the best one of the 7 possible professions to get it.

Second one, because how Team Fortress is a great inspiration for arenanet, would be Engineers.

I’m waiting for a patch to finally help the Ranger before starting to level my third character which is a ranger.

Right now I love seeing them on opposing teams in PvP because it’s free kills always (and I’m not a glass cannon). From the 8 professions, Rangers are the ones that I have the less problems with.

In PvE when I have rangers in my group I have mixed feelings, overal they tend to be very average / low-average BUT if they pop the Water Field (healing spring) I can trigger it once per second with my Cluster Shot, which means around 1200 healing per second for everyone in the party standing there, so the synergy is great here… but then a Water Elementalist can feed me too and while they last less, they will cast it in spots where people will need to mitigate damage more.

Rangers need a lot of love from devs in may aspects of their game, and I’m saying this as someone who mains a different profession. Specially Spirits!! (one of the reasons I’m waiting is that I wanted to be a “spirit herder” and right now it’s useless).

samanosuke asakura.6240:

i agree we are rangers but everyone has same base range. that so lame gives us 1500 range and arrow pierce and make pet less squishy too

You know the term Ranger in this context isn’t for “range” right? In other languages the profession is translated with words closer to “Forestal Guard”. Think of Ranger in Texas…. Chuck Norris most famous move is a kick which is melee. The Power Rangers were melee guys too :P

Also… 1500 range would be insane. Shortbow has 300 more range than Thief Shortbow and Longbow has 300 more range than Warrior Longbow. 1500 for all skills would be overkill in many contexts.

I agree that Ranger needs A LOT of help, but 1500 range on anything spammable is game breaking when there are professions that CAN’T auto-attack at more than 900 with any weapon.

Inkubus.7529:

Basic Precision:
916 / 21 = 43,6% crit chance

You got it wrong, the first 916 basic Precision DOESN’T COUNT at all. They’re there… but they don’t mean anything. At 916 you have 4% chance, and AFTER THAT you get +1 for each 21 points. If they counted for anything, everyone would be critting all the time, and that’s not true. If you don’t invest on precission, you rarely see the red splash around your numbers that indicate a critical hit.

I started with hammer and turned to Mace/Focus because I was only using 1 and 2. Now with M/F every button is helping me a lot. Creative effects to RoG and ZE would give it some flavor, but as it’s now, I got bored of it.

To be honest, specially comming from GW1 where every naked profession had exactly the same stats (and with armor, being low armor didn’t mean worse as you got extra energy and energy regeneration from your armor), I’m still exceptical at the HP tiers- In fact, HP tiers are greater than armor tiers (if you count the “free atribute points” on vitality and toughness from each tier), and armor at least have a logical explantion for being better.

But it’s how they’re balanginc the game now. Supposedly professions with lower HP have better access to survival and/or bursts (but then you wonder why Warrior kicks so hard…), but the thing with “access to” when balancing a profession with that in mind, is that it forces you to go in that direction so your lower HP is compensated.

At least it seems to be working for now. I still would’ve liked equal HPs for everyone (my first 2 characters are both low end HP, Thief and Guardian, I’m doing very well with them, but I get jelly of others HP bars) but the way it is, apparently it’s working well.

Mathematically, AH is better than Monk’s Focus using Smite Condition and another meditation (with the 20% recharge saving) if you’re able to put around 2’3 (varies with HP in favor of AH but not too much) boons per second (I don’t like 3 meditations on the same bar normally there are better things to put in). Aditionally the 2’3 is asuming the Meditations are used as soon as they’re available, which may not be the best idea if you’re not going to give them a good use.

In solo play it might seem harder to achieve 2’3 per second, but it’s still possible at least in short periods of time (mace + focus gets a lot of extra boons in regen and might from 25 Valor with all those blocks) and even if you don’t reach the mark, you will still get decent heal over time, have an array of good effects (extensive to any ally that you find at any time), and cure conditions with full Rune of the Soldier set.

I’ve tried to work with Meditations to find an alternative to AH, but mathematically AH ends up being better in general. Monk Focus seems to be good for burst heals, but if you have good sustained healing, you may not need a burst heal.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aether

By far the best one in the game :O

mickers.2715:

Funnily enough the ele steal is really effective against D/D ele because without mobility they are much more vulnerable apart from when they remove it instantly. But mostly its enough time to get a good backstab off.

Yep, but at the end most Eles have some great mobility skill, or powerful evasive skill so he won’t mind the slowed movement while throwing heavy stuff at you.

Also being just 1 condition it’s very easy to get rid off (and it needs to hit, making it useless for ranged thieves, and hard to land againt speedster elementalists). Plus, it’s probably the most boring of them all by miles.

MightyMe.1356:

Lokheit.7943:

In fact a lot of Thieves use Shadow Arts, even if not investing hard on it, at least 10 points to reduce Cloak and Dagger cost to 4 (if you manage to hit). Many tanky builds, specially P/D use 30 DA for the great bonuses it gives to stealth (a lot of might aplications, healing, condition removal, etc), and you get a lot of use from those bonuses thanks to offhand dagger.

I think it’s one of the most popular trees around here.

Well,from what I understand thieves deal dmg through two main ways:
1) Backstab crits
2)comd dmg
Which do you think suits the shadow arts tree best? Crits seems better fit to this build but I may be wrong.

Condition Damage is the usual choice when investing on SA, as that tree will help making fights long, where condition damage will grind your opponent down.

PS: There are many more ways than backstabs and condition damage to do damage btw.

With the Ele having a much higher priority.

Am I the only one that hates to waste steal on those professions?

Other professions gives you very useful stuff:

Warrior: The Whirl Axe might expose you, but I find it great to surprise glass cannon warriors or to finish guys that resist to have a banner planted on their chests.

Engineer: Even if it’s better in PvE, throw junk is a great area skill, applying multiple conditions and being an ethereal field (which means easy access to confussion and chaos armor).

Necromancer: It might require some casting time, but can break the momentum of a fight, specially if you rushed into an already started fight and feared all opponents.

Ranger: My personal favorite, a field that heals you and is also a water combo. You Steal+CnD, plant the tree from stealth and use Sneak Attack to gain 5xRegen to sustain your health bar for the fight.

Thief: Free access to aditional Stealh is always good.

Mesmer: All the boons in the game, while not as game changing as it might seem like, it’s very nice to have, and is very versatile.

Now Guardian and Ele…

Elementalist: An on-hit (melee hit) 10 seconds chill… which most elementalists will sniff at given their current meta, and the extra skill recharge won’t mean too much for a profession with 4 weapon swap options. I never get good production of this one.

Guardian: An on-hit (melee hit) 4 seconds daze. Very good duration daze, yep, but against a profession with so many blocks and stun-breakers, it’s nearly useless (and as the Thief lacks long duration dazes, the Guardian will have his breakers available for this one). Very luckluster compared to 3 seconds of AoE fear for example. Another one I never feel is doing much for me in battles.

Those 2 seem very useless and not very imaginative compared to the others, anyone else would be in for a change on them?

Yeah, there are much harder downed opponents than Necros. Other downed thieves with stealth and teleport (teleport countered by steal during finisher animation, stealth counterd by Cluster Shot spam but it will make you lose time during your finisher animation), or Elementalist with the Mist Form will make you lose some time finishing them, I always focus more when I know I downed one of those, but I usually act as usual against downed necros. Even downed Rangers or Guardians with area interrupts from second 1 usually cause more trouble than them.

I use P/D in PVE and mobs stop attacking normally. There is that problem with “exiting combat” properly, but as far as combat goes, mobs will stop attacking you and you will get the first strike against them (and then, they will start their combat beheaviour which will take some frames too). Plus, the 5, 1, 1, 1 combo works well in PvE too for stacking bleeds.

S/P is nice for leveling because it let’s you maintain blind and auto-attack (I leveled with it before discovering how good P/D was, and I wish I had leveled with P/D, as soon as I discovered it, I mained it and completed all the high level areas of the map with it), so you can tank the mobs (except the dredge). But it’s very boring in PVE, and very stable (I don’t like to stay on the same place for too much time). Even if P/D also uses the same 2 keys most of the time (5 and 1 in both cases, P/D 3rd was nerfed to the point auto-attack is stronger), at least P/D keeps you dynamic in combat.

Aditionally, the perma-blind won’t work in dungeons and high-end level content and you won’t be able to tank with it, while P/D keeps it’s efficency.

In fact a lot of Thieves use Shadow Arts, even if not investing hard on it, at least 10 points to reduce Cloak and Dagger cost to 4 (if you manage to hit). Many tanky builds, specially P/D use 30 DA for the great bonuses it gives to stealth (a lot of might aplications, healing, condition removal, etc), and you get a lot of use from those bonuses thanks to offhand dagger.

I think it’s one of the most popular trees around here.

I don’t get why some people say “I can’t share my build” like it’s some sort of super secret.

Specially when it’s so easy to know everything about the build:

- You invested 30 points in Trickery, you got Thrill of Crime, Bountiful Theft and Hastened Replenishement (your steal applied the boons and your heal recovered initiative, also your condition damage was greater than my carrion with 15 Trickery build).

- You invested 10 points in DA and you were using Venomous Strength. Your venoms didn’t apply weakness, so you didn’t get to 15 DA (otherwise skale venom would’ve been a waste), which is surprising as Quick Venoms is generally very useful for venom users.

- You got 30 points on Acrobatics, your health is exactly what you get from Carrion Amulet + 30 Acrobatics. You were using Power of Inertia (you got one might for each dodge), Assassins Reward (when you were using skills you healed for exactly the amount those skills heal you with 0 Healing Power) and Vigorous Recovery as your healing applied Vigor to you. Surprising that you use 2 tier 1 and 1 tier 2 traits when investing 30 points, but I can see why you chose them.

As I said you got Carrion Amulet, there is no other way to get that HP and that high Condition Damage.

You have an overkill amount of vigor gain thanks to extended boon duration and 2 traits, one of them based on a very low recharging healing skill. This in adition to one of the mentioned traits, allow you to maintain Swiftness nearly all the time through Dodge, and also you build Might through all the dodging you get, and extra 6 from your venoms, which combined from the max Condition Damage you can get trough Carrion + 300 from Trickery puts a huge amount of bleeding damage (though I personally prefer investing more in DA to gain a full second out of my bleeds, at the end it does more dps than only investing on cond damage).

Your “team player” basically came through a 34 seconds recharging skill that gives multiple boons to allies.

Was it so hard to share your build with others? Really, there isn’t a single “ohhhh is my super secret, can’t share because it’s my treasure” build in this game (what I did with your video can be done to any build in just 1 or 2 extra reviews )

Next time be nice and just share your build so each user doesn’t need to rewatch the video to find out the trait distribution. This way you save time from multiple people at the same time.

PS: Good song for the video

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckzMc0zMMMxFMMMxvmp0x0fmRVsbV

All Carrion equipment.

This is the support build I’m using and it’s giving me amazing results. And despite being support oriented, I’m using it in PvP and WvW and I still win most fights so it doesn’t sacrifice damage potential.

Shadow Refuge is a great skill for any Thief. For a support Thief it’s a MUST.

It allows you to do a lot of amazing things like resurrecting with total impunity, making your party skip or rush hard parts of dungeons or save your life.

Venom Sharing is a bit tricky, you have to learn the distance as it’s very short (specially if you came from shouters), but they’re useful.

Your Spider Venom works as a 2K or more healing for anyone affected by it and thanks to Lotus it will reduce opponent damage to 75%, and Devourer Venom, while more situational, is useful too to stop a rushing horde as you will share it so many opponents will get paralisys, as well as granting the other benefits from Venoms.

I use Venomous Strength over Mug because both venoms give me 4*Might with a long duration, which affects my bleeds and is also shared to my teamates. Combined with the Might stacks you get from stealthing it will maintain around 10 Might stacks (max you can get by yourself without combos is 15 during 2 seconds before it drops again).

Thrill of Crime introduces you to the “fake steal” concept, which means stealing without a target to trigger the trait effect. This will give you and close allies swiftness. In combat you (and your allies) will benefit from the Fury it gives, and even without precision or critical damage investment, it will still increase your (non condition) damage by 10% which is great.

In dungeons and big group fights, it’s a good idea to switch to shortbow for a simple reason:

It’s the best Combo Finisher weapon in the whole game… by FAR.

You can drop 1 blast finisher per second (your second skill, as long as you don’t detonate it, and I would recommend to activate the option to drop AoEs where you mouse is, this way you skip the step of pressing the key again to place the green circle). And you will rarely waste all your initiative, specially with the 15 points thanks to 15 in Trickery.

If you have a Ranger or Elementalist droping Water Fields, you can heal for 1.2K per second anyone standing in the field. That’s right, 1.2k health per second in AoE. Thief is a very underrated support profession, mainly because how many perceive it as a squishy dps, but in fact it’s one of the best supporters in the game. I have done dungeons where you receive a lot of artillery barrages, and I stood with a Ranger over his Water Field outhealing the huge damage thrown at us without problems.

And not just Water Fields, there are a lot of cool effects from different fields (my other favorites are ethereal for chaos armor, guardians to keep retaliation on them and fire for 3*might).

If you are in a party that throws a lot of fields, just smile and start using Blast Finishers on anything with a circle shape that you see. Combo Fields are rarely exploited and are GREAT. I’ve been in a lot of dungeon runs doing this and people in my party usually says things like “wow, last time it took me twice the time to kill this boss!”, and I know it’s in great part because of how many Blast Finishers I was dropping to support my team.

Other tips I could give are to use 2 Body Shots before stealing, because you’re returning 3 initiatives (plus 1 in the total casting time) thanks to 5 points in Trickery, which means 10 Vulnerability for 2 initiative. But use Body Shot only under thar circumstance, otherwise it’s a waste. If an opponent is too strong to reach him for the Cloak and Dagger combo, or there are too many opponents, switch to Shortbow for the AoE damage, drop the poison field if you need to reduce their incomming damage, and keep activating any field you see.

Also, one good trick when you have Steal available is to start using Cloak and Dagger and use Steal in the mid of the animation, this way you’re instantly stealthed when teleporting to your target as Steal doesn’t interrupt your attack animation, this can be good to avoid getting hit when doing the 5-1-1-1 combo.

I love the Thieves Guild elite, they absorb a lot of atention and damage from you, deal decent damage, and are more targets for your venom sharing (as most times you won’t affect 5 party members anyway).

Learn the numerous tricks with Shadow Refuge (just remember you have to wait for it to finish to exit it without losing stealth), get used to the distances for venom sharing and remember you can fake steal to reach points faster.

I don’t think such a thing (except for the elite skill) exist… I mean, most people have alternate characters and they will be other professions. Why have a guild with just 1 profession type? It’s a bit counter-productive.

Please fix Duelist Coat! (the one half of medium armor guys and the Thieves Guild wear).

Despite this being adressed many times on the global thread for textures (including the old one), it’s never fixed. I don’t know if it’s because of the amounts of posts it has never been readed by a dev or something, but for an armor that so many people wear (including the Thieves Guild NPCs), I think fixing the textures of that armor (which is an easy task, even I know the process and I’m just learning to use textures on 3d models) should be a priority given the popularity of the armor.

There are texture cuts (red lines that when you zoom out become giant lines) on the chest, back (this one only when zoomed out) and the long side-skirt on the male armor (at least for human and norn models, posibly with all male models and female models from charr and asura).

It’s an armor that you see a lot, and many players wear, and it’s a constant show of a fail, which isn’t great for a game so good as GW2.

Please fix this texture, it should take around half an hour to place them correctly so the cut isn’t seen ingame and I’m sure many people would apreciate it

Aoshi.4785:

I think if any race will be added, it will surely be with a boxed expansion. The most likely would of course be the Tengu, but no one in the Anet camp has confirmed (nor denied in this case) our suspicions…

Tengus as playable are as Mesmers as sure profession before their reveal. Many were far too hesitant to admit it was sure (even though there was a tremendous ton of hints), but 99% of the fan base knew on their hearts that Mesmers would be the last profession.

I don’t know where, I think it was in the book with the collector’s edition but I’m not really sure where, I read that Tengus were planned as the 6th race but at the end they went with 5 instead of 6. They have their huge city, concept arts and probably a lot of plans about them, it’s a surething that they will be playable at some point.

Radio Isotope.3045:

No i dont think it would be in a boxed expansion because of the simple fact of they have to open the rest of Tyria like Magguma and the Krystallll Desert first. Including the Tengu starting area which like I said before is the same size as Grove, Divinity, and Rata.

I didn’t play WoW, but I’m told that the Worgen city was there for a very long time, completly innaccesible, and at the end the Worgen became playable with an expansion. There is a precedent in an important MMO if my info is correct.

Also, Tengu are very related to Cantha, so it would make sense for them to open their city at the same time they start needing help to get to Cantha once the communication lines are re-oppened with the continent.

Of course there is a possibility of them comming before in some kind of event, but I have the feeling it would be with the first expansion (btw GW1 first expansion came in exactly 1 year from release). If they can come faster, I will be really happy, but I don’t think it’s going to be that way,

Tolmos.8395:

I’d start rechecking all those POIs you dont remember being very interesting.

The area I said doesn’t have any POI and no way to be counted on achievements and I considered it VERY interesting :P Still many players will have that area as a blur on their map because there is no way to tell if you completed it. When I started completing JP and EA, I got even more new areas without a POI and I already had the every “krytan/ascalon/shiverpeaks…” explorer title.

I like to complete games, and there is something with GW2 map that annoys me a bit:

There is no way to know if you discovered every area in the map, so someties I’m left wondering if there is some cool event that I’m missing because of this (later I give an example of a very cool/nostalgic area+event that you can miss because of this).

I completed some months ago the Been There, Done That title, but that title covers Points of Interests and not areas.

I also have each “area discovering” achievement, but after gaining all of them, while doing jumping puzzles and explorer achievements, there were new areas uncovered in the process, which means that doing 100% of the area discovering titles (krytan explorer, ascalon explorer, etc…) doesn’t mean you completed the full map.

Now I finished every jumping puzzle and eplorer achievement, and I’m still wondering if I did every area.

I know at least one area that isn’t very obvious to find, that doesn’t have anything for “map completion”, and doesn’t hold any jumping puzzle or explorer achievement: the area were you revive GW1 fight against the demagogue and the White Mantle which as a GW1 player was an awesome discovery. This area is in the side of a map, needs you to take an specific route, while big isn’t an obvious blurr spot in the map and there is no way to count it as it doesn’t have anything counting for any title, and probably there are more areas in this situation.

I think the best solution would be to either make areas count for map completion title or make every area count for the “krytan explorer, ascalon explorer, etc…” achievements. This way we can be sure if we explored 100% of the game or not. As it is right now, it’s impossible to tell (and there is no way a player is going to count one by one every area discovered in the map and compare them with the wiki map).

My guess is Tengu will be playable with the expansion that opens the gates to Cantha. Maybe before if they introduce some event related to them.

Facepunch.5710:

I prefer Kodan =D

Problem here is character customization. Kodan make HORRIBLE choice for playable race as every character will look the same. You can’t even customize the color as they’re polar bears instead of just bears.

As others said, Norn are too similar, and a Norn transformed into a Bear being extra powerful, but a Kodan in normal form (being also a were-bear) not, wouldn’t make much sense.

Imo, Tengu (they were going to be playable from release but were removed from the starting races, and there was a concept art showing different Tengu designs with feather schemes and distribution going through different styles so customization is more variable) and Largos (being introducted bit a bit in the game, with physical customizable features like their wings/fins, and a background that leaves obvious Bio options like House of origin) are better choices for playable races.

I think the problem here with trait choices is a series of “design issues” on the trait lines that always point you on the same direction:

- Only 4 professions in the game, and the Guardian isn’t one of them, have Critical Damage and Precision on the same trait line. Precision without CD is absolutly worthless except for specific “on crit” effects but even then it’s a bit of a waste to spend on Precision without CD (Power increases damage a huge lot more than Precision without investment on CD, to the point that if you have X points to invest on both, 80-90% of them would go to Power for Max damage results). And of course CD if you can’t crit at a decent rate is worthless too.

- Many people talk about AH, but something that is featured even in more builds than AH is 15 points in Radiance for constant Justice aplications. 150 extra points in Precision may not be seen as too much (a +7,14% critical chance), but it’s an investment, so most players would like that investment to be of use.

- Then add that one of the most solids lines, Honor (which also gives vitality, something awesome for a low tier HP profession), have some “on crit” effects too (including the first 5 points trait), so it goes in the lines of optimizing your crits. Then you find the nichest trait the Guardian has at the end of the line that gives you Critical Damage. And add that both lines will help to keep you alive and synergize too (Toughness makes Vitality better, and vice-versa).

So everything synergizes together IN ADITION to giving you the most wanted traits, leaving other distributions as inferior both for trait choices and for synergies between other lines. Even if you find some good traits for your build or the way you play, the lines won’t offer that level of synergy.

IMO every profession should get CD on the same line than Precision (that’s an overal problem rather than a Guardian one), and the Guardian should offer better traits on other lines, because the combination of both facts.

My Guardian is my second character, and comming from Thief (Thief has PERFECT Trait Lines atribute distribution, every pair of atributes on each line have great synergy so you can invest in any of them for the traits without worrying for the atributes combination as the synergy is already there), I was really frustrated when build crafting with the Guardian because mathematically (I love numbers and they’re incredibly useful if you know how to use them in games in adition to your own skill) everything pointed me in the same direction greatly limiting my options. I tested some builds trying to break with that concept, but all of them resulted on failed experiments , or at best, not optimal but semi-viable builds.

Lorana.2468:

i recognise the legs actually, thats HotW light it’s just dyed in such a way you wouldnt normally recognise it.

The trench doesn’t look like HotW armor.

It’s probably what others are saying, an armor not included in the game like Countess Anise armor that was also put in a character render with different details before release.

I hope both sets are included lately. To be honest I’m ok with those armors included in expansion, as long as they’re included because they’re really cool, because I wanted this one because I was starting to plan my Largos Mesmer look for when they’re released and that would take a while :P (my guess is first Tengu, then Lagos)

The one the sylvari from the portal video is wearing. i’ve checked all light armors in wiki and I can’t find it anywhere.

I like the trading post because it allows you to search any item at any time. It kind of control players from trying to break item costs because they’re always accesible from here. It makes life easy.

That said, I LOVED going to Kamadan and convince players that my price for stuff (either selling or buying, or buying and then selling) was the right one. I spent lot of hours doing that to the point I mastered it :P Of course I never tried anything unfair, and many times they gave me more money than agreed by mistake and I quickly returned it to them, but I loved the negotiating process and I made a lot of money out of talking prices down and up with other players, and I think I miss that part a bit.

But all summed, the trading post makes life easier for everyone. My only sugestion would be to finally implement the preview button so I don’t have to go to websites to get the preview code of each item.

I love P/P aesthetics and I would love to continue using it, I even made a PvP Tutorial during early betas (you can see some traits aren’t there anymore, and Signet of Shadows used to paralyze the target, and some tips are a bit outdated but it shows how P/P works):

The main problem with P/P is that at the end it’s BORING and lacks a lot of utility, mainly being 33333333333333333333333333333333333.

Body Shot (damage+potential damage increase)/initiative isn’t worth the initiative when compared to unload.

Black Powder is great with melee sets, but in P/P you need to move a huge lot. Because of limited access to Stealth and building for Berserker to make Unload worth it, you will need to move a huge lot, so standing in a combo field isn’t viable.

Finally, while Headshot is useful for some moments if you have good reflexes, most times you will prefer to dodge any big attack, and outdmage any heal so you don’t lose poential.

Vital Shot doesn’t synergize with Unload at all, and you have poor access to Sneak Attack (which doesn’t synergize with Unload anyway).

Here are some sugestions I would make so P/P becomes a bit more versatile:

- Make Body Shot an spread shot, each of them applying 1 vulnerability (for a max of 5 vulnerability like the current one) and while each separate shot would be less damaging than current BS, 4 or 5 of them would do enough damage to invest your initiative on it instead of Unload if you’re in close range. Being a multi hit would make it synergize with the same traits you picked for Unload (making the technical cost of the skill 2 as it will return 1 initiative most times), and being a close range skill, you might want to build for snares and give Black Powder an use to snare, pop the smoke field and start throwing bullets to your opponent chest while he can’t hit you.

- Another possible change that I’ve already commented in other threads: Black Powder gives a very short stealth on use (not pulsing, only at use so it doesn’t stacks) that ends if you leave the Smoke Field (like leaving Shadow Refuge, but this one is much smaller). This would allow you to use Sneak Attack more often on P/P, allowing for some bunkering in smoke while throwing bleeds, the chance to opt for direct damage for Vitality opponents or conditions for Toughness ones, making this set more versatile. Aditionally, because it limits your movement, Sword and Dagger won’t have any benefit of this as they need to get their opponents back and they would lose stealth in the process, and as BP is fine with those weapons, it’s the same but also has utility with P/P making it worth the 6 initiative on any set.

Aditionally, Steal needs something like a return Shadow Step (like other Shadow Steps have) because it’s a set that suffers a lot if they catch you, so your profession mechanic hurts you more than it helps you.

An alternative change that would involve a set overhaul, would be to make Body Shot the main attack instead of Vital Shot (in fact Body Shot was the main attack during early stances of development), make Headshot the Stealth Skill (the theme fits more and it offers some nice control options when going stealthy), place Sneak Attack on the second slot, and some mobility based skill on the 4th slot. This way if you want to build for bleeding you don’t need to build for stealth too, the main attack still synergizes with Unload spam and you would have some extra movement utility in 4th.

That shouldn’t be the problem, I don’t have the “mail box full” tooltip achievement yet.

EDIT: Apparently it was because of that, even though I only had 4/10 messages on my mailbox. In fact it was keeping me from receiving mails from other players (and from gold sellers ready to be repported from now :P).

I’m trying to get the free hat from the gem store, and I have multiple of them listed as recently bought, but I can’t receive any of them on my character for some reason.

Anyone else with this problem? I don’t know what to do to get the hat.

In order starting with the best:

- Griffon (also called the avatar of adorable).
- Golem.
- Soldier.
- Princess (it’s very close with Soldier, specially for some comments the princess made during the dungeon that were hilarious).
- Ventari (the race with no kids get the educational toy, I don’t like that it’s a toy about an specific character, I woul’ve prefered something different, more directly involved with sylvaris in a physical way instead of the author of their moral code).

Maybe they could add the banner as a skill for the tonic in costume brawl?

4 of the last 5 times I’ve tried the puzzle the game returns me to the waiting lobby after the first jump (without falling).

Is it the way the game tells me I’ve tried for too much time? :S

Thief has many good tricks for PvE, in fact, the last zone of the game is easy mode with a Thief because of how many teleports and stealths it has to avoid getting attention and being pulled and snared while doing important stuff.

Your best friend: Shadow Refuge. It gives you a way out of battles, a way to commune with skill points without fighting, a way to resurrect allies without agroing opponents… it’s an amazing skill. Just remember not to exit it until it ends or it will break the stealth, but once it ends you still have 10 seconds of stealth to go wherever you want.

As previously said, your best secondary weapon set will be Shortbow (but not the primary one, you should build for your other set as SB is very versatile but not great as the goto weapon, and it doesn’t need any extra to work well). It allows faster travelling, a way to scape pulling even when inmobilized, and when you find dynamic events with many waves of opponents, it’s very useful as you get credit for each enemy hit and Shortbow hits a lot of opponents. It’s also the best blast combo finisher in the whole game (no matter what Hammer Guardians say, Cluster Bomb with no detonation is the best combo finisher in the whole game by far).

If you find trouble or you’re still getting used to the game, try a bit of S/P, as Pistol 5 skill can permablind melee opponents in PVE if you stay on the same place.

In fact I wouldn’t have listened to all that people telling you to roll a Warrior first. Thief is great for PVE and it really feels like playing an action gamen instead of an MMO because of how it can reuse skills and is constantly maneuvering.

I don’t recommend “bursty” and “first toon/learning” to be combined.

I spend a lot of time destroying and laughing at this kind because how easy it’s to own them (specially when you snare them and you find them desperatly throwing their burst at thin air). If you’re still learning the game I would sugest you to go to the PvP lobby against the practice Golems and NPCs and find out what every skill and trait does (I would recommend some PvE too as it helps A LOT to get used to some stuff in this game). Don’t ask for the bursty premade build and stick to it because you’re closing every door and never learning. Go to the lobby, go to PvE, experiment with different builds in random PvP fights and find the one that better suits you.

This is the sugestion I always made for P/P:

Implement this into Black Powder: It stealths you on use, but the small area works like Shadow Refuge in that if you leave it it removes stealth. Keep the 6 ini cost.

Now the explanation for this:

Black Powder is a great skill, but only for melee players, with P/P right now the only way to go is to spam Unload on a crit+initiative gain build. This allows you to access your Sneak Attack while blinding your opponent, so you can choose between fast direct damage with Unload, or steady Condition Damage plus defense through the use of Black Powder + Sneak Attack.

By removing the Stealth if you leave the field, which isn’t very large (Shadow Refuge is muuuuuuuch bigger in comparison, and this one wouldn’t pulse, which means it would end before the field), you don’t make this skill overpowered as you can’t use the Stealth for anything else than your Pistol Sneak Attack. While in a P/D build to gain Stealth you’re forced to hit a melee attack, that skill allows you to freely roam around your target (or away from him), which is what makes it so powerful in 1 vs X WvW videos, but limiting the area makes this Stealth only useful for the Sneak Attack. This way the skill will be worth the 6 initiative on a P/P set instead of only being useful for melee builds.

And for melee builds, it basically works the same, both melee stealth attacks require you to hit your opponent’s back for full effect (and sword non-back effect blinds… but the field is blinding your opponent anyway) and as you’re limited to the area, you’re not reaching your opponent’s back (unless he’s dumb, in which case he deserves it and it wouldn’t be neccesary to beat a dumb opponent anyway).

So basically we have a change that doesn’t change the melee beheaviour much, which currently works greatly, and makes P/P able to chose between going pure damage for fast HP drops, or defensive and condition damage for steady fights, or a combination of both to change the pace of the fight when you think it would be neccesary.

Aditionally, Body Shot needs a boost, either by adding another condition, or making it a spread shot so in close range it does great damage and it’s an alternative when being attacked face to face.

About Headshot, I guess it’s fine because of how Initiative would make a long daze OP, but the damage is ridicously low for a skil named HEADSHOT.

Here’s a change to how CCs works that would help this skill as spamming wouldn’t make it OP:

As other games have, make a “recovering” state when affected by dazes, stuns or KDs (around half second or maybe a full one) so nobody can be permalocked. This way you can put 1 second or 1.5 seconds on Headshot and spamming it wouldn’t be overpowered as you can’t keep them thanks to the recovering state.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Racial_sympathy

The races they let you chose depending on your race, doesn’t make much sense in some cases and creates a distribution where some get more love than others (Hylek… I would’ve expected Quaggan, but Hylek?).

For example, I get why Ogres can only be chosen by Norn and Charr, because they’re primaly an eastern race, but I’m sure I’ve seen a huge lot of Quaggan on Norn territory (in fact from those 5 races, I think Quaggans are the ones I find the most in Norn zones) and I don’t remember many Hylek tribes there… but still Norn can’t have racial sympathy for Quaggan, but they can for Hyleks…

And what about Asura having racial sympathy for Grawl and not for Skritt? I get they had their rivalries when they were underground, but there are many cases of Asura working with/using Skritt and Grawl are rarely seen on their territory to develop any kind of sympathy. Why seeking a dumb race in the eastern part of Tyria when they have their own dumb (and more adorable) race in their own territory? I’m sure Asura government have had more alliances with Skritts (specially the ones in Brisban Wildlands that are very civilizated) than with Grawl.

I think there should either be a redistribution on that table (maybe not viable as there are already a lot of existing characters with biographies including those missions) or making all 5 available for every race to chose so at least minor races related to your character territory are available and the others are explained by “my character travels a lot so he has good relationship with this guys”.

PLEASE solve the texture problem with the Duelist Armor (the one that the Thieves Guild wear too).

It has a vertical red line on the chest (at least male human players, and I believe male norns too), and also on the long side-skirt part (I’m not really sure how to name that part in english), and on the lower part of the back too.

It’s an armor that a lot of people use, but it has those 3 red lines breaking this awesome armor.

Please fix it, it has been there from the beginning and it gets annoying.

I still call the gods “the five” instead of “the six”… Kormir didn’t help you at all and always caused trouble (like… ahem… activating the events for the Nightfall in the first place… which at the end made her a goddess as a reward lol).

I always go to the PvP lobby, then Lion’s Arc, then the city. It takes like a minute and saves you money.

So if you can do it for free, I think it would be very nice from them to make city waypoints always free so you don’t spend that extra minute in the process.