Guild Wars 2

Yea this is freaking stupid. It’s BARELY acceptable for brand new players in the form of time traveling old people from the renaissance but absolutely kittened if you already have played the class. What a load of kitten.

Dustfinger.9510:

As stated, everyone is born with magic ability so in tyria, wizards don’t have the monopoly on secret knowledge. Everyone has something to bring to the table. And the secrets of each class are generally guarded.

The job of discovering ancient arcane knowledge doesn’t fall to any one class like in other fantasy universes, it falls to the priory.

I would say it is less that it “falls to the priory” and more that the priory is just the most pervasive and well known organization that does so.

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

Kako.1930:

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

Kako.1930:

Edit: I originally came up with my build by experimenting with it in pvp, but it has served me pretty well in pve roaming, dungeons, and wvw (roaming and zerging) too, so I thought I’d share it (even if it’s not the most elite):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhcM6cW4wyBd0AhAFxHYBGHAFQ+XsGKBA-TxRIABzeBBA4BBU2+DJp8jNdExpE8Q1fIEgitA-e

For damage, I focus on keeping constant condition AND direct damage pressure. Eruption into Lava Font + Flame Burst. You can also use Lightning Flash while casting Meteor Shower to avoid taking a lot of damage.

For survivability, you’re immune to conditions as long as you’re above 90% health, so focusing on swapping attunements frequently is important. With sigil of renewal you’ll heal every 9 seconds when you swap to any attunement, and with sigil of leeching your next attack after swapping attunements every 9 seconds will not only do about 974 damage on top of its original damage, but will also heal you for 975 (not affected by power or healing power). Remembering to swap to water when you take heavy hits that knock you below 90% will help a lot, too, since it’ll be a burst heal + condition removal, and if the sigils proc on that swap you’ll also heal even more.

This setup might work with more offensive armor stats, as well, if you can chain your skills together well. You could also use the standard 0/2/0/6/6 or 0/0/2/6/6 trait setups if they’re more comfortable for you, since I know a lot of people get hung up about diamond skin lol.

I think your attack rotations and being able to time and place your CC/heals well is more important than the actual build/trait setup in pve with a staff, though.

Thanks ! What type of Staff and Armor do you use ? Also, what type of runes do you use for armor ? Oh yeah, what type of accessories do you use ( Back, rings, earrings, Amulets ) ?

Well, it’s in the build link, but I use celestial armor, trinkets, and staff with traveler’s runes, sigil of leeching and sigil of renewal. I also use Super Veggie Pizza and Hardened Sharpening Stone for my food buffs because I’m cheap lol.

Some tanky alternatives to celestial gear is cleric’s armor with Soldier’s trinkets/staff (or vice versa), or knight’s armor with cavalier staff/trinkets, or even full settler/apothecary/cleric’s armor would work. If you want more damage, you could do soldier’s/cleric’s/cavalier’s/knight’s armor with berserker’s trinkets, or just experiment a bit.

I was using soldier’s armor with cleric’s trinket and a soldier staff up until I got my celestial gear. You don’t have to worry about survivability, but it can take a while to kill things, especially if you’re not using a bursty rotation (like just auto attacking). :P

Do you have to be able to weapon swap for sigil of leeching to work ?

For MOST “on swap” sigils and effects ele will trigger them with attunement swaps.

“I want free buffs for reasons”

You want an extra blast finisher so easily you’re going to have to theorycraft a better argument.

adormtil.1605:

Kryta is not even half the charr territory that is so big that probably more then half of it is not even explorable right now. Its no wonder that the charr have no people to spare they have more to cover.

Kryta seems larger than Iron Legion in terms of land area assuming the map is proportional. Also, was it just Iron Legion from whom forces were requested or Smodur as representative of all Legions?

RedStar.4218:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

The team’s resources are spoken for in areas that will have impact on the most amount of players, or on changes that are less of impact to them, resource-wise (smaller projects/changes). As such, we have no immediate plans to revamp dungeons due to this resource constraint. That’s not to say that the team will never have time, in the future, to do large projects like the TA Aetherpath or similar with other dungeons. As Mike O’Brien said in his recent post, if we ever permanently stop working on a particular area of the game, we will tell you all.

You can take this in extremely hopeful way or not. Was she only mentioning changes to current dungeons ? Then why did she also mention TA Aetherblade. Yes it replaced TAFU, but considering it a revamp is kind of insulting to the team that worked on it seeing how it’s completely different from TAFU.

Anyway, to not derail this thread any further : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Very-disappointing-news-for-you-guys/page/8

They only talk about “rework” and “redoing” dungeons. Guess what? That’s exactly what TA Aetherblade rework falls into. You people throwing fits about this honestly look like you are desperately grasping at straws to reword things into the “devs aren’t doing what I want” narrative. It’s really old at this point.

Errrrm, wasn’t what they said is that they aren’t working on major reworks to existing dungeons?

adormtil.1605:

If lets say the charr were in the place of Norns would they could have defeated Jormag?

Since the whole point of the GW2 story is that it will take the combined strengths of the various races to stop the Elder Dragons I’m going to say no.

I could see that being an rare exotic, legendary, or ascended model for a whip.

Dustfinger.9510:

I don’t think they did make a mistake. Focusing on Ascalon would only have meant a perpetual battle against the ghosts at the time. So there would have been no change there. But attacking Kryta and Orr means they put those human nations in their own war so they couldn’t just build their forces and attack on their own terms.

It also made sense to attack both. Orr because that was the traditional seat of the gods and it was really the gods that drove the humans to conquer Ascalon in the first place. so that is really preemptively sound. And Kryta was reinforcing Ebonhawke.

Didn’t they attack Orr and Kryta before the Foefire though? I’m not mixing things up am I?

I still find it odd how unredundant the Charr legions are, or rather overspecialized. Even if the individual legions excel or emphasize certain skillsets you would still expect each legion to have their subsets more prominently. Maybe it’s just a matter of presentation in game but I still find it difficult to imagine, for example, Blood Legion intelligence agents and Ash Legion foot soldiers.

>You view humans as the most important race in the game, clearly.

lol…
Maybe the most thrown under the bus…

Sorean.5379:

Tip for everyone who only killed Tequatl once or so: Show up like 1 hour before he actually spawns before the server (daily) reset,I’m killing him daily with this tactic now.
If you show up when he is about to spawn you will end up on a overflow with a random zerg which isn’t enough to take him down.

At this point, I’ve pug killed Tequatl 4 times in a day showing up between 15 and 45 minutes early. He’s easy as long as you end up on a shard that has enough people who aren’t afk.

Also, for the people complaining about the “ungodly” waiting of 15min to hour. Use that time to take some down time from the game. Take a break, read some web pages, stretch and make some food…heck you don’t even need to stop the farming you can run around and gather resources while waiting. It’s really not that big a deal if you know how to schedule your time. Also, before people start whining about “but I work unlike you kids!”, I work 11 hour days, sod off and learn to manage your schedule.

felessan.9587:

CyClotroniC.4957:

Maybe we had different experiences, but when I do it (EU server @ day change), there isn’t any organization going on, we just have 4 people badged up, everyone finds their spot and we just do it.

And that right there is the issue at hand. People already know the fight so it requires less communication beforehand, but you are still organized into your specific tasks (zerg, turret, north boat/hills, south boat/hills, ERT?) Try doing it without those “spots” and you’ll see what it means to be unorganized.

THat’s not “organized”. That’s like Taida is “organized” because everyone already knows to take the explosive barrels to the gate to start the event.

Tarnsman.8092:

PUG’s work occasionally but by and large they just want to zerg rush and end up failing the events.

I have failed all of one PUG Tequatl in the last month. I had gotten DC’d and ended up in an underpopulated “last minute” shard that simply didn’t have enough dps to do it. Every other time I’ve done it (even showing up as late as 10 minutes to go) has been a success with only one time I can think of beating Tequatl with less than 5 minutes to go. Nowadays he isn’t hard, it’s just about getting onto a server shard with enough people committed to doing the event.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Do you guys think that there’s a middle ground between ultra hard and easy?

For example, I think we could clean up some of the issues with the Shatterer and just make it a more engaging experience. So rather than spending the entire fight hiding under his right paw he could, say, turn his head and attack that area? :] It doesn’t have to be hard, just a little more involved.

We tried to put in a few changes here and there when we added the new world boss timers. Reactions varied.

Something around the difficulty of the Inquest Golem Mk II would be good. It’s difficult in that you have to be paying attention and active or you could easily die (much like Tequatl) but unlike Tequatl you aren’t hamstrung to the limited number of turrets. I do like mixing in events like defending the batteries in Tequatl and the crystals with Shatterer as well. I think one thing everyone hates though is control spam. Claw of Jormag is probably the least fun boss to fight because you spend about as much time in the first phase in control of your character as you do not in control. It’s really annoying and should be looked at.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The intent of the Renown Heart system was originally to help players find event content. They also provide a decent method for us to give the player some context and awareness of what’s going on in the area. There are probably a few issues in that design which we could discuss. We could also let it suffice to say that hearts do not make the best repeatable content the game has to offer.

On the topic of keeping players engaged with open world content, I think this goal may be for more approachable from a different angle. Consider Dry Top, which has no hearts. Players on that map are participating in events all the time, largely on the premise that each event contributes to both map-level and personal-level goals. This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

People chase rewards. Doing events in Dry Top ultimately give good rewards. They are also fairly straightforward (do events, make the bar go up). If you want to bring people to the rest of the open world, you gotta reward them in ways that are tempting for people with a few lvl 80s.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

The Feature Pack announcements will continue next week and some of them will definitely contain information that’s relevant to those of you who’ve been playing the game for long. We won’t tell you about them until the articles are live though, to keep the element of surprise!

I wish you guys would have condensed these better >.>
It really lets the air out of the sails when each blog post is relatively small. Yes there is a sense of anticipation, but the bite sized blogs most certainly leave a “that’s it?” sort of feeling.

IIRC they didn’t change the minimum you could make the attunement recharge just the maximum it sat at at default. So the recharge at 6 now is the same as it used to be at 30. The difference is where it is at down the line.

Forming a militia when there is virtually no other protective presence in vulnerable and hostile territory is not “militarization”. Hell, forming a militia in any circumstance is not militarization. You have such a flawed understanding of reality that there was no hope for this discussion in the first place. This is not a topic you are evidently capable of understanding.

As long as I get my rifle.

pdavis.8031:

I don’t understand. As a guardian, you have just as much chance of getting silk (or any other mat) as any other profession. You don’t need to level an alt to get what you need for crafting. Silk is used across all professions, so you wouldn’t need to have a light or medium armor character to get silk.

Umm, no it won’t. Decomposing heavy armor does not give silk, that is what the OP will primarily be getting as a Guardian…

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Lostwingman.5034:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Lostwingman.5034:

Kitten Commander.8952:

Brahm is an accurate representation of Norn, “hit first, ask questions later” as it’s been put.

Errr…no. That makes literally no sense given that the most prominent Norn we have, Eir Stegalkin, was the tactician for a group that consisted of the likes of Rytlock and Logan. It’s a common disposition sure but that has more to do with the emphasis on “great actions” by the Norn. That has nothing to do with the “inability to think ahead” that people seem to want to heap on them.

It has been discussed and shown that Eir is not your “typical” Norn though. She is somewhat of an oddity for her race. If you compare her to other Norn and how they typically think and function you’ll notice this inconsistency.

I don’t think it’s as ingrained as that. That would make the Norn a people stuck in tween adolescence and only a step ahead of the skritt… I mean, how can you with a straight face say that when you have the followers of Raven being all about cunning and wisdom while being one of the biggest groups. I don’t think you’ve thought this through as much as you think.

“The Norn are a highly independent race with a fighter-centric society, holding strength and prowess in combat above everything else. To a Norn, the greatest shame is not dying in battle, but rather not having the tale of their life, especially death, told.”

“Norn culture is highly individualistic with a focus on personal success and glory – particularly when gained from the hunt or in a battle. "

“each norn seeks to prove themselves, to build their legend through feats of individual valor and great victories”

“Norn are a hearty, proud people – quick to anger "

Sometimes hitting first can be cunning. However, Braham is not a follower of Raven primarily. He is a follower of Wolf. Different type of individual.

Which is fine for Braham individually, I just don’t think it’s an inborn trait of the Norn as others say.

Dustfinger.9510:

If you don’t have the ability to see the relationship between your educated guess on population based on diet and my example of two societies that have different diets but populations that defy your “eduacated” guess …… you may have to resort to personal attacks. /shrug

Godkitten it how can you not understand this. I’m not talking about different societies, I’m talking about different species. I’m also not comparing the end consumer but what any given acre could support, that’s it. Why is it so kitten hard to understand that you need more acreage to raise cattle than to grow the equivalent calories in crop? That’s the entire basis of my thinking. That’s what you keep trying to “refute”. That you need more acreage to raise an arbitrary amount of meat calories than you would say wheat. That’s it, and you’re running around talking about comparing Chicago to a village for some reason when what I’m discussing is the difference between a corn field and cattle ranch. Then you sit there stupefied that I’m getting frustrated with you.

Also I’m having such a hard time following your line of thought because it is kitten nonsensical. The whole crux of the problem originates here:

I’d guess the reason all human populations aren’t militia is because humans just aren’t geared to mostly be militant.

My argument had nothing to do with the people living in safety behind city walls or in/near garrisons or becoming refugees and fleeing to such places. All of my examples and discussions have been about the people who willingly tried to make a living in dangerous territory. My original point had nothing to even do with militias, just that they were armed. The whole point of bringing up the mandatory militias in the early American colonies when the presence of British military forces was scant was to point out that people in real life in that very similar situation reacted that way. You’re the one who keeps taking the argument and running around to unrelated things consistently trying to separate the discussion from the original comment. That’s how you discuss fictional or hypothetical situations, you look to the most similar actual historical occurrences and draw conclusions from that. When historians hypothesize the feasibility of kitten Germany invading Britain in 1940, they don’t go looking at Operation Barbarossa they look at Operation Overlord for the real world obstacles and solutions.

Lostwingman.5034:

We see hints of rifle armed militia in Claypool, I’m wondering why the entire Krytan rural population isn’t armed as such at the least.

Who is the one who went dragging the conversation into the feudal system and comparing to wars between ruling lords which are nothing like the conflicts at a fundamental level in the American West and the Centaur here? You from the start did not understand the fundamental difference in both the type of conflicts those are and the type of environments those are and it has been a monumental struggle to try to pull them back. It sure is easy to sit there and go “oh, you can’t keep these points straight!” when you’re the one constantly pitching unrelatable situations into the argument. The kitten feudal territorial wars are not kitten analogous to either the American colonial expansion or the Centaur war. This is why I’m pitching a fit.

You sit there whining about, “but I already showed not everyone would join a militia!” and dismissing that I’ve already addressed that those people are the refugees and the ones seeking shelter with the Seraph. Even using your nonsensical summoning of the African comparison, you have huge numbers of refugees there of people fleeing. My point of discussion centered on the people who still willingly lived spitting distance from and in the ruins of Centaur raids. My original point of conjecture on this whole thing was that even Claypool, relatively safe in comparison to many such places, sees fit to raise a militia. Looking at the in lore and in world reaction of people in that world is it not logical to wonder if such a reaction would be more widespread?

Your constant inability or refusal to differentiate the fundamental differences between what I’m trying to discuss and what you keep deflecting to is maddening. The difference between a feudal lord invading another feudal lord in medieval Europe is fundamentally different from Plains Indians trying to drive the settlers out. There is a reason I looked to that situation to draw parallels, and not to feudal lords. Either you are being intentionally dishonest for no discernible or you simply don’t understand. At this point, I don’t care which it is because the result is the same frustration of trying to point out the circle peg doesn’t go into the triangle slot.

My understanding was that it’s still a global ICD and that the change is essentially “when off ICD and using an AoE burn, it will be applied to all the burned”.

The whole point of instancing the story was not to separate the open world from the living story, it was to allow people to experience the living story if they were not around for that particular update (as was VERY common with LS1). The whole point of the Living Story model is that the story we experience is reflected on the Open World.

Diovid.9506:

Lostwingman.5034:

That’d be an anniversary update to remember…

Introducing the Tengu as a playable race or announcing an explansion would be something to remember.

This would make go: “Whatever”.

Introducing an entire new playable race would be much more than an anniversary update though…

It changes how NPCs react to you but not because you’ve actually changed anything in the open world, which is what everyone’s point is. It’s difficult (bordering on impossible) to have many options for the PC in the Living Story that also reflect on the actual open world.

Also at this juncture of the living story, we are so beyond “personal choices that primarily just affect the PC” that it can’t be considered. The only way we could is with “side story” type things.

Rognik.2579:

kasoki.5180:

For all we know, she and Logan maybe have a child hidden somewhere (pure speculation)

She is a mesmer, after all. It’d be easy enough to hide the pregnancy behind an illusory veil. If that were true, it’s quite possible the only two who know are the Queen herself and Countess Anise (who knows pretty much everything). This theory actually holds some weight, unlike other royal theories floating around.

I am kind of tired of people trying to kill off the Queen. She’s become the designated damsel in distress because of it, and I’d like to see either her guards being extremely effective at protecting her from an assault, or her to defeat an enemy herself. Maybe even have her out in the wilderness, with no one but the Commander to rely on while trying to find civilization again.

TIL Jenna might already have children and we wouldn’t know.

That’d be an anniversary update to remember…

-I didn’t say there were more humans than charr. I said Krytans would likely outnumber Iron Legion. Also your analogy makes literally no sense. I cannot even fathom in what universe that would make sense. A given acre can produce more calories useable to an omnivore than to a carnivore. That’s all I’ve said and made educated guesses with. How the hell does your city comparison bs fit? I’m not talking about comparing the food production of Divinity’s Reach the city and the Black Citadel the city. That makes zero sense. There’s no point continuing this line of thought if you cannot differentiate such a simple concept.

-So common people were still called to the land’s defense and still self-organized themselves for common defense. You haven’t refuted anything.

-I’m way too tired and frustrated from explaining simple things for this… The warlords are heavily armed, many of these villages are not. They have nothing to fight back with and in the places they can fight back, you have civil wars and oh look at that, civil wars are all over Africa where warlords and governments get pushback.

-You are completely not understanding the point. They were fighting to conquer and then rule. They were fighting over borders because those borders determined who controlled the resources. In the case of centaur in GW2 and the Plains tribes in the American West it is completely different because they don’t give a flying kitten about borders and are trying to drive the humans/settlers out. If such simple concepts elude you this discussion is never going to go anywhere.

-It makes sense for people to organize a militia in the absence or lacking of any other protective presence, specifically in the case such as this where the enemy doesn’t want to conquer and rule but to displace or at worst (and nearly as likely) kill. Has this still not gotten through to you? The point there was that if the Seraph aren’t doing their jobs and these are lands held by nobles there is no reason for the nobles to not have their own hired guards to defend their property if not an organized militia from the commoners.

-The peasantry in GW2 appears to be much better off than those in feudal Europe. Unless you are implying that the common person who can own a farm or shop cannot even afford a bow and some arrows there is no way they wouldn’t organize some kind of defense if Seraph are insufficient. Again, we are not talking about a medieval lord marching his army into a neighboring lord’s territory so he can rule over conquered peoples. We are talking about a hostile race of barbarians who will kill you if you do not get out of the way fast enough. We see tons of refugees, which would make up the people running from the fighting, and we also see people sticking it out in contested areas. The only reason these people would be sticking it out is because they either can’t leave (highly unlikely if so many others have been able to) or they feel secure enough to do so. There is just no logical reason for people standing in the face indiscriminate destruction to lie down and take it when they know what is going to happen.

-IRL Africa there are militias that fight back the warlords. What do you think all those kitten civil wars are? I have no idea why you keep pointing to Africa as a glimmering beacon of “no militias” when the place is overrun with them.

I’m done. I cannot explain things in more drawn out simplistic words.

Dustfinger.9510:

Lostwingman.5034:

I have no idea how greatsword would fit in the Thief/Assassin archetype but rifle wouldn’t…

GS-Conan the barbarian was a rogue at one point in his carreer.

Rifle- Snipers/shot gun bandit

Conan the Barbarian was a barbarian…‘rogue’ just means a vagabond or scoundrel.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Lostwingman.5034:

Kitten Commander.8952:

Brahm is an accurate representation of Norn, “hit first, ask questions later” as it’s been put.

Errr…no. That makes literally no sense given that the most prominent Norn we have, Eir Stegalkin, was the tactician for a group that consisted of the likes of Rytlock and Logan. It’s a common disposition sure but that has more to do with the emphasis on “great actions” by the Norn. That has nothing to do with the “inability to think ahead” that people seem to want to heap on them.

It has been discussed and shown that Eir is not your “typical” Norn though. She is somewhat of an oddity for her race. If you compare her to other Norn and how they typically think and function you’ll notice this inconsistency.

I don’t think it’s as ingrained as that. That would make the Norn a people stuck in tween adolescence and only a step ahead of the skritt… I mean, how can you with a straight face say that when you have the followers of Raven being all about cunning and wisdom while being one of the biggest groups. I don’t think you’ve thought this through as much as you think.

Now that I think about it. That it is even logistically feasible for these refugees to abandon their farms and move to DR implies that Kryta has enough surplus from existing food production that it can afford to not only sustain the burgeoning numbers in DR but also do so through the loss of farms to the centaurs that is creating refugees. I mean, is there some famine or food shortage I’ve missed somehow besides localized supply shortages? The majority of complaints I see from them in DR is about being displaced, not being hungry. From my perspective, just looking at crop production, Kryta would appear to be doing extremely well currently. Again, unless I am missing something.

Yes but there are simple facts that you cannot get around. You can support more omnivores on a given acre than you can carnivores. This is simple fact. When discussing the larger implications and movings of the world that aren’t directly told to us we are left to infer from what basic facts we do know and can surmise.

I have no idea what you’re trying to get at. Mandatory militia laws were most certainly a thing. Especially on the edge of a frontier or in a war zone where the main military force (Seraph in this case) is stretched thin and hurting, people are going to quickly realize it is better to have an organized defense than to just leave themselves hanging in the wind and fighting on their own. The less organized American West was more due to the wide dispersion of property owners than lack of mechanisms in place as armed civilians were often called upon to act in their own defense. I mean, you are making some awfully kittenumptions in how cavalier people living in spitting distance of Centaur raids are with their lives. It’s one thing to have largely non-militarized civilians in Shaemoor, Beetletun, and maybe even Ascalon Settlement given how big and fortified it is. However for all of the smaller settlements outside of that I cannot imagine they are either garrisoned enough or close enough to Divnity’s Reach to feel safe NOT organizing. I mean, freaking Claypool, Claypool, has is actively training a sizable militia and they really don’t have much in the way of immediate threats. Definitely not compared to many other places. I just don’t see how people with their lives threatened and seeing the destruction and threat first hand (because we do know the centaur raid pretty far and wide in Kryta) would not be driven to organize.

Also, again no. Nobles, at least in Europe, came about as wealthy land holders. The systems that led to European feudalism lie in the structures of the Roman Empire before it which were based on land ownership. Additionally, mainland Europe was heavily populated and often at war with itself. In mainland Europe the threat was being levied into the army as the countries that bordered each other adhered to certain rules of declaring war. This was much different than the situation in say the American West or Kessex Hills where the enemy did not play by the same rules of adhering to borders and preferred persistent surprise raids. This is the vast difference you are forgetting between an enemy that will simply conquer and rule over you and an enemy that wants you gone no matter the means. You really need to consider that when thinking about this. This isn’t two nations fighting over borders. These are different societies fighting for living space.

Your view of feudalism is…odd. The feudal lords protected their holdings insofar as someone would protect their own property. The symbiosis was entirely bore out of necessity by the powerless serfs needing to make a living somewhere. Additionally, I’m not sure how many of these settlements are feudal manors. Nebo Terrace, seems to be absent of one and more of a rural hamelt. Although if the larger settlements are feudal manors then it makes even more sense for these places to have a levied military force protecting it. Heck, the minister’s have proven this with their own “Ministry Guard”.

The bandits are being paid. There is no shortage of the poor and disenfranchised in Kryta. We know they are armed and supplied by people with money. There has never in the history of civilized society been an absence of criminals. I wonder how much of a threat they would be though if they had to garner their own funds themselves? Probably not very much of one. Also as I linked above, in the absence of a strong or sufficient military or law enforcement, you did have the summoning of the common citizen to bolster the law and order of the frontier. So quite simply, either the Seraph are enough for a location or they aren’t and the local citizens by all logic should have picked up the slack.

Seriously though, you do not need a warrior or raiding culture to have either a militia or mechanism to bolster law enforcement and protection.

I really don’t think we should be encouraging ANet to bite off more than they can chew again in regards to player choices…at least in regards to the overarching plot. Flavor options yes, hamstringing development and writing time to account for enumerating choices no.

We can extrapolate very basic things which can tell us a lot, the type of species they are and it’s dietary needs plus the general organization of the society. It also goes beyond supply lines. I’m talking about the supply base and what can be inferred from the biology, society, and generalized total holdings.

tl;dr
At this juncture, humanity appears to be portrayed contrary to historical reality and logical sense or at the least what we see just appears off. It appears off and I’m not sure how much of that is for gameplay reasons and how much it is legit lore that civilians living in a war zone would rather get killed empty handed than participate in a militia.

Also, if you can’t tell. This whole situation seriously annoys me.

Dustfinger.9510:

I think the problem there is that in order to go by support population per usable acre, we have to assume both races have reached the maximum possible number that their territory can support. But there is too “empty” land in tyria to have a solid base to start from.

Even still the difference in demand of a massive feline and large hominid are sharp. I’d wager we also see much more farmland in Kryta compared to ranches in Ascalon. I lean toward advantages of races like the Asura and Charr over humans being their near total utilization of their population for productive goals. The Asura to technological development encouraged by individual prestige (I would consider the Norn and Asura more similar than they would appear) and the Charr pretty much entirely being geared towards a total war society to the point I would wonder whether or not there would be limitations in their highly integrated deterministic social roles.

Mostly I’m just baffled at how much humans in GW2 squander and kitten away. We see hints of rifle armed militia in Claypool, I’m wondering why the entire Krytan rural population isn’t armed as such at the least.

Yea but just imagine the clipping…

Kitten Commander.8952:

Brahm is an accurate representation of Norn, “hit first, ask questions later” as it’s been put.

Errr…no. That makes literally no sense given that the most prominent Norn we have, Eir Stegalkin, was the tactician for a group that consisted of the likes of Rytlock and Logan. It’s a common disposition sure but that has more to do with the emphasis on “great actions” by the Norn. That has nothing to do with the “inability to think ahead” that people seem to want to heap on them.

I have no idea how greatsword would fit in the Thief/Assassin archetype but rifle wouldn’t…

>Our homeland
>LaughingGrawl.jpg
#RytlockLies
#KeepHimInTheMists

I’m also still salty about presumptions of the numbers in Charr hordes. They are carnivorous, thus requiring much more territory to support a population than humans would. I would say Krytan humans easily outnumber Iron Legion by any sane logic of supported population per useable acre. I call bs on them being as populous as they are without being also extremely vulnerable from an overall food production perspective.

draxynnic.3719:

@Lostwingman.5034: The SU-122 and SU-152 probably fulfill a similar role – fire support that CAN serve as artillery. However, a) I’d consider them to be more assault guns rather than artillery SPGs, albeit larger and more capable than the StuGs they were inspired by, b) I’m inclined to rate both as MUCH more capable than the small charrtanks (I haven’t measured it directly – maybe I should – but I do think it’s closer to a 3-inch than a 5- or 6-inch gun), and c) the small charrtanks have a fully rotating turret (although this is a relatively minor point).

The most important, though, is usage. I tend to regard artillery SPGs as something that you generally don’t want to be in sight of the front lines giving direct fire. This may be a ‘potato-potato’ thing, but the combination of fully rotating turret and frontline use makes me think of it as a howitzer tank like the KV2 or early PzIV… except that because it’s on wheels rather than tracks, it’s a howitzer armoured car instead.

These are largely irrelevant points. Quite frankly, how close something is “supposed” to be is irrelevant. It goes where it can get shots and virtually all armored vehicles are capable of indirect fire. I mean this is certainly a rotating turret but it’s meant to be fired indirectly, yet it also has a guard for the crew. Any discussion of “can’t be because of range” is silly. Any cannon armed vehicle can do indirect fire, end point. No vehicle “magically” stops being able to fire its gun depending on how close the thing they want to shoot is, barring terrain and obstacles. My differentiation had nothing to do with such superficial differences, barring the charr having some kind of Deus ex Machina mechanical brain commanding the vehicles. Ultimately it does not feasibly have a crew and thus is closer to this than it is to any of the armored vehicles described.

I was really just joking around. If you want to be serious then I would say the following would be interesting:
Passive: Every 5th skill use triggers arcane trait effects (ex: Arcane Energy and Elemental Surge)
Active: Next 5 skills trigger arcane trait effects

Couple that with a 6 pts in Earth and Arcana and you’d have something pretty interesting.

Nerf strength runes and then lets see where balance is at.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Jaher Dal.9503:

I wonder who else has maps of Queensdale laying around.

About four dozen people who used to run the champ trains.

Amateurs. All the real train runners had that stuff down to memory. Memory I say!

I’m just pointing out the fact that when we complain about lack of build diversity, we are pointing straight at the dependence on Water and Arcana for any survivability. So criticizing that attitude and then showing textbook examples of precisely what people complain about is just…funny.

I find it funny that even when trying to shoehorn in the trait buffs you still have to throw everything else into Arcane and Water….variety!

Dustfinger.9510:

All this to say an attack isn’t possible. But we know an attack was already being planned and the charr had intimate information about the layout and plans of the city. We know the charr were planning to attack. And not just attack small settlements. We already know for a fact that they were planning an attack on the capitol itself. And we know the charr have no problems waging wars and building resources that take time.

We know an attack was being planned but do we even know how serious they considered the plan? It might have just been a contingency for down the line when such an attack is feasible.

draxynnic.3719:

Yeah, the designs are silly – they simply aren’t large enough to contain a charr crew suitable to control a vehicle of that type. You might be able to fit a single small charr in, but that charr would have to be acting as driver, gunner, loader and commander… and we all know how much of a disadvantage one-man turrets were in WW2.

That said, I don’t think we ever see the small ‘tanks’ moving and firing at once and the howitzer appears to be pulled back into the vehicle in order to be reloaded, so it’s plausible.

However, the fact that the gun IS pulled back in to the vehicle to be reloaded indicates that ArenaNet sees the gun as being internally manned, even if the ‘tank’ doesn’t seem big enough to contain a charr crew. It’s not like, say, a Wespe where the gun crew is largely exposed.

There’s also my point in that whenever the small ‘tanks’ appear, their gun is being used as a direct-fire weapon. Its role is to move forward with supporting units and engage targets directly, not to sit somewhere that’s (hopefully) well away from any threats while firing on distant targets, the usual mission profile for artillery SPGs.

Of course, there’s always a certain level of overlap between dedicated artillery and any tank able to fire useful HE, but as I said – the ‘tanks’ seem to be being used in a similar role to early-model PzIVs or even the original British male tanks – direct support of infantry with light artillery.

I consider them more like the SU-152s and SU-122s. Artillery support doesn’t come in only one flavor and you can still do indirect fire with a 20* vertical arc. Also, I consider the “only see them direct firing in game” more an point of the game’s direction and gameplay. Also, it might be that the gun retracts to be loaded by an internal automated mechanism. I would consider that much more likely than the “Midget Charr” crew.

I think that’s pretty much what we’ve been told, in fact – there’s an interview somewhere where it’s said that everyone has some minor magical capability, although not necessarily even enough to light a lamp or lift something heavy (Pre-Cataclysm Orr was viewed as strange because people were using that sort of level of magic casually, although that could be partially because at that period, there wasn’t enough magic elsewhere for this to be practical). Most humans, however, don’t develop it further than that.

It’s kinda like – and I think they used a similar analogy – how everyone has the capability to do some simple addition, but PhDs in mathematics or maths-heavy fields such as theoretical physics are quite rare.

I recall that interview, I also recall there being a bit of controversy over how it went with GW1. Or maybe I’m working 60 hour weeks too much and my memory doesn’t want to exist on this plane.