Guild Wars 2

Is that zone – and hence the puzzle – permanent, or can we only do it during the event?

We are now in the Southsun Shoals, and the lag is just as unbearable (and disconnect as I write this).

CC Dalmarus.8397:

Keep an eye on the area around Fort Marriner waypoint–the event will kick off when construction is complete on the catapults. Note: Catapult completion time may vary a bit between overflows.

Well on the overflow I am in it was constructed, then some karka attacked, there was enormous lag and the karka were gone again, apparently (according to map chat) a few people got event contribution so it actually concluded. Now it is all quiet again and no clue what to do next.

I thought now comes Southsun Cove, but there is not even a hint what we might have to do.

Apparently since one of the latest patches, female asura make a weird, distorted, squinting face when sitting on their halloween broom. When moving forward, however, there is the usual “weee” face with open eyes and mouth (which I love, btw). Only the facial expression when not moving seems affected.

William Fairfield.1428:

There is also a new MgF/Vit/Tuf in the Fractals. It’s called Wayfarer.

Sounds like that is the perfect Magic Find gear for dungeons – highest chances for loot with maximum survivability, at the expense of damage, healing etc. Which somewhat even proves the OP’s point.

What’s this even?

The attack is over, apparently “failed” but people claim that is normal and inevitable. Now the event popup says I shall speak with various NPCs, who have a bit of apparently inconsequential dialog and that’s it. So, business as usual until tomorrow 20:00 GMT? Or do we have to sit in LA awaiting whatever comes next (and whenever)?

Now the event failed in the overflow I am in.

Good thing they promised us this is no one-time thing with unique one-time rewards. Oh wait it was the other way round…

Twitter advices us to map travel out and back into Lion’s Arch. I am totally not going to blow 3s just to end up the same.

Yay I managed to switch attunements. At least my soothing mist passively heals random people for inconsequential amounts!

MeGaZlo.9516:

Mephane.8496:

Now I managed to loot 1 Karka Sample, cannot even turn it in. Probably not even getting bronze on the event.

For a good reward for event do not need to collect anything. Just kill.

You Sir are certainly jesting. With that lag getting kills is just as improbable.

In Twitter they said they are working on the lag problem. Guess by the time it is fixed the one time event battle (hint, hint) is over.

Now I managed to loot 1 Karka Sample, cannot even turn it in. Probably not even getting bronze on the event.

After minutes of mega lag – dead. Gonna put off armor for the event.

5 minutes into the event. Had more complete-standstill-lag that action, heh.

Mik Hell.8206:

I just ran Twilight Arbor and this change to Evasive Arcana makes my Elementalist less fun to play by a wide margin.

I just ran CoF path 1 and 2, and it was quite boring. I mostly stood at max range and cast Eruption + any water field when someone needed healing, otherwise mostly spammed fireballs and stoning. And for that I specced 30 water and 30 arcane, got full exotic cleric equipment.

Heimlich.3065:

TheGuy.3568:

Effectively Anet nerfed healing on staff.

In the general section of the changes, I saw this too:

Many skills, items, and traits were applying healing to an infinite amount of targets and have now been limited to 5 targets.

I haven’t tested this (and probably won’t bother), but it looks like an extra nerf to Ele’s support capabilities.

Well, while it was certainly nice that some AoE heals hit an unlimited amount of targets (Geysir in tightly stacked players during Jormag’s Claw produced insane healing numbers), I agree with that receiving a limitation, though I would prefer a limit of 10 to account for pets, NPCs in dungeons.

Evasive Arcana, on the other hand, simply got destroyed. They should just have bound the Blast Finisher to the 10 second internal cooldown of the spell effects, or even its own global 10 second cooldown independent of the spells, to make it reasonable yet still useful and fun.

Evasive Arcana: This trait no longer creates unintended fun.

Seriously. Rolling in and out of field, both my own and those of group mates, was what made ele support so exceptionally fun that I could still overlook all the bugs, potential underpoweredness, fragility and so on. It was just so much fun that I still cannot grasp how they could just remove it entirely. Tying the blast finisher to the spells produced by the trait, and thus their cooldowns, should have been enough of a nerf and would have been accepted by the elementalist community easily, because it would have been reasonable without crippling our capabilities or destroying the fun in quite a number of interesting builds.

Qori.9671:

Look at the bright side Anet just free’d up 10 trait points for us since there is no reason to go 30 arcane anymore lol !

So anyone know any other mmos comming out soon ?

Yeah, great, there is nowhere to put those 10 points for a PvE support build.

I suppose the PvP Daily/Monthly only gives PvP-related stuff, i.e. honor, PvP chests etc, not jugs of karma and mystic coins.

Dimalit.7543:

Do you understand that infusion slots are actually replacing upgrade slots, so in ascended gear there will be no slots for runes. So, there will be infusions instead of runes. What stats they have? +5 to power/vitality/and so on. Even if you assume, that its the lest powerful infusion and that infusions will have +20 stats, its anyway even less than stats that runes give. I don’t see any reason here to act as a child and whine or cry out loud. From what we have seen so far, ascended gear won’t be much better than exotic in stats, so just relax.

Ascended items automatically include the stats of exotic + rune/crest/jewel + 8% of the total extra. And now in addition to that, also stats on infusions. Exotics have now officially been demoted to salvaging/MF fodder.

Arc.9374:

fixit.7189:

Arc, you are stated u don’t use staff much and pretty much into D/D and S/D which both only got minor nerfs so of course you are fine with these changes. We get it, you did not like staff bunkers and don’t mind them getting massive nerfs since it does not effect you one bit other being able to smoke staff users way easier now.

Staff bunkers needed to be toned down.

Anyone who disputes that fact has not done enough tPvP to know that a well played one is essentially immortal, excepting stupidly overwhelming odds (which aren’t feasible in a 5v5 setting).

Well I will not dispute the claim because I have never played tPvP. I played a lot of dungeons and dynamic events and these so-called bunker nerf is an even more massive staff support nerf (overall healing reduced by 50%, burst healing impossible now).

Lopez.7369:

Infusions have stats. LOL.

WTF. If that is true, this makes Ascended items even more superior that they already were. The items alone have around 8% more stats (which is with proper Synergy, like Berserker equipment where damage, crit chance and crit damage goes up in unison, already quote substantial), now you get additional stats from the infusions?

Can i please have my gold and real money back? I wasted like 25 gold and 7 transmutation stones (armor + 1 weapon) on mere exotics, which were apparently never meant as endgame items, not even close…

The more I think about the destruction of Evasive Arcana (it’s not just a nerf, the main purpose of the trait got removed), the more I feel sad. Not just for the severely nerfed suppport capabilities – I estimate my group healing in dungeons to go down by ~50%, and burst healing is removed almost entirely now – but the entire playstyle.

Because, let’s face it. Laying down Healing Rain and then rolling is was fun. Extremely fun. Even more so as a little asura. It was one of the things that for me made the profession feel just right in terms of playstyle. Now I will be reduced to standing at max range and throwing in a water field as soon as people are hurt a bit. Unable to save someone from impending doom, and at max range unlikely to help up a downed melee. Oh am I looking forward to the new dungeon with my nerfed healing and dumbed down playstyle.

What I don’t get is why they nerfed Evasive Arcana also in PvE, while at the same time making quite a lot of PvP-only nerfs to some classes. Evasive Arcana in PvE was not only just fine, it was something that groups liked us for, something really useful we brought into dungeons.

fixit.7189:

1 blast finisher was fine imo, it was the bug that allowed you to make two or more during the 10 sec CD that was the problem. Now there is NO finishers at all.

Yeah, that was also what I assumed when I read the patch notes, i.e. that only each spell with its 10 sec internal cooldown could perform the blast finisher, not dodge rolls on evasive arcana effects that are on cooldown. Instead, they entirely removed blast finishers.

What is so super-annoying is that this nerf was obviously aimed at sPvP, but hit PvE just as hard, if not worse. Evasive Arcana + Water fields was the source of burst AoE healing in tight situations, and the one mechanic that made ele support special and interesting. Now it is just about laying down healing fields and hoping someone else happens to perform a finisher during that brief window (also note, instead of fixing Healing Rain’s too short duration, they just changed the tooltip).

Went from ~2400-2500 to 1713. Oo

Funny thing is, if they really intended to nerf bunker ele in PvP… they completely screwed PvE suppport ele both in dungeons and dynamic events.

/me Reads again.
Did I miss something about pets now being more robust in dungeons? And I thought us eles got screwed (THE suppport trait Evasive Arcana got basically destroyed, tooltips adapted to what previously looked like bugs…), I feel bad for you guys.

Healing Rain: This skill’s tooltip now states the correct duration of 6 seconds.
Armor of Earth: This skill’s tooltip now states the correct duration of 6 seconds.

I was kind of fearing exactly this. Epic sigh.

Mist Form: This skill now works with the Water Magic trait Cantrip Mastery.

Just tested this. Cooldown after activation is still 75 seconds with the trait.

Evasive Arcana: This trait no longer creates unintended blast finishers.

Tested; NO BLAST FINISHER WHATSOEVER. Ultra nerf, dungeon groups will love this extreme reduction in group support.

As I understand it, the change only means that you need to switch attunements between dodge rolls to produce chain blast finishers, because previously even when the spell was on its 10 sec internal cooldown (remember, each element’s evasive arcana spell has its separate 10 second cooldown), it still acted as a blast finisher.

Chain blasts should only be a bit more tricky with more attunement dancing, but still possible.

Healing Rain: This skill’s tooltip now states the correct duration of 6 seconds.
Armor of Earth: This skill’s tooltip now states the correct duration of 6 seconds.

I was kind of fearing exactly this. Epic sigh.

Mist Form: This skill now works with the Water Magic trait Cantrip Mastery.

Just tested this. Cooldown after activation is still 75 seconds with the trait.

From today’s patch notes.

Fixed a bug that caused many piercing, boomerang, and bouncing projectiles (those that hit more than 1 target) to continually increase in damage the mokittengets they hit.

XD

DashutoRyoko.5463:

Notes are out
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-November-15-2012

Thank you very much

I wished they would at least post the patch notes as soon as the patch starting to get rolled out. Because the one thing I want to do when a large update is downloading – see what is going to get changed, not end up in the game wondering without knowledge of at least the class changes.

Also the first time for me patching was this slow and hickuppy. All other patches, small and large, just breezed through so far. But at the current rate (merely 50 MB downloaded, still displayed at 0%) the patch is gigantic and slow, I might as well give up hope of getting into the game again today.

Edit: Heh, as I posted this, the launcher started recalculating the percentage and sped up. 9% @ 120 MB and around 1MB download speed. Much better.

The patch that just started is quite slow and there are many connection problems just getting the launcher to patch at all. What I now encountered is this: I am playing from Germany and on a German Windows installation, but have downloaded and installed the game in English only. Yet the error message on the launcher, when it first tries to connect (before even showing login fields) is displayed in German, not in English.

I suppose at this point it is querying the system language and displaying the string according to that; don’t be that guy, ArenaNet. Automatic language guessing based on the host OS is super-annoying when the user has deliberately chosen a different language.

emikochan.8504:

Don’t AFK in the field.

Real life happens. I can accept that my char might die while I rush to the kitchen or whatever, but it shouldn’t cause me to die repeatedly until everything is broken, because random players rezz you and run off.

I suggest that in the event a player is defeated (not just downed), when the player is ressurrected they should not automatically get up again, but receive a prompt whether to accept the ressurrection, as found in most other MMOs. At the moment, if someone goes afk when out in the field and they die from some random mob (possibly a DE they did not anticipate in the area, or a player training mobs along by accident – or worse, on purpose), they can be ressurrected, die again, be ressurrected again etc. until all their gear is completely broken. On several occasions I saw the corpse of a player character completely naked, who fell victim to this situation, to the point where all their gear was broken.

A simple prompt where they have to actively accept a rezz from defeated state would have prevented such a situation.

I just want to throw in a little “told you so” towards ArenaNet. Of course the new gear will become mandatory for the new dungeon given the Agony-mechanic and its higher stats.

Crater.1625:

Well, my optimistic hope is that the idea of ‘Ascended’ gear came about as a response to feedback from players who can’t maintain interest in a game without vertical character progression. It’s not hard to find people who share that sentiment, asking for upgrades to gear. And there are relatively few people, up until this point, who have posted to argue against those people – presumably because the people who are opposed to vertical progression felt there was no need to speak up, as the game was already (mostly) serving their needs.

Exactly. And then, people who need vertical progression to remain interested in the game, the basic rule of greed applies. To paraphrase:

Greed is not satisfied by possessing things, only by a acquiring more.

The same is true for people who want a gear treadmill. For them it is the acquiring of the gear that is important, not actually having it, because that bores them extremely quickly; while on the other hand, many who came here under the explicit premise that there is no gear treadmill, are very content with not constantly acquiring new gear. My main character has been wearing the same stuff now for some weeks, and instead of getting bored, I feel even more invested into the game, because my character, her looks, playstyle, trait selection etc. has gained a sort of permanency I thought I could rely upon (and for which I also paid real money to transmute my gear together, by the way!).

Masterwork/Rare/Exotic is not a treadmill. Upon reaching 80, you can directly go for exotic and be done with. Well, you could until now, apparently.

Thanks ArenaNet for posting a so-called “full” event-guide which actually covers none of the actually pressing questions (precise mechanics and stats of ascended gear and infusion, the two missing monthly achievement items, whether new stuff in the Gem Store will once again be just uber-rare in Black Lion Chests etc.).

I’ll try to keep my rant short, so here it is, for what it’s worth:

- New “slightly better” gear marks the precedent for potentially “slightly even better” gear in future updates. We might very well see the start of a gear treadmill, even if not as steep as in other MMOs. The lack of said treadmill has so far been one of the most appealing features of GW2 to me.
- “Infusions” on “some” of these items to “increase your character’s power”, i.e. those particular items will be sought after, the rest will be widely considered garbage (just as rare level 80 items are mostly just used for salvaging and the Mystic Forge), the same will eventually apply to current, “slightly worse” exotics.
- I invested a significant amount of gold plus REAL EFFIN MONEY to get my current exotic armor + fine transmutation stones in order to deck out my main in gear that both has the stats I need for my spec at maximum and the looks I desire. In order to keep up, I would need to buy another bunch of transmutation stones (note how you need 6 for a full armor set, yet can only buy multiples of 5), oh and the gold spent for my current equipment will then be for naught, too. I could just as well have kept running around in green level 79 gear the past few weeks if I had known that my gear would get demoted to intermediate-until-infused-ascended-gear.
- I have just begun running more dungeons to outfit my second character, now I am seriously wondering why I should even bother, because all that time spent would be to waste, too, as a source for stats (which the dungeon gear in this case is meant for).
- I have accepted all bugs, imbalances etc. knowing that in any case GW2 is such a unique, special pearl of an MMO, only to see it slowly being turned into yet another gear treadmill. When I read these news, it was the very first time that I felt doubt about the future (or, more precisely, my future inside) this game.

tl;dr: If this gets nerfed, it destroys the one viable support options for elementalists in PvE.

I play a staff support ele, almost strictly PvE (only do WvW for the monthly 50 kills). These so called “bunker” builds are support builds in dungeons, and it is what I have been playing since I created my ele (which is also my main) during the headstart.

If they nerf this build, I will have to seriously consider whether I should even bother doing dungeons any more. At the moment, at least, I am not onehitted by every random projectile or AoE, using that survivability to lay down AoE healing fields for the entire group, performing AoE healing finishers etc.

This playstyle is, in dungeons, extremely fun. Making it brittle or nerfing the healing to the ground basically destroys this option, and the very playstyle I have created this character for.

Before ArenaNet considers further class nerfs because of specific PvP woes (assuming they are justified, which I am obviously not qualified to judge), they need to completely separate skill strengths between PvE and PvP. I don’t want GW2 to become yet another game where nerfs and buffs compete between addressing PvP and PvE, keeping the game forever in a status quo of many unneccessary imbalances just because changing a skill affects both separate aspects of the game.

Okay, while I see why that name is then reserved, maybe the error message should be something more along the lines (“this name is reserved”). I was already scratching my head whether it could in any way be something offensive.

… “Izzy”, but according to a shortly flashing message, “The name was not acceptable”.

-> WTH?

Well personally, I hope salvaging does not make a comeback. That imho by far the worst monthly requirement for me. (Though I can see how for a pure PvP player, dungeons is absolutely unacceptible.)

Although I have not yet been in a situation to need this, I found this would really be a nice change of pace for those players who are a bit slower, or those months/days where you don’t find enough time due to real life reasons, for example.

Basically, what I propose is that the daily and monthly achievements shall not reset unless they are 100% fulfilled. This then allows people to complete the daily achievements over the course of two or more days; thus they are getting less reward/day, but they still get something out of the achievement at all. The same then applies to monthly achievements, which everyone could also complete at their own pace, while finishing it every month obviously gives the highest reward/month.

This is what I still remember, I looted some stuff on multiple runs, and if I forgot anything that did drop for me it was insignificant anyway.

- Arachnophobia (on my first run, any the only exotic I ever got from the MK chest)
- Black Lion Harvesting Sickle
- Some Candy Corn
- Dye pack
- Black Lion Salvaging Kit
- Instant Repair Canister
- Black Lion Merchant Express