Guild Wars 2

Thanks, that’s what I guessed but it’s good to know.

Say I make some ascended light armor.

Can I transmute it to have a racial skin, e.g sylvari tier 2 for my sylvari ele?

If I can, what happens if I then want to equip it on my human necro/mesmer?

Thanks if anyone knows…

mattastrophic.8201:

Your post has me wondering something. Why Assassin’s gear?

I’ve wondered the same, ever since I levelled my mesmer and watched Brazil’s guide which said to use assassin’s. I think the answer is: dungeon reflects. Dungeon people see mesmers as a combination of utility (portal, veil etc), condition cleaning, Time Warp, and reflects for megabosses like Lupicus. The first three don’t need stats, and reflect damage depends on your crit chance. So they’ll do what it takes to get 100% crit rate (with food and group buffs), hence the assassin’s gear.

It’s a niche thing, but dungeon people write most of the guides, so…

p.s. I’d get berserkers on ascended armour, because it’s account bound and zerks will be useful on any PvE character. If you need more crit chance for a special occasion, use precison food.

Pelopidas.2140:

Berserker gear, Ranger runes

Ah yes… I didn’t think of ranger runes (duh), but that clicks.

I’m now in zerks + ranger runes, except an exotic 80 assassin chest piece that I got for completing cursed shore.

I’d suggest power, S/D or D/D + utility shortbow. A dungeon style build with the running signet will work fine.

Cursed Shore is surprisingly easy to complete — there are no hearts in Orr, the map layout is simple, and it’s full of players killing the champions that might get in the way. Now the Straits of Devastation, that’s full of dead end switchback canyons and champs sat on PoIs that go unkilled for hours on end…

Don’t forget that you don’t usually have to kill things to get the map done, except at some skill points. You can usually just run past, optionally with stealth. Also, if you’re having a hard time killing the champ risen worshipper for skillpoint, a third of the people in map chat are just as keen.

Hi all,

I’ve just leveled my seventh character, a ranger, and I’m gearing up.

Almost all guides I’ve seen (ranger or otherwise) assume an optimised party with might/fury stacking, banners, food and so on to get the crit chance to around 100%. But I’m just playing my ranger in open world PvE, living story and the like. I don’t expect to receive any buffs I don’t create, except maybe the occasional banner of discipline at a big event.

I just looked at a possible build with exotic berserker gear, it’s 57% crit with accuracy sigil and I’ll generate some fury. I won’t be using crit food for casual PvE.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNMQNAT8XjUq0vaFLuqw1ag9gadAEwjO3MoD8VFZM0JzgA-TxBBwAY3fQiSQjK/A8wCwp+TCzfBuiCCBQF-e

Do you think I’m likely to be better off with zerks or assassin’s gear?

I haven’t bought armour/runes yet, but I was thinking scholar’s.

fracture.9754:

Please, PLEASE take the time and write out a route or something that you find effective. Solo PVE is what I’d be MOST interested in and this sounds too good to be true.

Jumping in… I play a necro on the cursed shore a fair bit. I haven’t scientifically analysed it the way some people do, but FWIW here are some thoughts.

- Ideally you follow a commander, and they worry about the route. Zergs scale encounters, they make more champions show up than otherwise would, you get more loot in a zerg than solo provided you tag the mobs.

- Tagging needs a few things: be in a party (the party’s collective damage is what counts), bring AoE, and place it effectively but not redundantly.

- To be in a party, follow a commander tag to a zerg and say “lfg” in a quieter moment. If that doesn’t work in a minute, say “1/5”.

- For AoE, Spoj’s dungeon Deathshroud build twisted to use dagger/warhorn and staff is quite effective. It’s good to swap in ground targeting of wells, and switch in the utility Epidemic to cast on bosses with sidekicks (e.g. giants). And it suits you gear.

- There are outright farming builds that are better at zerg farming, but the dungeon build also works in a real fight if you need to kill some things whilst getting around. Say you want to do the Empyreal Fragment chests every day, some of those are not trivial to reach. I’d leave the farming builds with their AoE signets and whatnot until you see whether you like farming.

- Almost all zerg fights are mindless if you sit back and spam AoE. If you want to make it more interesting, use the dagger and learn to read the boss animations. Champ necros are nasty, very hard to read in a blizzard of VFX and they instakill you.

- At the Temple of Grenth, you need to understand about bathing in the “portals” (swirling brown pools near the stairs) to be able to hit the wraiths. Do everybody a favour: put a few hits on the Risen Priest to tag him, then kill wraiths to improve the zerg’s overall chances of success. Grenth is the only event that fails regularly.

From memory, a commander might ideally aim for something like this champ train, although it never happens in this order and there’s lots of running/waypointing:
- At the very south, do the Megalodon and Rotbeard (pull him up on deck) and the
maggots (not champ but good loot).
- Go to Meddler’s WP and do the Ooze and the Giant (easy dodging practice).
- Head to NW corner and get the Broodmother (tag the mom then kill hatchlings), then N for the Plinx chain (the definitive ranged AoE event).
- East of Caer Shadowfain for the Archmage (hits hard).
- Back SW to Penitent Camp for the chain through to Jofast’s. This tends to happen in stages, with other events between. Many commanders aim to fail the last bit at Jofast’s to get retries – if you see “dollies” in map chat a lot, that’s what’s going on.
- If the main temple assaults (Arah, Grenth, Melandru) are on then drop everything for them. Most people want to deliberately fail temple defences to get the assaults, but there are some who don’t, and map chat can get toxic. I never do temple defences.
- Occasionally, a zerg will take in the Risen King in Reliquary Vault or the Groundskeeper in the Maze. You don’t see these often.

Now if you want to be truly solo… I’d basically amble around Orr collecting ancient wood and orichalcum, opening all the chests, killing whatever gets in the way and doing any events you stumble across. There’s no fixed route because the materials move.

I mention the chests because they make a nice stroll with varied opposition; most people run past fights to efficiently farm chests but I prefer killing everything. You do also get the fragments for Ascended armor should you be interested. See http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:1Maven/Empyreal_Farming for a start.

Also, see if you like Dry Top and the Silverwastes. I haven’t gotten into them, but I think they have a lot of soloable events if you know where to be and when to be there. I’m sure there’ll be a guide on the web somewhere.

I almost always run double wells, usually with the reduced recharge trait and/or the ground targeting trait — actually I should probably use ground targeting more since I’m getting forced out of position all the time. I generally have BiP or Epidemic in the third utility slot.

Otherwise, well, I guess I’ll work on the positioning. With hindsight, it might not help that I usually do LS on the necro first, so the other classes are played with the benefit of experience.

I didn’t realise that you can shut down the teragriff rush like that. That will be a help, I think. Thanks.

I’ve played a power zerk dagger necro (Spoj style) in casual PvE for a few months now. She seems to have a relatively hard time versus Mordrem. I know where the dodge button is, but it’s hard doing melee when the ground is downright carpeted with overlapping red rings and they appear under you as you roll into them. Also, the Mordrem in the LS tend to outnumber my dagger cleave so I would like more AoE.

I find life easier on the warrior (zerk GS + longbow), or mesmer (assassin S/P + GS), or ele (zerk staff).

I wonder does anyone have any thoughts on tactics/builds against Mordrem, in LS + open world solo + open world events?

I’ve tried a couple of things:
- I have a staff (range and AoE) for tagging in a party in Cursed Shore zergs, but it just doesn’t do that much damage when you need to actually kill things.
- Deathshroud isn’t bad, using spoj’s build. But I find the long cooldowns limiting. [I think that might be less of an issue in a dungeon with a few big fights and skips between, than in the constant open world fights.]

I also wondered about full condi, AoE bleed stacking with staff and scepter/dagger. It would be ranged. If you fight a solo mordrem, it will often acquire tentacular friends to AoE. If I’m in a group, I’m probably fighting a boss + sidekicks, so hitting the condition cap on the boss is a chance for epidemic to shine. And then there are the husks. But I don’t have the gear to try this, so I wonder if anybody else has experience of it?

Or should I just try harder at the dodging?

Thoughts welcome.

This video is magnificent.

So, who fancies buying an extra character slot then?

Astralporing.1957:

And there’s quite a lot of people that do not wish for any difficult content at all. Just for more content.

I resemble that remark. I found The Cursed Shore was pretty much my speed, and liked it just fine until I’d done it a ridiculous number of times. Now I’d like another five or ten level 80 maps. Which means an expansion, l guess, or just possibly fixing the downscaling (difficulty and reward) to make level 1-79 maps a reasonable substitute. I’m not bothered about dungeons, raids, pvp or wvw.

Yes.

Being treated as a gullible idiot, who’ll get all excited by a load of hype about not that much, offends me.

If Anet had said “The next feature patch will be on the small side because we’ve been so busy with the China launch, but normal service will resume in due course”, I’d probably grin and bear it. But instead we have this snow job.

I bought an Orrian Wraith for my necro last week, my first deliberate minipet acquisition, for 20.5g on a buy order. Sell orders are about 65g now.

Pandaman.4758:

Anet claimed they made the change to encourage more experimentation and build diversity, but it seems like such a backward way to go about it: limiting options to encourage diversity.

Yes, very strange.

When I made my first character under the new system, I basically watched Nike’s dungeon warrior guide and unlocked the traits for that plus a couple for bows. And I haven’t experimented with traits/builds at all.

On my pre-change characters, mesmer + necro + ele, I experiment quite a bit.

I’ve a post-change guardian who’s missing traits I want to try out, like Right Hand Strength, because I haven’t gotten to doing whatever is needed to unlock it.

Excellent analysis, I hope Anet takes it on board and implements all your recommendations.

Novalitus.7382:

There are many great games being released left and right.

This is a serious question, since I’m feeling a bit like it might be time to move on myself… Are any of them not-too-twitchy-but-need-some-skill MMORPGs?

Blix.8021:

I have done…

I am impressed.

If there’s nothing left you want to do… I don’t mean this is a snarky way at all, but perhaps it’s time to say that you’ve had your money’s worth from this (subscription free) game and move on? If you stick around with nothing to do, it’ll leave you with bad memories of a game that’s given you a lot.

Divinity Original Sin, Wasteland 2, The Witcher 3, Pillars of Eternity… I think there’s a good year ahead for RPG players.

I would like it balanced so that going to a level 40 area is about as hard as the Cursed Shore for a level 80 character in exotics. My reasons are a bit roundabout…

1. I’d like more variety for level 80s
2. I’d only go places that reward me reasonably well
3. So if I’m to go to Lornar’s Pass, it has to pay as well as Orr
4. And if it pays like Orr it has to be difficult like Orr, with appropriate downscaling

It seems odd that one would make an MMO where most of the content isn’t of interest to people at the level cap. You’re spending all that time and money developing areas that will be visited once, or not at all. I can’t see why Anet did this, unless (a) they screwed up or (b) they’d like people to quit their game after making 80 (one-off price, one-off content).

If it were me, and I intended to retain players, there’d be a few tutorial areas and everything from Harathi Hinterlands onward would be level 80. GW1 Factions and Nightfall (and Eye of the North) worked like that. You could start a character on Sunday morning, have max armour by the evening, and check with enthusiasm to see where the Zaishen Mission was that day. Players even made Prophecies unofficially work like that, if you paid for a run from Ascalon to Droknar’s Forge then paid a leveller outside Drok’s.

Daily GW1 Zaishen Missions/Bounties/Vanquishes with worthwhile hard mode rewards had people visiting content they’d normally ignore. The rewards made them go back, and the hard mode (effectively downscaling) made the rewards appropriate.

So.. I want downscaling that’s tough enough to justify full rewards in mid-level areas, and I want full rewards because why else would I go to them?

1. Fix minions not attacking

2. A couple of blocks on weapons, e.g. focus for power builds and offhand dagger for condi.

3. Any group buff/enabler for dungeons.

nachtnebel.9168:

Necro was my main, and patches like this are the reason why I now have a lvl 80 char for every profession.

I only have five, and mesmer was my main, but… same principle.

I’ll give them this: I was thinking of buying another slot for a thief, then I thought actually maybe I’d just delete the mesmer and save some money. At least it wasn’t the necro.

A fix to minions not attacking would be worth more than the entire list.

I like the swiftness increase on locust swarm, nice QoL.

The exploit fix with power on lich form is fair enough. I don’t like the duration nerf — that’s my “I need to go up a gear to beat this elite risen subjugator for the skill point” skill, and the alternatives are a buggy minion that doesn’t attack or a condi skill.

Cleave is nice for fighting the risen farmer and his turret, I guess. Why isn’t it on axe too?

Most of it just doesn’t seem relevant to me.

At the moment I have very little reason to go to the low level areas.

If going to Kessex hills were as hard for my L80 as going to Malchor’s Leap, then it could pay just as well — including gilded coffers, occasional rares and exotics, etc.

It could do this while maintaining local character — bandits and centaurs and iron instead of undead and undead and mithril.

I would then have about 20 maps worth visiting instead of about 3.

Sounds great.

I recommend an Orrian Wraith minipet. It doesn’t do much (unless you have ranger runes), but it will make you feel better.

Kentsui.4930:

Once you hit 80, why would you come back to a lower level area in the current state of things  ?

• World completion
• World Bosses
• help a friend that is leveling
• find a jumping puzzle you haven’t completed yet
• grab a Karma item exclusive to this zone
• farm lower level materials you might need.
• Roleplaying
• A LS episode

Also:
- Unlock traits on newer characters (something I actually don’t like at all)
- Open chests for Empyreal fragments, the main reason I (briefly) visit lower level maps.

It’s a bit of a drift, but several people have mentioned the idea of regional content paying regional currencies for regional rewards. I like that, but there are a couple of things it would have to have:

- Currencies go in the wallet, not inventory. Switching geodes/keys/sand around five characters is a pain. If I have five characters with 0..9 piles of sand, it takes five logins to consolidate them. This is appalling usability. Now imagine that multiplied by multiple regions. I think I’d start actively avoiding everywhere but Orr, to not have to deal with it,

- Currencies are convertible, even if it’s not at a very good rate. I don’t want any of the skins from Dry Top — they aren’t bad at all, but there’s always something I prefer. I don’t want the vine/plant, for me they’re overpriced. I don’t want Nomad gear, I have no use for those stats. So I have geodes and keys and sand and nothing to do with them. I have no reason to go back to Dry Top after I’ve done LS, skill points and vistas.

edit: come to think of it, Unidentified Fossilized Insects are a currency too. That’s four, from half a region. But at least you can convert those if you don’t want them.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Morte.5916:

- The same loot as a L80 area for a L80 character, including T6 and ascended materials, once the fights are the same difficulty

That’d mean if you have no low level characters, you can’t get low level mats. Linen, for example. Not good.

I didn’t think of that… Fair point.

Let me put it another way: I would be more inclined to go to a lower level area (with true downscaling to equalise the difficulty) if I didn’t lose out loot-wise by doing so.

Cursed Shore.

Level 80, no hearts, double frequency events. Pity it’s almost all undead, more variety would be good. But ultimately it’s the gameplay winner for now, and that’s what matters to me over cosmetics.

Dry Top also has a lot going for it, but we’ll see what it’s like 3 months after the LS finishes.

I find this idea quite horrible, sorry. I’ve been dithering over buying another character slot for a while now, and the biggest thing that’s stopping me is doing “teach 15 Quoggans to catch crabs” again.

Some things more likely to draw my L80s to, say, Lornar’s Pass would be:
- Make downscaling work better, so it’s as hard as the Cursed Shore (I get the impression this is something to do with Ferocity)
- Nicky the traveller, descendant of a certain GW1 character
- Treasure hunts
- Interesting quests
- The same loot as a L80 area for a L80 character, including T6 and ascended materials, once the fights are the same difficulty

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t like scheduling. Scheduling is a 20th Century concept. I like “on demand,” I like for the map to be ready for me when I get there, not for be to have to be ready when the map is ready.

And I’m a 20th century person…

Perhaps another option would be something with commanders, since it seems like everybody is a commander now. If a commander is on Dry Top has n people under them, they may request a new instance for their crew when the sandstorm ends.

[Dry Top is an hourly cycle, so certain values of “when I arrive” would be taking liberties — you shouldn’t expect to arrive 37 minutes in and find it at tier 5.9…]

Slightly increases the micro niche for scepters/condi in PvE. Good, but a drop in the ocean that is “we need the stacking cap to go away”.

Or were you talking about WvW?

It’s my birthday and I’ll cry if I want to.

The skillpoint scrolls are soulbound, can’t use them on a new character, existing characters have more skillpoints than I can get around to turning into money.

The level 20 scroll is… just like last years, except it doesn’t stack. And what would I want with it? I already have them. Why you no make “+10 levels, to a maximum of 60”? Destroyed to save inventory space.

They birthday booster is… also just like last years, except it doesn’t stack. And it’s missing the one thing I really want in a booster, WvW XP gain for use in the EOTM train. So much for buying a character slot to make a thief. An underwhelming gift, but the least bad thing here.

The cake gun… destroyed to save inventory space. Not my sort of humour, I’m afraid, though I’m sure it will appeal to somebody.

Perhaps there could be some sort of guild event? On Thursday nights you get a map, reserved for your guild and whoever it chooses to taxi in. You can make mutually beneficial arrangements with other guild who has Tuesdays, you invite them and they invite you. Non-representing guilds might be formed just for doing this. Hmm. I have no actual idea how guild events work, but pardon me for musing.

I do feel a bit sad, when I’m on a T4/T5 map doing my LS quests and getting the vistas and skillpoints, being one of the people holding you back from T6. I don’t feel guilty — I’m not put there for your convenience — but it’s a shame.

Pistols are so noisy. The pistol phantasm on my mesmer wore me out, I changed builds to avoid it.

Reading this thread brings home just how personal the concept of value is.

I bought a salvage-o-matic. It turned out that switching it between characters via the bank was more trouble than buying salvage kits, so 4 of my 5 characters now buy salvage kits. Some people would buy 5x salvage-o-matic, which is 42.50 in the UK. That’s roughly the cost of The Witcher 3, or whatever takes your fancy. I think I’d rather get Wasteland 2, personally…

The banker golem is 500 gems for 2 weeks, roughly the entire monthly subscription for World of Warcraft or Eve Online. Does it work for all characters, or would I need five banker contracts? Twenty quid a year for instant bank access on all characters, that I might pay.

OTOH I was all over the katana. It looks great, I use it on the two characters it suits, it cost six quid and it makes me happy.

kokiman.2364:

Why do people play RPGs when they dont like the leveling experience?

Because there are other things they do like.

Surely this is obvious?

Another fast levelling option would be nice, especially one that’s genuinely fast.

I think this is a good idea.

I’m thinking of buying a sixth character slot to make a thief. The thought of levelling them makes me pause, even though I have a spare level 20 script and a birthday booster and I know my way around crafting and the EotM train. Even if I get to 60 in a couple of evenings with scripts/crafting/EotM, then do personal story and get into Orr to avoid the juvenilecat “teach 10 Quoggans to catch crabs” hearts, I am not thrilled at the idea. Enough with this, I’ve done it five times and now I just want to push a kitten button.

My account is from the day the server opened, and I’ve completed LS2 to date on four characters. So that’s a nice bonus.

Thanks all.

If I buy another slot and make a new character, today or tomorrow, what access will I have to LS2?

As best I can tell from reading the website, i’ll get the current episode Dragon’s Reach Pt 2 onwards, and i’d have to pay 600 gems for the previous 3 episodes.

Do I have this right?

I’ve done this (mainly open world PvE map completion and events) with mesmer, warrior, necromancer, guardian and I’m doing elementalist.

Of those I’d say warrior is strongest for just smacking down a regular monster. Warriors do a lot of damage, and have a lot of hitpoints.

Guardian is decent in straight hitting power but relies on blocking and blinding enemies more than hitpoints. It’s more flexible, e.g. it has a decent spammable AoE on staff for farming big non-boss events. I’d say my guardian is my most useful character.

Necro is the one I enjoy most. It does a bit of this and a bit of that, it keeps things interesting, it doesn’t top any DPS tables but seems to do better than the numbers say it should.

I was disappointed in the mesmer, I think it’s a pale imitation of the GW1 mesmer. Plus it’s buggy, and I should have known how miserable sidekick AI would be after 30 years of playing computer RPGs. I only use mine when I want to do something on every character. Also, I think it’s fair to say that even people who like playing level 80 mesmers think they’re a pain to level.

I made the ele 2 years ago and abandoned him at level 23 because it was just too twitch, especially with an elbow injury (which has since cleared up). But now I’m levelling him to have another character to do living story and so on. Watch any ele guide on youtube by DEKeyzToChaos and see if the rotation looks like your idea of fun.

The one I haven’t played but quite fancy is thief. I’m many times better at dancing around in a fight than I was when I made my characters two years ago, and a backstabbing class does appeal to me.

If I may give you one piece of advice… Invest some time reading the guilds forum here, and find one you like. Don’t just join the first one that’s recruiting.

And another bit… Melee, don’t range, and learn to dodge. You will never be any good at this game if you range.

The great thing about M2 is it puts a value on bloodstone dust. Before, I was always hesitant to junk the stuff in case Anet made it a component for something I’d want — if you got ascended sharpening stones for bloodstone dust and water, I’d kick myself for disposing of it.

But now they’ve collapsed the waveform. Gust is worth “greens plus”. I can make the plant if I think it’s worth it, or junk the dust if I don’t.

Dragzter.3810:

You could do some guild missions and get the exotic Guild Assassin Backpack (zerker stats) for 5g and 5 commendations.

Thanks, Dragster, for the information. And the perspective — it’s what I was thinking, but it’s nice to have a second opinion.

I think I’ll pass on Mawdrey — the skin doesn’t appeal to me, and the stats aren’t worth the effort. Also switching account bound gear around four characters is a pain — I bought a salvage-o-matic and went back to buying salvage kits on three characters. If I want a bit of bling I can buy the Phoenix staff skin that I really like, and use it on multiple characters.

On the plus side, therer’s the fact that they’ve given us the plant to dispose of bloodstone dust rather than say ascended sharpening stones. I feel OK about just destroying the dust now.

fictitiousacct.1782:

The fact that it is heavily time gated makes it more expensive for impatient people, as you can make one of each of the plant foods for less than 2g but sell for around 13g or so.

Impatient people are wonderful.

When LS2 started, the most money I’d ever had was 205g. I now have 460g, I’ve bought 7 strength runes, taken weaponsmith from kitten to 500, and made ascended sword/greatsword with three +5 infusions. All thanks to efficient foxfire farming and the two plant foods.

Now if I could just have four normal exotic berserker back thingies for my active characters, I’d go back to fleecing the suckers who lust after prestige items.

I have masterwork berserker back items from the personal story. I’d like exotics.

Danikat.8537:

• You can get exotic back items from the Temple vendors in Orr for 42,000 karma (the same as other armor pieces).

I checked for a berserker back piece at Grenth when the armour changed to zerks a week or two back, but the back item didn’t match the rest of the armour. Do you know of any zerks at another temple?

• Or they drop in dungeons with varying rarities and stats. These ones are tradeable so you can also buy them from the TP.

Can you give me an item name to search for on the TP, for an exotic berserker’s back item? If I get one for under 10g I’ll be forever in your debt. I’ll send you 10% commission, if you like.

Things like the Spinal Blades and Mawdrey are the equivalent of named exotics you can make in the mystic forge. They’re something special to work towards if you want it, not the default items to fill that slot.

I’m absolutely fine with the fancy prestige items being expensive and difficult, that’s why they’re prestigious, but where are the normal versions? Why can’t I craft them in much the same way as gloves, with whatever inscriptions I want, at under 10g for an exotic?

Edit: I checked the temples in game (wiki has been wrong about temple gear before, and item names at temples have not always agreed with their actual stats). I saw…
balth: cavaliers toughness power ferocity
dwayna: rabid condition precision toughness
lyssa: magi’s healing precision vitality
grenth: soldier’s power toughness vitality
melandru: was falling, so I stayed away to protect the recapture event; wiki (which is correct at present AFAIK) says it doesn’t sell back items

Since everybody else gets to post wishlists, don’t see why I shouldn’t:
- Cleave on dagger 1, bounce on axe 1, both 2 targets.
- Dagger 2 affects up to 2 targets, and is a blast finisher.
- All minions work underwater, especially the golem.
- Fixing the non-attacking bugs with minions would be worth more than any change to the related skills/traits.
- Reduce the casting time on BiP. Sometimes the fight is over before I finish buffing with it.
- Change the gap closer in Death Shroud to a weak AoE for tagging, or “smoke form” which is like mist form but darker. I don’t go into DS because I want to melee some specific target, more likely the opposite.

I’m not a party/dungeon player much, but for the sake of people who are I think necro needs a better way to help a group. I’m not sure what.

The improvement I would like is… to craft unskinned exotic spineguards at 400 crafting, and ascended spineguards at 500, in much the same way you craft gloves.

It may be cheaper than the other ascended back items, but it’s very expensive for what you get. An exotic berserker’s spineguard should be about 7 gold.

Bubi.7942:

Well if he is, he is wrong. It’s actually cheaper than other ascended backpieces.

You look like a knowledgeable chap.

It’s cheap compared to the alternatives, which are also “special” items, but is it cheap for what you get? Or is it just less overpriced?

How does it compare to crafting ascended weapons and armour? How does it compare to getting an ascended back piece for 35 laurels, like other trinkets, were such a thing possible?

If you were a wannabe fractal runner with five un-infused ascended trinkets and a masterwork back piece, which would you get first: five +5 AR infusions, or this ascended plant backpiece?

If you could craft exotic back pieces at skill 400 much like crafting gloves, would this thing still be of any interest?

Are we buying (or not buying) utility or exclusivity here?

Watch Mr Prometheus’ staff mesmer guide for an idea of what you’re looking at. It’s old, traits have changed, probably skills and maybe gear too. But it’ll show you what it’s like to play. Basically, you need to enjoy kiting.

Hi all,

I have four 80s, and an ele I made back on opening day that I abandoned at level 23. They were just too “twitch” for me, especially with an elbow injury. But it’s 2 years later and my elbow has cleared up and my fingers have gotten quicker with practice, so I’m giving them another go. I’m a PvEer, open world and casual dungeons. I levelled the other four by open world map completion and some crafting, one quite recently, and I don’t want to do that again.

So I’d like a bit of advice on other ways to do it…

- They can do personal story and train tailor (which I don’t have) for maybe a third of the levels.

- I have 9 WvW XP boosters and a few other boosters in the bank, and I’ve heard of a thing called the EOTM Zerg. Is that going to be any good?

- I figure there’s also a fair chance of some special event at the second birthday, like the Festival of Four Winds a while back.

- I could maybe get them to level 45 to use a mithril logging axe, and somehow get them to Orr to chop Cypress saplings once per hour… [Hmm, mist form, harpy feathers…]

Anything else? Any suggestions on what’s most efficient and least boring?

Aethelbert.1497:

I think it’s more about Glint’s progeny and Master of Peace. Everyone seem to ignore the fact that they must be very important and obviously will play bigger role in the future.

I’m sure Master of Peace will be very important, and Glint’s progeny are a solid possibility. But what makes you think of MoP in this video?

Might we have collectible slots for silky sand, geodes, and foxfire clusters? They’re supposedly going to be around forever, and they seem far more common than some of the things in the collectibles tab. We have a slot for watchwork sprockets, which I think are much the same thing from previous Living Story (it was before my time).

It would be much appreciated…