Guys… SOMETHING probably regulates whether the final item is light, medium, or heavy armor. Have you made Exotic or Ascended shoulder components to check?

I’m pretty sure there’s a vendor for it. You have to do the mastery to talk to that vendor, then you just buy the stuff with that map’s event currency. Same as the bladed armor just deeper into the jungle.

Inspiring !

Substance E.4852:

That_Shaman did data mine a set back in the beginning of the year that had a basic and upgraded form and I now fear that was the legendary armor.

Of course it’s the raid/Legendary armor: precursor and completed skins.

Thankfully the completed armor looks like goat crap, so I only have to worry about getting the ‘precursor’ state. Medium coat for sure and light boots caught my eye. The rest I’ll flatly ignore unless it falls from the sky by accident while getting those two pieces.

Which is incredibly sad because the medium armor was amazing and both leyline and bladed medium are awful.

I’ll be picking up the bladed medium pants shortly. The rest, yeah… Silly, silly, silly design.

Carbon Footprint.3421:

Only 2 ‘sets’ as there are only 2 new heavy chest pieces in the wardrobe.

See, that’s just weird thinking to me. That would be 2 “heavy sets”. Along with 2 “light sets” and 2 “medium sets”. Why people consider SIX completely separate looks to be “two sets” is strange.

Nike.2631:

There’s three sets at the very first frog-vendor in Verdant Brink.

Test.8734:

Oh?
Are you saying that there are 3 new armor sets in the game?

Yes. Though we may be having a language barrier as I am referring to 18 distinct pieces as “3 sets”.

There’s another 18 pieces associated with claiming a guild hall, and another 18 pieces for the ley-stone armor.

They very clearly say, “Two new armor sets are available”.

Maybe the guild stuff is still locked, and only viewable through the wardrobe? The others are available now.

Is volume one part of the core Tyria masteries? The last one of those indicates it’s connected to Nevermore…

There’s three sets at the very first frog-vendor in Verdant Brink.

Should have showed up as a chest when you bought the first unlock. if it didn’t go to the PvP lobby there is an NPC there that may fix it for you.

Update: I don’t have the speak with vendors for that zone but I do have 2 Minstrel recipe books (one exotic, one ascended) that dropped from mobs in the zone. Definitely available as drops .

Probably just need the mastery to talk to vendors.

Well, at this point I’ve got Verdant Brink (8/11) divided into Hero Challenges that are easy to solo (mostly position-based or kill a single lieutenant), the champ fights where I have to wait for other folks (slightly annoying, as most of them are also in very out of the way places so I’m waiting for other people to learn how to get there too) and the 3 left I need more masteries to unlock, thought I need to test one of them because now that I can talk to frogs I might be “worthy”. Of those several need poison immunity mastery which I’m working towards now.

I’m actually getting more worried about finding/unlocking Mastery points. Without those unlocking the effects needed to reach the Challenges will grind to a halt and I’ve found at least one mastery point that wasn’t marked on the map but I picked up with the mark I eyeball (bug, I assume).

Auric Basin also has some easy ones, some champ fights (less jump puzzle to get to them thankfully), at least one that needs poison immunity, and I think I’ve spotted the first one that needs ley line hang-gliding.

Other than getting people to show up for champs, I’m now breezing through a couple of them on alts having scouted on my main. Biggest issue is my main is a tanky/healy Guardian in full Ascended who could walk right through most mobs with chain blinds/aegis. Some of my more fragile alts find getting around the map a lot more lively…

Considering writing a guide, as knowing which ones you should be chasing is making it go SO MUCH FASTER for my alts.

Probably you can’t discover recipes using it – you need to buy them or they drop in the zone as books. Have you unlocked the vendors through mastery yet?

I’m not saying I approve of the system… Just that in a game you play for years you can make a surprising amount of progress in a single day.

I’m quite mindful that I need to get 2-3 more characters done QUICKLY while I can still roll up on a Champ and 2 Vets solo and expect someone to dive in before I die.

I imagine Devs felt it was too strong during BWE3 and will be watching how it performs in the live game rather than on paper, with tuning to follow.

I don’t see it as a disaster that the Astral Power starts fresh on each fight — it makes it a tool for long fights and not for casual smashy.

I’ve had 3 years to work on world completion, and 9+ months knowing it’d be relevant — thought actually I picked up about 55 points in the last 2 days.

I’ll likely look around a little longer today and start getting my Daredevil worked up while the maps are still flooded with people.

Gaile Gray.6029:

DarcShriek.5829:

The mastery system as only been available for 15 hours. Your complaining about it being forever is just pure over dramatization. Congratulations on being awarded the William Shatner award for dramatic excellence.

First, thank you for saying, in your first sentence, my very thoughts: “It’s been less than 16 hours, and that’s ’forever?” Secondly, thanks for a smile. I’d love to see the statue that goes with that award.

It been just over 18 hours and I’ve unlocked everything I wanted for my main including the GM I intend to use. Needed one mastery level of gliding and one mastery level of mushroom bounce. Still trying to pick some ‘low-hanging fruit’ Hero Challenges, but basically I’m good to go anywhere.

Day one Dragonhunter. I can live with it. Still need another 90 points for the armor/runes, but I don’t plan to use either so that’s just showing off .

Aaaaand just unlocked my grandmaster trait. Woohoo!

I think it is. Its certainly consistent at all the points I’ve reached.

I’m 3 jungle hero challenges away form my grandmaster. So far Dragonhunter has been a BEAST. Loving it pretty much as much as I expected.

So… we have the ACTUAL runes now…

SUPERIOR RUNES OF THE BERSERKER
Used by: Hybrid DPS
(1) +25 Condition Damage
(2) +35 Power
(3) +50 Condition Damage
(4) +65 Power
(5) +100 Condition Damage
(6) +5% Damage and Condition Damage

SUPERIOR RUNES OF THE CHRONOMANCER
Used by: Chronomancers & Necromancers (well-o-mancers)
(1) +25 Power
(2) +35 Precision
(3) +50 Power
(4) +65 Precision
(5) +100 Power
(6) Well Skill: 2 seconds of Quickness

SUPERIOR RUNES OF THE DAREDEVIL
Used by: Power DPS
(1) +25 Power
(2) +35 Toughness
(3) +50 Power
(4) +65 Toughness
(5) +100 Power
(6) Dodge roll in combat: Next attack auto-crits

SUPERIOR RUNES OF THE DRAGONHUNTER
Used by: Dragonhunter, Ranger, Thief Power DPS trap-setters
(1) +25 Ferocity
(2) +35 Power
(3) +50 Ferocity
(4) +65 Power
(5) +100 Ferocity
(6) Place Trap: Gain 5x Might (8 seconds)

SUPERIOR RUNES OF THE DRUID
Used by: Druid & Elementalist Healers
(1) +25 Healing Power
(2) +35 Vitality
(3) +50 Healing Power
(4) +65 Vitality
(5) +100 Healing Power
(6) Glyph Skill: Gain 500 Healing power (8 seconds)

SUPERIOR RUNES OF THE HERALD
Used by: No One?
(1) +25 Toughness
(2) +5% Boon Duration
(3) +50 Toughness
(4) +10 Boon Duration
(5) +100 Toughness
(6) Healing Skill: Grant Allies Protection

SUPERIOR RUNES OF THE REAPER
Used by: The occasional Reaper
(1) +25 Power
(2) +35 Toughness
(3) +50 Power
(4) +65 Toughness
(5) +100 Power
(6) Shout Skill: Chill nearby enemies

SUPERIOR RUNES OF THE SCRAPPER
Used by: Melee Bunkers
(1) +25 Power
(2) +35 Toughness
(3) +50 Power
(4) +65 Toughness
(5) +100 Power
(6) Damage reduced by 7% when within 600 of attacker

SUPERIOR RUNES OF THE TEMPEST
Used by: ???
(1) +8 All stats
(2) +5% Condition Duration
(3) +12 All Stats
(4) +10% Condition Duration
(5) +16 All Stats
(6) Break stun: Heal nearby allies

And not an Espec runeset but…

SUPERIOR RUNES OF THE REVENANT
Used by: ???
(1) +8 All stats
(2) +10 All stats
(3) +12 All Stats
(4) +14 All stats
(5) +16 All Stats
(6) Heal skill: Gain Resistance (2 seconds)

((I like mine better ))

Should be some happy thieves and Rangers with that, too.

Need Labyrinth masteries!

So the patch notes don’t list the boons being granted by the traps. Gonna be testing this out shortly.

I might start a Herald just to get the shield skin for my Guard .

Which should tell you that damage is not its primary function.

Marc Warner.6417:

Is this just me being selfish or does anybody else feel like the release time for Europe is just awful!

It’s just you.

You can level up alts to 80 or cash them in on level 80 characters for 1 spirit shard each.

They do not give hero points to characters other than as a consequence of leveling them up to 80.

Getting nerfed is the privilege of the over-powered.

Ranger has slightly less than nothing to worry about.

No, I mean ACTUAL hero point items like the flower from Morgans’ spiral and the keg of iced spirits from the worm hole in the starting Norn map. The items you pick up at a few of the challenges – you don’t get the point/XP ’til you use them .

I’ve been stockpiling them for this moment.

I have some items you click that give you skill points saved up — so I can have the skill point AND get the XP towards core Tyria mastery.

When I cash them all in I’ll have 210. Pretty much lined up to play continuously from launch until I have one of the world’s first fully unlocked Dragonhunters. Snacks, drinks, and music standing by for action!

No.

About 20 hours from now. Maybe a bit less.

Keitaro Dragonheart.9047:

Translation: Hey, WvW players! Screw you!

If the Hero challenges are gated behind hours and hours (and hours…) of getting Jungle Mastery XP before you can boing-or-glide your way to them the WvW path to completing them may work out to be a fairly equitable use of time.

I’m thinking about racing to get my first Dragonhunter fully unlocked and I’m expecting to do a mix of both – pick the low hanging fruit in the jungle and then use WvW to fill in the remaining harder to reach spots. Because the WvW method fill in spots at random you definitely want to do a sweep of the jungle first.

Photinous.4628:

What is the rationale for not doing something like this for our pets in PvP?

They have an idea. They don’t have the same capacity to code things that way for player-administered damage. With an NPC there’s always a definite somebody at the top of the aggro list. Players can be splashing damage all over the place with no clear target.

Burtnik.5218:

In reality tho – selfroot without defensive abilities = im here, burst me down.

self-root with a Guardian/GH’s layers of defensive abilities on the other hand…

I can’t imagine lb being any good in pvp due to selfroots on 2 skills in a mobile game.

And I look forward to your lack of imagination getting you slaughtered a few times .

Its going to take some technique and some forethought, but I imagine it’ll work out just fine for people who want to learn to use it well. The longbow is an opener and a closer, but it’s also only half the weapons you’re carrying…

I LOVE how people simultaneously think the new hero challenges will be easy/accessible on the first day and yet should also be worth TEN TIMES AS MUCH as the existing hero challenges.

I kinda think some of them are going to be further gated behind ‘mobility’ masteries.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Diovid.9506:

[…]
I distinctly remember fractional condition damage being added sometime after the big condition update. Am I wrong here?

You are not wrong. The ‘fraction’ is dealt as a final smaller packet of damage.

If that’s the case that’s very good to hear .

Gnat.9405:

New tunes and sigils confirmed in April. Neat.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-two-reward-tracks-and-elite-specializations/

Yup . which was why I was brainstorming ideas for each profession. They haven’t announced ANYTHING official about what the runes do yet, so I thought, ‘well maybe they’re still open to ideas…’

If you haven’t been reading about how you unlock Reaper you are in for a rude surprise…

Rutee.1058:

Nike.2631:

Could we maybe get less mitigation and duration reduction and more base health and/or toughness? (I’m also curious, at -95% duration, does that mean they outright ignore all conditions shorter than 5 seconds?)

Course not. You take fractional damage. It’s the same way .5s of condition damage added to a skill is treated. So a 4 second Condi from a boss landing on a pet will deal .8 of a full second of damage.

Um, 4 seconds hit with -95% duration turns into .2 seconds… and .2 seconds of burning does nothing last I checked. Guards haven’t been getting ‘fractional damage’ out of their burns ever. If you have a full second it ticks, any less and it does zilch.

They wouldn’t be eliminating liquid WvW XP if it were retroactive.

The one to Rule.2593:

gavyne.6847:

The one to Rule.2593:

So…..get the elite specs?

That’s the core of the complaint, having the elite specs gated behind expansion content. This means we’ll have to play new expansion content with the same ‘ol characters we’ve played for the past 3 years. Likely have to do masteries in order to unlock some hero challenges.

It’s just boring and disappointing to have to play these same ‘ol characters in the new expansion, and have to repeat it over and over and over and over until you’ve done it for all your characters and unlocked their elite specs. All this just so we could play the new elite specs in the new expansion content both in PvE & WvW.

If you don’t understand this, then I’ve got nothing further to say to you. I wish Colin would come back and talk with the playerbase more so players don’t have to tear each other apart on behalf of Anet. It’s clear some are ok with it, some aren’t. No sense letting players kill each other over it because nobody’s going to change anybody’s minds here.

I understand it, it’s just ridiculous that people thought that they were just gonna get their elite specs with no work.

Having ALREADY DONE an extra 200 hero challenges hardly counts as “no work”.

If the Meguma Jungle ones are so simple that we should be done with 40 of them the first day they hardly need a x10 multiplier on their value.

If staff were a weapon for the core thief profession that might be true. If for some reason you happen to like 3 out of 5 of the existing trait lines, you’re gonna have to make some decisions about what you’re willing to give up for that staff…

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Things are rarely that simple. While you may be looking at that from a larger scale fight perspective and it would probably help there, it would create other problems such as making minions too strong and frustrating in smaller to mid scale combat with just a flat reduction always on them.

Could we maybe get less mitigation and duration reduction and more base health and/or toughness? (I’m also curious, at -95% duration, does that mean they outright ignore all conditions shorter than 5 seconds?)

I get that the ground decal MEGA-DAMAGE bosses do is quite unlike player-administered damage, but for the most part pets and their AI are just bad. Bringing these tools up a bit in all modes of play and having less absolute dichotomy between modes would be a real plus for players building the right expectations about their tools. Teaching new players that their pets are decently survivable in AoE-heavy environments and then having them just melt with they come over to sPvP is not helping your players transition to new environments…

Just a flesh wound.3589:

/sigh

(Silver platter) here yah go. The whole game unlocked for you. Enjoy.

Because it would be morally wrong to have new maps and new skills at the same time.

Menadena.7482:

Swagger.1459:

Colin “Heartbreaker of Thorns” Johanson

Sorry, but that is not really fair to him. He only works there and likely did not make the call that it would be 400. Actually, I consider it a favour that he let us know rather than they kept us in the dark completely.

Oh my. You really don’t know who Colin IS, do you?

Behellagh.1468:

Easy, cap HPs to not much beyond one ES until there’s another.

Missing the point. I’m not going to spend ANY HP on Berserker with my Warrior. I am categorically disinterested in it theme-wise and mechanically. So I’m going to have 600 HP sitting around when the second Espec comes out. If “not having it first day” is such a big deal, are they gonna~

1. Say ‘Screw you and any sense of choice, you have to buy Berserker in full before you can start on the one you actually want.’
2. Say ‘Ha ha, the second one costs 2000 points. But don’t worry the challenges in the new zone are worth 50 HP each. Oh, and you can gets stared for a mere 500. (a.k.a. a direct repeat of todays’s bombshell)
3. Say ‘Fine. You planned. You saved. It’s 400 points and you can buy it now.’

‘Cause I’m not holding my breath for 3 after people planned and saved and built up their HP waiting for Heart of Thorns to release.

So, we’ve just seen ANet give the new hero challenges a x10 multiplier so they can inflate the cost of unlocking the new Elite specs (400 points) and massively devalue gameplay and preparation accumulated on the core Tyria maps.

Some think this is to stop people from unlocking their Espec day one through accumulated effort (because playing the new content with your new tools would just be so wrong). Fine. Say that’s the reason. What happens next time, when the second round of Elite specs become available?

Will we have to completely buy the first Elite spec before we can start progress on the next one for that profession? If not we can have at least 600 hero points banked. Will we see more escalating multipliers to try and stop people from spending those 600 points to have the new spec day one?

BobbyT.7192:

I never really got the reason why people would have more then one of a single profession, (seriously…5? like on one account?) but what ever floats your boat.

Different races, different themes, different stories, and different builds. An Asura Guardian and a Charr Guardian have a totally different look and feel and rationale for what they do. With Ascended gear being account bound I can move it around if I change my mind which one I want to use for heavy lifting. That aspect of having alts is actually pretty forgiving. If unlocking the Especs where an account wide process managed through Masteries, that would be alt friendly too. Instead we get this grind-fest they were too embarrassed to reveal until moments before launch.