Guild Wars 2

Was posted in another thread also that got buried already, so yes I (and many others) agree.

Zalandoo is best EU commander.

Then you kinda screwed yourself again Curtis, cause 66 is 64+2. Pre-purchase deluxe gets 64+2 and you bought 1 got 1, but will fail to get the later ‘bonus compensation for veterans’ slot.

That is assuming a guy like you wouldn’t buy the base version of the game.

Correction, talked with him again, and seems I remember incorrectly. He downloaded 21,7 for the current playable game (that is with all patches up till now).

Like above poster said HoT total is estimated 35gb by Anet, and the current game is about 21,7 gb according to how much my friend downloaded.

As for is it worth it? Well i played 9000 hours now, and still like it. If that will be case for you I dunno, lot of people hate it for one or another reason, but others (like me) like/love the game.

Advantage is: you can always uninstall, come back later, retry. There is no subscription, wich takes away the stress of ‘must play now, or I won’t get my worth’.

Edit: Correct current Disc space requirement to 21,7gb.

Hot requirement is 35gb. According to my friend who just got HoT and installed the game he downloaded 30gb.

1) Grenades are good implemented imo atm, especially the velocity trait is nice. However they lost 1500 range wich is incredible important in wvw. After patch mortar was a good replacement, with enough (about equal as nades as before patch) pressure to at least make the enemies hindered a bit. Now post 28% nerf patch, sorry but it’s barely ok. I get 1500 range can’t be made overpowered. But devs forget slow travel time, reflectability (and the huge consesequances of an aoe reflect). They also forget how fast zerg moves, and how much that hinders mortar kit. Elementalist still king of kiting. And ranger 1500 range king, though more 1 target focussed.
2) mortar 1 (but now 2 because nerf). Supply crate 2 (1 because mortar nerf), the moa elixir is 3, then others (racials without F5 skill yet!)
3) Flamethrower has more play then at start of game, is is good for might blasting, however, is pretty boring, and with this patch didnt get really something new, i use it less. Bombs are ok, just not as amazing as nades imo. Heal infused bombs is truly missed, that was amazing. Elixir gun has always been a favorite skill of me. Best stunbreaker(imo), and now new elixir interaction. and lower cooldowns! Must have skill on my bar.
4) I used explosion + alchemy (hgh, Elixir S on almost death), and the line with streamlined kits. pretty allround builds, nothing amazing, but nothing bad either. Wich is what i like for in wvw, so you can zerg and roam. Nade, rocket boots, elixir gun, mortar, (and turret heal). In pve the elixir heal works great now too (hgh).
5) I tried met kit. It’s so bad now. I get it, it can’t be overpowerd. I really get it, but this implementation is both bad for support, and bad to use it for yourself. I know the old bandages had some issues but at least it had a lot of nice niche uses.
6) See above mainly. But yes only turret heal, and in pve sometimes heal elixir.
7) Haven’t investigated this yet.

I had a Dust mite (silverwaistes mob) drop a Spirit shard. But that seems to be a rare happening.

To be honest in wvw it’s a big deal. Against full bunker zergs who spam blast in heal fields, meteor shower/lava font work. Wells work. Ranger works somehow, especially good single target. Engineer didn’t work cause retaliation +15 nade target hit = suicide. Now mortar was a solution. Was it op? Not by longshot. The only zergs i killed with it, are ZERG THAT STAND STILL. No good zerg does this. The moment they run up a ledge, your mortar is to slow to catch up.

Secondly, the damage was just enough, to after a minute of pirate shipping meta shooting each other to get an little advantage over the meta guardian/Warrior bunker blobs. Just a tiny advantage. We still needed our warrior/guards to do the ‘dirty work’ and finish them.

Now the weapon doesn’t even provide enough pressure, they just outheal it AND might I add, they retaliate you kitten it.

Rabid Celestial don’t work with mortar. only power works. Zerker is kinda pulling to much risk to you (but at least had enough pressure just post patch to be a thing). Old nades worked with every stat build almost.

Is it bad? No. I get ‘omg 1500 range, must be weak or otherwise op’. But Anet forgets to much stuff in wvw. An ele can basically 1800 range meteor shower, with the lightning blink skill trick. More pressure, more area denial, more burst… More escapes! Burning retreat is amazing. An engineer has the downside of having to spam non stop, to get equal effect as lava font (wich after mortar nerf will do almost double damage per tick as mortar with same stat composition). He has to spam, predict enemy movement to be ahead, half shots will fail in this, etc. A lot all for just a bit 1500 range pressure.

And lastly: Reflect fields. A massive counter to mortar. Reflect? K your zerg eats 5 target mortar shots! It prevents damage on enemies and turns it to you… Huge counter play. MEteor shower, lava font? No counter but to dodge it, wich isn’t always easy (see static field). Ranger is counter this way too, but only will hit a single target in your zerg (unless you take piercing). A necro has enough hp, and aoe fears to survive a well bomb at 900 range, especially with ranged wells being baseline now.

I can go on, but Engineer (because of this nerf) is submeta now.

Can you work it out? Can you still have pleasure with it? Sure with so much trait, and still being the lead in amount of utility skills profession, you always can pull some fun out of it. It’s just not, what it should be in the GWEN meta. For one day we turned it into a GWEEN meta. Now it is’nt. And for me it’s enough to play elementalist & co now instead of engineer. Cause pirate ship viability is very important to me in wvw. And this 28% nerf screwed that. Tbh i rather take the old grenades. Yes i’ve eaten retaliation like madmen, but i was used to it, and at least did some nasty chills, poisons on them in past. Was even harder to play then mortar, but at least had some viable pressure in it, if played correctly.

Sorry but engineer has a great amount of ways to get permanent movement speed.

Streamlined kits

MEcha legs (in a very good traitline! + less impairing conditions, nothing to complaint here).

Elixirs (like B ) + boon duration

Rune of the traveller (wich also gives boon duration, wich might be sttronger then it looks cause of the traitline +30% boon duration nerf).

Enough choices really. Mesmer only got a half solution with Signet of inspiration, and guardians are still somewhat forced onto ‘retreat’ for this.

I got one beta slot and one normal slot (but I upgraded to deluxe, wich gives a slot). So you still would need to get another slot.

@ Nirvana: it’s because mortar + any word that starts with D (tar+d you get the sensor, still annoying cause mortar + damage (often used is censored).

I just tested it and i only deals slightly higher damage then rifle. If rifle does 700, mokittenoes 800, if rifle 1500, mortar 1650. Thing is, mortar is harder to lane. It’s not like a long range (lead the wind trait) shot that cannot be strafed. Huge nerf for me. Yesterday on those same mobs, i did at least 2500 damage on crits.

Agree. The blue icon was superior easy to spot. The white colour easely go lost in the minimap colours, often taking time to see it.

According to website i read this morning, everyone who has preview build of windows 10 and doens’t even own another license (or an illegal one), will get windows 10 for free. That means soon windows 10 (might) be crazy hyped and used all around world. Enoug motivation for Anet I think. And if they do so, wait for AMD zen architecture, so you can use your wisdom of that architecture rather then do it now.

Windows 10 = Dx12. Wich theoretically) uses less Cpu power and more gpu power wich we really need in gw2. Nvidia Titan is useless at this moment for gw2.

Remember that 28% on ‘bigger number’ might equal a higher % on lower number. Example to explain:

2 is base power (thus base damage to keep simple) of rifle.
1,47x is multiplier (47%).
2*1,47= 2,94

Now they did a nerf. But remember the nerf is on the last (bigger number), and has no correlation with the number where the 47% was applied on.

2,94 (now mortarr damage) (mortarr to fix filter).
-28% so
2,94*0,72 (if you substract , you can do it in one step, by just calculating left over % wich is 72 or 0,72) = 2,11

2 is start number, 2,11 is end number. kitten close heh? And yet they played with 47% and 28% number (huge difference on paper).

Lol fact: Mortar + damage is filtered (remove +). Cause it combines into a negative word lol (last 3 of first word + d)

Well to be fair Dancing dagger received 50% nerf. But I also disagree with the nerf (it was waranted, but they should have started with 20% nerf and see how well it went, nerfed again if still to strong – not a all in one blow nerf.

But dancing dagger is a nr 4 skill that bounces and by initiative mechanic, spammable.

Mortar 1 is autoattack. I can’t remember an auto attack being nerf 28%.

In the past Yolo guardian blobs had an incredible easy time with engineer. Even slow to push zergs, just killed half of your hp with retaliation. Now with mortar that’s barely the case. And the damage was just good enough to actually pressure them (in past everything but zerker damage was insufficient to actually make the enemy healing not sufficient to keep hp up). Most i saw was maybe 3k. And most of time my shots did 1000-2000. That’s not much. Lava font before patch easely did that but x4 (x6 with trait). Post patch lava font should be 3-4k ticks. Meteor shower easely does 4500 now, often 6000+. Ranger rapid fire also stronger then ever.

In my opinion this nerf was a little to narrow minded done. You gave engies new builds and fun, but immediately take that fun away by making the best new features, pretty weak. Please think twice before doing this Anet. We learned from past, that you in 99,99% of case, do not revert nerfs, or make the nerfs smaller (say, replace current 28% nerf with 14% nerf). That fact alone, (for us players), gives us the message: mortar will never be as good as 23th june anymore, and if other profession skills do not get nerfed, we got the short end of the stick again. You gotta think more before you apply this nerfs.

Yesterday I was about to make a post in the lines off ‘wow mortar kit is amazing, you guys did it, and at same time it doenst feel overpowered, there’s plenty of counterplay, and with the damage boost to all professions, kiting is faster punished also. Before nerfing this ability, wich I suspect you might do Anet, plz consider first balancing the to high power all professions have now, cause a power nerf + % nerf will make this weapon absolete. It’s the first fun as engineer I ever had in zerg versus zerg. And yet it wasnt overpowered, I often almost got Judged interventioned to dead, because they saw me ranging them, or just reflect field, shooting the mortar back at us. Plz do not nerf it just yet, first take a look at bigger picture, like burns’.

But then I enjoyed mortar SO MUCH that i wanted to play rather then post. I go to bed, reach patch notes. ‘ok some fixes here and there, seems good. Oh wait a minute engineer nerf, what mortar? What 28%. Ok calms down a bit. Let’s see maybe other professions also got a nerf, and the rebalance effort has started? Nope engineer only one to be nerfed. Checks all forums, like pvp, to check for mortar complaints, maybe there’s an overpowered build i don’t know off. Nope nothing.

Dissapointing anet really. If you want to nerf it at least do it together with other professions nerfs, so we get an idea of why you did it and how you wanna evolve this patch. But nope, just engineer only nerf. This would suggest that Engineer Mortar kit is the only ‘over the top overpowered’ thing the patch introduced. The only thing that needed a hotfix. Wich is completely not true. I expected a nerf, and if it was fitting in a bigger picture i would have lived with it. But now I can’t. First of all the initial nerf is to big. That’s very bad for couple of reasons. First of all you promised small tweaks. This is not it. Second of all big nerf can potential turn a good build instantly into a crap build. Another reason I can’t live with this, is you didnt communicate or nerf other professions or update burning etc. Third reason: While not linked to pvp (balance baby of anet): Engineer is better then ever in dungeons (so is every prof tbh, except maybe necro), but since the improvement seems equal for engineer as for the meta profs (guard ele , warrior, thief), engineer is still behind them in dps/absoluut support range. As long as bosses etc keep their current hp, this is no prob, cause this gives everyone opportunity to ‘harder content’ (say fractal or dungeons). but the moment you say give bosses 50-150% extra hp again (wich I suspect you will do), the meta difference will be all out again, and it’s back to square one again for engineer in pve. Mortar could have lifted that a bit (not completely) in it’s first released implementation. But you even nerf that… And let’s face it, stuff like 100 blades, phalanx, etc won’t get nerfed. Same for backstab, etc. If anything you will just nerf stats a bit to get closer to past damage outlet. That in my opinion, stops the argument for a mortar nerf. It was already balanced by huge animation + only damage on nr 1, stealing an elite slot! (important imo, not having supply crate, means less burst/control in conquest pvp), a kit remains a kit, you can only equip one at time, use one auto attack at a time. Hence, all auto attack should be completely viable, no matter the situation they are on, cause they replace the other kits/weapon auto attack. For mortar it’s now questionable if that is the case (then again flamethrower has that prob also, but at least it has niche uses, like to tag mobs for loot etc).

For me the test of the century was will mortar be viable in zerg versus zerg. In past nade were’nt for couple of reasons:

Massive retaliation. No matter how good you played, passive easy to apply (no skill required) retaliation, killed naders most of time, even if they spammed heals.
Travel time
No support for commander
While it applies condi pressure it’s easy to cleanse, for me only poison grenade (old version) had a good potential to hurt enemies healing, cause reapplying

Retaliation was fixed mostly by mortar being 5 target (nades 15). however making damage lower, means you will need more attacks to pull same off, making retaliation stronger counter again
Travel time is better, but only slightly. Really slightly. I feel this advantage also only occurs 1100+ range compared to nades in past. Not enough an advantage to be really called an advantage imo.
Support is better then it was in past.

Low priority fix, but still a bug:

When you mine Ore (like Iron Ore) nodes, your grenade kit, elixir gun (but not mortar), haven’t tested much on other skills, it will stay equipped during node mining animation.

So when you mine, you do not only see your watchwork mining pick (what I have) but also your elixir gun/grenade thrower, together with the mining pick, when it animates.

Just test it to understand better what i’m saying here

Be sure not to confuse the red/white upgrade icon (original game deluxe upgrade) with the green HoT upgrade icon.

Gw2 one costs 2000 gems
HoT 2400 gems

I did like you, applied HoT (basic version, boxed) code to game, then bought the upgrade, straight after patch applied (patch is what added it to gemstore).

If it’s something else It’s probably a bug.

Casia.4281:

Burning is OP.

But the problem isn’t really burning.
Its the skills that apply it.
Burning is intended to be a hard hitting condition with limited applications.

Skills that apply burning were “balanced” around applying a stacking duration burn.
using the engineer example, Blowtorch+incendary powder+incendary ammo+throw naplam was not intended to be stacked intensity. what was 1 burn over like 20seconds…
is now, 3 stacks blowtorch for 11seconds, 2 stacks powder over 8s,3 stacks IA over 7s, and 6 stacks napalm over 6s… 14 stacks of burning applied in like 2 seconds.
There is cooldowns here… but, the cooldowns make sense for a +duration condition, not one that stacks intensity.

This is the main problem I agree. Nerfing curreont Burning formula is wrong, cause it’s ok I think. The thing that should be toned down is the skills that do massive application of them. Like blowtorch should have longer durations, but less aplications imo. Then it would do same as it did in past. And that’s what you would have to try to achieve.

Must agree. You can complaint all you want, But I love the the interaction. Sure some problems arised by raising condi cap, making burning stackable, but only masssive playtesting (aka live servers), can give a coclusive picture of how to rebalance it, and Jon Peter clearly shows understanding of that. I like it. But more so that they communicate it. With todays patch, the extra char slot, the good patch comumnication, My doubts to pre-purchase were gone XD They now have my 45 euro’s.

I’m having a blast in wvw. Just mortar kit alone is amazing, but with some of the other trait, so much fun. Hgh is amazing now also. Just give it time. Sure, in past you have more ‘mini trait difference’ builds, now you got less builds but with bigger trait impact difference. And tbh i think engineer still leads builds amount, especially with so much good utility skills. Only ranger might come close with their new beastmatery line wich seems to have lot of pet builds wich different directions.

See if Tequatl’s horde weapons have same prob?

There is no ‘unspending’. Only ‘overspending’. The 3 visible lines = what you choose. Dislike a line? go to that marker, open the window and choose the other line you want. Then put traits in there. Keep ‘overwriting’ (by choosing something else over a line you dont like’ until you got what you want.

It depends on what you mean by boxed. I pre-purchased HoT got it today, and it’s a dvd box without a dvd in it. If that means boxed to you, then it’s available right now from correct retailers (see faq for wich).

If you want dvd in it, that may launch later, after Hot launches. Keep in mind, this doens’t do much in the end, since every update/patch/change they do, after they print the discs will still have to be downloaded (kinda same as my original gw2 disc having 15gb, now needing to download 10g+ to finish game.

If you mean Collector’s edition, Nope, won’t come (dissapointed myself in this also but moving on XD).

Can be a bit ‘much’ to re-learn everything, but if you take the time this patch mostly is amazing. I understand the frustration, but not this Angry hate post. It serves no purpose, and you probably will be enjoying the game a lot in a few days once you deal with the changes.

450mb aprox. maybe 600mb but not more. I remember seeing at 25% 150mb, and at 50% 280mb.

Use mortar kit. Grenade are a short range weapon now (wich i think it is ok into) Mortar now fills long range gap and tbh it does so very well (but not overpowered, so don’t expect wonders).

Hoaxintelligence.4628:

“18:00 UK. .

I’ve seen it happen 16:00 once (+1 gmt, so that would mane 15:00 UK), but that was a lonely incident. Most patches happens after 16:00 uk (17:00 +1). Furthest they got is 2pm I think.

Ps hi Smooth lady

They are easy to get, will be even easier as they drop from mobs. Might as well make them usefull indeed. I doubt even you have to few of them Evans and yet you are complaining XD

I just keep being confused by ppl naming it specializations. While it may have been renamed to that, in essence they are CORE PROFESSIONS. Specializations are what they are, a new subclass.

If i have so much everyone should have 500-1000. More then they need unless they doing something crazy (like make 5 legendaries per week). Note that these are Unused points. I used a ton to promote mats, legendaries, wvw siege etc.

9000+ hours play time. Even half that time my C.E. phystical edition would be worth it, but heh at double, why should I even bother to complain about HoT price? Especially with free slot.

Even with the minimal I know, i will defenitely want to play Day 1 HoT. Nice specializations, new wvw map, Stronghold (big plus for me – finally will play pvp with love), new pve story, maps, gliding, guild halls. Count me in. sure it may not be best of world, but meanwhile i still play the game free. Gw2 earned no money of me after gw2 launched, yet i played on their servers and new content. Don’t see why paying them 45 euro is that bad, unless you almost never play the game (casual).

If you mean update today, you get nothing of specializations. This is just the preparation of that wich what already exist.

As for WHEN IT ACTUALLY RELEASES with HOT release date, you will have the option instantly to take them BUT, it will costs hero points. Those hero points can be farmed now already (skill challenges), but without them, it would imply you gotta unlock them.

I got about 10000 skill points (spirit shards) I think. I’d agree with OP.

That’s the whole point, Runes like Lyssa have ICD on ‘on heal’ effect. Thus making the ‘spammable nature’ of kits, not have an advantage. If anything it’s unreliable because you don’t have cooldown counter. With thief 15 cd heal you can just spam it every time and succeed. With kits you might waste a 1+1 second double swap because of it.

And most ‘on heal’ procs in game are VERY weak. Meaning to use them well you almost needed spammable nature on them.

Not a good move imo, unless they buff on heal procs.

Yes it is, but not now, the cashop does not have that upgrade available yet. My estimate (based on core game deluxe upgrade) is it will cost 2000 gems aprox.

nope XD Beta slot is specifically for beta (that slow allows you to even make revenant during beta events, other slots do not). People who finished a beta few weeks ago, had one also, and it got removed.

If you buy deluxe/ultimate you instantly get an extra char slot apon entering the code to your account.

If you buy normal HoT version, you get it later the Char slot (Deluxe/ultimate also gets another extra (1+1 = 2) slot). This extra slot for all versions will be given out in a later stage.

Absolutely. But several sources from anet point out they are absolutely not planning one for HoT, so I probably get another version of it. But I am very sad about it (I own CE core game).

Current console use AMD 8-core cpu. Gw2 only runs good on 1 super fast CPU in wich Intel is a lot better. Either they would have to tone down a lot, or it simply won’t work on current consoles.

What’s more, making controls for console (in wich Arenanet has no experience at all) is very hard. Also imagine engineer. Tons of skills, how will you ‘hot key’ it to all the buttons? Next to impossible. Only warrior would play well on console i’d say.

Add to that port costs. And time. Also the risk, you may buy it, but do you think crapload of console owners are gonna buy and stay in gw2? don’t think so tbh. Final fantasy has huge console history, and Eso has Skyrim/fall out3 etc as multiplatform games as experience for the makers. Anet has absolutely 0 on it, they gotta start from zero.

Also the new trend seems to be ‘good price performance console, but with lower lifetime’. That is not good for gw2. As i see it now, gw2 will surpass the 7 years gw1 ran before sequal came. Then they would have to report to playstation 5.

Gw2 load times since launch went up a lot. Add hard disk drive to that (consoles) and it’s even more. Another issue. Especially 2,5 inch slow laptop hdd.

And more reasons.

I possible will do like op, and why? Cause i can afford to. Since launch I didnt buy gems cause buying online in another mmo was a bad experience for me. I swore to never buy ‘cash shop’ stuff anymore (doesnt mean i can’t be loyal to anet, i bought collector’s edition XD). Both deluxe and Ultimate offer nothing but cash shop items, wich i can farm ingame. And the base version is the only one that is (sort off) discounted. They cost same in euro dollr, except cheapest wich is 5 euro cheaper then it is in dollar. Since ultimate neither is becoming boxed, I don’t see point of ordering higher then base version. Secondly, I partly agree with the rage on forums. Hence I don’t feel my wallet at the moment is open enough to Anet to offer them 75 euro for a small (from what we know now) – but perhaps renewing – expansion.

Fands hands is powerfull trait. Incredible powerfull with some swap sigils. That + strong warrior thoughness, hp, invul, stability etc = real powerfull. Not to be rude but making that baseline +20 extra traits points to spend and spend all the 90 in another line then you should (discipline for fast hands) would make a 110 traits strong builds.

Everyone who thinks Illusionary persona is even partly as good as fast hands is totally mistaken. Also it’s a superior strong melee<>range switche. 10 seconds in most fights is to long to stay in melee or range. If it happens you are locked 3-7 secs to long in one of them. With fast hands this next to never happens. You can switch like a dancer. That alone makes it incredible value, let alone the swap sigil advantage. Sure engie gets also fast swap BUT only has 1 weapon (same as engie). Warrior is only prof that can abuse 4 sigils but super fast weapon swap. That alone uniqueness + other warrior advantages would simply make it overpowered.

If this trait is so powerfull to you just take it. It’s minor for god sake! Doesn’t even remove your choices! But don’t expect this superior powerfull minor AND 90 points to spend in completely different trees. That would mean you basically only miss 1 trait line… of the 5. To powerfull. You want an over the top of the line build, but you know it’s op, you still wish it. Just don’t If anything, this is good for you guys cause it warrants less 50% nerfs.

Ok lemme rephrase the confusion:

FAQ says ’23th july (next week already, so stupid to talk in past when that moment is almost here), you will be able to buy boxed pre-purchase edition, except ultimate.

Chris ‘currently only tru website pre-purchase’. Currently + only gives this a negative message, like they intend to clarify you can’t do something when you expect to. I went on hunch i can’t pre-order (next week an ACTUAL ORDER so closeby that it shoudl be included in Chris post). Or that i can pre-order without pre-purchase bonus. But all of this in the FAQ Says you can do it.

To keep the question simple: the FAQ basically states that next week, normal/deluxe version (not ultimate) will be available EVERYWHERE except in non certified retailers with pre-purchase bonus. This counters your post with ‘currently only’ + some words in a sentence. Plz nulify this confusion. Thanks.

Sorry but this important. Another question Chris (ask Regina, gem shop compartiment or marketing department depending on who is responsible): When will the upgrad function from normal to deluxe version become available in cash shop? (Aka buy 50$ version, get 2000 gems (?), pay them, become deluxe).

That’s not the quesiton I asked lol.

Anyone in here ordered the normal version (not deluxe or ultimate). If so, after you redeem the code, does suddenly the cash shop SHOW deluxe upgrade as option or is it still not there yet (currently for old gw2 account it is defenitely not shown). Thanks in advance for answer.

www.bol.com is not fraud. They are just a clever and anticipating site, who are good at guessing upcoming content and it’s price. (Just saying if you mean this website). They don’t have a delivery date though, but for that they are looking at you.

Also you make me crazy confused now: ‘only available tru our website’? Wtf next week there should be boxed true certified retailers. Are you telling me i won’t be able to buy HoT PHYSICAL box in my shop (certified) next week?

Question for people who pre-ordered cheapest version (35£, 50$, 45€)

They say you will be able to upgrade the version. Right now that upgrade is not on my gemstore upgrade tab. However that might be because i don’t have Heart Of Thorns code yet. So my question to you guys, after you purchased it, does suddenly (next to the orignal game upgrade to deluxe option) appear an option to upgrade HoT into Deluxe? I would very puch appreciate it, if someone can answer this.

I read a lot of electronic sites and all i see continously spammed ’Ignore VAt in us, just buy from Shop X (like Adorama) and you will pay 0 VAT, or If you buy from state X you pay almost no/completely no VAT (taxes).

And VAT is just a lie here for gw2. 99,99 dollars is clearly the intended END PRICE, not starting price. Are you telling me some americans pay 122 euro’s? (22% is highest VAT that i’ve heard off)? Don’t think so. You can order STRAIGHT from gw2.com and they anounce this price, doubt Anet themselfs adds taxes on top of it. Correct me if i’m wrong, but reading forums as an EU concerning American VATS it’s very confusing. It’s like even americans don’t know the rules about their own VAT exactly.

I answered this in another thread, but no problem will do again:) Sorry to dissapointed you, answer is no (i have CE also, i’m superior dissapointed and considering to buy only base version as punishment to Anet).

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/94582027?_ga=1.119118601.1077602967.1412031213 (source)

Yes the ultimate is just that: Deluxe + discounted gem package (half price then usual for 4000 gems). Nothing else is ‘special or ultimate’ about ultimate edition. Knowing Anet they need money, and they just will sell all the things (except rytlock mini maybe) in gem shop as upgrade or stonealone. For me deluxe only holds 1 thing i want, and that’s guild hall upgrade.