Guild Wars 2

It’s been a busy couple of weeks.

When I originally started making my skins guide, I figured I would have to visit every merchant in existence in order to track down where to get some of the lesser known skins cheaply. This would prove impossible, because as I discovered, even the wiki doesn’t list them all, and many only exist as merchants for a brief period of time. Fortunately, I stumbled upon this little community and was able to get access to a lot of information programmatically. It also led me to find some holes.

Currently, there appear to be no items connected to the following skins:

5040 Etched Short Bow (there is ONE level 20 masterwork Etched Shortbow and a similar level 20 Etched Longbow that could be vendor items, but item ids on these two return errors). Note, the items in the trade post that do drop use skin 5112 Shaman’s Etched Short Bow (now making them the hilariously named Shaman’s Shaman’s Etched Shortbow). No idea if this affects creation of Corrupted Shortbow.
4543 Guild Speargun. Doesn’t appear to be a PvP version either.
4987 Destroyer Scythe
4729 Reaper of Souls. No item id, yet someone has stats for it on wiki.
4854 Worn Voltaic Spear. Nothing even similar.
2371 Covert Charr backpack. Might be an issue with RNG. Wiki knows nothing about it.

Nothing new here, really. As a vet of Sprint and lag, allow me to welcome you to having the game population finding something new to do after a 1.5 month dry spell.

Oh you can… but you’ll have to get lucky with getting a second Favor. Only one for free.

Rauderi.8706:

…Huh.

I’ve got a few needles about the costs, but the basic idea is pretty dangblasted fabulous.

I have to wonder if the art asset team could craft a coherent set of “pieces” that can combine to create custom weapons like this.

You’re taking something that is akin to winning the lottery as it exists and making it an eventuality for everyone. The only way this could really be fair is if the costs became that much higher.

hedition.7261:

While I like the idea, a fully customizable weapon with particle fx doesn’t seem very possible atm.

Maybe not, but there are a lot of ornate but otherwise boring weapon skins among the exotics that could be freshened up with a new paint job, some light-sourcing, and the other usual gimmes that the legendaries share.

One week later, 4 Winds return announced. Coincidence?

I surveyed a grand portion of the items available from Karma Vendors across the game and I’ve found that there are a lot of medium head armor items that show the Rogue Helm icon but no skin. Apparently this is due to them pointing to bad skin IDs. The API quotes them as errors.

So if you’ve been wondering why Rogue Helm and any other item that doesn’t reveal what skin it is won’t unlock for you, there’s an answer.

Affected item ids:
SKIN 881
4173 Oldgate Leather Mask
4187 Redreave Leather Mask
4244 Bloodsaw Leather Work Mask
4681 Scout’s Mask
4684 Improved Scout’s Mask
4940 Brackwater Mask
4960 Brackwater Mask

SKIN 1763
5651 Stalker Boots

SKIN 2009
6274 Studded Leather Bracers

SKIN 1570
6305 Chainmail Helm

SKIN 2009
6394 Stalwart’s Bracers

SKIN 1763
6419 Mending Boots

SKIN 2318
37005 Symon’s History of Ascalon
37014 Symon’s History of Ascalon (Infused)
49366 Symon’s History of Ascalon (Infused)

SKIN 2326
37007 Tome of the Rubicon
37016 Tome of the Rubicon (Infused)
49368 Tome of the Rubicon (Infused)

SKIN 2325
37009 Book of Secrets
37018 Book of Secrets (Infused)
49370 Book of Secrets (Infused)

If the original models have disappeared, there are plenty of orphaned skins floating about.

You have probably already seen, but items sport a skin_id.

nightzirch, GMTA. I am also working on something similar, though I don’t expect to do much beyond a single release.

Wish I had seen your post before I spent a weekend making a program to dig into the data, poke ;D

Turns out I needed more than just that information, anyway

You could do like they did in GW1 – they all count, and there’s just extra that is available for discovery, whether per map or per continent/world. Whether old or new, the POI counts the same.

Personally, I’m happy with the way it is, though.

The mail one has always been tricky. While the inbox only counts player and gemstore mails, any other mails in the box will prevent you from getting the achievement. The best thing to do is to clean out your inbox entirely, then try again. Have guild members send you mail. If you reach 10 mails and still don’t have the achievement, log out and back in on that same character.

I HOPE they wait until after the tournament/zergfest.

Josh (SAB dev) has been pretty busy with other stuff lately, so I expect SAB was back-burnered. It will probably tatke some time to put together world 3 and its nightmare version.

With all the big changes coming tomorrow, there are many things you should do tonight in order to take advantage of the bonuses.

First, if you’ve been hoarding dyes, make a decision on whether you’re going to sell them or use them. If you have cheap ones identified, use them on one of your characters; all of your characters get access to it tomorrow, and if it duplicates a dye on another character, you get a free unidentified one to compensate. More expensive ones that you have duplicates already applied of, you’ll probably want to sell on TP. Unidentified ones, choose whether to use or keep them. After tomorrow, duplicates will NOT be compensated.

Why keep? For GIft of Color, for one of the legendary weapons. It will soon cost only 100 unid dyes.

Check out your PvP locker, even if you’ve never played it. If their are duplicate skins of weapons and armor there to what you already have on your characters (or can cheaply get), salvage them and use the pieces in the PvP Mystic Forge to open other skins. Also, spend your Glory.

Finally, read this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/22zeof/todo_list_for_april_15th_patch/

ZoS on Northern Shiverpeaks hosts a Temple run (plus Eye of Zhaitan and Karka Queen) every day right after reset (8:00 EDT). Head down to Cursed Shore and look for the blue dorito. Each main event gives up to 30 Dragonite, so potentially you can get 210 for about two hours effort.

Lately they’ve been following it with a tour of the other world bosses, so you can get your empyrean frags too.

When I look at your sylvari, I see a character like out of a storybook…

A FRANZ KAFKA STORYBOOK!

skullmount.1758:

Yes I read the article, and that you can still right click join, but how are we going to make sure only TTS members get in (and not their friends/others) before we let other players in (like we do with overflows, especially for the Wurms)?

My guess is you won’t. Moreover, you shouldn’t be able to in the first place, the worthiness of your goals be kitten ed. You don’t own the instance, no matter how many people you put on it. Other players have a right to be there too.

From today’s update:

The Mystic Forge is going to get a lot of changes this year. To kick things off, we’re adjusting the way Zommoros distributes rare and exotic rewards a bit, allowing for more variation in output. This is just a stepping stone to further changes that will make the Mystic Forge a much better experience in the future. Please note: the rate of precursors will not be affected.

This is seriously vague. It doesn’t help that the forge operation is not only purposefully undocumented in-game (I get it. Discovery is fun!), but that it has been reverse-engineered only to an unknown degree by the player base. Any changes the developers make can go totally unnoticed when the results of forging are already kind of nebulous.

So, questions that I have:
1. Does the proposed update only affect what you receive for combining 4 random weapons or armor pieces?
2. Does it only affect rares and exotics?
3. Will we be more or less likely to get an upgrade in rarity?
4. Are other known combinations being affected?
5. What’s being added to the pool of possible results?
6. What are we losing?
7. Any hints for the scientifically curious?

Hwk.6987:

So… the armour won’t be broken?. If that’s the case, i still have hope for the feature pack. Otherwise. Big slap in the face (Well.. Mostly things are going to be negative. lol)

takes a drink

Armor will still be broken… really, with the true cost of teleporting out and fixing armor being a setback to your current progress, I can only see this being a big benefit on a large map without easy waypoint access to and/or from wherever you died. In PvE, this has little impact anywhere except some of the new minidungeons. In Fractals and WvW, it’s more significant; you have to give up on your instance to repair armor in Fractals, and you can seriously separate yourself from your group if you do the same in WvW.

Ultimately, I agree with the other poster that this is really more of a menial concession to players while they take gold from champions off the table. ArenaNet has access to the data regarding drops and the influx of gold from kills to back up their reasoning, but seriously, has kill-gold ever been all that much? Reducing dungeon rewards on the easier paths while slightly boosting gold from trash mobs might have a better effect on the economy as a whole.

Why isn’t anyone mentioning guild commendations?

Don’t forget that you can also craft inventory boxes (although the 20-slotters are going to be expensive as hell)

finishes a few bottles

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Rikimaru.7890:

What I am talking about is how easily Scarlet managed to destroy Lion’s Arch.
Seriously what’s it going to take for LA to see a real threat when warned about it?

It’s because the people voted Kiel onto the Captain’s Council. Had Evon Gnashblade been there, LA wouldn’t have been destroyed. He is the people’s charr afterall. He would have had Black Lion Mega Lasers pointed towards the sky within a day.

Takes a drink

maddoctor.2738:

I’m more interested to know, WHERE she built the Drill. If there is a factory somewhere capable of building a drill THAT huge (it’s bigger than an entire fleet of airships combined) then whoever is in charge now (Mai Trin probably) can launch more and more attacks in LA, or any other town.

Also, let’s say that the Aetherblades DO own such a huge factory, where do they get the materials to construct it in the first place? I believe Caudecus is backing the Aetherblades, it’s the only logical explanation!

They probably came in from the west, from the same direction where the original Aetherblade base was located before it was taken out. That points to the Dominion of Winds and parts of Magumma still unexplored.

I like the Caudecus angle, particularly since it helps explain how Queen Jenna’s prized budyguard went haywire. But I doubt we’ll find a connection, even if there is one.

Just to make a note, while the devs haven’t said anything about removing the chests again, I STRONGLY suggest you turn in any remaining cyphers tonight, before the next update.

Hisuichan.7983:

What worries me is how you police/distinguish legitimate abuse from innocent instances. I sometimes need to brb while doing the event. Maybe dinner’s ready, I have to put in the laundry, etc. I’ve never been idle during the event for more than 5-8 minutes.

Considering you can’t leave and re-enter the event when you’re back, and the frequency of chances you have to get into the Prime holo fight while you’re playing (you might only have time to sit in for 1-3 instances, and of those, some may not even make it to the holo), I don’t think it is unreasonable to take the brb and come back to the event.

How do you catch legitimate abusers without punishing people who just had to step out for a bit? Completely idling without armor is gross, but I wouldn’t scythe everyone who idles just to catch the (hopefully) few who abuse it.

That being said, if you can, reporting the really blatant trolls isn’t bad (like the no-armor folks). But keep in mind there’s a lot of legitimately innocent people you might catch if you just assume everyone not participating is leeching.

You’re correct to be concerned. You look for patterns. Someone who gets momentarily distracted isn’t running in and out the door every hour on the hour and then sitting at said doorway. If it does happen, but only once, you can give them the benefit of the doubt.

Minos.5168:

I’d heard in-game from other players that we can report the AFKers as “botting”…

But then, when I mentioned it in an overflow, people started verbally accusing me of “spreading lies” and “impersonating an ArenaNet employee” and threatening to ban me.

So is it inappropriate to report the AFKers as bots?

What’s the official stance?
I don’t want to be banned for “false claims”.

Edit: Sorry, I wasn’t clear. This is about people that AFK at the Knight events (taking up slots in event) with the intent to gain rewards with no effort or gameplay.

I’m responsible for this one, I think. It was a snarky response to overly long, heated, and increasingly stupid argument, piggy-backing off of a legitimate reporting issue: If you see someone sitting about farming things just by their presence, it is quite possible that they are being script-driven (something that only requires a bit of input every hour doesn’t take a lot of programming know-how) and feeding a larger bot-farming operation. As such, it could be reported.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Come on. You can’t have a single player RPG story in an MMO. Sure if this was a Dragon Age style game then yeah we could change how the story played out. But it’s not. We the player are just along for the ride. As we are in any MMO.

I have to second this. I’m not sure how you expect to satisfy the personal fantasies of several thousand players simultaneously. Realistically, only 1 person can deliver the killing blow to Scarlet, so only one can realistically be considered the overall hero of the story. Every player expects that will be he or she. I’m sure this is why we end up with so many unsatisfying conclusions with Guild Wars’ main stories, where any lasting impact is attributed to other characters. It feels even more fake to leave a blank spot to ‘insert your character here’ that will be filled the second someone else chats with that NPC.

Paul.4081:

Zelkovan.2630:

Um…you do realize that all stories are according to plan, right? If a villain in a story screws up or doesn’t succeed it’s all “according to plan” of the writer. Therefore Scarlet getting away with everything was, yes, according to plan. That doesn’t mean something is wrong with it.

Yes, there were no major plot twists, but her story wasn’t that well-told either.

Not all. Surely I’m not the only one who has read these books?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy

I preferred these

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Wolf_%28gamebooks%29

But I had a lot of FF books too.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

ThiBash.5634:

Yes, that would have been very interesting. My biggest gripe with Scarlet (other than her backstory) was the fact that even when we ‘beat her’ it never really felt as if we even slowed her down. It was more of a ‘how cute are those heroes lets feign a fight just so they feel useful’.

That is the exact feeling I got as well. As if we were but a minor inconvenience, or not an inconvenience at all.

Which begs the question if we were needed in the story at all. Because the story was basically like a run away long train, that could not be stopped in any way. Try as we might, Scarlet still gets her way, and the drill still reaches it’s goal. We, the heroes, might as well have stayed home.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit

Avascar.9237:

Just 800 gems to unlock this Personal Story and its 30 new zones.

Pretty sure people would buy it.

Scipio.3204:

In her cage the only thing she said was “Keep your eyes on the sky” ( refering to the floating giant drill I think) .

The Aethrblades (her faction) are noted for their airships. These led the LA assault.

lorazcyk.8927:

Xas.6739:

How about a keyboard shortcut to thank/to be grateful to those who resurrect you, so we don’t have to type “ty” over and over again. Pressing the shortcut during the downtime or after someone ressed you.
I think this will work in PvE too.

Do you say thank you for killing an enemy? Do you say thank you every time someone gives you swiftness or might? Resurrection is like that, you just do it, it’s part of game play. There’s no need to say thank you. When I resurrect you I’m just doing my job.

Depends on the situation. If I’m about to get overwhelmed and someone rushes in to save the day, I’ll thank them. If I do the same for someone else, I’ll usually bow. With the current Living Story, I don’t generally say thank you or acknowledge resses from strangers because the fighting is too frenetic and I’ll likely return the favor soon enough. Other situations, sure.

Jivetrky.4697:

Juan Ignacio.8903:

i want to press a button and talk to my team mates like any other game in 2014

PLEASE Do not do this. Though it would be nice to be able to speak with team-mates -I am myself a big fan of chatting with guild members thanks to Teamspeak/Raidcall- and though it is now a feature in most games, consequences of adding such a feature would be disastrous: being a member of a Dungeon speed-clearing guild, I know for a fact that we would require players to use this feature for greater coordination during the runs, whether they be in the guild or not.
Point is, many players do not have the equipment needed or just do not want to use such a feature, for they are shy or for whatever else be their reasons. This would split our community and that is not -as I believe- what you guys at Anet want, for we have obviously been led to playing with all the other players in open maps and not just in closed communities requiring applications, the use of a microphone or else.

tl;dr: In-game voice-chat feature would split the community and is not needed, for our Teamspeak network is vast.

Here here. Speaking as someone whose connection still gives him fits, I don’t need anything else competing on that line. I also don’t particularly need to see any more elitism in this game. On top of that, I don’t have the best hearing or telephone voice, so with everyone I know kvetching that I need to get on a form of communication I positively despise, I’m going to find myself less involved in just about everything.

Psychol.5783:

I noticed this too when my necro minion was stealing life, it can ignore hologram invu.

Potentially helpful against the blue hologram (which ignores physical damage). Does it work against the main one during the first stage of the fight? Minion health steal is pretty bad, but it does allow you to do something while you’re running around looking for attunements.

CC Danicia.1394:

An update I just posted:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Update-Alliance-Supplies-Found-Items

As of March 18th, Alliance Supplies will stop dropping and you will not be able to receive any new Found Belongings or Found Heirlooms. Related to this, you will no longer be able to turn in Found Belongings and Found Heirlooms for items.

Thank you for making that one unambiguous… speaking of which, I still have cyphers to turn in…

Sera.6539:

-Canach’s future (right now the latest update is him boarding Kiel’s airship in Escape from Lion’s Arch)

Canach is back in jail. He’s away from the main group of civies in Vigil Keep. Follow the keep around to its westernmost extent.

Good analysis. I have a couple to add.

Karinn’s Passage in Sparkfly Fen. There is a blocked road heading west.

Judgment Rock in Mount Maelstrom. There is an unexpected wall to the southeast, which implies something behind it.

Blackwing Excavation in Fields of Ruin. The obvious gateway to the Crystal Desert heads south.

Stronghold of Ebonhawke in Fields of Ruin. There is a passageway south that is inaccessible, with a child nearby saying she has seen people enter it. This may turn into a dungeon, guild mission, or JP, since the Desert is south.

Some places already on our maps:
Crucible of Eternity in Mount Maestrom – the old Ice Caves of Sorrow are just to the east, though I imagine they aren’t frozen any more.

Snow Climb in Frostgorge Sound – The Central Transfer Chamber is just north of the Pact camp in Earthshake Basin.

I’d love a return of SAB, but I seem to recall its lead developer was busy with Marionette and if he needs a breather, more power to him ;D

sorudo.9054:

ps. i do find it quite selfish to just let everyone be dead, if you are able to revive them then why not help them?
if they die right at the feet of the legendary or champion enemy then yes i understand but when someone is away from the boss then there is no reason not ressing.

With the event as it was before last night’s patch, every available man absolutely should have been focused on damaging the knight, even if that meant dead (not downed) players stay dead. The margin for victory was way too thin to divert resources to someone who would likely be killed again, and having not learned their lesson, would eat up more precious teammate time. They knights are easier to kill now, but unless I bring someone with an accelerated res speed, I’m still not going to do it.

In a lot of situations in the last two updates, it was way too dangerous to res the dead, EVEN WHEN YOU CLEARED THE AREA. People should be used to that now

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

CC Danicia.1394:

Please don’t delete them!

You can hold on to your extra blade shards, as the team will be adding something later which will allow you to convert the shards to something of value. Dev will be announcing more on that later. Thanks!

Any chance you can increase the stack size? I have a few thousand of them.

Isn’t there a bank expansion that does this? Or is that just for for crafting mats…

Pipra.7580:

Sariel V.7024:

CC Danicia.1394:

Please don’t delete them!

You can hold on to your extra blade shards, as the team will be adding something later which will allow you to convert the shards to something of value. Dev will be announcing more on that later. Thanks!

Thank you, Danicia, that’s a very timely warning.

Unfortunately, I know many people who have already tossed theirs…

Yeah, it would have been more timely a week ago.

It was timely TO ME ;D

Off-topic, but my old DM’s favorite character was named Iateapi…

This is an interesting idea, adding 325 damage on 2/3 of one’s criticals throughout the whole fight. It would depend on the build. My condimancer gets better effect from rare pizza for those times when conditions go through.

It’d be easy to test. Lay out a tray and see what happens. Most people won’t even need to be prompted to partake.

Clear.8512:

311 good band. Patch did help to get more people involved with the entire LS. I hope the menders were removed due to a glitch and not because players are too lazy to make sure they are tagged and bagged before they get to blue.

It’s pretty clear they heal a percent as opposed to a set amount, which is seriously unfair in this case.

Don’t run pets, summons, clones, or turrets…. anything that passively attacks without your input will screw you.

Conditions or aoe that last beyond the duration of your attunement will probably also screw you

DeWolfe.2174:

May I add, I do not feel Mesmer illusions should be getting pulled by the Knights.

Also, what the heck is pulling us down in the water??? This is on the east side of the drill and it’s not the Kraits.

It’s the drill itself. It probably should have been present in the previous episode…. why it pushes you away instead of dragging you toward your inevitable doom is probably an act of mercy on the devs part.

Should you actually want to get closer (e.g. for the PoI), swim backwards towards it.

Djinn.9245:

Why would Anet make an achievement that you have to change your build for? What happened to being able to play as you like? I can’t stand this LW release.

You CAN play as you like. Getting achievements is optional. The “achieve” part implies not facerolling it passively, even if you can manage that with 80% of the others.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Hahaha. Translation: Necros, sorry we didn’t design this bit for you. We cannot control our minions. Heck, we have one minion that spawns whenever it feels like it (Reanimator trait), and we can’t even get our minions to attack when we one to, let alone get them to not-attack something.

I got it on my Necro last night.

Yeah, you have to give that trait line up. :/

Flintgold.5761:

As a necro, do my conditions count against me if they are still going when my attunement wears off? As well as for other classes.

As a condimancer to a necro: Yes.

smithkt.8062:

Ardenwolfe, the problem with simply leaving them on the ground is their presence can and does scale up events even though they can not contribute.

You say this as if their absence would scale the event back down, something I’ve yet to see proven.

Vargamonth.2047:

I expect rangers to trait for Spotter and bring Spirit of Frost (which I rarely see btw), probably even traited, for a freaking 3.5%/7% AoE final damage increase.

Rangers were deincentivized by the following fight; getting achievements against the Hologram made a pet a huge liability, so it’s better to just start out with something else.

I’ve run ranger in the Knight battle and actually use both suggestions. Spirit of Frost, one pull from the knight and it’s dead. It’s kinda pointless when it spends more time in cooldown than in action. Spotter, however, should make me an instant hero.