Guild Wars 2

I’d have to concur with what was said above.

Many people consider Elementalists fun. AoE’ing in big group events is a blast (no pun intended), and a fairly easy way of getting a good number of kills and drops. They have “pretty” effects. They’re a “standard” mage, and mages are a popular MMO/RPG archetype.

In groups, players can eke by, even if they’re less experienced with the game and haven’t built up their attunement switching skills, or knowing exactly when to dodge. It’s solo’ing that really requires them to improve.

I second the glitches in hitting things with Air 1. It’s very easy to get into a position where all three bolts miss even an immobile target.

I have the most trouble with the poison urchins or rotmouths (and some of them protect skill points), as almost all positions will lead to Air 1 missing, and many positions will lead to Water 1 missing as well. Not to mention troubles with other skills not hitting.

There are simply too many underwater hearts, skill challenges, and vistas you have to fight to reach to ignore the underwater fighting issues.

In the betas, the only profession underwater I enjoyed less was Mesmer at lower levels, and that actually improved as I reached higher levels and got decent traits and equipment. Elementalists aren’t affected anywhere near as much by traits and equipment underwater.

Mungrul.9358:

Do these unmarked areas count towards total world exploration, or do you get the reward for just 100% on all related maps?

Two things.

100% map completion involves getting all of the Points of Interest, Vistas, Skill Points, Hearts, and Waypoints on all six town areas, all of the PvE maps, the four WvW maps (the Borderlands all count as separate), and the PoI in the entrance of the Order of Whispers instance (Deadend Cave waypoint in Bloodtide Coast).

Those will give you a star beside your name, and two Gifts of Exploration.

The achievement works off of the parts of the map you opened up, which is most likely just a sum of the achievements like Maguuma Explorer, Kryta Explorer, and the like. Those you must fill out by opening up areas without some 100% completion element, such as a corner of a map, some jumping puzzles, and obscure caves.

Walking into Shaman’s Rookery (jumping puzzle in the Norn starter area Wayfarer’s Foothills), for instance, which has no 100% completion element, will open a new part of the map and add one to your Shiverpeaks Explorer achievement. This presumably will also help your “Been There Done That” achievement as well.

What I do not know, as mentioned earlier and elsewhere, is if unlocking areas in dungeons count for the Been There Done That achievement.

My guild found that even groups of 2 or 3 were enough to get anywhere on the map reliably, except for the buggy Temple of Lyssa, with its constant massive respawns even after it was claimed.

Solo was quite a chore, but even small groups made it manageable and fun. You still have to kill your way around rather than simply run past mobs like you can do on “lesser” maps.

The stuck events and skill points REALLY need fixed, and I’m just wondering why no fixes have been pushed out in the past four days.

I saved Frostgorge Sound for last, and it felt like a calm, relaxing breeze after the Orr maps.

I completed the WvW maps yesterday, and the three Borderlands all gave 15-26 items, and the Eternal Battlegrounds gave me a level 34 and a 46 item. This was done on an 80, with quite a number of “levels” past that.

Adding on to Ojimaru’s post, check all the jumping puzzle areas, as many (but not all) will trigger a map discovery, and add a count to the achievements. There are also sometimes small areas hidden in corners, or as said, caves, that have no jumping puzzles and no PoI/Vista/etc map completion element.

The summon/pet sound glitch triggers too much for my tastes to use the elite Elemental. I also find that as “bait”, it simply doesn’t live long enough or is unable to take/keep aggro enough to bypass a group of mobs.

For PvE exploration, I use the Norn Snow Leopard for the stealth. For PvE group events, either Tornado or Sword, but I find Tornado to be a bit weak even with the knockdown when you cast it. In large PvE group events, I’d prefer setting up combo fields and stacking might than changing my skill bar.

For dungeons, nothing is really useful. Tornado gets you killed, though the stability is nice. Maybe the elemental, as it getting 1-shotted is one less hit against the other players. Basically turns it into a less controllable 2 minute blind.

And if you don’t like it, take an ale powered fist to the face!

Snow Leopard is expensive, but it has stealth, and Elementalists (and several other professions) do not get stealth themselves. It proved invaluable at several points during my run to 100% map completion, when I was stuck solo’ing some areas.

When I swapped temporarily to Ferguson’s Crossing yesterday (Tuesday 11 Sept), it was working, and I was able to kill it. It remained unbugged through a few more kills, but eventually by evening, it vanished like on the other servers.

If I remember correctly, the ambient animals (“critters”) running around are classed as Indiscriminate on the slayer count, and likely the same on the kill variety count. They’re not actually classed as the type a real mob that looks like them would be.

There are, if I remember correctly from 100%‘ing all but one map, three jumping puzzles that you must do in order to reach a vista, PoI, or skill point. These are Wall Breach Blitz in Diessa Plateau, Vizier’s Tower in the Straits of Devestation, and Tribulation Rift Scaffolding in Dredgehaunt Cliffs.

The rest of the jumping puzzles tend to be hidden in cliffs, or some other obscure area. They’ll often open up another area of the map (for the Explorer achievements), but don’t contain a “map completion” object. This makes them completely optional, if you decide you don’t like them that much. The Wiki has a list of them here, and rough areas to look for the entrance.

Not to mention that positioning can make Electric 1 miss for no apparent reason.

Many of my storyline missions were reasonable, or on the difficult but manageable side. I may suffer a death or two, but I could still proceed. This was on an Elementalist, with a reasonable investment in toughness.

The ones I had the most trouble with were:
Vidkun and his dragon minion as part of the Minotaur Rampant section of the storyline (Honour the Spirits choice). It was quite difficult to separate the two bosses enough to survive the massive burst damage. At that level, I simply didn’t have enough utility skills to reduce the burst damage, and due to how much happens, you quickly run out of stamina to dodge. This one I ended up having to “graveyard zerg” until I managed to get the dragon minion out of that enclosure, and kill him off without Vidkun present.

The Champion Fight was difficult on an Ele due to simply not having enough CC, dodge, and sources of Stability to survive for long. I could get him down to 10-15% reliably, but I’d simply be on too many cooldowns and too low on stamina to avoid his charges and bursts. He heals to full each time you use a checkpoint. I ended up having a couple guildmates assist. They could not fight along, but they could heal me up if I get downed without resetting his health.

The Battle For Claw Island was difficult solo because of the really awkward aggro system. Several times during the mission, it was incredibly difficult to perform the necessary resurrection or reach the necessary area through the infinite respawns. Many times, spawning and respawning mobs would run past an entire group of NPC’s attacking them to come at me, even when I was far behind (far beyond the 1200 spell range). Constant aggro from 10-15 mobs is eventually deadly no matter what you do. Not being able to control aggro in any way just makes it a lesson in frustration.

Parts of A Light in the Darkness, the Pale Tree’s vision, were quite difficult but it could be managed. One small part of it, where about 5 or 6 spectral weapons spawned at once, were able to kill me with a massively fast combination of CC and burst damage, and then appeared immediately on the checkpoint quite some distance away when I respawned. Once clearing that group of weapons, everything else was manageable by taking it slow and careful.

The achievement appears to depend on opening areas. They are the sections of the map with a white name. Most have some form of map completion entity inside them, but some of them do not.

The areas containing many of the more hidden jumping puzzles are not found by completing all the PoI, Waypoints, Skills, and Vistas. They’re ones you have to step into in order to receive the area discovery experience. I don’t believe you have to complete the puzzles to reach the explorer achievement, but just step into and “discover” the new area.

As for WvW maps, I really dislike it being part of the requirements for 100% PoI/Waypoint/Skill/Vista/Heart completion.

98-99% of it is completely a PvE part of the game, but you’re forced to go into PvP for that last little bit of completion.

If you’re on a busier server, WvW queues are incredibly long. I was in queue on Henge of Denravi one night for over 3 1/2 hours, without stepping into an overflow zone, and still did not get in. For people who have jobs or families, this is an unreasonable time expense. Currently, you can change servers for free, but if you’re on a busy server, changing could prevent you from changing back if your original server becomes Full in the meantime. Guesting after this initial server change period will not help.

If you’re on a weaker server, some of the WvW points are impossible to get. This will become much more apparent when it changes from our daily resets to a fortnight.

Someone who does not really desire to participate in WvW, but needs the completion, will be taking the limited space away from someone who actually wants to participate.

I’ve had this particular problem. Good job on confirming it.

I’ve also had an issue with summons/minions once in a while, even when seen, will make their flying or swimming sounds at full volume. They completely ignore all sound settings. This is not something I can duplicate at will, as it’s only a “sometimes” bug.

Snow Leopard is a tier two (30 point) elite skill, so you need to get two of the first tier (10 point) skills to unlock it.

I use the Snow Leopard form occasionally in PvE exploration, primarily for the stealth. On a profession without its own native stealth (Elementalist), it can help a great deal in reaching well guarded Points of Interest or Skill Challenges I couldn’t otherwise solo.

As for changing your stats, I know Bear will change things, but I haven’t really looked if any of the others do.

For general PvE exploration, I prefer the Snow Leopard transformation above anything else (even Elementalist class elites), due to the Stealth. By using it at appropriate times, you can sneak past a large number of mobs to reach that difficult to get to point of interest or skill point.

Wolf is the best CC, due to having both a fear and a knockdown to provide interrupts.
Also note that Bear will increase your health and durability.