Guild Wars 2

Nightfall was my favourite of the GW1 settings; so I would love this.

I agree that it would happen when we head toward Kralkatorrik, and probably would have to depose Palawa Joko, and raise up the armies of Vabbi, Kourna, and Istan to take down the dragon.

Also note that the Forgotten were quite involved with the end of Nightfall, and that would tie into the ancient race storyline and some of the recent living stories.

With a friend to run some of the more challenging bonuses with (Eternal Grove, Dunes of Despair, Moddok Crevice, Gates of Madness), and a little bit of mats and minis from another old friend, it took me just under 300 hours to get 30 points. Without monetary assistance, 350-500 hours will be needed. That is, IMO, a perfectly amount of time for that much “prestige”.

Getting more than that will take a lot more time and effort, for things like Vanquisher, Cartographer, and Master of the North. Flameseeker (40) is one of the best titles.

The HoM was there to reward those who put in a lot of time and effort into GW1, so it should remain no easier than it got at GW2 release. If you want the rewards, put in the time, and try to enjoy the way.

Confirm the above. Weapons make a big difference, and are worth making for power builds due to the 5% higher base damage.

Armor, only if you do high level Fractals and need the extra AR slots (ie not using +7/8 agony infusions on rings and your backpiece), or want to fully max out a main character.

Zera Allimatti.2541:

I did a tombs run yesterday with my heroes. I’m so OP that even after a hiatus of a couple of years I still swept through that place relatively quickly and with relative ease

That was the Zaihen Bounty this past weekend!

The wiki is still in most cases your best source for help finishing quests or missions. You might need to go to Reddit or Guru for tricks and techniques for elite areas. For some things, it’s helpful to look in the discussion tab for additional information.

If you can find a friend to run with, or join an active guild, that also helps.

The GW1 official forums were removed last year.

I played GW2 for (including betas) two years before I bought GW1. I bought it both for the HoM, and to see and experience ANet’s past and why people enjoyed it so. I still love and play both games, for different reasons.

Even though most skills were not useful, there was still a bit more build variety in the meta than GW2 (even though I understand the balancing difficulty). I really enjoy the challenge that GW1 PvE has, and really look forward to finally getting down how to beat UW and DoA. The combat is very different, and a bit dated, but I don’t mind and really like the strategic aspects of it.

I like GW2 for the active combat, for the fun chaos that is WvW roaming, and being able to form ad-hoc groups to tackle things out in the world.

I’m glad for heroes in GW1, but I don’t miss them in GW2. I wasn’t very bothered by the lack of build templates, until I played GW1 and saw how great they were. I don’t mind the lack of jumping in GW1, but I miss being able to dodge (sidestepping to avoid a projectile is not the same).

They’re both beautiful games. Even with GW1’s dated graphics, many areas are just amazingly done. Now that’s I’ve done most of my titles, I can take the time to just look. Outside the Eye of the North, some of the asura lands, nearly all of the Jade Sea, parts of Istan, parts of Shing Jea Island, the mossy parts of Sorrow’s Furnace, parts of Echovald, The Falls, Marga Coast, and even parts of the Realm of Torment simply still look amazing. I can’t play GW2 in anything but mostly-low graphics, but even at those “toaster” levels, it still looks really good and varied.

I would love to see that daze-happy jerk return.

I recommend binding ‘Select Nearest Target’ to an easily accessible key. That can help a great deal with properly targeting things in melee. I use a combination of tab (next target), my nearest target bind, and sometimes click targeting to make sure I get what I want.

The Bandit Coin Purse is also an easy to get 20 slot bag. Take a low level character into your borderlands and purchase the bandit weapon skins inexpensively with karma (the karma cost scales with character level). You would then only have to purchase the three underwater weapon skins to complete the collection.

In the US (and ArenaNet is a US company), “free speech” only applies to the government. The government cannot restrict what you say, within reason (ie hate speech inciting violence, yelling fire in a theatre without cause).

Since GW2 is considered a company’s space, they have full control over what people can say, so the perpetrators have absolutely no defense.

When I was messing with sound settings to try to silence a toxic hybrid, I was sitting on turret 5 at Teq 5 minutes before spawn, and the mini was at north boats. That is a bloody long way away for that noise to carry.

Mini noises are in the ‘dialog’ sound channel, which can be a major disadvantage in some fights (like Teq).

They should definitely be split off into their own channel.

Toxic Hybrid, Ghost, and Wintersday Golem are probably the three that are the loudest and most annoying with the repetitive clamor.

I have 7 80’s (no necro), and while I do use some for specific purposes (Thief – CM/sometimes TA; Ele – AC; War – WvW roaming/small group havok; Mes – helping friends), I’ve spent nearly 70% of my total playtime on my Guard.

In any MMO I play, I generally have a single main, who I fully equip with all the best stuff, then a few specialty characters that I just can’t get into enough to play more.

GW1 hard mode; and DDO elite dungeons at level; were some of the most enjoyable content I’ve ever done. Those two games worked that way because nearly everything was instanced, so it didn’t really separate the populace as much as open world difficulty settings would.

What made those two more enjoyable as well, is that mechanics/spells/skills changed, (for GW1) AI in hard mode was better, and it wasn’t JUST increased health and damage dealt by the mobs. There was also a small increase in reward depending, which gave a bit of incentive to repeat.

One of my guildmates is Canadian, and says she was contractually obligated to purchase the Moose.

Satenia.9025:

Very impressive. Going back there (or in your case: starting out) at this point and earning all those title in an aged game takes a lot of dedication.

One of my guildmates had played GW1 since launch, but only had 13 points. We worked together on getting difficult bonuses/masters, HM’s, dungeons, and Sorrow’s Furnace and FoW. Was great to have company. She also said that playing GW2, and learning better how to strategize and understand mechanics made a big difference in her GW1 play when she went back.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Sarisa.4731:

Aside from dailies, most of the AP that high AP people earned came from living story Season 1 achivements.

Dailies also gave more AP in the past.

I don’t remember a time when you could ever get more than 10 AP for dailies.

When the game first came out, you had to do all the dailies, and the total was 13 points per day.

There was a brief time when dailies gave 5 points per daily (for 25 points per day).

After that, was the choice of a wide variety of dailies at 1 point per daily, and doing them all would grant IIRC 12 points per day.

Unlocked: Flameseeker (Closer to the Stars specifically on my Canthan-themed character). Before playing GW1, I didn’t bother to use titles at all. After I got GW1 last August, and started earning these titles, I changed my mind about them.

Any: GWAMM. I’m close, 27/30 titles (also 47/50 HoM points), and completed the one thing that worried me about completing it last night (Ooze Pit HM, 2 easy dungeons and a little cartography left to get Master of the North; then finish the Dwarven title and Sweet Tooth).

Respect: Dungeoneer, The Blazing Light, and SAB Applied Jumping titles. Dungeoneer since it requires a lot of either PvP or running dungeons to complete, and it looks nice. The Blazing Light since it was (aside from lifesteal through her shield) a decent challenge to finish. SAB titles because they required dedication and a good amount of platforming skill to earn. There is no title for Tribulation mode, so I respect those with Storm Wizard or King Toad weapons instead.

After the HoM+GWAMM bug is fixed, GWAMM would go up into this area as well.

Overused: No real opinion on this.

Add: A collection and title for “of the Mists” (Mesmer Phantasm) weapons. Tribulation Mode titles. A title for completing the story (since it’s in the dialog, but doesn’t actually give you a title). Balanced WvW titles, so that you can see dedicated WvW’ers. Maybe a meta-title for completing all the JP’s. A title for collecting all the non-gemstore pack dyes.

Aside from dailies, most of the AP that high AP people earned came from living story Season 1 achivements.

Dailies also gave more AP in the past.

The reason it was done the way it is, was because a number of people made legendaries before the wardrobe patch came out, and they deserve their pre unlocks just as much as people who craft today.

Any character logging in for the first time since the wardrobe patch (even now) will go through their skin unlocks. This is not a completely rare occurrence either, in addition to people who took breaks, it also applies to several military personnel I know who were deployed.

Ranger: Torch, I’ve only seen used in some old PvP condi builds; or as a swap for pre-blasting Might when a group doesn’t have an ele or a guard to provide the field.

Mesmer: All weapons have uses, just some are poor in PvE, and others poor in PvP or WvW.

Guard: Torch can do decent damage, but usually the blocks, blind, and (when traited) vulnerability on Focus are far better. Shield is very, very situational; the cooldown reduction a few months ago didn’t help it enough.

Warrior: Mace MH got overnerfed in my opinion, so there is little reason to take it unless you absolutely need another block. Rifle is a lot more situational than Longbow. OH Axe is probably the weakest weapon, as it does less damage with less utility than autoattacking with nearly all MH’s. The other combinations do have some use, either in PvE, WvW roaming, or Sinister builds.

Thief and Ele: Everything sees use somewhere.

Speargun is generally weaker than Spear for the professions that use both; but do have a use.

PetboyJoshua.3108:

-A REAL SNAKE MINI. I’m baffled by the lack of snakes in this game. There’s one in the client, but it’s so broken I understand why we can’t get it… but maybe now they can make one that isn’t broken ?

The GW1 Celestial Snake mini was completely adorable. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing a similar fleshy model for GW2.

The major issue is that there is was a double nerf on silk, that didn’t apply to any other material (the ultra-common materials just had single nerfs, ie leather, iron, and soft wood). Bolts moved from requiring two scraps to three scraps; and released at nearly the same time, Damask required 100 bolts rather than 50.

The small festivals, where consumables drop from mobs and GvG lords for a week, worked well in GW1 because most of the consumables came that way. That type of event would be nice to have, but most of the limited access consumables are already tied to another returning or non-returning event (Dragon Bash, Lunar New Year, Wintersday).

Titles you earned since this bug happened still transfer over without issue. The only thing that’s affected is accessing your skins, minis, and (maybe) Ranger pets.

The only discounts I remember for GW1 since GW2 was nearly ready for release were:

A discount a couple months before release, for people who wanted to get HoM points.
A Steam sale in late August/early September 2014.

The bug that granted it (through nothing more than creating a character) is fixed. Until they figure out a way to tell who legitimately has the points and title; and who does not, Kimmes is disabled so you cannot access any of the skins if you do not yet have them unlocked.

There is supposedly an increase in drop rate within a tier for the rarer items (skins, ascended boxes), but since the rate is so low, you won’t really notice it. Between tiers there is a measurable increase (aside from when they repeatedly bug the drop rate of the 40’s tier).

Since the primary use of ascended armor is to more cheaply reach 70 AR for Fractals level 50, and because armor is only about 1/3rd of your total stat alotment; make Berserkers.

For WvW, it’s better to swap out your rings, amulet, and accessories since they’re all much cheaper than crafting a set of armor, and make much more of a difference in your total stats. Swap into some mixture of Knights, Cavaliers, or Soldiers in order to get the desired health and armor you want for the task you’re doing in WvW.

The only GW1 charr to stand upright were members of the shaman caste (mostly monks and fire elementalists), and they did so to appear superior to their warrior, ranger, and mesmer allies. They are what became the Flame Legion.

The only real prestige weapons/armour any more are SAB Tribulation Mode skins and Glorious Heros armor. They’re the only ones that require you complete difficult content, without being carried, without depending on rare RNG drops, or paying large amounts of money.

High cost non-legendary skins are still gold locked. (Infinite Light (for those who crafted it rather than got it in sPvP), Immobulus, Mjolnir, spirit weapons).

Fractal weapons are too RNG dependent to be considered prestige, plus if you’re lucky you can get them from as low as level 11 (I got my spear from a level 13 while helping a guildmate level up).

Arah armor was considered prestige, but due to the fact you can buy Arah completions, it’s not any more.

Some of the old sPVP only armor skins would also count, since they are available no other way. The only full set of this is Tribal. Parts of several other sets are available in the story, but the full set was sPVP only (Apostle, Marauder, Heavy Scale, Stalwart)

It can be tested fairly easily in Heart of the Mists against a training golem, by using a scepter ele in air. The auto does a lot of small ticks of damage, with fairly little spread, so you can fairly easily calculate percentile differences and averages.

Specifically, use the /ip command. It tells you which of ArenaNet’s instance servers your map is running on, and you use that to match against the player edited maps of nodes that are on gw2nodes. Since it’s player edited, it may or may not be up to date or accurate.

Bolt: Saved for 7 months, finished just before the game hit 1 year old. Things were cheaper then, but gold was also much harder to get.

Bifrost: Saved for 5 months. At this time, I was finally comfortable with running dungeon trains and had a lot easier time getting gold.

Kamohoali’i Kotaki: At this point, I had been saving a lot of coin from continuing dungeon trains and mat runs, so the holdup was getting enough guild/friends to run the required number of Arah’s (since that dungeon I will not PUG).

Bought all three precursors.

The mystic forge is pure RNG, so for every person who gets lucky and beats the 0.3% or so rate from rares; many others need the statistically predicted number of tries or more. Ever since world bosses granted the guaranteed rare, I’ve been saving up and tossing the weapons into the forge (averaging 1-2 flushes a day), and after over a year and a half, finally had one come out of the forge (from two spears, a torch, and warhorn; got the scepter). That’s slightly worse than average return rates.

I agree with the above posters, it’s safer to save up the coin, or wait for whenever Heart of Thorns releases to see what’s required to do the collections. At least those are guaranteed returns.

With the new daily system, don’t forget that you can get extra pristine relics by doing Fractal dailies, which will let you get your first ring faster.

When starting out, don’t worry about the +1 Agony Infusions you get from the daily chests and from Fractals itself, those are used for high end rings and backpieces. Just use the Versatile Simple Infusion (which can go into any offensive, defensive, or utility slot) which you can by in the Fractals lobby for 75 normal relics.

You can use agony resistance that gives you 6% per tick, if you are extremely careful to avoid boss granted agony. It would also be an issue in Mai Trin, since the unavoidable agony is bugged and gives you two stacks instead of one, so you take 12% per tick and have around a 90% healing penalty. It’s still strongly recommended that you work toward 1% per tick as soon as possible.

Most of my guild was hoping that some old events would come back temporarily during this “off” time, so that there are things to do beyond the ordinary dungeon train/Orr runs/world boss runs/WvW roaming. Things like a modified Dragon Bash, Super Adventure Box, or even the Queen’s Pavilion.

I personally am taking this opportunity to work more on my HoM and GWAMM.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Sounds like health is a resource? You know, like some champions in league of legends that spend health instead of mana. Not that there currently is a mechanic where you usehealth as a resource. Maybe a specialisation will use it? Im just grasping at straws here.

Sacrifice, losing a percentage of your health as an additional cost for a spell, was a mechanic in GW1. Many Necro spells (which became the self-inflicted condition effects in GW2) and a few Ritualist spells used that resource.

Not being able to knock mobs off cliffs is because people griefed (and broke events) in early betas where you could.

Played a guard, found no differences between beta and release.

It’s always been a big issue that interrupts against most PvE mobs only put them on a short cooldown, rather than the full cooldown.

There are ALWAYS people in Kamadan (US-1), and sometimes more districts. I also regularly see people in Lion’s Arch, Kaineng, the Eye of the North, Embark Beach, Temple of the Ages, and wherever the Zaishen mission/bounty/vanquish outpost(s) are.

Complaints about a certain extremely high damage mob type that spammed knockdowns was one of the reasons AC was redone nearly two years ago. The dev at the time removed the offending mob type; and added knockdowns to infinitely respawning mobs instead. Also, he added Kick to an additional ghost type, and added Stomp to more of the bosses. So, rather than having a single mob chain knockdowns, now you have large numbers chaining knockdown (P2 spike traps are where they’re most apparent).

While experienced groups have no trouble with them (and generally kill them before they can recharge), it’s extremely punishing to those who are still learning.

The point about access to stability (and to useful stunbreaks) is the most important part. Another part is that any punishing CC needs to be well telegraphed (1/4 second telegraphs aren’t enough).

The Dredge weapon set is also not a collection.

The whirlpool circles are smaller than the finger damage or cripple field circles, but they still have the filled in orange colour. They don’t have green or black mist coming off them, but have a subtle whirlpool effect on them. You’ll also sometimes see what look like miniature fingers reaching up from the circles to “grab” something. You pretty much have to be near one when they spawn, since you have 2, maybe 3 seconds to get to it before it disappears.

Those events will trigger if someone walks near the spawn/trigger point and they have done that particular part of the story. Given that megaservers exist now, most maps have a much larger population than before, so it’s not uncommon that these are in near-constant cooldown.

Bovan.9481:

The flame Shaman used to be in the Plains of Ashford during the beta. He was in the flame legion caves north of Lake Feritas. However, because of all the upscaling of all the new and excited low level Charr he just ended up one-shotting everyone in sight non-stop.

I quit about 2 days after the game went live so I’m not sure when or why he was moved to Iron Marches but I reckon he was originally meant to be the world boss in the Plains of Ashford.

They are different events, with very different mechanics. The Ashford shaman event bugged quite often, freezing up after the tar elemental pre-event. It still exists, and can usually be run once per map reset, but was one of the ones that suffered a demotion from champion to veteran last May.

They said that there is no Non-Disclosure Agreement, so you are free to do whatever you want with what you see. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-heart-of-thorns-closed-beta-tests/

Feel free to take screenshots, report bugs, and explore as you wish.

The “stress tests” before GW2 release were for testing how the servers and underlying code reacts to load. It’s also a good way of finding timing or lag dependent bugs and race conditions; along with having way more people looking at “breaking things” than just the QA people.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Just….. don’t try to get past 30/30 in the HoM. The people who complain in this game about grind never attempted the higher HoM numbers. I got 50/50 and was so burnt out after I did that I can’t even think about getting a few points on my gw1 alt account so my gw2 alt account can have some goodies also.

The grind can be pretty intense, but as long as you work on just a little at a time, it’s not as bad.

There is almost always at least one whirlpool in front of the north turrets as Teq hits 75%. You just need to be there and ready when it pops.

nacario.9417:

How long would it take though to get like 30 Points in HoM, fastest way, for someone who never touched the game before

Without help from a friend and without a gift of minis, money, and mats; probably about 300-500 hours. Getting around 15 isn’t too bad, 30 is a bit rougher.

—

Kamadan (Nightfall), Lion’s Arch (Prophecies), Embark Beach (all), and Eye of the North generally have people. In addition, there are “daily” Zaishen missions and bounties, and those outposts generally have a healthy population (but they’re generally running in hard mode).

Heroes are excellent, and are available in Nightfall and Eye of the North (plus a couple in “Beyond” content, a free expansion). Note their default builds are pretty poor, so you will have to get more skills for them to be effective. When you first get them, it’s still recommended to stick with Henchmen until you get them at least a basic build.

No matter where your character is created, you can, once you reach your port city and reach a certain level (for Nightfall), move over to start one of the other campaigns and pick up heroes, get more experience, get more skills, and the like. You can also start Eye of the North expansion content once you reach level 10 from any of the campaigns.

I strongly suggest having a friend to play through with you. Many missions require splitting up, whether to complete the mission or to complete the bonus; and that’s much easier when you have someone else with you each with your own “mini-party”.