Guild Wars 2

I just bought GW1 in August, and everything still in recent memory, this instance was bloody awesome. It also helps I’m a librarian/cataloger and it was amazing to see the ultimate Special Collections room.

I love the lore tie-ins, I love the references to all the GW1 games and expansion, I love seeing Glint’s Lair, which is the part of Prophecies that wowed me the most. I like the little touches of the environmental effects in the three regions of Glint’s Lair. I’ll have to go back in and dance in front of Abaddon's statue now, just to see what happens.

I just wonder on the significance of the difference between the crystals in the lair. In GW1, the crystals looked like Quartz, especially with the clustering. In the new one, it’s more like Bismuth.

It helps rarely, and hurts most of the time.

It can disrupt control of Defiant stacks, spread out the mobs you just neatly gathered, and makes things more frustrating to the group. Unlike weapon/kit based knockbacks, you can’t really control this AoE toss.

You would just need to open up the GW1 client, and add the codes to your existing account.

I see it as a group that’s well known to the governments and to the racial “leaders” (and by extension the player), but is not well know to the general, less adventurous, public.

I constructed my Immobulus this past winter, during a time when the buy orders were about 1g25s-1g30s. The period before I bought the eyes had the buy order price a bit over 2g. A month after I finished mine, the price shot up to over 3g per eye. It took me approximately three weeks to have the orders filled, with a lot of overcutting by 1-5c.

The items are just too bloody rare for the quantity needed for that weapon (the 1 and 10 eye weapons are fine).

My guild (most of us playing since launch or before, with 3k-6k hours) averages out now to more precursors than giant eyes; and we all have spent a great deal of time in Orr and Arah.
I’ve had 0 eyes and 1 pre (champ bag)
Guildee1 had 2 eyes and 1 pre (forge)
Guildee2 had 1 eye and 1 pre (forge)
Guildee3 had 1 eye and 0 pres
Guildee4 had 1 eye and 2 pres (karka, dungeon chest)
Guildee5 had 0 eyes and 4 pres (karka, forge, forge, mob drop)
Guildee6 had 0 eyes and 0 pres
Guildee7 had 0 eyes and 0 pres

If you came from another game, forget about the tank/dps/healer trinity. It is not present in GW2, and the lack of that trinity is an explicit design goal. The trinity in this game is DPS/support/control.

A Guardian can do all three, but is primarily a DPS and support profession. Guardian support works not by healing or tanking damage, but by preventing damage to the group. You have a large variety of blinds, personal and group blocks (aegis), condition removal, projectile reflection, and by giving boons to your allies. You can also provide fire and light fields, and you have a few blast finishers on your weapons.

Nearly all weapons have a use, and eventually you will want to carry one of everything. Swap things around depending on need.

Greatsword is one of your primary offensive weapons. 2 is excellent AoE damage, 3 is a blind, and 5 will pull the mobs together so you can more efficiently kill them. This is a mainstay in dungeons, one of the best for the open world, and effective in some PvP and WvW setups.

Hammer is a defensive weapon. While slow, it still puts out a reasonable amount of damage. It supports your group by granting the Protection boon as you attack with it. It has a blast combo finisher on skill 2, an immobilize on 3, a knockback on 4, and a ward (prevent mobs from crossing, unless they have stability) on 5. It’s best used when your group is fighting something difficult and the group is having difficulty keeping alive. The drawback to hammer is that it extensively uses Light combo fields, which are often detrimental to an organized group. It’s used in all game modes, but only when you need the added defense or need some control.

Staff is a weak damage weapon, but it has some support. Your autoattack will hit 5 targets, while most autoattacks hit 3. 2 is a fairly weak and difficult to use heal, 3 grants swiftness, 4 is a heal and provides Might to the group, and 5 is a ward. Staff is best used when you’re “tagging” a large number of mobs in massive group fights; for mobility in the open world as a swap weapon (do damage with your other weapon set); for PvP; or used in very specialized world vs. world support setups.

Sword, as said above, is a high damage and support mainhand. Your autoattack is very strong (but be warned that the third strike is a set of projectiles, using it on some enemies will reflect back to you, and hurt). 2 is a teleport and a blind, due to the weakness of the damage, it should only by used when you need the teleport or blind effect. 3 provides some situational and touchy projectile protection. Sword is used in all game modes.

Mace is another defensive weapon. It has a reputation for being low damage, but recent theorycrafting shows that it actually has fairly good damage. It heals on the third strike of the autoattack. It’s mainly used in PvP support/“bunker” builds due to the healing and pressure. The 2 skill provides a regeneration field to the group. It can be used elsewhere if you need the extra block with the 3 skill. This is another weapon that makes heavy use of light combo fields, so it can be a problem in some groups.

Scepter is your only long range weapon. It has the highest damage skill a guardian has, as long as all of the parts hit, on the 2 skill. You will see good results on very large enemies and objects. It also has an immobilize on the 3 skill (though note the shorter range). You will always want to have one of these in your inventory, but only swap to it when you need range or you are fighting very large enemies.

Focus is your primary offhand. It provides group condition removal and a blind on 4. 5 will block three hits, do damage, and is a blast combo finisher. With the vulnerability on blind trait, the 4 skill is a large boost in damage to the entire party since it bounces and hits the enemy multiple times.

Shield has some situational uses, but is not the best general purpose offhand. The 4 skill provides short duration Protection in an arc in front of you; and 5 provides a knockback, projectile block, and a small heal. Both shield skills are on very long cooldowns. If you need an extra one of the above functions, use it, but otherwise Focus will be of better use.

Torch is odd, it’s supposed to be a damage offhand, but it doesn’t provide much of a damage boost. 4 burns enemies and can do a fairly high damage attack, but on a long cooldown. 5 actually results in a DPS loss. Torch can be used when you don’t need any defensive skills, but it’s not used that often.

If I remember correctly, the name of the Deep Sea Dragon is unknown to keep the seas mysterious and dangerous.

Weapon knockback skills should be locked until a once-per-account tutorial is completed. Players need to learn WHEN to use them, and not just blindly spam skills. The biggest culprits sadly are longbow rangers (4), due to how easy the profession is to play in the open world and due to the popularity of archers; followed by greatsword mesmers (5). Shield guardians and hammer warriors come far behind.

As said earlier, a Defiant tutorial is also greatly needed. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to, in the end of a Dredge fractal run, explain to people how it works, and why we control the stacks in a PUG run.

I’d love to have just the hat to mix-and-match. Would be great on my Canthan inspired thief.

The Scrybe probably refers to Josh Foreman.

Can confirm the above. I only bought GW1 a bit over two months ago, and had no problem filling in the HoM after linking to GW2.

The Zho’qafa Catacombs Eye does not have a timer (like Foulbear and the Commissar). It starts with this event, and follows with a long involved chain. Note that after you initially clear the catacombs, there is an up-to-an-hour wait before the chain continues. This makes it a very frustrating chain to complete.

When you get to the abomination, I strongly recommend having a number of people go up to this event, grab the special grenade kit from the NPC, and then go back to the catacombs. A group of 5 can take a significant portion of its health down very quickly with a combination of the 4 and 5 skills. Do NOT complete the giant event, in case you have to go back and get more kits.

Support for a dungeon guardian is NOT healing or tanking damage, it’s preventing damage. One 10k+ AoE blocked by a group Aegis is worth 50k+ health, which just cannot be group healed that fast in this non-trinity game.

The primary means a dungeon guardian prevents damage are:
Aegis (Retreat, Virtue of Resolve, refreshing with Renewed Focus)
Protection (Hammer, when using the Fractals Hammer build)
Reflects/Projectile destruction (Wall of Reflection, Shield of the Avenger, Sanctuary)

You also support by having the two best group Stability skills, for fights where you expect a LOT of CC (by using Stand Your Ground and Hallowed Ground). Stability allows the party to continue to deal damage without wasting time on the ground.

You also can provide condition removal, fire fields and blasts, and pulls.

All of this support can be done with a high damage build and Berserker’s equipment, you are not required to use defensive equipment to provide damage prevention.

Save the tanky and healing sets for WvW group builds.

The original instance of the Molten Facility had (6?) Mithril nodes, which drop crystals, in the rooms. These are the ones that are present in the Fractals version of Molten Facility.

The original instance also had an Orichalcum node, which dropped orbs, reached by by doing a little jumping in the room with the huge group of trash mobs (where people tend to stack on high levels). This node was not included in the Fractals version of the Molten Facility.

There are only two uses for Sun Beads:
A single level 55 amulet that takes 3 beads.
The weapons that each take 75.

What should be done is: Divide each requirement by 3, and triple the karma cost of beads. Make the amulet take 1 bead, and the weapons 25. Provide a 25 in bulk purchasing option.

Alternatively (which would help elsewhere, like Sonder the Seller, Icy Runestones, or at the Balthazar temple), make alt-drag or alt-purchase pop up a quantity box, and allow bulk purchases of any item (with a single confirm box).

Different mobs have different aggro systems.

Tazza tends to choose one person (usually the lowest health person) and focus fire that person until they’re dead. That usually means an ele, thief, or meta guard is the target. Being downed or stealthed can (but not always) temporarily move the aggro to someone else, but she can switch to back after her Blink.

If this current system MUST stay…

Adept traits should be easy to get, all should be solo content, and an average player should be able to unlock all or nearly all of them during their level-up process. Each trait should have a good sized pool of possible triggers to earn the trait, so that a person doesn’t have to be at a specific place to earn it.

Master traits should take slightly more effort, but not be difficult. An average player should be able to most of these traits during the level-up process. Each trait should have a small pool of triggers, and should be easily done solo or by small ad-hoc groups in the world.

Grandmaster traits are the only ones that should need to be “hunted” for (ie GW1 elites). Small to mid sized groups should be possible to complete all of them.

As PookieDaWombat.6209 said above, the cost to buy an unlock is way too high, both in skill point and coin costs.

Traits should be able to be unlocked in both areas of the game that this system applies to. There needs to be both a PvE and a WvW option for each trait; or at least a way to purchase traits simply by playing WvW.

Any trigger tied to a random, not-often-recurring event (Orr temples, some champ events) should be changed, or the event put on a designated timer so that a player will know when it’ll be up.

All events tied to a trait need to be extensively audited and tested to fix any possible stalls (Dredge Commissar, Branded Devourer Queen, Foulbear).

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Which brings me back to my point, how has everyone managed to forget that GW1 had frickin’ DINOSAURS in it????

Since a friend and I just crossed from one corner of Sparkfly Fen to the other the other night for a Z-bounty, dodging huge groups of necro-dinos; I wonder where all the non-Raptor dinosaurs went as well.

I played GW2 for almost two years before I bought GW1, and have earned my 30 points now. I still have stories left to go through, and things I haven’t completed yet (DoA, Underworld, etc).

Things I have gotten used to in GW1 that I really feel are lacking in GW2 are:
Templates – In GW2 dungeons, organized fights, or WvW roaming; I’m likely to change my traits, utilities, and/or weapons several times during a session. Templates would make it way faster and easier to switch between commonly used setups.

Hard Mode – Or difficulty levels like my previous MMO (normal mode doable by most PUGs; hard needs a bit of organization, but has higher drop rates; elite for the most experienced organized groups, but with even higher drop rates) . I’m still too inexperienced to do much with hard mode in GW1, but I appreciate it being there for those who have put in the time, money for gear, and the desire for challenge. It would only work for instanced areas in GW2, but it would allow groups to select their desired risk/reward ratio.

Zaishen Missions/bounties/etc, Nicholas the Traveler, War in Kryta bounties – Daily/weekly tasks used to help focus player activity. In GW2, it could be used to, if only temporarily, revitalize lesser used areas, or to lead people who may not normally do something to give it a try. The daily achievements did a bit of that in the past, but are quickly completed and are more easily skipped due to the daily AP cap.

Build Variety – While the meta for a specific area of the game is close to the same size, there was a far greater variety of specialized or “fun but still effective” builds that people could use for certain tasks. A bit of that is more due to the larger number of skill choices and secondary professions, but another part is due to just how much variety is in the game.

Bosses could be CC’ed, but were still dangerous if you didn’t time your CC’s and interrupts effectively. The Defiant system in GW2 doesn’t seem as enjoyable or strategic (but managing Defiance stacks is still an important part of high end combat).

The game feels larger because you visit so many more locales. As said, the winding paths help extend the feeling of size over what it actually is. The variety in flora/fauna also helps make similar looking areas feel different (like how each Crystal Desert region feels way different because of what mobs are in it, even though they all look similar).

The Nightfall tutorial was a very effective way of learning how to play.

When I’m on GW1, I miss:
Dodging (I see an AoE, and I instinctively try to dodge out of it now)
The more active playstyle
Combos (it adds a lot of interplay to GW2 combat, and is so poorly understood by the majority of the GW2 community)
Jumping (especially optional puzzles for those who wish for a diversion)
Seeing others out in the world, and forming temporary ad-hoc groups to accomplish something
The friendlier design of GW2 that encourages cooperation (each contributor gets exp and an individual chance at loot, instanced nodes, most events are sped up with more people, anyone can res without requiring one of your skills be a res skill)
I like that defensive support in GW2 is more about preventing damage (like a GW1 Prot monk), and less about healing it back up (like typical Trinity healers).

With monetary, mini, hero armor, and/or material donations from friends, getting 30 points will take about 1-2 months. Sooner if you have someone run you through missions and to get you the Protector titles.

Purely from scratch, with no financial assistance, would probably take an additional 2-3 months to build up funds (Zaishan missions, Beyond content, War in Kryta bounties, farming mats) in order to get weapons, minis, and pricy armor.

Prophecies has the easiest learning curve, but is slow to level. Factions is the fastest way to level, but sticks you into some difficult missions as soon as you get to 20. Nightfall is in-between, but gives you early access to heroes.

You can go do Eye of the North content (and pick up another three heroes immediately) as soon as you reach one of the main cities (Kaineng, Kamadan, Lion’s Arch) and reach level 10. You can also head to the other campaigns when you reach those cities, and that can help you earn money, experience, and elite skills (and by going to Nightfall, you pick up some more heroes).

What Gnat said is certainly true. GW1 is very different, but it’s easy to fall in love with the game. There is a lot to do beyond what you need to do to earn 30-points, like elite areas, dungeons, hard mode missions and vanquishing, and a much larger variety of PvP content.

andrew.1798:

To unlock an armor statue within the GW1 HoM, you must buy/‘craft’ a full set of prestige armor (all 5 pieces).

The helmet is actually not needed, so that’ll save you a fair bit of money/mats (especially for expensive sets like Vabbian or Luxon). Just the other four pieces (chest, leggings, boots, gloves) are necessary in order to put the statue in. (I just put in a set of Vabbian, Norn, and Ancient this week, and all three sets are helmless yet I had no trouble getting the 3 points for them).

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To put an armor statue in, put the set on, and talk to the Resilience monument and it’ll give you a prompt to put a statue in for that set. Minis just have to be in your inventory. Heros must be in your party, and aside from M.O.X, must have an alternate armor set. Titles, campaign completion, or elite area completion statues are put in just by talking to the Honor monument. Weapons (if I remember correctly) just have to be in your inventory, and are placed in when you talk to the monument.

If you’re just playing for the GW2 rewards, you may feel it’s more of a chore. Play it if you like(d) the game or lore, and let the HoM points come as they come.

As you add things into your HoM, it’ll automatically update your score on GW2 the next time you log in. This works regardless of when you link the accounts. I played GW2 for almost two years before I bought GW1 at the beginning of August, and had no issue filling in things.

Your total HoM score will count each unique item from each character’s HoM. It’s safest (in that it’s easier to see duplicates) to put your minis all on the same character. Also be sure you don’t try to put the same weapon or armor type in two different character’s HoM’s (ie, an Inspiration Destroyer Scepter on one, and an Earth Destroyer Scepter on another) as that’ll only count as a single Destroyer Scepter.

There is no harm in moving between campaigns before completing them. It might be the most lore-following way, but it’ll certainly make it easier.

Starting with Prophecies is slower, but you have an easier learning curve, and you’re given a number of skills through your quests, which saves a lot of coin. Head to Eye of the North when you reach Lion’s Arch to pick up three heroes. Do a little bit of Nightfall to pick up more heroes. You should have a full party of high level, more powerful, customizable npc’s at this point which will make it far easier. Then, I would go into Factions and finish leveling to 20, and start picking up some elites. The only downside to doing Prophecies is that you won’t be able to swap your secondary early (since you need to ascend), but by doing a few quests, you can swap between the core quests freely. Then pay the 500g per class to swap to the Nightfall and Factions specific classes.

You can complete the stories in any order, but lorewise it’s probably best to do Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, EotN, then Beyond. For rewards, EotN and/or Factions first.

This is an excellent deal for any who may be interested in trying the game. I bought it about a month ago using the physical only Complete Edition (P+F+N+EotN for $30US at a regional GameStop), and do not regret the purchase.

The two games are fairly different, but they’re both enjoyable, and both worth a play through.

I bought GW1 about three weeks ago. If you’re a US resident, and have nearby GameStop’s, you can search their website for stores that have Guild Wars: Complete Edition. It’s a physical only edition that includes all three campaigns and Eye of the North for $30. That’s a savings of $20 for the same thing from NCSoft’s store or Steam.

Prophecies gives you the most lore tie-in with GW2, and has a lot of familiar locations. Nightfall and Eye of the North give you hero’s quickly, and I strongly recommend doing at least parts of those no matter which campaign you start with as soon as they become available. Eye of the North can be started at level 10 (you get auto-leveled to 20, but note it is rather difficult). Factions lets you level fast, but someone starting out without a lot of assistance should start something with a lower learning curve.

The complete edition package comes with the /bonus weapons and M.O.X., which can help greatly to someone just starting out. M.O.X. does not need any upgrades to be placed in the Hall of Monuments, so that’s a free point right there.

The most expensive thing will be mats and minis. I was lucky in that I have guildmates who had a few leftover items they could help me with (they gave most of what they had to others before). See if you have friends/guildmates who can assist.

As for population, there are usually two districts in Kamadan. I still see a large number of people talking and setting up runs in Lion’s Arch. I still run into people in random outposts.

I definitely agree with others that it is a very different game. You’ll see a lot of familiar skills; but they will be quite different in effect (for example, “For Great Justice” is a skill that only benefits the user in doubling adrenaline gain, rather than a group damage boosting skill in GW2). Builds are far more important. Team composition (with players, or with heroes) is even more so. Earning skills, especially elites, will be time consuming. You will need to use the Guild Wars Wiki and the PvX build wiki quite often. The game will look dated, and sometimes feel clunky.

It will still be, for most people, enjoyable, challenging, and worthwhile to play.

Gender is mental. It’s how you perceive yourself.
Sex is physical. It’s how your body exists and functions.

Sylvari have both.

With an effective group, it’s fine. Less forgiving than easier paths of CoF or AC, but still not as ridiculous as other dungeon paths.

This is an open world event, in a starter zone. It doesn’t need to be more difficult than explorable mode dungeons. A starter zone is not going to have the coordination and reflexes to handle this fight properly.

Just a few changes would make it manageable:
Slight increase in the time to respond to the bosses meteors, which knock you down.
Reduction in meteor damage to do about 70-80% of the average untwinked level 15’s health. It would still be a threat due to embers, but not as unforgiving.
Slight reduction in the spawn rate of embers.

Then, reduce the ways people can grief others by dumping ember aggro on them (and yes, intentional griefing regularly happened as of a month ago in Henge).

Same, /bug it each time, with lots of details, but sadly seeing this, it didn’t do any good.

Bsquared.3421:

Sarisa.4731:

As long as the elemental still triggers the hellish sound bug, I won’t use it. Fire triggers it most, but all the elementals can.

Sarisa, to what are you referring here? Does popping the Elemental sometimes make your sound bug out and just give a constant ringing?

Ever since I’ve started WvW’ing more once I reached lvl 80 and geared up, I will occassionally have my sound crap out forcing me to turn off my speakers and play in silence. Could this be the reason?

The popping and “whirr” sound bug that eventually crashes your client is different.

This is a bug that triggers on any summon or pet, but only at certain times. You hear the footsteps/wingbeats are incredibly loud volume, making it impossible to bear being around one. It’s most common with fire eles, ranger bears, and some of the small necro minions (forget the name).

As long as the elemental still triggers the hellish sound bug, I won’t use it. Fire triggers it most, but all the elementals can.

The greatsword is fun in certain group fights in the open world, but it’s usually better for someone else to use and not me. I gain a bit of damage, but lose a lot of versatility using it myself.

Most of the time, I use the norn Snow Leopard transform because it has stealth. It’s my emergency “get away” button and for getting past an annoying group of mobs.

While there was a patch that claimed to fix the insta-kill points, there are still some left as you have seen.

What usually works for me is starting a bit left of the middle, I usually go from the middle of the second tooth from the left. Don’t hit any WASD key on the way down the slide. That generally lets me avoid clipping the end of the waterfall, which is treated as a massively high drop and does 50k or so damage on an 80.

When a simple slide doesn’t work, holding left sometimes does. Just be sure never to hit back because that will almost always trigger a mid-fall death.

Once I clear the end of the slide, press back (S) a little so that I avoid the landing.

What counts is:
All PvE maps.
All five racial cities, plus Lion’s Arch.
The PoI in the Chantry of Secrets.
All four WvW maps. Note that the three borderlands, even though they have the same basic map structure, are considered different maps. You need to 100% all of them.

Dungeons do not count. The Heart of the Mists, and the PvP tutorial do not count. The Hall of Monuments (even people who did not play GW1 can go there, they just can’t do anything besides getting the PoI) does not count. sPvP maps do not count.

The title “Been There, Done That” requires 100% map completion as above. It also requires all of the white name titles on the PvE maps unlocked. They are tracked with the <Area> Explorer achievements. Ascalon, Kryat, Maguuma, Orr, and Shiverpeaks.

Obsidian.1328:

rgrwng.4072:

it would be more immersive if they took out all of the land-based walls between zones, and made tyria a true map.
…

Erm…everyone would love this but, of course, it’s not remotely feasible. The zones don’t exist for cosmetic reasons, they have to be there. No current game engine could have an immensely detailed landscape like GW2 and be one huge zone with no walls. Comps would either freeze or fry upon log-in with an entire server population in the same zone.

Just adding on to this. MMO Games that do have “seamless maps” tend to implement them internally as individual maps like GW2 does. They’ll just partially render the map as you get close to the edge. If you happen to move along the edge, you end up having to load a lot of partially rendered maps, so it really would not work effectively with the size of GW2 maps.

You can still tell you’re crossing over because mobs, other players, interactible objects, and the like will “phase” in and out of existence.

It’s slightly better for immersion, but could end up being murder on your system.

I can’t reproduce it at will.

In the past month or so, it has only happened to me in two situations:

Summoning Fire elementals.

In large events with a lot of participants where I’m also experiencing the rendering issue. Claw of Jormag fights and the Mad King’s Labyrinth are common places that it occurred.

When the event is up and frozen, there are no risen to kill to increase the heart, and there are no golems to assist.

While the event is frozen, due to waves not appearing typically, your only options to complete the heart are to attempt to drop items into the box (the items disappear while equipped at times), or kill one of two tiny groups of Skelk right on the edge of heart range. It’s doable, but incredibly time consuming.

Bad Element.4613:

Ill tell you what the REAL problem with this game is: People referring to a single creep as a mob. Mob is plural. Its a f___g plural word kitten

The term “mob” comes from MUD’s It’s short for MOBile object.

A “mob” of people is plural, yes, but a mobile object (the use of “mob” in this context) is singular.

I have yet to see this fight since the actual game released. Only fought it in BWE2 once.

I’ve only missed my dailies a few times.

Once due to doing nothing but dungeons for a day (yuck).
Once due to being ill and not feeling like playing more than a few minutes.
Once when I had to log early Thursday night, and then went out Friday night.
Three times due to having messed up Internet (Verizon Business DSL is horrible at times) and barely being able to connect, yet alone do anything productive.

What is most “difficult” to get depends on what I’m doing.

When I’m in a 1-15 zone, it’s easy just with standard play. There is so much variety, and so many available events that getting dailies is not any effort.

Certain zones are extremely event packed, and also have the ability to get variety with just a little running around. Mount Maelstrom, Fireheart Rise, Frostgorge Sound (especially if I catch a Claw of Jormag fight), and Sparkfly Fen seem especially good. Diessa Plateau, part of Blazeridge Steppes, Kessex Hills to a lesser extent.

If I spend a lot of time in Orr, it’s not possible to complete the variety, even when counting Straits of Devastation. I get the other things, and before I log for the night, I go to Lion’s Arch to bank/sell/restock, and take a few minutes running up to Gendarran to finish out the variety.

Some of the mid-level zones are fairly event sparse, so that can take some time. I still generally have no problem getting the five to complete the dailies. Lornar’s Pass is a prime example.

In Sparkfly Fen, my group ran across two Orrian Commander events. The title was Get revenge for Tybalt and for Sieren. I had never seen either one there before, and I spent a lot of time in Sparkfly.

There was a quiz on Orrian history in Malchor’s Leap that I had never seen before. It may have been there from the start but rarely triggered.

Ran into a Skritt Burglar in Mount Maelstrom.

Saw a Modus Sceleris group somewhere (sorry, forget where) but they did not trigger an event.

Events associated with the new jumping puzzles, Dierdre’s Steps in Mount Maelstrom, and Vexa’s Lab in Fireheart Rise. They’re new but I consider them not truly among the thirty new events.

Dredgehaunt is definitely designed in the same manner as Orr. Solid introduction to what is to come. It’s another group area disguised in the open world.

Dredgehaunt also has two of the nastiest vistas in the game.

If someone is downed, the right thing to do is to rally them in some way. Either by trying to raise them when it’s safe to do so, or by killing the mob they are flinging rocks at.

If someone is defeated, sorry but they’re going to have to wait until after the fight is over. Almost all of the time, it takes too long to raise them safely, especially in the more hectic events.

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One limitation of GW2 is the lack of built-in voice chat for parties. My last game had it, and it made coordination and organization in the heat of battle FAR easier. Event trash mobs in GW2 can kill you quickly, limiting the amount of time you can try to type to others.

Guilds tend to have a Vent/Mumble/TS/other VoIP system to communicate, but that’s not an option for people you happen to meet in an event.

I feel it’s one of the big issues for dungeon running. I have seen at least one PUG dungeon run where they gave everyone in the group temporary access to their TeamSpeak for the run, in order to coordinate.

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As for LGBT guilds, I can see the desire to join one to talk to people with similar experiences. Don’t just limit yourself to them, however. Just about any mature guild will try to limit the hate speech and be accepting of differences. Although I fit under the overall LGBTQIA umbrella, I never felt the need to join an LGBT specific guild, but I’m glad they exist for those who do.

The Shatterer was extremely fun while levelling my ranger. Henge bled a LOT of population when the WvW guilds quit, and their “followers” fled to other servers.

That’s because the first time I faced him, There were a grand total of 5 players there, and we could not keep up with the trash spawns. We called in a little guild backup, and ended up with 11 people there. We actually got to see all of his mechanics, rather than just having things melt the instant they appear.

With the small number of people, the crystalization mechanic he has also came into play, and it made it much more important to free people before they “shatter” and do 95% of your health in damage.

The second time was with around 18 people, and while his mechanics still came into play, they didn’t play as big a part as with the smaller fight. This one also showed the typical Shatterer player behaviour…3 people doing the pre-quests, 15 people idling by the dragon spawn point.

The dredge mortars event south of Slough of Despond waypoint in Frostgorge Sound is one of the buggy ones.

The event goals are destroy three mortars. I solo two mortars myself, all the adds, all the trash that spawns after a mortar is destroyed, and do half the damage to the third mortar. Some warrior comes in and hits the third mortar a few times to finish it off, and never kills a single trash mob.

I get silver, he gets gold. This has happened TWICE at the very same event.

The servers run on the international standard time (the aforementioned 00:00 UTC). You are an hour earlier, not the servers.

Aside from the one day in the autumn and the one day in the spring, you always have the same exact amount of time to complete your dailies, so don’t procrastinate if you wish to complete them.

Straits and the rest of Orr are really designed to be run as a group. Even 3 or 4 together really makes a huge difference in getting those completions done. Unfortunately, it’s not always possible for people to effectively find and remain in a group for long outside of guild runs.

There are two problems with the giants.

The lack of reward has already been mentioned. These fights need good chests at completion.

The other is that even if you time your dodge right, you can still get hit by a stomp due to the massive radius. Differences in server/client latency can really kill you.

Charr are in the same situation, as are certain sylvari body styles. Most armour is designed for human form, and doesn’t handle “appendages” like large ears, tails, “sticks”, or mushroom heads.

GW2 is a worldwide game. Region only matters for purchase, it does not matter in any way to play. Because of that, it makes absolutely perfect sense to tie reset to an international standard.

As said, the international standard UTC does not follow DST, so you will have to adjust your time to compensate.

Aside from those two days of the year, you have the exact same time each day to complete a daily before they reset. If you do not procrastinate, you can easily complete them no matter when they reset in your local time.

Found it last night.

This was definitely one of the best ones I’ve done, and I’ve done nearly all of them. The designer really needs a commendation for it.

I use the Carrion set, and Sapphire jewels (for the toughness, healing power is slightly more useful than precision with Emerald which is the other toughness option).

As said before, however, it’s heavily dependent on build and playstyle.

I run S/D, tend to run solo or in small groups, and occasionally do dungeons. I don’t run into the condition limits often, so condition damage is more valuable for me.

It took me a good bit longer to get used to jumping on a charr than it did on my norn or sylvari.

Onshidesigns.1069:

Soulbound:
We should be able to salvage soulbound items (weapons, armor, rings).

Many soulbound items are bought with karma (ie heart vendors), and the intention is to not allow karma to be a coin source. The devs tend to remove any sort of way to make actual coin out of karma fairly quickly. Soulbound items that are soulbound because you equipped them, or earned them in your story are salvageable.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a way to extract a rune or sigil you may have used in a heart/karma item.

What does need fixed are jewellery drops. Mob dropped jewellery is bound on acquire, and cannot be salvaged. It can still be NPC’ed.