Anet is adding new content every 2-4 weeks. When those events land, most people end up there. Tomorrow will be a pretty huge patch, so expect to see a lot of people enjoying Wintersday events, as well as testing out the latest balance changes.
Lion’s Arch is always packed, so it’s a good place to get a group together for whatever. I agree that most zones are kinda barren, especially the mid-level ones. But I’ve found that to be true with literally every MMO I’ve played.
The LFG tool (hit Y, choose tab) is relatively new and is a good way to get a group together for dungeons and fractals.
Still working on mine. Have 4 80’s. I’m pretty close, on lvl 78 story missions. When I’m done, that’s it. I too only do the racial ones with alts and then call it quits. Too much repetition.
What is so much fun at level 80?! Personally I think that the game stops being fun when I hit level cap.
At 80 I can go anywhere and do all events.
I get all trait points.
I can play dress up with my character and wear whatever I want within my armor type.
can do all dungeons.
that right there is reason enough.
I have 2 80s. I know.
If events are fun for you, explain how they’re more fun in Fireheart than they are in Harathi. Or do you only do events in Orr? And you can do a lot of world bosses at your level.
Trait points I’ll give you.
You can still play dress up at any level, thanks to transmute stones. In fact, it’s cheaper to do so <80 due to not needing the crystals.
You can do some dungeons as you level. Are you doing them now? You’re 50+ so are you doing all 3 paths of the 3ish dungeons you can take part in right now? You run all 3 paths of 3 dungeons once and you’ll probably be close to 60.
I understand not enjoying doing what you’ve already done twice (1-80). But use your level 51 and do all the things you can with it that you plan to do when you’re 80. There’s more than you think.
<stuff> This spirit assassin model of the story is superior in every respect, though!
Woa woa….Spirit Assassin? That is the new class for GW2 if ever they release one. Sort of a ritualist meets necro meets assassin. Stealing souls, ripping energy, very ghostly animations…oh man…
Incidentally, The Dark Crystal was one of my favorite movies of my childhood. Creeped me out, but looked so great.
All turret traits. I’ve never run a turret build so I’ve never tried these out.
Acidic Elixirs
Autodefense Bomb Dispenser
Napalm Specialist
Most of the Inventions line. I don’t WvW or PvP often so I’ve never needed to bunker.
Acidic Coating
Automated Response
Always Prepared
Leg Mods
Armor Mods
By far, I play my Engi the most. Dynamic playstyle means I’m never sitting back autattacking. My utilities aren’t situational but used all the time. I’m never waiting for cooldowns. I’ve got a ton of builds for variety. I can fit into any group, in any setting.
On a more personal level, my Engi has the most gear & looks the coolest. Plus, I’m proud to main such an underappreciated class and not simply one the thousands of zerk warriors.
I vacillate between all of my alts for the sake of variety. I’m an alt-aholic. Each week I have a new favorite alt.
Aria… and u would just dare to touch my cubs! Hmm… perhaps I’ll let MY juvenile pets play with YOUR kids! I happen to be a charr ranger, so I have loads of juveniles…!
Your cubs?? You gave them away to the nearest farhar. Probably haven’t even seen them in years. You’ll never even miss em.
GW had preparations and spirits. The difference is that they were both much more creative than our spirits in GW2. Mostly because they could be used in synergy with other spirits/preparations for some interesting results.
GW2 spirits are far too drop & forget, and have such small effective range that they’re often placed in the line of fire. If, by chance, they don’t die and you move on, you have to wait way too long to resummon them. They need a sacrifice option so you can force the recharge.
The spirit traits don’t enhance them from useful to awesome. Instead, they enhance them from rubbish to useful. They’re never awesome.
Rayn’s explanation of the mechanic is correct. Due to fixed duration pulses, if you don’t spam that button, you’re going to have to wait about 3s for the next pulse to get that overcharge. I find that when I’m dropping HT I don’t have 3s to stand around and wait for an overcharge so if you miss it you’re kinda screwed.
It will make for a nice escape in WvW. Pop AED, jump off cliff. Massive heal and nobody is gonna follow you without dying or losing a huge chunk of their life.
Artificial Gravity Well – Drop an AGW device on the ground, which, when triggered, slams enemies to the ground, dealing damage (knockdown) and crippling them for Xs. (acts like a trap).
Toolbelt – Toss overloaded AGW at target, immobilizing them for 2s and applying 5x Confusion.
^ Mmm fun times with Rocket Boots. Few things with the above build:
> Too hard to sacrifice Surprise Shot (Rifle Turret) not only because it has a super-short cooldown, but it’s a reliable guided projectile with decent range that hits hard. Could almost be called a core ability of the build.
> This probably comes down to taste, but I use this build as a “sniper” build rather than a close-quarters build. So in Firearms I prefer to take Rifled Barrels (200 range), Hair Trigger, Rifle Mod (+10% flat damage)
> Similarly I end up taking Scope instead of Power Wrench.
It’s a fun build in full zerker gear, but be warned about the lack of defense. Anything with high evasion (e.g. Thieves, Mesmers) or the ability to lock you down (stuns/fear/etc) = you better be on your toes
I’ve tried the Sniper style SD/Rifle, and liked it, but felt too out of the action. It’s certainly safer, considering the lack of inherent defense to most SD builds. In the end I went with a more guerrilla style, crippling and immobilizing my target unleashing my SD burst along with Jump Shot and Blunderbuss, and then Rocket Booting out.
Just have to completely agree with the OP and most of the subsequent posts. Probably my only criticism of the art style and atmosphere of GW2 is it’s too uniformly beautiful. I think a simple change such as making nights much darker would go a long way to shift the sometimes cartoony feel of Tyria to something immersive.
Nothing transforms something seen a hundred times as completely as lighting changes. Atmospheric color saturation & lighting is also one of the easiest things to adjust in a game by the developers, it’s just settings really.
I want to be at least a little nervous every time I go into places like Orr, not just because the monsters there are tougher but because the whole atmosphere instills a heavy feeling of foreboding and dread.
I do think Anet is starting to think this way a bit too as the recent Toxic Alliance living story has a bit of a darker feel to it, but still…LET THERE BE NIGHT!
Note bolded stuff above.
This is right on. Regardless of scarier zones, the day/night transition needs to be more drastic. Doesn’t have to be creepy necessarily. But wouldn’t it be great to have Caledon at night look like Avatar’s Pandora at night, all aglow? Wouldn’t it be neat to see the vibrant, ominous glow of asuran tech shining through the darkened woods of Metrica? Wouldn’t it be epic to feel almost lost amidst the endless snow of the Shivers at night, guided by torches and enticed by warm norn fires? Wouldn’t the Branded and Ascalonian ghosts feel that much more ominous were it darker and more forboding?
I don’t want it to be pitch black. I still want to be able to appreciate the beautiful world that Anet has created. But a more dramatic effect can go a long way.
I’ve ventured into dungeons with everything from ‘nades to FT/EG support, to rifle/SD. I want to get into fractals but don’t know what to build for to be most effective while learning and (hopefully) not dying.
If I have to I’ll go ‘nades, though they bore me. I’d prefer to go FT/EG but don’t know if that’s a smart idea, mostly cuz I don’t know what to expect.
Also, are there any particular tools that I should look to bring, like reflection Elixir U, or lots of cleanses?
It gives a lot of control with Throw Wrench crippling and rifle’s Net Shot on an 8s cooldown. Goggles, then unload your toolbelt Analyze>Throw Wrench>Rocket Kick. Remember to use Jump Shot and Blunderbuss. And of course your TK has plenty of handy items to use (cripple, shield block, magnet, prybar to face).
Many people take Rifle Turret instead of RB because of the lower cooldown on the tool belt skill. However, I prefer having an escape/blast finisher. Not to mention the impressive burn from Kick.
The zones in GW2 are beautiful. Caledon Forest blew me away when I first saw it. The blinding snows of Wayfarer made me feel a part of the landscape.
Orr is disturbing, but mostly because of the feeling I get when looking at the once great city, now smashed and ruined, covered by corruption and undead. The undead don’t particularly feel creepy. But the sense that we’ll never recover the opulent city or the souls kitten ed therein incites loneliness.
However, I’d love to see a dark wood. Something dark and mysterious, filled with ancient evils and truly scary ghosts and not the restless Ascalonian spirits. They spirits seems full of humanesque resent & rage, not the type of pure horror that true angered spirits should show.
I know that Anet could make it too, because all of the other zones are beautifully done. I LOVE the magnificent reflections in the water of a gorgeous sky, mountain, and trees.
Like Upham said: google underboob and find a single tastefull picture.
If you are comparing showing shoulders to showing underboob, the same way that people are comparing twerking to Elvis’ hip shaking, then I rest my case.
You missed my point entirely. Which only further illustrates how frustrating this conversation has gotten.
Yes, I am comparing those things. Because in the 1950’s Elvis’ hips were 2013’s equivalent to twerking. And since you’re stuck on shoulders, yes, there was a time a girl wearing a tank-top would have been deemed tasteless and inappropriate. Times change. So does taste.
You do know the term tastefully dressed? Wearing an outfit that does not belong in a strip club or a street corner? Showing underboob in an outfit is and always will be tasteless. Thus the armor piece is tasteless.
If it is so hard for you to understand that or you get offended by it, this is your problem , not mine.
“Is and always will be tasteless” – Seriously? There was a time that a woman showing her shoulders or stomach was tasteless. Bikinis would have been a complete scandal. Elvis was chastised for shaking his hips on TV. Some cultures have women fully covered in burkas, making the blue jeans and t-shirt your mom wears seem downright disrespectful and unacceptable. Tastefully dressed is also venue-based. The outfit I’m wearing now are fine for where I am, but I’d be woefully underdressed arriving at a wedding like this, causing people to discuss how tasteless and trashy I am.
Times change, notions of taste and acceptability evolve. Nobody here is offended by you, but instead we are shaking our heads at how you can’t see this truth.
Not with champs. You’re basically guaranteed a bag for each champ kill. Frostgorge champ runs for instance net you an exotic quality bag for every kill, guaranteed. Yet the MF% plays no part on what’s in them.
And I’m not entirely sure MF% plays a part in getting a white bag drop from a normal mob, due to the fact that it’s white and (I’m guessing here) part of the mob’s standard loot table.
Is it just underboob you don’t like? Or is cleavage just as bad? Because it’s still a portion of the breast displayed. Ideas of what is impure and acceptable are personal and subjective. I happen to find the hip area that is exposed on the Norn female T3 heavy (that you said is acceptable btw) to be much more tantalizing on a woman than her underboob. This is my personal feeling and in no way feel that the game should cater to my subjective opinion.
@Denive: Have to have the tickets in your inventory.
@JJBigs: Originally the dragon weapons were account bound. They made a change a few months ago so that all newly acquired jade weapons would be unbound, making them sellable. People who’d already used their tickets were pretty miffed because the change didn’t affect already purchased but not yet equipped jade weapons.
Ranger needs something for more interesting combat. Whether it’s combo fields on spirits, better pet management, more creative traits, or just flashier skill animations, something needs to be done.
@coglin: The reason I added turret-based cleanse ideas is because I felt like it could make a turret build more viable. As it is, they have a lot of traits and are 1/4 of our utility options, yet nobody brings them for anything other than control, and that’s PvP only.
As for EG’s Mist, yea I thought about potential OPness too, but I was trying to add cleansing to lesser used tools. I love the kit, but I didn’t think EG was used much.
I was testing with point blank enemies which seems to work. But at range it doesn’t work.
It doesn’t work the way you think at melee range. Think of the cleanse as a splash originating from the target. Projectile finisher through the field and hit the enemy and it cleanses conditions from allies within a small range of the target. So if you’re at point blank range it splashes you for the cleanse.
Gadgets:
Throw Mine could aoe cleanse 1 condition.
Slick Shoes or Super Speed could self cleanse 1-3 conditions.
Turrets:
A trait for turret detonation aoe cleansing 1 condition with an ICD (possibly rolled into Accelerant Packed Turrets).
Rumble could cleanse conditions.
Kits:
EG’s Healing Mist could cleanse conditions, either self or small range aoe.
MK’s Drop Antidote needs to cleanse 3 conditions.
Elite:
Supply Crate could drop Antidotes as well as health packs.
Mortar’s Launch Elixir could aoe cleanse 2 conditions.
Traits:
Endless possibilities. Could add it to Kit Refinement for EG or TK for instance.
Just chiming in to affirm the “DO EVERYTHING” method of leveling. Exploration and gathering give great XP, better than you’d think, so enjoy wandering the world and harvesting as you journey along. Visiting all of the major cities will net you quite a lot of XP as well as introducing you to the various world zones. You may begin exploring Hoelbrek for instance and realize you really like the snowy lands and decide that’s where you’d prefer to quest.
Just want to add that, while you’re investing into trait lines for the actual traits, you’re still gaining the stats that go along with them. So, for example, if you put 30pts into the power trait line (thus gaining 300 power), you can get away with substituting a piece or 2 of your power gear with some that’s got defensive stats without losing too much. Trait first, then access your gear. You may find that whilst traiting you’ve gained some stats you didn’t realize you had.
I recommend the Engineer. It’s got more build variety, more versatility, more team support, aoe, & lots of mobility.
They do have access to stealth and are quite good for wvw roaming as well. There’s also the rifle/SD build that specializes in single target burst damage. And if the new heal skill rumors are true, might be getting a small buff.
While Engi does have a limited range of weapons, thief’s isn’t much more diverse. Thief has sword, pistol, dagger. Engi has pistol, rifle, shield. The thief’s edge comes in having a few more permutations, but Engi comes away with all the kits for a much greater range of weapon skills.
AED seems to incentivize you to keep your health at ~25%, given the synergy with traits like Automated Medical Response, Automated Response, Low Health Response System, and Self-Regulating Defenses.
Drop below 25% and you get “immunity” to conditions, a 3s evade, and regen, all without fear of dying, since you can AED. Then you drop below the threshold again and you’ve got another AED. Along with something like Protection Injection or Backpack Regenerator, you’re nigh unkillable for a time.
But increasing either from exotic to ascended will increase their respective damage output.
Certainly, but that wasn’t what your argument was nor was that the source of my dispute.
I’ll concede that.
I didn’t mean that engineers are inherently weaker than other classes. Simply that we did not receive the same boost every other class did when ascended weapons were introduced. Which makes each engineer build with ascended comparatively weaker to other classes with ascended than the same builds with exotics.
Probably zero. I have 8 characters, 4 of them 80s, and only 1 of them fully geared out with multiple sets of exotics, and exactly no ascended/legendary weapons. I have almost all crafts to 400, artificing at about 425.
Unless they make it much cheaper to acquire ascended armor than it is for the weapons, I don’t see myself having any. The grind for a single ascended weapon’s mats (plus what was needed to get to 500) was a bit much for a game with supposedly very little vertical progression. And I can’t see crafting 6 armor pieces being a walk in the park.
Probably zero. I have 8 characters, 4 of them 80s, and only 1 of them fully geared out with multiple sets of exotics, and exactly no ascended/legendary weapons. I have almost all crafts to 400, artificing at about 425.
Unless they make it much cheaper to acquire ascended armor than it is for the weapons, I don’t see myself having any. The grind for a single ascended weapon’s mats (plus what was needed to get to 500) was a bit much for a game with supposedly very little vertical progression. And I can’t see crafting 6 armor pieces being a walk in the park.
Thank you all for explaining. I kind of understood, but this thread makes so much more sense to me.
A question:
Does the condition dmg tick the same for everyone’s bleeds no matter who “causes” them? It’s something I have been curious about, but haven’t really been clear.
The formula above indicates what each stack of bleeding will tick based on the caster’s condition damage stat. This damage is unaffected by armor so it will tick for the same amount no matter who it’s cast on. All professions are the same in this regard; a ranger and an ele with the exact same condition damage stat will have identical damage dealt per bleed stack.
…. <stuff> ….
So 79.3 is the amount of damage done at 1 stack of bleeds is 79.3 per tick? That seems a little lack luster for a level 80:P Is this correct? Sorry but I really want to get this right so I can fine tune my build.
To clarify your damage: this is per stack. I’m sure you can easily stack 10 bleeds on a target with almost no effort, giving you a sustained 793 damage per tick on top of whatever else you’re doing to that target.
Also, 736 is not a very high number for a condition build. If you’re striving for 100% conditions you’ll want to get that higher and/or supplement with might stacks. If you’re running a hybrid of power & condition damage, then I’d say that’s quite good actually.
Working as intended does not change the fact that we are comparatively weaker when using our kits than other classes due to this fact.
Really? My Bomb Kit has no issues outdamaging my Sword/Focus Guardian. In full ascended. And though I can’t say which is ultimately better, the Bomb Kit definitely does nearly identical damage to my Warrior’s axe (which is also ascended).
Power coefficients play a much larger role in overall DPS than weapon strength. This is why Elementalist conjured weapons, despite also having 969 weapon damage, are so incredible.
While that’s true about coefficients, you can’t deny the fact that your guardian and warrior deal more damage with ascended weapons than they do with exotics. Meanwhile, upgrading my exotic rifle to ascended does not improve the damage of my bombs. You can’t pick a random kit & random weapon and compare their damage. That’s like saying that my thief’s dagger out-damages my ranger’s axe. That’s by design. But increasing either from exotic to ascended will increase their respective damage output.
A bicycle may not be broken, but you don’t want to enter a race with it against a car.
Working as intended does not change the fact that we are comparatively weaker when using our kits than other classes due to this fact.
I can agree they should change it, but the ridiculous hyperbole is a bit unnecessary.
I wouldn’t call it ridiculous hyperbole, but rather an analogy to illustrate the difference between broken and effective. I find differences of opinions on specific topics are often times simply a matter of perspective. I was trying to clearly explain mine.
A bicycle may not be broken, but you don’t want to enter a race with it against a car.
Working as intended does not change the fact that we are comparatively weaker when using our kits than other classes due to this fact.
Charr have Hidden Pistol racial which some people use for rifle/SD builds, but I find other skills better.
I went asura because I preferred the way the packs look on them vs other larger races. Too high up on Charr, comically tiny on male norn, , too bulky on human/norn female…
Test it out for aesthetics. Head to the Mists to break out all the kits right away.
This has been suggested so many times and I’ve never seen a red post in answer. It actually baffles me that this function is not in the TP considering it’s in literally every other MMO I’ve played with a TP-like feature.
@ Lanfear: The reason people whined wasn’t simply because it was a reskin (although shouts about laziness definitely were there) but rather that the light armor was a cultural T3 reskin, allowing all races to attain human cultural armor for 1/2 price, making it less exclusive.
They’re climbin into your account, +1ing people up, tryin to rate them. So ya’ll need to hide yo kids, hide yo wives, and hide yo husbands cause they ratin errybody out here.
Switching healing skills of my mesmer all the time. Normal Heal, Mantra, Reflection.
New Elites? PHA! They should fix the current one’s first! Look at the engineer for example: 1 Elite and 2 completly useless.
They should fix the existing elites but they should add new ones very soon because classes currently have only 3 elites each. Also, most of the classes can only use 1 elite underwater, which means that there is no choice for most players in what elite to use in underwater combat.
Yea I’m still saving skill points so I can get my 30pt Tornado for my Ele. I’m level 50 and am almost there. Didn’t realize it’s the only underwater elite option I have and it’s freakin’ 30pts.
