Guild Wars 2

There are actually two. The ash legion spy kit gives you 10 sec while standing still. The order of whispers spy kit gives you just 3 sec but you can move (pop multiple kits to get more duration – they’re just 16 c each).

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/16/gw2-useful-and-fun-consumables-guide/

I’ve noticed my jaguar is sometimes stealthed when it gets feared (at the dragon events), even though I haven’t hit F2 and the skill still shows as available (indicating it hasn’t been used). It’s definitely stealthed, not a culling issue – I can still see it as a transparent outline.

That doesn’t necessarily mean fear has something to do with it. It may just be that I only really see my pet when it gets feared because otherwise it’s underneath the dragon’s feet while I’m far back plinking it with arrows.

I check the price of everything on TP before deciding. The game makes it ridiculously easy to do this. Open TP, click on sell, and it’ll list everything in your inventory. Click on them one at a time and you can see the current sell/offer prices. Compare to the NPC price and decide. Takes about 1-3 minutes for a full inventory. (Be mindful of the 10% TP fee and 5% listing fee.)

Some of the white/blue stuff sells for a lot on TP.
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/24941

Do you really want to sell that to an NPC just because you’re too lazy to spend a couple minutes checking on TP? You just spent an hour or two amassing all that junk in your inventory. What’s a couple minutes more checking it on TP?

I haven’t been able to figure out a salvage vs. sell strategy yet because I haven’t found an online resource which tells me what mats I’ll get if I salvage something. The prices for materials don’t ramp up linearly with level. In terms of price, orichalcum ore > mithril ore > gold ore > copper ore > platinum ore > iron ore > silver ore. So you can’t decide based simply on the color of the item. You need to know exactly what it’s likely to salvage into.

Aye.8392:

More than anything else I use my portal stone as an AFK fort. If I have to be away for a bit I’ll activate the portal stone and go to the HoM, when I’m back to playing I’ll hit the stone again and be right back in the world. It’s worthwhile to note that it doesn’t matter if you played GW1 at all, you can get the stone for this from a vendor in Lions Arch.

You don’t need a stone for an AFK fort. Just click the crossed swords in the upper left and click “enter the Heart of the Mists”, and go AFK. When you’re back, click the crossed swords and click “leave the Heart of the Mists”, and you’ll be back where you were.

Galrenmar.7025:

On the topic of passwords, though:

I did a security test with a friend not long ago; within ten minutes, I’d accessed her three e-mail accounts, her Twitter and Facebook accounts, four MMO forum accounts (yikes!), and two chatrooms that she regularly visited.

They were all set with the same password — which I got from the first e-mail account I tried to access just by clicking on the ‘Forgot Password’ link and guessing her secret question.

What email service was this? So I can recommend my friends to stay clear of it.

Any good service does not store your password. They store a hash which was created by running your password through an encryption algorithm. You type in your password, they run it through the same algorithm, and if the result matches the hash then you must’ve typed the correct password. That way even if someone hacks the server and gets a copy of all the hashes, they still don’t know what the passwords were.*

So if you click the “forgot password” link and guess the secret question, all you should be able to do is set a new password. It’s impossible for a good service to show you the old password because they don’t know it. Only the truly bad services store your actual password.

Using a single password for everything is still a bad idea though. Many of the recent online gaming hacks stem from people using the same password. Anet can have the best security in the world, but it’s useless if you’re using the same username and password on a different site that has no security. Or if you click a link in a phishing email and enter your login and password thinking it’s no big deal because it’s for some junk forum you once signed up for but never visit. Forgetting that it’s the same username and password you use for your banking.

If you tend to use a single password, I’d suggest using a password manager like KeePass.

(* There are tricks to get around this too, and tricks to counter those tricks. But that discussion falls outside the scope of this topic and forum.)

Mordjinn.7385:

Now all of us hit lvl 35 and we thought it might be fun to get some challenge and head to the Ascalonian Catacombs.

I’m going to go out on a really small limb and guess that even though you hit 35, most of your gear is low 30s or even level 20s. And you probably only have one ring and one earring (the early quest rewards) since they almost never drop as loot. And you’re using the level 20s back item you got for joining an order.

The dungeons can be difficult for 4 level 80s fully outfitted in exotics. Scaled down, that’d be 4 level 35s using level 35 exotic armor, weapons, and jewelry. So it’s no surprise you had problems.

Unfortunately, the level scaling in the game means the problem will persist until you’re level 80 and upgrade to level 80 gear. So the easiest way to do what you want is to level to 80 and outfit yourselves with level 80 exotic gear (actually 78-80 will do).

If you really want to do it at your current level, you’re going to have to spend a small fortune upgrading your gear. I don’t think there are level 35 exotics, so you’ll need to buy level 35 rare armor and weapons. And when you pick up a few more levels you’re going to have to do it all over again. (If you’re level 40 and run the dungeon you’ll get scaled down to level 35, meaning the gear will be scaled down to about level 30.6.)

Sucks but that’s the way it is.

Rhaps.8540:

It’s pretty simple to get the burst. Stalk on the panther, Sick ‘em, Quickening Zephyr
1 autoattack on the sb. You don’t need a maul off yer pet as the regular attacks will crit for over 3k and Rampage as One isn’t needed for the full effect either, altho obviously it will help.

If the target dies this quick, the only benefit from RaO is fury (+20% crit chance). You don’t really need fury if you’re using the jaguar pet to stealth as done in the video. When stealthed, the next 3 attacks automatically crit. (Might be more, depends on if it ends on # of attacks or a set amount of time – never thought to test that.)

Actually I’d question the need for fury at all. In the tests I did with this build, the cat would critical on 70% of its attacks all on its own.

firebreathz.7692:

link

Yup, the 3k and 6k hits in rapid succession in the video is maul. So in addition to firing his elite and every utility skill (for extra pet damage and quickness), he got lucky and the cat used maul.

Edit: Found the post I made on my guild forums.

20 Skirmishing
10 Wilderness Survival
30 Beastmastery
10 points left to distribute as you please (10 in Marksmanship can be used to extend pet condition duration).

The traits you want are:

Skirmisshing
- Pet’s prowess – pet does 30% more damage on criticals
- Carnivorous appetite – pet heals on criticals (this is important for survivability)

Wilderness Survival
- Expertise training – pets deal extra condition damage

Beastmastery
- any of the five pet traits in the first trait slot work
- Rending attacks – cats, drakes, devourers, sharks bleed on criticals (this is most important to get)
- Natural healing – pets (and you) regenerate hp while in combat

For PvP purposes, you may not need carnivorous appetite. And just to be clear, I did not come up with this. It’s one of a gazillion BM builds floating around, I just summarized it.

The cats have higher precision than the other pets (other than birds), so will crit more often. As you add points to BM, their precision (and other stats) get higher, so they crit even more. There are various traits to increase pet crit damage, add bleed on crits, and increase bleed damage. And you can use a various skills to give your pet fury (20% higher chance to crit), and increased damage on the next hit.

One of the cats’ automatic skills (maul I think) is a double-attack – the first does regular damage, the second double damage. So combined if they both crit will do 2x + 4x = about 6x the damage of a regular attack if you’re properly traited. Do note however that the ranger has no control over when this skill fires. Sometimes you get lucky and it’s the pet’s opening attack. Other times the target dies before the pet uses it (20 sec cooldown on the skill). And more to the point, there’s no way to reliably use the “increased damage on next pet attack” skill just before the pet uses maul. It’s all down to luck.

Kotli.4519:

As the others said it don’t have difficulty setting due to being an online MMO.

The difficulty settings are:
- Easy: warrior, thief (in PvP), guardian
- Medium: mesmer, ranger (in PvE), elementalist, thief (in PvE)
- Hard: ranger (in PvP), engineer, necro

=)

As for progressing in the game well you can stay in the start zone for ever and still progress in levels (XP drops though so it will take for ever) and gear (some gear dropped is always around you level). Or she can just run around exploring everything. Oh one big thing to do is unlock all the weapon skills for her character.

I dunno if some of the themes in the game are appropriate for a 7 year old. But the game is very friendly to explorer types. Killing stuff is probably the worst way to gain exp. Best way is exploring and discovering new places and new things, and questing. I’m an explorer type and I found myself constantly thinking I was leveling too quickly.

I managed the map completion on the first couple zones, but after that I was leveling beyond the mobs in the zone before I could fully explore it. I had to put off exploration and just move on to the next zone. Then after I hit 80 I started working backwards (map completion of the level 70-80 zones gives you two pieces of exotic loot), exploring all the areas I’d skipped over because I outgrew them. Now I’m working on new characters to explore the other racial zones.

Damage = weapon_damage * power * skill_coefficient / armor
Crit damage multiplier = 1 + (0.5+crit_damage)*(crit_chance)
(for crit_damage and crit_chance, 0.01 = 1%)

Pow = intial power stat
Pre = initial precision stat
n = number of points you can add to power or precision

Damage increase from increasing power is easy to calculate.
Power damage increase = (Pow + n) / Pow

Damage increase from increasing precision is a bit more tricky.
At 916 precision you’re at 4% crit chance.
At level 80 you gain an extra 1% chance per 21 precision.
Crit damage multiplier = 1 + (.5+crit_damage) * (.04 + (Pre-916)/2100)

If you increase Pre by n, the overall damage increase is then

Crit damage increase = Crit damage multipler (Pre+n) / Crit damage multiplier (Pre)
= [ 1 + (.5+crit_damage) * (.04 + (Pre-916+n)/2100) ] / [ 1 + (.5+crit_damage) *(.04 + (Pre-916)/2100) ]

Wow is that a mouthful. For the increased damage from power to equal the increased damage from precision, these two have to be equal. Power damage increase = Crit damage increase

(Pow + n) / Pow = ( (.5+crit_damage) * (.04 + (Pre-916+n)/2100) + 1) / ( (.5+crit_damage) * (.04 + (Pre-916)/2100) + 1)

The bottom line
At this point I’ll skip the intermediate algebra. The above mess simplifies to:

crit_damage = [ 2100 / (Pow – 2100*crit_chance) ] – 0.5
crit_chance = 0.04 + (Pre-916)/2100

That’s the break-even point. Put your hero’s power and crit chance (or precision) score into the bolded formula. If your crit_damage% is higher than that number the formula gives, then 1 point into precision will benefit you more than 1 point in power in raw, non-sigil damage. If your crit_damage% is lower, then power is better. (I put crit_chance separately so you can just type in the figure from your hero sheet. 45% crit chance = 0.45)

Examples
Base level 80 (916 power, 916 precision)
crit_damage = 2.024
You need >202% critical damage before putting a point in precision is better than power.

My ranger (1600 power, 1800 precision)
crit_damage = 2.822
I’d need >282% critical damage before putting a point in precision is better than power. I stat her this way because I love my fire sigils.

My newbie warrior in the Mists (PvP upleveled to level 80, 2300 power, 916 precision)
crit_damage = .448
Putting points in precision will yield more average damage if crit damage > 44%.

Clearly the game mechanics have been designed to (1) favor power over precision since precision can benefit from proc on crit sigils, and (2) to discourage highly lop-sided builds with one attribute being much higher than the other.

GummiBear.2756:

@Ragion in the example with 30%, im taking 30% of the original 30 (ie 9 and adds that to the proc chance). yes the way i wrote the calculation was a bit of a shortcut, in fact the full formula would be: 30+(30*30/100)=39% (the numbers in the parentheses being the actual percentage calculation, and the 30 outside being to add it to the original 30%, the parentheses in the calculation is strictly speaking not needed actually, but helps making it a bit easier to understand i think)

You’re using the wrong probability for your second calc. You have 30% chance for the first sigil to proc. Then you’re using the time the first sigil procs to limit the second sigil procing (30%*30%). The extra 9% you’ve calculated is basically the chance for the second sigil to proc any time the first sigil procs, if both were allowed to proc simultaneously.

That’s not what you want. You want to use the time the first sigil doesn’t proc in the second calc. (70%*30%).

So you end up with 30% + (70%*30%) = 30% + 21% = 51% which is what I got.

Or in English:

30% of the time the first sigil procs
70% of the time the first sigil doesn’t proc
- When the first sigil doesn’t proc, the second sigil procs 30% of the time
- When the first sigil doesn’t proc, the second sigil doesn’t proc 70% of the time

Which in overall numbers is:

30% of the time the first sigil procs
During the 70% the first sigil doesn’t proc
- 70% * 30% = 21% of the time the second sigil procs
- 70% * 70% = 49% of the time the second sigil doesn’t proc

So 30% first sigil procs, 21% second sigil procs, 49% neither sigil procs.

Ragion.2831:

I forgot to clarify some things. Yes i understand the sigil will only work when the weapon it is on is active and yes i understand using 2 of the same sigils will share the same cooldown.

Even two different sigils will share the same cooldown. Basically, there’s one cooldown timer. If a sigil procs, the cooldown timer starts using the cooldown of that sigil. So if you’ve got a 5 sec CD sigil and a 30 sec CD sigil, when the 5 sec sigil procs you get a 5 sec CD. When the 30 sec sigil procs you get a 30 sec CD. Neither sigil is allowed to proc while the CD timer is ticking.

What im asking is if having 2 superior blood sigils active at the same time will raise the proc rate from 30-60%.

I really doubt they add, since the only way that would make sense would be if both sigils could proc simultaneously (which would violate the single CD rule above).

More likely it works like this: You swing weapon. Check if first sigil procs. If it does, the CD timer is started and so suppresses the second sigil. If it doesn’t proc, check if second sigil procs. That would be the most straightforward way to code it.

So if you’ve got two of the same 30% sigils, the chance of the sigil not procing is: (1-30%)x(1-30%) = 49%. So the two 30% sigils stack to give you a 51% chance to proc.

Or perhaps a more intuitive way to think of it is the first sigil has a 30% chance to proc. The 70% of the time when it doesn’t proc, the second sigil has a 30% chance to proc. So the chance of both to proc is 30% + (70% x 30%) = 30% + 21% = 51%. If you’ve got two different 30% sigils, the sigil on the main weapon has a 30% chance while the sigil on the off-hand weapon has a 21% chance.

That’s how I interpret the Notes section of the wiki.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil

The third question about sigil of leeching, if 2 are on off hand and main hand, will the hp gotten from swapping to them and hitting be doubled?

No idea.

20% was the rate observed in this thread for going from rare → exotic, using a sample of 1400 weapons (350 combines at the mystic forge)

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/11879a/more_legendary_precursor_crafting_research/

You might have figured out already from the multiple mentions, but the Lenovo Y580 is widely regarded as the best bang for the buck gaming laptop right now. Quad core and nVidia 660m with 1080p screen for $800-$900 is tough to beat. Occasionally you can pick up refurbs from the Lenovo outlet store for around $600. (They tend to restock Thursday afternoon/evening if you want to camp it.)

You can get something with a better CPU and/or GPU, but you’ll pay out the nose for it.

DancinPuppeh.8421:

A lot of people have issues with the Ranger and I really don’t see why. Sure the pets die easy, sure the Damage we deal is lower than most. But the reason we deal lower damage is because our pets can deal the same damage of us… So yes a Ranger alone is weak. But a Ranger + Pet attack is a lot more powerful than you’d think.

The problem I have with this reasoning is that if you need the pet damage to make the ranger on par with other class damage, then the ranger should get that pet damage for free.

Unfortunately, to really make the pet effective you need to devote several traits to it. Traits you can’t use for other abilities. Other classes aren’t hindered by this burden. Mind you, there is one combo (cats) which completely blows all the other pets away, so you could argue a few traits make pets balanced while more traits make them more powerful. But if that’s the case I’d like to see it true for all pets, not just cats.

Then there’s the oft-mentioned pet scaling problem. Other classes get to level 80, then upgrade to exotic gear for a ~20% damage boost. If my ranger’s damage is 70% ranger, 30% pet, then upgrading to exotic weapons means I get a (0.7*1.2)+(0.3) = 1.14 or only a 14% damage boost.

Same goes for armor/tanking. Rangers need a way to “upgrade” their pets. Maybe a collar item which boosts pet stats. Or if they want to be lazy about it, just have ranger stats partly affect pet stats.

Silvanus.5821:

I tried going beastmaster, even though this was one of the most successful builds I’ve seen so far in sPvP as a ranger, it just doesn’t cut it because pet rarely hits a fly AND if you use one of the powerful ones (feline or bird) it’s too squishy. One way to get around this is to keep snaring your opponent (Sigil of superior ice is a good choice)

The sigil of superior ice would seem to be a terrible choice. It’s 2 sec of slow with a 10 sec cooldown. Factor in chance to proc and you’re looking at about 2 sec of slow per 12-15 sec. Muddy terrain is probably a better choice. Cripples every 2 sec, sticks around for 20 sec, 30 sec cooldown.

That said, based on past games I’ve played I’m pretty sure the bug with pets being unable to attack moving targets is that they’ve set the pet attack range = skill range. So the pet runs within range of a fleeing target, starts its attack, and by the time the skill fires the target is out of range. The fix is to either make the attack range shorter than the skill range so there’s a good chance the target will still be in range when the skill fires.

Another problem is the chase algorithm they’re using. It heads for your current position. They need to make it lead slightly – predict where you’re going and have the pet move to that point instead. That’ll make it cut more corners if a target tries to zig-zag, making the pet catch up more quickly. They’re doing this for ranged projectiles, so it should be easy to adopt and transfer over to pets.

Both problems affect mobs too (circle strafing is ridiculously effective at avoiding nearly all mob melee damage). So a fix for the pets will also make PvE harder.

Mathematically, it’s impossible to answer this question without knowing how the two trade off. e.g. If you give up 5% crit chance, how much % crit damage do you gain? You also need a starting point (e.g. at 25% crit chance, you’re at 50% crit damage). If you don’t know the tradeoff, then you’ve got two unknowns and one equation, and it’s impossible to solve for a maximum.

Once you know the tradeoff, you can just plot a graph spanning from 0% crit chance to max% crit chance.

Average damage w/ crits = (1.5+crit_damage_%)(crit_chance_%) + (1-crit_chance_%)

e.g. for crit_damage_% = 50% and crit_chance_% = 30%
Average damage w/ crits = (1.5 + 0.5)(0.3) + (1-0.3)
= (2)(0.3) + 0.7
= 1.3 times your damage with no crits

Running some sample numbers through this, it seems like crit chance is usually more valuable. Add a sigil which procs on crit and crit chance is even more favored.

Reganov.3569:

I’m using both Longbow and Shortbow at the moment,
Multiple target; Volley>Hunter’s Shot>Rapid Fire -then switch to Shortbow
Single target; Hunter’s Shot>Rapid Fire -then switch

That’s the distinction I would make too. Longbow = AOE, shortbow = single target. DPS-wise, they are about the same (assuming longbow is at long range) with two exceptions. If you can Barrage (and the mobs stay in it), then LB is far better. If you can flank and bleed, then SB is far better.

I tend to favor SB because the other ranger AOE skills (targeted traps, multi-target melee weapons) are short to medium range, and so don’t mesh well with LB as a primary weapon.

I should add I’m not using a condition build.

Having a “condition build” doesn’t really increase your damage from condition effects all that much. Assuming level 80:

Burning damage per sec = 8 + (4*level) + (condition damage/4)
= 328 + condition damage/4
0 condition damage = 328 damage per sec
300 condition damage = 403 per sec, a 23% increase

Bleed damage per sec = 2.5 + (level/2) + (condition damage/20)
= 42.5 + condition damage/20
0 condition damage = 42.5 damage per sec
300 condition damage = 57.5, a 35% increase

So in both cases, the vast majority of your condition damage comes from just being a ranger rather than your build. Add in condition damage from equipment and buffs and the difference in condition damage between a 0 wilderness and 30 wilderness build becomes even smaller.

Don’t get me wrong, the % increase is roughly the same as putting points into power or precision so it’s not like condition damage is a horrible investment. I’m just saying don’t make the mistake of thinking that your condition damage is worthless just because you’re not running a condition build.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Because you look like fricken yoda when you attack. Nuff said.

And if your character is female, she’ll give you gratuitous panty shots as her skirt flies up. =)

But seriously, I’ve been playing around with the melee skills and they’re a lot of fun. Melee rangers get a ton of evades, a block, interrupts, even a AOE vulnerability and damage skill. There are also leaps which you can use to combo off of traps and healing spring for things like extra healing, fire or frost armor, weakness, as well as combo off of other players’ fields. I just wish we had a blast finisher to combo with.

Durzlla.6295:

So, i just tested both auto attacks, longbow while flanking (since the build i’m testing with is 30/30/10 with berserkers, gotta make sure i get teh 25pt on both): is 12s
Longbow non flanking: 14.9s

Shortbow flanking: 11.2s
Shortbow non flanking: 15.7s

Longbow flank + 5 and 3: 8.5s
Shorbow flank + 2 (all others seem to be a dps decrease when pet is not used): 10.6s

Longbow +5 and 3 front: 10s
Shortbow Front +2: 15.4s

LB ~750yds: 15.7s
LB point blank: 24.8s

LB ~750 + 3, 2, 5: 9.7s (died mid rapid fire)
LB point blank + 3, 2, 5: 8.7s (died mid rapid fire)

LB~750 flank: 20.1s
LB point blank flank: 23.3s

LB ~750 flank + 3, 2, 5: 7.9s
LB point blank flanking + 3, 2, 5: 7.9s

As you can see, the longbow isn’t all that pre skills, but the second you start using its abilities it completely DESTROYS the SB in terms of damage,

All your figures showing longbow to be better rely on Barrage. So the conditions of your findings are (1) the target does not try to close range, and (2) the target stays within the barrage for the full duration. Violate those conditions and your figures are no longer accurate. (1) is frequently violated, and (2) is almost always violated.

From the testing I’ve done, Barrage is the only worthwhile longbow skill. Rapid shot actually doesn’t do much more damage than autoattack. The vulnerability from Hunter’s helps a little (more useful in a group setting). And Point blank only pushes the target to medium range – basically if you’re in a situation where you have to use point blank shot, you’re better off switching to a different weapon. (Exception might be if you can knock another player off a cliff.)

But barrage is highly situational. The situations when you can reliably count on the target remaining inside for the full duration (5 sec) are exceedingly rare. That’s why I didn’t include it in my tests. If I run across a Barrage situation, then I’ll whip out the longbow and use it (I always carry one in my pack). But for most fights Barrage only contributes small or negative DPS (I lose time I could’ve been autoattacking to fire Barrage, and the target avoids all or most of the barrage damage).

A guildmate and I were discussing this as well, and I realized another difference is in the bleed effect. Condition damage ignores armor. So the tests on the heavy golem are close to a best-case for the shortbow Against medium and especially light armor targets, the physical DPS will be greater relative to the condition (bleed) DPS, taking shortbow down a notch relative to longbow. (Still need to test to see which is better.)

Dee Jay.2460:

Vol.5241:

I don’t know why people here think they know more about the economy than an economist.

And yet so called “experts” are known to give less reliable predictions than amateurs.

There’s a dynamic at play in economics which works against expert predictions in modern economies. Economics strives to reduce inefficiencies. When an economy is poorly developed, the inefficiencies are rather large and easy to identify. So it’s easy to predict what’s going to happen.

As the large inefficiencies are eliminated, the size of economic motions due to random chance becomes larger relative to the remaining inefficiencies. The effect of random chance itself doesn’t actually increase, but because the inefficiencies are growing smaller, the magnitude of random chance’s effect relative to market effects does. So the more developed (more efficient) an economy becomes, the harder it becomes to predict.

Unfortunately, some people mistakenly conflate this with “experts” not knowing what the economy is doing. That’s simply not true. They know a helluva lot more than some monkey blindly making stock picks. It’s just that our economy is so efficient that it only takes a few random events to make the monkey’s predictions better than the expert’s predictions.

however it did not notify me that the authenticator code was wrong, just that the password was wrong, that needs to be fixed so the client and website actually needs to informs you that the authentication code failed

Doing this weakens the security. If an attacker knows which part of the login attempt failed, they can concentrate on cracking that until it succeeds. If they don’t know which part failed, they might have gotten one part right but won’t know it. The only way they can successfully crack you account is to simultaneously get the username, password, and authentication code correct. Cracking all three at the same time is much harder than being able to crack one at a time.

The error message needs to be changed to “The username, password, or authentication code you entered was invalid.”

Imagine you’re a ranger’s pet. You’re lounging around in the animal version of Valhalla or wherever it is pets go when stowed, enjoying a nice nap in the sun or maybe being amorous with your mate. Suddenly you’re ripped out of your comfy existence and materialize in the middle of a combat zone, where your master expects you to immediately and instantly fight whatever it is s/he has targeted. Wouldn’t you be disoriented for a second or two? =)

But yeah, please extend the duration of quickness on the pet to compensate.

In previous games I’ve assigned caps lock to auto-attack. That would work a lot better than ctrl-right clicking the #1 skill.

Unfortunately, GW2 doesn’t have a binding for auto-attack. Even stopping my attacks when I get hit with confusion is a pain. I can hit esc, but that’ll also bring up my options menu, and I have to play for a while with it covering up part of my view. Or I have to turn my camera around and move forward (turning my character away from the target).

The game could really use an auto-attack toggle keybind.

SB at melee range w/ poison opener: 10-11 sec

My Sweet Lily.1952:

Btw I don’t think sb is stronger than anything else. 1h sword is. Lots of dmg and fast attack speed. But there is a downside to it, melee range=danger zone.

I tested the 1h sword too on the heavy golem with the same build. Average kill time was 13 sec. So the SB is actually slightly better.

Where the 1h sword shines is when fighting multiple mobs clummped up.

Durzlla.6295:

Don’t listen to sweet lily, they know not what they say.

Shortbow is better at close range, longbow is better at long range, at long range just pressing the 1 skill pumps out as much damage as the shortbow can WITH its bleed

When was this? I picked up the game over Thanksgiving and had the same question. So in December I went to the test golems in the Mists with both PvP bows and a stopwatch. SB was hands down better.

Ok, I just went to the Mists again and retested on a heavy golem. Using vanilla LB and SB at max range with 30/30/10/0/0 build, and 20% faster bow skill recharge:

LB auto-attack only: 20 sec (18-21 sec variance)
SB auto-attack only: 19 sec (18-20 sec variance)

LB #3, #2, then #1: 19 sec (18-21 sec variance)
LB #2, #2, #1, #3, #1: 17 sec (16-19 sec variance)
SB w/ bleed: 12 sec (11-12 sec variance)

The animation delays pretty much cancel out most of the benefit of using the LB #2 and #3 skills (though #3 is still useful in a group).

Also note that due to the bug of auto-attack not working at extreme range even though the weapon is in range, the distance where LB does max damage but will still auto-attack is rather narrow. You pretty much have to get the increased LB range trait to make it viable.

So:
worst-case LB is worse than worst-case SB
best-case LB is barely better than worst-case SB
best-case LB is far worse than best-case SB
And SB is easier to use (just leave it on auto-attack)

There’s a gold seller in Lion’s Arch repeatedly spamming his website URL using all sorts of different characters (and I assume different accounts since blocking one doesn’t block the others).

Can we get an option to filter speech based on keywords we type? That way I can just block anything with his URL without having to individually block each and every one of his accounts, and new ones as he buys them to replace banned ones.

I’ve run across a couple NPCs whose pathing seems designed to hinder or annoy you. I’m sure there are others.

In Lion’s Arch Trading Post, there’s a “citizen” who occasionally wanders in and stands right in front of the middle TP NPC. Her sole purpose seems to be to intercept the F you type to try to interact with that TP NPC.

At the Divinity’s Reach bank, there’s a guard who walks up to the left-most banker. When he’s standing there, he intercepts your F. It’s impossible to interact with that banker unless you first click on her to select her.

Can the pathing of these NPCs be changed so they stop a little further from these places and don’t intercept your F meant for other NPCs? I realize these are minor annoyances, but likewise they’re easy fixes.

ATMAvatar.5749:

Alternatively, they could simply let players designate which priority the action key takes for which actions.

It is prioritized. If you have an NPC and a lootable body on top of each other, F will always loot the body first.

The problem is when you have a bunch of lootable bodies, you want to run around spamming F to loot. As long as there’s a body nearby it will loot. But when there isn’t, the F will initiate the NPC’s dialogue. So prioritizing won’t help. They need to be on separate keybinds.

Ahlen.7591:

This is an incredibly biased statement. I can only assume that you have played a previous game and had bad experiences, or that you have no background at all and are just repeating what others have told you.

I enjoy vertical progression myself – I want to always see my character improving, having something to strive for to make my character better.

Agreed. People who like vertical progression are legitimate players too. No need to denigrate their preferred playstyle. Most of them aren’t driven by the need to be better than anyone else. They do it because they like setting up goals for themselves, then working to achieve them.

For people who ONLY enjoy horizontal progression, do you also go through life with no goals? Do you not strive to get that bigger paycheck? To improve your living situation? Your relationship status?

Life is vertical progression.

Whoa, now you’ve completely flipped the denigration the other way. Life is most definitely not just vertical progression. Do you enjoy walks on the beach? Watching movies? Going to the amusement park? Playing catch with your kids? Sitting around and shooting the breeze with your friends?

None of these advance you in any way. But most would argue they’re the whole point of living. The vertical progression you seem to imply is the purpose of life is, for most people, merely a necessary evil you have to suffer through in order to gather the resources and free time to do the things you truly enjoy.

If you haven’t read Bartle’s paper on MUD player types, please do so.
http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm

Achievers are the people interested in vertical progression. If they can’t advance their characters, there’s no point playing the game. But they’re just one type of player. And by no means is their playstyle essential to any game.

Unfortunately for us non-achievers, pretty much every MMORPG out there has turned into achiever games. It’s understandable – online games live and die by keeping players returning. And the achievement treadmill has an addictive quality which keeps people playing even if they’re bored or frustrated with the game. It makes life easy for the developer. Get the players hooked and it doesn’t really matter if you screw up some of the mechanics or balance, how un-fun a quest or encounter is, or how much they hate you for what you’re doing to screw up “their” game. They’ll keep playing because they have to hear that next ding, have to get that next piece of loot, have to kill the next boss. Even if they want to quit, they can’t because they can’t bring themselves to “give up” everything they’ve achieved so far in the game.

I’m an explorer type myself – I get my fun from seeing the world, experiencing the different encounters, figuring out how stuff works. Leveling and acquiring better gear is merely a necessary evil towards this end. It’s the reason I was so drawn to the original Guild Wars. I’d tried and quit several other MMORPGs because the level grind simply became too much. I hated how much time I was wasting on leveling and gearing, but without levels and top-end gear I was unable to explore and discover large portions of the game. Then came GW and I could hit the level cap in a few weeks, and my gear didn’t really matter. After a few weeks I was free to explore as much as I wanted, anywhere I wanted. And the different skills meant I could explore the same area over and over with different skills trying to figure out which combo worked best for a specific area or encounter. I was in nirvana.

That’s largely the reason I bought GW2 – the promise that I wouldn’t have to run the achievement treadmill in order to get my enjoyment from the game. That and the fact that time constraints in RL have forced me to become a casual gamer. I can’t play 8 hours a day like I did when I was in school. I have a job and other responsibilities which take my time. Usually I’m lucky if I can play a couple hours in a night. If the game’s level/gear curve is balanced to be challenging for those playing 8 hours a day, then it’s completely hopeless for me. Why should I even bother playing?

GW/GW2 was supposed to be the solution to this – the game for the casual player. If they’re going to turn it into a game which caters primarily to achievers, I’m out of here (well, I’ll probably explore 100% of the map first since I already bought the game). I’ll most likely end up in some private server for some free game, where I can easily max out my levels and gear with minimal fuss. That way I can get busy exploring the world the artists have made, figuring out the mechanics the devs toiled over to get just right.