Guild Wars 2

tentakeljugend.3276:

The fifth attempt worked, although only because of another bug, i think. While fighting the drake in the first vertical tunnel, Forgal clipped through the wall and suddenly the missing guardsmen objective was cleared and i was told to continue investigating the sewers. I figured i could rush to the green guy now, did that, but died in the fight. When i respawned at the checkpoint, the green guy clipped through the floor and attacked me outside. Forgal clipped along and we killed him, but apparently there was one shark left, because the kill undead objective didn’t clear. So i went down into the cave again, to find one of the sharks clipping his head through the wall. Killed him, and the final objective cleared.
I don’t want to complain or anything, but guys, this quest is one super buggy mess.

Yes, there is a Risen Shark that seems to be an ‘add’ or follower of some sort that’s tied to the Orrian Scout. Thankfully I decided to take him out first early in the fight, since it was becoming hard to dodge around both in three dimensions. :-p

However, midway through the tunnels Forgal ended up following a mob someplace through a wall, and never saw him again. The mob in question appeared to be non-important as I was able to complete this story step without either.

@ Nikked, the problem is that the more complicated builds require many repetitive keypresses and has a chance of causing RSI, and/or (in my case) inflaming an existing condition with regular use.

This may be just a general GW2/ANet issue. I spent a couple days exploring how the Thief works and I was starting to have the same problem (once she has Trait access it may improve). My Guardian, however, just passed Lv60 and I can play him just fine for hours on end (though I play him semi-passively, working toward the HealWay build).

I’m actually considering starting a thread on the ‘players helping players’ subforum that helps to outline this problem, and steps to still enjoy the game around it (when possible, not requiring expensive hardware). It will probably start in draft form using a post on my personal site, so its easier to maintain.

Fixes to (any) Engineer bugs.
/patch

I would like to thank those in this thread (and the other one) that clarified you only need to find the JPs. While I wasn’t very daunted about locating them all, doing them all would probably not be possible (at least the timed ones anyway, due to reaction time and RSI issues).

Firegoth.6427:

You should actually complain about having to do 100 events before anything else.

Amusingly, I swung by this subforum expecting DEs to be the gripe, not the JPs (OK, I can see some of the Fractals/WvW arguments, and sympathize a bit since my ‘main’ is an engineer).

BTW, how did you determine 100 to be the total, when you can only see the first tier (of three)? Is there an actual calculation to their tier setup or did you actually go through them already? (I can believe the latter, since I was shocked how quickly I got 25 without trying too hard.)

Since its been asked twice now, DR is Diminishing Returns.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diminishing_returns

If you have Carpel Tunnel or some other hand/wrist RSI issues, for now you may want to steer clear of the class. What the grenade/bombs folks here aren’t saying is that those kits do not have an autoattack option for #1, requiring many repetitive keypresses to take down enemies.

My primary playstyle is Rifle /w Elixirs, no toolbelt (can’t reach regularly), sometimes FT. I did spend a few weeks trying out the Explosives line; while its fun, at the end I find myself wearing wrist braces again (something I’ve not had to do since stopping MMA practice). So I’ll probably go back to my ‘safer’ base of 0/30/0/30/10 and tweak from there. I did give EG a whirl and may add that in as well, and if turrets get a bump I may go back to nets again too.

The Rifle/Elixir config (non-SD) does work, but in my case is best used as a team support (CC) in small WvW roams. And I’m OK with that, but it was a pain (in some ways literally) to level solo. If Elixirs had well-defined traits in them (drop the RNG please) then I think the setup would work far better.

L80 Engineer – 124 Deaths, 211.5 hrs. DpH 0.586
L53 Guardian – 38 Deaths, 65.5 hrs. DpH 0.580

The Engineer I use in WvW and the various PvP maps, which will skew results a bit (and will continue to over more time). My K/D ratio in WvW is surprisingly high though, even though I’ve used subpar (PvE) builds on the maps.

Guardian would probably be lower if I didn’t charge head first into certain situations so much at first. Very fun though.

I come here from Eve Online, where you actually lose everything on you at death (regardless of cost). So I’m surprised these figures aren’t lower. :-)

Since I’m seeing some interesting suggestions here about surviving Orr, do any of you with those suggestions have tips about using an Engineer there? Other than Reroll, please. :p

Edit – bear in mind that I have problems with my wrists, so rapid combinations are out. If that makes an Engineer un-viable in Orr (or at all) then I’m fine with other class suggestions.

If you’re set on a pistol/pistol setup, and using this for PvE, have you considered Thief? It’s the only other class that allows it. I’ve not tried it myself, but is still on the table for character #3.

Since you’re looking to be set on Engi, I’ll open up with some personal experience. I run a Rifle setup myself, and pretty happy with it so far. I’m now trying to re-spec/re-trait him for WvW, probably on a semi-permanent basis for small (3-5 man) guild roams (which he’s doing well at).

But I’ve not had very good PvE experience with him; Orr and other zerg-type mobbing is a problem since the class lacks a reliable source of Stability, and the amount of Poison etc thrown about may force you to take certain traits sometimes. Block is very possible through a TankCat setup, but that’s a WW config and is still being explored for PvE use; That’s a Pistol/Shield setup btw, but P/P will probably work with some tweaks.

Also note that (currently) the class is stigmatized to the point that you may not be allowed in certain dungeon PUGs, in particular Fractals (regardless if the character is viable or not). This may be a deal-breaker for you, if you’re developing this character to help with making some extra Gold, Dungeon Tokens etc. I’m primarily a Social player (my first MMO type game being Myst Online), so I don’t care about that.

Again, I recommend you visit their subforum and see what’s working and what’s not. Also, take most of the comments (including my own!) with a grain of salt and try things anyway to see what fits for you. Engineer’s class difficulty/complexity is somewhere in the 11-12 range (on a scale to 10 ;-). But it’s still very fun once you have something working, so don’t be discouraged.

For Quizotic and others reading this later, I would suggest you read ANet’s ‘class vision’ post that came with the latest patch notes. Use that to help determine your choice.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/999247

In particular, read the sections on Necromancer, Engineer, and Elementalist (that last as comparison to another ‘versatile’ class). Then make your own decision as to what has the clearest vision, and visit that class’s forums (as well as your second and third choices) to see how well bugs etc are being worked on.

While I am very disappointed with what ANet wrote there, I’m not going to give a personal opinion about what is best for you. Only you can decide that – and in fact, the game is partially designed to run with multiple characters over time (if only to grab various achievements) so its worth your time to experiment. This is not Eve Online or WoW, where a paid subscription is hanging over your head (making time == money in so many ways).

Good Luck, and above all Have Fun. :-)

The packaging for the Logitech G400 states its the new version of their MX518, which I’ve had for many, many years (circa 2003) and still love – a spare stays with my notebook 24/7 on the off chance I end up at a hotel. Its a balanced gaming/utility mouse IMO, and has served well in many situations, including one or two MMOs. But as mentioned, it has very few buttons to work with.

Last week I caved in and got a G700. I’m still getting the hang of it, but just having the wheel’s side-click has helped a lot (mapped to dodge). I only needed 6-0 mapped for utility, since I’m happy with the rest of the standard keymap. Now I just need to remember to use those. :-)

Another thing about the G700 is that its wireless. This is something I normally have an aversion to (mostly battery life), but the lack of a wire has helped as well due to the confined space I work the mouse from. The difference is very noticeable when I have it plugged in for recharging, since the cord is thicker than the G400’s.

You’ll want to keep this in mind as part of your decision, since the G600 is still a corded mouse IIRC. And I agree about checking them out personally – the 600 costs $20 less than the 700, but I found the layout on the 700 (and its shape) to be easier for my hand.

An update to my ‘Reserve mines’ issue. I finally saw them kick off, but took quite a while before they did activate – well over a minute.

Do we have stats on what these mines are?

+1, I’m looking more and more at my Guardian and thinking I should bring him to 80 ASAP.

Zero Angel.9715:

Go into game options and turn off ‘double tap to evade’ if it’s giving you problems.

I’d like to second this suggestion, since I’ve had the same problem from time to time. I get pretty timid about positioning as height increases, and have tapped WASD a bit too much as well. Dodge by default is V, which could be better but not horrible.

Also, if you have a more recent mouse with a ‘side scrolling’ wheel (L/R wheel click, or whatever you call it), you can bind dodge to that. I use the right wheel click, and now the dodge is much more intuitive (mostly because I tend to circle-strafe to the right). Many folks also just use middle/wheel click as well, if you have an older wheel mouse.

Noted for the OC, I’ll do some more searching on that. I’m not planning to start the swap-out until tomorrow anyway.

From what I’ve checked this is the Ivy. But, the cooler of choice I’ve seen here is the CM 212, and the one I chose (a ‘mid-range’ Zalman) is much larger than that. I’d actually use my current one (OCZ Vendetta) if I can find a kit to make it work with LGA 1155 (this one was built when 775 was mainstream).

Case size is not a factor here, I’m using an original Cosmos. <3 I’m also not against switching to a water setup (home built or premade), the case certainly has the space for it…

I would agree that the ‘rifle’ does not seem to work as such, since that word (to most) implies a distance weapon. To use it to full effectiveness though, I really have to get close-in from time to time and use the #3 skill, usually followed immediately by #4 to regain distance. A lot of people say to get close-in using #5, but I am finding that skill very hit-or-miss recently. :p (this may be a recent bug, since Greatsword #3 on Guardian is having the same issues)

Replacing some other kit with a ‘true’ rifle (sniper fashion) would be an interesting change. If balancing is an issue then replace Elixir X. :p

How critical is that 4.5 Ghz target? My new mainboard’s software has an OC preset that should take it to 4.2, which I suspect should be close enough.

In the interim, I suggest the OP check a new option that will force team colors on everyone, including your own. That’s helped a lot with mid-sized fights right now.

Hmm. Any tips on doing this with a Sylvari Engineer? We don’t have pets or other summons (other than an Elite racial, which is the only thing to really compete with Supply Drop).

Otherwise I’ll finish the re-gearing I had in progress (newly minted 80, first character :-) and consider a re-trait toward more Vit/Tough. And can you res while under Elixir S effect?

Looks like this was the right day to take off on the event chain (or the Internet in general :p ). I’ll check again in a couple days.

Any chance that both gifts would be given out? As long as the s/tPvP gift is not usable in the PvE/WvW sections, I think having the option of both would be fine.

Kat Dugan.1387:

Yes, this change will allow pop guns to fire corks instead of bullets. :-)

Hmm. May look into getting the skin after all. Would be a nice (and amusing) ‘fix’ to owning Charzooka or some of the other, larger rifles (until now the alternative was the Guild Rifle skin).

The weapon skins will apply to all forms/levels of that weapon, right?

Regarding ‘Reserve Mines’ – Is there a clarification somewhere on what triggers them after the fraggin’ things deploy? I’ve never seen them go off, in particular if a group of wolves took me out. :-p

This may be related to the fact that I’ve never taken the ‘Deploy Mine’ kit skill, even now that I’m 80. I keep forgetting to take the skill and test this; If there’s interest I’ll try (since I’ll bet that my current low death rate will rise again with Tixx’s appearance in LA). ;-)

As I mentioned in another thread, the initial ‘overflow’ message should display the same as the ‘about to shutdown’ message – plain overlay text.

The queue popup question appearing in a jump puzzle instance, is a problem I hadn’t thought of. I didn’t do anything timed like that yet. Perhaps just have a default behavior in the Options menu and be done with it…

Okuza.5210:

While that’s potentially possible, I don’t know of any ISP that goes quite so far as to change IPs when there’s an active TCP session or recent UDP activity. It would break the session and they’d have unhappy customers leaving in droves. They might do it on very rare occasions to address a major problem. More typical for the “quickly changing” IP situation would be a new IP every time you power on your computer.

So, log on, play a bit, log off, power down. Next log in after that is a different IP. It’s probably going to be in the same IP block, but that is subject to change on the whim of the ISP, too. This behavior is fairly common and it’s big reason why IP addresses make poor identifiers.

Actually most cable and similar ‘hard link’ ISPs (like FiOS or Optimum Online here in the northeast US) will have your router gather its IP from the ISP’s DHCP (the public address you’ll present to GW2 in this case) and is used on as many PCs in the home network as needed.

I’ve found over the years that the expiration on the router’s public IP/DHCP is pretty long, usually a month or two, maybe more (and also lasts across router bounces, and even short power outages at the house). Some ISPs will also allow the public IP to be static, but normally on a business account only and at very high cost.

So far the only time I’ve encountered a true reset of the router IP was after Sandy rolled by here, taking out the house for a couple days (and had parts of FiOS down several times after that for the following week). The 2003 blackout may also qualify, but I wasn’t tracking use of the public IP back then.

Well, I’m mostly tired of being dumped into LA’s overflow every time I’m there now. :-) Easy fix to that of course is to just replace the original overflow popup with a mid-screen text (like the XP/shutdown/etc messages).

Its definitely an interesting problem.

Would this go any smoother by just bypassing NPCs completely? I’m thinking a new menu screen like the one that you see for WvW and s/tPvP Status. Ideally it should go with a separate chat (another personal irritant, and not just with LA).

Another +1 here, with one change.

Why have a new NPC in LA? If there is already an NPC in front of every entrance (not seen all of them though) then use them instead. You’d save a column in the browser.

Vexor.3640:

In fact i’ve never even seen a Sylvari engineer.

You may have seen them, but mistakenly marked them down as human. Between the leggings, long coat, and pirate hats (at higher levels) the two races will look identical, unless its night time and the Sylvari has the glow set high.

My first character in this game is a Sylvari Engineer, and its been an interesting time (hopefully will be my first 80 this weekend). I really don’t use the racials any more; to my builds the Grasping Vines were best, but my utility slots are usually stuck on B, U, and various kits (usually grenade, but have switched to other items as needs require).

There’s also a good chance I’ll be missed in a town too. If I need to walk away for a bit, I’ll find a quiet spot away from traffic and switch to town clothes. :-)

SolarNova.1052:

2550k/3570k + Motherboard + Evo 212 cooler ( OC as close to 4.5ghz as possible)

Thanks for this suggestion, I’ll look into it. The 3570 in particular I’ve seen matched with Gigabyte mainboards, which is a good sign.

Two questions:

1) Is this the i-series that uses Hyperthreading, or did that finally get dropped? Related to this is if you feel HT will help any here…

2) Why such an extreme OC? OK, I’ve found web references that say its possible, but if we’re looking for parrallel performance here you’d be fine on 8 threads over 4 cores instead, even if just OC’s much lower (say 3.8 or 4.0).

Another Q6600 here, doing relatively fine except in WvW or other areas with large (15+) number of active players. Lion’s Arch has been fine though, most of the PCs are both scattered and not doing any activity that requires a ton of status updates (unlike in a fight).

Other parts of the spec: Win7 x64 Home (not much else installed except Steam etc and a bunch of voice comms apps), 8 gig mem, a ‘hybrid’ HDD (basically an extra large cache – performance has been similar to a WD Raptor for half the cost), and a 550 Ti I believe (on reflection I should have stayed with the 8800 GT – this was probably a downgrade). Also, a large heatsink from OCZ and the original (full tower) Cosmos case. :-)

As I said, Lion’s Arch and general solo roaming (medium settings) – fine. Me and many mobs (sometimes a few players) – fine, a hiccup now and then perhaps. Me and many players – not fine. :p So I’d agree that we’re CPU bound in some way, but specifically due to the number of player updates that come in and need to be rendered. I’m tempted to OC back to 2.8 again and see how that works out.

Kzin and Kajit fan here. :-)

Though I admit to taking Sylvari first (was curious about their story a bit more), the second character I started (last week) was a Charr Guardian. In fact, going through the Whispers Initiate story with Tybalt helped push that decision forward.

Overall its been a good time. I’m a story nut, so the early decisions of Ash Legion and ‘deserter’ father has only helped to round out the military/loyalty feel of the race.

coanunn.2347:

Funny thing is that I live with Gilren, and we often times play at the same time with his wife all on the same network. The “official” response he’s gotten so far is that the issue is client side or ISP driven. Now what makes this funny is he has the same laptop I have, running the same setup except video drivers and yet I’ve not had any of these issues while using an older Nvidia driver. Not only will he have FPS issues while playing, we’ve seen FPS issues on the character selection screen! This is clearly not an issue with bandwidth but rather with the current patch not working with the latest drivers from Nvidia.

What driver version are you on? I’m beginning to regret taking the launcher’s recommendation (to upgrade) when I started a couple months back.

Thankfully its mostly reared its head in WvW, but its a big downer as I was just starting to get into that. But even on lowest video settings I’m getting slide shows in keeps now. :-( Just a few weeks ago I was fine on medium settings (most of the time anyway) and had an absolute blast.

I’m currently running on Rifle /w Elixir U (8-12 shots off in a quick burst) and B IIRC (the purple one that gives Might). Healing turret and flamethrower rounds out the bottom skill list, but I only have the latter equipped for the toolbelt skill these days. As of now traits are 0/20/0/20/7, with elixir time changes and distance/damage for rifle. Alternate kits are toolkit and grenade (the latter has shown promise).

This worked great at the lower and mid levels, but now its beginning to fray at the ends (though I mostly solo right now) and leveling is slow. I will probably swap to tankcat/grenadier once I have access to the grandmaster traits book.

I think part of it is my combat style with the rifle – I circle-strafe (a habit after so many years of Half Life and its kin), and would advise others to reconsider that idea when you’re wielding a piercing weapon in an open field. :-) Been killed a couple times by shooting a stray ‘yellow’ mob I didn’t see until later. And Flamethrower in that format misses way more than I’m happy with. I am hoping grenades will open up a better (and perhaps safer) fighting style. ;-)

First up, a couple points:
-> If you’re going to cut/paste, please just drop your thread link and add a short reason why you’re a fit. Been there, seen this in Eve-O, and would post the same thing there. :-)
-> Casual only, no set times available. Ever. I work the US/East night/grave hours and end up in sudden meetings in the afternoon as well. Fri/Sat night are possible though, in most cases.

With that out of the way… I’m a relatively new player to GW, and this style of MMO in particular. Unlike my previous game (Eve Online), its a much more friendly environment – and by some cosmic irony I find that friendliness making me gravitate toward PvP (actually more toward WvW) than that game ever did. But I know that being part of larger scale battles like this are best done with co-ordination, so I’m interested in a guild that has interests in both PvE and WvW.

I’m a nice guy, quiet on comms when told, love to run support/exploration/scout roles, love tactical discussion (practical, not in the min/max way I’ve seen in various games). Happy to lend a hand (or, currently, my flamethrower and healing turret :-). Also an industry nut when in quiet times, but I admit the crafting tree is downright daunting here. Before GW, I spent three years in Eve Online, and before that several years in Myst Online and Second Life (but those two probably don’t count ;-).

First (and only) character at this time is a Sylvari Engineer, currently at L37. I like the class, despite how complicated it is, and may try Ranger next since I love ranged damage. I am currently on Janthir but happy to move as needed; My preference would be a Tier 2 or lower for WvW rank (prefer fun over raw competition), but we can discuss.

Thanks for reading,
—S_A

Thankfully I stumbled on what the ‘glow’ meant while trying to make sure my dark color scheme would not be washed out in the evening/dusk. I’ll admit I sat there and stared at it for a couple minutes, then promptly spent another 20 minutes making that work too. After all, I’ve dealt with other multiplayer venues where appearance was more prominent (SL, Uru), and wanted to make sure I had a character I’d be happy with for some time.

I would still be interested in the ability to tweak. I’ve picked up some dyes since starting a week ago, and two of the colors are better green hues than what I was using before.

Viewpoint from someone just under a week into the game, but has had experience with microtransactions in general (in particular, the system that ArenaNet referenced in their original Gems blog post).

1. Random (and/or this event in particular)? No.
BL in general? Yes (unlocking normal BL chests – I’m practically having them thrown at me right now).

2. Did you buy them in the past? Yes, for the above, and a little bit of starting silver (so I’d not worry as much about starting gear – atm I’m trying to concentrate on how the combat works out). Out of a 1200 Gems key, I still have 750 left (which I hope to reserve for more keys toward regular chests).

3. Yes, direct-buy is fine. Equiv $2-5 each item is probably reasonable, given that we’re probably talking about mid-level items (in most cases).

4. Yes.

5. No.

6. N/A, not participating in this part of the event.

7. Not yet / Probably not. We’ve not seen the entire event roll through yet so I can’t make an accurate answer here (who knows, they may actually give out a civilian outfit I could live with). ;-)

As someone who hasn’t even finished his first week here (just hit L15 on my only character this evening), there are definitely things I’m doing just fine.

→ Pumpkin carving achievement. More of an exploration thing, since its given me an impetus to look around the other 1-15 areas. Found a pumpkin 1/3 into Metrica, which was a nice surprise.

→ Collecting candy corn from low-level mining nodes. Gives XP from the harvesting aspect and the corn you’re getting now can be used for lower-level events or sold later if you need coin.

I may do some of the ToT scanning over the weekend as well. We’ll see how my time pans out.

—S