Guild Wars 2

Reaper

Ah, the Reaper. I love the Reaper. And now I’m going to say some things about it that need to be said and will probably get me lynched. The Reaper is OP. Like crazy broken. This primarily stems from the ability to get a 100% crit rate in shroud through the selection of two traits. Decimate Defences gives you 2% crit rate per stack of vuln and Death Perception gives you a flat 50% crit rate increase when in shroud. You stack vuln on your target, jump into shroud, crits for days. This is troublesome because Necros throw out vuln like it’s candy. It’s also hilariously easy to get and maintain 25 stacks of Might in Reaper’s Shroud if you use Soldier’s Sigils. If you forgo the sigils you still get a high degree of Might, but it’s not quite 25 stacks and it’s harder to keep up. You still hit like a truck, albeit a smaller truck.

So you’ve got max Might, max Vulnerability, a 100% critical rate and you’ve done this with zero investment into Precision. With no need to invest in Precision, you can run full Valkyrie which functionally gives you the same effect as running full Zerk, but without the drawback since Valkyrie gives you the full investment of Vitality. This is amazing and I love it, but it needs the slightest nudge with the nerf bat. But not too hard? Necros need something nice too. I would change Decimate Defences to give a 1% crit rate per vuln stack and make Death Perception double your crit rate in shroud instead of giving a flat 50% to crit rate. That way if you want a Reaper that hits like a truck and crits all day, you will actually need to invest for it at the cost of something else.

Not much to say about the new skills. The new utilities are decent and get the job done. They’re in a good place. Special mention goes to Rise! for being amazing. I didn’t notice if the minions did decent damage, but they’re great at pulling aggro away from you which is useful in its own right. I didn’t like the new healing skill but I can’t remember exactly why. I probably thought the healing was too low and too conditional. In any event, it didn’t stay on my bar for very long. I also didn’t make much use of the new Elite skill. Between the hilarious long two second activation time and how strong Reaper’s Shroud was, I rarely had cause to touch it. Similar story with the greatsword skills. You swing your sword, you swing it again, you swing it one more time for the chill which turns into vuln through traiting, you press 3 for the huge vuln stack, you jump into Reaper’s Shroud and take chunks off the HP bar of whatever you’re facing with your ridiculous crits. The greatsword struck me as serviceable but not particularly special.

Verdant Brink

Event chains were bugged out. While they were working they seemed solid with a strong narrative emphasis within them. The day events being bugged demonstrated that the area is relying too much on the event chains. If they break or you don’t want to do them, the area feels dead. It’s a similar situation at night. Forty-five minutes of the same event gets old really quick. It needs some additional, smaller events running around to break things up.

Played the vine torch adventure. It was okay but bland. Ultimately I didn’t care. It needs some kind of narrative hook to pull me in. I need a reason to care about what I’m doing. The rewards could also do with a look over. Mastery points are neat, but once I have the reward I’m not going to come back and play it again. It’s not enjoyable enough to play for its own sake currently.

Night time could be darker. Better indicator of how long until night. If I jump into a map I have no idea if it’s five minutes past daybreak or thirty minutes past daybreak until the “five minutes until night” area countdown appears. As mentioned previously, the night segment needs something to break it up. If the goal with the day/night cycle is to make them feel like completely different maps, one of the easier ways to do this would be altering mob spawns based on time. Have regular fauna retreat back to their dens/despawn at night and replace them with Mordrem. That would help establish night as Spooky Dragon Time.

Pretty much every mob in Verdant Brink feels like it’s based around some kind of gimmick. I’m on the fence in regards to how I feel about that. On one hand, it makes things a little more interesting but it increases the need for micro-management. I don’t want to have to stop every ten steps and fiddle with my skill bar because there’s a different group of mobs blocking my path. Additionally, Smokescales are ridiculous. Emphasis on the plural there. One smokescale by itself can be troublesome, but two or more together? Nah. Just, nah. It’s not even worth fighting. Just run on past them. The little mushroom guys also get a special mention for being way too cute and having an insane leash range. They just follow you forever. I don’t mind it, and I think it’s funny, but be aware that you will absolutely get trolls who gather up a posse of mushroom men and train them onto AFK players who think they’re standing somewhere safe.

Overall I like the map design. The tall, imposing cliffs that create narrow valleys and the contrast of these against the chasms, plateaus and the way everything opens up once you start unlocking masteries. It’s very well designed. The only part I didn’t really get was the mess of vines in the middle of the playable area. Visually it looks fantastic, but there’s not really anything to actually do there. You can glide down and run along the giant vines, but beyond that, why is it there? What is the player meant to be doing with it?

I didn’t get to unlock many masteries due to the bugged events, but I knocked out several levels of gliding and liked what I experienced. I’m looking forward to the next event where I’ll hopefully be able to see more of them in action. One thing of note is the number of people in chat who didn’t understand they had to completely fill the mastery bar before they could invest a mastery point in it.

I know that if you try and spend a mastery point in a track that isn’t unlocked the help system pops up that big black and orange box telling you what to do with the giant arrow pointing at the mastery track bar so I don’t know what else you can do to try and make people understand how it works but from what I could see a lot of people didn’t get it and just assumed that mastery points were all they needed to unlock masteries similar to the way you’d spend skill points or hero points, I guess they’re called now?

My ideal would be a three click system. Right click stack → Click use all → Click okay on a confirmation pop-up

I’d like the safety net there so you can’t accidentally misclick and use up your entire stack of Tomes or food or whatever. And three clicks for a stack is still infinitely better than the 100 odd clicks I have to make to clear all the 10 luck items from one SW run.

I liked Hearts when I first started playing, but three years on I’ve lost my taste for them. The primary problem for me is that they tend to be incredibly boring. Kill X enemies, gather X items, transform into something annoying with a terrible skillbar and cry internally, etc. It gets incredibly repetitive and dull, especially when you’re on your eighth or ninth character.

For Hearts to not descend into grindy monotony you need events firing fast and often to break things up. Otherwise the zones feel dead. This is especially true now that the personal story arcs have been level locked. When the personal story steps were staggered you had the suggested level to play them which encouraged you to mix up how you play. Or alternately you could attempt to play them earlier than recommended if you wanted something more challenging than, “Go kill a dozen Dredge trash mobs.” They’re just so tedious and a lot of that stems from the design limitations in that Hearts need to be localised. At least with quests you could be sent to the other side of the map to do something interesting. With Hearts it’s always just some variation of Help Farmer Jones With His Walrus Problems. I don’t find it enjoyable anymore and don’t think it’s capable of standing on its own as a long-term sustainable system.

Tegwen.

She’s one of the few characters who can be around for your entire personal story. Carys too, but I like Tegwen better.

I’m not 100% sure on what this sub-forums’s policy regarding possible spoilers are so I worded the title vaguely.

Given the official confirmation in LS S2 that Sylvari are dragon minions, there are some questions that I find myself asking in response.

• Is Caladbolg a dragon artifact?
• Was Orr actually cleansed?
• With the awakening of Mordremoth, is Trehearne immune to its influence?

Playing through the Source of Orr again recently, I noticed that Trehearne never actually says that he feels Orr being cleansed. His stated line is that he feels the power of Caladbolg flowing throughout Orr. Which is a little disconcerting given what we now know. What is additionally troublesome is that the Source immediately begins sprouting vines after Caladbolg is driven into it.

I have never been a fan of the deaths in the personal story. Generally because after the first time you see them coming a mile away, they serve little actual purpose and overall, feel forced and cheesy. It’s my suspicion that the pattern of, “Here’s a new character in this bite sized arc and, oh no, they’re dead now” was there almost purely to add believability to the Logan fake-out in Orr. The problem with this as a story device, however, is the question of: “Who actually likes Logan?” Most people that I’ve spoken to about this expressed disappointment that he came back. This leaves us with a story where characters you do like end up dying for no good reason just to build up a precedent for a twist that ranks a dead zero on the “Who cares?” meter.

Even the mentor deaths, which are arguably the most impactful, feel forced. So you’re on Claw Island and they slam the gate closed so you can escape from all the Risen. But if you’re going to slam the gate closed anyway, couldn’t you do it from the side without the army of Risen on it? Sure, you have to fight the Risen off, but if your cunning plan is to buy time for people to escape, can’t you make them break down the heavily fortified gate before you engage them?

Beyond that, the other story deaths have a problem of poor narrative weight. What I mean by that is that you either have a well developed character sacrificing themselves for low stakes, or a minor character dying that has little impact because they were relatively irrelevant to the story. It’s poor writing and narrative planning that’s illustrative of so much of what’s wrong with the personal story.

Can you not just use the age command to figure out your character’s birthday?

Donari.5237:

If they are shooting for the last weekend in August for launch (as I really really hope) time is tight now. We know we get the Shiro spec blog this week. There are six elites still to reveal and their stated intent is only one in a week. Plus we still need to hear about the challenging group content. And after this Shiro week there are only seven weeks available for all that if they do a 3rd anniversary launch.

Personally I wouldn’t mind if they accelerated the info dumps a bit and doubled up on the Elites after all. I don’t really expect that, though.

Considering that there’s been no mention of a release date, tentative or otherwise, I don’t think we’re six weeks out from release. If the expansion drops anywhere between three to five months from now, I will be pleasantly surprised.

Knighthonor.4061:

Here is a funky idea i want to hear your thoughts on.

what if the weapon skills had their energy cost increased, but all cooldowns removed?

So it would be like having 12 utilities instead of 6.

Would that be an interesting play style?

Then I would get a group of Revenants together and have each of us cycle through the ranged, AoE knockdown from Hammer 5. With no cooldown there is absolutely nothing stopping a group from locking down all non-defiant enemies permanently.

WvW Event Trains.

Jump into Edge of the Mists or Eternal Battlegrounds, find a group and just do event after event.

So that’s where Destiny’s Edge ended up.

The best I’ve got so far is a named Exotic while doing Vinewrath. I think I’d die a little inside if I actually got a precursor and couldn’t keep it.

Just adding my voice in addition to what everyone else here is saying. The staff is basically whiffle bat mode at the moment. Hammer feels amazing to play, mace/axe is also pretty good. I don’t like it as much as hammer but I recognise that the spammable torment will make it a monster in competitive play. The staff needs work though. The support options are nice, but the offense needs a buff. I’m not saying it needs to do massive damage. It just needs to be viable, especially considering the lack of weapon swap.

Sometimes in life you’ll have a Manager who introduces a new, optional system that nobody really likes or wants to use. The Manager, being embarrassed about the lack of use with their new system, decides to remove choice as a factor and make the system mandatory. Much to the disgust and irritation of people who have to actually use it. This feels like one of those situations.

Did anybody ever actually push that “Show next level rewards” button? Because I’m willing to wager that the answer is no, given that we’ve now had the choice removed. It’s just sad that the apparent conclusion was, “People seemingly can’t read or choose to push this button of their own free will” rather than “Who actually wants this?”

The entire situation is exacerbated by the fact that the information isn’t even useful. I remember one of the later level reward notifications being something about jumping puzzles as if every starter zone doesn’t have like three that you can access at any time. Ditto the above in regards to things like dyes and salvage kits. I get that Anet wants to communicate to players that these are things that they can do, but it’s constructed in such a terrible way as to be obtrusive and irritating. Why not just bring back the long lost help information and the achievements that went with using it?

Or, as I think about it, was that even the actual problem being addressed? One of the earlier complaints in regards to Guild Wars 2 was that it felt like you unlocked everything by level 30 and then everything after that was grind. Is this system a way to pretend that the act of leveling carries meaningful rewards at each step of the way, as if someone is going to don a party hat and do a happy dance when they see that screening explaining that they’ve gained an entire 15 points to their base stats? Who honestly cares? Please, for the love of god, if I my goal and your goal is for me to play the game, stop getting in our way by shoving two screens of “things nobody cares about” in our faces.

Yakkus.8765:

Without delving too much on how the Guardian is essentially the spiritual successor to the monk (certain skills have made it over, albeit tweaked for gw2, as well as aspects (aegis, for example), my post was with regard to trying to achieve a specific look. Please try to keep to this topic.

You’re going to have a difficult time finding something that looks like a light armour set for a a heavy armour profession. Outfits are honestly your best possible recourse here but you don’t seem to want to take advantage of them. Failing that, you could make a Water Elementalist and pretend it’s a Monk, despite it being less Lighty and more Watery.

I know. I was just being cheeky. Even that being said though, Guardians did pick up a lot of Monk skills. Thematically speaking, Guardians feel like a mix of Paragons and Monks. I appreciate that they’re not Monks, but they do have a lot of Monk flavour.

Gern.2978:

A guardian is not a monk, and was never meant to be like a monk.

Further, Guardians will never have Monk skills like Ray of Judgment, AKA Guardian Focus 4.

This is all very sudden, Leap Of Faith, but yes, I will marry you.

tairneanach.8427:

Tapioca.9062:

This post made me remember that the Ranger specialisation is staves and now I’m sad all over again.

What would you have preferred?

Rifles or hammers would have been my preferred choices. Rifles because of the ranged combat aspect and hammers because it would have meant the resurrection of bunny-thumpers. I miss bunny-thumpers.

This post made me remember that the Ranger specialisation is staves and now I’m sad all over again.

Just adding my voice to what everybody else is saying. I miss my idle animations.

This is from one of the Beta Weekend Events. I wrangled my way up the rockface near the Skritt Skill Point in Queensdale and took a picture of Divinity’s Reach. This would not be the last time that I climbed up somewhere I wasn’t meant to be and took a screenshot, but it was the first.

So I was exploring Seraph’s Landing and found these two bulls chilling in their home. What struck me as strange is that there is not a single cow in this entire village. Now, I’m not exactly a farming expert, but from what I know, bulls without cows aren’t of much particular use in an agricultural sense beyond their magical transformation into beef. It’s possible they could be stud bulls, but I don’t recall seeing cows anywhere in the Harathi Hinterlands.

What also struck me as interesting is that there are bales of hay all over the place in Seraph’s Landing. This is interesting because listening to the ambient dialogue makes it clear that the people of Seraph’s Landing are low on food, yet they’ve gone out of their way to ensure that two large animals, who provide absolutely nothing of value to the people of Seraph’s Landing, are well fed.

It is apparent that the people of Seraph’s Landing love their gay bulls, and I would like to openly thank the developers for their representation of such a positive, inclusive community for gay livestock. It’s the little actions like this that ensure we will move into a happier, more harmonious future.

I couldn’t turn up much lore on The Bulls of Seraph’s Landing, but I was wondering if we could learn some more backstory about how this happy couple came to arrive in Seraph’s Landing, and how the town came to forge such a strong bond with them.

I was sitting on 174/175 for years despite having 100% map completion and all the jumping puzzles done. I just couldn’t seem to find that one area that would tip it over. I got it the other night running my personal story. The spot I’d missed was Ulukk’s Hunger, it’s a tiny area that you can’t get into unless you’re doing the Personal Story mission Doubt. If you’re not running the mission you basically have to run up to the closed door and rub your face on it to trigger the area.

Maybe you’re missing the same area? You can find it here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ulukk's_Hunger

Please see this very accurate video recreation of my reaction to this news: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV_O3BA5e28

So, GummiBear, you say you can enter? How about we team up. I make the emblem, you sneak it past the gate guards and we split the winnings. One of our citizens is the Crown Princess of Denmark now which basically makes us family. Ohana means family. And family means nobody gets left behind, or forgotten.

All in all, though, it is good to hear some of the reasons why this might be case. Even if the end act of not being able to participate is ultimately disappointing.

I was getting excited to put my graphic design skills to the test with the new Guild Emblem Contest, but when I looked over the rules of the contest Australia is not listed as an eligible entrant territory, effectively barring all Australians from participation. Curious as to whether this was an isolated case, I looked over the terms of entry for past contests, namely the Wintersday Contest and the 10th Anniversary Contest, and found that Australians are barred from participation there too.

Is there a particular reason for our exclusion from the community here? I appreciate that we might be a fearsome people from a fearsome continent with fearsome creatures, and as such can be somewhat intimidating to be around. However, I assure you that we generally get along well with others and would make a fine addition to your reindeer games. Alternately, if the reason for our exclusion is geographical in nature, namely because we are the upsy-downsy people from the other side of the world, then you might be delighted to know that I am capable of flipping an image upside-down in Photoshop. I have the power, and the skill, to make that happen for you.

So, in conclusion: What’s the dealy, yo? Why can’t we play too?

There is a champion skelk very close to the Asura gate and Pearl Islet Waypoint on Southsun Cove. In what I’m sure is an unintended oversight, if you pull the champion skelk up to and through the Asura gate he is unable to travel to Lion’s Arch for splendid adventures.

In what is perhaps a related issue, it may be advisable to lower the champion skelk’s leash range to something more reasonable than “the resulting corpse of the first AF­K player I accidentally run into on our spectacular Southsun skelk scientific tour”. And as a further note to the owners of the aforementioned corpses: Please forgive me, I am very sorry. My attempts at science led to unpleasant consequences. I just wanted to see how far I could make him run.

Since my Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 accounts are linked changing the password on one changes the password for both. Since I actually like my password, haven’t had any security issues with it and would quite like to keep it over a password I would have to relearn, can I avoid the forced password change by never logging in to Guild Wars 2 again? I haven’t touched Guild Wars 2 since the Reddit AMA where Mike O’Brien said that ongoing vertical progression was one of ArenaNet’s goals. So, I am perfectly fine with this as a solution. Alternately, if this isn’t an option, is there a way to delink my Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 accounts?

Regizer.1763:

Tapioca.9062:

Dang. Bind on pickup too? Anet really have gone above and beyond the call of duty in their new quest to copy WoW’s item and grinding systems.

Too lazy to read a few posts above yours I see

As you seem to be a very affable and intelligent person I’d recommend either asking one of your no doubt countless friends or independently researching what a joke is. Once you’ve done that you might like to come back and on renewed examination, realise that I understand the situation but am poking fun at Anet’s recent awful decisions in a tongue in cheek manner.

Dang. Bind on pickup too? Anet really have gone above and beyond the call of duty in their new quest to copy WoW’s item and grinding systems.

Conner.4702:

MrLee.6892:

Conner.4702:

Xyre.5429:

Substance E.4852:

Xyre.5429:

Substance E.4852:

Xyre.5429:

Most players want some form of progression, what Anet has done is add in a specific type of high end gear built around allowing for horizontal progression. A player gets ascended gear and works on getting the infusions to be able to handle the new content. The infusions(that only ascended gear can use) allows players to deal with “Agony”, a new DoT that is specific for the new content(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infusion).

Hopefully 3 months from now we will have more new content and maybe a DoT called “Despair” where you will have to work on getting your ascended gear infused again to be able to delve deeper into the next new content….This is not hard logic to follow…and this system isnt a run of the mill system that anyone would expect for vertical progression…it is too unique, and it leans completely in the direction of what someone would expect out of a system built for horizontal progression.

Doomsayers can take their chances and assume that the A-net team is lying and that this system looks nothing like what would be expected out of a horizontal progression system…however, when what I have stated above ends up being the case, I hope you doomsayers ask yourselves if it was worth coming on the forums, making yourself look silly and being butthurt about an assumption?

no…no it wasnt..so please calm down…

You can hope all you want but you know as much as anyone else so please don’t act as though your completely baseless assumptions are any less likely than other peoples assumptions.

Like I said, be butthurt look silly, I actually sat down and said “Why would they make a system like this?…it is a weird way of getting to some form of vertical progression, but it actually makes sense for horizontal progression, and why would they blatantly lie about this being a form of new horizontal progression?”

The difference between you and I is I am erring on the side of logic and trusting their word, where you are assuming the worst and not even considering why this new system would be put in place.

No what you are is hoping that it won’t be as bad as all that. They haven’t given you a binding legal document vowing to not do vertical progression. You are just coming to that conclusion on your own and calling anyone who doesn’t agree with your “logic” butthurt apparently.

Gut instinct =/= logic. Logic is based on facts and established precedent. The precedent is that they are giving in to people who minmaxed and then complained about the lack of content and the fact is that they added in a whole new level of gear to combat the stagnation. If they truly cared about pure horizontal progression this could have easily been done by either creating an infusion system similar to GW1 as these sound so alike I can only assume that the Mursaat will be returning in some form. Or, they could have given us a new item slot that we could use to interchange an ever growing pool of infusions.

FACT: They have stated they are not going to do vertical progression
FACT: This new “need specific infusion to counter agony in new content” is a weird way to go about a form of vertical progression.
FACT: “Assuming” the worst in any situation and being butthurt over it is silly.
FACT: Get butthurt when you have the facts…

FACT: It’s a gear treadmill as it requires new gear with new upgrades
FACT: They stated they will add new infusions, which will require a new grind
FACT: Gear treadmill = Gear treadmill. Doesn’t matter if it is vertical or horizontal.
FACT: They said they would not put in a gear treadmill
FACT: They stated they wanted everyone to be able to do all content, which is impossible when you add gated content

FACT: If you don’t like it you can go play Guild Wars 1

Way to show immaturity. Should I tell you to go play a gear grinder now? Or you think you can add something more adult to the conversation.

You don’t have to tell him to play a gear grinder. He’s clearly already playing Guild Wars 2.

It’s not going to cause me to play more. It’s rather more likely that it will cause me to stop playing entirely. It’s disheartening spending time and resources to outfit three level 80 characters in exotics to then have that gear become obsolete. I played the game the way that I was told to play it, which was the same way you played in Guild Wars 1: focusing on horizontal gear progression rather than vertical gear progression.

And then Anet went back on the statements they made about items to introduce this. I’ve seen people say that it felt like a slap in the face. I’m not sure if that’s apt. I am out on resources for something Anet said would never happen. I don’t feel like I’ve been slapped in the face. I feel like I’ve been mugged.

psydrome.1468:

Take a look at GW 1…
They never where P2W! They know very well how to handle the cash shop!

This is the kind of thing I used to say to people who’d question if Guild Wars would ever have vertical gear progression after launch.

Minion of Vey.4398:

Tapioca.9062:

Levetty.1279:

Whats the point? Rangers will still probably be extremely sub par in dungeons and thus after the patch won’t be able to get the top tier of armour anymore.

Ridiculous.

This is why we need Ascended Pets. And maybe also swords that don’t root you on auto-attack or longbows that you aren’t vaguely ashamed to be seen using.

Haha.

This made me think of a player doing the Nelson laugh just seeing a ranger.

Player: “Is that a longbow?”

Ranger: “Why, yes it is”

Player: “Ha haaaaa!”

Ranger: =(

[Warrior’s class is having Show and Tell]
Warrior: Someday, I want to be a Tribune like my hero, Rytlock. He lent me this new weapon called Sohothin.
[Warrior demonstrates the sheer power of Sohothin by shooting it at Elementalist’s forehead]
Elementalist: Hey…
[falls down on the ground, twitching]
Mrs. Krabappel: He’s not dead, is he, Warrior?
Warrior: Nah, but I wouldn’t give him any homework for awhile.
Mrs. Krabappel: Very good, Warrior. Thank you.
Warrior: Oh, don’t thank me. Thank an unprecedented two hundred and fifty year military build-up.
Mrs. Krabappel: Mmm. Milranger, you’re next.
Milranger: Uh, I have a drakey.
[mimics his pet drake hissing in a slurry way which then trails off]
Nelson Muntz: Wuss!

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

I’m missing two things mainly:

1. Guesting
2. Guesting

and if you pressure me, I might come up with a third:

3. Guesting

I wish I could +1 this post a thousand times.

Levetty.1279:

Whats the point? Rangers will still probably be extremely sub par in dungeons and thus after the patch won’t be able to get the top tier of armour anymore.

Ridiculous.

This is why we need Ascended Pets. And maybe also swords that don’t root you on auto-attack or longbows that you aren’t vaguely ashamed to be seen using.

Thank you for your feedback.

The feeling of betrayal really is one of the worst parts of this. We were told time and time again that this is a thing that would never happen, that the developers understood that we hated this and that they hated this too. And then, less than three months in, here it is.

suppenkasper.5371:

Biggest backstab in MMO history, well done ANET!

Ironic considering how many people were anticipating a nerf to backstab on the 15th.

Talloc.6835:

Rangers are still in the game?

We’re still kicking around for now. Personally, I give it three more months until we’re made obsolete by Ascended Rangers but that’s just the nature of vertical class progression, you know?

Since pets can’t wear armour they’ll need some way to avoid being affected by the new Agony condition. What new Ascended Pets do you guys think will replace all our old, obsolete pets?

So now that we have obsolete exotics and gear gating with the new Ascended Armour several months into the game, it’s time to start asking the big question: How long until ANet introduce mounts?

I place the countdown at six months from today. Then two or three months after they introduce mounts, I think they’ll bring in new Ascended Mounts with better stats that will obsolete the old mounts that people just obtained.

No, I hate the new ascended items.

You guys want to hear a funny story?

I crafted three sets of exotic armour for my level 80 characters. And I know it’s ridiculously expensive compared to other options of obtaining exotics but it made me happy. They were my exotics, I made them. It was nice. And I reasoned to myself, “The cost is fine because it’s a one time cost and once it’s done, you never have to do it again.” With my equipment’s stats sorted I then went to work on my character’s appearance. I collected armour pieces and stored them in the bank so I could experiment with different combinations of styles to try and find a look that I thought was perfect. And when I was satisfied, I gave my armour the look I wanted using Fine Transmutation Stones, some of which I ended up buying from the gem store.

And now after being told time and time again that Guild Wars 2 was not like other MMOs and would never be like other MMOs in regards to vertical gear progression we’re being hit with vertical gear progressions. I feel that I’ve simultaneously been lied to and just had my time, effort and gold flushed down a toilet because I made the mistake of actually believing ArenaNet when they said that Guild Wars 2 would have the same design philosophies as Guild Wars 1?

Does ArenaNet not understand that I don’t want to play World of Warcraft? I do not want vertical gear progression. I do not want mounts. I do not want 25 man raids built for players that don’t understand the idea of dodging away from the obvious attack animation or that moving out of the big red circle is a good idea. It’s probably embarrassing to admit this, but I used to brag up ANet to my friends a bit about how different they were to other game companies and that they were one of the few I actually trusted. Now I just feel like a naive moron.

I logged on earlier, wandered around for a few minutes and then logged off. This has managed to suppress my desire to play the game.

Translated sign on LA beach

Modus Sceleris are apparently a guild or some other organisation? Perhaps full of jerks? Who will ambush you while you’re trying to get through Lornar Pass en route to your next personal story mission? There will perhaps also be an obscene amount of turrets and mines spawned by their group leader that you will pop your elite to run away from?

The weird thing is that I ran into them before the new patch came in so I have no idea what’s up with that.

It is indeed medium armour. The mask is the Commando’s Bandanna item. It’s one of the personal story reward options for medium armour characters. Wiki says it’s from the level 73 personal story quest.

I like that you kept your starter hood. It always makes me smile to see people who kept the item all the way through their journey.

You mean something like this, Coffeeisyum?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hunger_Royale

I’ve finally finished dressing up my Ranger. It took forever to find the right pair of boots. I never expected to spend hours of my life searching for a pair of shoes to go with an outfit but apparently that’s a thing I do now. I’m not sure about this particular shade of green but I was feeling Grenthy so I gave it a shot. Overall I’m very happy with it.

I’d love to see what other people have made too. So, without any further ado, please take a moment to show off your characters.