Guild Wars 2

ophidic.1279:

Wow, a bunch of people quit and then came back for THIS?!

I’m finding it hard to believe people are on GW2 hiatus and it’s not even a year yet.

To be fair, Guild Wars has ALWAYS been played like this. Because Guild Wars has an end point. I.e. when you have gotten a character through the personal story (in Guild Wars 1 it was the story missions) and you are happy enough with the characters look (in Guild Wars 1, for most people it meant getting their character prestige armour. In Guild Wars 2 it just means full exotic and possible ascended gear) you can put down Guild Wars and go do something else for awhile.

Usually, most people will come back for special events, when expansions are released etc, etc. Some won’t of course, but the player who don’t return are the ones who don’t like Guild Wars. But it’s a game without a monthly subscription fee and a game that doesn’t necessarily punish you for not logging on everyday. I mean, sure there are the dailies but not getting dailies is not a punishment, especially since you do have to specifically go for the dailies most days. So you can like Guild Wars, loves Guild Wars but still take breaks from it. I think it stops you from burning out personally but that’s just me.

Bauer.7905:

snip

That’s rough! I would like to know the actual drop rate of the skin. Not that it would matter. Even if it as high as 5%, if you are unlucky, you are just unlucky. Afterall, the odds of getting a skin does not increase the more chests you open. The drop rate of the skin token is the same for your 100th chest as it is for the 1st.

It would be nice to have a second chance draw like the Mad King chest back in Halloween. Something like mystery tonic + 3 x booster = second chest with a slight higher fused skin drop rate. I know I have some waste of space mystery tonic and crafting booster (already have master crafter) that I would happily through in the mystic forge for a chance at a dagger or axe skin!

Helequin.2608:

Haha, that’s hilarious. I honestly don’t get why this forum likes to go down the whol e"OMG reroll Warrior" path so often. Warriors have a lot of weaknesses in PvP.

Now, Mesmer, Ele, even Guard for just being all-around viable I could see…

And yeah, this patch hurt a lot. Quickness and cats….

Dungeon elitist think the world starts and ends with zerker warriors. Why I refer no warrior runs! Life has been so much better since I stopped associating with warriors.

darkace.8925:

SilveryBeing.5082:

I actually ran that cutscene multiple times in order to screencap her responses so I could read them later at my leisure. The fact that I had to do it at least three times is ridiculous though, girl needs to slow down.

Thanks for the caps.

I’ve got to say, Eir’s dialogue seems off. What self-respecting norn tries to talk their grown child out of a chance to earn glory?

Actually, there is a Norn member of the Durmand Priory in Dredgehaunt Cliff who has a conversation with a colleague about how her son is out chasing glory and how she doesn’t want a dead legend for a son. Probably why its Eir encouraging your Norn to go make your legend and not your parents. I.e. even Norn parents would happily lock away their kids in the basement until this whole dragon mess blows over.

Milennin.4825:

morrolan.9608:

The fact that they understand the gambling mentality and base systems on getting money from it doesn’t mean its not exploitative.

And the playerbase is getting tired of the extensive RNG aspects of the game, its coming through in the feedback.

No, it isn’t.

People are still happily spending $50+ on keys every single time ArenaNet does something like this. Only if people will stop buying keys altogether, ArenaNet will be forced to re-think their strategies.

Until then I will not spend a gem on anything that involves gambling.

I wish people would STOP assuming that its the same people who are buying keys/chests whatever every single time. No, no, it isn’t.

I did not buy keys during halloween, I did not buy consortium chests during Karka event and I did not buy any of the RNG stuff during Winter’s Day. Heck, the only thing I bought during Winter’s Day was the Fancy Winter’s Day costume. I did however spend $45 AUD on keys this time.

Why? Because I really, really, really wanted the Fused Short Bow skin and since I knew all I had to do was get just one token, I was happy to have a go at it. Normally I wouldn’t have gone beyond $10-$20 but I REALLY wanted the skin and I have been happy with the Living Story content and so happy to give Anet more of my money. I.e. I was happy to support Anet through purchasing gems. I got my bow too, so I am super happy. Especially since $45 was the upper limit of what I was willing to spend.

However, that does not mean I will chase the next skin. Indeed, as my characters stabilize and I get all the gear I want on them with looks I am happy with, the chances of me buying skins lessens.

If you are not happy to buy keys, that’s fine. 95% of the time, I don’t buy keys either. Of all the skins available in-game less then 5% are/were (include Halloween and Karka) bound to the gem store RNG. Game play wise, only the Fractal skins are RNG. That’s really not a lot of skins that are only RNG or even gem RNG. So please, get some perspective here!

Also, IF the fused skins were on the gem store, they would have been priced at no more then 800 gems. The winter’s day skins were priced at 500 gems. If I could directly buy the skins, I would have bought the shortbow and maybe a couple of dagger skins for my thief and elementalist. So maximum 2400 gems (that’s assuming the skins were priced at 800). Instead I bought 3600 gems. I am sorry folks, but the math is on the side of RNG AND it is preciously because its not the same people chasing the skins every single time that you will never win. I spend $45 in 8 months for RNG skin, that’s not an unreasonable amount to me. Now if I was spending $45 each event, then maybe I too would be complaining about RNG.

clay.7849:

Zenith.6403:

clay.7849:

Exactly. Someone needs to remind Zenith that companies work for us – the consumer – and not the other way around. We get to tell them whatever the hell we kitten well please because we paid for their game.

- It’s a quid pro quo situation. There are tons of products and services out there and I have no obligation to buy them. You would do well to actually read what is said in EULA that you agreed to when you started playing the game. Companies may respond to player posts for PR reasons, but they have no obligation to read anything we’re posting here, much less make changes based on them.

If you want to make a difference, the first step is to get hired to Anet. Your impact as forum poster is worth jack squat.

There are thousands of examples I can give of public pressure causing a company to make changes without anyone needing to infiltrate the company. Yes, attempts at making changes through a forum may not always work. But, they don’t always NOT work either. The best way to make sure NOTHING happens is to say nothing at all.

And, I still don’t have to stop telling a company what to do. They still work for us, the consumer. Without us, they don’t exist.

But your forum ranting in isolation will do nothing. Anet has other stats. In this particular case, gems bought and exchanged for key stats. Not to mention gems bought and exchanged for key stats from the last events. If 5% of people complain but 30% of people go buy keys… who do you think they are going to listen to?

ceno.1584:

People also need to understand that games, especially mmos need to have a reward system in place that REWARDS players for their time, money and hard work. This is what keeps them playing for years on end. That is what kept me playing them as I was rewarded for my time invested. Because this game doesn’t have an “end game” like most other mmos in where you get better and better gear. It chooses to have skins as its main “end game”.

When you make so many things RNG, you remove the reward aspect out of investing your time and money into a game. What tends to happen is people eventually get tired of it and leave for a game that will. I am getting close to leaving too. I don’t want to, but time invested vs reward gained in gw2 is poorly lacking. I have no problems shelling out money to invest in a game but I also want something in return for that money, not a roll of the dice chance. If I wanted to gamble, I’d go to a casino.

Sure there are other mmos and they also have a subscription fee, but at least in those games you get to work towards anything you want and in time you will get it. GW2, you could work and work and because of RNG, you might very well not see any reward for that time, effort or money. People here have blown 100’s of dollars on this game just to get a new skin and still didn’t get anything for it. 100 dollars is about 6 months subscription to the other mmos out there.

When your “end game” revolves around the collection of skins, don’t turn that into a casino. Give us a way to slowly work towards the reward and give us store options to buy things as well. That is how you will build a long term playerbase. I’ve played GW2 about 6 months now and I am already looking for a new game because of this. The other mmo I played before gw2 gave me 7 long years of fun. Because I was rewarded for my time and money.

I really don’t want to leave gw2 but it just doesn’t reward you very well for your time or money. It’s very unfortunate because I really had high hopes this game would give me many years of fun and it just isn’t. I’m not saying this game wasn’t fun, it was just one that didn’t last as long. I actually wish gw2 WAS a subscription game. At least then we’d probably be rewarded more for our time and money..

I don’t really get where this is coming from. The greatest skins in-game are the Legendary Weapons. Those are not luck based. Neither, were the Halloween exotics since the Arachnophobia, The Mad Moon and The Crossing were all crafter-able though the mystic forge. Indeed, the majority of the super cool looking weapons are mystic forge craftable like Foefire’s Essence, Anomaly to name a few.

Fractal skins are on RNG but they are RNG on game play (still can be very unlucky, I know I am) and the Winter’s Day skins were directly purchasable.

This brings us to the chest skins. Halloween had 8 skins were RNG on chests, Karka event had 4 weapon skins and 2 types of armour skin that came in 3 varieties (thus 6 total) and now the Fused weapons skin tokens are in the Black Lion chests. Compared to the number of skins available in-game, that’s actually a very, very, very small % that’s on RNG. In addition, so far, only the fused skins cannot be bought off TP. Are you seriously saying that Anet reserving less then 5% (and 5% is being generous) of the skins for RNG through gem store purchase chests is game breaking for you? Especially since you can spend time farming gold in-game that you can use to buy gems and thus gems be a direct result of the time and effort you put in the game? Come on! Let’s have some perspective here!

Turgon.8625:

Thanks for the advice on dodging and stability, if it weren’t for the posts dripping in sarcasm I would have mistook it for genuine help.

I wasn’t raising this as a skill issue, there are certainly more difficult challenges in the game. I just wanted to see if anyone else thought they were a frustrating addition or just me. If it’s just me then maybe I do just need to man up and take it.

Frustrating? No, I personally do not find them frustration. Annoying? Sure but not in “I don’t want to do this” sort of way, more in the “you annoy me, prepare to die!” sort of way. I take great pleasure in turning those things into scrap.

Caveth.3268:

TexZero.7910:

Stability exist…

Necromancers only have stability on terrible elite skills. And they nerfed the staff so I can’t attack the things from a long range anymore.

They nerfed the staff? Must look this up.

But have you tried minions? Or just that flesh snake-turret thing? Just place it on the opposite side of the direction the sonic is facing and travel there. The easiest way to beat that thing is to just run around in circles because it needs time to move its head and re-target. Easier if you have more then one person and attacking from different directions. Just send you minions after it and run to the otherside! They don’t even take that long to go down.

PS. I get you might not be speced for minions but you don’t need to e specced for minions to temporarily use minion skills.

Hi,
I decided to go nuts with my guild’s stack of Black Lion chest to try for a Fused Weapon ticket, didn’t get any but that’s beside the point. From the chests I got a few crafting boosts. The thing is that I already have master crafter and don’t really have any use for the crafting boosts. Would it be possible to install an NPC that takes boosts we don’t want for some sort of credit that we can use to buy other boosts? I could always use more speed boosts!

Thanks!

-Tinni

facepalm Do YOU guys have the stats on gem sales or skin purchases or stuff like that? Clearly if the Wintersday Skin sold well, currently skins would have also jut gone straight into the gem store. However, likely the prospect that ANYONE can buy the skins deterred a lot of people from going for the Wintersday skins and some of those skins were pretty nice too!

Just because you are angry and think this is killing goodwill doesn’t mean it actually is. Clearly Anet, who actually has the stats, show that people are more willing to splurge on keys during special limited time offers, if only because they can get “limited edition” skins that are limited by RNG. The value of a collection is measured by rare and hard to get items. It’s not rare if its just on the gem store.

Clearly Anet understands what skin collectors want better then some of its player base.

Aura.9530:

I’m very upset w/ their decision to make him Braham Eirsson… I just finished the current living story quests involving him; but I feel like they should have never existed. It made it seem like his “legendary” father (which there’s 0 lore about ANYWHERE) took him from Eir when he was a baby or at least very young. What has me confused about this, is the fact that Eir acknowledges him as her son. So his father took him to the village in Wayfarer, died, and Braham was raised by villagers/shaman. So Eir KNEW he was there, but chose to not raise him. This seems rather ridiculous; as w/ the lore we have of Eir, she could NOT just leave her child. Look how hard Snaff’s death hit her; she just doesn’t seem capable of that. Which genuinely makes me very very upset as she’s my favorite NPC character; but this makes her seem like an unfit mother, and in general just an overall bad parent.

Let’s not judge until we know more. There is a lot of unknowns in the story at the moment. Once the full back story, or as much of it Anet chooses to share, are laid out – we can judge the various characters involved.

Those were a sweet set of weapons weren’t they? I am not big on mace (only weapon I don’t have a buzzilion kills on) but I would totally change my mind with that mace!

KorKor.9452:

Yes, Tinni…. in a game purely about cosmetics. I should overlook all the bad options provided to get that gear for the limited time like the Karka gear when it is around. That sounds like a great way to keep your customer base happy. By telling them to beep off for wanting to use the skins across multiple characters.

Awesome

I don’t understand what you are getting at. Do you really, really want every single look to be as common as crafted armour/weapon look? Sure that would increase the customisation options but it would also take away from the “prestige” of some skins (Fractals skins for example) and the uniqueness of others (Halloween skins, Flame and Frost skins, hell even the Winter’s day skins). Thus making those skins worthless as collectables. You cannot have it both ways. Skins cannot be both collectable and available unrestricted. Something has to be sacrificed. Given that the only thing that Guild Wars (both 1 and 2) has ever restricted is skins, I am totally cool with that. If you are not… well, complain away! It’s a free forum after all.

KorKor.9452:

Many of the posts after mine make me want to quote myself and just stare at them annoyed.

I read your post. I just didn’t want to touch it because the psudo-psychology babble backed with zero data annoyed the hell out of me. You cannot apply Zynga terminology to the Guild Wars community, certainly not the Black Lion Chests and assume you have hit on some universal truth.

For one, most of us “gamble” in Guild Wars. We gamble every time we kill a mob or open an event chest like the dragon chest. We gamble that our number will come-up and we’ll get something O.O. In that respect, the Black Lion chests are not much different from killing mobs or opening Dragon kill chests. Especially since you can turn in-game gold you earn through the investment of your time into gems that you can use to purchase the keys. So unless you are willing to classify every loot related thing we do in Guild Wars gambling and all of use who continue to kill dragons and do dungeon runs despite the chests and mobs disappointing us 99% of the time gambling addicts, you do not have much of an argument.

Also this is not Zynga and I doubt the “whale” players in Guild Wars are who you think they are. Zynga could milk their whales for real cash because time investment could not be converted to the Zynga cash that you needed for the premium stuff and method for earning “free” Zynga Cash usually involved purchase through a third party. Due to the gold to gem conversion option, time rich Guild Wars players are more likely to be the “whales” who just convert their in-game gold into gems and purchase keys to try their luck. It’s the time poor players who often choose to pay and to classify them as gambling addicts is a bit much.

KorKor.9452:

Tinni.4351:

Kerishan.8460:

Why, if we complete all of this living story we can’t have token to exchange for new fused weapons?

This RNG with black lion is just crap.

I would not despair of it yet. I am hopeful that we will get at least one voucher for the skin per account for completing all the living story elements. But we will see.

So it caters to people who use two handed weapons then that only need one voucher? Screw those people that use two one handed weapons! Also screw all those people that use the swap weapon option as well! Wouldn’t want a matching set in a game all about cosmetics at all!

Then don’t get the new skin and just destroy the voucher? No one is forcing you to breaking your set if you don’t want to.

Shelledfade.6435:

Agreed. There’s no point in adding new content if there is no reward for doing it. 2000 karma and 6 silver is hardly a reward.

This is wrong. So, so wrong and really, if the only reason you are playing the new content is because of the loot at the end of it, then you probably shouldn’t waste your time on Guild Wars and instead go spend your time playing something where you derive enjoyment from just doing the content.

For myself, I am genuinely enjoying doing the living story. Especially this latest instalment. So even if I get 1 copper at the end, I would still do it. You should not waste time doing new content if you don’t enjoy it and are just looking for the shiny at the end. New content should be done because you want to do the content, regardless of the reward. That’s what I think anyway.

Kerishan.8460:

Why, if we complete all of this living story we can’t have token to exchange for new fused weapons?

This RNG with black lion is just crap.

I would not despair of it yet. I am hopeful that we will get at least one voucher for the skin per account for completing all the living story elements. But we will see.

PerfectVictory.9827:

we notice that you expect us to first pay you and then invest hundreds of hours in your lategame. which, barring fractals in all their halfthought gauze of repetitive glory, is almost exclusively aesthetic. some of us are not as easily placated as others. give us progress, not the “sensation” of it. progress, you know, the same flaw the previous iteration of this game carried. that means stats. there is no “please” forthcoming for the rectification of a glaring impass.

facepalm Dude this is GUILD WARS! Most of us left World of Warcraft back in the day because we didn’t want to do the gear-stat based progression bullcrap! Guild Wars 1 had 8 years of no gear-stat progression but did haave new look for their gears and of course new skills. That’s that’s pretty much what most of us expected from Guild Wars 2. But Guild Wars 2 already has “ascended” weapons and now you want more gear-stat power creep? NO THANK YOU!

Good lord it’s a freaking skin! You don’t need it, but if you want it, go have the whack at the chests! I mean, I really wanted a Pink Quaggan backpack cover but 10 keys I bought during the key sale didn’t get me one. So I settled for a the backpack cover you can get from the gem store and called it a day.

I mean, its a purely cosmetic thing! It gives you ZERO game play advantages. So I don’t see why you are all crying over it being RNG. Only thing RNG does is add a bit of “uniqueness” to the look because everybody will not have it. That’s all!

Are you really saying that Anet can’t sell skins? Or add an element to the skin game that has a element of luck to it so as to make it a collectors item? I mean, it is not a collectors items unless there is some limitation associated with it. Honest to goodness the hysteria over the Black Lion Chests every single time is just… too much!

Yes it would be nice if the NPCs remembered. It would be a little thing in terms of game play but I think it would make me more immersed in the world..

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Why am I dealing with a charr, in a charr city, to work on a Norn Problem?

Why is the Norn leadership and Capitol constantly ignored save a few references to Destiny’s Failures. What is Knut Whitebear doing? collecting worms?

I get it, this is now “one big happy family tyria” but Norn should remain Norn, and deal with Norn problems as Norn.

Well… see Knut Whitebear is not the leader of the Norn because Norn’s have no leaders. He and his Wolfborn technically do not have authority beyond Hoelbrek. Norn are independent individuals. If you are able to build and protect a homestead, you have authority over the homestead. Knut Whitebear’s “homestead” is now a major city and thus he would be largely regarded at the most influential of the homestead owners but he doesn’t have the authority or the responsibility of, for example, Queen Jenna. Knut Whitebear is the Master of the Lodge of the Hoelbrek, he is under no obligations to help anyone outside of Hoelbrek. He is under every obligation to fight to the death to protect Hoelbrek and all who seek his shelter within Hoelbrek but outside of it… nope!

So yeah, it wouldn’t make sense for Humans, Asura, Charr or Sylvari to seek help with other races before trying their own government but that’s because Humans, Asura, Charr and Sylvari HAVE governments. Even the Soundless Sylvari would look to the Grove first before trying someone else. But Norn, they have to hierarchy to look towards and no homestead is under obligations to help another homestead. It’s just a very, very differently set-up culture.

DeathPanel.8362:

Ticee.2451:

So basically I’ve been playing a bit GW2 recently, and I’ve now got an engineer which is about level 43, which is my highest level character.

I was starting to think that maybe it could be fun to try some dungeon stuff, but I’ve read a lot of horror stories here on the forums about having to be a fully decked out lvl 80 warrior in order to do any dungeons at all.. So would it make sense to try getting into it or is dungeons basically not an option? :o

Don’t bother.

Just get to 80 first, it’s easy anyway.

I disagree. You will not do yourself or your teammates any favours by being a nub 80 who has never been inside a dungeon. More importantly, without early dungeon experience you are not going to be able to fully understand your class and all its potentials.

It is NOT magically easier to do dungeons at 80. If a level 80 finds dungeons easier, it is because they understand their class better. But you are not going to understand your class within the dungeon setting if you don’t do dungeons until you hit 80. So in my humble opinion, you are better off doing at least story mode as they come-up. I.e AC at 30, CM at 40, TA at 50 etc.

Ticee.2451:

So basically I’ve been playing a bit GW2 recently, and I’ve now got an engineer which is about level 43, which is my highest level character.

I was starting to think that maybe it could be fun to try some dungeon stuff, but I’ve read a lot of horror stories here on the forums about having to be a fully decked out lvl 80 warrior in order to do any dungeons at all.. So would it make sense to try getting into it or is dungeons basically not an option? :o

I think you have to take everything you read on the forums with a grain of salt. Not to mention check out different forums. I find some of the opinion expressed in this particular forum to be a bit too extreme. Needing to be 80 and in full exotics to do explorable mode being one of them. You do need level appropriate gear, i.e. not wear level 35 items when you are level 50+ and doing level 50+ dungeons but people do dungeons to get exotic gear, they don’t need exotics to do dungeons. Fractals is the only dungeon where you need to be in full exotics before you set foot in the dungeon.

If you are level 43, you should definitely do AC story and CM story. Also, as some people have mentioned, the speed runners aside, most people are pretty chill about taking folks level 35+ into AC explorable and 45+ into CM explorable. I.e. as long as you meet the basic level requirement, most people will take you. However, and I cannot emphasis this enough, your party is taking you in good faith and so you should join in good faith as well.

Basically that means that make sure you are not badly under-geared and your traits are upto date. You have invested in skill purchase and generally have a good handle on your class etc.

Also, if you need a guide, just advertise for one on gw2lfg.com. A lot of people are happy to help and guide in a patient manner. A guide does help in there.

I miss my <a href="http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dragon_Gauntlets">Dragon Gauntlets</a>. Can we have Dragon Gauntlets in GW 2 please? I mean, just look at how cool they are!

Lyndis.2584:

This is like the 100th kick I’ve gotten from a group about to run a dungeon (CoF, AC) because they saw that little paw print next to my group portrait square.

What can I do other than just scrapping my class for an obviously superior one (warrior, warrior, or a warrior) to be able to find a dungeon run when my guild is busy?

I think you are asking the wrong question. The question isn’t what your party wants from you but what YOU can offer your party. I don’t mean just your class but what can you the player, playing your class bring to the party? If you feel that there is nothing you can bring to the party while playing your ranger, then yes, you should consider re-rolling another class.

For myself, no amount of love or money will EVER make me roll a warrior. It is just not me and since I have no desire to run COF or AC over and over and over and over and over and over I have no reason to roll a warrior. Many people roll warriors purely to farm, that’s fair enough. But I don’t see how much enjoyment the class will bring you if you have no love for the class beyond “that’s the class people speed-run with”.

I currently run dungeons on my Guardian and my Ranger. Guardian does Arah and Fractals of the Mist, Ranger I use for everything else. I have never been kicked and don’t have issues getting groups. I think you need to be confident in yourself, playing the class you chose before you can ask others to have confidence in you.

swinsk.6410:

“Save up 40 Luarels + 50 E. "

What do I spend the 40 Laurels on and what is “E.” ?

Would it be easier to get groups on my warrior? I have 76 warrior and I can buy exotics for him right away when he hits 80.

EDIT: Appreciate the constructive responses. I have tried gw2lfg and never got a group from it yet.

E in that context stands for Glob of Ectoplasm and that’s because the ascended earrings can be got using 40 laurels and 50 ectoplasms provided you are not in a guild that has guild missions unlocked.

I am not certain why you can’t find groups using gw2lfg.com because as I type this I see a number of “looking for more” (LFM) mosts for fractal level 1-9. Agony is not an issue until fractal level 10 and even fractal level 10 can be done with 0 agony resistence (AR). So very unlikely anyone would be doing gear checks for ascended gear on you at level 10. Not that I recommend new players jump in at level 10. But you should be able to join a group going for Fractal 1 to 9 and be generally okay.

I think you might just be making a post on gw2lfg.com and just waiting for someone to contact you. You should make a “looking for group” post but you should also actively looking for a groups forming and try to join them. As I said, as long as the group is going for a fractal level below 10, not having agony resistance will not matter.

In terms of agony resistance, you can get ascended gear outside of fractals but for the agony resistance infusion you need fractal relics. 75 relics for a simple versatile agony resistance. So no matter how you look at it, you can’t avoid doing fractals for agony resistance. But its a dungeon that can easier to find groups for as you go up level until you hit about 30ish.

Iures.2894:

Renegade.6325:

Sleeme.5893:

This makes me seriously consider trashing gw2 and never look back. There is nothing more in it for me than fractals, and even that they ruined quite hard now.

They ruined fractals? Just by making you play certain parts of it?

Except that the gear required to progress in fractals is increasingly coming from non-fractal sources. As it stands, there’s only one piece of gear that must be gotten from fractals (backpiece). Fully half of the ascended items aren’t from fractals at all, but are just a daily grind. I like the concept of laurels, but fractal gear should be gotten through fractals. . .

I don’t think Ascended gear should not be buyable using Laurels or Guild Mission credits. Guild Wars philosophy is for inclusion and it is not fair to say Ascended gear, which you can now augment with infusions that do not give agony resistance, is only for those doing Fractals. Fractals, afterall, is not for everyone.

But I DO think that both the earring and the amulets should be added for purchase with pristine relics and available as RNG drops from daily chests. I am happy to pay, say, 30 relics for an amulet and 20 relics each for the earrings. But my Fractal progression should not be contingent on dailies or guild mission. Please make this change ASAP Anet! It is the only fair thing to do!

penatbater.4710:

I think the question is, are 35 rares worth the same amount of armor/bonus stats as a blue 70/75 item? If so, I probably wouldn’t mind. If not, at least get the blues. They’re dirt cheap :|

I quickly logged on to my Asura, to look this up since she’s currently in Rata Sum and is a armourer. I got her to look-up the Asura Cultural Tier 1 (level 35 rare) and for simplicities sake we’ll just compare the chest piece.

Level 35 heavy chest piece has 117 armour and gives two stat bonuses, in this case +17 vitality and +29 condition damage.

A level 70 blue heavy chest that she can craft has 227 armour and gives three stats bonuses. For example, the carrion chest piece gives +44 power, +44 vitality and +62 condition damage.

A level 75 blue crafted heavy chest has 250 armour and again gives three stats depending on the insignia.

The cheapest heavy blue armour (between 70 and 75) on the TP costs 91 copper and was for level 72 and gave 236 armour and again three stats (in this case it was also a carrion chest piece).

Let’s say you don’t care about the armour because you are a master dodger and so never get hit, that’s still a lot of stats to sacrifice because of… whatever.

IndigoSundown.5419:

These experiences are not outside the bounds of what one can expect from random number generation. In World of …, if a mob dodged or blocked an attack, it often dodges or blocks the next one also. This happened often enough that I remember it. As to getting the same drops, the loot tables in GW2 are not as varied as would be ideal. How many rare weapon drops at L80 are Traveler’s XX of Air?

Don’t forget lucky streaks! I had an awesome one my last fractal run. It was one of the most tiring fractals runs I had in a long time! The group just didn’t gel and we just had a sequence of very bad luck to compound our group inability to work together. But OMG it was such an awesome run for me personally for loot!

Chest #1 – Exotic back piece
Chest #2 – Exotic Spear (and I needed one for my newly 80 Necromancer too!)
Chest #3 – Exotic Heavy Helmet
Maw Chest – charged core

Didn’t get anything from the Daily chest but after leaving fractal noticed that I had also picked-up a couple of rares that salvaged to give me ectos, which I desperately needed. That was the luckies run of RNG I ever had! A good way to balance out what was a really painful fractal run.

Here’s my necromancer. I know she doesn’t look very necro but I do love the Honour of the Waves armour. In my humble opinion it is one of the best Light armour skins in the game! A little boring maybe but I thinks she looks gorgeous!

JJBigs.8456:

Are you guys going to kill me when i ping my level 5 “Aqua Breather” in level 10 underwater fractal

Given that higher level Aqua Breather can only come from renowned heart, if you level using crafting and/or dungeons, good chance you won’t have it. But it does pay to upgrade your Aqua Breather if only for the rune. The rune you put on your Aqua Breather gives you a persistent stat upgrade whether you are underwater on not. So it’s worth going out of your way to visit Orr and get the level 80 aqua breather. Of course it would be nicer if you could get an exotic aqua breather using fractal tokens or something. shrug

haviz.1340:

Slaptjip.4895:

Anyone with less then basic lvl 80 exotics deserve to be kicked.

I’d rather take someone in rares who knows what to do and contributes just 11.5% less than someone who tries to tank and does 66% less damage.

Hahahahaha you would REALLY hate this guy in question then I think. Because when I encountered him in Brisban Wildlands he was on his guardian and his level 35 rares (he linked them in chat) were all +toughness and +vitality. He said his trait spread was 0/0/12/10/10 – > so pretty tanky too and he was rather proud of the fact he was a tank. Couple of us tried to explain that maybe he was being too defensive but he told us he had logged X hours in the game and knew was he was doing. So we left him at it and went back to killing bandits!

DeathPanel.8362:

This is because people usually lvl so quickly that they very quickly out lvl their current gear and it wouldn’t be efficient to always craft/buy gear for your current lvl.

This is another reason why most people don’t like having lower lvls in their pug team because regardless of their “skill” level their raw numbers usually can’t compete even assuming other things being equal.

You are speaking as if I never had to level a character. My main and first character levelled on a shoestring same as most people who aren’t super good at making in-game gold. She also wasn’t a armour-smith and so crafting was off the table totally. But there are so many ways to get level appropriate gear! Drops, TP (where blues and greens are not very expensive) and Karma purchases from zones… it just seems ridiculous! Especially since one COF run alone would more then pay for a good set of level appropriate gear.

But I suppose it could be worse. I know I have encountered enough level 80s in LA who did not bother to buy either the master or grandmaster trait books. So they were running a 10/10/10/10/10 build (well hopefully they actually remembered to spend the traits) and had 20 traits sitting gathering dust at level 80!

Mad Rasputin.7809:

I’d rather PUG with a low level guy, under geared, who can pretty much carry his weight and contribute even if it is not 100% effective as the ‘elitist’ level 80 full exotic geared guy.

The under geared/lower level people tend to be a little more fun to play with in my experience. Though, I’m not just grinding dungeons for gold and loot and trying to get in and out as fast as possible.

If that is your playstyle, then I understand why you would want a level 80 zerker warrior. And I don’t knock you for it, I just rather play with people who want to have fun like me.

Both are extremes and a under-geared player who insists “he knows how to make it work” is just as tiresome as an “zerker exotic only” player. I rather not group with either extreme to be honest. Extremes are not fun!

vespers.1759:

i leveled to 80 in 35 rares in AC. i didn’t really notice a difference. i don’t think your stats decrease if you keep the same armor, so wouldn’t you be just as good in AC as an 80 in 35 rares than a 35 in 35 rares?

Yeah but he wasn’t talking about AC. He said CoF and I am not sure scaling works that way. As in, I don’t think the scale cares what armour your wear but just scales down from your total stat numbers. But I never did figure out the scaling properly.

Invertation.4293:

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

As per this page, yeah, just a bit of an impairment. A bit of quick searching suggests that would make their damage output weaker by ~1/3 with respect to weapon damage alone. That’s fine and well if his group is informed and ok with that, but he does himself no favors.

That’s what I thought. Also it seems kind of pointless way to gimp yourself and your team. Even if you level using dungeons, surely you’ll get enough money/drops to gear yourself up and if you are leveling-up by clearing zones, just picking-up karma pieces from Renowned hearts would also do the trick. Even if you bought Tier 1 cultural armour and waiting until you can get Tier 2 cultural armour, surely you can just use transmute stones to keep the look while you upgrade the stats. Well that’s what I would do anyway.

So today I was playing on my level 25+ elementalist in Brisban Wildlands when I got into a chat conversation with a guy who said he was planning on using level 35 rares until level 60 and then get another set of rares. Now you can make rares last many levels but in my experience around about level 50 mark is when your level 35 rares start becoming inferior to even blues, let alone greens.

So I commented that I hope he wasn’t planning on doing dungeons. But he then commented that he had a thief who was using level 35 rares in CoF and insisted he wasn’t dragging down his group because he was dying less then the others and that he knew how to make it work with his builds and stuff… Now I firmly believe skill + build > gear but isn’t this a bit much? I mean, surely a level appropriate blues and green would be better then level 35 rares in CoF!

Am I missing something? What do you guys think?

Edit:

For comparison, a level 35 rare heavy chest piece has 117 armour and two stats: +29 for the major stat and +17 for minor stat.

A level 70 blue heavy chest piece has 227 armour and three stats: +62 for the major stat and +44 for the two minor stats.

A level 75 blue heavy chest piece has 250 armour and again three stats.

So by wearing a level 35 rare chest piece at level 70, a soldier class player is sacrificing 110 armour, +33 from the major stat, +27 from the first minior stat and the entirely of the second minor stat.

So going by pure numbers, even soloing or WvWvWing, no one is doing themselves a favour by wearing outdated gear IMO.

Ungood.3054:

Tinni.4351:

I am sorry but if you cannot bring yourself to group for even that much, might I suggest a non-mmorpg?

I have a novel idea. How about you try to have a discussion without judgmental nonsense like this, after all, the last person who should be telling me how to play my game is someone who spent their GW1 life clinging to a Bot and their Brother because Socializing is Hard. mmm’kay

So let it go. If you want to have a discussion, make an effort to make a point and not a personal attack.

That’s rich coming from a guy who made an entire post that’s full of nothing but personal attacks. Also, WHY do you think I said socialising was hard? Socialising isn’t just about playing nice with people, although that’s part of it but it is also about everything you described. People have individual needs, rl commitments that limit their in-game abilities. Including the time they can spend playing, waiting for groups etc. All these things are part of socialising is hard and all these things is why the OP and you yourself want the “bots” back because heros and henchies allowed a 5 man dungeon to be done without by a single person plus 4 heros and henchies. I.e. essentially it was done solo.

I get it, I really do. You have RL commitments that limit your play time and so you want to solo dungeons so you can play at your own pace. I have time constraints too. I like playing at my pace too. But I think you are totally missing the point where dungeons are your own personal bubble into which no one can intrude. It doesn’t matter if you are grouping or not when you are just messing around in PvE or WvWvW. You are there with other people or at least there is the potential for another person to be in the same zone as you. This is what makes GW 2 an MMO.

However, as soon as you enter an instance, you are in your own world and if you are not in a group, you are instantly in an a single player game. This is why I never thought of GW 1 as an MMO but more a single player with the potential to co-operative play. Same as Diablo III.

But here is the thing though, you and the OP want this change because of your personal limitations. It has nothing to do with the game. The game will not benefit by having a solo option for story mode. All it will really do is turn dungeons into an extension of open world PvE, where everything but champions (and even some of those) are soloable, with maybe slightly tougher mobs. It doesn’t add anything to enrich the game. I rather NOT have developer energy wasted like that.

Ungood.3054:

Tinni.4351:

There was solo option in Guild Wars 1. It was called henchmen and they were never used in dungeons and high level missions because of the limited control you had over them. Come Nightfall, we go heros. You could customise everything on a hero. Their build, their gear, everything! What happened? MOST missions, dungeons and the likes were soloed with heros! Maybe two people (siblings, couples, long time friends) would group but most people didn’t.

Did you ever stop to wonder why?

I mean. Sure, we can say many things like “because they could” but maybe it was because in many MMO’s you simply have to many people with incompatible play styles and mind sets when it comes to how to play the game.

I don’t have to stop and wonder why. I used to use heros all the time and before then make do with henchies if I could. The only human I played regularly with is my brother. Its not that I never grouped with people before or after heros but generally speaking I used heros or played with my bro because,

1. Socialising is hard
2. It was quicker – no waiting for groups
3. While my monk could always find a group, some of my other classes, especially my assassin (thief) often struggled.

HOWEVER, at some point you have to ask yourself – what is the point of an MMORPG. The MMO part means that by playing this game you tacitly agree to play with other people. Guild Wars is great in that you can do a lot without needing to interact with another living soul.

Want exotic gear? Craft or buy with Karma! No grouping needed. Want ascended gear? Do dailies! Monthlies usually have dungeon req but dailies never do. You can also explore the map, WvWvW, do jumping puzzle and a whole bunch of other things without direct groups or anything.

The ONLY time you HAVE to group is the Arah story mission. All the other story dungeons are optional but Arah story you have to do to complete personal storyline and thus is the only “compulsory” dungeon you have to do. That is the only time you have to forcefully group.

This is consistent with GW 1 where it was usually the last 3 or so missions were grouping with other humans were a benefit. Even after heros were introduced, tackling the last 2-3 missions in all the instalments were astronomically easier with human players.

I am sorry but if you cannot bring yourself to group for even that much, might I suggest a non-mmorpg?

I had a Grawl during the Grawl Shamen fight in Fractals avoid my Ring of Warding somehow despite being caught in the middle of it… good thing my chain was up and the group had two theives. Not cool Anet!!!!

That skill needs major fix. Something OP to make-up for all the time it let us down.

The fight was NEVER hard. It was always just tedious. What got you was the tedium. The longer you spend in the room, the more likely you were to miss a jump going down, get caught in a red circle etc, etc. It was basically a battle against your own feelings of are-we-there-yet.

There was solo option in Guild Wars 1. It was called henchmen and they were never used in dungeons and high level missions because of the limited control you had over them. Come Nightfall, we go heros. You could customise everything on a hero. Their build, their gear, everything! What happened? MOST missions, dungeons and the likes were soloed with heros! Maybe two people (siblings, couples, long time friends) would group but most people didn’t.

It was great in some ways, terrible in others. It worked for GW 1 BECAUSE it wasn’t an MMO in the traditional sense. However, GW 2 is an MMO in the traditional sense. I am not sure being able to “solo” dungeons in any way shape or form is the right way to go.

Maybe what we really need is a better communication and you know, actually read gw2lfg.com comments. I am already starting to see this but we need more. Something like, “LFG first time doing dungeon but am a serious player, no casuals” or “casual looking for fun, want to watch all cut scenes” or just being up front when you join a group with what you want out of the dungeon. Most people are pretty accommodating in GW 2 in my experience.

O for the love of… Monthly’s are not for everyone! You don’t have to do monthly achievements! It’s as optional as dungeons! If you want it, you have to enter dungeons. Period.

Svarty.8019:

Tinni.4351:

Svarty.8019:

The roles in GW2 are:

DPS Kiter.

The above is a bad myth that I would like to see put down. It saddens me to think that many people think that GW 2 dungeons is every man for himself doing whatever. It is not and especially now with the new WP changes in dungeons.

Clearly, it’s not every man for himself, but every man DPSing the boss. At the same time, they are doing the other things that finish the encounter, clicking buttons, carrying batteries or whatever, but if you have a team full of DPSers, you won’t suffer any more than a team of mixed specs, so why roll anything else? See GW2LFG.COM Citadel of Flames > 4 Warriors and 1 Mesmer groups.

I am sorry but what are you getting at exactly? If all your team needs you to do is DPS that’s what you do. I mean, your team maybe full of pro-dodgers who know the encounter inside out and thus don’t need additional support in the form of your utilities or your skills. So just DPS the boss. I mean, I change my utilities and traits from encounter to encounter depending on what I think the team needs. Why would an ele, for example, bother attuning to water if the team doesn’t need the healing it provides?

Svarty.8019:

Tinni.4351:

The key to remember is that no class is pigeon-holed into any particular role and so the key to dungeons is playing whatever role your team need to play. This requires an awareness of the field of play. I.e. not just the mob but your teammates.
[..]

If you team mate down? [..] Alternatively, he could be being revived by another teammate, that’s the time to ask ourself, what can I do to help them? It might be a simple as blinding the enemy that might be aggroed to them. Or simple pulling said enemy away.

With examples like these, I’m can’t see many people buying your argument. For example, Blind won’t work reliably or for any length of time against bosses because of their buff.

Also, regarding classes not being pigeon-holed, I am yet to see a guardian in full berserker gear. Their innate HPs are a massive issue. I would not be at all surprised if there are other examples of pigeon-holing.

Even 5 seconds of blind can mean the difference between your teammate successfully rallying/reviving or dying. I have lost count of how many times the mob I was trying to rally off died a second after I did. Even 1 second of blind that would have made that mob’s last hit miss would have saved me.

Also, there are guardians running around in full Berserker gear. I know a guardian who has specced entirely for damage for Fractals and working on maximising his critical chance. Yes Guardians have low HP pools but that just means you can’t play a Guardian like you do a warrior. It doesn’t mean a Guardian has to wear PVT gear or high vitality gear in a vain attempt to boost their HP. That’s just trying to make your class into something it isn’t.

Svarty.8019:

The roles in GW2 are:

DPS Kiter.

The above is a bad myth that I would like to see put down. It saddens me to think that many people think that GW 2 dungeons is every man for himself doing whatever. It is not and especially now with the new WP changes in dungeons.

The key to remember is that no class is pigeon-holed into any particular role and so the key to dungeons is playing whatever role your team need to play. This requires an awareness of the field of play. I.e. not just the mob but your teammates.

For example, when you hear the ele say “water” or “oceans bend at my will” or whatever their particular character says to indicate they have switched attunement, you know a water combo field (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo – in case OP as a new player didn’t know what combo field were) is likely to be coming. Time to get your finisher ready to trigger regen/area heal etc to get extra heals.

If you team mate down? Is he/she hitting a mob with low health near him? Help him rally by taking that mob out quicker. Alternatively, he could be being revived by another teammate, that’s the time to ask ourself, what can I do to help them? It might be a simple as blinding the enemy that might be aggroed to them. Or simple pulling said enemy away.

In a nutshell: do what needs to be done. A team can support one, maybe two “lol I’ll just hit this thing with my giant sword and ignore everything else” but if everybody does that… well…

shrug It’s a farm thing and even though I am going for a legendary and need money, I rather not do X times of CoF path 1 over and over and over no matter how quick it is. So the “warriors only” doesn’t worry me.

I mean, all we non-warriors and non-mesmers have to do is band together and we’ll have plenty of groups. I don’t even wish a “re-balance” on warriors. Let them have their fun. I mean, warriors in GW have always been about farming and running.

TRON.1085:

Say im lvl 25 fractals and I do a lvl 10 daily fractal.

Am I suppose to get relic rewards at lvl 25 rates or lvl 10 rates?

I ask because on top right corner of screen it says “fractal reward level 25” but when I do level 10 fractal im not getting lvl 25 rewards, im getting lvl 10 rewards.

Is it a bug or just poor choice of words on arena nets part?

I don’t see how im getting lvl 25 rewards, coz im not, even the drops seem to be nerfed on fractals and been made harder so take longer…

You get reward for the lower of the personal reward and fractal difficulty level. But I think there is some minor scaling if you are on an odd number. I.e. if I am level 25 but do level 26, I believe my Maw reward is scaled-up (not a 100%). But no, you will not be able to farm-up Fractal skins by farming level 10 after getting to Fractal 20+

O dear god! It’s returning! The never ending battle between team “always carry a res in dungeons” and “I need all my slots and can’t carry a res!” team. I mean seriously, forget the hard res, how many people carry the battle res they do have now? I have seen warriors sometimes have their banner res and engineers sometimes have Elixer R but most people do not carry their battle res. Before we start asking for hard reses, maybe we should start using our battle reses and see if that helps group not perform better in dungeons.

Well I have done since the path is HOTW and CoE. It’s actually been quite pleasant for both! I mean, I was worried about Alpha but it worked out pretty well. I actually think we died less then previously when CoE allowed WP zergs. People just seemed more concious about team mates going down and also “planning” their downs so that they were in safe spots for their teammate to res them and stuff. But maybe I was just lucky.

Also remember that the patch has been out 4 days. People are still adjusting. Once they are finished, they will return their usual level of dungeon proficiency.

SoliSnake.9457:

when will anet implemente 3 vote for kick?

Would this solve the problem? If you have 3 guildies and two pick-ups the abuse will continue. 4 votes, well today I joined a group with 4 people form the same guild. They could have kick trolled me if they wanted to. But there is another side to this, 3 to 4 votes and it becomes difficult to kick a bad player if they have a friend and/or you just have a person who doesn’t like kicking people.

I think maybe a better option would be a cumulative vote. I.e. if you kick someone before or shortly after the first boss (or first fractal), you just need two votes. Second boss or second fractal, you need three votes. Any point after that you need all four people to agree. This way you prevent the end chest trolls but also have a good safety net to kick disagreeable players.

Would it be possible to get Laurels for doing Dragon events? Like the first time you do a dragon event per day you get a Laurel with the possibility of 3 laurels a day extra for doing all three dragon events.

I mean, I know that right now Dragon events aren’t tracked and laurels for dragon events would mean that a person just farms the dragons all day to get however many laurels they need/want. But I think that in the future Laurels for dragons would be a good idea. Maybe even a chance, but a relatively high one, of getting a “bag of laurels” from the dragon chests would be good.

I use hammer in dungeons and Greatsword in PvP and open world PvE most of the time but I switch to hammer in open world PvE when I am fighting a single high HP mob.

In dungeons I generally run altruistic healing and with the hammer #1 and #2 I can pretty much proc the light combo field every 3rd swing of the hammer. That’s also why I feel as if the hammer does more damage against single targets. But I don’t have any empirical evidence and could be grossly mistaken. I also don’t use GS in dungeons cause I act slightly reckless when I am using GS.

They are both great and I recommend carrying both if you have space.

Omega Zoa.3859:

What kind of “warning” is that? i just thought its unique cause its ascended and has a unique name…to the average joe like me that “unique” does not say much. Man thats just agh……ten days down the drain…what am i suppose to do with my second ring? sell it to a vender..listen anet, i love you, but that…sigh…so upset :\..

Umm… am I missing something or isn’t “unique” a pretty standard MMORPG (and non-mmo RPG) terminology used by pretty much everybody. Just how much information do you want them to squeeze into that tiny tool tip?

Also, didn’t you browse the vendor? Didn’t you notice that there was a ring just below the Red Ring of Death with the exact same stats? That should have been a pretty big clue that maybe you should at least ask someone before buying a second Red Ring of Death.

I mean, I feel your pain, but I can’t fault Anet here.