Guild Wars 2

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Congradulations. That’s some smart deduction. But can you figure out who’s the father of Marjory’s baby?

Rytlock obviously

…that’s how bidding works. The highest bid wins. Also, definitely not in favor of being forced to spend more money than we should in order to win the bid.

Invisible Bags and Safe Bags are your friends in this case, though I do think a popup on such rare items would be nice as a backup

For the rings, fractal chests also have a decent chance to drop infused versions and attuning is incredibly cheap. Alternatively, all the mats for infusing also drop from fractals themselves. If you don’t want to spend the money, patience is your ally.

Easy fix – Deep Sea Dragon surfaces near Cantha and attacks. Boom, no need to change the Dragons plot, but still gives us Cantha

Can you put a link to the location? I can’t tell where you are saying this occurred

1: Yes, very. It’s never at WoW levels but even at its lowest point the Megaserver system means that you would never know.

2: Dungeons, no. Not if you pay attention and can play at a decent level of skill. Raids, yes by specific design. The biggest portion of time will be of course learning how the content works but once you and your group know how to do so it isn’t a problem.

3: If you want to go straight into the newer content, yes, but if you level up the traditional way you’ll learn the skills you need to succeed at the newest content instead of getting out of depth. Personally I’d recommend levelling a character first and then using the level 80 boost on a different class once you figure out what type of classes you like best.

4: Pro-tip: some people care way too much about the meta, and some people don’t care enough. Don’t listen to people who say you need to have specific gear and a specific build, but remember that the meta is the meta because it is the most efficient. Experiment with your builds to find something you like, but don’t expect others to be pleased if it causes them to fail in group activities. Multiple sets are your friend in this way.

Fractals are your best friend. Easy at the start and work their way up, and a fairly reliable and cash positive way of getting ascended gear. When you start fractals, SAY SOMETHING when you don’t know what to do. People will explain. It’s kittenty to not say anything and then cause the group to wipe because you don’t know how it works.

Sykper.6583:

They could just make those new guild missions.

Albeit, guild missions and guild progression itself needs some work, they need to add some goodies for those guilds who have reached peak progression or some tiers from guilds not quite wanting to max out just yet.

I think guild missions should be fixed before adding new ones personally, but I agree that new missions would be great to have and HoT mechanics/locations offer some great opportunities.

A good midway point would be to add a mission type similar to the “complete x number of pvp rounds while in a guild group” and make it “complete x number of dungeons in x amount of time while in a group consisting of 3 or more guild members”.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

UnbentMars.9126:

My ideas:

An actual Defense-oriented dungeon where you have to hold out in VB night against increasingly difficult waves of foes in order to defend the survivors of a pact wreck that were unable to escape with the rest of the injured refugees and unable to link up with any of the Pact forces that continued on into the jungle.

Yeah, because everyone loves time-gated events in dungeons.
The only way I can see this kind of dungeon NOT being extremely frustrating and painfully boring is that it would dynamically change based on your group’s performance: If you kill a wave of enemies really quickly, next one spawns sooner so that you don’t have to wait AND you have the option to just summon all enemy waves at once if you feel brave enough to take them out and survive.
Otherwise I agree, dungeons are my favorite part of the game and I’d like to see more of them implemented in any shape or form.

That would make a great challenge mode for the specific instance. My goal was to come up with appropriate stories for dungeons for the VB map, and I couldn’t really think of anything that wasn’t already in the open-world meta event :P Alternate method would be that each wave spawns immediately after the most recent one was finished, or after a set amount of time so you actually have to work to kill everything quick enough to not be buried under enemies. 10 waves, every 3 you get a boss and the last wave spawns with the final boss along with the trash mobs so you have to be careful.

A fun optional mechanic would be to split the group to go out and try to quickly gather materials to fortify the holdout zone, which, if done fast enough can very much help with later waves but requires a quick running team and a good holdout team to achieve.

I think there’s a ton of room for challenge motes in dungeons. They were added to fractals relatively easily and have provided a great optional challenge, and could be adapted for similar effect for dungeons (though I’d say that increased tokens from the final chests would be a great reward for completing each challenge mode, and a title for completing all dungeons challenge modes would be an easy addition that would add a lot of longevity to existing dungeons for minimal effort).

I doubt more dungeons will be made, but I still love a good story and idea-sharing. What are some stories that could be told in dungeon form in HoT?

My ideas:

An actual Defense-oriented dungeon where you have to hold out in VB night against increasingly difficult waves of foes in order to defend the survivors of a pact wreck that were unable to escape with the rest of the injured refugees and unable to link up with any of the Pact forces that continued on into the jungle.

Assaulting a Blighting Tree to plant Auric bombs at the base or something, and Malyck would be the final boss. That would even tie up the loose end that everyone has been complaining about, and have a good opportunity to show what the Exalted can actually do rather than be in trouble pretty much incessantly.

In Bloodstone Fen, a dungeon centered around White Mantle and Jade Armors to help bridge the narrative gap that non-raiders missed in terms of lead-up to the actual explosion or something. Maybe chasing Lazarus’s sarcophagus or whatever he was being kept in while the White Mantle try to remove him from the area (timeline-wise, occurs at the same time as the 3rd wing of the raid) in order to protect him from the raiders who are attacking the keep. Heroes fail, but they learn important information about what the White Mantle are really doing (not soon enough to prevent it from happening, however).

They recently stated that designing an instance for 4 paths wasn’t a good use of time and resources, but why do we need 4 paths in an instance? I’d be happy with just one if it meant we would get some of the dungeon-type content for HoT maps…there’s so much potential for follow-up stories!

Like:
Assaulting a Blighting Tree to plant Auric bombs at the base or something, and Malyck would be the final boss. That would even tie up the loose end that everyone has been complaining about, and have a good opportunity to show what the Exalted can actually do rather than be in trouble pretty much incessantly.

An actual Defense-oriented dungeon where you have to hold out in VB night against increasingly difficult waves of foes in order to defend the survivors of a pact wreck that were unable to escape with the rest of the injured refugees and unable to link up with any of the Pact forces that continued on into the jungle.

In Bloodstone Fen, a dungeon centered around White Mantle and Jade Armors to help bridge the narrative gap that non-raiders missed in terms of lead-up to the actual explosion or something. Maybe chasing Lazarus’s sarcophagus or whatever he was being kept in while the White Mantle try to remove him from the area (timeline-wise, occurs at the same time as the 3rd wing of the raid) in order to protect him from the raiders who are attacking the keep. Heroes fail, but they learn important information about what the White Mantle are really doing (not soon enough to prevent it from happening, however).

So much room for so many small stories to be told, especially with the new and amazing mechanics Anet keeps adding.

As far as I’ve been able to tell, the tooltips round down (2.4 will read as 2 1/4) but the full duration tics on the enemy it’s used on

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Yes, the near constant updates are what kept me with this game for so long. But, I fear, those days have come and gone given what Mo has said previously.

They are gone because they were hell on the devs and led to crappy, buggy, rushed content. They have been adding current events in lieu of more frequent updates but have said we can expect larger story portions every 2-3 months since they haven’t forced themselves into a 2-week schedule.

It’s better this way, and you still get the constant updates since they’ve added new events every 2 weeks since the beginning of July.

Commisar’s Manifesto doesn’t drop in SE and there’s no recipe for it, it’s a very rare drop from the meta-event outside SE.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commissar's_Manifesto

Great, thanks for the answer. Bummed to have to spend 2 more hours trying to get people to do the towers right, but at least now I know it’s not bugged!

I do wonder why it never dropped from the 40+ Noxious Pods I opened…

Hi all,

All that’s left for me to receive both Horologicus and Glint’s Bastion is to get the Machined Shield Backing, which will complete the Machined Shield so I can complete the collections for both ascended shields.

I completed Dragon Stand yesterday and was under the impression that the completion chest had a guaranteed drop for collection items, but it did not drop. I then opened about kitten Noxious Pods and received no collection item.

Is this a bug? Has anyone else seen this occur?

I did receive one of the collection items for the Warmaster’s Pack, did that collection item drop make it so i did not receive the other collection item?

Help please! I have been trying for Glint’s Bastion for months.

Amidst all the “compensate us, I live my whole life on GW2 and lost thousands of gold from 1 and a half hours of non-stop farming” crap:

Thank you Anet devs for pulling such a hard day to get GW2 back online with as little damage done as possible. We know this was stressful for you and we appreciate not only the huge effort that was put into fixing everything, but also the constant communication from Mike and Gaile.

We appreciate your hard work and effort, after such a tough day I hope the team can take it a little easy!

I would like to suggest the ability to add the “Empowered” prefix to Ascended items that would give a one-time choice to add an alternate stat set to the ascended armor so we could switch back and forth between the two pre-sets.

I’m thinking something like this: Zojja’s Ascended Chestpiece (berserker stats), craft the upgrade to Empowered and either choose a second stat group (e.g. Viper’s) or the materials used would determine the second stat group. Then, when out of combat, the player could alter the armor of choice to switch back and forth between the two stat groups as needed.

This would add a huge QOL improvement specifically for those of us who will likely never be able to get legendary armor while not replacing the value of having the option for choosing all stats.

This would likely be a crafted addition, and would not change the total stats on basic ascended gear, just add an extra option and lower bag space required for multiple sets.

What are your thoughts?

It didn’t sound like uncontrolled emotion at all, more like just legitimate regret at actions she had previously taken. She does offer an explanation for her behavior; that her Wyld Hunt and The Call were giving a conflicting, jumbled message to her that made her decision-making capacity a little strained.

I don’t think she sounded dejected when she said that, it was in response to the Commander (Poo-Bah?) asking if she’ll be okay on her own that deep in very hostile territory.

in PvE: Dagger Ele has some of the highest mobility in the game with very nice damage, and staff ele has decent utility, great group heal options that fit well within the rotation, and the best large hitbox damage in the game. That said, ele’s are very fragile unless you really know how to move, so that’s my warning. I main a staff ele and I love it.

Mesmers have some of the highest utility in the game. In terms of dps support, a boonsharing mesmer has basically the highest and most varied dps support in the game even without much might-stacking since alacrity and quickness are so useful. You will never do the most damage by far, but every group needs one. The challenge is that, at least in raids, you will basically have to use the most expensive armor set in order to be effective and no group wants more than one. If you like tanking and have great timing for using your distortion, you’ll go far with that. For damage purposes, that type of mesmer doesn’t do a whole lot.

Continuing for less common types of mesmers: Condi mesmers kick kitten in general PvE, but are not very useful for instanced content and nearly useless for raids as the build requires you to not give any buffs to anyone on top of having low dps compared to other condi classes (the kitten kicking comes from some of the highest kiting capabilities in the game combined with high confusion and torment spikes)

As for PvP/WvW, I don’t do much of those but mesmers make great scouts and ele’s make great backline/support

What type of role do you like to play in PvE, and what type of role do you like to play in WvW?

I think this largely depends on how Lazarus behaves. If Lazarus assists in any capacity against Primordus then that would be vastly helpful. It also depends on whether or not the stone dwarfs are still around. They have been holding pretty steady underground for a long time, and our assistance may be enough to allow them to push forward with us.

Kirschsahne.2081:

UnbentMars.9126:

Also when you leave, send me your stuff. Idk why you think the game is dying when more and more people are playing it.

lol….

do you have any whatever evidence for that?
Any ?

Anet announced 7 million accounts as of HoT launching with 460,000 concurrent players at the height, and the last available info as of earlier this year was an average of 40,000 concurrent players per day and something to the tune of an average of over 250,000 unique players logging on per day.

As for data that is less than a week old, I have none, but after new content is released there’s ALWAYS more players logging in than if you were to compare it before. Far from dying.

EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_games

62,000 concurrent players is the correct number currently according to the actual data.

Astralporing.1957:

Jerus.4350:

But, anyways, the dev who made the encounter said he specifically wanted to introduce some raid mechanics as a stepping stone to raids.

I’d rather they introduced old swamp mechanics to raids than the other way around. I really hate how that raid content is having impact on the whole game way out of proportion compared to the small group of players it was meant for.

So you want raids to be an utterly boring faceroll where people just stack and dont do anything other than press 1? That’s silly…

What’s wrong with challenging content? It’s about time Swamp was updated to be anything more than a spamfest as it was vastly too easy since it was introduced. Additionally, improving encounters that are accessible to most people to serve as a stepping stone to enable an easier transition to raiding is a FANTASTIC move by Anet.

Galtrix.7369:

Very constructive criticism. When you come back in the future to post another “I’m Leaving” thread, make sure to state why you are leaving and why the game is dying.

Also when you leave, send me your stuff. Idk why you think the game is dying when more and more people are playing it.

BrokenGlass.9356:

UnbentMars.9126:

Looking at the Earth skills, there isn’t much about skills 2-5 that really help stack up bleed so the recharge rate may not be very useful when compared to the loss of so much Condi damage

I still side in favor of the toughness conversion trait, but the above isn’t a good reason to throw out the cooldown trait.
1- 3 stacks-

2- 5 stacks- The 2 gives a toughness bonus, (so if its the first thing you cast when switching into earth, you get a small bonus to condi damage, from trait synergy. if we dont use the cd trait.) The upon releasing the stones they recently buffed it to be 5 bleeds at 12.5 sec tooltipped buffless at 7743. also, its 5 gauronteed projectile finishers, which through a fire field, keeps up burning pressure while out of fire.

3-breakbars (completions sake… i could have removed this line)

4-blast, also in the fire field leftover b4 switch, more might stax! (and possibly this one)

5- 10stacks- The 5 is the best condi move on the weapon set. 2 bleeds for 15.75 sec tooltipped at 3872. x5 sec…. so 19,365… if they stand in it.

f4- 8 stacks- oh and the overload… which is… 1 bleed 14.5 sec 1807 for 4sec, 7,228… then it leaves the aftereffect tornado… doing the same thing, 14,456. if they stand in it. (more while holding firey greatsword… which one wants to do more in earth, so it 2 can help burning from falling off, while supercharging condi damage.

which is why i had given some thought to the trait swap. though it also means i need to swap any leftover rabid trinkets for Sinister, as not to waste stats once one hits that 100.7.

also, question: with this build’s high crit rate, would it be worth it to make room for a sigil of earth, allowing me to maintain a few bleeds while not in earth? it takes some juggling to make it happen, and its not many bleeds… so, i cant decide.

That’s good reasoning, and I appreciate the breakdown!

For the final portion, the downside to switching any of the 20% duration sigils out for Sigil of Earth means that you automatically lose 20% condi duration to either bleed or burn. In the interest of following that line of thought, see below.

I re-edited the build to allow for Sigil of Earth while maintaining 100% condi duration:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBLhFyxgyG23AjGwHxiAgNED2BFhgAQo8A42ant1WA-TRSAQB2UJYIV+FgDEQA1TER1fowDAQanAABu/AAOgAkCYRlVA-e

To make that tradeoff, you lose about 50 condi damage, but the extra 2.5 stacks of bleed every 5 seconds is likely worth that.

I think that would actually be a worthwhile trade, though since the increased stacks (especially adding bleeds while in Fire) cause overall much more damage than the loss in condi damage. Thoughts?

Also, I definitely agree. Theorycrafting non-meta builds is a lot more fun since theorycrafting the meta has been beat to death.

You will have to be in a group with someone that does have access to those (for reference: you have to have a personal level of at least 76 before you can queue for t4’s). That said, make sure you have enough AR before you join groups in t4.

BrokenGlass.9356:

That’s a very interesting approach. I’ll have to look into it. However, I can say that I rarely get aggro from mobs, when I do however, I tend to be able to use the aggro to drag the mobs through the persistent effects left by warhorn 5 in fire and earth. Also, that small bit of damage reduction takes a missed dodge from dead, to high pressure.

Also, you’d be amazed how much that small quantity of extra condi damage really is. The further you stack it the better all your condis calculate. The ele is the only class with 2 conversion traits, and thus it’s the highest available conditions damage latout while still maximizing duration. The only way to get more condi damage would be ‘sigil of corruption’ and considering how fragile those stacks are, I don’t trust that sigil. Not to mention to account for the loss in duration I’d need X2 givers weapons, and a sigil of malice… and that seems… riskier for little gain and a reduction in power. (Though it would gain a little vit)

Honestly I’m not sure what is best. But I do know I down the new testing golems faster on my ele than many other toons.

I will test your ideas tonight though. (I just really don’t want to farm for the ascended assessors in vipers… shiver)

Hmm, looking back at the difference in condi damage (which is about 150 or so) I think you may have been right in the first place. Looking at the Earth skills, there isn’t much about skills 2-5 that really help stack up bleed so the recharge rate may not be very useful when compared to the loss of so much Condi damage. I think that the only real improvement would be trading out the accessories for Vipers to get to 100% condi duration (since the duration is a much bigger factor in total damage than condi damage). Those changes would mean a drop of about 40 condi power, but a duration gain of 9.9% which would be a bigger increase overall without the need to take the 20% skill recharge reduction.

This also would lower your toughness to 1453 which, while still high, puts you low enough for most raid tanks to be able to hold aggro off of you while maintaining enough toughness to survive major hits.

The only difference between maintaining what it is now and changing out everything for viper/sinister is more power damage. I’m not actually sure which one would result in higher dps though. I’ll definitely look into it because I’ve never really seen a condi ele build before. It’ll take me a long time because I very much do not have the gear lol, but color me curious.

Edit: For reference, here is the modified build I mentioned with 100% condi duration.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBLhFyxgyG23AjGwHxiAg52ant12gAQo8AMED2BFBA-TBSAQBCc/hAqnwmKBxmSuIq+DAOhAB4BBESlDkCYRlVA-e

BrokenGlass.9356:

UnbentMars.9126:

BrokenGlass.9356:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBLhFyxgyG23AjGwHxiAg52ant12gAQo8AMED2BFBA-TxRAQBA4ECEQ9EtRJYEV/RMK/CwDCQg7PQKgFVWB-e

The sheer damage from the burn/bleed is insane.

Earth provides 30+ bleeds in a single rotation, then fire can spike up 15+ burns before half the bleeds fall off. Then back to earth and spike up both burns (scepter 2 combo thru field left from fire overload) and bleeds. Rinse and repeat. The full damage rotation keeps both condis up all the time, and damage never falls below 2k per tick on either one.

Burns can spike to 10k alone and self-mighted.

Bleeds can spike to 9k alone and self-mighted.

In full party buffs, burns up to 25k. Bleeds clocked up to 19k.

It can get pretty silly. Also,it’s fun as hell.

I actually quite like that. Most people say ele can’t do a real condi build but that build shows real damage potential! Especially now that Vipers ascended rings/amulet/backpiece are available in Bloodstone Fen (potential damage increase of 5% or so just due to the increased condi duration)

Actually, best way to do that (since its already at about 91% condi duration for burning and bleeding) would be to get the new ring and amulet and make them both vipers and then make the backpiece sinister to bring yourself up to 100.13% and not waste the extra 1% above 100% that you’d get from making the backpiece vipers.

The community undervalues conditions ele, because it undervalues bleeds in general.

As for that last 10% durration… I thought about vipers rings and ammys, however… I loose on a lot of toughness which is converting to conditions damage, the amount of conditions dmg lost somewhat looses out on the bonus. Gain pwr dmg, true… don’t know it it’s worth the trade off.

I had thought about using a givers warhorn to fill the gap… but I’ve found that 90% seems to be enough. That last bit doesn’t seem to be enough to increase my “stacks per rotation” in any noticeable way.

Definitely agree with condi ele’s being undervalued. However, with 1600 toughness you quickly run into issues of always having mobs attack you when in a party environment. Without the vitality to back up your survival it seems like you may quickly run into issues given that ele’s are the 2nd squishiest profession in the game. Is that tanking aspect intended or do you have a tactic you use for it?

As for the worry about losing toughness – to – condi damage, I think you would only lose a little, but that would allow you to take the Earth skill recharge rate increase which would contribute a lot to your stacks (especially when combined with the extra 10% duration from transitioning to vipers/sinister from rabid), and you wouldn’t have to worry about potentially taking aggro in a raid setting either.

Thoughts?

lesteel.7314:

- Gear templates

- Build templates

- Keyring

- 800 gem gathering tools need to be account bound, feels overly greedy otherwise.. I’ve pumped over 500$ into this game.

- MORE EMOTES. MORE EMOTES. MORE EMOTES. Seriously, it’s ridiculous, stop everything for a week and crank out 50. For the love of god, please.

Build Templates yes, keyring yes, account bound tools yes

Emotes? Nice to have but I’d rather have them continuing to work on content and quality of life stuff rather than flair

Sooooo…basically make the game turn into Aion?

BrokenGlass.9356:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBLhFyxgyG23AjGwHxiAg52ant12gAQo8AMED2BFBA-TxRAQBA4ECEQ9EtRJYEV/RMK/CwDCQg7PQKgFVWB-e

The sheer damage from the burn/bleed is insane.

Earth provides 30+ bleeds in a single rotation, then fire can spike up 15+ burns before half the bleeds fall off. Then back to earth and spike up both burns (scepter 2 combo thru field left from fire overload) and bleeds. Rinse and repeat. The full damage rotation keeps both condis up all the time, and damage never falls below 2k per tick on either one.

Burns can spike to 10k alone and self-mighted.

Bleeds can spike to 9k alone and self-mighted.

In full party buffs, burns up to 25k. Bleeds clocked up to 19k.

It can get pretty silly. Also,it’s fun as hell.

I actually quite like that. Most people say ele can’t do a real condi build but that build shows real damage potential! Especially now that Vipers ascended rings/amulet/backpiece are available in Bloodstone Fen (potential damage increase of 5% or so just due to the increased condi duration)

Actually, best way to do that (since its already at about 91% condi duration for burning and bleeding) would be to get the new ring and amulet and make them both vipers and then make the backpiece sinister to bring yourself up to 100.13% and not waste the extra 1% above 100% that you’d get from making the backpiece vipers.

Terrowyn.4728:

UnbentMars.9126:

I think this would be great, specifically for players who are stuck in the limbo of “I need ascended armor to progress in fractals but can’t get ascended armor to drop cuz I can’t progress in fractals” which seems fairly common.

As someone who always receives Ascended Chest Armor boxes and never any boxes of gear-types I actually need, I definitely support the ability to choose something.

It would also really help reduce the huge level of price-bloat with ascended armor crafting costs.

My concern:
The prices should not be the same for each item considering that there are different stat gains associated with each one. A good model to follow would be the relevant Magnetite Shard costs (i.e. off hand weapons cost less than 2 hand weapons, boots cost less than chestpieces)

Ah, that’s true! Maybe something like 150 for Chest, 90 for gloves/boots/helm, 110 for shoulders, 120 for pants, 70 for 1h weapons, 140 for 2h weapons.

Yes, something exactly like that! Anet has access to data we don’t, so I’d leave the final numbers in their hands, but I think the rule-of-thumb that makes the most sense would be as follows:

First step should be to pick a set number of days that it should take for players to acquire a full set of armor and weapons assuming they do get every possible Pristine Fractal Relic every day (currently 14 per day). An additional calculation to add in would be to increase the number of days required by a certain amount that is dependent on the % chance of a box dropping as part of the daily(s) loot in order to balance it. This is better for Anet to do so I won’t speculate on how best to calculate that, so let’s assume an easy number of days estimation: 50 days for a total of 700 Pristine Fractal Relics needed to buy 6 pieces of armor + 2 weapons (I know it should be up to 4 but bear with me, I’ll explain why 2 in the meantime)

The next step is to weight prices according to the total stat contributions of each:

Boots, Gloves, and Shoulders all provide the lowest contribution, so they should be the same. Lets say ~60 per?
Headpiece stats are between the first 3 and pants, so ~70?
Pants would then be 80 and Chestpiece would be 90

This leaves 280 Pristine Fractal Relics to divide between the weapons. The reason I believe weapons should be the most expensive is because they provide the single largest boost to damage. To bring it back to my earlier statement regarding the cost of two weapons, I believe the total cost to the player for two 2-handers should be the same as four 1-handers. Therefore 1 handed weapons should cost 70 and 2 handers should cost 140.

The actual numbers can easily change based on how many days it is best for players to take in order to achieve this, but the principle is sound and would provide an avenue for players to receive the rewards and increase their ability to gain Agony Resistance while not punishing players who want to simply spend money to craft the items and get their ascended armor faster. It also provides an additional incentive to rank up the personal fractal level since higher tiers allow access to more pristine relics via dailies.

In summary: Anet plz?

Hi all!

I love playing my elementalist and I’m interested in seeing the variety of builds that go around for comparison and fun.

I know most people use the various meta builds because – let’s be honest- we like seeing those big numbers and lots of them, but I want to see your creations.

If you would be so kind, please share your eclectic build and your reasoning (if any) behind it be it roleplaying purposes, kittens and giggles, etc.

My build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYnMIClMgdOAGRA0RgFJAztxGZvsFPhmwRQYBEAqgA-TRSBABVqyRZKHaUJIAnQA+3fILlcg8gAwTPxoqjAA-e

I use it as effectively a modified bunker/fresh air elementalist. I use it for roleplaying an arcane weapons master that dives into melee’s to deal area damage and take heat off of allies while providing moderate aura support and crowd control. A jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none approach.

For the birthday I’d love to see some of the older BL skins added to Champ Bag loot tables. Considering the ticket cost of the oldest ones is not feasible for anyone to pay and the lack of new skins showing up, I think it would be a good way for Anet to add some more skins while not really having to put any effort into it. We also get some of the skins we’ve been wishing for for several years.

Everybody wins.

I think this would be great, specifically for players who are stuck in the limbo of “I need ascended armor to progress in fractals but can’t get ascended armor to drop cuz I can’t progress in fractals” which seems fairly common.

As someone who always receives Ascended Chest Armor boxes and never any boxes of gear-types I actually need, I definitely support the ability to choose something.

It would also really help reduce the huge level of price-bloat with ascended armor crafting costs.

My concern:
The prices should not be the same for each item considering that there are different stat gains associated with each one. A good model to follow would be the relevant Magnetite Shard costs (i.e. off hand weapons cost less than 2 hand weapons, boots cost less than chestpieces)

Wow, that timeline actually makes me feel a bit better about HoT (since it felt like we weren’t in the jungle for very long at all). I wonder if there’s a potential breakdown there of how long we spent in each map -storywise. My initial thoughts would be:

First 15 or so days in VB regrouping Pact forces and helping shepherd the wounded through the pass to the Silverwastes where the closest Pact fort is.

Days ~15-30 or so in AB finding the egg, delivering it, and earning the trust and assistance of the Exalted/Skritt as well as defending Tarir from Mordrem onslaughts to allow us to push forward without fear of losing our supply lines/allies

Days 30-40 in TD gaining Nuhoch friends and assisting the Order of Whispers put together the lasers/break into DS

Days 41-43 DS campaign to simultaneously take out the Mouth of Mordremoth (via the pact remnants and allied forces that had been cobbled together) and the Mind of Mordremoth.

I have no real evidence that I can provide to back up my thoughts on this, but considering the way the meta-events work and how the storyline progresses (with the meta events clearly taking place after the story events in the same location) this timeline makes sense to me.

If someone has proof or corrections please share!

Speculation following Konig’s assertion of Abaddon’s goals regarding the Elder Dragons:

Maybe Abaddon’s original intent by releasing all magic to the races of Tyria was to enable them to go toe-to-toe with the Elder Dragons, but after being imprisoned in the Realm of Torment for so long and the approach of Nightfall, I think it was explicitly stated that his goal was revenge against the Five rather than the destruction of the Elder Dragons. That said, as the God of secrets and knowledge he could easily have had multiple congruent goals, but considering the actual outcomes (i.e. no dead Elder Dragons and continual conflict amongst the race he purportedly wanted to empower) I don’t think we can give him all that much credit.

“basically I’ve learned from this thread that I will NOT be learning raids, and I’ll stick to casual dungeons and fractals.”

Then you didn’t pay attention to anything. Multiple people have said “Join LEARNING runs rather than exp runs until you get the experience” and you took “I can’t learn raids” from that? Problem might be you, bro

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Ok there we go then. A RAID BOSS yes raid boss, Vale guardian is easier then Bloomhunger. There I said it.

Stepping stone? My kitten . Not true in any sense. The dev who made it absolutely did not play it himself (nor did he often play other fractals) cause there is no correlation in feel, execution, whatsoever with any old fractals, including mai trin. If this is the future of fractals, ouch! Secondly ’don’t worry other fracs won’t be changed? Snowblind was also made a lot more annoying. Luckely is more doable then bloomhunger, but they share the same ‘annoying facto’. Situations that are so overpowered that you are helpless no matter what, unless you hit that 0,01% like bilbo had to destroy the Ring from Sauron. If we fail in VG we know why. IF I fail in Mai trin I know why. If i die in Bloomhunger I sometimes know why. Most of times, there’s no correlation wich a opssible wrong action, and the outcome. This means, if i did any other action, it would not have fixed the failure. (Unless perhaps switching to perma dodge thief, but that cannot be the goal of fractals, forcing ppl to limited amount of fractals). I changed my trais 8×. I now have a build with that i feel (druid) is close enough to the way bloomhunger works. There’s still situations that this build cannot fix, and it has more dodges then classes like necro, engie. Snowblind has this same random kitten now with aoe, knockdowns and frostbite (if they hit you at same time you are poop, playing well won’t change that, unless longbow ranger standing in corner of room away from boss and hoping he doenst come to you. That being said, being a very good player, and having very good player in party, usually improves the chance to still beat him, SO much on snowblind that it’s partially forgiven (the annoyance factor still is there, the mechanic is not that fun rather then annoying. There’s way to fix that. Mai trin is pure genius. Yes it’s annoying, but so rewarding if you play it well. Sure Bloomhunger isn’t out long, but I play gw2 long enough (and bloomhunger 4 hour, yes 4 hours in total already), to know he’s overtuned, and not even a little bit.

Breakbar is overtuned (to much stun required), hp is overtuned (with so much hard mechanics, a high hp bar is the worst way to make it harder. Bug is a devil. Whisps not working at crucial time is suicide by devs. Poison aoe simply is to big, and to hard to wipe out fast unless everyone is power longbow ranger. I can go on and on, but Bloomhunger is wrong in every way. Except perhaps the walk him from X whisp to another, including adds who support him strongly. Makes for interesting mechanic. However the numbers supporting the skillset of bloomhunger is the most crazy dev input i’ve seen. His skills respawn to fast (though this perhaps is not the biggest issue). His skills are to big aoe. His charge is good, but some other skills are just meh. The random confusion you get (instability?) makes the frac even harder then it already should be. It’s just trolling on an already hard situation (aka force ppl to take cleanse spamming). Another issue: if you dont have swiftnes or mobility you can’t really do you thing in this fractal. This is a big balance issue. The small poison aoe’s the he spams is ok and not ok. IF that where his strongest attack, sure np, keep it good balanced. Same goes for most of his abilities. But with all the things grouped together, it’s simply to strong. This guy stole the skill ‘Impossible Odds from sHiro’ Shaved the cooldown 10x, Added 7 skills with also that level of ‘legendary impact’, and now comes together as one Boss. Not 1 but 7 Impossible odd like skills, that hugely impact the battle. To much. Not even Raid bosses are this bad. Now that I think of it: Gorseval is ALSO easier. Yes easy to die, but if you know what to do, big chance for succes. Eeasy to know and see moments to dodgE. His room wide aoe killing = predictable after a while, counterable, and mechanic wise good implemented. Bloomhunger is the opposite. Worst implementation in mmo-scape i’ve seen.

My dream punishment for the lead dev: he is forced to pug with ppl who only own the game for 1 month, and he must succeed Bloomhunger 10 in a day at lvl 77+. My brain says he will fail (and he should know every mechanic very well). That doesn’t correspond with community tuned instance, but more like a dev experiment. Failed experiment if i may say so.

PS there bug where the whisps (that if not place wiped the party) do not work, is the worst bug in the world. You first invent a world breakign hard boss, to then BUG ppl who are an inch away from succes. Unintended or not, shipping like this, kill the love for gw2 in me.

This reads like a Donald Trump speech…

Seriously though, definitely not a failed experiment and VG is way harder than Bloomhunger. My group beat it on the 3rd try without an issue. Debating overtunements is a useful part of discussion (I happen to agree that he has a bit too much health considering the invulnerability mechanics), but claiming the “experiment” failed is utter tripe.

The “wipe if you dont place the wisps fast enough” is a mechanic, not a bug. Gotta be quick about it.

Also, the dev would totally succeed as he knows the mechanics inside out and has been explaining them left and right on reddit.

I would try to explain more but it’s really hard to separate your statements from that wall of text that reads more like a Donald Trump rant than anything coherent

I’m a casual player and I love the new stuff and challenges. It may be a bit harder than core Tyria content, but its still pretty friendly (and was repeatedly nerfed to make it even friendlier). In fact, pretty much everything Anet has done has made the content progressively friendlier to casuals, including the raids considering wing 3 is vastly easier than wings 1 and 2. Also, the new fractal is not hard so I’m not sure where you got that from. Sure, if you stand in damaging spots or stand right in front of the boss then you get killed, but that’s true for everything in the game.

When you leave, feel free to send me your stuff.

Bloodstone Fen (the new map) events award salvage material that drop loot from all the tiers of materials and do so much more quickly than farming lower-level content would, especially since you can’t truly twink a character in GW2 as you’ll keep gaining experience and level up eventually.

I recommend doing event trains in the new map.

Auric Basin is gorgeous though…

If you want the legendary but like the skin of twilight, you can reskin it. Unlocking Eternity in your wardrobe unlocks sunrise and twilight skins.

That said, for the price of one Eternity you could buy dozens of ascended weapons with varied stats, so its really more of a gold question to me

Good tip list, especially about the 25% bug (happened to my group) and I was wondering!

Jerus.4350:

CptAurellian.9537:

Chaos is really nice, except the final gladiator guy. Bosses that punish melee so much aren’t fun.

Does it punish too much or should we approach it differently? I’m not sure, but I intend to find out. Perhaps a healer/tank type approach would allow for melee with an evade/block on the third attacks?

I really think it’s too early to complain too much when it very well may be possible with a bit more practice.

He gives a debuff to the party member that’s furthest away from him that makes him more likely to go after that one. The boss is also designed to be kited frequently to strip the shield, so ranged appears to be the way to go and either being fast on your feet or increasing your survivability.

You could try it with a tank-geared ranged class but the same problems are going to arise.

I’d love an improvement to the location and activation notification for the special action (currently in use in the raids and the new map). It’s current location is hard to see and there’s no flash or anything that helps you know when it’s active, especially when you only have a short window to utilize it

I think Bloom could do with a bit of a health decrease since you spend more than half the time effectively unable to do damage to him, but I absolutely love the mechanics where they are now. This is the kind of content I was hoping would be introduced in terms of difficulty. Where Bloomhunger stands now is a great stepping stone to raid level difficulty, and I hope once people master the tier4 version of him more of them will start looking into joining raids.

So let’s make sure we understand you right:

You joined a group that requested experienced people when you didn’t have any experience?

Then complained that you should be allowed to potentially weigh down experienced people while you figure out how raids work, simply because you’ve done dungeons and fractals before?

Join some learning runs instead, or create your own group with your own requirements. Do what literally everyone else who raids has done and build yourself up.

P.S. They likely found a druid pretty quick, they are very common

ekarat.1085:

• Players visit all maps to get all dailies, in which case they burn out, or
• Players just do the dailies in the maps they are already on.

A slightly better system would be to have a “thick leather section” daily that will reward you with whatever it is you are trying to farm (allowing people to farm cloth or leather, by the way) by doing something specific or revisiting a specific map. However, map bonuses already do this.

To address the first point: Burnout is something that is unique and subjective to each individual player. I honestly don’t think Anet should consider it a priority because they already work on that via adding new content (which is a separate issue and has multiple other threads dedicated to it). Visiting all maps to get the dailies is not what I would consider a bad thing.

To address the second point: Players already just do whatever maps allow them to travel the least to get the current dailies done. I’m not sure if I’m misreading your comment, but we were suggesting that map-specific dailies be added to each map (i.e. 4 dailies in Frostgorge Sound, 4 dailies in Malchor’s Leap, 4 dailies in Kessex Hills, etc) rather than a few more dailies that can be done on any map. The goal is to incentivize utilization of all maps rather than a select few like the current system does.

As for map bonuses, that would require balancing the output of the map bonus with the rewards generated. More of a question for Anet’s economist, but they did it successfully in Bloodstone Fen so I don’t see why they couldn’t do it elsewhere.