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What is the use of Karma?

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Unspecified.9142

Wait and see. Anet seems to have a very strong dislike of things being “worthless” whether that’s content, materials, currency, or anything. Legendaries really does seem to be the primary use of Karma but you listed all of the alternate uses I’m aware of already.

Also keep in mind that Karma was used to buy Halloween recipes so if that is similar in future events you’ve got that too.

I’m kind of in the same boat as you though. I have lots of karma but I don’t really like any of the legendaries at the moment especially not for the investment required (I prefer other skins) so I’m not trying to get one.

Best pet when attacking a moving target?

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Spider and Devourer projectiles are about as reliable as bows (maybe less). What works does actually depend on your build.

Something to keep in mind about Canines is they will almost always use the knockdown after being swapped in. So if you are in melee range yourself and swap in a Canine you can pretty much guarantee a knockdown on demand.

Otherwise, as others said +move for pets (however you get it) and CC (or other methods of controlling the position of enemies) are your friends. Birds also seem to be more reliable than most/all pets at holding aggro in high level areas like Orr for whatever reason.

Balancing Woes

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@ Unspecified

1. 20%-25% Move Speed Signet
Do not agree, it will make use too OP. Instead they should add swiftness to a few of our skills.

2. Always Bleed on Crossfire
I do not think that is needed. I would like to see a huge increase in usefulness of the the other 4 skills in terms of more dps and more conditions application.

1) This would be a far more reasonable solution imho. There’s a pretty big difference between always on +move speed and additional methods of applying a limited duration boon that has to be managed and can be stripped.

2) Again something I agree with. The 2-5 skills on the shortbow need some work. They are useful abilities as it is but the weapon as a whole is lacking.

Side note: I actually have a suspicion they nerfed crossfire attack speed to help shed light on the ranger’s short comings in other areas (including the lackluster nature of the shortbow as a whole) because before this nerf this forum was just a bunch of “Use shortbow, nothing else is worth it (20/30/5/0/5 put 10 somewhere).” Topics have gotten far more diverse and people actually experiment with builds more now it seems.

Balancing Woes

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Unspecified.9142

I’ve been playing Ranger since BWE1, exclusively since BWE2 apart from some dabbling with alts (56 Guardian is my highest alt). I feel the ranger pain, I really do. However, I’m not sure half of what the community (myself included) wants is really that simple. This is in no way me saying this stuff is out of line or the ranger is fine. I’m just playing devil’s advocate and trying to understand why Anet doesn’t just do this stuff.

20%-25% Move Speed Signet
I really doubt thieves are the reason Anet would be reluctant to give us this. The trouble with it is kiting. If rangers actually had a permanent 20%+ move speed passive to go with our high survivability, range, and strong CC options it would be slightly OP. Imagine a build using Shortbow, Longbow (that didn’t suck), 20%+ move speed and either Frost and Spike traps or Lightning Reflexes and Muddy Terrain.

Immobilize Removal
Ties in to the above.

Pets Can Hit Moving Targets
I really want this, I do. The problem is if the Ranger’s damage is split relatively evenly between the ranger and the pet and both hit reliably it creates problems with the dodge mechanic. Other players dodging would effectively be half as useful against the ranger as other professions. Do they dodge the pet or the ranger? Should they try and time dodges to dodge both at once? Give a pet +30% movement with Agility Training and the pet is just one massive DoT that can’t be cleansed. Sure they could dodge away but then the ranger just uses one of the many CCs available after the dodge and the pet just mauls their face off (this already sorta works). It’s a serious balance concern and you’re lying to yourself if you think it’s not.

Always Bleed on Crossfire
Oh the bleed stacking! In isolation this wouldn’t be too terrible but if you really built for it it would be really strong. If you mixed it with the above changes as well and had a lynx pet adding bleeds you could probably stack and maintain 20-25 bleeds in around 5 seconds and then just kite until they die.

Sword Changes – No More Rooting and Swap Monarch’s Leap/Hornet Sting
Just do it Anet… please?

I know there’s a lot of others but the point I’m trying to make here is that I really got to thinking about some of these changes and builds I would use if they were made. The conclusion I came to is that with what the Ranger currently has any one of the main changes the community is clamoring for (myself included here) could create a seriously OP build. Taken all together the Ranger could be completely OP.

I suspect the reason Anet is taking so much time is not because they don’t care about Rangers but because what needs to be done can’t be done a little at a time. Those ‘substantial changes’ we were promised aren’t substantial because the ranger is that broken but because if they don’t make substantial changes all at once really bad things could happen. I hate to say it but I expect that there’s going to be a fair number of nerfs coming with the buffs because in order to be ‘fixed’ the ranger needs a substantial overhaul not just ‘substantial changes’. All those little ‘broken’ things are what’s keeping rangers in line right now, unfortunately we’re under the line instead of on it.

My favorite build now

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I’ve been using something similar to this recently for general farming in Orr. I haven’t quite settled my build for that yet. I’ll have to try this out in sPvP at some point and it was nice to read some opinions about what works, doesn’t work, and why.

Opinion: Major Question Left Out Of The Survey

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@OP

You do realize the “Other” Category on almost every major question is for exactly that type of thing?

Safe to delete Phase 1 event items?

in The Lost Shores

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I’m starting to think there was more that didn’t happen because of the problems in the beginning and they haven’t decided what to do yet.

This isn’t the only thing that feels like it hasn’t quite ‘ended’ yet. I have a hard time believing Southsun Cove is supposed to be a barren wasteland of nothing. Donations packages are still running too. The whole thing just feels like there is supposed to be a ‘phase 4’ eventually and/or some stuff just didn’t happen.

Wintersday and One Time Events

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I hope Anet isn’t planning to put any one time events in the Wintersday event/celebration/whatever it is. Having one time events for Halloween or randomly in November is one thing. Putting one time events at a time of year where you can guarantee the majority of people will have holiday related things to do in real life (e.g. going home for the holidays) would just be a terrible idea.

I’m probably going to miss Wintersday entirely and I’m fine with that. I’m going to be away from home and spending time with family which is a million times more important to me (I might be able to get some time on a laptop but I won’t be making a special effort for it). What I do care about is the long term health of this game because I like it.

I always liked the way GW1 handled holidays because if you could only login for 1-2 hours over the entire event you could still do most things you just didn’t get to farm as much or spend much time doing any particular thing.

My fear is that there will be something like a one time event at noon PST on any of the days around Christmas. People shouldn’t be forced to choose between their family and a game (hopefully it’s not much of a choice and people go for family).

My hope is just that Anet looks back at GW1 and realizes the ‘everything is open from day 1 until the end’ is the right model for a major holiday like Wintersday. I guarantee everyone will want to participate but people who have their priorities straight aren’t going to skip a family lunch/dinner/Christmas morning (sorry not too familiar with other holiday’s traditions) just to participate in an in-game event.

If any holiday should be a “do it on your time” event it’s Wintersday. Save the one time event story telling (which I love btw) for times of the year where you can’t realistically expect 99% of your player base to have plans.

Anyone else get event chest rewards below 80?

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Other than the Karka Shell I didn’t get any level 80 items. They were all level 75-79 but I’m used to that.

After I did Arah story mode and my reward from finishing my personal story was a bunch of sub-70 blues I stopped expecting to get anything worthwhile that I didn’t intentionally farm for.

That’s really odd because the chest was supposed to drop 2 rares and 2 exotics. Anet said “they have people looking into it.” That is really odd though.

I guess I should have specified, the chest did give me 2 rares and 2 exotics they were just level 75-79 and the most expensive one was worth a little over 1g but the value was from the rune. I actually salvaged them because it was worth more that way because of ecto extraction and then selling the ‘parts’ individually.

The blues were my ‘gifts’ for personal story completion back before they ‘fixed it’ (not sure how good it is now).

Anyone else get event chest rewards below 80?

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Other than the Karka Shell I didn’t get any level 80 items. They were all level 75-79 but I’m used to that.

After I did Arah story mode and my reward from finishing my personal story was a bunch of sub-70 blues I stopped expecting to get anything worthwhile that I didn’t intentionally farm for.

Lost Shores Feedback Thread

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I think you’re both right.

There was/is certainly a culling problem and it would have been a million times better if we could see things as intended.

But, I had minor lag spikes here and there and having recently upgraded my computer from above minimum specs for GW2 to way above minimum (2.5ghz duo core to an Intil I5 2500k, 3gb ram to 16gb ram, a new motherboard but same GPU) I can tell you if your comp is on the low end you suffer for it, a lot. “Minimum Requirements” just means the game will run, not that it will run well.

Tried to participate, but couldn't afford to: repair costs

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I don’t really understand the problem. I was there start to finish. Managed to actually get loot from some enemies, so I was right there participating with everyone else. I swapped between greatsword and shortbow on my ranger so I was even using melee sometimes.

I died once.

Red Circles are bad. If a Karka balls up, move. Spread out so you won’t get hit by attacks aimed at someone else. 99% of the people I saw die it was a vet Karka’s charge or the AoE poison both of which are really easy to avoid.

Lost Shores Appreciation Thread

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I also enjoyed the event. I don’t have much to add I just want this bumped up.

People never seem to consider that real people made this stuff and it must be very disheartening to be flooded with complaints for everything they do for us (at no mandatory cost to the players). It’s just as important to let them know what was good as what was not.

Sometimes it’s important to just say “Hey Anet, thanks for the game. We appreciate what you do and what you try to do even if it doesn’t always work out.”

Lost Shores Feedback Thread

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Nice to see some other people enjoyed it too. I had fun with it. I had to take a break during the second set of reinforcements (the one outside the camp) because it was taking forever but I was okay with it because I could. I just parked myself in the camp and wandered off for 5 minutes.

I was very pleasantly surprised with the rewards as I honestly expected to get 3-5 blues (maybe a green) of level 70-79. Even when I was running to the chest expecting nothing but vendor trash I was happy with what I had experienced this weekend. After I opened the chest I was ecstatic.

I think too many people forget the game only cost $60 and this and Halloween were free. I don’t play that heavily and I’m up to 450+ hours. That’s $0.13 per hour of entertainment already and I plan to play a lot more (still have a 56 guardian I want to 100% the world with).

Sure some things could have been better but it’s all just growing pains of a new MMO and I’m alright with that.

250 Salvage Kit FTW

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Mystic Salvage Kits have 250 uses and are always available. Probably not the great deal they once were mind you.

Reef drakes?!

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I think this is a general consensus honestly.

At range they are an absolute joke but if you get within ~700 range of them they just mess you up and all you can do is watch yourself die because you’re incapacitated and/or confused so you’ll kill yourself.

Safe to delete Phase 1 event items?

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Bumpity cause I really would like to know. The “weekend” is effectively over and it just doesn’t feel like this part came to a conclusion.

I still have my Candy Corn machine too but I know it’s not good for anything. I just can’t get rid of it.

Safe to delete Phase 1 event items?

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We need to know the answer to this. Unless there’s some mysterious thing that hasn’t appeared here or on Reddit they currently have no function at all.

I can’t/won’t delete them because I don’t know but if they aren’t good for anything why give us the items at all and/or not removed them.

Loot rewards for lowbies = trash

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The 20 slot bag alone makes the whole thing worth it. Those things are bloody expensive.

The Karka Shell trinket is really nice too. If you didn’t get that it sucks. Everything else is, meh.

And “DOZENS of gold” is a serious exaggeration. It’s probably 2-5g worth of exotics was the average for level 80s.

No one should ever go to Lost Shores..

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I kind of gave up on it for the same reasons. I just felt like I’d rather just go back to Orr because at least there things dropped stuff. I can’t say I had much problem soloing on my ranger as long as I didn’t poke at the wrong groups/veterans but that’s true of Orr as well. After I got the Ori nodes, explored, and did a few events I just couldn’t see any good reason to be there anymore.

Still need to go back for the timed jumping puzzle and presumably tomorrow’s event, otherwise I might bother to come back for the extra ori nodes. Killing stuff will be avoided at all costs though because the enemies just don’t drop anything 90% of the time and are annoying, not hard just really annoying.

Reef Drakes

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This is really a small thing and I’m not that upset but Reef Drakes are horrible to fight. Fortunately they are very easy to just avoid and forget they even exist in the game.

They aren’t ‘challenging’ in the slightest they just suck to fight. They have a ‘pull’ that also knocks you down for 2-3 seconds and they use confusion. They don’t generally hurt you while you’re knocked down so it’s not like that’s even an issue.

It’s really not fun fighting an enemy that takes 3 times longer to die than it should just because of silly mechanics that force you to sit around doing nothing. People don’t like not having control of their character and/or having to sit and wait while unable to act. It seems like Anet understood this for PvP but somehow it didn’t translate over to PvE.

Sidenote: I imagine many people feel much the same about Risen. Pull -> Knockdown -> Knockback -> Bored.

In my opinion, Fractals of the Mist is a complete fail.

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Consider the following:

- Most players who are really dedicated to the game will be in guilds and not pugging. This generally means that the average skill level of the Puggers pool will be lower than the average skill level of players as a whole. (yes there are good players in the PUG pool).

- Good players understand Skill > Gear and composition any day of the week. Gear and composition make things a bit easier but are really not that important in GW2. Good players learned this by being good and doing things with sub-par gear and composition enough times.

- People who demand XX gear or XX class automatically remove many good players from their available PUG pool. There are really good players who are no XX class or don’t have XX gear.

- Many people see those types of group requests and avoid it because they question your ability. You are seen as needing XX gear and XX class to win because you are basically saying you do. As above, good players know you don’t need XX gear or XX class to win if you are a good player so the logical assumption is that you are bad (not saying you are).

tl;dr Saying “LFG _ Must have all exotics and be _ class” scares away many good players that are floating in the PUG pool and attracts people who are bad and believe gear and composition is the be all end all because they aren’t good enough without mechanical advantages to compensate for poor performance.

Fractals dungeon players restricting others.

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Hows that selfish. We’re protecting our own interests. I only have 24hrs in a day and so do you, I don’t want to waste my time on YOUR character progression.

Definition of SELFISH
1: concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others

(taken from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/selfish)

I’m not sure where the confusion is stemming from.

What others are talking about is a thing called “Paying it forward.” Someone, somewhere, sometime, gave you your first chance at running it. It wouldn’t kill you to do the same for others now and then. Sub-optimal does not equate to useless or wasting time for nothing.

Subdirector Blingg audio [Merged threads]

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Hi,

We’ll “fix” how frequently he’s playing his lines (although one could say that it’s part of his personality!) in the next patch.

I agree it’s part of his personality!

It’s just also my personality to pop on my ranger alt just so I can banish him to the ocean.

(I think I’d rather that be patched in to be honest. Much more satisfying… although we may have to line up and wait our turn while he swims back to shore.)

Blackmail Party For a Ress in Fractions

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Sounds like the elitist jerks are crawling out of the woodwork. Unfortunate.

I’m sorry that happened to you. Certainly a far cry from the community that risks death just to rez some random person in the open world.

Fractals dungeon players restricting others.

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I knew this was coming.

- Right now I’m a ranger so that’s going to hurt any chance of getting in to a party and I currently just don’t have the time.
- Later I’ll still be a ranger but I also won’t have agony resist.
- I also don’t have a guild (or enough friends who play) that will devote huge chunks of their time to catching me up.

That’s why I probably won’t ever run fractals even though it sounds fun.

Canach Bugged Crystal Desert

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Isle of Janthir too.

New minis

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I admit I’ll be sad if I can’t get the 3 new minis. So far I have all the special minis and well on my way to all the minis period. It will irk me if my goal of having every single mini ever released is borked because of something outside my control. But apart from being sad I’m not going to quit over it or anything. I just really like collecting the minis.

I know I could buy them on the TP but that may also prove impossible for assorted reasons.

The one time event, and how i'm not gonna be in it

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and do you get this upset when you cn not attend aconcert in your city beause you have school or work? come on get over it

Notice how concerts are usually scheduled for local evenings?

Which is effectively the time in which they can attract the most concurrent users to their event.

Some people work evenings. Some places have people working 24/7 so someone will always be unable to attend the time of highest concurrency that concerts choose.

The one time event, and how i'm not gonna be in it

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And the Oceanic players ?
The players that have the hardest time making these events.

The average person is awake 16-18 hours a day if the events are 12 hours apart you should be able to work out getting to one of the two. Say it’s noon and midnight your time. You might be working at noon but you should be able to make midnight if you want.

I admit something like 3pm and 3am could be really awkward but I was just thinking of a relatively easy solution.

Upset at the Consortium Chests

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Funny thing, I opened 10 chests (my personal limit) got one or more of each type of mask and shoulder skin (light, medium, and heavy) and the axe skin.

No minis which is what I would have liked but I didn’t expect it (fingers crossed for drops). I just buy them because it’s my way of ‘paying a sub fee’ more or less. I like the game and I want to support it so if once I month I drop a bit of cash on a chance to get something I’m okay with that.

I’m not remotely bothered, especially since it’s better than the way halloween BLCs worked. I also didn’t approach it thinking I was ‘buying’ something. It’s kind of like if I go to a casino I go to spend money on entertaining myself rather than trying to win money. Change your perspective and you change your reality.

The one time event, and how i'm not gonna be in it

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I’d think a good solution would be have the event at 2 separate times. One for the NA servers and one for the EU servers.

My guess is the highest concurrency for the different servers is roughly 12 hours apart which would mean most people could attend one or the other. With server transfers the way they are now almost everyone should be able to swap to which ever suits them best. Obviously things like being out of town would still be a problem but Anet can’t plan around everyone’s real life obligations.

Did everything but not 100 percent complete

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Also, check the exploration achievements. You may have missed discovering a couple of caves or something.

I forgot all about that. The OP should definitely check that. There’s a few areas that you have no reason to ever go to but count towards exploration. I had to track a few of those down when I did it.

Did everything but not 100 percent complete

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If you’ve got all 3 borderlands and EB completely done in WVW and when you open your map in PvE it shows you have everything in the upper left (hearts, PoIs, skills, waypoints, and vistas) you should be good.

There used to be a bug that prevented it from completing but that was fixed a long time ago, hopefully it didn’t come back. I’ve heard mention you might have to return to the Chantry and/or vigil but I didn’t have to.

I don’t think I’m forgetting anything.

Edit: The above poster made me realize it’s possible the game is counting Lost Shore already even though you can’t get it. You might just have to wait until you can get those.

Lifetime Survivor Issue

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Yeah, they learned their lesson from GW1 survivor title. Glad to hear it was fixed.

Honestly getting the survivor title on a Prophecies Elementalist before the change and without using Kilroy Stonekin’s Punch-Out Extravaganza! was one of the most satisfying challenges I’ve ever done in a game.

I don’t care much that they changed it because I did it for my personal satisfaction and nothing else (though the bombardment of ‘gratz’ from strangers was awesome too). Now if you want survivor in GW1 you just stockpile books and go zero to legendary in about 10 minutes. Kind of lame, imho.

On Topic: Yay it’s fixed!! (if only my ranger was too)

Let's speculate the 16 bullet points

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you all failed

Message Body length must at least be 15.

Hey, I was pretty close when I said:

Edit: Thought of a #16) Damage on Harpoon gun 1 skill has been doubled (seriously less than 100 damage on a full power build is not okay, even tripled wouldn’t been outlandish).

So 1/16 is something…. :-/

Can i get a reason why everyone's up in arms?

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People aren’t angry about what did happen. (except the trap nerf which is actually a very huge nerf)

People are angry about what didn’t happen.

If you’re looking at what is in the patch notes to understand the rage of course you’ll be confused. You have understand what isn’t there and why it matters.

Traps stealth nerfed

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I’m pretty sure this was unintended since the skill descriptions haven’t been changed and trap potency also doesn’t work on them now.

Doesn’t matter if it was intended or not. We’re probably stuck with it for the next month or more.

It’s also becoming pretty common to see patch notes that say “Tooltip changed to correctly reflect ___________”

Traps stealth nerfed

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I guess this also explains the 14/16 of the promised patch notes.

  • All traps now have a 30 second CD.

One internet cookie to whoever finds the other missing patch note (probably also a nerf).

Traps stealth nerfed

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Oh goody! Our only good utility skills got nerfed!

Well at least all our utility skills are ‘balanced’ now… they all suck equally! Hooray!

General Patch Discussion [merged]

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You guys are all a bunch of whiners. I play ranger as my main and yes I was hoping for the changes we all were hoping for too. But you all are acting like a bunch of babies.

They probably didn’t have enough time to properly test the changes so they were left out of the build. It isn’t lack of listening on their part.

That’s the excuse from last month when we got no changes. So you’re argument is that they had a bunch of changes lined up but couldn’t release them because of lack of testing and a month later they still aren’t tested well enough to release?

Yet, somehow every other class managed to get 2 patches worth of significant changes all good and tested? Sounds like they just don’t give a crap about rangers and CBA to do anything for rangers.

Concerns about November's Monthly Achievements.

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It’s probably going to be something like:

1) Clear XX number of Fractals
and
2) Kill XX number of new enemy types

I wouldn’t worry much it’s just going to require you to actually go to the lost shores and try the new stuff. The Candy Corn thing is the only precedent we have and that wasn’t exactly hard to do.

What is a Gear Treadmill?

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tl;dr Lost Shores is probably not introducing a Gear Treadmill. The reason why is pretty obvious if you use the label Gear Treadmill correctly rather than diluting the meaning of the label by arbitrarily assigning it to anything that requires you to upgrade your gear. Apart from notable exceptions (legendary weapons) you are guaranteed to get what you want so it’s not a treadmill, period.

The question “What is a Gear Treadmill?” is an important question. The answer is even more important. Given the current stink people are raising I think it’s important to consider that for a moment.

‘Gear Treadmill’ or ‘Chasing a carrot on a stick’? These labels are not arbitrary. They mean exactly what they sound like.

Gear Treadmill
What is a treadmill? A treadmill is a thing you run on and no matter how long you run on it you will never move forward. You will remain exactly where you are. There is no finish line, or if there is a finish line you aren’t going to reach it while you’re on the treadmill.

It’s called a Gear Treadmill because chasing after gear in other games is like standing on a treadmill trying to get to the finish line of a race. You just aren’t going to get there. The system (treadmill) is designed to prevent you from getting to the finish line. You aren’t supposed to reach your goal.

Chasing a carrot on a stick
This is obviously a metaphor meant to conjure images of something like this:
http://i.imgur.com/hRPwE.jpg?1

You can’t get the carrot on the stick because the apparatus is designed to keep the carrot perpetually in view but forever out of reach. You’re supposed to see it and think “Hey, I can get that if I just move forward a little bit. That’s not hard.” However, the system (the carrot on a stick) is designed to make sure that when you move to where the carrot was, or where you think it should be, it’s not there. You can still see it though and you’re supposed to think “Oh, I just have to move forward a little bit more.” Repeat ad nauseum.

Why GW2 doesn’t have a Gear Treadmill
You are supposed to reach the finish line. You are supposed to hit the power cap. Exotics are not exactly hard to get. I can pretty easily acquire one exotic per day without much effort. One per week if I barely play.

I’ve played a number of other MMOs and I distinctly remember running instances 50+ times trying to get a particular item to drop that was Best In Slot (BIS) and not getting it. There was no guarantee I would ever get it. Statistically I should get it eventually but realistically I might not. These other games are actually designed so the odds of you ever getting every BIS item on your character was statistically improbably (borderline impossible). That’s why it’s a treadmill.

The biggest difference between GW2 and other games is that I am guaranteed to get what I want (legendary weapons could be considered an exception for various reasons). If I really planned it out, I could probably even figure out exactly how long it will take me to get any particular exotic item. I can write a list of exactly what I need to do and the words “Pray it drops” do not appear anywhere on the list (legendary exception). At the very least I will get enough money to buy what I need off the TP because 90% of things are not Bind On Acquire in GW2. The few exceptions are things which are generally guaranteed drops (e.g. Dungeon Tokens) and/or easy enough to get (e.g. Badge of Honor).

A metaphor to put in perspective
GW2 is a series of short races. You know where the finish line is and how far you have to run. As long as you don’t quit before the stationary finish line you cross it. No tricks. The amount of effort it takes for each short race is exactly what you thought it would be from the start (legendary exception). Your get your shiny trophy for your trophy room at the end. If you keep running these races you keep getting trophies and eventually you have a pretty full trophy room.

Other games are a series of races but no one tells you where the finish line is. You have no idea how far you have to run. You may not even know which direction you’re supposed to be running in. There is no ‘starting line’ rather a starting circle. You can run in any direction but you have no idea which direction the finish line is in. It might be right around the corner. It might be on the other side of the world. No one knows.

The Biggest Difference
The guarantee. If you are guaranteed to get what you’re chasing it’s not a gear treadmill, period.

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Unspecified.9142

Unspecified.9142

People seem to be throwing around the “Gear Treadmill” thing right now.

Maybe it’s just me but the worst thing about the gear treadmill wasn’t moving up new tiers of gear. The worst part was the very real possibility of never getting the gear you wanted/needed because of BS RNG and 1 drop for 15-40 people.

A treadmill is a thing you run on but never actually move forward.

Really think about that, “never actually move forward” part of the definition. I distinctly remember raiding 2-3 times a week in other games for months and having nothing to show for it. Other people in the raid did, but I didn’t. Some days nobody had anything to show for it because the wrong things dropped.

Now ask yourself: Does that actually apply here? If you gave any answer other than “I don’t know yet” you aren’t being honest.

What should we do in the case of a golem uprising?

in Asura

Posted by: Unspecified.9142

Unspecified.9142

Step 1: Remind the Norn they are our servants.
Step 2: Send Norn to fight Golems.
Step 3: Evil Laughter.

Ranger's worst pet

in Ranger

Posted by: Unspecified.9142

Unspecified.9142

A Jellyfish for real?

I’m not quite sure what you mean by this but the Jellyfish is easily the rangers best underwater pet for general PvE.

I run 2 Jellyfish and probably 90% of my damage underwater comes from F2 → swap → F2. Obviously use whatever buffs for your pet you can before the F2, 3-4k+ damage to 5 enemies every 16 seconds (pet swap for F2 reset) is better than anything any other pet puts out. It’s borderline OP honestly but since everything else about rangers underwater is pretty terrible it just balances it out.

Ranger's worst pet

in Ranger

Posted by: Unspecified.9142

Unspecified.9142

Hyena – Borked stats since the nerf, other Canines are better.
Black Widow – Borked stats, all other spiders are better.
White Raven – Borked stats, all other birds are better.
Drakes – Garbage on land because the F2 just doesn’t work well and in the water Jellyfish do everything better.

Everything else has a use for some builds and/or situational superiority.

How do we remove conditions?

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Posted by: Unspecified.9142

Unspecified.9142

Really the only viable/reliable way a ranger can remove conditions is Healing Spring. Of course that does mean you have to burn your heal to do it which kind of sucks. But I’ve found 9/10 times you want a condition gone you also need to heal so it kind of works out.

I still wish we had a way to remove conditions independently of our heal though. It might make the other 2 heals actually viable.

The problem with the signet is it removes a condition every 10 but when the tick happens is fixed. So if the tick happens then you get a condition you are stuck with it for the next 10 seconds. Conditions don’t last 10 seconds so you just can’t remove it.

There is also the trait to have your pet take conditions from you but then you’re just killing your pet which isn’t always great. Finally there is Shake It Off with the brown bear but you have to be really close to the bear for it to work.

Vitality or Condition Damage for leveling?

in Ranger

Posted by: Unspecified.9142

Unspecified.9142

For leveling purposes as a ranger I would say the stat priority is as follows:

Power > Precision > Everything else in no particular order.

Condition damage just doesn’t have good returns in small amounts.
Vitality isn’t really that important as a ranger because you have sufficient base health though more is nice.
Toughness is similar to Vitality.
Crit Damage is hard to get while leveling and no worth it unless you’ve stacked Power and Precision so you need tri-stat items first (high level only).
Healing is useless at low levels and in low amounts (arguably just useless to a ranger period).

Edit: Weapon Damage and Armor Value are actually the most important things overall while leveling. I wrote the above assuming you were upgrading your equipment every 5-10 levels or so (depending on the rarity of the item, a level 50 yellow beats a level 60 blue iirc).

Another Edit: Somewhere around level 50-60 Condition Builds become reasonable. Leveling is actually a great time to experiment with builds and stat distributions because the gear is cheap and easy to get. You also aren’t stuck with it for long if you hate it. Once you have 80 exotics it stings a bit if you decide to switch your gear around, though you end up with 2 sets if you want to switch back.

(edited by Unspecified.9142)

Just hit 80 What gear should i get????

in Ranger

Posted by: Unspecified.9142

Unspecified.9142

I would wait until after Friday and see what changes the Ranger gets. It may make a huge difference, it may make no difference at all. That said I’ll try to answer your question anyway.

The first thing you need to decide for yourself is what weapons you like and want to use. You can start with traits, stats, or utilities if you want but I think weapons is the best place to start because it has the largest effect on play style (e.g. melee or ranged, in and out skirmishing, long range pew pew, or in your face smakitten-all).

Once you’ve decided that take a look at the skills you have and whether or not you’ve got enough conditions to make condition damage worth anything (basically shortbow, torch and to a lesser extent axe main hand) , if not then power is where you should be looking for damage. Precision is always good but crit damage is only for power builds.

Rangers have enough health by default to get by in PvE, same for toughness, but more will help you survive longer. Whether you need it or not is a play style choice.

The best piece of advice I can give you about gear is to remember there is no reason all your items have to give the same 3 stats. I use Berserker’s weapons, Knight’s armor, Valkyrie’s neck, earrings and back, and my rings are currently Berserker’s as well. This gives me a nice mix of stats but with the focus on Power, Precision, and Crit Damage. It’s worth noting that the best sources of crit damage are jewelry and weapons by a large margin. The chest gives decent crit damage but the rest is only only like 1% or 2% (weapons give 9%).

A good place to start is the wiki ‘Item Nomenclature’ page to learn what stat combinations exist in the game:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item_nomenclature

That will also tell you where you can get the various stat combinations and what max stats per item slot are. It should answer most of the questions you have and get you started in finding the stats you want for your playstyle.