Guild Wars 2

UPDATE: A necro in LA just helped me with it and it seemed pretty balanced for 2 people. Maybe it’s just an issue of scaling…it went so well I was kinda embarassed for asking.

This is so beyond infuriating. The NPCs all die immediately and as soon as one thing dies, 5 more respawn. There is no completing this mission which is clearly a new thing as I’ve finished it with 5 other much squishier characters. I don’t know why it’s all of a sudden rediculous but there’s no reviving the npcs, dropping a battle standard on 5 dead guys just kept them up for about 4 or 5 seconds…and warrior is far from underpowered.

I’m not sure if I did this or not (did the human noble and street stories) but I’m guessing that there’s some mechanic people are taking for granted that you may not be aware of. I’ve leveled 4 characters completely through the personal story and my thief’s on the lvl76 stuff now (one of the easier classes to level…x/p may be a little OP but w/e).
Message me in game and if I’m free I’ll help you through it though I’d hate to rob you of a learning experience (though that may sound condescending, I still learn stuff about the game after 1100+ gameplay hours).
I tend to be on early morning and early evening (MST) during most of the week so message me.

A player’s lack of creativity is pretty astounding. I’m terrible at remembering things and I don’t have to work very hard to think of events that leave more than 10 dead NPCs. Good for them (until they start complaining that it’s the only way to complete the daily…which is all but inevitable some will).

Player homes are an extension of your character. As a side note, player structures in SWG were an INCREDIBILE time sink; planning where to place them, decorating and organizing.

…The world isn’t big enough for non-instanced housing and instanced housing is pretty meh…

There’s a lot of map not being used for anything atm.

nm, think I jumped the gun…maybe I got a low-res pirate hat dude or something.

Think I may have been too hasty…It was a Risen Noble with essentially a witch’s hat from Halloween. haven’t seen another since the first but will SS when I do.

..and they’re awesome! Some of them appear to still be bald though.

In before: ‘no endgame,’ ‘hate Orr,’ ‘I hate Trahearne,’ and counless other complaints from 4 months ago.
Yeah, the personal story is like…5% group content. I was pretty devastated by this too…

It sounds like a great idea for the future…after more crucial things are done.

So we’re mostly in agreement? AoE’s fine? I can go back to leveling my warrior so I can run around and Killshot people for 19k and giggle?

When they had HD screenshots, I’d say the view of Divinity’s Reach from Shaemoor rooves were pretty spectacular.

I don’t know, I loathe WvW on my ele and play pretty exclusively on my ranger and engy. Compared to thieves and warriors, they’re not DPS classes (especially engy) but I feel pretty good about playing them. My only complaint about thieves is the stun/lose over half your health from stealth meta…even then they don’t generally kill me on my 80s with exotics (had problems while leveling my engy but she scares them off now). WvW is intended to be unbalanced and I don’t anticipate any kind of balancing specific to WvW. General balancing is an on-going process that will continue for the life of the game.

I’ve never been griefed or trolled. Today I did my rich ori pop real quick and we (3-5 strangers) were all up on rezzing and aggroing for each other. Your request for custom options is just a request for custom options.

The UAV skill is totally getting nerfed with AoE.

OK
15 characters.

So there’s a couple misconceptions going on here. What you mean to say is that grinding is grindy. I’m not sure why people choose to do something and then complain about it, there’s plenty of other things to do in the game. Orr is not the only place you can do this either. If you’re looking for t6 mats, Frostgorge is another place you can do that. Technically you can do that in any zone 55+ though you will get other tiers as well. You are free to do what you want. If you need to set some goal then check out the explorer and jumping puzzle achievements and use those to guide you through the game. I’ve found so far that the more efficient I try to be, the less fun the game is. I give myself goals but I only pursue them as far as they’re fun. For instance, I decided I was going to get 4 pieces of CM gear and I’m 50-ish tokens from finishing it. I’ve just jumped in there when it’s fun and done other things along the way.

Maybe your server or the servers you’re playing against has a weird meta but I see more mesmers than eles in WvW.

Eles are also not a DPS class really. I was under the impression that there are less eles now than @ release in WvW. I just leave mine in Orr to pick fruit and kill the occasional zombie.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard that yipping (Engy’s 80 and I’ve done a lot of WvW with her) and maybe it’s because I learned that Sylvari women are voiced by Jennifer Hale but I initially hated the shout for retaliation (“This rose has thorns. Here they are!”). I’ve grown to appreciate it now and kinda like it.

I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about (my ele’s post-Arah and my thief’s on some of the level 76 stuff). Every once in a while I got complacent and died once because I wasn’t paying attention.
Are you wearing armor 20 levels lower than you or something?
edit: I always level glass-cannon and made it through with my 80 engy, 80 ranger, 80 guradian (progressively less glass cannon over time), 80 ele and 76 thief (and 35 mesmer, 25 necro and 27 warrior but that’s not so spectacular).
You might want to get used to the dodge and make sure to have 1 oh-shucks button. As a matter of fact, my thief’s been the easiest because she’s d/p.

Yeah, hearing about this change made me scratch my head. As someone who generally plays single-target builds (and not the 15-20k per hit ones like warrior or thief but engy rifle and ranger longbow) I notice that there is AoE but it seems pretty reasonable to me. I’m not sure why it’s bad for people to AoE downed players? As someone who runs in to rez, that’s part of the peril of doing so…that’s why there’s 6-second invulns, area stealth and quickness skills.

The only thing I see people actually complaining about is the single-target spike builds that 1-shot people either at range or from stealth. I guess I don’t play my ele or necro enough to know how to do something comparable to a 15k backstab or 19.7k kill shot with AoE.

I think a lot of banks make a temporary place-holder type change that will disappear after a few days without getting the proof of purchase from the person who received the CC funds. I stopped using my debit card at a resaurant in town here specifically because they’d only send their CC receipts at one time at the end of the month…which made my bank account forget about the purchase until the receipt showed up later when I didn’t expect it. Overdarft fees ensued.

Yeah, there’s definitely at least 2 economies in the game. I mostly ignore WPs and just use LA to get anywhere (and of course the faction portals outside LA to get to Orr) after about lvl 60 .

That’s the trade-off, grind miserably and get the cash to compulsively play the TP or do what’s fun and be perma-broke. It’s not as bad if you’re not leveling crafting (or skipping it altogether).

Arsenic Touch.7960:

…I’ve started doing all the zones in one succession, so at least I might find something I can use. Like right now i’m doing all the 1-15 zones…

I tried that. Even avoiding DEs (which feels weird and is weird) I’d finish 3 of them and be over lvl 20. I think you just have to accept it as vendor trash or free ectos for the 70+ stuff.

It’s nice to see some non-pouty people up in here who aren’t expecting this game to provide a non-stop gear-grind! I’ve been playing daily since head-start and I’m making myself take a break so I can play some other games that have been piling up since before GW2 beta weekends (still got the free orichalcum node, finished a daily and did a Claw of Jormag fight to spite myself yesterday).
edit:

Broken Angel.4956: Now play for another 1-2 months and do another review…
I think it might be a tad different

Chase.8415:

4 months and counting and still love the game.

Yeah, don’t know how many hours I’ve played but I’m coming up on 4k acheivement points (which really slows down after the first 2500 or so).

Rhysati.4932: …I have a hard time believing you actually played WoW, OP…you made it seem like it takes a long time to hit max level on WoW…you said you know no other game that you could get to max level and still have 3/4ths of the content unexplored. Once again…WoW is exactly like that. Heck, I took every single one of my characters through the Burning Crusade section levels 58-68 with ONE zone…but the [GW2] hollow ‘end-game’ is leaving a lot to be desired.

You must not have played vanilla. It was tedious and the 52-60 grind was a just that. They may have changed that since then. Also, I don’t know what you were doing in BC, I played an emu with 10x xp and I’d been almost everywhere in BC and WotLK by the time I got to 80.
And of course, the gratuitous LOL @ “endgame”.

edit2: I give up on trying to get the quoting code to work right.

In GW1 my monk was initially healing spec and I was all over that (I even joined groups for free when people were charging to join). After a while I went into a boon/prot build that was pretty awesome (and I loved bonding Kurzick FA…even though I was Luxon).
On my guardian I’ve gone with a support/control build that’s worked pretty well in dungeons and fractals and it feels like healing to me (meaning there’s several times when I keep people from dying).
The only difference is that you can’t ‘only’ heal (well you can but you’d be all-but-deadweight). The one thing I liked about TOR was the fact that healing FPs and Ops in that game was so easy (on my sorc) that I could dps most of the time in between heals). You are a healer who’s allowed to dps. Embrace it.

Slaa.7561:

Positive people are playing.

QFE. I’m only on here because I’m at work and this site isn’t blocked. I prefer r/Guildwars2 on reddit though. The community there’s a little less tedious and the forum moderation is significantly less anxiety-inducing. Since Guildwars2Guru.com is blocked at work, I really haven’t been there recently. Before launch that was my main goto forum.

I remember running around in GW1 beta with my R/Mo and trying to use Orison of Healing. Yeah, funny memories.

Yeah, I go with the order that has the best looking armor for each particular character so I’ll have that option.

Kanthor.2094:

…Citation needed….

Indeed. I have no idea what the snowflake business was all about. People have been crafting rares to salvage them for ectos since we learned that worked. If someone did it 10 times or 100 times, that doesn’t compel me to call it exploitning (again unless there’s something that I’m missing).

Honestly, to briefly bring up this latest ban-hammering: maybe nobody’s typing the actual exploiting behavior they’re doing. If I’m understanding this correctly, people are crafting something that takes an ecto and salvaging it. If that’s all that’s happening, then I’m a little unclear on where the line is and what the actual abhorrent behavior is. The karma weapons were pretty clearly mispriced and that made a lot more sense when they banned them.

In addition, I’ve received 2, “infractions,” on this site. The first was from some cause beyond me and the sencond one was for going off-topic (following the route the thread was taking as conversations do). Having played Anet games since the beta weekends for GW1, I’ve developed a pretty benevolant opinion of Anet. The tight grip of moderation on this forum and this last (unless I’m misunderstanding the issue with the snowflakes) round of banning are making me a little uncomfortable.

I’d definitely be a lot more comfortable if bannable offences were clear and if there was a little moderation in the moderation on the forum. That’s not who Anet has been in my experience and it’s a little jarring to see such a strict and unpredictable authority being exercised.

Clark Skinner.4902:

The first page of this board has 7 locked topics. That is traditionally a punishment on forums. I get the feeling often that I can do no right on here.

Yeah, maybe I’ve just been playing too much Homefront lately but that concerns me. I understand moderating out flaming and other anxiety-causing behaviors but it seems to be causing a lot more anxiety than it’s preventing.

It looks pretty good but I’d ditch the WS unless you wanted to combine rampgers and berserker. Unless there’s something fancy in the WS tree I’m not aware of, I’m assuming you got it to comensate for lack of condition damage anywhere else in your build. I’d give it up and try to throw it all into DPS.

I’d also ditch the bleed utility. I had it for a bit too because of the wildernes survival trait but I ended up not using it. I think I’ve got QZ, lightening reflexes and I’m trying out the Hunt to see if 25% feels worth it. If we’re talking WvW numbers, I’m probably a little squishier than you and my LR shot hits for 2900-4000 (once for 5106 but that was probably buffs and dude didn’t have gear anywhere near his level) with 59% crit (62% on SB since I have a 5% crit sigil…game needs to learn addition) and my SB hits for 900-1500 with the auto-attack there.

Survivability in 1v10 (my biggest problem is getting into shooting someone and not realizing that the rest of my team bailed…) is about GTFO so include that of course. I love the double bows (the only way to go if you have the skirmishing trait for cd’s and the mm trait for piercing) and despite not having any condition damage besides what’s on my SB, that bow is great for interrupts, cripple, healing debuff…and the autoattack is fine for steady damage (about the same as my engy’s rifle auto but faster).

So yeah, cool build, I’d go full 30/30 in MM and Skirmishing if you want to be full damage (the GM traits are kitten for that, but there’s enough relevant master or adept traits you can put in that slot). And yeah, what dude said about using your pet.

tl; dr.

Pets aren’t useless, they’re just questionably reliable and inconsistant. All classes except warrior (and thief to a lesser extent) can have pets. Everyone knows the benefits of pets.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Ranger needs alot of things, one being the option to perma stow pet with a damage buff.

Most of the ideas I’ve read sound like they’d make things worse. This one however sounds like the biggest improvement to ranger ever (especially for dungeons and WvW).

edit: I realized my enthusiasm read like sarcasm. It’s not. Ditch pets for a damage buff.

Yeah, all torch skills seem under-appreciated (it’s pretty awesome on guardian and mesmer too but nobody likes it). 8-second burn… I don’t even think that’s with the marksmanship duration bonus. 8-second burn.

Braxxus.2904:

If I could dual wield torches I would. Please ANet give rangers MH torches too!

There ya go. Throw in a 3rd one to constantly juggle as well.

Since the buttons you’ll be pushing the most are your weapon skills, I’d figure out what weapons are fun for you first. Try them all and see what’s fun and then pick traits and skills that compliment them. Once you feel comfortable with that, check out the runes and sigils…some of those will modify entire builds.

You can go to the Heart of the Mists and play around with max-level traits to try stuff out. The gear in there doesn’t entirely translate but /shrug.

Ranger suits my playstyle. I’ve had him camped here:

http://i.imgur.com/jCN76.jpg

because of the cake nature of 2-bear tanking. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and brought him out (even though my replacement is only lvl71) because I was tired of not playing him. I dig my guardian for dungeons, my ele for the light Orr farming and my engy for throwing down pressure on keep/tower walls but there’s nothing that feels quite as right as tearing things up with my ranger.

edit: I can’t figure out embedding images in this beast.

Chuo.4238:

Great. So I can run around to the same 3 jumping puzzles in LA with 10 characters and get the achievement?

What on Earth were they thinking? That’s just as much of a drag as finding 30 of them with one character. Seriously? Who thinks this is actually fun? They’ve just created something that the entire community is trying to figure out a way around.

Are the people who come up with new ideas at ArenaNet even gamers?

It is called a monthly. Just because a few people are compelled to finish it as soon as possible doesn’t necessarily obligate you to do so. I like the jumping puzzles (still haven’t finished 2 of the Borderland jumping puzzles) so it doesn’t seem unreasonable to burn through a few every few days.

The fractals though, they are completely aware that a lot of people are having difficulty with dc’s in those and they’re keeping that as part of the monthly? I hope that it’s still only 7 so there’s only a few wasted days (only had one dc problem last month).

kal.4350:

…In normal games, you start and finish them. But in mmos, you want to keep playing forever…

That’s a good quote to show why the term, ‘endgame,’ is kinda silly.

I could swear that someone (Colin maybe?) mentioned that they definitely will be increasing the level cap in the future. I’m not married to either idea though I don’t know how you can start raising the level cap and not negate everyone’s efforts gearing up.

DandySlayer.7019:

This thread is the reason I’d love to see an official RP server with naming rules enforced :/

I get the feeling that even if there was, the pretentious would still come to this thread to complain. :/

All I’ve noticed that seems to be buggy is the occassional instant respawn of something after it dies. it doesn’t seem to repeat after the second version dies but it can be awkward in those moments of over-aggro.

Relevant!
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdjtbmkjx61rp7g3w.gif

Since I’ve never seen a jumping puzzle requirement for a monthly before, I’m going to assume it’s part of the January monthly. What did it replace (Fractals I hope)?

I’d say make each one and go play with them in Heart of the Mists (all skills available) and play around.

digiowl.9620:

Am i the only one that thinks they are just trolling us with a generic name when in reality they don’t have an economist on staff?

Yes.

I liked the original game (played it since beta) and a lot of the nuaced mechanics that were added later. So far GW2 is kicking its “kitten” all over the place though. I like the player-driven aspect of this game a lot more which is why I can’t help but roll my eyes at all the, “there’s no endgame,” and, “there’s nothing to do,” comments from people who would be better served by saying that the one thing they want to do is not supported.

The only reason I even take time to visit forums is because I’m at work and can’t play.

edit: iirc, 4 months in we didn’t even have Sorrow’s Furnace yet, right? It was also before everyone was r9 and you couldn’t get into HoH (still Glint’s neighbor 4 months in) because everyone was looking for “r9+, show emote”. That reminds me that the PvP is WAAAY more accessible and interesting in GW2.

I would take Master Togo over Trahearne any day though. I also miss playing Kurzick FA (even though I was Luxon). Bonding that one ele NPC was a lot more fun than it sounds.

1-2: It’ll be awesome when Anet adds guesting.
3: Since Anet made guilds exist across all servers, they need to step it up and make things I do on one server affect another one, unlike any other game.
4: Just knowing that someone on another server may have 1-5% more/less of a chance to get a 4th mat off a node than I do REALLY MAKES ME JEALOUS!.
5: (I can’t even begin to understand the nature of this complaint…I’m guessing you think the game dishes out money for nothing in WvW?)
6: Legit complaint (though only if you’re on a terrible WvW server). Without specifically trying for it and without being a ‘WvW-focused’ player, it’s always the part I finish first (and usually in an hour). I’d say fractals are a bigger problem because of the dc’s and inability to rejoin. Regardless, I sucked it up and got into a couple lucky groups with no dc’s and burned through all 7 in a day.

…and no, @nofo. WvW isn’t competetive PvP. It’s essentially open-world PvP which is a lot closer to PvE.

FTFY.

I’ve been killed soloing things before. What I generally do is try to figure out what I did wrong and modify my approach.
I just did a group event on my thief with a similarly-leveled guardian (some ogre champion that takes over a priory town. I started it off just running in a circle and hitting the thief sb cripple until the guardian showed up and s I’d go melee (more appropriate to my build) until he turned around on me or the guardian needed a little time to heal (sb 1 while stealthed is an immobilize and 3 is a pretty spammable cripple). I’d bring up that fire elemental in Metrica that I 2-manned with some anonymous hookup but I was on a leveled-down 80 so that doesn’t really count.

I run into this problem mostly on my necro and mesmer (which I barely play) because I don’t know those classes and therefor can’t really handle situations that require any kind of spontaneity.

tl;dr you can’t wait until 80 to learn a class anymore.

I think they were just bad. I know that I’m not a good enough player to run berserker or rampager gear on melee in dungeon-level content but I’m more than capable of it on my ranger and engy. Some people are good enough to do it and everyone wins.