Guild Wars 2

While it wrecks with the exclusivity angle, I would love to see temporary items get added to the Mystic Forge recipes. I’d be fine with making the recipes cost rediculous things. This would let people who missed the temporary content actually have an opportunity to get these items at a later date. Even if the Mystic Forge recipes were added with a 6 month delay after these events, it would be acceptable in my mind.

Though that gets on another subject. I’m baffled about what they just don’t continue to add more Mystic Forge recipes as a way of adding appearance customization. Your average person won’t be making a lot of those more expensive items, so it still adds a level of exclusivity to your character if you’re decked out with all kinds of interesting appearance items.

Back during the Super Adventure Box thread, I saw multiple player comments and dev responses that centered around the “exclusive” item issue. People wanted to have ultra-rare graphical items as some form of bragging rights. ArenaNet acknowledged that this was a common idea with their customers, but refused to take a stance about whether it was a good thing. At the time, this revolved around whether the current SAB item skins would be available again whenever ArenaNet brings the SAB back.

Based on that conversation, at least part of ArenaNet recognizes that their customers want “exclusive” items and that the devs consider it to be a good thing. The whole deal with the Molten Facility is another example of people wanting to feel special by having items that most people don’t have. By intentionally limiting the supply, ArenaNet is encouraging people to log into GW2 to grind through their new content since people are unsure about whether these items will ever be offered again.

I frankly don’t like that mentality, but MMOs have done this for years with holiday events and other such things. While I know that I won’t be grinding the MF dungeon, this new content will likely keep many people happy and will probably make ArenaNet some more revenue through the Gem Exchange.

As Taril said, the Leeching Venom trait procs whenever one of your Venom buffs proc. To be more specific, any attack that would theoretically hit your target (regardless of blocking or immunities) triggers both the Venom proc and the associated Leeching Venoms self-heal / damage proc.

If I can call correctly, they did add an internal cool down on the self-heal, which means that a full Venomous Aura build wouldn’t get the full x7 Leeching Venom heal procs if you were using Spider’s Venom while you were using an attack like Pistol Whip. However the damaging portion of Leeching Venom shouldn’t have a cool down, so you would still get all x7 damage procs on your enemy.

To be honest, any MMO that’s been out for half of a year is going to be naturally top heavy. Having said that, the largest servers will still have a noticeable number of low level alt characters. I know that Tarnished Coast tends to have a bunch of alts since it is the quasi-official RP server. There are probably many more good candidates for servers, but I’m not sure of which ones.

(While I love my Fergusson’s Crossing server, we’re on the lighter end of population and don’t have tons of people running around the lower level zones.)

There will be no general concensus. My initial suggestion would be a Warrior with a Greatsword and using leap movement powers like Bull’s Charge. Then you could have a 2nd weapon set that is either ranged or another melee set with leap powers.

But to be honest, your question is so extremely subjective that you’ll never get a universal answer.

Ordika.9513:

But here is the interesting thing…apparently not made by the dungeon team, but instead by the Holiday Event team. Should this team actually be in charge of all future dungeon content?

It’s a good question. I remember seeing a dev post about how the Dungeon team playtested this content, but that was the extent of their involvement. While I wouldn’t want the Dungeon team replaced, I do think that it would be beneficial to game for ArenaNet to have more cross-team collaboration projects. If the Dungeon and Holiday teams could team up on a regular basis, we could likely end up with some amazing content.

Yes. Any kind of AoE has a limit of x5 targets. NPC mobs and player controlled pets (either through temporary things like Thieves Guild or class features like a Ranger’s pet) also count.

Once upon a time in beta, I vaguely remember it being different. The issue was that one person would just AoE buff everyone within the power’s range, which caused a situation where only a few buffing players were needed to have some rediculous effects.

As a Venomous Aura PvE player, I will tell you that you’ll rarely be in a situation where you’d hit more than x5 targets. If people are stacking up on a Champion mob or some kind of dragon, then you might not be able to cover everyone who is near you. Yet that’s more of the exception to the general rule of thumb.

For your reference, Venomous Aura does now create a visible AoE ring whenever you use a Venom power. This helps us to adjust (as needed) to get as many people as we can within our AoE buffing range.

Shotty.1902:

The new traits on the discipline line suck. Who is going to put 30 in discipline ? If you are running a Warr and you put 30 points into discipline you are a noob.

It depends on the build and the circumstances. For example, I’m looking to find something interesting for my healing shouts Warrior that I’ve shelved. By running something like Strength 10 / Tactics 30 / Discipline 30, you can have some interesting builds with the new traits. I’m planning on running the Rifle and switching off between Sword/Warhorn & Axe/Warhorn. There are enough interesting and potentially useful traits for a Berserker or Knight build that I could see this being used for PvE and WvW use.

However I do agree that it is still lacking for PvP. The damage increase from DotE is far too situational and sacrificing dps to get that trait is normally going to be a dumb choice.

Jon,

Thanks for the update. It’s nice to know that the flaws with the Healing Signet are understood and that it is one your mind as something that needs changed in the future.

I agree that the Mace is just too slow. While I really wanted to like it since I’m fond of “control” weapons, its only real source of dps is the auto attack rate. The horrific delay between your pressing #1 and it actually swinging makes the Mace sub-par. If then auto attack sequence and swing times were actually cleaned up, then I could actually see a lot more people using this weapon.

Beaupa.2014:

Its too bad arenanet doesnt cater to all types of players, oh well.

From all of the pre-release information, GW2 was being marketed towards the people who were tired of the gear / raid progression grinding of game like WoW. Though ArenaNet back stepped from this philosophy after launch through introducing a new Asceneded gear tier, their philosophy has still held relatively true.

Hopefully you have fun in GW2. The dynamic events and random player interaction using their scaling system is one of the strengths of the game. Yet it sounds like this isn’t the type of game that you’re looking for. Best of luck in your search to find whatever game that will make you happy.

Mongo.2490:

Asura: It’s kinda hard to show off any armor or equipment when it’s 10% of the size of everyone else. Pros are that it’s kinda neat, being a tanky guy (yes, again, I know) in a mini form. The armors do look good.. when you zoom in and can actually see. Movement is fine, always feels like you’re moving fast. The attack animations are just so-so though. You hit someone with a hammer as a norn and you can feel the impact. As as asura .. you see their health go down but it doesn’t feel like a big hit.

I actually feel the exact opposite. My 2nd Warrior is an asura with a Hammer. That thing is so big that she has to throw her weight from side to side during the opening swings of Hammer #1 and then she has to do a mightly leap into the air for the final swing. Though I’m not physically large, I’ve always felt as if using a Hammer has projected a large presence. Each attack is forcing the asura to throw their entire body into the blow, which is just so satisfying to me.

My only real objection is their armor. Some many nice armor sets that look good on a human don’t really look that nice on an asura. I finally found a set that I like, but even the Dark karma armor series looks different on me. Some of the racial armors are interesting, but I take issue with the exposed flesh around the shoulder joints on the T1 & T2 heavy armors. To actually be completely protected by armor, you’d have to use the T3 racial set (which I don’t visually like).

Mesmer is on my “must play in the future” list, but I haven’t gotten there yet. Some things look interesting on paper, but I always end up changing my opinions when I’m actually playing a class.

I actually end up playing x2 characters of each class that I’ve started since I end up liking multiple spec paths and it’s too hard to choose just one. So I’ll eventually hit Mesmer, but that probably won’t be until Character #7. (I’m currently working on Character #5 and all of them are somewhere between 50th and 80th level.)

PearlGore.7419:

Is it useful for PvE?

For certain boss mobs? Yes. I hate dealing with an Arah push while an Eye of Zhaitan has x25 Might stacks and Retaliation up. Being able to instantly steal them is amazing. Yet this is also going to be circumstancial since only some mobs will be boon magnets.

LiebnirGWAccount.5698:

Thank you! I’ll have a look into them! It means a lot to me all the help and information you’ve given me! Many +1’s!

Not a problem. If you’re checking the Wiki to look at possible class builds, also check the patch notes from today since the Wiki won’t be accurate.

Thief - The trait called Leeching Venoms got buffed today, which helps out a Venomous Aura player.

Warrior - Between the buff to a specific Rifle skill, the serious changes to Signet of Might, and the combining of the old 30 pt Discipline traits, most of the reasons that I suggested a Rifle assassin are from the patch notes.

Hmmm… Here are some general suggestions then.

1) Warrior: Between the end line trait called Healing Shouts and Superior Runes of the Soldier, you have a decent amount of AoE effects. There were some interesting buffs that affected the Rifle (directly and indirectly). I could picture you running a Knight / Berserker ranged assassin spec with a Shout focused Rifle spec. (Max out Tactics and Discipline lines, which leaves 10 pts left.) It could be interesting and it would meet your qualification.

2) Ranger: While I’ve never played the class and I know that people often complain that it is under powered, I remember hearing that their Spirit trait / skill spec has some really strong support options and it would give you plenty of ranged combat options.

3) Thief: If you’re regularly running with a core group of people, a Venomous Aura trait build could be interesting. Since a devoted VA spec pretty much requires 30 pts in Deadly Arts and 30 pts in Shadow Arts, you don’t have a lot of room for playing around with trait choices. The spec certainly doesn’t play like a traditional Thief build. However it is a very strong spec when you have people to buff. If you ran the Shortbow and other weapon set for melee circumstances, then the spec has some real potential. (Disclaimer: My main is a VA spec that use S/P and SB. All things considered, VA players are rare and generally considered to be an abberation amongst Thief players.)

1) What do you consider “support” to be? Debuffing enemy mobs? Using control effects to lock down trash mobs? Buffing allies? Healing allies?

2) The classes you’ve mentioned so far have been ranged classes. Do you have a preference of ranged over melee combat?

3) Just how important is WvW viability to you? I see that this was a factor in your losing interest in Engineer, so I’m trying to figure out just how this can influence my suggestion.

Skamlic.8041:

Beware, we are not talking about buffing PvE, but balancing it!

So you want to rework how the class operates on some fundamental levels. Yes, I do agree that a dps spamming Warrior has a much lower survivability rate than many other classes. There are many reasons why I prefer to play my other characters over my Warriors and this is one of those reasons. However people seem to generally like the Warrior in PvE. They like the concept of making a dps spec, grabbing a Greatsword, and slaughtering everything in their path.

During the pre-release information in the game, ArenaNet released classes in the order of how complicated they were. The goal was to have some classes that had a low barrier of entry and others that had a high barrier of entry. Warrior was the 1st class released, which meant that they considered it the easiest class to play. ArenaNet employees admitted in discussion panels that they wanted a newbie friendly class that could be a serious damage machine with decent survivability. Combat skills such as 100 Blades are blatantly oriented towards fighting dumb AI mobs in PvE. Like it or not, this is what ArenaNet envisioned the Warrior to be.

We are the offensive “fighter” type of class. Guardian is the defensive “fighter” class. In general, any new abilities recieved will follow this philosophy. It is not surprising that we got a Boon Hate ability since it meshes well with our offensive combat stereotypes. Asking the devs to reduce a Warrior’s dps output and wanting them to increase their defensive capabilities is pretty much asking ArenaNet to ignore the general guidelines that they designed their classes with. That’s very unlikely to happen.

Destruction of the Empowered will be a niche build orieneted for WvW and PvP to take down boon spammers. Otherwise the investment of 30 pts in Discipline will just be far too much for your average Warrior to accept. Due to the trait point cost, a DotE build will likely deal less damage in PvE than your standard dps Warrior and will have situational moments in all combat types (PvE / PvP / WvW) when it is remarkably deadly.

Now the Signet is really strong. The passive +Might is now very attractive and using the signet to get through blocking will be really useful in certain situations.

Dumb question:

What weapon set is Larcenous Strike part of? I was looking on the Wiki and I couldn’t find it.

Thief

•Skills that must be performed from stealth are now labeled as “Stealth Attack.”
•Vigorous Recovery: Improved accuracy of description.
•Cloak and Dagger skill: Now functions with the Hidden Killer trait.
•Needle Trap skill: Removed the duration skill fact as being misleading.
•Shadow Shot skill: The projectile portion is now unblockable.
•Choking Gas skill: Added an Unblockable skill fact to reflect functionality.
•Flanking Strike skill: •Now evades and delivers one strike instead of delivering two attacks.
•Removed boon removal.
•Reduced initiative cost from 4 to 3.
•Now toggles for 5 seconds to a second skill, Larcenous Strike, if the attack hits an enemy.
•Improved reliability of flanking strike.

•Larcenous Strike: Deliver a quick strike that steals up to two boons from an enemy. Costs 1 initiative.
•Larcenous Strike, Stab skills: Reduced aftercast by 0.5 seconds.
•Mug trait: Can no longer critically hit. Now heals the thief from a range of 1980 health to 2700 health.
•Leeching Venoms trait: Increased the damage scale from power by 33%. Increased range from 325-400 to 325-425.
•Signet of Agility skill: Increased passive stat bonus by 100%.
•Assassin’s Signet skill: Increased passive stat bonus by 100%.
•Revealed effect: Reverted duration to 3 seconds in PvE.
•Trick Shot skill: First arrow is no longer heat-seeking.
•Smoke Screen skill: No longer destroys unblockable missiles.
•Haste skill: •Increased duration by 1 second.
•Players now regenerate endurance at 50% effectiveness (increased from 0%) when under the effects of this skill.

Skamlic.8041:

Exactly my point! I’m really bad at explaining things in another language. We should get something that we would benefit from it in PvE and PvP at the same time.

No, we shouldn’t. Right now, the Warrior is considered to be one of the most over powered PvE classes in the entire game. It would be foolish for the ArenaNet devs to give this classes anything that would be viable for PvE since it would just make this class even more insanely demanded than it already is. (We can debate about just how deserved the “need Zerker Warrior” mentality really is, but that’s another thread.)

I’m completely fine with making Boon Hate into a gimmicky build where you have to sacrifice much to achieve it and having it only being situationally useful. Your average Warrior isn’t going to instantly spec into Boon Hate for PvP after this patch, but you’ll likely see a bunch of them roaming around PvP and WvW as they hunt for Guardians, Mesmers, and boon heavy Warriors. That sounds relatively balanced to me.

Skamlic.8041:

Why would we want to punish someone for using boons (Are we talinking about ele &gua bunker builds)?

As a person who loathes PvP in GW2, I’m the wrong person to ask about this. From what I’ve seen people say on the forums, Warrior is considered to be worthless in PvP. This likely caused ArenaNet to bring the GW1 concept of Boon Hate back as a means of giving Warriors a niche in team PvP.

All things considered, I wouldn’t consider the Boon Hate trait to be a PvE trait. Some boss mobs might like to stack up a bunch of different boon types on themselves, but those are specific circumstances. Your average trash mobs aren’t going to be covered with lots of different boon types, so Boon Hate won’t do that much against them.

Like killcannon said, it’s a number of factors. When you add them all together, some builds generate really high aggro and other builds generate a much lower rate of aggro.

Case in point, I wanted to play a melee Thief that was quasi-tanky and didn’t rely on stealth. Also I wanted to try out the AoE buffing abilities of their Venomous Aura trait series. The final result was a melee S/P Thief that uses Knight gear and can pump out a ton of condition debuffs within a very short amount of time. Between my respectable dps out, high Toughness, high debuffing rate, and my melee proximity, that charcter has a real tendency to snag aggro and hold it. I kind of wanted this result, so I’m find with that. However I would have been really frustrated if I didn’t know in advance that this would likely happen.

From what I understand, the Boon Hate trait will be placed as a 30 pt Discipline trait. Nor do I remember hearing anything about Brawn being potentially changed. To get Boon Hate, you’d have to penalize yourself by taking 30 pts in Discipline and missing out on other effective traits that would increase your dps output.

All things considered, Boon Hate build will likely have a lower average dps output in exchange for demolishing certain other classes in WvW and PvP. I’d call that a fair trade. Unless the Discipline line gets really reworked (which we might see within a few hours), then I really don’t see Boon Hate as a viable PvE option unless you’re running some kind of odd crit-based build that doesn’t need a bunch of key traits in other trait trees. (For example, I could picture some kind of Hammer crit spec possibly taking Boon Hate.)

People who are ex-WoW players like to use WoW terms for describing MMOs. Their version of Ranger was called the Hunter. So when you get a new person here after leaving WoW, they want to know how Ranger is similar to Hunter and how it is different. But after that point, some people are just lazy and will continue to call Ranger by the wrong name under the assumption that everything somehow knows WoW lingo.

It really depends on your trait spec and your gearing choices. On my Warrior #1, I’ve used either Axe/Warhorn or Mace/Shield as my melee set and the Rifle as my ranged set. Then on Warrior #2, I’m using the Hammer as my melee set and the Longbow as my ranged set. Both characters play very differently, which is something that I really enjoy.

Most people will tell you to check out the cliche combo of Greatsword & Rifle. These are very viable weapons, but the class has other strong weapon choices.

Axe Disclaimer
The Axe #1 auto attack skill does a ton of damage as it swings through the chain. However there is a very real flaw with it. The damage increase for the 2nd and 3rd swings will only happen if you let the game auto attack for you. If you manually hit the Axe #1 attack button to hit your foes, it causes the bonus damage to bug out and you’ll do damage equal to your 1st swing for all x3 swings. (I had to finally realize this the hard way by the time that my Warrior was around 30th level.)

I personally prefer to manually hit the Weapon #1 auto attack skill on melee weapons since enemy mobs like to constantly back slightly out of melee range. This slight gap causes your auto attack chain to turn itself off, even though your melee swing can still reach the mob. Also you have to manually hit Weapon #1 when attacking mobs that are stealthed. As a result of this situation, I was personally forced to give up using the Axe since my personal playstyle prevented me for using it to its full potential.

I just find it funny to see so much worrying about Boon Hate. From what I’ve been able to understand, this will be a 30 pt trait in the Discipline line. As it stands currently, people just dip into that trait line for a T1 trait or two. Since the Brawn passive benefit was nerfed from +1% F1 Burst damage per point into +.01% damage per point, the line has been in a sorry state.

You’d have to be running some kind of crit-based spec to take the Discipline line to 30 pts. Even at that point, you’d have to sacrifice a lot of better options in other trait trees to push Discipline that high. Therefore people are costing themselves dps output and potential utility in exchange for a situational dps boost that is probably not worth it in the long run. All things considered, I’m really not impressed at this point. Yet if the devs are also going to rework the Brawn passive ability into something useful, then Discipline might become more attractive in the future.

From what I understand, no. Weakness will debuff the outgoing physical attack damage that would normally be subject to Toughness damage reduction, but it has no effect on outgoing condition damage dots.

Open on Fergusson’s Crossing. (It was cleared when I was off-line, so I’m not sure how much longer it has until reset.)

It gets cleared at least once a day on Fergusson’s Crossing. Just watch the Melandru thread and I’ll make sure it update it when FC clears it again.

Umut.5471:

Thanks it works now. btw, can’t i use any other sigil for off hand weapon without blocking this sigil’s usability ?

If you’re using some kind of trigger sigil in one hand, you can’t use that same type of trigger sigil in your other hand. For example, you could have on “on crit” sigil and one “on kill” sigil without any problems. Another options is using a sigil with a flat benefit. As an example, Sigil of Force for a flat damage increase isn’t a bad choice if you’ve really got no better options.

The only time that you can stick trigger sigils is when you’re using x2 copies of the same “on crit” sigil. By using them both at the same time, you increase the net % proc chance using a diminishing returns formula (which you can find in the Wiki entry). Basically you’re still only using x1 sigil for the purposes of proc cool downs, but you’re increasing the proc rate. For some builds and certain proc sigils, this could be worth it.

While it’s no where close to an exact science, I’d take a look at the World vs World forum on this site and check the latest stickied post from the WvW dev. Every couple of weeks, they update the master list of the top servers for WvW. While these charts mainly show the end game populations, the higher ranked servers tend to be more populated.

As a general answer, I know that the RP server called Tarnished Coast tends to have a lot of players making low level alt characters. That might be a decent choice for you. At every week, you can designate x2 servers as your Guesting servers. Through the Guesting system, you could still play on Maguuma with your pal and then you could also log into other servers using the Guest feature to experience low level content in servers like Tarnished Coast.

My own server is Fergusson’s Crossing. We’re on the bottom rung for WvW, but I love the general atmosphere of the 80th player base. However at the same time, I don’t run into a lot of other players when I make a low level alt. It’s a trade off that I’ve accept since I’ve put down roots here, but I probably wouldn’t suggest FC to a new player since it wouldn’t be the best environment for them.

Fergusson’s Crossing is open. Not sure when it was cleared, so the reset timer is unknown.

It depends on your condition removal. If you’re already running other sources, then HiS might not be worth it. This question also applies to your current Stealth capabilities. Can you normally go into Stealth without your heal?

On my S/P Venomous Aura build in Knight’s gear, I desperately need HiS. I’m paranoid about conditions, so the removal is much appreciated. Also the potential use for Stealth as I retreat is still useful even if it doesn’t drop aggro.

Now if you were running a Dagger in your off-hand and had Shadow’s Embrace traited, then my opinion would be different. In that case, Withdraw or SoM would start to look really attractive to me.

StarNightz,

Head over to the World vs World forum and take a look at the stickied posts at the top of the forum. ArenaNet likes to update each server’s ranking in WvW every couple of weeks. While this is a very general statement, the servers on the lower third of the list tend to be in that ranking because of lower population levels. If you’re looking for an over flowing server, I’d suggest looking at one of the top WvW servers.

(This statement comes from a member of Fergusson’s Crossing, which has been ranked last in WvW for some time. I like the atmosphere of our population, but our low level zones are not filled with tons of people. Our population has been on the lighter side for some time.)

It really depends on what you mean by “take on” and the specific class specs that you’re talking about. In the raw AoE damage department, an Elementalist (which is Staff spec?) will easily win. Yet a Thief running Sword/Pistol will be the king of melee tanking any non-Dredge / non-Champion mobs through the AoE Blind clouds from Pistol #5 and the strong damage output of frontal arc Sword #1.

It really depends on what you want to play. Do you like to play a ranged AoE game? Then I’d suggest Elementalist. Or do you like to play some kind of finesse melee character? Then I’d suggest Thief. However a Dagger/Dagger Elementalist is a bit like a Thief and some Thief specs are a bit non-Thief, so it’s not that easy to make broad judgements on either class until you start to talk about specific character builds.

Watch the Balthazar thread in the Dynamic Events forum. People have active threads there for most of the major god temples. By paying attention to updates on that thread, you should be able to find an open Balthazar within the next few days.

The only way to get above the standard +33% Movement from the Swiftness buff is to use armor Runes that specificly bump Swiftness up to +40%.

But to answer your specific question, Brigg is right. Warrior’s Sprint is only a useful trait for the periods of time where you’re not under the Swiftness buff. For some builds that rarely produce Swiftness for yourself, WS is actually useful. But for many Warriors, it’s a generally worthless trait.

SupermanAZ,

You can pay a few silver coins to respec your Trait choices, which are one of the main determining factors between a tanky build and a dps build. While you would have to potentially spend more Skill Points to permanently access skills which you hadn’t considered useful in a previous character build, that’s not really a big deal. The only real drawback is needing multiple sets of gear with different +stats, but that’s something to worry about in the upper levels if you find yourself constantly ping ponging back and forth between different Guardian styles.

The story lines for the asura area are really a treat. For a new player, they should be very entertaining. However their tone is a bit different from all of the other races, so you should know that going in.

From a game mechanics note, the Dodge animation for asura is unique to that race. While I love the jumping flip (like some kind of Yoda ninja) that they do, some people have issues with it and dislike asura for that reason. However I find that the flip makes it very easy to see where you’re exactly going to land, which is an advantage in PvE (in addition to looking cool).

There are constantly updated threads for the major Priest temples on the Dynamic Events forum. I’d suggest watching that forum and Guesting to a server that recently cleared it.

1) Dungeon Revisions: Nothing has happened yet. No idea of the actual status of their internal time tables.

2) Guild Bounties: Some are tank and spank, but each boss has its own quirks. I’ve seen the robot base on Timberline Falls wipe multiple guild zergs because they didn’t understand the mob’s tactics and didn’t help each other when downed. Yes, there fights can be interesting. However they really do feel like open world raids, for better or worse.

Agreed. Malchior’s is know for sometimes having extra daily node resets for no good reason. One day, they only reset with the daily reset. The next day, it randomly resets the daily nodes only a couple of hours after I farmed them. From my personal observations, there is no clear pattern or reason for this. Just be happy when it happens and harvest away.

1) I do run Lyssa on my own Venomous Aura spec and it’s not a bad choice. The unstated 50 second cool down means that the proc will only happen on every other Basilisk proc. However the buffs are nice and it’s another source of condition removal, which is usually needed in a VA spec.

2) My issue with the spec is that your sources of condition damage aren’t enough to personally satisfy me. Perhaps I’m just biased, but I’ve not had the best success using Cluster Bomb as my primary source of dps against moving human opponents. The poison damage from Spider Venom won’t be a lot, so that’s not a strong reason to go condition heavy. Player tests have shown that AoE Spider Venom actually uses each player’s personal +condition values for calculating their poison proc damage. This means that you’re heavy focused into condition damage for only using the Shortbow. That is the crux of my problem.

If you were willing to use a 2nd weapon set (other than the extra SB) that also did condition damage, then your spec could be really interesting. However the double SB usage just isn’t enough to go heavily into condition for WvW. (I might do it for PvE, but that’s another subject.)

Was this the skritt racial quest series? Yes, that one was freakish. Since you’re hunting tons of destroyer mobs, a constant wave of AoE burning damage field are being spammed throughout the entire area. These AoEs will quickly slaughter the NPCs and the constant zerg waves of destroyers will often cut you off from reaching the NPCs to revive them. This leaves you basically soloing the final destroyer crab champion, which is pretty nuts.

Deacon, it’s not just you. It was a heck of a gear bill for my Thief when I finished, even after stealths to drop aggro and rezzes on NPCs before my next attempt. By the time that I finished, I was really in a bad mood. Another friend tried that quest path and couldn’t even make it to the final boss area. In his case, a couple of us just joined him on the quest to help him slaughter. Through unbalancing the game mechanics, we were able to help him move forward.

I’d suggest that you get a person or two to help you out. Ask in Lion’s Arch and you’ll likely find a sympathetic player or two. Just make sure that the people joining you didn’t take the skritt path when they did their own personal quest series. There are known bugs that will cause story resolution conflicts when other players are present when the game tries to compare your current story decisions with the past decisions of the other players present. (That issue might be fixed by now, but it was there at launch.)

stinkypants.8419:

hrmm…. not listed here -

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Lyssa

but that would explain why it didn’t always seem to proc.

That’s odd. It was always in the notes at the bottom of the Rune of Lyssa page. Seems like some moron changed the Wiki entry and deleted it off. Sigh.

Yes, it’s a 50 second cool down. Warriors with their signet trait must wait +2 seconds beyond their Elite’s refresh timer to always activate the Lyssa proc. Thieves with their venom trait must wait +14 seconds beyond their Elite’s refresh timer to proc the Lyssa buffs, which most people won’t wait for. Thus it only happens every other proc.

Guardian will be the easier class to learn the game on. While I haven’t built a Mesmer yet, they seem to be a high skill / high reward class. That isn’t to say the Guardians don’t have their challenges, but their abilities tend to be more forgiving while you’re learning about when to dodge and how the game thinks / operates. For WvW situations, a well played Mesmer is a nightmare for other people. Yet I wouldn’t suggest starting there.

When I was learning GW2, I used a Warrior and it is a very forgiving class in the lower levels. After I got a good game foundation, I made my Thief. I was surprised about just how fragile I was compared to my Warrior, but I had thankfully learned about dodging and how many mobs I could deal with through my prior experience. It made it a lot easier to level up my Thief as a result.

No Walking,

Basilisk Venom is a PvP / WvW skill for burst builds. Beyond that, you’ll only ever use it if you’re running Superior Runes of Lyssa or a Venomous Aura spec. (For the record, that is the build that my PvE Thief uses in grouping situations.)

I remember that at one point, Venomous Aura builds were really popular in PvP and people wanted the skill nerfed because of how a devoted Aura build could use that skill. At the same time, people had issues with Basilisk being an instant cast (as per other venoms) since it could give an instant lock down without any kind of animation telegraphing. When combined together, the duration was nerfed down and a cast time as added. Then after some time, the duration was slightly increased.

stinkypants.8419:

Sepreh.5924:

Hahaha pair it with superior runes of Lyssa and you’ll see why people take it

Run Lyssa and Quick Venoms for goodness every 36s

So very true. The only annoyance is that the Lyssa proc has a 50 second cool down, so you can still only activate it every other BV use.

People do those events because they’re already in Queensdale. Why? The main reason is that people are waiting for the Shadow Behemoth zone boss to spawn and killing Champion mobs is a good way to pass the time. Also a lot of players before GW2 released had indicated in multiple polls that they were going to play humans since that’s the race you had to play in GW1 and they somehow still felt a connection with the human nation. As a result, a lot of people know Queensdale like the back of their hand and it’s far easier for them to event farm that zone as opposed to another zone.

If your 30’ish zones actually had zone bosses that were player destinations, then you’d see people event farming there. Yet since they really aren’t desirable locations, people don’t farm those zones.