Guild Wars 2

Oglaf.1074:

You can no longer salvage rare dungeon armour pieces for Ectos.

However you are supposed to be able to salvage rare dungeon weapon for Ectos. People were freaking out about the patch’s line that stated that you couldn’t salvage weapons bought from vendors, but ArenaNet has made a couple of posts to clarify that dungeon token weapons will still be a valid target for salvaging.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

Maybe a 9y old child can find this event funny.. or maybe is American humour like Mr Quinn said?……

It’s designed for American dark humor. The black humor of the event is something that I find priceless. Yet the kind of verbally abusive humor found in British comedies such as Faulty Towers offends me. I’d have to say that it really comes down to cultural humor.

Since the other thread on this subject was reporting in-game durations between 2 seconds and 4 seconds for these special abilities, we know that they aren’t going to be up for very long. When you combine that with the universal global cool down, this trait is basically dead if you’re using more than x1 kit.

RIP Kit Refinement. You have served me welcome, but your time has past. Soon you will be but a memory. (I’ve already reset my traits to permanently remove my x10 points in Tools since the patch.)

RIP Kit Refinement. You served me well, but I have already respec’ed to permanently remove you. In time, you will be but a memory.

Sheesh! I’m just confused about all of these nerf cries. The skill still Stuns. ArenaNet just removed a hidden bonus condition that it was also applying. Yes, it’s nerfing the bonus debuff. However I wouldn’t call that a hard core nerf.

Rayya.2591:

basilik – daze not stun

The patch notes seemed pretty clear. This skill used to unofficially apply <Stun + Immobilize> when used in PvP / WvW. When people used a Stun Breaker, they still sat there under the Immobilize effect. As a response, ArenaNet removed the unmentioned Immobilize. All things considered, the skill still applies the Stun like it’s shown on the tool tip.

I’m not sure how I feel about Kit Refinement now. My engineer that was built for mainly using the Elixer Gun will be losing a free source of healing (though the standard Elixer Gun heal was buffed to about double the base effectiveness) in exchange for a glue trail every 20 seconds. Will the glue trail be worth it? Doubtful.

Yet my engineer that was built around other kits will be loving Kit Refinement. It seems that the changes will either work very well for you or very poorly for you.

You can do something with almost every class in the game. While some classes with be better at it than others, you have a bunch of options.

Warriors: A character spec’ing through the Tactics trait line, when combined with a full x6 set of Superior Runes of the Soldiers (at lvl 70+), can be a great AoE healer with AoE cleansing. Even if you’re wearing dps gear, the healing is acceptable for a non-healer and the AoE condition removal is very strong.

Guardian: This isn’t my class of choice, but it’s pretty strong defensively and has some interesting AoE support options through its trait spec lines.

Elementalist: Tons of people use this class when they want some kind of AoE support build. People tend to focus on elemental attunements such as Water to act as pseudo-healers.

Engineer: While not that common, some people run dedicated Elixer Gun support builds. With the proper trait choices, you’ve got some nice AoE healing and condition removal. Also since this weapon is generated through the permanet use of one of their Utility skill slots, you can still use other standard weapons or Engineer skill slot weapons to mix things up. (In WvW, I’ve heard horror stories about people having to deal with an incoming attacker wave that has 1-2 Elixer Gun enemies to support their zerg. If done right, these characters can be really strong.)

Tanner:

1) Do every Dynamic Event you see. Some zones can be a hit or miss since you might be accidentally moving through when they’re on their cool down cycles. However this is where a lot of your +xp comes from.

2) Do every Heart vendor series of tasks when you’re level appropriate. There’s a nice chunk of +xp for finishing these.

3) Every so often, catch up on your Personal Story instanced quest line. These are you highest +xp gains. I normally like to save them up and do 2-3 in a row, but do them however you please.

4) Crafting is worth tons of +xp. It has always been my opinion that your experience point curve in the 1-15 zones is a bit off. If you don’t craft, you’re always going to end up being under leveled for your current content. Yet after taking a couple of crafting classes (such as the ones that makes your weapons and armor), you’ll get a huge influx of +xp to help to get back to where you should be.

5) Even after everything that I’ve described, sometimes I’m still a bit under leveled by the time that I finish up my 1-15 starter zone. To deal with this, I then take the Asuran Gate portal (aka the purple Stargate things) to the gate hub in Lion’s Arch. At the hub, I can easily take a gate to another of the starting cities. I live the city and run through its associated 1-15 zone. While in that zone, I hunt down every Skill Point located on the map. Then I leave the zone and repeat the process until I’ve gained all of the 1-15 Skill Points. By the time that you’re done with this, you should be around 20th level (after gaining +xp from finding Waypoints and completely Hearts along the way). This is a great starting point to go back to your racially associated 15-25 zone.

oron.4860:

I’ve had this happen to me on a few events now. Did they update the game so you can only get 1 chest from the same event every 24 hours?

Yes. Since the zone boss chests now have an automatic Yellow grade item in them, people can only get x1 reward chest from each zone boss (per day). Once the nightly reset hits, then you can do them all over again. Should you do a boss for the 2nd time in a day, you’ll just get the little bit of cash from the dynamic event completion and a possible body drop item from the mob’s corpse.

I would assume that this system is there to encourage people to travel all over the world. It helps to make sure that people see more of the game’s content and it’s more likely to cause money sinks since people will teleport using waypoints. But more importantly, it’s about controling the market value of Ectoplasm. If you can simply farm something like the revised Fire Elemental all day, then you could flood the market with Ectos since its respawn rate is much faster than a dragon. People spend IRL money to buy things like Ectos (through gems), which are becoming an essential part of the games economy. By limiting the how common Ectos are, ArenaNet can encourage people to give them more IRL money.

I hate to say this, but both classes play so differently that it’s really apples vs oranges. If you’re going for WvW, then you’re probably going to encounter more Rangers in WvW than you would find Engineers.

1) I’ve encountered Rangers who seem to be using various ranged combat specs and sometimes some trap spec players who focus on hold specific areas of terrain. For the most part, I wouldn’t recommend a pet spec and the spirit AoE buff spec doesn’t seem to be very common. (Though if you run with a group of people consistently, then the AoE buffs might be useful.)

2) Engineer can serve various roles. The main ones that I hear about are the Grenade specs and the Elixer Gun specs. (I’ve just recently come back after taking a few months off, so the Grenade info might have changed since I last looked.) People like Grenade because they do good damage and they can be spec’ed to have a range that is greater than seige equipment. I remember seeing Engineers harassing forts with their grenades and you really couldn’t do much to them unless you were willing to leave the fort and chase them down. Or if you consistently run with a group of people, the Elixer Gun’s AoE condition removal and healing is very powerful. There are some dedicated people in WvW who only use the Elixer Gun and they seem to be very beneficial to their fellow players.

My Thief runs 30/10/30/0/0 in Knight’s gear for PvE. Throw in some “heal on critical” effects (via weapon sigils and food) to back up the low health and you should be good to go. It’s decent for soloing and powerful when you can raise the effectiveness of a bunch of people. However it’s not the strongest grouping spec if people won’t stay close enough to you for your buffs. (I personally run Lyssa runes for the condition removal, but those are a matter of personal taste.)

Dalexx.3571:

One area I keep dying that I don’t know how to solve, is I get knocked down, I fight, I get revived\Back up. And even though all the enemies are dead, I have this kinda greenish smoke coming out of me and then 3-4 secs later I fall over defeated.

That would be due to your using the special skill called Vengeance when you’re in the Downed state. This skill let you immediately rally, which is normally only possible when a mob that you’ve hurt dies or when you finish the channeling heal process. While under Vengeance, you have a 25% on every mob kill to remove the Vengeance special debuff. If the buff is removed, then you stay alive. But if the buff is still there at the end of its duration, then you drop dead.

There is a trait in the Discipline trait line called Sweet Vengeance. If you take this Major trait choice, then any enemy kill will automatically remove the debuff.

I’d say that there were multiple issues:

1) You have to find a dev for each class which the forum population considers to be “competent”. Sometimes a dev would post something in a class forum and the regulars of that forum would erupt with laughter as they teased / mocked the dev for not understanding their class.

2) Then you’d have to find a dev who had thick enough skin to get those kind of verbal barbs from the player base. Fair or not, they will become the target of any dissatisfaction that a player has with that class.

3) At this point, people would expect the class dev to answer questions that ArenaNet isn’t willing to publicly respond to. Or players would want to debate class philosophy with the dev. Basically they’d want the dev to get drawn into conversations that ArenaNet wouldn’t want to get into as a company policy (since people could confuse that dev’s specific opions with ArenaNet’s company opinions on a given subject).

4) As if this isn’t bad enough, it doesn’t even touch the cliche dev posts that people expect. “What do you think can be improved in this class.” Those threads always get insane. People can’t even agree with each other, let alone a dev. The amount of moronic ideas, attempts to power trip, or general verbal toxicity are just too great. You never want to ask for someone’s opinion if you don’t want it, especially from people who could be considered fanatical. Yet this is exactly the kind of question that the community wants a dev to ask, which creates a weird paradox.

5) Some class forums are just emotionally toxic. The forums of some of my classes are so bad on this site that I will rarely visit them. They are filled with verbal insults and people with very narrow ideas about how their class should operate. These people then get into large “debates” about various class subjects and attempt to verbally bludgeon their opponents into submission. (I’ve read those threads and most of them have clearly move beyond the “lively debate” stage.) What kind of ArenaNet employee would voluntarily choose to enter that kind of work environment as part of their job? I know that I wouldn’t want that kind of burden.

From what I have observed and learned from chatting with friends, the strength of your gear is based on a ratio of Gear Lvl vs True Character level. Now if you’re not down leveled, then it doesn’t matter (beyond being inherently weapon like you would expect). Yet when you do have your level reduced, your gear has its effectiveness reduced. It seems like the % multiplier is based on the expectation that you’re wearing current that’s equal to your current character level. If it isn’t, then the reduction multiplier will hit you even harder.

Case in point, try being 80th with a couple of different weapons. You’ve got a 65th Yellow weapon and an 80th Blue weapon. Then you walk into a lvl 20 area. Both of these weapons gets hit with a reduction multiplier that would be balanced around you wearing a full set of 80th gear. Now look at your Yellow weapon. Even though it is at the same artificial level are the Blue weapon, you’ll see that its +stats are much lower. Why? The issue is that the Yellow weapon is at a level spread of <True Level -15> while the Blue weapon is at a level spread of <True Level -0>.

I’ll assume that you are 80th level, based on your post.

1) Unless you’re already sitting at 400 skill in your crafting classes, I would suggest that you just buy your pieces. Unfortunately you’re dealing with a situation of market inflation, but you’re also getting inflation to work in your favor when you’re selling popular items.

2) Some common items which sell well are Unidentified Dyes (15 silver), Orichalcum ore nodes (3.5 silver), Mithral ore nodes (40-50 copper), Orrian wood nodes (??), and Omnomberries (2.5 silver). Those were the items that I sold months ago to make much of my money and they should still be selling well today.

Beyond that, you can grind for cash through Citadel of Flame runs (like you’re already mentioned). Completing one of the Orr zones for the map locations will reward you with a couple of Exotic items, which you can sell on the BLTC.

Otherwise sell any other item which can make you money. Zone specific cooking nodes like Strawberry, Grape, and Blackberry are usually good sellers. For a while, some of the lower level herbs were selling for a bunch. Pull a bunch of cooking items into your character’s bags so you can easily check out their current value on the BLTC. You might be surprised to see what they are going for.

I’d suggest holding on to the Ecto until you’re sure that you want to just buy your gear. They used to be selling for 25 silver (each), but recent market speculation has driven up their price this week. If people are willing to buy them for 40s or more, it might be a decent time to cash out and sell your Ecto. Just make sure that there are enough pieces on the BLTC for you to purchase with that money before you sell the Ecto.

1) If you’re having issues, make sure to unlock your heal skill that is a Signet. The passive healing from that is a bit unbalancingly high in the lower levels. That will help to give you an edge.

2) What level of weapon are you using? By lvl 7, you should be able to craft / buy a lvl 5 weapon that is of Blue quality or higher. (If you’re still swinging White weapons that are lvl 1, then your damage output is doing to be horrible.)

3) Weapon suggestions are subjective. Each weapons fits people differently. There are some weapons that I excell with and others that I’m horrible with. My only suggestion is to find a ranged weapon that you like for your 2nd weapon set. If you’re having issues with extra mobs adding into your fight, I’d suggest that you try out the Longbow. Contrary to expectations, it tends to be more beneficial to use it up close as if it were a shotgun.

4) For your Utility skills, you’ll want some kind of generally useful skill. As a starting skill, For Great Justice isn’t a bad one. It will let you permanently chain up some Might (+damage) stacks and you’ll have a Fury buff to bump your critical hit chance up for part of the time.

5) You can also make some decent lvl 5 Blue armor pieces as well. It might be that you’re still using extremely low level armor, which could be causing you to take more damage then you should for your level.

PS – What server are you on? Almost any established player should be able to twink you out in lvl 5 Blue gear that will let you tear through anything that is level appropriate. If need be, I’d be happy to do it myself. (If you’re not from Ferguson’s Crossing, you could always Guest visit my server.)

Iruwen.3164:

I want to know this too, will the stats be adjusted to ascended when I transmute a legendary and an exotic now? Pretty simple question.

Unknown, but I’m guessing not. The whole point of a Legendary is to force people to use a specific weapon graphic and the forced +stat combination of Power/Vitality/Toughness. From discussions with GW1 players, I’m understanding that their Best in Slot (Forever) items were limited to certain gear combinations. If you didn’t use this exact combination, then you were forced to actually participate in the new content.

With GW1 in mind, Legendary weapons aren’t supposed to be user friendly. It’s always been my impression that they are merely a status symbol that helps you avoid future itemization. Ascended was added to “encourage” people to run on the gear treadmill system since people in full Exotic were leaving the game because they no longer had gear progression options. ArenaNet wants people to chase Ascended, which will also include Ascended Weapons at some future point. Making the Legendary weapons flexible (in either the appearance or +stats departments) kind of defeats this purpose.

Belenwyn.8674:

I hope the jeweler trainers will sell ascended recipes in the near future. Jewelers are only the beginning. Tailors, leatherworkers will follow in the course of the year 2013 if Arenanet does not react.

I hate to be cynical, but isn’t that the point of things? Most MMOs use player crafted gear as a gateway tool towards acquiring the “real” gear. The addition of vendor purchased Ascended jewelry doesn’t surprise me at all. This is just Stage #1 of the Ascended roll out. We all know that weapons and armor are the next logical steps to this process.

In the end, I expect that Cooking will remain as the only crafting class worthwhile. Yet some MMOs also let people spend their special tokens on temporary buffs, so even Cooking may get replaced by NPCs. Like it or not, this is how most MMOs work.

RandomCC.1782:

Wow I didn’t know you could join 5 guilds how does that work in chat?

Most people tend to have their primary guild and use the other guild member slots for special things. As a FYI, most guild will periodically wipe out any member who is normally under the Non-Represent status. (You hit Represent for your primary guild, which let’s you see Guild Chat for that guild. Also any Guild XP you earn only goes to your Represent guild, which is why people get annoyed if you’re eating space on their guild roster and not giving them anything in return.)

However some large guilds do encourage special guild membership ranks. For example, a newer system of guild rewards comes from the Guild Bounty missions. These missions will basically make you hunt down certain NPCs in the open world content, who effectivelly turn into raid bosses. Anyone who’s currently Representing with your guild will get special tokens for killing the raid mob. (Anyone else can help kill the mob, but they only get standard rewards.) I’m starting to see guilds who run Guild Bounty missions running into the situation where they invite non-guild people to join them. The hosting guild will normally have created a special guild member rank for these Bounty runs. Whenever a random person wants to tag along, they get sent a Guild Invite and have their membership set at this Bounty member setting. This makes the guest player eligable to receive the special tokens. Then once the event is over with, the guests stop Representing the host guild and switch back to their primary guild.

I’ve also heard of people using guilds as player organization tools. These additional guilds might exist as unofficial LFG PUG player pools for PvE or WvW. People would switch their Represent tags to the PUG guild and could then interact with any of the other people looking for groups. Then once they were finished, people would switch back to Representing their primary guild.

Obtena.7952:

This is rather ridiculous. The existence of Ascended make exotic jewelry no less useful than the existence of exotic weapons and armor does for rare armor. You NEED exotic jewelry to get ascended gear, unless you have friends that will carry through months worth of content just so you can avoid getting exotic jewelry.

That’s not completely true, which is the issue. People are slowly farming the Daily and Monthly achievements for the Laurels, which they will then spend on Ascended gear. So in theory, a lvl 80 in non-Exotic could hang out in the lower level content areas to slowly farm up Laurels. As an example, my Necro friend is very casual and his jewelry slots are the one area which he has slacked on. His plan is to use his Rare jewelry (which he bought cheaply from the BLTC) to slowly earn himself Ascended jewelry pieces, which skips the Exotic jewelry stage.

Now in actual practice, most of us will still buy Exotic gear as we work towards Ascended gear. For example, the fastest way to get Ascended is to farm the Fractals for their ring vendor and Guild Bounties for the new guild ear ring vendor. In both of those situations, you’ll be dead weight if you’re not in full Exotic gear. Many people will still run these content areas with non-Exotic gear, but I’m guessing that most people who as passionate about buying Ascended will be getting Exotics along the way.

Like others have already said, it’s probably not worth it.

1) You have to like the visual appearance of your Legendary item.
2) You have to like the forced +stat combinations of Power/Vitality/Toughness.
3) You have to get a Precusor weapon, which will average around 400-700 Gold (depending on the specific Precusor).

The only real benefit is that their Base Damage spread will automatically upgrade itself whenever ArenaNet releases Ascended Weapons or other such items in the future. So in essence, a Legendary is costing you an insane amount of time and resources right now. Yet this investment will save you an unknown amount of time and resources for each weapon upgrade that ArenaNet releases.

I don’t like the enforced +stats on the weapons and I don’t like the Legendary appearance graphics for my current characters. Therefore I consider them to be a collosal waste since ArenaNet intentionally designed them to be money sinks for the game’s economy.

For getting used to the game, I’d say Warrior. They have the 2nd highest health pool in the game, or they may be tied for the highest with Necromancer. This class doesn’t have any kind of signature defensive ability that you could become dependent on, which helps you transition to other classes. Warriors can take a mix of personal buffs, control attacks, or AoE buffs. With such high variation, it can help you find the part of the game that you like best. Once you understand about what you prefer in a GW2 character, it makes it easier to make additional characters that suit you.

I used Warrior in the open beta weekends and for the initial month of the game’s launch. While it was amusing, I wanted to also try out the Thief class. When I made my 2nd character, I immediately felt the loss of my traditionally high health pool (from being a Warrior). However this wasn’t too much of a challenge to deal with. Since I enjoyed the AoE offensive buffs as a Warrior, I decided to slowly take the Thief’s AoE offensive buff line (which is very narrow and rather unpopular). To my surprise, I came to love my Thief character’s playstyle far more than I did on my Warrior. At this point, I only play my Warrior on a rare occassion. Yet I wouldn’t have found my way to the perfect class for me if I had started playing a Thief from the very start (since my ability choices would have likely been very different from what I’ve learned to love).

On my FC server, I got invited to a large guild’s Bounty run earlier this week. To get extra players, they were kind enough of sit in Lion’s Arch and post a general invite in the Map chat. I think that they posted the invite message about once every 5 minutes over the course of 15 minutes as they were organizing their guild and tracking down targets.

This guild basically made a Guild Bounty rank in their guild. The whole purpose of this rank was to assign it to people who were normally part of other guilds. When a Guild Bounty was announced, the guest players would just switch their Represent tagging (in the Guild window system) to the Bounty guild. After the Bounty runs were over, people would switch their Represent back to their original guild.

For smaller guilds, this seems to be the way to go since you’re going to be fighting Champion mobs. I’d suggest that you create a Guild Bounty rank in your guild and make sure that it has the proper permission settings. Then just start running PUG runs for your Guild Bounty targets. With the extra people, you leave one person from your guild to advertise in Lion’s Arch (to gather more people) while the rest of your guild members and guests start hunting down the relative locations of your other targets.

rozcinana.7249:

Wiser, I have never heard that we could get anything other than rings dropping in fotm and I run it constantly. Where did you get this information?

Perhaps I am incorrect. I’ve been gone for months (up until this past weekend) and I was told that the Laurel merchants were selling items that were dropped in the Fractals. It’s easily possible that I was mis-informed.

While I also took a few months off and just starting up again this past weekend, here’s my understanding of things.

Question #1 - No, there is nothing new. If you didn’t like a Warrior healing through Shout skills or a Guardian healer, then you’re still going to be unhappy.

Question #2 - Healing xp? Nope. Since the game puts a low emphasis on healing (whether or not that matches the healing needs of the current content), there are no +xp perks for actually healing. (Otherwise I’d be getting some nice bonuses through the AoE life draining procs that my Thief grants people.) Though if it makes you feel any better, Condition damage dot casters still have a hard time finishing large dynamic events at a gold medal rank since they only get credit for the dot stacks that they contributed before the mob hit their dot stack caps.

You know that there’s a problem when the main NPC gives you an overwhelming urge to shank them in the back. That’s the impulse that I had with Trahearne, which is a very unusual reaction for me.

The Mace is what I consider to be a technical fighter’s weapon. Adding some kind of Boon Hate would fit the theme of the weapon.

For my Thief main, I want a couple of weapons from the Mystic Forge. Since they each cost x250 Ectos and x250 Ori weapon pieces to make, it’s almost cheaper to buy them from the BLTC. If I can get a precursor drop, I could sell it and have just enough money to buy a set of the appearance weapons that I want.

Legendary weapons don’t have the visual appearances that I like and I don’t like how their +stats are allocated. I really can’t see myself ever going through the process of making one.

Labyrinth.7201:

Akamon, So before infusion there is no +agony resistance on any of the rings? So it wouldn’t matter which vendor I bought the ring from? Only after the infusion process does it add the + res? Is there a way to upgrade the ring and NOT add the +resistance? I’m just looking for the best possible upgrade for my pve/wvw builds.

From a non-Fractal PvE point of view, you can buy the rings from either source. As someone who’s just come back after ignoring GW2 for months, here’s a quick list of Ascended access options for a non-Fractal player.

Rings
Option #1 - Get random drops from the Fractals at lvl 10 or higher.
Option #2 - Buy your choice of ring using x10 Pristine Fractal Relics, which drop from even level Fractals difficulties once you’re at lvl 10 of higher.
Option #3 - Buy your choice of ring using x35 Laurels.

Ears
Option #1 - Get random drops from the Fractals at lvl 10 or higher.
Option #2 - Buy your choice of ear using x5 Gold Pieces and x12 Guild Commendation, which are rewards from completing the Guild Bounty missions (where you have to kill special Champion mobs in the open world).
Option #3 - Buy your choice of ear using x40 Laurels and x50 Ectoplasm.

Neck
Option #1 - Get random drops from the Fractals at lvl 10 or higher.
Option #2 - Buy your choice of ear using x30 Laurels.

Back
Option #1 - Buy your choice of back using 1,350 Fractal Relics. Then upgrade it through the Mystic Forge.
Option #2 - Create your choice of back using the Mystic Forge.

Infusions (for non-Fractal players)
Option #1 - Buy a non-Agony infusion for x5 Laurel.
Option #2 - Create an infusion using the Mystic Forge, which grants Agony Resistance and +stats at the same time.

Banner of Tactics: The AoE heal is a specific move of Banner #2. Basically you’d pick up the banner object, hit #2, then hit your Weapon Switch key to instantly drop the banner and go back to fighting. Wash, rinse, and repeat as needed (when you can cast the #2 again).

Multiple Banners: You could theoretically carry multiple banners. Right now, their +stats from the banners are horribly low and not very viable. After ArenaNet doubles their +stat values (which was covered in the most recent State of the Game), banner buffs will be more attractive. As things currently stand, people tend to only carry a single banner skill (if at all). My own banner Warrior uses it as a soloing melee weapon (when it amuses me) and I carry it out for the AoE Swiftness buff that helps me zoom across the countryside.

I’ve got two different Warrior and each is using a different range weapon. All things considered, I’ve come to really like the Longbow. Yet it really depends on your character build and how you use your ranged weapon.

The best description that I heard about the longbow is that it’s like a shotgun. Contrary to your expectations, it often tends to be most deadly when you’re pretty close up. It’s F1 move is an AoE fire field, which can damage melee enemies if you center it on yourself (in addition to adding Flaming to your arrow shots). Blast moves also give out AoE Might stacks when using the F1 field. The bow even has some nice control moves on it. This is my weapon of choice on my defensive hammer character.

Rifle has a better single target burst and it’s designed for letting people hang back. I use this on my mace / warhorn AoE supporting shout build. For the times that I need to range kite a mob or need to wait a moment for my heals to refresh, the rifle offers a lot of flexibility.

Each weapon has its own niche. Yet I would personally consider the longbow to be an unrecognized treasure. Most of the Warriors don’t seem to use it, which is a shame. I wouldn’t have bothered to try the longbow if I didn’t already have a Warrior with a rifle. Sometimes the negative hype about a weapon isn’t as accurate as we would like to believe.

Based on another active thread in the crafting section, the Mystic Forge drop rate for a precursor (using x4 Legendary weapons @ 80th) is estimated to be at around .3% for each Forge combine. With this in mind, I’m guessing that the open world drop rate is even lower.

ArenaNet has said that the giant dragon events in the various zones do have an “increased” drop rate chance, but no one knows just how much higher that rate really is. Also people have observed that you can sometimes get them in the mega chests that drop after you kill one of the undead god priests. Beyond that, I would say that the drop rate for a precursor is going to be even smaller.

You can run events for fun, but don’t expect to ever get a precursor as a reward for doing one. If you do see one drop, then it’s going to be a very rare and happy surprise.

nethykins.7986:

PS: Any Books people could recommend to me, since I’m coming up to the end of my current read.

Without knowing your personal reading tastes, I would recommend the Black Company book series by Glen Cook. There are a ton of books in this series and the publisher has been re-releasing them in x3 book omnibuses over the past couple of years.

Narrative style: The books are written in 1st person. While I got used to it and came to like it, this can be an issue for some people.

World style: Medieval low fantasy. While their are some hedge mages and some mages of near god-like power, the setting mostly lacks any other kind of traditional fantasy elements.

Theme: This series is basically an anti-hero saga. In Book #1, we see the Black Company in their natural state. They are a mercenary army who operate by a real code of honor, but find themselves mostly employed by despots. For all intents, they’re basically honorable villains. Yet over the course of Book #2, events have occured to make them KOS to their former employers. As a result, Book #3 has the “bad guys” now move over to the “good guys” side while still retaining the methods and ethics of honorable villains. (Also on a side note, they favor under handed tactics over direct conflicts. They’d much rather poison a tavern instead of fighting some kind of heroic battle with the people inside the tavern. Depending on a reader’s biases, this could be a good thing or a bad thing.)

Warning: Like true warefare, sometimes a character or two will get killed off. They will always die in some kind of momentus event and go out with a bang, but it can be a bit heartbreaking at times. While this aspect shows up a little in the initial trilogy, it is a main theme over the 2nd storyline saga. “Soldiers live and wonder why.” This is a quote from that 2nd storyline (which contains the bulk of the books in the Black Company series) and it captures one of its tones.

Zenith.6403:

emikochan.8504:

Unique means unique.

- How can you have two exact same items if they are unique?

Unfortunately the term “Unique” only applies to equiping and not to purchasing. That can also add to the confusion.

So true. I love my Leeching Venoms trait because I’m running a Venomous Aura spec (which runs x3 venoms and Shadow’s Refuge for group situations). The extra AoE healing and bonus dps is completely worth it as an AoE buffing Thief spec. But having said that, I would never use Leeching Venoms by itself. To get the most out of a spec like that, you’d have to run x30 trait points in Deadly Arts and x30 points in Shadow Arts. That is a very narrow spec for making the Leeching Venoms trait a strong choice.

This kind of mistake happened to people when they tried to buy a 2nd Karka Shell ring from the NPC vendor. People see the +stats and get excited, so they don’t read it fully. That ring also had the Unique tag on it, but people always overlooked it.

I can kind of see where people are coming from. From levels 1-79, you don’t have to ever experience the Unique mechanic. Then at 80th, it’s added to some of the most expensive items around. That can create some rather harsh learning curve situations. In my own opinion, ArenaNet should introduce some Unique items in earlier level brackets. This will help people become informed about what this tag means and it will train people to look for it.

dloopz.6481:

Thanks. Has anyone tried this with full + healing gear? I imagine with assassins reward and signet of malice u can self heal like a monster

No, I haven’t tried it and I really wouldn’t want to. You’d have to sacrifice far too much dps output for all of that +Healing gear. I just can’t see how you would be able to pull your own weight when you’re interacting with other players. The AoE healing increase on Shadow’s Refuge isn’t enough justification for losing all of the dps. Otherwise you’re just healing yourself while you lack offense, which means that you’re being carried by your fellow players.

As stated in the wiki, the base damage scales up with +Power and the base healing scales up with +Healing.

As one of the few Thief players who is insane enough to mainly run a Venomous Aura spec in PvE, I can confirm that the Leeching Venoms trait is more than enough healing if you’re running Knight (Power/Precision/Toughness) gear. By having a high armor value, the healing output of Leeching Venoms will be able to deal with a lot of incoming damage. (My own build uses S/P to spam out venom procs through Pistol Whip, but many weapon combinations could work.) Between my Leeching procs and my “+Health on Crit” procs, it’s actually a pretty viable spec. However that build is extremely vulnerable to condition damage, so I normally run Hide in Shadows as my heal. (You’ll never have the damage output of the devoted dps spec Thief, but that’s something that you know going into the spec.)

Simon.3106:

“Hi guys, I am now playing the role of a bum. Any charity will do. 1 copper, 2 copper, 1 silver! For the sake of good will! Donate me money!”

Discuss! Have you ever felt that if we had a beggar in gw2, you might run away from the game and never look back? What should we do with these type of people

Beyond putting them on your Ignore list? There’s sadly not much we can do about it in a PvE game. Peer pressure won’t work on people like that and they’re not really violating any Code of Conduct rules.

Saulius.8430:

@Wiser with Age. i stack my bloodlust stacks with active flamethrower kit on engineer, so i’m not sure what are you writing about…

Ah. So they fixed that for Engineers. I just came back after taking many months off after ArenaNet hacked me off. People were talking about letting Engineers finally get the benefits of their standard weapon sigils when using class skill weapons. It looks like ArenaNet made it happen.

The “+stat on kill” sigils count as a permanent buff on your character (until you zone or get downed / dead). Even if you weapon switch, the buff will remain. Engineers who like to use the weapons granted by their class skills have to constantly deal with this. They’ll spam their normal weapons to get up to the x25 buff stacks, then they’ll weapon switch to an Engineer skill weapon and start slaughtering.

On a side note, you can only benefit from a single set of sigil buff stacks. If you’re getting +10 Power stacks, then that would prevent you from also getting +Condition damage stacks from another weapon. That’s something to always keep in mind.

I’m back after a taking a break for four months, so the memory is a bit rusty. Here’s what I can remember.

Yes, the Signet and Trait scale up with your +Healing score. It’s been a long time, but people made spread sheets that showed the results at +0 Healing / +100 Healing / +200 Healing / +300 Healing. From what I can remember, the increases were small. If you’re already getting +Healing from Shadow Arts, then it’s just a bonus perk. However I wouldn’t ever take +Healing on actual gear pieces. (The Acrobatics trait increase was small and the Signet proc was so tiny that it was almost nothing.)

Yes, Shadow Refuge does technically scale up with +Healing. However the increase was so slight that it wasn’t really worth mentioning.

The trait from Shadow Arts called Leeching Venoms has a base amount, then adds +20% of your Healing score to that amount. This is the only healing ability that I’ve seen which has a noticeable increase when you boost up your +Healing score. Yet like I said above, I’d never take +Healing on my gear pieces.

That should cover the various Thief heals. Let us know if you have any other questions.

Unless Basilisk Venom has at least some advantages, then it would be completely worthless. Right now, it’s consider to be mostly worthless. Since it can now be removed by CC, the cast timer and its duration make this “Elite” questionable at best. While I’ll slot it at times running a Venomous Aura AoE buffing spec, it’s still highly situational and requires a build that has devoted 60 Trait points to be used in an effective manner.

Thereon.3495:

I just wouldve thought that, considering the price change of relic bought infusions changed within a week or two of that announcement, it would be just as easy to change a Forge recipe.

Ah. Well that’s an easy one to answer. ArenaNet implimented the FotM system as a way to keep the gear grinding treadmill people occupied. If ArenaNet made the Backpacks more accessible outside of the FotM dungeon, then that would have defeated the purpose of introducing these time sinks in the first place.

People from other MMOs were losing interesting in GW2, so ArenaNet responded by putting in a “slight” gear treadmill. Back when the Fractals came out in late November, there was a firestorm of positive and negative PR from this. (Most of the fire was negative PR.) If you want to really hunt through Google, I’m sure that you can find many articles about it.

The vocal masses wanted instanced dungeon grinding for better gear. ArenaNet gave those masses what they wanted. I’d say it was a move to appease a player base who was never that interested in GW2’s original design philosophies, but it really doesn’t matter at this point. A chunk of those who were unhappy got satisfied, which was balanced by many satisfied customers becoming temporarily or permanently enraged.

In theory, ArenaNet is planning on making Ascended access more widespread. Since there will be no way to avoid the +Stat escalation game, ArenaNet stated that they wanted to offer some over land PvE and WvW options for acquiring the new gear. However nothing has been implimented yet and the 1st set of Fractals changes slated for late January have made no mention of Ascended being added elsewhere.

I’m guessing it will probably happen about the same time that they make it so people can obtain Ascended gear from over land PvE and WvW, which they also brought up at the same time. When will this happen? Not a clue. The FotM tier access requirements and the FotM disconnect problem aren’t supposed to go live until the end of January. My guess is that the next batch of changes would happen some times after that, if they ever do occur.

Short answer? It will probably be at least a month or longer until ArenaNet makes any potential changes to the Backpack formula costs, regardless of their previously stated intentions. If you’re looking to gear up an alt ASAP, then you’re not going to wait for that to eventually happen.

I’m here (or was here) for the PvE. In my personal opinion, that’s the main draw of GW2. The Dynamic Event system is the cornerstone of the PvE experience, which is kind of unique for over land content.

Sangcreux, the issue comes down to what you define as “PvE”, because it’s really quite subjective. GW2 was designed with a more casual player in mind. Because of how the Dynamic Event system works, we’re all working together into unofficial groups as we progress through the game. We buff each other with AoEs, heal each other with AoEs, create Combo Fields off of each other, and even rez each other. All of this is accomplished without ever requiring people to create a formal group. In GW2, we’re forming temporary groups to defeat specific objectives, then we go off on our seperate ways.

From that perspective, GW2 is a very social game. The game mechanics are designed to promote players to instinctively work together, even though they may never speak to each other. By being aware of what everyone is doing, you can do some really neat Combo effects (which have an entire game system devoted to their interactions). Yet having said that, GW2 is not a chatty person’s game by default. It isn’t designed to have people create formal groups, log into Vent, then run around together for over land content. Even when you need to run a coordinated offensive in the final over land zones as you’re fighting against some of the tougher boss mobs (aka undead high priests of gods), people can usually organize this through general chat for that zone.

Does this ever change? For the moment, yes. When ArenaNet introduced their end game dungeon system called Fractals of the Mist (aka FotM), this instanced single group content become the sole reason to play. It clearly overs the best loot for you time investment, offers more variety, and is the only way to obtain the new item tier of Ascended grade items. At the same time, it also goes against the over land spirit that GW2 had promoted up until that point. It’s flagging system is elitest and exclusionary, though that will theoretically change in late January when ArenaNet rolls out their 1st set of revisions to the Fractal system. (Though with that time table, the Fractals will have been around for 2 months by that point.)

If you’re looking for a formal group end game scene where you’re grinding dungeons, the Fractal system will give you what you seek. Almost all of the end game zones for over land content lay abandoned. The Fractals are the only real game in town. However this may all change. ArenaNet announced their intention to add Ascended gear access into other options through over land PvE and their WvW system (after suffering an extreme PR backlash over how they introduced the Fractals). Should ArenaNet ever follow through with their Ascended gear promises, then the game’s community may shift once again towards the informal grouping of the over land content scene. Only time will tell.

I’m here (or was here) for the PvE. In my personal opinion, that’s the main draw of GW2. The Dynamic Event system is the cornerstone of the PvE experience, which is kind of unique for over land content.

Sangcreux, the issue comes down to what you define as “PvE”, because it’s really quite subjective. GW2 was designed with a more casual player in mind. Because of how the Dynamic Event system works, we’re all working together into unofficial groups as we progress through the game. We buff each other with AoEs, heal each other with AoEs, create Combo Fields off of each other, and even rez each other. All of this is accomplished without ever requiring people to create a formal group. In GW2, we’re forming temporary groups to defeat specific objectives, then we go off on our seperate ways.

From that perspective, GW2 is a very social game. The game mechanics are designed to promote players to instinctively work together, even though they may never speak to each other. By being aware of what everyone is doing, you can do some really neat Combo effects (which have an entire game system devoted to their interactions). Yet having said that, GW2 is not a chatty person’s game by default. It isn’t designed to have people create formal groups, log into Vent, then run around together for over land content. Even when you need to run a coordinated offensive in the final over land zones as you’re fighting against some of the tougher boss mobs (aka undead high priests of gods), people can usually organize this through general chat for that zone.

Does this ever change? For the moment, yes. When ArenaNet introduced their end game dungeon system called Fractals of the Mist (aka FotM), this instanced single group content become the sole reason to play. It clearly overs the best loot for you time investment, offers more variety, and is the only way to obtain the new item tier of Ascended grade items. At the same time, it also goes against the over land spirit that GW2 had promoted up until that point. It’s flagging system is elitest and exclusionary, though that will theoretically change in late January when ArenaNet rolls out their 1st set of revisions to the Fractal system. (Though with that time table, the Fractals will have been around for 2 months by that point.)

If you’re looking for a formal group end game scene where you’re grinding dungeons, the Fractal system will give you what you seek. Almost all of the end game zones for over land content lay abandoned. The Fractals are the only real game in town. However this may all change. ArenaNet announced their intention to add Ascended gear access into other options through over land PvE and their WvW system (after suffering an extreme PR backlash over how they introduced the Fractals). Should ArenaNet ever follow through with their Ascended gear promises, then the game’s community may shift once again towards the informal grouping of the over land content scene. Only time will tell.

Tulisin.6945:

Wiser with Age.3714:

Yes, running a VA spec is a god send for the informal zergs that run around kill god priests in Cursed Shore. With that kind of mix, I’m always bound to get enough melee players to make my spec more than worth it. (In those situations, I never see anyone else playing a VA spec.)

In this case it has nothing to do with the build’s overall effectiveness but more to do with the fact that going anything but high-power AE damage is going to negatively impact your ability to tag for loot.

Umm… I think that we’re miscommunicating with each other. As a cardinal rule, I never run Plinx in a zerg because I prefer to operate with a S/P spec. My point was that running a VA spec is immensely helpful to taking down boss mobs like the Priest of Melandru or any of the boss mobs as you’re charging up into Arah. When you’ve got a mix of various melee types clustering around a boss mob that isn’t going to die in a few seconds, the AoE buff benefits are a game changer. Glass cannon dps builds are now getting free healing from attacking. The damage spike from instantly getting x25 Vulnerability stacks is always nice. As if that isn’t enough, we’ll lock down the boss mob temporarily through a barrage of Basilisk Venom procs.

You can run a successful VA build using only x3 Venom powers, which still leaves a skill slot open (which I fill with Shadow Refuge). Running x4 Venom powers really isn’t neccessary. Yet as we’ve basically all agreed, a VA spec is limited. If you’re a ranged Thief spec, then you need all of your ranged players to cluster together. Or if you’re a melee Thief spec, then you need other players to charge into close quarters with you. While the potential benefits for a VA build are large, it is a very narrow spec and it requires the right circumstances to make it viable.