Guild Wars 2

The Brisban and Diessa routes mentioned above, along with Dostoyoev Sky Peak in Dredgehaunt Cliffs, are where I go if I want lots of Iron Ore. Note that the last may not be to your taste if you hate fighting Dredge though (it also varies. Sometimes you’ll find 2 Rich Nodes plus 3 – 4 other normal ones inside, other times only a smattering of normal nodes).

I propose that ANet introduces Polymock as an activity, with miniatures being used as Polymock pieces. The higher the tier, the more potent a Polymock miniature is. That should make those Mini Magnuses more valuable.

Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with dead players waiting for a res. The problem arises because there are situations where the surviving players simply cannot take the time to stop and res these people, usually because they’re on a strict timer and time spent ressing means time spent not dealing damage. I would classify this as a poorly designed encounter rather than uncooperative players (although I won’t absolve the latter completely of blame if they know that the event is under time pressure and choose not to WP).

I personally would change it so that dead players cannot be ressed except by players who are out of combat. Furthermore, if you are dead (not just downed) when the event completes, you get no rewards. Finally, ressing players will give the resurrectors karma, with more karma being awarded for ressing dead people than downed.

This should encourage people to:

a) play more defensively/use more defensive gear/builds so as not to die as often.
b) WP immediately when they are killed if they are in an event (if they already qualified for credit, they’ll get credit even if they’re halfway across the map as long as they’re alive)
c) encourage people to res dead/downed players when the situation permits

Someone speculated over in the LS thread that maybe the bug is due to the achievement timer starting when the Knights first spawn, rather than when the battle actually beings. Could be a plausible reason.

Oh, it’s a Mystic Forge recipe! I thought it was one of the Artificer etc. crafting disciplines.

Ahh, so that’s why the dungeon got patched. I knew there must have been an exploit connected to it. Good to know it’s been fixed. (Just in time too! Was planning to do TA Story for the daily today.)

Ah, thanks, Ayrilana. Must have missed that one. A bit disappointed that they couldn’t fix the achievement with this patch then, but the health reduction of the Knights is definitely a welcome step. Should mean that once the achievement is fixed, we can get it with a decently large and organised map.

Yeah, but after you’ve played for a while, you’ll be swimming in Mystic Forge Stones. I personally have almost 300 of them!

If it helps, a lot of Chinese netizens think their own laws are utter nonsense and find ways to get around their censorship.

Well, considering that the Zephyrites have now signed a trade treaty with Lion’s Arch, I would expect them to return at least annually. Wouldn’t be much point having a trade treaty if they only come back once in a blue moon.

From a player perspective, I think ANet also wants to let players experience the content on an annual basis, similar to Wintersday and Halloween.

Wanze.8410:

Zaxares.5419:

Wait, you can promote Sprockets into Blade Shards?? O.o How? When was this introduced?

50 sprockets, 1 each t1 and t2 dust and 1 blade shard give you 10-15 blade shards.
I only tried this recipes last weekend, so i am not sure, if it was implemented with Escape or Battle for LA.

Thanks for the recipe. Is it a discoverable one or is it unlocked by default?

Thanks for the feedback, Autumn. I haven’t tried it yet as I’m still at work, but I think the 25% health drop (and the removal of the Menders) is a very good move.

Can I encourage you guys to look into the reports of the Knightfall achievement being bugged? I have not been able to get into a map that can successfully complete the requirements, although it’s hampered by a catch-22 situation where people believe it is bugged, and so I can’t convince them to even try for the 6 min mark.

But some people are reporting getting it? Hopefully I can get into a map that can kill them within 5 mins then, just to try my luck. (Should be much easier now that the Knight’s health is lower.)

Some people originally speculated that you need to avoid getting hit AT ALL to get the achievement, but back after Fractured! some people did just that and didn’t get it either.

The bug is due to an event not completing properly. However, you should still be able to complete the Heart by killing Risen and ressing dead golems in the ruins.

@Imbune: Thank you. I can respect your position too, although I think this just goes to show just how murky and convoluted this whole issue is and how diverse people’s opinions can be.

At the end of the day, ANet has made the decision to include this content. People have the right to post their approval or disapproval as feedback, and let ANet decide what to do from here. Everybody on both sides should remain calm and refrain from personal attacks, as that’s not going to help anybody or anything.

There are several other threads discussing this, and the suspicion that I and many others have is that the Knights are scaled up to require 50 players to beat by default. This is extremely unfair to players on low-pop servers or who play at quieter hours, because it means they are effectively locked out of the Scarlet fight; no matter how good they are at DPS or individual skill, they just can’t make up for the loss of 100+ players when fighting a boss with health in the millions.

Not available at present. Check back again when r500 Jeweler is released.

All those help, but there’s still a world of difference between using my Berserker gear Warrior and my hybrid Conditionmancer (and yes, they’re both geared in Exotics and using the Scarlet potions. I have not noticed any appreciable difference in my DPS when using the Valiant bonus, so I skip it nowadays unless I’m going for a 6 Min attempt). It’s pretty clear from the get-go that one stat spread is far, far superior to the others when it comes to the Knights (especially since the Knight’s attacks are so infrequent and clearly telegraphed).

Teaching players how to read boss cues, proper movement/positioning, when to attack/when NOT to attack etc. are all good ideas for improving player skill.

Putting players in a situation where “you need to play Zerker/full DPS otherwise you can forget about beating this content” is NOT a good idea. If that were the case, why even bother having other stat spreads at all? By all means, encourage players to improve their skill, but creating situations where certain builds or stats are useless is NOT good design.

That post was a bit extreme, yeah, but I see Ohoni’s point. The Knights are NOT some super-elite content designed for the “raiders” like Tequatl or the Wurm; it is supposed to be the conclusion of the Living Story, something for ALL players. They should be challenging, but equally doable by low-pop servers as well as by high-pop servers.

Sorry, Klonex. XD It’s kind of a necessity now though. I’m from Tarnished Coast, one of the top 3 most populated servers on NA, and even we are now struggling to get 50 people at each of the Knights. For someone like me who’s still hunting for the 6 Mins achievement, that basically means I have no hope at all on my home server.

Sad as it is, it’s either Blackgate or nothing.

Yeah, I have a feeling the Knights are currently bugged where they are automatically scaled up for 50 people, regardless of how many players are actually there to begin with. This really needs to be addressed, because it means smaller servers struggle to even get the numbers to beat one Knight, and even larger servers need to cajole every other single player on the map to come join in for the Knights (woe to you if you post in Map chat asking for Peter’s location or help with another of the Champions. You’ll be ignored at best or attacked for “not helping” at worst.)

Yeah, one factor to consider is that a lot of players are now wise to this investment strategy. This means there’s a lot more people stocking up on BL weapons, and thus a lot more competitors when it comes time to sell.

At the same time, players who actually want the skins also know that the cheapest time to buy is during this initial period, so most veteran players will have snapped up the skins they want by now, lowering demand after the month is over.

Both of these coupled together, along with the fact that the weapon is still available anytime for 5 tickets, means that prices for BL weapons will never really rise beyond 100 – 150g. (Fused weapons are an exception due to their higher price.) The time it takes to sell one of these is long enough that you’d get better returns investing in high velocity goods like Iron Ore constantly rather than just sitting on the skins for 6 months.

It might be helpful for us to pool our information for those who HAVE managed to get the achievement, to try and narrow down this bug and help those who are still trying for the achievement.

So if you HAVE gotten the achievement since the Friday patch, please state here:

1. When did you get the achievement? (after killing your Knight even when the other two were still alive, after the 6 minute time limit had passed etc.)

2. Which Knight did you kill when the achievement was awarded?

3. Did you remain in the same map or overflow between attempts (if making multiple attempts at 6 minutes)?

4. If Yes to question 3, did you change characters between attempts?

5. Did you get the achievement on a fresh character who’s never fought the Knights before, or on one that’s made multiple attempts at it?

6. Did you notice anything else unusual about your map’s attempt? (e.g. Green Knight’s health was dropping unusually quickly; might mean a possible scaling bug.)

Ah. Never played WoW, so that’s why I’ve never heard of him.

It would need to be a really, really convincing idea for said winged characters to not fly though. What’s to stop them from simply flying around when they’re out and about in the wilderness? Or if the players are roleplaying criminal/outcast phoenixes that don’t give a quaggan about laws or regulations? That’s why I still think it’ll never happen; it would stretch believability too much.

As who is? Sounds like a Charr name, but I can’t say I’ve run into him/her before.

We both know that a true winged race would never get introduced. It would require a complete overhaul of the game engine to support flight and aerial combat, so we can pretty much rule it out from ever happening. The best we’d get is one with cosmetic wings like the Largos, but such races would have massive clipping issues with armor and weapons.

Wow. If that’s true, I really wonder how they’re going to present Orr in China. They are “infected” creatures?

Well, if we were after a winged, bird race, there’s the Tengu…

To be honest, I don’t get the Vigil buff anymore (outside of organised TTS attempts) because I haven’t seen it make a noticeable impact on my DPS. There’s only a 10% chance of it proccing, followed by a 15 second cooldown. It’s far too unreliable and since you’re mostly ranging the Knights, you can’t really get a good return from it. Just feels like a waste of 5 silver most times.

Phoenixes were already present in GW1. They were charmable animals for Ranger pets, so it’s highly unlikely they’d become a playable race.

Funny thing is, I didn’t get a Mini Magnus until AFTER Escape was over. I’ve gotten one of each of the unlimited Quaggan tonics, but no Mini Magnus until only a few days ago. RNG is RNG…

Wha?? No Necro in China? O.o

Currently, no, but I have the feeling that ANet may introduce such a recipe when r500 Jeweler is released. (It would be the simplest method, as it introduces a new sink for Azurite Crystals, which can be obtained from the Molten fractal.)

There seems to be a fair amount of dissatisfaction and annoyance around the Assault Knights, both here and in-game. I’ve narrowed this down to two major issues, and hopefully the following proposals can go some ways to addressing this.

1. Six Minutes to Knightfall

The #1 issue causing grief about this achievement at the moment is that it seems to be majorly bugged. People from TTS runs have reported not getting the achievement despite killing the Knights within 6 minutes, and there’s been a few (not personally verified) stories about people mysteriously getting the achievement after only killing one Knight. This desperately needs to be looked at, as we only have a week left until the content is over, and we’ve effectively lost the first weekend “prime time window” for achieving this.

2. Assault Knight Health

The Knights’ health/toughness should also be looked at. People have reported strange scaling issues with the Knights before and after the latest patch. I myself was in an overflow where I was at Green with about 20 people, yet we somehow managed to melt off almost 40% of its health in just a minute and a half. Then, as more people showed up, its health jumped up massively until it was back to the usual mega-HP sponge we’re now familiar with.

I have a feeling that the Knights are bugged where they are scaled up to require 50 people from the start. This is rather unfair both to smaller servers (which struggle to fill their main map even on a good day), and even to larger servers, because it means that the entire map must pull together to beat the Knights, resulting in ill feelings towards any players who are on the map trying to get other achievements or just doing Heirloom hunting/mapping. (Seriously, I’ve seen some VERY unpleasant remarks directed to players who are looking for Peter or trying to get people for the Spider or Cannoneer while the Knight fight is going on.)

Failure at the Knights then leads to more anger and blame being thrown around on the map. It’s creating a very toxic atmosphere and driving off players from attempting the content more than once.

I feel that if the Knights were adjusted so that their health is closer to that of the other Champions on the map when facing numbers of less than 50 people, it would give smaller maps a decent fighting chance to not only go up and fight Scarlet, but also to get the 6 Mins achievement. (And likewise, on larger maps it means that players who want to get to Scarlet don’t need to beg or bully other players to join in, leaving the latter free to play how they want.)

So, in summary:

A. Fix the Knightfall achievement so it is properly rewarded to players.

B. Adjust the Assault Knight health levels down to more closely match the other Champion bosses on the map. (At 50 players, their health should be about 50 – 75% of what it is currently.)

The lasers make it harder, but not impossible to “leech” the achievement. With a 25% speed boost and teleports like Blink/Lightning Flash, running from side to side at the door still keeps you mostly safe, with dodges for emergencies. (Of course, since this counts as “active play”, I don’t think ANet can really penalise players anymore without them raising a legitimate stink about it.)

In fact, the lasers are more of an annoyance to people fighting the Dynamic holo, since the lasers also target anybody who dodges behind the holo and their AoE effect is pretty large.

Wait, you can promote Sprockets into Blade Shards?? O.o How? When was this introduced?

Elementalist is definitely the easiest profession for this.

1. Take Armor of Earth, Arcane Shield and Mist Form as your utilities.
2. After the cutscene, apply Swiftness to yourself and start running to Scarlet. Dodge through the grenades if you need to, and apply Armor of Earth and Arcane Shield before you reach Scarlet. These two skills will protect you against her initial attacks before the big blowback explosion. (IMPORTANT: Do NOT run and stand directly on Scarlet. The room she’s in has an invisible shield that knocks you back. Stand just outside it to stomp.)
3. Start the stomp, then hit Mist Form. This will make you invulnerable to her big knockback blast.
4. Spike Scarlet GOOD.
5. /dance

The Tengu will almost certainly be the next playable race, if ANet ever releases one. As others have said, they were originally slated to be the 6th playable race at launch, but got cut due to lack of time. (This was stated in the art book that came with the Collector’s Edition.)

When designing each of the races, each race got 3 “Pros” and 3 “Cons”. These serve as cornerstones for themes that the race is supposed to embody in the game that gives them a unique “feel”. The Charr, for example, got “industry”, “unity” and “ferocity” as their Pros, but “savagery” and two other things (which I can’t recall at the moment) as Cons.

The Tengu would most likely get “honorable” and “tradition” as two of their Pros, but “isolationist” and possibly “intolerant” as their Cons.

This should really be in the General Discussion forum. Or maybe the Mesmer forum.

But as to the original topic, no, I don’t think it should be changed. The pink and butterfly effects are kind of iconic to the Mesmer profession in the same way that skulls and death is to the Necromancer. While the pink is perhaps arguable, the butterflies represent change and transformation, which is in keeping with the Mesmer’s mechanics of creating clones, shattering them, and transforming themselves and others.

I’m really sorry to hear that, you guys. It’s still the weekend, but hopefully ANet will fix this bug pronto on Monday.

Out of curiosity, which server were you guys killing the Knights on? Did you organise a specific time/place/guild to get it? If so, I’d like to get in on that. TTS makes occasional 6 min attempts, but they don’t always succeed either, and they usually move on to Teq/Wurm afterwards when I want to keep trying.

I’ve not even been having any luck coming close to this. Anybody know a US main server that regularly attempts the 6 min achievement?

I do feel that one thing should be changed. All players participating in the Knight fight should get a reward corresponding to how many Knights were defeated, even if they weren’t present at the Knights that got killed. As an example:

- Map splits up 50-50-50 at the 3 Knights.
- Blue Knight is killed, Red and Green fail.
- All players who were fighting one of the Knights get a Tier 1 chest reward. (Players who were afk or doing other map events get nothing, since they didn’t qualify for participation in the meta event.)

If the map had managed to kill Red and Green as well, then all 150 players would get a Tier 3 chest reward, regardless of which Knight they assisted at.

The hard cap on PvE maps is estimated to be about 150. (Note that at about 120 is when random joiners can no longer get in, but there’s a 30 man grace queue where people can pull members of their party over.)

Not sure what the cap is on WvW maps, but I’d think it’d be much higher than 150.

Don’t worry. If you miss her, there’s always the TA Aetherpath.

The interesting thing is that, if the Scarlet account wasn’t run by ANet, whoever WAS running it had access to some exclusive screenshots of the interior of the Breachmaker before it was released to the public.

Yeah, I was quite sure Kiel was going to buy Canach’s billet and get him to help during the final attack on Scarlet. HoT would have gotten himself upgraded to a new combat walker chassis that projected an energy dome to shield players as they approached the Breachmaker.

Sadly, that didn’t come to pass, and all HoT does is res downed/dead players. (Which is still handy, I’ll admit, but he’s no Rox or Kasmeer. :P )

I’d prefer it if TA got reverted to its original form, and the Aetherpath got moved into its own unique instance (while still being a dungeon path, although it has its own achievements and completion of it is not required to get Dungeon Master).

So you’d still purchase a Royal Terrace pass over the Airship even though the Airship has more services (Activity NPC and Black Lion Weapon Merchant, from what I hear), purely out of layout and aesthetic considerations?

Whew, today was only the Flute! I’d forgotten to check the BLTC last night, and it rolls over to the new item by the time I get home from work. I’m waiting for the Viper armor skin and Transmutation Crystals to show up.