Guild Wars 2

Use your ranged weapons in short range against him? The Clockheart only seems to throw gears at targets beyond a certain distance.

Given Thorn’s sadistic and nonsensical reign, I wouldn’t be surprised if Thorn had Edrick executed because he was a kindly, good-hearted prince who tried to counter his father’s mad edicts. Sadly, his tortured death drove the good prince into his own madness, compelling him to traffic with dark spirits and make unholy bargains of his own to gather an undead army to take vengeance on his father (and anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way).

The release page mentioned that strange stuff was happening in the old Ascalon city of Rin, which is where the Black Citadel sits now, so my guess is that the entrance to the Bloody Prince’s catacombs will be found there.

I’d be OK with it coming back for 5 – 7 BL tickets. Now if ANet would just bring back the Jetpack for BL tickets too…

Almost got it on the weekend with a Mist Form Ele. Unfortunately, it seems that the diagonal trip from the 2nd to the 3rd platform is a split second too long before Mist Form runs out. For anyone planning to use this method, play it safe by Mist Forming back to the first platform, then Mist Forming to the 3rd platform after recharge.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if Shield Stance or Endure Pain prevent you getting hit by the electrified floors too?

You can still get achievements by doing the Aetherblade path though, I believe. Unless the meta-achievement completely disappeared? (Haven’t logged into GW2 so far today.)

Some of them are characters from GW1. Some of them are allusions to developer names (and possibly their family/friends/pets). Others are just made up.

Those are all fair arguments, and I totally agree that you are within your rights to defend a game mode that you enjoy. Ultimately the final call lies with ANet, so what I’ll do here is just post my thoughts in response to yours:

1. I think nobody is (seriously) complaining about recurring content. It would not make sense for Halloween or Christmas stuff to stay around for the whole year, for instance. Some of us may grumble about not being able to play SAB or the Gauntlet whenever we want, but for the most part, we’re fine with content that departs and returns periodically, as long as it returns in a form that doesn’t exclude us from finishing stuff we weren’t able to complete the first time.

As an example, I managed to get all of the Gauntlet achievements save for “Light up the Darkness” last time. The devs did confirm that all of the achievements would still be completable the next time the Gauntlet comes back, so I’m perfectly happy with waiting till next time. I can continue to improve my skills and gear until then. Likewise, I’m sure there are plenty of other players who heard about the Clocktower, or carving pumpkins, and are eagerly awaiting a chance to experience it for themselves. I feel quite strongly that to deny these players the opportunity to do so, just because they weren’t around last year, would be extremely unfair.

2. I completely agree that some Living Story stuff should not come back. I, for one, don’t want to see Molten Periscopes, SAB gift boxes, and Jubilee balloons littering the landscape and clogging up the world with events that don’t necessarily fit in the map. But as a whole, these are small, self-contained events or items that don’t tell the player about the Living Story or offer unique rewards. (Grind-achievements like dancing at effigies or smashing periscopes notwithstanding. Those things are awful and should never come back.)

3. True, but the problem here is not so much that people are bored with it. Players automatically gravitate to whatever content is the quickest to do, with the biggest rewards. Why do you think so many people did CoF P1 runs → Deadeye farm runs →Frostgorge Champ train runs? Because it’s quick and profitable. That’s it. In a worst case scenario, things eventually get to a kind of “critical mass” where even players who don’t normally want to do that kind of content feel they HAVE to, because it’s so profitable that by not participating they’re effectively handicapping themselves for the rest of the game.

The problem with Southsun being so abandoned is not because players got bored with it; it’s because the difficulty is high enough that the rewards for being there is just not worth it most of the time. New content needs to be more carefully integrated with the world (and areas/events that are TOO profitable nerfed) so that all aspects of the world are equally attractive to be in, depending on what the player wants to do.

5. I agree that ANet continuing to add to the story of GW2 is a good thing. Nobody wants to play a game where all you get after release is balance patches and bug fixes. But I just don’t see how making Living Story content still accessible via a “Historian” NPC or through special instanced areas makes the experience any less meaningful for veteran players like you or I. We were still there at the original event; does the fact that, say, a famous rock band went on to play at many more identical concerts make the fact that we were at their inauguration concert any less amazing?

So yes, maybe the Molten Facility or the Aetherblade Retreat can’t be accessed in the open world anymore, but what’s the harm in having a Herald NPC (yes, THAT guy) sitting in your Home Instance that you can talk to to relive parts of the Living Story? They can then pull you (and your party) into an instanced area where you can play through the content at your leisure. How does that in any way impact on your own gaming experience?

I’d join a guild of players who don’t mind what kind of crazy build you use on your Ranger as long as you’re not dying in two hits and do enough damage to get credit from kills. On my own Ranger I use Longbow and Axe/Axe as my chosen weapons. Not the most optimal of builds, I’m sure, but it gets the job done.

That said, I do strongly recommend bringing along a melee weapon like Greatsword or Sword/Dagger, because there will be situations (especially in dungeons) where staying at range is not a good idea. No matter your character, you should always be flexible and capable of dealing with a variety of situations.

Even though I run nothing but MM on my Necro, I would agree that minions don’t need a “disengage” button like pets do. They’re meant to be mindless undead fodder, held back from just attacking EVERYTHING by the Necromancer’s will alone. They’re already fairly easy to control once you know what their attack triggers are:

1. Minions will always attack what you attack.
2. If you are currently not in combat, and an enemy attacks you, all minions will attack your aggressor.
3. If you are currently not in combat, and an enemy attacks a minion, only that minion will retaliate. The rest will continue to remain passive.

As such, if you really want to avoid a fight, you can just leave your minions behind and keep on running. The minions will eventually leash back to you. Or you can just blow them up because they’re disposable, no matter what your Necro might cry about “hand-raising that minion”.

I agree that it would be handy to be able to see minion health bars on your UI though. I currently have to keep an eye on the minion itself to know when to use skills like Putrid Explosion; it works, but it could be made more convenient.

Time Warp is pretty useless too if you’re solo roaming in PvE. I actually end up using Mistfire Wolf/Hounds of Balthazar most of the time, swapping to Time Warp for dungeons/Fractals.

The problem with Moa Morph is that if it’s buffed, it has the potential to seriously trivialise bosses and Champions. But it’s too weak in its current form to be useful outside of PvP.

Yeah, pushing/pulling the holos over to the boss is pretty much the only way to do it. The Clockheart has a tendency to stop or aggro on another person, making it fairly difficult to pull him on top of the holo. If you just have one or two players with push/pull skills and who know what to do, you can make this fight fairly trivial.

^ Agreed. I’d like to see more NPCs from your Personal Story show up in there, with added dialogue according to where you are in your Personal Story (and maybe even the Living Story).

In keeping with the “incentivizing” for players to visit their Home Instance, maybe we can have the NPCs occasionally give out little rewards to players. For instance, if you picked the Human Noble background, occasionally talking to Faren will have him give you a small amount of coin or a random fine/rare crafting material. Think of it as a kind of, “Hey, I know you’re away fighting the good fight, so here’s something I put together to help you out. Come back and visit soon!” situation.

I thought Flawless Defense requires you to kill Tequatl in the same attempt? Or is the achievement bugged?

And TTS does good work (landed in an overflow with them once), but they don’t always get Flawless Defense either. During that occasion, two turrets got destroyed when the north side got overrun.

Usually you need to have one person on each side dedicated to just watching the turrets and repairing them the instant they start to get damaged too.

Well, if there’s one thing we’ve learned so far in GW2, it’s to never use GW1 as an expectation of how things will work in GW2.

ANet are probably deciding what to do about this situation right now. My best guess:

1. Dupers will DEFINITELY be banned. No question about it.

2. People who bought a few Omega blueprints at super cheap prices are probably safe. People who bought HUNDREDS of Omega blueprints at super cheap prices may face sanction if they used them to abuse the WvW meta. (Although since I don’t WvW, this is doubtful based on what guildies tell me since you still need supply to construct the golems.)

3. People who bought truckloads of blueprints on the cheap to resell them when they go up in price MAY face sanction, although I think it is quite unlikely. Most likely ANet will simply delete any stocks of Omega blueprints and refund money.

I agree that something needs to be done about Bloodstone Dust. Personally, I’d give Miyani an option where she can convert excess stacks of Bloodstone Dust to karma, seeing as how options for accumulating karma took a big hit in the recent patch.

The Pillaging gear should have been removed from the game. However, there are a few known instances where it’s still in the game. Since MF gear no longer exists, any armor with +MF stat automatically defaults to the “select your stats” option.

I do hope it comes back, actually. I made the mistake of deleting the plain version instead of storing it in my PvP locker, so I’d like to be able to pick it up again.

Zhaitan has been stated by the devs to be certainly dead.

That said, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if what’s happening now is that Tequatl is absorbing the power from his dead master. One day, a new Elder Dragon of Undeath will arise, and his name will be Tequatl.

It is a new permanent path, yes.

jsduke.6537:

Worked fine for me.

Hmm… Out of curiosity, did you ever make a key before on a previous daily? I suspect the bug may be that if you’ve already done this daily, you can’t do it again.

Are you a Ranger? I’ve heard reports that there may be a bug where if your pet gets hit by the fire, you lose the achievement. (Dumb, I know.)

My group finally got this achievement yesterday as well. We pulled Spur to the pipes in the SE corner and killed him there, as when we tried to pull him to the SW corner (on the ramp), lots of adds mysteriously followed and joined the fight.

We wiped 3 times in the process of trying to get the achievement, so it seems that wiping to him resets the achievement each time AS LONG AS no single row of adds is completely killed.

I can see where you’re coming from, jsduke (and I actually admire your passionate defense of it, in a way), but I’m afraid I’m still firmly in the other camp who doesn’t see any reason why the Living Story has to be temporary. Take the new Aetherblade path in Twilight Arbor, for instance. ANet could have left the original dungeon as is, and then added in a new dialogue option with the NPC outside to say “We’re here in response to Lionguard Turma’s call for help.” This then puts you into a new Elite Dungeon Path where you play through the Aetherblade path, but the original TA dungeon is still available for those who haven’t seen it yet.

A similar approach could be done with the other dungeons so that the world is constantly evolving (the feeling you talk about that “the world is different when I get back”), but newer players aren’t subjected to the feeling of “I missed out”. In the long run, that kind of feeling only drives new players away, which is something ANet can’t afford to do as new games come out and older players get drawn away.

All that said, I do acknowledge that ANet has clearly taken on feedback from earlier Living Story events, with Tequatl Rising and Twilight Assault clearly focusing more on permanent content. They’re not quite there yet, but I’m encouraged by the direction things are going in.

Is this thread a location where we can report game content that’s broken due to Living Story updates? If so, can we add this to the list:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/That-Had-to-Burn-broken/first#post2991111

This is the old Tequatl achievement where you got it for firing the Megalaser at him. Since the Tequatl Rising update, this achievement is no longer obtainable, even though the achievement is still in the “Bosses” category. Technically you’re still completing the task set out by the achievement too (firing the Megalaser), so there’s no real reason this should no longer be completable.

I’m certainly looking forward most to the 20 slot bags.

To clarify Regina’s explanation, this is what the room looks like:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 B
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The numbers refer to the mobs, and B is the boss.

To get the achievement, you must not completely kill any row of identical numbers. For example, killing this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
- – – – – - –
- – – – – - – X
- – – – – - -

would get you the achievement. Killing this:

- 2 3 4 5 – -
- 2 3 4 5 – -
- – – – – - – X
- – – – – - -

would NOT get you the achievement, because there are no more 1’s, 6’s or 7’s left.

I actually prefer to kill everything I come across in dungeons (more loot!), EXCEPT when the mobs do not give XP or loot, in which case there’s no point fighting them and I agree it’s better just to run past.

^ That would no doubt raise GW2’s rating to M/MA, reducing the potential pool of sales (not to mention getting it into trouble in countries like China and Germany that frown on overt violence in games), so it’s never going to happen.

Alarid.2704:

The easiest way to nullify the value of new ones is to make them Account Bound. That way, more people get a shot at obtaining them, but once the event is over, the original ones won’t drop down to nothing, since there will still be a demand from another group who couldn’t hop on early.

I’d be OK with that. I still think that the way the SAB v1 skins were released were the perfect compromise:

a) Farm tokens to buy an account-bound version of the skin

b) Hope to get a lucky drop from a chest

c) Buy the skins off the TP (which come from players in Group B who don’t like the skins)

Yeah, would definitely like an Aether-mare (nice name! XD) spear for my Sylvari necro.

Probably, but I meant that more along the lines that we’ll probably learn more about Edrick during the meta-event.

Ryoki Hokishami.2756:

:equips Zephyr Rucksack on their Charr::

The Mad King’s influence is strong within this one. :P

Last night’s dungeon experience (AC P3) gave me some more insight into why the elitists feel as they do. I joined a group advertising for “P3 – 80’s exp”, since I only had 45 mins before I had to log off. Everybody that joined was indeed level 80, but one player very quickly demonstrated that they had no clue what to do. I had a look at their AP score (980-something), and that pretty much clued me in that this was probably their first time in AC Explorable.

Unfortunately, while myself and another player tried to communicate with the newbie player, they never said a word in reply. (Maybe they didn’t speak English?) This newbie player kept constantly dying by standing in traps, fighting mobs that the rest of us ran through, and other similar acts that experienced players would know to avoid. We eventually had to leave them dead and engage Colossus Rumblus with 4 players (and we still beat the boss handily). The newbie player left immediately after the dungeon reward was given, so several of the other players quickly concluded they just wanted to get run through the dungeon.

I’m not so certain that’s the case; the fact that their AP score was so low suggests it was probably more a player who was just trying out dungeons for the first time, and either didn’t speak English or was just too shy to communicate. But I can understand the frustration of the other players who felt the newbie wasn’t pulling their weight.

The really scary thing though? The newbie player was wearing T3 Cultural human armor. O.o

@Konig: Huh… I might be misremembering, but I could have sworn that someone said that the next targets were the queen and Thorn’s infant/toddler son. I guess we’ll find out come the 15th.

No one knows, but if you really love it that much, I’d hold onto it since you’ll still enjoy it even if it drops in price, right?

They’re not really my style, but I always appreciate having greater variety for players.

I’d have preferred the transformation skills to work similarly to the way they did back in GW1 for the Norn NPCs. They just give flat bonuses to stats while allowing you to use your existing skills.

Ascalon is already almost fully recovered from the Searing. Compared to the hellhole it was immediately after (and for at least 5 years afterwards), the damage caused by the Searing is almost completely gone.

The only reason those ruins haven’t been cleaned up and/or restored is because of the ghosts.

With Ascended armor on the horizon, and Exotic armor being “so easy to get”, I honestly don’t see why they couldn’t just make T3 Cultural Exotic armor too. For that matter, maybe T3 Cultural weapons should be made Exotic too.

5) Don’t remove old content in the process of giving new content. I’d like to see Twilight Arbor restored to its old format, then the new Aetherblade path act as an “elite path” accessed by talking to the NPC outside the dungeon. Likewise, old achievements should be made uncompletable when new achievements are introduced.

6) Ease up on the release schedule just a bit. A Living Story update once a month, that lasts for a month, would go a long way towards fixing the “rushrushrushRUSH” mentality that’s permeated so much of the last few months. (I will, however, acknowledge that September/October so far have avoided this by making most of the Living Story content permanent.) The mid-monthly update can be QOL changes like bug fixes, balance updates, new gem store updates etc.

Thanks for the answer.

I’m not sure if anyone’s made this suggestion already, but following the release of Twilight Assault and the replacement of the old Forward/Up path with the Aetherblade path (and after reading the disappointment of many players who now won’t ever be able to do the path), I was thinking… Why not restore Twilight Arbor to the way it was, and then introduce new elite dungeon paths, accessible by talking to the NPC outside the dungeon?

This effectively gives us the best of both worlds, and it has the added benefit of ensuring that the Aetherblade path itself won’t become outdated one day. What do I mean? Considering that Scarlet is part of the Living Story and that her story will conclude one day, we could very well end up in a situation where new players are doing Twilight Arbor and they have no idea who Scarlet is, who Theo Ashford was, or why the Lionguard is even doing there. The old dungeon paths didn’t run into this problem because their stories were all largely self-contained within the dungeon itself; they had no real impact on the wider world.

But the Living Story moves on, and so now we’ll have a situation where we one day bring down Scarlet (I hope…), and yet we still have a dungeon path where her minions are living in fear of a dead mistress, the Lionguard is still seeking vengeance for a councillor that died years ago, and Caithe is all angry and annoyed at Scarlet knowing some secret that every single player knows because it was covered in a Living Story release in 2014.

Moving the Aetherblade path, and similar future dungeon updates, to an elite path that takes place in a special instance of the dungeon, would fix these issues. It would allow players, both old and new, to take part in game content that doesn’t nullify our ability to play old content, and it would take place in a way that doesn’t restrict believability in the world itself.

My suggestion was to allow us to sell Ascended mats or trade it to, say, Miyani for karma and/or skill point mats, but making Ascended crafting mats function similarly to dungeon tokens is a good idea too.

If you’re willing to be patient, I’m sure they’ll bring the Consortium sickle back sometime in the future too.

Regarding the speed, it actually seems to be as fast as the Consortium sickle in harvesting. The node is harvested at about the same time when the clown pops up. His little manic cackle afterwards is just the after-animation.

And what happens if you’re at 300% and you then use MF food or boosters? Does your MF rise above 300 or is it fixed at 300?

Very interesting theory, Konig…

Elementalist Arcane skills will also cause the “shocked” death animation on enemies. Killing enemies with Poison causes a unique animation where they choke, cough and otherwise suffer before dying.