Guild Wars 2

Any new races don’t necessarily need to be tied into Destiny’s Edge. For example, for Tengu, their 1 – 20 storyline could take place entirely within the Dominion of Winds depending on choices they made during character creation, and once they hit 30, their mentor (a leader of one of the Four Houses of the Winds), tells them that a fabled adventuring group named Destiny’s Edge is gathering in Lion’s Arch, and that they should go meet them to see if they could be recruited to help the Tengu in their struggles against Primordus (since the Destroyers seem to be the ones giving them the most trouble). When that doesn’t pan out, Tengu characters then turn to one of the three Orders.

From there, Tengu characters can follow the exact same storyline. In the Story Mode dungeons, the DE heroes barely even react to you like you’re their friend/protege anyway.

Yes – No Change, from my experience. Map populations are about the same or slightly busier on Tarnished Coast, but any experiences there should be viewed in the context that TC is one of the busiest and most populated servers there is.

I think a nice compromise would be that while Mini Jennah is always given from the 1st Birthday Present, 4 of them can be forged to create 1 random Set 1 Miniature (which could be of any rarity).

There’s two possible reasons as to why the achievement is not popping for you:

1. Some people have reported that certain arenas seem to be bugged and are not granting the achievement. (Usually, they report that it’s the Sylvari arena causing this.)

2. I have a suspicion that, since the light crystals disappear after a certain amount of time, if the crystal disappears just as you’re throwing it, or even mid-flight, it doesn’t count towards the 8 hits on Liadri.

I would have preferred that the scrolls were Scrolls of Knowledge instead (they give a skill point instead of levelling you to 20), but I can’t really complain about the birthday gift. I AM wondering what to do with 10 Mini Jennah’s now though. I guess they can keep my Risen Priests of Balthazar company.

That’s a good question. You must have completed World 1 to access World 2, but I don’t know if everybody in the party must have completed World 1, or just the instance starter has to.

Most of the Firstborn can be found in the Grove, either in their respective Houses, or up in the Omphalos Chamber. Caithe and Trahearne… Well, you should know where to find them.

There’s also one Firstborn hanging out in the Orrerry in Divinity’s Reach. He’s the Sylvari Ambassador to Kryta, I believe.

I expect prices for Ectos to continue to rise to maybe about 40 – 50 silver, for about a week to a month after the Ascended weapon patch hits. This is due mostly to people needing Ectos to make Orichalcum inscriptions and for refining the 450 materials.

However, not THAT much Ecto is actually needed to make an Ascended weapon (I believe it’s about 20 or so). Thus, demand for Ectos is not going to remain that high for very long, especially since once the Scarlet invasions stop, people are going to go right back to World Boss farming, which will increase supply again.

My conclusion: if you’re investing in ectos, sell at or shortly before the Sep 3rd patch hits. If you’re a buyer, wait for 2 weeks to a month after Sep 3rd. Prices will probably stabilise and fall back to more normal levels by then.

Ah yes, that’s true. Still, if you had your heart set on one of the SAB skins, you could just farm up Baubles and buy an account-bound skin for yourself, so it wasn’t a big loss.

I sympathise with the OP’s position, but I agree that ANet’s hands are tied here. What he suggested with a Crafting XP booster for each unlocked recipe is a good idea, but unfortunately it takes more programming work than simply resetting the level 400 recipes. Time and manpower constraints meant it probably just wasn’t possible within the given timeframe.

Oh yeah, this is gonna be SWEET. The old-school NES/SNES gamer in me is cracking his knuckles in anticipation. (My claim to fame was that I could beat Contra from start to finish without losing a single life. I played that game SO much as a kid. XD)

The best part about it all? Since SAB is now permanently returning content, there’s no need to tear your hair out if it’s all getting to be too much. If you find yourself getting too frustrated, step out and take a break. Wait till the next time the SAB returns if you have to. There’s always going to be time for another crack at it.

I’m just watching from the sidelines with amusement/interest. None of my crafters are even past 200 yet, so I won’t be crafting any Ascended items for a good while yet. The extent of my involvement in this for the foreseeable future is probably selling lower level mats to those on the hunt for Ascended gear.

Infantile Mode exists for that reason. If I remember correctly, all of the old SAB world 1 achievements could be completed in Infantile Mode. The only difference was that the end chests did not reward Bauble Bubbles, but you could still earn them by gathering Baubles and trading them in to Moto anyway.

Would love for them to become Healing Power/Boon Duration/Vitality.

That’s a pretty neat idea. Would definitely support it.

Yeah, I love the design of the Twisted minions, the Nightmares in particular. If I were a mini collector, I’d totally want a Twisted Nightmare mini.

Anthony Orden did confirm that the Gauntlet achievements would still be completable the next time the Gauntlet returns. He did not say whether or not the mini would still be available, but I presume it would be as it’s linked to the Liadri achievement.

No one knows for sure, unfortunately. I personally think the mini will still be available when the Gauntlet returns, as Anthony did say the achievements would be completable then, but there’s been no direct confirmation about the mini.

Reaction to the second phase of the September Living Story, Tequatl Rising, seems to be mixed so far, but I for one, think that this is a good thing. It’s an example of taking an existing part of the world and expanding upon it, making it more interesting and rewarding to complete. And because it’s (hopefully?) permanent content, players who haven’t visited Sparkfly Fen or who are unable to be present for the two weeks from Sep 17, don’t miss out on content. The new rewards and achievements are there for players to complete at their leisure, and the fact that Tequatl has a chance to drop Ascended mats and weapons means there’ll never be a shortage of players willing to take him on.

Of course I don’t want story-driven Living Story chapters to disappear, but interspersing them with “slower” months like September is exactly what I’ve been wanting ever since things took off after Secret of Southsun. Have one month dedicated to a new story chapter (that lasts for one month), then follow it with a break month consisting of festivals/returning content.

This is, of course, dependent on the assumption that Tequatl isn’t mysteriously going to stop giving out his new rewards/achievements after September is over. Has anyone heard any word from ANet as to whether the new Tequatl achievement category is permanent going forward?

My advice would actually be to focus on the Twisted events. Most farmers don’t bother with those, so the Twisted bar lags behind the Molten/Aetherblade one. Molten events are completed really, really quickly so there’s usually no need to worry about them. The Aetherblade ones are the problem since you need to kill the Captain for the bar to progress, and sometimes farmers avoid killing the Captain to farm Aetherblade champs.

In my experience though, the Captain still rarely lasts more than 2 – 3 minutes, because everybody at an Aetherblade event will want to do at least 5% damage to him to make sure they get credit for his death, and in bigger zergs, that ends up killing the Captain anyway. The REAL problem is when the zerg gets too big and they all end up massing at one single event, instead of having 2 – 3 smaller zergs that tackle Aetherblade events all over the map.

Story-related Living Story achievements, like Secret of Southsun, Cutthroat Politics and Clockwork Chaos is unlikely to ever return, I’m afraid.

Festival content like Halloween and Wintersday are quite likely to return, although we don’t know for sure if past achievements for those will be completable again. We DO know that the Zephyr Sanctum, Crown Pavilion and the Queen’s Gauntlet will be returning, and that achievements for the Gauntlet at least will be completable when it does. Hopefully the Sanctum and Pavilion achievements will also be completable at those times.

Well, I was rooting for BraRox ever since poor Braham got dumped by that tart Otillia, so perhaps I’ll see my dream come true.

Yeah, I’m thinking it was a case of “wrong address”. Someone once sent me a large batch of T6 mats too. Luckily for them, I was nice enough to let the guy know he’d sent it to the wrong person and mailed them back. There was easily 3g worth of T6 mats in the mail. XD

More likely it will continue to return regularly even after World 4 is finished. Or maybe it’ll be added permanently to the world.

Black Lion Claim Tickets appear to be the “currency” used to purchase special skins going forward, so no, I do not believe they will expire.

Weapons themselves can’t be stacked, but weapon/armor skins can. To split a stack, press Alt and drag the stack to a new spot. This will bring up a window where you can split the stack.

Yeah, but ANet still has to make insignia/inscriptions involving Claws craft into SOMETHING. Unless they decide to make them craft into Sentinel’s stats (unlikely, given that Claws suggest offense rather than defense), Pillaging gear has to be made into a different stat spread.

It could happen. Pillaging/Traveler’s has to be converted to SOMETHING, after all.

I prefer smaller groups, anywhere from 2 – 10 people. At those numbers, Champions and the like are still challenging enough that you have to watch out, but there’s enough people around to help cover for your mistakes and to revive you if you make a mistake.

The most fun experience I ever had with Maw was when only 4 of us showed up to fight him. Two people got downed against him, and one Guardian ended up kiting the Shaman around while I revived the others, pausing occasionally to throw Geyser and Healing Spring on the Guardian to help heal him.

The icon does change depending on how many +1’s a post gets (there’s a thumbs-up icon, and a thumbs-up with a star inside icon), but I’m not sure at what point the icon changes. We could do a test though. Everybody after my post +1 my post, and then post a message noting if my icon changes.

I’ve heard that you can purchase a tradable skin off the TP, combine it with your old, unused skin, then split the stack. This will make both skins tradable again, and you can put both skins back up for sale on the TP.

Well, the Triforge got an upgrade, so there is some precedent. But yeah, I’m hopeful, but not holding my breath either.

Certain personality types will unlock special dialogue options with NPCs, but yeah, it’s mostly irrelevant outside of personal roleplaying.

I use Rifle on my Warrior purely because he’s a Charr. XD

I mostly just want my Fleshie to learn how to swim. I hate having to bring Plague as my elite underwater.

The Flesh Wurm can take a significant amount of beating before dying, so if it does have equivalent HP to the Bone Fiend, it must have substantially higher Toughness.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Totally disagree with this, I mean they would have to get the stacks to start with they lose them on downed as well. I see no problem with the way it is now, i just think that 2Handed weapons need to have TWO sigil slots.

I don’t know if we need TWO sigil slots on two-handed weapons. I think that improving the bonus granted by a sigil if it’s on a two-handed weapon would be sufficient. (Keeping in mind that two-handed weapons already have an advantage over single handed weapons in that their base damage is higher.)

I’m fairly certain that the Clocktower and Winter Wonderland will be back for their respective holidays this year.

I don’t know about you, but I installed Hobo-Tron’s personality matrix into my Salvage-o-Matic, so he now has a permanent job salvaging all my junk into usable materials for me.

The last major “doh” moment I had was in Southsun Survival. I had 9 Rations so I was heading out to a remote corner of the island to wait things out. After getting a bit bored, I decided to swim out around the western side of the island to see whether I could get to Owain’s Refuge.

When my health dropped to 150, I decided to eat a Ration… and then suddenly realised that I couldn’t eat while swimming. I desperately tried to swim back to shore in time… But didn’t make it. 8 rations wasted. XD

^ What he said. The other crafting disciplines will get their turn, although I’m quite curious as to what Chef will get at r500.

Congrats. Here’s hoping that it and other super-expensive MF weapons get an automatic upgrade to Ascended tier too.

It’s also a case of different skill sets. All jumping puzzles are an exercise in experience and muscle memory. With the Clocktower, after you’ve done it a while, you become so familiar with the path that you could probably do it purely by listening to the music.

Liadri is different because the Cosmic Orbs inject a bit of randomness into each fight, requiring the player to adjust their strategy on the fly. Not to mention that little factors like Liadri getting more crits on you (or vice versa) can also alter the outcome.

Tawa.3180:

Dude, I still have nightmares about monkeys.

Haha, I know the feeling. Even today whenever I hear one of the Holo Monkey minipets I jump in my seat and start looking around for it so I can kill it. XD

Ursan.7846:

Vol.5241:

I was one who purchased Genesis about a week ago for a buy order of 180g. I reasoned that I think it would go back up since everyone was busy doing invasions. Boy was I wrong.

Either there are servers out there that continue to farm Orr, demand is stagnating, or suppliers are dumping their stock on mass. I think it’s the latter two.

I gave in and sold it for 90g or so. So that’s a loss of 90G. Not happy about it, but then again you win some and lose some.

Wow. Tsk tsk Vol this is a rookie mistake. What’s happening to you dude =(

Maybe he’s just having an off day. I know there are days when I log on and I just make rookie errors like forgetting to dodge at the right time for no apparent reason. XD

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Oddly enough, the best Living Story update that they did, was the beached whales update, where they didn’t explain anything to the players. Just a couple of whales that had washed on the beaches of Lion’s Arch. No explanation, yet so fascinating. Players started carrying buckets of water to the whales, and keeping watch. I miss this sense of mystery. You can make the world feel so more alive by just having “stuff” happen without an explanation.

I missed that. Wish I’d been around to see it.

What, the Kingdom of Fungus wasn’t dark enough for you?

Even though I’m not from the US, I would totally support this move simply because it means I get to play SAB one day earlier.

I think the best solution for this would be to make super-expensive Exotics like Infinite Light or Mjolnir Ascended weapons too. That way they can continue to be sold on the TP, since their stats can be freely adjusted when necessary.

Electro.4173:

Wow, I really like that method of creating the Tribulation weapons. That’s a really effective way to do it, requires you to beat all 3 stages of a world but doesn’t involve any RNG and allows you to create the specific weapon you want. The SAB team continues to come up with the best ways to distribute rewards.

Can I assume that you can repeat the same world in Tribulation Mode to get more parts and create more weapons as well, and thakittens not going to be 1 weapon per person?

I concur. I loved the SAB method for acquiring weapon skins, and it looks like the trend is continuing for SAB World 2!

Would like to know the answer to Electro’s second question as well. Although I’m not really going for any of the TM skins myself, I’m sure some of my guildies will want to dual-wield Toad/Lightning Super skins.

Also, Josh, can you confirm whether or not the original Super skins will be back this time around? I’ll understand if you need to keep quiet about it to avoid shocking the current Super skin market though.