Guild Wars 2

^ That’s most likely the reason. It’s the same reason why killing summoned enemies or minions doesn’t trigger Sweet Revenge; you actually need to gain XP from the slain enemy for it to count.

wookiee.4631:

The LS is not a must. If you feel too stressed about a release, just don’t do it. You don’t have to farm you know. I almost never do.

It’s not a “must”, no. Just as doing dungeons or Fractals or WvW is not a “must”. But the Living Story is the best source of AP’s and gold. I’m not a hardcore farmer, and I don’t bother farming the Aetherblade Champions during the Invasions, but even just doing the 13 zones for the Invasion Canceler achievement netted me in the vicinity of 30 – 40 gold. When you consider that there are players who are attending every single one of these events, earning anywhere from 1 – 5 gold each time, you can begin to understand why there’s a feeling that you “have to keep up, or I’ll be left behind”. The same goes for players who like to climb the AP ladders.

ANet could alleviate this feeling by slowing down the frequency of the invasions (perhaps to every 3 hours instead of every hour), and by slowing down the pace of the LS releases to once a month.

I thought the difficulty was just perfect for a solo run, although it’s kinda funny that it actually gets HARDER the more people you have along. Going in with 3 people (including one total newbie) and having two Elite Twisted Nightmares spawn during Faren’s phase just made for a hilarious death.

5. But the point I was making is that if the player base was mostly “meh” about the weapons before, they’re not going to suddenly want them now just because their “official price” has gone up.

At best, you’re probably only going to get a few bites from diehard collectors or people who absolutely MUST have the skin for whatever reason, but it’s not going to generate enough demand to sustain prices at that level.

I have a feeling that anyone pricing the Winter skins at 150g is going to be in for a BIG disappointment. If the skins were selling for only 15 gold before the update, what makes them think that demand will suddenly increase now that they’ve become permanent additions to the weapon vendors?

My personal suspicion is that, since the Winter’s weapons have come back permanently, the Halloween weapons will also be making a return in October. As such, you’d be best waiting until October and then picking up the Greatsaw when the price collapses. This is, of course, just speculation, but it does seem to be the path ANet is going down.

Some Reddit dataminers dug up information about an expansion of bank space slots to 15, coming sometime in the future. Of course, there’s no guarantee that bank slots will also go on sale at the same time.

“There will just be so many of them and no reason to ever purchase them from the TP, especially with SAB being recurring content.”

Aye, that’s true. But it WOULD allow players who hate SAB (yes, they exist, and apparently in quite large numbers) but who still like the Super skins to be able to obtain them relatively easily. Then again, my ideal MMO is one where every player can acquire the look they want without breaking their bank; making yourself stand out in an aesthetic sense comes down to choosing a unique or unusual combination of armor, weapons and dye rather than just going for whatever’s the most expensive. (If you’ve played GW1, you’ll know what I mean when I say that one out of every 3 Monks I saw was wearing Obsidian Armor and Chaos Gloves, usually all dyed black or white.)

Allowing investors to break even on their investments is also something that doesn’t win a lot of sympathy from me, I’m afraid. That’s the nature of investing in something; you could either strike it rich, or lose it all when the market changes. If you want a shot at the big bucks, you also have to be prepared for big falls.

^ That likely means that ANet has not yet come to a final decision as to whether or not the Mr. Sparkles mini will have additional means for acquisition down the line. There’s still hope. Keep this thread alive and hope that Colin or Anthony spots it and gives you an answer.

I would like more permanent zones to complete, instead of the breakneck pace of Living Story content. Southsun Cove is fine, but adding in more events and Hearts would go a long way towards breathing life into that zone, I feel. Likewise, I don’t see why Labyrinthine Cliffs couldn’t have stayed, with the Sanctum simply disappearing until the next time it returns.

If you have it, the HoM Portal Stone does the exact same thing, except with the added benefit of not having your chat log clogged up with conversations from random strangers in the Heart of the Mists.

You know what would have been nice to find in our birthday present? A free Black Lion Claim Ticket. HINT HINT ANet!

I agree that it would be nice to be able to resize the Crafting and BLTP windows.

Imba Stealth, that’s why. NERF STEALTH!

They get automatically added to your inventory when you kill a Champion/close a portal.

One thing that might help is to make sure you use the Holographic Communicator to talk to Vorpp in between each step. I made sure to do that between each step, even though I was attending the invasions across 5 different characters.

Gendarran Fields
Harathi Hinterlands
Bloodtide Coast
Sparkfly Fen
Mount Maelstrom
Fields of Ruin
Iron Marches
Blazeridge Steppes
Fireheart Rise
Lornar’s Pass
Dredgehaunt Cliffs
Timberline Falls
Frostgorge Sound

I wrote that down on a list and crossed each off as I completed it (after checking in my achievement list that the counter went up!)

Legionnaire Krushak Doomblade – Doom warband, on extended assignment as special liaison to the Vigil.

Although Krushak still thinks of himself as part of the Doom warband, he’s grown quite fond of his new “adopted” warband, consisting of a fellow Vigil Tactician (Melissandre du Rin, Human Female Mesmer), two Durmand Priory representatives (Magister Ploop the Didactic, Male Asura Elementalist, and Explorer Velda Frostborn, Female Norn Ranger) and one Order of Whispers agent (Ishyal, Female Sylvari Necromancer).

Woah… I have NEVER found Snrif, and I consider myself a pretty dedicated explorer. :O Must go back and explore it tonight!

This happened once on Bloodtide Coast as well. Extremely annoying, but at least the next time it triggered there it was working properly.

The Twisted events are depleted only when new minions spawn, which in turn only occurs once all minions from the previous wave are defeated. Only ORIGINAL minions count; new minions spawned by Twisted minions or when they combine to form bigger minions do NOT count against this total.

Thus, if you’re aiming to complete events as quickly as possible, focus purely on trash mobs and Veterans. It is quite rare for Elites or Champions to spawn directly unless there’s a huge zerg at your location, and if this is the case, you’ll notice pretty quickly that all Twisted minions bar the Elite/Champ is dead, and the bar’s not moving.

It’s also preferable to get the Aetherblade reinforcements first, since it takes more time to complete the Aetherblade events than it takes to complete the Molten Alliance events. (A single Elementalist with Meteor Shower can just run by, cast it on the Tunneling Device, and run on knowing that Meteor Shower will destroy the device all by itself, for instance.) Note that you must kill the Aetherblade Captain and complete his event in order for the Aetherblade bar to move; completing the “defeat the Aetherblade pirates” pre-event does not affect the Invasion bar at all.

Since more players like to go farm the Aetherblade events, you can also use that to your advantage by going to Twisted events instead. Enemies will be easier due to smaller player numbers, and the farmers will eventually progress the Aetherblade bar.

Try during your server’s peak times. On Tarnished Coast, there was a medium-sized group tackling the events, but when I re-visited there about 4 hours later during my night, the place was more or less dead apart from me and the dozen or so other guys all attempting to beat Liadri and/or other Gauntlet bosses.

It was a nice gesture, but I didn’t really need 5 Mini Jennahs. It would also have been nice if the Experience Scroll has just been a Skill Point scroll instead; at least those would actually have been of use to my level 80’s.

The Birthday Booster is nice though.

There are two possible reasons I can see for this change to loot:

1. It is due to what Blood Red Arachnid suggested. ANet is deliberately pre-loading the economy (and player’s banks) with the necessary gold and high-end crafting materials we will need for r500 crafting. Their expectation is that many of these materials will be destroyed in the rush to 500 when that update comes out.

2. They are attempting to balance the wealth disparity between the supremely wealthy players and Joe/Jane Gamer. Of course, J. Gamer will never reach the kind of wealth that the hardcore farmers or the TP Barons have, but the amount of money they’re getting now should be more than enough to set them up with the essentials for level 80 Exotic gear and to buy some nice gifts for themselves via gold → gem exchange.

As an example, my girlfriend had 30g at the start of the Queen’s Jubilee. She now has 100g. (And no, she never farmed Deadeye. She didn’t even touch the Gauntlet.) She’s using that money to gear up her alts and level crafting on several of them, which has gone a long way towards improving her playing experience. Her experience, multiplied across the entire player base, may have been what ANet was going for after listening to multiple complaints about how high end gear is mostly out of reach for casual players.

Still waiting for it to hit 100 gems for 5 gold exchange rate before I start selling my gems.

As a perfectionist myself (thankfully I don’t collect minis), I fully sympathise with the OP and other collectors who are devastated by this revelation. One can hope that in future ANet will release other methods of getting Mr Sparkles though, similar to how some ultra-rare minis back in GW1 eventually became available again through late year birthday presents.

I would support Fractal Weapons being tradable (if Legendaries are tradable, why not Fractal Weapons?), or the ability to purchase account bound Fractal weapon skins with Pristine Fractal Relics (maybe 1 skin for 100 Pristine Relics? Just pulling numbers from the air).

Quite surprised at the price disparity between the Winter’s, Fused and Sclerite weapons. I wonder why that is…

Legendary food. A consumable item that you can eat as many times as you want. Something for level 500 Chefs to craft.

Josh Foreman did say back during the first release of SAB that he believed the old skins wouldn’t come back.

BUT…

He did add a caveat that he wasn’t the guy in charge of rewards, and that his answer was based off a quick 5-minute conversation in a hallway, so we shouldn’t take his answer as gospel.

Secondly, the fact that the Winter’s weapon skins (along with probably the Fused/Sclerite skins in coming days) are now available again tells me that ANet may have changed their strategy when it comes to limited time skins (which is an approach I approve of). Therefore, I think the odds are still in favour of the Super skins being available again when SAB returns, although there will also be newer skins to complement the old ones.

I do try to farm all of my own materials (and with 5 “mains”, I almost always have enough by the time I finish maps on them), but sometimes I do have shortfalls, and so I do turn to the TP at times if the price on the mats is cheap enough.

Up to 51 Charged Quartz now. Today will be my last batch of 25 Quartz, so production will slow after this, but I fully intend on charging another quartz every time I get 25 normal Quartz.

I believe that the Marks (level 20) can also be thrown into the Forge for a chance at them. Still, purely out of logic I think that Copper Doubloons SHOULD be able to be transmuted to Silver ones.

I usually don’t bother transmuting because I know the TP players are VERY quick to spot any such profit margins and will fill the demand post-haste, thereby bringing commodities back to equilibrium quickly. So I just sell my excess mats and buy the ones I need.

You must be extremely lucky, Penguin. From the 14 Invasions I’ve taken part in, I’ve gotten perhaps about 5 – 6 Cores (including 3 Piles of Essences, which are pretty worthless), and just 1 Onyx Lodestone. On all invasions I get an average of 14 – 20 Champion Bags, although if I’m not trying to complete the event (because the timer’s too low and it’s pointless), I can get more if I’m farming Aetherblade Champions, maybe up to 30.

Would definitely support the return of Summoning Stones. I think they should be put into the Jewelry line too to give the crafting discipline some love after the proliferation of Ascended trinkets.

That’s the impression I got from Colin’s comments on the forums too. Either that, or the T7 materials are going to be compound materials crafted from lower level tier materials, similar to Charged Quartz. In either case, the unlimited gathering tools will still be able to harvest all materials.

I only participated in invasions when it was a map I hadn’t been to yet, and I didn’t have any trouble getting the counter to update (either for Vorpp, Worldwide Responder or Invasion Canceler). I suspect that all three achievements need to take place in unique maps. Repeating an invasion in the same map doesn’t count.

^ Basically that. Honestly I’m surprised ANet hasn’t done it already.

colesy.8490:

The only people Liadri alienates are bad players.

…so I suppose that’s most of the gw2 community.

Learn her skills, watch a youtube video for a Liadri kill someone else did with your class, look on dulfy’s site, copy, win.

I’ve never done Liadri but I’m pretty sure if I just watched a youtube video I could beat her in maybe three tries, tops. Also, stop using bad gear and bad traits.

If you’ve fought Liadri you wouldn’t make that comment above, because you’d know that luck still plays a part in victory. While Liadri’s attacks and the movement of the Visions can be learned and countered, the locations in which the Cosmic Orbs spawn is still entirely random (or maybe they follow a pattern, but their initial starting location is always random). This means that you may get into a situation where the Orb spawns on the far side of the arena from you, leaving you with little options depending on your build to destroy it before it pulls you into a potentially lethal situation.

Conversely, you might be lucky enough that the Orb spawns right next to you as you’re kiting Liadri around and you can destroy it to eliminate the threat and go back to whittling down Liadri’s health. That’s what happened to me during my last successful attempt at Liadri.

I am here to take my place among the elite few. Took me 86 tickets and much blood, sweat and so, so many tears, but I FINALLY did it! I used Healix’s 0/30/30/0/10 build with Sword/Shield. Used a Quality Tuning Crystal and Mango Pies to aid with health regen (and it still almost wasn’t enough!), as well as a bunch of boosters to pad the odds in my favour.

Victory actually came as a complete surprise to me. I was too busy hobbling between Shadowfall borders and desperately swinging at Liadri whenever she came into range. I didn’t even have time to look at Liadri’s health when I heard the Announcer start the final countdown. I’d resigned myself to another failure when Liadri suddenly collapsed and the achievement/chest popped up.

The taste of victory… is sweet indeed.

I think I’ll leave Light Up the Darkness for the next time the Gauntlet returns though. I was lucky enough to defeat Liadri while still using mostly sub-standard gear (a mix of level 78/79/80 Greens).

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I would pay much more attention for something where I wouldn’t have to be reminded a character is male, female, or otherwise except as a throwaway fact. I want a good character first, a man/woman/whatever second.

I don’t want a strong female character which is some lady acting tough, gruff, and “putting men in their place” any more than I want a strong male character who’s tough, gruff, and tells ladies to “get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich”.

I couldn’t have said this better myself.

I’ve posted on many threads like this before, but I also agree that the pace of the LS needs to be slowed down a little. Make it just one update a month, or spread out the content over several months like Flame & Frost.

It feels a bit like we’re being shuttled from one story to the next with no real opportunity for a break in between. It’s different from how it was during Halloween and Wintersday last year, where the festivals were massive and exciting because the open world was relatively quiet and static in between.

Now it’s like there’s tons of new content to do every month, so it’s lost its novelty, but at the same time, you HAVE to do it if you don’t want to miss out. It’s a bit like watching a horror movie; you can’t keep your audience on a constant feeling of edge, because it stops being fun after a while. You need to have periods where things calm down, people can relax and release the tension. Being on a constant adrenaline high can be exciting for a while, but if that becomes the normal state of being, then it just becomes exhausting.

This wasn’t that kind of bug. There were zero portals and zero spawns anywhere on the map, despite it saying that the invasion was active in the map.

Tarnished Coast was bugged too, as was the overflow I was originally in.

Broken on Tarnished Coast as well, along with the overflow I was originally in.

True, but if they DO release a new set, there’s also the risk that everybody flocks to the new set and demand for the old skins don’t improve either.

The real test will be when Halloween rolls back around. We’ll see whether ANet releases new skins, or whether they stick with the existing skins.

To counter her cripples, either use traits/food which reduce condition duration (Warrior’s Dogged March + Lemongrass Poultry Soup reduces Crippled duration by a staggering 73%, for example), or bring traits/skills that give you a permanent +25% speed boost. That’s still fast enough to keep ahead of the Visions even while crippled.

Liadri’s spinning whip attack is the one that stacks massive bleeds onto you. Stay away from her or dodge away when she does it. The tricky part is making sure not to dodge into the Shadowfall circles while you do it.

^ What he said. Doesn’t matter if there’s a big bunch of farmers all zerging it up at one event. You can complete Portal events in a 5-man group or less if scaling hasn’t kicked in (which it almost certainly won’t if they’re all at the farm pit). A couple of good guild teams can complete the invasion all by themselves.

Not to mention that most zergs are brainless enough that even if the Commander says “DONT KILL CHAMP PIRATE!” most of them will still continue attacking the Pirate Captain (because HURR, YELLOW CIRCLE? KILL!!!) and end the farm anyway. XD

No, it’s not a bug. Josh thought it was a bug at first too, but the official response that’s come back since then is that it’s intended. Only new skins acquired from the Black Lion Weapon Vendors can be sold on the TP.

That said, there IS a workaround (which may not actually be permitted by ANet given their “official stance”, so use this at your own risk). What you need to do is buy an identical skin to the one you have from the TP. Put the two together into a single stack, then split them again. Both skins should now be tradable. Sell both on the TP.

At least until Dragon Bash returns again next year.