Guild Wars 2

The story showed both “Newborns” and “Newly Awakened”. I presume that the Newborns are just that, while the Newly Awakened refers to Secondborn that may have been awake for days or even weeks already. Since Cadeyrn was there when Malomedies was rescued from the Asura (which occurs prior to the events of the chapter), I’m assuming that the Secondborn awoke over the course of a month or two.

Yes, if you jump up onto the ledge, it will mark you as being out of bounds and teleport you back into the battle, losing you the achievement in the process.

In any case, I also highly recommend doing these achievements with others. One person can be Caithe and just kill the Elementals, while the others just stand at a safe distance with ranged weapons. Try and keep to the center since that gives you the longest period of time to see the wind walls coming.

Don’t attempt “Dodgy Crowd” with the Challenge Mote active unless you’re a masochist.

You can get “Don’t Tread on Me” fairly easily by jumping up onto the spikes near Nekhii’s tent. The centaurs can’t reach you with their trample attacks there, and you can use ranged attacks to kill them safely. (However, this is harder to pull off with Caithe as she has no good ranged attacks and all the ranged centaurs attacking you will kill you as you can’t use your self-heal without rolling off the spikes.)

What were those guys thinking, bringing a dolyak to the Maguuma Wastes anyway? >.> The poor creature would have died of heat stroke within hours.

I suspect it’s at 10.30am server time.

I did the No Refuge Challenge Mote today with 2 guildies. We died the first two times due to underestimating the number of wind walls, but we made it in the third try. I can see how it could be solo’ed by someone with decent skill and a bit of practice.

The other achievements can also be done solo, although I agree it’s much easier in a group because you can have one guy be the bait while others stand off to the sides so there’s less chance of being hit.

Yes. The new maps are great for handling large numbers of players, but what happens when player interest inevitably dwindles and they move on to whatever is the latest and greatest zone? Dry Top is already largely abandoned outside of specific times where organised guilds show up; the events in Silverwastes are basically not doable unless you have at least a decent number of people in the map. (I estimate about 3 – 4 at each Fort, in order to kill the Mordrem Champions at the end, maybe double that for Silver/Gold.) This can make it quite hard for any latecomers to complete their achievements and farm Crests.

Sentinel’s inscriptions and insignia can be obtained by purchasing it from the Guild Commendation trader for Commendations + gold, so that can come off your list. Price-wise, it’s about the same as highly desired inscriptions/insignias.

You would need to be particularly egregious with afk-farming to be a suspect. Most people do not generally go afk for more than 30 mins (if you need to go afk for longer than that, just log out), while some of these suspects are there for hours at a time, sometimes day after day. That’s when it gets suspicious.

The Determined buff works kind of weirdly. Back during WvW Season 2, all the maps were queued out and a huge bunch of players ended up in Obsidian Sanctum just dogpiling into a huge melee for the hell of it. But there were still so many of us that large groups stayed on top of the invulnerable platforms and used 1200+ ranged weapons to attack people on the other platforms.

The weird part? Sometimes the people firing back could still damage us, despite our Invulnerable buff.

Palador.2170:

That would be nice, but it doesn’t work with the 200 step. I’m guessing that’s why they stopped at that point.

They COULD make it so you combine 5 of the 200 luck ones to get 2 500 lucks, though.

Brilliant! Make this happen, ANet.

Yeah, I agree about that. They should have given Foxfire a rarer chance to drop from all tiers of wood. That way we wouldn’t have seen a huge glut of Elder Wood, and more likely an increase overall in all tiers.

I don’t believe it affects the Greater Nightmare Chest drops, no. You get a bonus reward chest for completing each Tier of the Labyrinth; T3 awards you 20 (25?) Bandit Crests, a Rare Loot Bag (it might give 2 bags, I’m not certain), and Ascended mats. Getting to 200 score is not terribly hard either with enough players in the Labyrinth.

^ This is good advice.

However, since I’m currently farming lots of Bandit Crests to buy the blasted Boots anyway, opening the bags now either results in useful parts, or stuff that I just turn back in to get 25 Crests anyway. So, it’s not really a waste. The above is still very good advice, but I just thought I’d point out that opening the bags immediately also has an upside.

I think that Vorpp’s actions might be explained by the fact that the Arcane Council’s authority is quite weak outside of Rata Sum and it’s immediate surroundings. While the individual krewe who first experimented on Malomedies might have returned him once they discovered his sentience and been contrite about it, other krewes might have turned around and gone, “Well, what if that first krewe was WRONG? More studies are needed!” And then gone ahead without waiting for the Council’s approval (if it was even needed, since the Arcane Council seems to rule with a very light hand).

“Zaxares and Goons”.

Eluveitie.1290:

I hope next time we see them they are strangled by vines, holding hands, and be done with their story once and for all.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

But the last we saw of them was during the World Summit, where they make commentary on the visiting dignitaries. There is no sign of them after the Shadow of the Dragon attacks, but they could have escaped again.

That was a side project one of the devs who worked on SAB did. If you watched the joke ad for SAB when it was first released, it showed the kid playing a side scroller game featuring Rytlock. The dev could have just made a simple animation to be displayed on screen for a few moments, but he actually went ahead and turned it into a full-on Flash game.

I’ve seen these underground bot harvesters too. Unfortunately because they’re underground, I can’t select them to report them.

I dunno about Amalgamated Gemstones getting more uses… I mean, look at Foxfire. It’s abundantly gatherable, but it only has one use (for Mawdrey), and it seems that that market may be finally playing out, seeing as how profits for Foxfire and all other Mawdrey components have been steadily dwindling.

And this is why I sometimes call the TP “TPvP”.

I’m not a flipper. The most gold I make from the TP tends to be from me selling lucky drops, but I am still holding onto almost 1000 Unid Dyes that I got for free back during the Great Dye Upheaval, waiting for the price to climb.

And it is, veeeeerrrrry slowly, but I’m thinking of cashing out soon since I noticed that Unid Dyes not only drop from the Personal Story rewards, but they can also drop from Loot Bags from the Living Story. So new supply is not as choked off as I hoped it was. Barring a big new sink for Unid Dyes (which I highly doubt ANet will do), I don’t think it will rise to the price I originally wanted to sell at for a long time yet. The temptation to cash out and use the profits to finish off my Ascended crafting is getting stronger by the day.

I really want to see r500 Jeweler and Chef get introduced too, though it’s more out of a completionist urge than anything else. I’m sure I have more than enough raw mats squirreled away for my own needs, and since I already have lots of Ascended trinkets (thanks to my completionist playstyle, the Living Story and the dungeon collections ended up giving me plenty of Ascended trinkets that saved me a lot of money), I suspect I won’t need anywhere near the amount of refined Ascended mats for Jeweler. (I’m currently stockpiling Lumps of Mithrilium in anticipation of them being needed to craft Xunlai Electrum Ingots.)

… Unless, of course, ANet does something crazy like introduce Legendary trinkets…

Hey, that cookie looks like a ladybug!

Don’t forget about the new Legendary, Caladhog.

Some people are claiming that you can also substitute Orbs for Crests in the gemstone recipe (but you can’t mix them). So it’s either:

1 Crystalline Dust
3 x Crests
3 x Crests
3 x Crests

OR

1 Crystalline Dust
3 x Orbs
3 x Orbs
3 x Orbs

Haven’t tested this yet myself, so would someone in game be able to verify this? If true, I think this is a clever way to both give a boost to the price of some undervalued Orbs (I’m looking at you, Sapphire/Beryl Orbs), as well as increase demand for Crystals thanks to Jeweler transmorgs.

The only Rare aquabreathers are the Benthic ones dropped from Tequatl. (They all have Soldier stats; Power-Toughness-Vitality.) No higher tier of aquabreathers is currently available in the game.

It’s because of the RNG for the body parts, yes. People are taxiing from instance to instance so they can farm the Breach and hopefully get the part they need. (Crest farming is only a secondary benefit; if you need Crests, the fastest way to get it is by joining an organised map, picking a Fort, and then make sure the Forts are fully upgraded and defended. The rewards you get for Fort defense improve the more Forts you have under your control and at a higher tier; with all 4 Forts defended and at rank 3, you get 25 Bandit Crests + Gear bags + bonus loot with each defense event. Since the events respawn every 5 mins, that’s a lot of Crests you can farm, especially if you run to help at the other nearby Fort during downtime at your Fort.)

The Cryptobotanist wants specific parts depending on which location he is at:

Camp Resolve – Bladders
Near the crashed helicopter – Tendons
At the oasis (in the water) – Fangs
At the W of Blue Fort – Tendons
Near the Labyrinth WP – Spleens

There’s one more location where he wants Fangs, I think. I fully expect two of the Tendons/Fangs locations to be swapped for whatever body parts are needed for the Helmet/Chestpiece armor come two weeks later.

/supported. Been advocating for this since the start of LS2. :P

I had Issue 1 at one point too, but when I ran around the circle once looking for him with no luck, when I came back around, he was there. Not sure what happened. O.o

I liked it (LOVED it from a lore perspective), although I was disappointed at the “two steps forward, one step back” with unskippable cutscenes and the lack of “Retry Motes” for No Refuge and Meeting the Asura. Jeffrey explained why some cutscenes can’t be skipped, but I really, REALLY want to see Retry Motes for all LS achievements, especially those where the tiniest mistake can force you to redo the whole instance again.

Well, after having finally done the JP this weekend, I have to say… I didn’t like it as much as other JP’s, much to my surprise. (And I liked Clocktower and No So Secret!) I can’t really put my finger on it, but this felt less like a JP and more like just general exploration. Don’t get me wrong, it was still brilliantly designed and had a lot of “wow, look at that view!” moments, but I guess it felt a bit too open-ended for me?

Was still entertaining, at any rate, but I don’t think I’ll be adding this one to my list of “12 JP’s for the Monthly” anytime soon.

I got ports to 7, 18 and 30. Those 3 are the absolute worst. >.< There’s plenty of Mesmers doing it for free though (but make sure you at least express your great appreciation!)

The Pale Tree does not know everything that transpires in the Dream. (If she did, then she would have automatically known where are the important locations that Caithe would have likely gone to ground in, and would have had no reason to send the PC on a quest with the memory seeds.) She is unique among the Sylvari in that she can actually still actively access the Dream to reveal visions or view specific memories, but she needs to actively do it; she is not omniscient. (Other Sylvari can no longer receive information from the Dream once they are born.)

I agree that Caithe does need to be held to account for what she’s done, although everything she did in “No Refuge” was not instigated by her. Remember, we only know what REALLY happened with Faolain and the centaurs because we could tag along with other players and thus remain outside and see it was Faolain provoking the centaurs to begin with. As far as Caithe (and the PC, since they would have only seen what Caithe saw) knows, she only heard Faolain scream, a disturbance of some kind, and she ran out to find them fighting. In an emergency, wouldn’t you always side with your loved one over some strangers?

Agreed that Retry Motes need to be in all the instances.

It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty fun.

If you dislike the stealth, you can just plow your way through and kill everything with Caithe’s overpowered skills.

Well, I got my very first Armor Box from the Greater Nightmare Chest over the weekend. Unfortunately, it was Gloves. I don’t know if other types of boxes can drop from the Chest.

I’ve heard that you can also substitute the Crests with Orbs (although you can’t mix Crests and Orbs in the same MF attempt). So it’s either 3 × 3 × 3 Crests, or 3 × 3 × 3 Orbs.

As much as I love SAB, I actually would prefer it not to come back during Wintersday. I’ll have my hands full with the Wintersday achieves AND Chapter 8 of LS2 (with huge amounts of Bandit Crest and organ grinding…), and I’d also like to work on the rest of the game too.

It’s a one-use account bound item that works in PvE (which suggests to me it won’t work in dungeons, since they are instances). In that sense, it’s really no different from taking a Mesmer portal to the end of JP’s. (And on a related note, what do you think then of Mesmers who charge for their Portal services?)

Didn’t know that, shygirl. Thanks for the heads-up. It might make me wait a couple of weeks to see if it gets added too. I have plenty of spare Laurels, so if the Laurel Vendor is cheaper or saves me some grinding of Bandit Crests, I’d be all for it.

Which trinkets are you referring to? Caithe’s Blossom and Plague Signet? Those are available from the Bandit Crest vendors for gold + crests after you unlock them. Are you saying they’re also showing up at the Laurel Vendor now?

Hotjoin got renamed to Practice. It otherwise functions exactly the same as it did before.

Solo Queue and Team Queue got merged together. (There is a fair bit of player unhappiness about this, and we may see them get split again in future if efforts to help solo queuers avoid matches with pre-made teams don’t work.)

From the merger above, there are now two modes: Unranked (Play) and Ranked (Compete). Both play exactly the same (with the same rewards), except that matches in Ranked will move you up or down the PvP Leaderboards. Matches in Unranked do not affect your Leaderboard standing at all.

@Lil Puppy: As mentioned earlier, you can disable this option completely if you don’t like it. (I disabled it at once.) Click on the gear icon in your Inventory window. The option is in there.

Basilisks would be really cool as a new Drake-family pet. Especially if they retain their petrifying gaze attack as an F2 skill.

As others have said, it can work. I run a hybrid condi-minion build that actually works quite well if I’m defending a point. The trouble comes if I’m forced to move around and try and cap points because that has a tendency to bug out my minions, who are my main source of healing and damage. (There is also a secondary bug linked to Flesh of the Master that instantly kills all your minions when you get downed.)

Until those bugs are fixed, I can’t really recommend running a MM build in PvP. I still do it, because I enjoy running minions, but I can’t recommend it, and especially not for Ranked PvP.

You do get used to it in time, but yeah, at the beginning the Shadow Fiend’s sounds bugged the hell out of me too.

I’d still prefer to use Flesh Wurm in place of him, but it’s annoying having to destroy/recast the Wurm in every single fight.

It’s probably so that the rich people didn’t just buy their way to 300% MF early, and then use that early time advantage to earn even more money from their activities. The rich get richer, and the poor get left behind even more.

Reaven.3958:

Logical fallacy: “I do not like PvP. I like jumping puzzles. You like jumping puzzles, therefore you must not like PvP.”

You obviously missed the second part of my post where I also stated that I do enjoy playing PvP (currently rank 42, and I’m also a Bronze Raider in WvW), but I do not like mixing the two. When I’m in Obsidian Sanctum, I’m there because I want to JP, not to PvP. Likewise, when I’m in PvP, I’m there to PvP, not do precise jumps.

Note that I am not advocating that Obsidian Sanctum be changed. I understand perfectly that it was designed for the subset of players who like the added challenge and danger of getting attacked by other players. But this subset of players is quite small compared to the bigger pools of JP’ers and PvP’ers. As a result, Obsidian Sanctum tends to drive away these players; the JP’ers don’t want to be attacked while doing Obsidian Sanctum, and the PvP’ers are more concerned with fair 1v1’s rather than trying to dislodge a player whose build is usually designed especially to take advantage of terrain to get cheap kills in OS. (Why do you think they all go to the Arena or just fight in the lobby instead of fighting in the JP itself?)

Upping the rewards alone will not be a good permanent solution either. The activity itself needs to be fun, or players will just do it once for the experience/AP (or however many times they need to grind the reward they’re after), and then never come back again.

I did notice that the “Hold the Line!” shout was mysteriously silent on my Human Male Guardian. Here’s hoping it gets fixed.

From a RP/lore consideration, I went with a Norn Ranger. Several of the Ranger’s weapon skills have animations that just scream “Spirits of the Wild”, which I thought matched very nicely with Norn lore.

I wouldn’t mind it if Carapace Boxes could be traded, although I’m also satisfied with being able to salvage them for mats+Ectos.