Guild Wars 2

I’m pretty sure at least one of the members of the development team is colorblind, but maybe he wasn’t on the team that developed the jubilee.

I think the OP’s suggestion about being able to assign the color indicators is a simple solution, though, and I certainly support it.

Vol.5241:

TA f/u is bugged so it’s not really about difficulty and more like it’s broken.

Which the devs would know if they bothered to ever go into the Dungeons forums. There’s like twelve threads about the final boss of the Forward-Up path being broken.

Then again, this is the same team that’s let the Simin 3-second stealth bug linger in Arah since the game was first published. Clearly, ANet would prefer we stop running dungeons altogether, given the amount of care they’ve put into them lately.

I think the devs did try to balance Evon’s bad start by giving him the more desirable fractal and a stronger reward. I think they were banking on non-casual players voting for Evon.

Unfortunately, they really should have bothered to write the opening scenes with Evon as more than ANet’s typical cackling villain. I would have been shocked, but ANet storywriters haven’t shown any ability to write nuanced characters. They can do humor well, but every character is either a mary sue or is written as a cackling villain. And Evon suffered for that.

Yeah, they handled this poorly.

There should have been an in game mail this weekend, warning folks when voting would end.

If it weren’t for the fractals, Evon likely wouldn’t have stood a chance. In my mind, the fractal offer was a way to balance the candidates from ANet’s kitten-poor storytelling abilities. The storywriters have shown no ability to write any character as nuanced, so in order to get people to vote for the latest in their line of “cackling villains”, the developers added in the Fractal choice (which does at least have lore ties even for those who don’t tend to run them).

People voted for the incompetent Mary Sue. Let them reap what they have sewn.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

So a late turnaround in favor of a gemstore advocate. who’d have thought…

Yeah, I voted for Evon, but I hope this isn’t a case of him stealing the election. If our vote didn’t actually matter to the storyline, a lot of people will be justifiably angry.

Zorish.2940:

I’m aware karma is only used for parts for the Legendary weapons, right?

Karma can also be used to buy some high end items in Orr. When a group opens up one of the Temples, the karma vendors there will sell some unique stuff. You won’t be getting Ascended items with karma, but you can acquire unique skins with it.

Chryzo.8906:

They really need to fix the search function of the forum

They also need a dev to address a problem that’s come up multiple times in this forum.

11am PST is such a weird time to close the polls.

They wait until people could get home from work? Or at least give an in-game notice to folks that the polls would be closing early on Monday?

Since the update to the Spider Queen causing her to infinitely spawn Underground Recluses along with the Spider Hatchlings – who is ever going to run this path again? The rest of Twilight Arbor is perfectly reasonable and easy enough for a coordinated group.

The jump in difficulty at the Spider Queen boss is shocking. As she is right now, she is in no way doable by certain team set ups (you can’t crit her, for kittens sake). The people who have been able to do the boss required reflect to do it. The spiders summoned do not despawn if you fail and aggro at the slightest provocation. The attacks by a single hatchling are powerful, fast and a multitude – a group of them, with Recluses, can quickly down a player before reaction can be made. And, to my knowledge, dodging the Tree’s poison blobs no longer prevents the spiders from spawning.

In short, the Spider Queen is not a Level 55 dungeon boss. This is a boss that no longer fits with the rest of the design of the dungeon. It’s unfun. It is neigh-impossible for certain set ups.

With quite a number of Spider Queen successful runs under my belt, I attempted this boss fight with a group of veteran guildies. We varied our tactics, looked up advice – nothing worked. This is a group of players that have successful run paths of Arah, which should be the most powerful dungeon in the game. We crushed the dungeon up until the point of the Spider Queen, which we failed to ever beat.

In short: There is no way this boss is working as intended. It is beyond bizarre to me that he most difficult and least faced boss in Twilight Arbor would be changed by developers in order to make her neigh unbeatable by most players – and certainly unbeatable by anyone who is actually level 55.

draxynnic.3719:

I stood slowly, and as I reached my full height, a body came up gently behind me. Arms wrapped so intimately around me that my fight or flight instincts never kicked in. Then, a knife appeared at my throat.
…
A deep voice whispered next to my ear, “Calm.” I sensed no necromantic power radiating from my captor. This was someone different. “The man you’re chasing is Kraig the Bleak. Magic for hire. You’ll probably never see him again.”

Marjory being human in a human city, the assumption would be that E is human. If E was a member of another race – particularly charr – that would be noteworthy enough to mention.

Marjory was grabbed from behind. And note she doesn’t say she was grabbed by a claw or hand, she was wrapped up in someone’s arm. She may not be sure what race it was that grabbed her. (Okay, probably not asura.)

We know that Evon is Ash Legion, and was a highly regarded soldier in that legion. You don’t think he has the ability to conceal he’s a charr to someone he’s attacked from behind?

There isn’t a lot of hard evidence, yeah, but there are certainly still signs that Evon could be E. The latest lore entry about Evon’s backstory points to the fact that he isn’t quite the charr you think he is.

VOTE FOR EVON!

*Competency.
*Charisma.
*Charr.

Evon Gnashblade. The capital candidate.

I don’t really care quite as much about tail clipping, since I can pretend I have a tail hole cut out of there.

The major issue is when helmets remove a charr’s horns and ears. The designers might as well be flipping the kitten at anyone who plays a charr at that point. It’s laziness to the point of malice.

And most gladium that we’ve met fall into two categories:

(1) Those who have lost their warbands and keep their surnames, a la General Almorra Soulkeeper; or

(2) Those who left their warbands and lost their surnames.

Doesn’t look like Gnashblade falls in either category. And as Ash Legion he may very well not want to tell you he still working with the Legions.

Shiren.9532:

They’ve written Kiel as the good guy and Evon as the bad guy. That’s all they needed to do to appeal the majority of players to vote for Kiel (in addition to her being a known character while Evon was just introduced). Evon winning is going to rely on a passionate minority because Kiel was given the majority simply because of how the two characters were written. The good guy archetype appeals to the lowest common denominator.

Sadly, true. I think it’s pretty clear that Evon got the better toys because Evon was set up to be the less likable candidate. (1) He’s not had a huge role in the last two Living Story arcs; (2) Even though Evon’s been in the game since day one, some players seem to think he’s a brand new character; (3) There’s a huge contingent of the community in GW2 that stubbornly anti-charr; and (4) The writers are writing the script in this living story in a way that will make you not like Evon, creating a false dichotomy.

But given what we know about Kiel, there’s a lot to dislike about her, beyond the fact that she’s boring choice the story is driving you to make. She’s highly reactive, which is fine for a cop I guess, but a leader needs to be proactive. And her decisions (or lack thereof) often leads to trouble she needs others to solve. I’ll personally take an interesting choice over an inept one.

draxynnic.3719:

Yes, one explosive got through. An explosive that was formed through Inquest magic, that involved bringing together multiple parts that were innocuous individually. By couriers holding diplomatic rights, what’s more. I’d like to see how Evon Gnashblade, or any of you other armchair security heads, explain how you intend to protect against every possible threat that the villains of Tyria might come up with without knowing what that threat is or what to look for!

Evon is much more proactive than Kiel has proven herself to be. He looks out for future trouble, while she merely reacts to it. We need PROACTIVE people on the council, who can foresee issues like Southsun before they begin.

Evon will work for his interests, to be sure, but his interests lay with Lion’s Arch.

VKP Butcher.2751:

Razor.9872:

Onshidesigns.1069:

Gnashblade however will be in LA. Counting his money and planning to betray everyone.

Like I said, he’s not planning on betraying anyone. He honestly does have the best interests for Lion’s Arch.

Uh huh, sure he does.

Even if he’s primarily got his own interests in mind, Evon’s interests lie in Lion’s Arch. He’ll be sure to do whatever is needed to secure that trade agreement, and he has the wherewithal to actually make things get done in the political arena. And he’s PROactive, meaning we’ll be able to get ahead of whatever next threat is looming over Lion’s Arch.

Kiel on the hand has proven she’s entirely REactive in the last few storylines she’s been in, and has displayed a fair amount of incompentence, too boot. I have no confidence in Kiel actually be able to get anything done on the counsel, let alone get ahead of any arising problems. A seat belonging to Kiel might as well be a bootprint from the other counselors.

Be pragmatic. Vote for someone who will actually make things happen in Lion’s Arch.

Thalador.4218:

Evon’s proven he can successfully run an organization that serves his own ends, and his own ends alone. He has no morals and even betrayed the High Legions when he darted from service – I bet he’s an honorless gladium.

No. The fact that he has a last name, Gnashblade, tells you he’s not a gladium. There are tons of Legionaries that serve outside of the primary control of the Legions. Or are you going to tell me General Almorra Soulkeeper is a honorless gladium next?

Thalador.4218:

Evon Gnashblade got his fat, immoral, hairy backside fatter by taxing us all.

No. He created a system by which anyone ANYWHERE in Tyria, can make their goods available to anyone else. It’s a public need that’s been well received. From a lore perspective, he’s entitled to profit for making the system work (not to mention the system itself needs funds to work). You might as well blame eBay for having advertisements.

And Evon’s not fat. Even compared to other charr. haha.

To derail Evon’s candidacy, you’ll have to do more than make up allegations about him in order to distract from the many, many inadequacies of Kiel’s candidacy.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

draxynnic.3719:

Funny, when I saw Kiel fight, I’m pretty sure she was using guardian greatsword skills, not warrior…

That’s just a diversion to hide the truth, she can’t be trusted….

Vote Evan!

Is it a coincidence that Kiel is running for the seat of the Captain Counselor she let be assassinated? Either she’s incompetent or evil.

Gnashblade is a cunning businessman that can realpolitik his way through the Captain’s Counsel. He’s by far the superior candidate.

draxynnic.3719:

Azureai, you’ve got it all wrong.

As much as you or I would disagree with it, the contracts were a legal binding agreement according to the laws of Lion’s Arch. Ellen’s hands, in that affair, were tied – as an enforcer of the laws of Lion’s Arch, she did not have the mandate to put a stop to activity that was within those laws, however distasteful that may be. And when the opportunity came to put an end to that in a manner that granted her plausible deniability – she took it.

As a member of the Lionguard, her authority extends only to upholding those laws.

You make an honest point. But Ellen didn’t need to be there at all. She could have claimed the island was outside her jurisdiction and let the settlers do what they wanted. Instead she enforced the contracts, which lead to a worse uprising and brought the crazed karka down on the heads of the settlers and unsuspecting tourists.

And the only reason why Ellen was able to make her deniable gambit was because a group of random adventurers showed up and put the solution right in her lap.

I don’t think Kiel is a bad person, but she as a leader she’s proven herself inept and ineffective. She’s reactive instead of proactive. And the other members of the Captain’s Counsel will run roughshod right over her.

Yes, by all means, vote for the incompetent slavery-supporting human whose decisions nearly singlehandedly led to the destruction of Southsun. I’m sure she’ll “protect” the citizens of Lions Arch like she heroically prevented the assassination of the charr ambassador and a Captain’s Counselor.

…oh, wait. That’s right! She failed to accomplish anything without the intervention of groups of random adventurers. Without said adventurers, she was truly successful at failing miserably. Well, I’m sure she’ll be a shrewd and competent politician despite her track record of failure.

Totally has my vote.

CharrGirl.7896:

Kiel all the way. Evon just appeared out of nowhere, and we knew her from previous missions.

Evon’s been around since the beginning of the game. He created the Black Lion Company, for kitten’s sake. You could meet him on day one in Lion’s Arch.

I vote charr because charr.

Seriously, though…Kiel has proven herself nothing if not incompetent. She supported slavery in Southsun and let the entire island get out of hand to the point where it threatened both the business interests there and the lives of everyone on the island. Then she allowed the charr ambassador and a member of the Captain’s Counsel get assassinated…which means she can run for the position of the man she let get assassinated. She couldn’t make that look more like she arranged for this to happen if she tried, but she’s so inept I have a hard time believing it.

Gnashblade is a competent and savvy businessman, which is definitely needed on the Captain’s Council. Hands down, I’ll vote for Evon.

CHARRRRR!

It also depends on your warband. For instance, the Ash Legion warband members tend to spam blind, which means they work as pretty decent distractors.

Eli The Yahoo.9782:

All im saying it shouldn’t be 1 hit and you are dead.

This may not be true for most characters, but I wasn’t ever one hit KOed by any of the lasers except for the final one. (And trust me, I hit those lasers a lot! haha)

There does seem to be some room for error at the beginning.

Yeah, the laser room is very hard. But it’s not unfairly so.

…unless the final laser spawns right on top of you. Which happened to me. Twice.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Again with the Defiant, seriously?

Defiant truly needs to be retooled. Especially on bosses like Mai Trin and Subdirector Null (a fight that might as well have been labelled “everything wrong with Guild Wars 2”), Definiant makes no sense. A boss should develop resistence to crowd control if it’s used too much, but not be virtually immune to it.

The fact that EVERY boss gets Difiant slapped onto it betrays lazy design.

I guess no one else has tried this? O__o

At least it didn’t prevent us from ever completing the dungeon.

Atrophied.8725:

250 stacks? o.0 that’s an awful lot of zhaitaffy

Yeah, not really. Some of us don’t want the dragon wings, so no need to save up the stuff. The food is only 5 taffy a pop, and I’d rather have cupcakes, thank you very much.

Good Morning -

Last night some guildies and I did the Aetherblade Retreat and ran into a bug. Fearing that Mai Trin would be revived by her First Mate if they weren’t killed at around the same time, we managed to kill both Mai Trin and her first mate at the same time.

Mai Trin asked for quarter, then suddenly announced “ALL HANDS ON DECK!” Mai reset to full health with her Captain’s Shield. The First Mate did not revive. Without the First Mate, we couldn’t damage Mai through her Captain’s Shield.

The problem was solved when we all suicided and re-entered the boss fight; the First Mate had respawned and we did the fight all over again. We succeessfully completed the dungeon. Still it was annoying to have to kill Mai Trin twice, as good as it felt to finally bring her down. This bug should be addressed.

tl;dr: Don’t kill the First Mate and Mai Trin at the same time; it will cause a bug.

Yeah, I killed him, too. He already lied to you multiple times and tried to run away before. Why should you trust him now?

I made that choice without knowing any of the outcomes, but now knowing that there is absolutely no follow up if you let him live, it seems I made the right choice. Whatever was going on – he was lying to you.

Well, this sounds horrible. Why would they make an update to the Spider Queen Tree, when there are a ton of other dungeon issues to address? Thanks for the warning, folks.

Deathmond.7328:

Seniour DEVs Why we wouldn`t receive sword\shield changes again in future patch???
Why you can`t make Zealot`s Defense “cast on move”?
Why you can`t put new condition(torment) into Flashing blade?

I’d be fine with these. I don’t think Sword needs a massive buff, but Flashing Blade does deserve a slight one. Its short cooldown doesn’t make up for the low damage and a short-cooldown closer is available on Greatsword that actually does damage (and won’t occassionally teleport you into a wall or not move you at all).

bluestocking.6148:

There’s way too many “helpful” NPCs that end up turning on you. So naturally it’s my instant knee-jerk reaction to assume anyone offering to help is just going to betray us all.

That, and here voice was DRIPPING with fakeness. She’s obviously not there to help.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

I know that I play on Live, but usually only a few hours per week. (What with work and all.) I also don’t always represent the Arena.net guild, since it’s nice to just play sometimes. And, no, our game accounts aren’t the same as GM accounts; we don’t get special items or anything like that.

I’m sure there are plenty of Anet employees like Jeffrey – stealth playing with non-ANet linked accounts. In fact, apparently one of my guildies is one of them. I’m told there have been times in hanging with us that he’s taken note of issues that need to be addressed.

I just hope the ANet content testers are playing the game with different builds. That horrible Subdirector Null instance screamed “WAS ONLY TESTED WITH DPS WARRIORS”. Any player with a Condition Damage build could easily have seen that instance was bugged.

Critwrench.8432:

She also conveniently failed to save the Charr rep.

Probably by killing him.

My character is a charr in the Order of Whispers. I was like, " O_o HOW ARE YOU NOT STABBING THIS WOMAN ALREADY?!?"

Welcome to GW2, Justin. Hope you’re enjoying yourself.

Money really shouldn’t be much of an issue at the early levels. There’s not much for you to buy yet. It will be a long while yet before you start getting whole golds.

One “mistake” I made early on was buying Salvage Kits and breaking down everything I had instead of selling it. I certainly had enough material for crafting, but I could have made that easier if I had bought the axe, pick and sickle as Womble so helpfully suggests above. But it sounds like you’re not doing that…you really shouldn’t have much to worry about.

Further, you may occassionally be getting buffs as reward for your World’s success in the World vs. World maps. Those can buff your HP in PvE.

Antisceptic.9174:

With Dawn being upwards of 550 gold, would you buy or try (forging)?

I think the current advice is to cover both bases. Run dungeons to gain gold and tokens, turn in the dungeon tokens for exotic Greatswords, and dump those into the Mystic Toilet when you have 4. If you get a pearl greatsword, use it for fodder in your next batch. If you get another exotic, evaluate whether it’s worth selling.

Sounds like a lot of people got their precursors using this method long before they got the money to buy on the trading post (which is good!), but if you’re really unlucky, at least you’ll be building up money along the way.

Have you also tried looking at the stickied threads on these forums? They’re really valuable sources of information. Especially the “OMG If You Knew This…” and the “What to do When You’re Level 80” threads.

Laceration.4290:

My alt Engineer, went with a Vigilish look :P

Vigil gloves, shoulder and boots.
Karma leggins from Orr
T3 human coat
Leather headgear

Your look is amazing, dude. Nice work.

notebene.3190:

I’m starting to save and work for one as well. I was curious, would it make more sense to try to farm the T6 materials, or would it make more sense to do the whole “CoF p1” farming that everyone talks about and just buy them?

I’m not much of a dungeon runner, though see I’ll need to do Arah about 8-9 times to get 500 of something I’d need, but am willing to suck it up if it makes more sense to go that way?

Or is it best just to farm, and try to pick away at maybe getting 5-10 a day of each one? I made Gift of Mastery, and was starting to work on clovers. I have 8 out of 20, so seem to be about on pace, and am realizing even out of that I’ll get quite a few T6 mats on ‘misses’.

Was wondering if there was any sort of consensus on buy vs grind, and for which things?

Buying is always the better option when you’re ready to make a precursor. The way GW2 is set up, it just doesn’t make sense to farm. It’s much easier to get gold than it is to get whatever specific material you need. IF, however, farming will get you toward another goal – say farming Skelks in the far shiverpeaks for T6 blood to get your underwater kills daily, or running around in Orr for daily events or gatherer – that can be worth your time. As you’ve said, fails on getting Mystic Clovers will often result in you getting T6 materials, so I’d keep working on the Mystic Clovers before working on any other precursor.

Are you working on BiFrost or something that requires Arah tokens? If not, Arah’s not a good use of your time. The exotics from dungeons into the Mystic Toilet is a good strategy to get your precursor weapon, but only if the dungeon you choose is relatively short.

Otherwise, certainly sounds like you’re on the right track.

Seeing as Dust has its hands in just about EVERYTHING, it’s more than irritating that it’s so difficult to find. At least I have an idea of how to somewhat consistently collect Ectos if I need them.

I’ve also had a string of horrible luck breaking rares or even exotics. I’ve gotten one (1!) ecto from the past 10 rares/exotics I’ve broken with BLACK LION KITS. Even before I really started to take notice and get irritated about it, I seemed to be having horrible luck.

I thought it was just me having a string of bad luck, but seems like something fishy is defintiely going on.

Was wondering if folks here have constructive tips for dealing with the new Kholer. I know his patterns well, know what his wind up looks like for his pull/spin, and know to deal with adds first. But all too often I’ve been a part of team wipes involving him. It’s just too easy to get distracted/camera blocked by the silver adds so you can’t see Kholer’s wind up or get stunned by the adds and sucumb to the spin with no stability left. Not to mention everything in that fight is shiny blue on shiny blue on shiny blue…sometimes it’s tough just to tell what the kitten is going on. If I can see the wind-up, the pull is an easy dodge, but the fight’s set up ensures you won’t always see the pull coming. A friend and I got caught by his pull once because he summoned adds, we spent a split second figuring out which to target, and in that split second he did his pull.

Even very good players I know say he’s not worth it, and should be skipped. But I can’t help but feel we must be missing something. I have my gripes with the fight the way it is, but constructive tips to take down this annoying kitten would be appreciated.

Israel.7056:

I usually find ranged classes to be easier to play than melee because when I play ranged I generally have a better view of the fight and I can play with distance to avoid damage. When I play my guardian I feel like I have a harder time keeping track of the whole fight.

I certainly agree with this. It’s very difficult to be a party leader when you’re a Guardian, as you really can’t see what’s going on most of the time (especially if there are a few eles in your party creating all kinds of effects). Ironically, the Guardian is designed in a way that makes him/her about party support, but it’s tough to keep track of a party.

Vet.3726:

Not to mention it gives your team mates protection and a AoE push with heal burst which is not much but still helps shield #5 has saved alot of my friends from getting stacked

Yeah, the interrupt on Shield5 is very helpful against swarms. Shield4 is also a nice protection boost for allies in melee, so long as you bother to step back from combat before you use it in order to catch allies in the shield wave.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

“And do we have any kind of (PG-13) explanation why Rytlock and his warband would name her “whet”?”

/eyeroll back at you. The question above denoted that you didn’t know what a whetstone was. Figured you could have at least figured out the connection….

Yeah, I guess I could have been a little more clear that was a joke. I actually did forget that whetstones would be used on arrows as well as swords, so I suppose the name fits.

Still surprised she wouldn’t keep her personal name, though. My understanding was that the personal name stuck with a charr, and I guess we’re finding that understanding is wrong.

I disagree slightly. If any map has large, useless, empty space, the map will end up dead. You need a reason for players to be in a space, or they’ll simply ignore it.

This isn’t a one-player Zelda game. In a game that’s focused on multiple players, a space needs to have a purpose, or it’s not worth the developers’ precious time and the costs to keep that map up doing nothing on multiple servers. A big space that has purpose, however, can be welcome.

I’d just like to join the chorus of players that ask for a Lv80 Hard mode that offers more tokens and better rewards for dungeons and a normal level mode that, for instance Lv35 players can do and not get exploded in Ascalonian Catacombs.

Yes, seasoned players can do Ascalonian Catacombs at Lv35 on their alts. It IS doable. But as much as I love the teamworky-challenges of AC, it isn’t acting as the great teaching tool it really should be for newer players. Something with a lighter hand that makes newer players actually enjoy the dungeon is called for. (No newer player is going to be enthused having spent most of the time faceplanted during a boss.)

Also the normal mode could offer level-appropriate weapons and/or armor at a cost that the Lv35 player could get it before hitting Lv 45. :P

Aomine.5012:

especially many of them do NOT know how to run pass mobs and just keep on dying.

Well….don’t try to run past mobs then. IMHO, unless everyone is a seasoned vet at the dungeon and the game plan to run the mobs is set by chat in stone, running will go horribly wrong. The new waypoint mechanics make sure of that.

The devs would prefer that you actually do the content.