Guild Wars 2

I am not factoring in PVP when making this decision. Soley on PvE. I dont run with signets…blinding powder, shadow refuge, caltrops.

I do dungeons mostly, explorable. I’ll check for that thread.

I dont want to be a glass cannon, so Id like to survive an extra hit or two, but I know that the thief isnt meant to stack damage mitigation with a condition build.

I dont know who says D/D in dungeons is a no no…Its all I use and I use it well. I play the thief how it is meant to be played, not like the WoW rogues youll find on this forum that think you can sit in melee and stab stab if you stack enough vit/toughness.

Youll see me deathblossoming 3x (all the while avoiding direct damage), followed by Caltrop drop. I’ll dodge out(with the uncatchable trait, more caltrops drop). I wait 3 or so seconds, let someone else get aggro and I’ll use Steal(for initiative gain), and deathblossom another once or twice, roll out again with more caltrop drop.

If I find that mobs are paying too much attention to be, I use blinding powder to get out of there…

If the mob is a heavy hitter, like the wardens or the knights, I use the above liberally. If I know I can spend a few more seconds in melee, I will.

Hi,
I have been farming Twilight Arbor exp for the nightmare set. My build is around conditions, D/D + shortbow, so the nightmare set is a pretty good set to have for this. I have one concern, that the gear has toughness and no vitality on it. If I am in melee range deathblossoming around, and autoattacking, is it worth it to have more toughness than vit?

What is the real difference between toughness and vit? Toughness mitigates direct physical damage, while vit is just an increase to your hp(and ultimately the difference is that vitality would help against badfloor and “magic”), correct?

And no, I dont want to get the pieces with vitality and healing stats…

When I hit 80, about 3+ weeks ago, I had 43% of the map explored, probably 25% of all three orr zones explored, and no alts, with about 130 hours playtime. Now, I have a few pieces of dungeon exotic gear, about 50% map completion, completed all of the orr zones, leveling crafting now, and 3 alts in the making. I have plenty to do.

I have run with people that are pure “heal” spec and pure “tank spec”…tank spec with a greatsword…

I pointed out to them that this game has no tank or healer, that the mechanics are not designed around one person absorbing all of the damage, and that purely trying to heal is fruitless as well(i.e. waiting for your long cooldowns to go off before doing anything else, thus kittening your group a little).

The damage being dealt out to your group is not made to be able to absorb it for 30 seconds until you kill the mob. If people are able to do this, then I think Arenanet failed miserably on their promise and this would be yet another major “hiccup” for the game where they said the game would be one way, and it really isnt.

Good morning,
Periodically I hear the female norn voice when my character gains, for instance, Might. I hear the female voice instead of the male voice.

Good morning,
I am not sure if this is specific to thieves or not but I wanted to point this out.

When fighting the Nightmare tree in Twilight Arbor, and we are standing at max range in the door way, my Shortbow does not autoattack. I have it set to do so, but it doesn’t auto attack. I need to continually press the #1 key to get it to fire. And before anyone says that I am out of range, I am not. I see the damage I am causing, it simply doesn’t auto attack.

Nemmar.8491:

Love how you’re so afraid to learn the truth about this game that you hold yourself in the first 30 levels and swap characters constantly.

That is actually a good way to delay the inevitable indeed. You give yourself the variety the game doesnt by constantly swapping character and you dont reach the plateau of end-game soon so you cant be appauled by it. I dont know how you dont get bored of playing the same areas though, i sure was pulling my hairs out of boredom when i tried leveling an alt.

Unfortunely, you are delaying the inevitable. It will come to you too. Also, at this pace you wont even be able to enjoy the big events on the Orr cause of lack of players.

I have a level 80, 36, a handful of teens. I have about as much play time as the OP, maybe more. When I hit 80, I had 43% world completion, and probably only 25% total of the three Orr zones.

I can honestly say that being a casual-mild hardcore player, in that I take my char seriously, learn the class, ins and outs, etc but do not get hung up on nitty gritty things that tourny players do…I can say that I was even a bit overwhelmed when I hit 80.

Ok so I can:
-Finish world completion(probably 4 or 5 zones I havent even seen yet)
-Farm dungeons: Ok, so what dungeon tokens give what gear? Research…
-Level crafting: Is it worth it or not? quickest way? Or should I just make money…
-Mystic forge: Can this be a source of income if played correctly?
-Playing the AH: the Trading post is prime for playing the market.
-Acquiring all dyes
-obtaining craftable max level gear
-get into WvW a bit more as well as spvp.
-Try out a crit backstab build instead of my condition build.

Not bad for a fresh max level in a game with no sub.

I agree with everything the OP said. Great game. I am especially surprised about the underwater content, which I still shy away from because your combat is a bit limited. But there are so many cool visuals and things to see, like sunken ships, half broken domes of whatever…sunken cities, etc…awesome.

Agreed. This would be a top tier game even if it had a sub..the fact that it doesn’t makes it a #1 game. It executes most aspects of MMOs better than any game.

Ah good. Should be the other way around..

Thanks guys

So I performed an experiment.

I listed 350 copper ore at the minimum selling price.

Almost immediately 100 copper ore was sold, yay.

I waited about 5-10 minutes, and no other copper was sold. Ok.

I removed the rest of my copper or listing, and relisted it for the same price.

More copper was sold.

Theory: When you list something on the TP, it puts your listing at the FRONT of the line and within seconds someone else will list the same item bumping you further and further down the line.

So this is kind of lame if you post a listing with several hundred pieces( say 300 copper ore) because in the few seconds between when you list it and when someone else lists theirs, you might sell only half…

Anyone else notice this?

Im wondering if backstab build that has decent survivability is viable in explorables… Maybe dagger/pistol for dungeons, d/d for everything else.

Hello,
I currently run a d/d heavy condition build which is quite marvelous when DB’ing multiple targets at once. It is way better AOE than my shortbow is. Dropping Caltrops in the middle of a group and blossoming around is fantastic. Great aoe.

I am starting to farm for my max stat gear set, I was thinking of rolling a similar build to the one you posted, however I question its aoe potential. People love the shortbow, but I find it insanely lackluster. People tout the detonation of cluster bomb, and I still find it mediocre at best. I find it clumsy and to be more accurate you have to be right on your target. Lets face it, when zerging and there are a million spell effects going off, you cant see your bomb to know when to detonate.

So I ask, what is this builds AOE potential? As I said, with my previous build Id be dropping caltrops (which is off cooldown pretty quickly) and DB’ing x 3…maybe work a stealth in there for more ini, then DB again. So many stacks of bleed on all the targets.

So, I am fully capable of getting the max stat stuff, weapons and gear, with gold(or kharma) less the legendaries.
Correct?

However, later on, if I wanted to get a legendary, I’ll need to take up a crafting discipline, correct?

Hey there,

With regard to gear progression(if there is such a thing, to a point), it kind of just hit me. In order to get your max stat armor set, (ignoring whatever sets you want to transmog into), you have to do one of the following:

Spend by Kharma:
Resource spent: Your time and Kharma

Spend by Gold:
Resource spent: Your gold and crafting mats(that you might ultimately sell on TP to gain more gold).

Spend by Time:
Resource spent: Your time, crafting materials, and gold.

Spend by dungeon Tokens:
Resource spent: Your time

Ultimately, aside from time spent, you will be spending some money or currency to gain these items, correct? So if I did not feel like leveling up a crafting discipline because it looks like a steep hill, and I did not want to spend hours upon hours farming Orr for kharma via the kharma grind, I could theoretically level up other toons to max level, selling off the gatherables as I go. Correct?

And how can I check out the look of Carrion gear?

Thanks. So instead of kharma farming in Orr, I’ll be materials farming in lower zones…
I dont feel like breaking the bank using the TP
Only at 131 leatherworking. Is it easier to just sell things on the TP to make $$, and purchase the carrion set(which will go for 12-15 gold total), or level my leatherworking and farm the mats?

Hi all,
Like many, I have been struggling to find which sets are conducive to my build, which is heavy conditions. The kharma exotics have almost no condition damage on them. Could someone point me in the right direction as to which set would be best for a condition thief?

I was thinking the Carrion emblazoned set. Is that purely a leatherworking-crafted set?
Thanks in advance.

Understood. What about gear sets? What can I/ should I buy with Kharma? I see that I can buy cultural with gold, but what of kharma?

@OP: Trust me, Teras community was 10 trillion times worse than GW2 at launch..

Hi, I hit 80 a week or two ago. Ive been slowly farming some Kharma, but amidst the many posts on the forums, I am still unsure what is the correct path to spending.

Should I spend it on Exotic armor? Should I spend it on something else? Should I spend gold on exotics?

I hear people saying that spending kharma on exotics is a waste, and I could do something else with it.

If anyone could lend some advice as to the best way to get gear at 80, Id appreciate it. I dont want to follow the zerg in Orr if I dont have it, if there are other ways to obtain gear/money.

Good morning,
Last night I had 100% map completion in Genderran fields. This morning I am around 89%.

:(

Good morning,
Several times now I have created new topics, or replies to threads, and they made their way into the incorrect forum. As a result, I have received several forum moderator messages saying that my thread was moved to a more appropriate forum, when I know I posted in the appropriate one that he/she moved it to in the first place.

A few moments ago I posted in the guardian forums. It would not let me. I looked up, and it tried to post the thread in the News forum, which we don’t have access to post in.

@forum mods: I apologize, I think theres a bug with the forums that is causing you guys to work overtime moving my threads. I cant see a rhyme or reason, but this has happened multiple times in a few days and I just want to make arenanet aware of it so that they don’t think I am intentionally posting in the wrong forum.

Thanks,

Good morning. I have read Eveningstars wall of text concerning guardians. It is a good read.

I was thinking of going Greatsword/sword & torch. He says these synergize, but I don’t see it. What stats would I stack for this weapon set up? And are there builds that work with both weapon sets?

Thanks,

Yeah but that would require knowing where each of the pieces of lore are..scattered in the cities and throughout. It would feel disjointed.

nlgray.5846:

Relentless.5678:

RMB toggle. Or option to always free look.
My fingers are getting very strong from holding the button down continuously.

This +1!
I do not understand how they released the game without such an obvious desirable feature.

Which feature? Are you referring to the camera snap-back? Not being able to move your camera around without it snapping back to its default position? This is already in game, its a checkbox in options. I have a “free look”.

Dungeon Finder please. Im one of those people that do not think a dungeon finder kills server community. Its a minimal impact in my opinion. 9/10 times you’ll run with 4 other people and not see them again, or maybe once or twice…without a /wave in passing.

When I was a level 50 thief, I wanted to do AC explorer mode, but noone in my zone was spamming chat for an AC group. I’d have to travel back to charr-land to get this thing going, thus dumping more time or money into the game

I know this is the lore section but there needs to be a repository of the lore for us newcomers to read! Id like to experience the “Oh, I know that person from the first game”, in some sort of way..

I am new to the guild wars universe and I think it would be really neat to have some sort of shrine or library in game where you can walk to, press F to interact and read the lore and history of guild wars, all the way back to the war between human and charr, etc….how magic came to be in the world, who and why Zhaitan appeared(we know hes a dragon but we assumed this from the story in Gw2).

I hate to compare to “the other mmo”, but WoW did a fantastic job displaying its lore(on their website boo), but it was a great read! It would take me literally 2 or 3 hours to read it all. Having this type of information in game that could theoretically take us a few hours to read would really enhance the games immersion, and also give us new players background as to why things are the way they are.

Hi, I too am new to the guild wars universe. Check out http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Storyline

That looks like a summation on the previous game and expansions. Might give you what you need.

Also, Im going to be suggesting in the Suggestion Forums about an ingame clickable/interact “repository” of this information so we could read this in game.

Im at around 150-180 hours(cant remember exactly), of play time. It hasnt dropped off yet for me. Just finished my story quests, going to work on some gear, map completion especially Orr, and get into some dungeons.

@OP, glad theres someone that is playing this game without thinking about it so much..just pure playing the game.

I got a thief to 80, and now my alt necro to 30(loving it). Try a Guardian, they are really fun too.

Honestly, with regard to raiding, it died when 10 player raids came out. Even though I was in a 10man raiding guild, thats where it was destroyed. In cata, raids were way more unforgiving for 10man guilds than 25man. One healer died, and no brez, you’re in for a world of pain. Not to mention, the insta-gib stuff that would kill that healer or tank.

That said I love difficulty, but cursed at my guild for being noobs.

When was there a well designed raid in WoW, other than BC?

Ulduar was FUN, I wouldn’t call it well designed. The raids in Cata were semi-difficult, I wouldn’t call the instances well designed.

By the way, Anet has publically stated that since they have no subscription model, they understand that people will get bored and take breaks. They almost encourage it. They also have acknowledged that while they will continue to provide support and content updates, they are not required to keep you entertained 100% of the time for months on end like subscription based games.

So if you truely are bored, take a break and come back in a week or two, fresh and new, and roll an alt.

Truthfully, we all will eventually hit the wall in terms of:
-Map completion
-Crafting completion
-Exotic sets
-Crafting legendaries
-Dungeon sets
-sPVP/WvW

At which time you either will continue your grind/boredom, roll an alt, or walk away for a while. Happens in every game and theres no reason to believe it wont here. For me, since I took it slow and didnt rush to server first this time around, I will probably be able to go through Thanksgiving or even to Christmas until I am in the position where I want to take a break. Thats after an exotic set or two for my Thief, 100% completion, crafting completion, and hopefully legendary…at this point I’ll probably have one or two alts to 80 with semi-decent gear.

@OP, stop!

Wait, youre saying you don’t play 24/7? Yet you have an 80, 2-3 full exotics, 400 in crafting disciplines, and are now bored? Do a /age and screenshot it, post it here. Just curious. Im about 150 or so hours in, one level 80 with mid level disciplines and absolutely no gear to speak of. I have a few alts going on, but still. But thats with 150 hours of gameplay. My wife would say I play too much. I play, on average during the work week, 4 hours per night, double that on the weekends…thats a bit much IMO, and I have no gear thats worth mentioning. Yet, you have all of these exotics?

You also have almost 100 map completion? I hit 80 a week or so ago, granted since Ive been playing an alt, but when I hit 80 I was only 43% world explored.

Must have spent a lot of money buying(and time to get said money) or a lot of kharma buying(time spent to grind such kharma).

How did you not accomplish this all without playing more than 5 or 6 hours a day.

Id love to know.

So, cake anyone?

Are we done here? Are we done with this thread? Can we close it now?

Edit to my above post: Im not sayin diablo 3 was an amazing game. Im simply saying that before the nerf to inferno, to which all of you hardcore people whined, it was very difficult, a huge time sink, and if you didnt play a DH(which requires skill to studder step) or a monk solo, it was difficult…without spending real money.

Good luck.

Hey, heres a game for the hardcore guys who want challange and mindless endless grind:
Diablo 3.

Play D3 on inferno as a barb or witch doctor, solo, without spending real money.

And before the “omg I beat diablo 3 in 10 minutes” nonsense that will follow, I’m pre-empting you all by calling BS.

Diablo 3 inferno has both a time sink of a grind, and skill level required, depending on your class.

Hm interesting. I guess tests are indeed in order.

Downstate is fantastic. I rather this than insta dying.

I completely agree with relentless. People always want difficult challenging content. Then when its too hard, they whine and its nerfed.

Also, I dont think that time spent = hardcore. But there has to be some grind to get the best gear games.

I still havent really noticed this problem. I still get decent XP and Kharma and all. Maybe Im just not paying attention.

Agreed they need a PTR. And a few days? We are going on day number three, people have not been putting up with it for days. Its been maybe two.

Still, people need to chill. They will fix it. Its not destroying the game, its not killing the economy. Life goes on in and out of GW2. It will be fixed.

Its not like you cant do the same DE 2 or 3 times in a row without getting DR. Sounds like it takes a while.

Also, if this is time wasted for you until they fix it, roll an alt or log off for a few days until they fix it. No sub remember? The game is still worth the $$.

And your picture is funny

I would not consider GW1 an MMO. Too instanced.

Regarding char customization screen: Agreed some races got the short end with this. But further down you are able to drag sliders to increase jaw width or eye angle. I dont think its a BAD char customization. And I will say that I spent a long time on my syvlari thief because of the patterns and skin glows.

Progression:

I hit 80 a week or two ago on my Thief. The world map was only 43% explored, with only about a quarter of Orr completed(the entire 70-80 zone). Also when I hit 80, I still had about 4 or 5 story quests to complete, which I finished up yesterday. I would say at 80, that Id want world completion, exotic set, grind out the other sets for cosmetics, and get the legendary dagger for my thief. Thats enough to keep me playing on ONE character for a few months without even touching WvW or sPVP. All the while not paying for a sub.

@OP Still, it is dfferent.

In other MMOs, you interface with an NPC exclamation mark. Get a quest, ignore the dialogue, go kill X, turn it in.

In GW2, you run into an area, its auto given to you. You can kill the centaurs, gather broken Pipe parts, pour water on burning bushes, talk to NPCs to boost their morale, or gather unexploded mortor shells. All in one quest. You are not simply killing Centaurs for the renowns, or whatever the mob is. You have a choice of doing 3 to 5 things to complete the quest. That is what sets it apart.

You cannot avoid the typical quest structure in any MMO completely. How else would you level? They masked it in such a way that you hardly notice it is there.

So with the choice of 5 things to do for a renown heart, you can still compare that to a mundane kill X gather Y quest from wow?