Well, you’re getting what you asked for, though probably not what you wanted.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/The-New-Defiance-Article/first
This actually seems rather different to me.
1) The visual indication is an improvement, since there are so many icons, it gets difficult to check — this is a clear improvement.
2) Before, you had to hold back to have 1 interrupt at the right time. Now, you hold back to unleash all interrupts at the right time. No more fiddly counting.
3) Now, the bar regenerates with time, rather than when a cc hits.
4) Different cc’s take a different amount off.
I like it, though it does make it harder to solo.
Look at it this way — I bought the game at full price, just before the big sale. I don’t get a refund of the money I paid.
How about this:
— I liked the New Player Experience.
I liked having an arrow that pointed me to all the things I needed for map completion. Too bad the map completion was locked until level 15 or so, which did cause some confusion, because I wanted to check on my progress, but level 15 came fast enough. Also, at one point, I scratched my head when a skill point said “come back later” at level 4. However, aside from that, and skills being unlocked slowly (which I was perfectly happy with, since learning them all takes time), I didn’t experience any locks from the NPE. Starting a new character, many of the things that were locked for the first character were already unlocked right away (such as map completion). For the most part, you can do the things that are “unlocked” at level up before they are unlocked (with the exception of weapon/profession skills and some underwater). It’s more that the game explains that mechanic to you at that level.
— Largely, I think the NPE feels more restrictive in theory than it really is in practice.
I hit this bug, but it worked for me the second time. This time, I started out NW, then swept east, doing the children 2nd last and bank last. Alos, there was a krait a bit off to the west of the children that could have been missed.
OP Here:
For reference, it was my group that the badmouther joined and complained about the rest of us.
I’ve only been kicked twice. Once when I first hit level 35 as a newbie and decided to try a path. The LFG did not specify requirements. I quickly realized I was in over my head and did not feel bad for being kicked. The second time I was having connectivity issues and am still not 100% sure what happened.
As for skill, I do have 3 strikes against me:
- No mouse — it kills my wrists and I use a touchpad. This makes turning or adjusting the camera a little slow and it is hard to move, activate a skill, and target manually at the same time. I set the option to double press the key to make sure the target is where I think it is. It’s a little slower, but not by that much.
- I can’t pick out details from all the visual clutter. Sometimes I can’t even see the boss from all the explosions, let alone pick out attack animations. Experience will help with this, but there is a lot of visual clutter.
- Finally, my reflexes have always been just a little bit slower than everyone else’s. Remember that half the people are going to be below average (well, median, technically), so some people just don’t have great reflexes.
So, in the forums, I see cries of “Learn to play” (though not directed at me) and have gotten ranted at by someone for only having “2k+ AP” (when they joined my instance when I asked for help — besides, I was proud that I just hit the 2k AP mark that day).
I know my reflexes aren’t as good as some. I do read guides, though many make a lot of assumptions and are written in such a way that they are hard to understand unless you already know what they are trying to do. I do attempt to active dodge, but I make mistakes.
However, a lot of advice that I see just ends up getting me killed because I don’t have he reflexes to pull it off. For example, ranged weapons may do less damage, but they keep me alive. Still, I get told that I should never use a ranged weapon (though I do agree that a guardian really needs to be melee, but I consider that a special case). Also, I get laughed at when I don’t do ranged either, so I can’t win.
So, it seems like everyone wants a game that wants player skill but complain about the players that aren’t as good and can’t compensate with better equipment.
At least you can’t say I’m not trying, but what’s a bad player to do?
Don’t get bogged down in semantics. His point is fairly clear even if you don’t agree with the terminology he coined to the two different things he’s referring to.
Issues are issues no matter what moniker you give them.
The point is not clear to me. Can you please explain it?
I have a policy of not arguing about which definition is “right”, so I won’t argue about whether the progression is horizontal or vertical.
What I will point out is that if they release a (hypothetical) second expansion, then the masteries in HoT won’t apply to the second expansion, so you are on even footing with someone who just buys the second expansion. That does solve a significant problem with expansions — you don’t need to play HoT to purchase and play future expansions. I do believe that was the intent here.
training the masterys maybe charracter bound: so I may like to train one mastery whit one of my toons. but once unlocked it is useble for all of my toons
but this is a flavor and I dont think it will be done
Actually, that was how I pictured it, but I also realize that we don’t know enough to be sure if it will work this way or not.
Anyway, it’s pretty clear that the majority want masteries to be account-bound.
However, for people like the OP, they also plan on releasing enough masteries to keep going. You will be able to go through it all again when they release another region.
Beyond that, though, they would need to complete certain events or personal instances before the waypoint is even seen.
This is also how I picture it and what I think they mean by “unlocking” a waypoint.
It’s clear that the expansion is about horizontal progression. However, I don’t think that excludes exploration. It’s just that it’s more of a challenge how to get places.
The ultimate answer to most of these questions is — because the expansion isn’t done yet, and may even change between now and release.
Why this one spot? Because it’s the most finished.
Why not UI for masteries? Because it may change before release.
Why just 1 mushroom? Because it’s probably not done.
Think about it from the dev team’s view — they have to finish that content enough to show it, so they’re going to focus on that one bit they’ve finished and polished.
Also, the community tends to react poorly when they remove/change stuff between previews and release. If something works differently, people feel lied to.
Besides, if they did show everything, everyone would say “Why isn’t it out already?”
Personally; I felt it was lackluster.
Why do they feel the need to limit our view of the area to this one spot?
Why couldn’t they show us the UI for masteries… that could have been interesting.
Why couldn’t they show us the other mushrooms or show us anything else other than gliding and that 1 jumping mushroom in the one particular piece of land.
Honestly; I believe they’ll be better off giving all of this information at once than giving us these small and insignificant pieces that mean barely anything. I feel like what they showed here could have easily been shown last week; or shown next week. At least if it was done last week that PoI would have felt more significant, if it was shown next week maybe we’d be a bit more excited to get more information.
In the end… this grain by grain feeding of information is only making people cynical and angry.. this is anti-hype.
You were right about “celebrate the year of the ram.” Good catch.
i hid the twitch chat and focused on noticing interesting things, like enemy names, and the fact that they have a festival on the dev client called “celebrate the year of the ram”.
also, that warrior had an F2 skill that was locked and hiding behind its F1 sibling for some reason.
and i’m not sure if we have all those booster icons in game (red MF booster for example).
I feel that a lot of concerns on this thread are abstract and revolve around the definition of “need.” I sincerely doubt that mobs will be completely immune to you, unless you have combat mastery. Does anyone actually believe that this is the case?
I suspect that you will need lore/hang gliding more than combat mastery to defeat bosses and that the non-combat masteries will be more of a gate. Why? Because the non-combat masteries let you access new areas, and content will be gated behind that.
With that in mind, I predict that people will argue about whether or not you need the combat masteries to defeat bosses, and that some people may even be able to defeat some content where masteries are considered necessary without the combat masteries that help, or at least without all that is expected at that point.
Further, we do have precedents — agony resist and guild wars 1 lightbringer rank. You can do lower-level fractals without agony resist, and skilled players can do fractals with less agony resist than less skilled players require. However, I could not in good faith claim that nobody needs any agony resist at all to do high-level fractals and that skill alone can compensate for agony resist.
So, in case it isn’t clear, my prediction is a bit mixed — some players will require more combat mastery than others to help clear content and that skill will be able to partially substitute for some of the mastery advantages but possibly not 100% replace them.
However, hang gliding will be a gate to content, and lore may even be as well. For that matter, lore might even give you combat advantages too!
Differences between masteries and gear grind — masteries are:
- Less random
- Allows more of a variety of content rather than the exact same raid
- Modular — masteries have usefulness in their own region, and aren’t necessary for other regions’ content.
Similarities between masteries and gear grind — both:
- require a lot of time and effort to obtain
- keep the player busy while devs create new content
- give players something to do, since it takes less time to play content than it does to develop it.
That’s language/lore mastery, not combat mastery. Similarly, you need hang-gliding mastery to reach certain regions and certain content.
Show me where it said that, you cannot fight without the combat mastery please.
“As you keep progressing in the lore with the Itzel they’ll start giving you access to special combat abilities that will help you overcome obstacles that you absolutely could not defeat before.”
Actually, you will have to do specific things — via the collections mechanic. It’s very easy to require someone to have done specific content to get a collection item.
1) Earn MP via achievements (or an achievments-like system that I will still call achievements).
2) Buy the track, slot it, and earn exp for it.
3) When you gain enough exp, you unlock a collection. You then need to do specific content to gain the collection items.
Some tracks will work this way (eg precursors), while others will not.
so basically to fill a bar of mastery track I just need to gain exp like I used to? like kill trash mobs or do events in any area?
I’m not sure how that works. But base on what the dev post, to acquire mastery point, you need to do a variety of things, which is not what the OP suggested.
IT seems you will need to do specific things for that particular track.
nope. that would’ve been cool.
the system, as described on the blog is “earn generic ‘mastery points’ by doing specific tasks that can only be done once per account, then use those points to unlock whatever mastery track you want. from there, you use exp gain to progress the unlocked track”
My interpretation was that you get MP from achievements (or something similar to achievements). MP will be rewarded retroactively based on achievements we have already earned. The tracks are intended not to be all maxed out simultaneously, in part because new tracks will be made available. MP will be used to unlock tracks and experience used to gain bonuses from tracks that are unlocked. Tracks will have tiers — with higher tiers requiring more MP to unlock and more experience to gain bonuses on the tracks. (What isn’t clear to me is whether a tier consists of a single bonus or a sequence of bonuses.)
It sounds like a reasonable system; however, it is hard to find a balance between people who are worried that they will max out too soon and people who are worried that they will be too restricted in their choices.
Expansions don’t always work that way — there is sometimes a little bit of mechanical content that spills over to people who don’t buy the expansion.
So, I do think it is a reasonable question.
It is entirely possible that the devs don’t yet know how things will work for people who don’t buy the expansion. However, their blog post on masteries suggests that you wouldn’t be able to get masteries without buying the expansion and precursor collections are unlocked via masteries.
If I were in charge, I would give away masteries for the original areas for free but you would need to pay for masteries in the new areas (implicitly because you can’t go into the new areas). That way, each expansion has a set of masteries independent of each other and you don’t need the first expansion to buy the (hypothetical) second expansion.
There’s a tension between pleasing your customers and encouraging your customers to give you more money. Giving some masteries and some precursor crafting ensures a loyal customer base that wants to give you money to support your continued existence (as well as get more content in the new regions).
Odd, I think we are getting new weapons, but I think it depends on what you mean by “new weapons.”
Are we getting new skills and playstyles for each profession? Yes, we are. A greatsword held by a Warrior is nothing like a greatsword equipped by a mesmer. They feel like totally different weapons. Can a necromancer currently equip a greatsword? No. So, in a sense, it will be a new weapon.
But wait. Maybe you meant a different physical item — not something you can already craft and hand out to another class already. Okay, so are we getting some of those? Yes, there will be new precursors and legendaries. We’ll even be able to get them in different ways — by completing collections.
But wait. Maybe you want weapons that look different. Will we get different looks for our weapons? Yes, I consider it extremely likely that there will be new skins. In fact, at least one of them looks like a polearm enough to confuse people watching the video. (Caveat: Said weapon might only exist in the artist’s imagination and might not actually be released as a weapon skin. I cannot know for sure.)
So, to sum up, we will be able to obtain new weapons we were not able to obtain before with new stats and new skills and new looks.
The only thing we don’t have is a new weapon class, which largely doesn’t add anything new above and beyond the new skills, new way of getting precursors, and new skins that we are already getting.
PS There is nothing stopping the team from adding polearms and allowing them to be used as another specialization in the future, but it would have to be in an expansion after this one. I don’t know if it’s ever going to happen, though.
My interpretation was that there weren’t going to be many zones. He seemed to be cushioning the blow by saying that they were concentrating on making areas more complicated rather than having many empty zones.
To some degree, I think he’s right. You can’t measure quality with a zone count. But I do think the zone count will be low enough for people to complain.
Almost definitely, especially if I can buy it with gems. :-)
In all seriousness, I tried several MMOs and two months ago settled on this one as better than the others I tried.
In my opinion, its biggest flaw is that it is too different from Guild Wars 1 — it appeals too much to PvE rather than focusing on the GvG that people liked in the first game. I think the end result is good, but appeals to a different fan base than the original. (In full disclosure, I never played the first one because I’m not a huge fan of PvP, so the style of GW2 is more to my liking, but I understand the perils of alienating your original fan base.)
The financial statement listed significant revenue increase in Q3, so early Q3 would be my guess. The anniversary would also be a good guess.
Is this the same prediction by 3rd party company that has suddenly been made official by the internet or something actually out of NCSoft.
http://i.imgur.com/Tu3G4R2.png
I maintain that no forecast is ever truly factual, no matter the source. It is a prediction, which can make for a good guess, and I did use the term “guess” on purpose. It does not prove anything, nor did I intend it as proof.
The financial statement listed significant revenue increase in Q3, so early Q3 would be my guess. The anniversary would also be a good guess.
These lore discrepancies seem minor to me, as a newcomer. They largely seem to consist of unreliable speakers and some wrong dates. All in all, not a big deal.
I’ve written lore on a team of writers before (but not for this game). Minor errors do come up occasionally. These don’t seem so bad to me.
Well said. I didn’t know about the forecast earnings increase, but that clinches it — there will be new gw2 product called “Heart of Thorns” (aka HoT) for sale around Q3.
Question is, are we getting anything until then? Doubtless, there will be a lot of hype generation for HoT, but I’m hoping we get something else in the meantime. Maybe a revamped Season 1? I understand the technical difficulties in doing that, but this would be a good time for it, if it’s ever going to be done. Creative new ideas will be reserved for HoT, but people will want something to tide them over, so the timing makes sense.
I won’t make prediction for the content on the expansion. But I can relatively safely make those prediction.
1) On the 24th January Anet will probably make a big announcement about the game at PAX South. An expansion? Paid or Free? Standard Box or download? Something else completely? Not only we knew that, but with the announcement at the end of the last video of the 8th episode we know its gonna be about not only the future of the game but about the name Heart of Thorns.
Source: http://south.paxsite.com/schedule/panel/guild-wars-2-beyond-the-point-of-no-return2) Whatever Heart of Thorns is, it will be advertises and will earn money to NCSoft, otherwise, there is no reason to protect the name with a trademark.
Source : http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2s9jp8/ncsoft_registers_trademarks_for_guild_wars_2/3) NCSoft project a HUGE increase in income from GW2 in Q3 2015.
Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2rw901/gw2_forecast_earnings_for_q3_2015_is_45x_more/So GW2 Heart of Thorns will be advertises, earn NCSoft a lot of money, and will be announce at PAX South on January 24th. If it smell, look, and feel like an expansion, its probably an expansion and It will likely be sold in 2015 Q3 so between July and September. My guess is that it will be released on August 28, which is the release date of GW2, its third anniversary.
Its still 6-7 months away. What will be happening between now and then? Season 3 most probably, but how many episode will we have. To which point the story of season 3 will go? We probably fight modremoth during the expansion, so season 3 will follow us trying to find a way to approach him and find the egg? Will we have some other break between now and the expansion? Will we have another feature pack or will they keep all that for the expansion?
Yes, this makes it take twice as long to sell anything. This bug is a problem for me.
It just strikes me as an odd thing to charge people for. Fancy weapon skins, convenient tools, additional storage/slots, ease-of-life features that aren’t necessary all make sense as things to charge for, but forcing to pay for the story makes it seem (to me) it would be better to just leave the story for expansions as they did in the old GW where they could charge their slightly-discounted box price everytime. Wouldn’t do much for the whole “living world” feel though.
I have the exact opposite opinion. I am annoyed at having to pay for more storage space — try to play with no storage/bank/inventory upgrades and see. (Yes, it’s common in other MMOs, but it’s the reason I didn’t stick with a couple of them.) More storage takes them no effort to develop, unlike story, which does take effort and time and money. So, it makes perfect sense to me to charge for things that cost them money to make.
Content takes money to develop, so I’m fine paying for content, as long as I don’t have monthly fees.
But, then they provided incentive to keep logging in, on the theory that it will cause people to play a little if they bother logging in, or at least it will keep people from forgetting that the game exists.
Okay, so you can pay a small fee for a small bit of content, or you can log in. It actually seems pretty fair, but… humans have this tendency to be unhappy if they have to pay for something other people get for free. It’s human psychology.
How long does Wintersday last? (I’m hoping it’s not just one day.)
Also, where is the entrance to Toypocalypse?
Traited Axe #5 brings in a lot of adrenaline that I can spam Burst as soon as cooldown. Of course having 50% base crit chance helps a lot.
We’re talking about PvE.
And this also applies to PvE. I use it quite often. Trying to either solo open world champs, or for higher level vets, etc. It has many uses. I like my Axe/Axe thank you very much.
That’s largely what I was doing myself with axe/axe. I could burst every time it came off cooldown.
Anyway, thank you for the control suggestions, but they don’t actually work for me. I am set up very differently than everyone else, and I don’t think I’ve ever clicked on a skill once either — not implying that other people do, just that I don’t do that either. I can press ‘3’ twice faster than I can press ‘v’ once, since I rest my fingers up there. That works for me. What doesn’t work for me is quick positioning of the mouse pointer because I’m on a trackpad, not a mouse, and that changes everything.
You can be hit while attacking with whirling axe, so you are unfortunately mistaken about that. It has no utility other than for building adrenaline, which can be done with literally everything else :P
It seemed that way from the animations, but I can believe that it only seemed that way.
Whirlwind is much easier to make use of if you change ground targeting to instant. You can change this in the settings: http://puu.sh/dw3le.png
It is by default on “Normal” which makes it more difficult to time it for evading. If you want to make sure that it goes in the direction that your camera is facing (forward), you can actually click on it.
What does instant do? Does it go where the mouse pointer is at that moment? Because my problem is that the direction it goes is effectively random. Or are you just using it to dodge and you don’t care where you end up. Does clicking make your character go the way the character is facing or the way the camera is facing (because they get out of sync during combat)? I’d really settle for “go in the direction of your currently selected target and possibly past that.”
I don’t understand what leads you to believe that you’re safer with axe offhand than with mace offhand?
Whirling axe doesn’t do anything but spin for 3.5 seconds dealing lower damage than autoattacks… :P
By the way when you get to the level that enables use of grandmaster traits you’re going to want to use Berserker’s Power, so burst skills will overall be a loss unless used at or near the end of a fight.
Both axe and mace offhands aren’t useful for defensive utility, but at least you can use tremor to interrupt mobs with on mace. Axe offhand you don’t really have anything for.
If you’re looking for situational defense, temporarily swap to a sword offhand for an extra block when fighting something that requires it.
Greatsword’s skills also can be used to play defensively, namely bladetrail to keep a mob crippled while you need to recover, whirlwind when you need an evasion and/or to maintain distance, and even GS rush to escape a fight or also to maintain distance. All the meanwhile dealing a hell of a lot more damage.
First off, I want to acknowledge that you do know what you are talking about — it’s just that I do tend to learn by arguing (even if I know I’m wrong), and I like knowing the reasons behind a suggestion.
As for whirling axe, I seem to be able to wander into the middle of a bunch of enemies, activate it, and see them locked into the “getting hit” animation the whole time. Basically, they can’t damage me while I’m whirling (though enemies outside my range can) — and gravelings can’t toss me around. However, once I realized that mace inflicts 10 stacks of vulnerability (not 1 — that was my reading comprehension error), I can see why that would be desirable. Also, Tremor apparently hits twice, which makes it better than when I thought it hit only once. I got my first exotic weapon from a random drop, and it was a mace, so I’ve been using that now.
As for Berserker’s Power, I haven’t unlocked it yet. If you’re using that, it does nerf rifle, since rifle is mostly about building adrenaline and using the burst skill (which does seem to be the most damaging of all the burst skills, but only for a single target).
As for Greatsword, I can’t aim Whirlwind and often end up in the completely wrong direction. Plus, I often run past with Rush. I’m sure other people can use it effectively, but I can’t — I just end up running around randomly.
Finally, as for sword, I just don’t know when to block, and you can’t block constantly while regenerating (unless you are a guardian).
It may also be that warrior is just not the style for me. It’s my first character and I wanted something easy to learn to start.
No, the rifle inflicts burning often enough in practice. I haven’t seen a lack of combo fields, though I have seen a lack of stacked healing. Yes, with the longbow you can self-combo, but in practice, that isn’t very useful.
When I pug, I find the opposite to be the case. Even then, I would argue that the blast finisher in the fire field — giving everyone nearby three stacks of might — makes up for the difference in auto-attack damage. Smartcasting is a plus for this.
Ultimately, it feels like you’re advocating a build that has the highest theoretical DPS under ideal conditions and for a specific situation and that if you need something other than DPS, the group is doing something wrong. That doesn’t always match up to the reality on my screen, and I find it problematic if people expect everyone else to do the same thing.
Warrior is one of the classes that tend not to bring much other than DPS in pugs. The longbow does offer some support, same with the 7-9 skills (especially banners + FGJ). Classes like guardian, mesmer, and elementalist bring a lot of utility to a party. As you get more experience, you find that once your group has sufficient utility you might as well add more damage to move things along faster.
You had mentioned axe/mace before. The mace 4 and axe 2 stack vulnerability, applying 14 vulnerability to those hit by both. You then proceed to axe auto-attack them down or swap to a greatsword and 2-5 cycle. And yes, although it is based on ideal dps, you can come quite close even with dodges and the like.
Thank you. Those are some very good points. I also admit that I misread the mace description and thought it only stacked 1 vulnerability instead of 10. That does make a difference to my opinion of it. Plus, I got my first exotic weapon — a mace — randomly, and have been using it. I haven’t been that impressed with the damage, but the 10 vulnerability makes the axe autoattack more effective.
I have been trying axe/mace + longbow. I am perfectly fine with axe/mace, but I do get into trouble faster than with axe/axe. (I still think Whirling Axe has some decent control that gets ignored, but that’s more useful for soloing — you can practically alternate between whirling axe and your burst attack and constantly lock down the enemy without taking damage yourself.)
I still consider rifle vs longbow to be situational (a single boss without adds might work better with rifle, but longbow can be more flexible). I, for the life of me, cannot use greatsword effectively, since I tend to run the wrong way when I use the mobility skills. Perhaps I could learn them in time, but it’s not my style.
I still think the weapons are more balanced than people think, but each fits better with a different situation, and the preferred weapons maybe fit better with the expected warrior role in a group?
(I still think a part of me wants to try Guardian or Necromancer as maybe fitting my preferred styles of play better. Warrior was supposed to be easy for a newbie.)
Those averages and percentages are based on data collected by someone who spent the time and effort to record each and every salvage to get a better idea of the true rate rather than what was reported by the text on each kit about the chance for a better tier of mats.
That’s totally valid. If the text on the kits are wrong and/or misleading, then that makes perfect sense. From my point of view, it looked like it might have been out of date (if the text was correct).
As for which column to use, experience? I don’t use it that much and only when estimating the average value of salvage rares back when I bought rares off the TP to salvage for profit. Haven’t done that recently. What mats can you mine in a map of that level?
Well, the exact table you linked to has -3c for every single entry, and it’s a bit confusing. When I reclick on the link, it is more sensible, but I’m trying to figure out if, say, the elder entry of the wood elder column, represents the return value of selling 1.85 elder wood logs 87.5% of the time and 1.85 ancient wood logs 12.5% of the time minus 3c for salvage costs. I’m not sure exactly how item level and materials dropped relate, but I had always imagined (and this is purely in my head) that as you increase equipment level the split gets more and more favorable towards the higher tier material, but I don’t know how the overlapping levels (ie 46-63 hard and 59-80 elder) work.
As for the Ecto/Dust conversions. Remember the TP prices on items are always changing and this chart samples every few minutes. The time since the last price check is at the top of the page. It assumes when buying you are buying at low sale price and when selling you are selling to high bid and lose 15% for TP tax. Salvaging ectos require a Master Salvage kit or higher which is 61.44c per use which I think is rounded to 61c.
That’s why I didn’t question the prices, but accepted them. Given the values stated, the calculations make sense (assuming 61c per salvage, which is what you get from buying master salvage kits with gold — perfectly reasonable — and assuming 15% TP tax). I get those calculations and they match what I can do on paper. That’s fine.
The cost per luck calculation is the part that doesn’t make sense to me. If you assume the other numbers are correct, I don’t see where the cost per luck comes from. In particular, if you can sell an ecto for more than you can sell the dust for, the cost per luck is positive, not negative. Also, if you assume that an ecto gives 104 luck on average, then the price differences divided by 104 does not equal the cost per luck stated. Either there is a hidden factor there, or something is wrong.
So when I started writing this […]
This is brilliant. If you wrote this, you’ve done a great thing to grab all the data and process it this way.
I’m also not arguing against your monetary calculations, only the step after that, where the cost per luck is not simple the difference / 104. Either there’s a step I’m missing, or there’s a small bug in that step of the calculation. I’m not intending to be disrespectful — I’m just pointing out either an error in the program or a lack of understanding on my part, and I’d like to figure out which.
- Um, my rifle inflicts burning all the time in combo fields. That’s what rifle does.
- What do you do when you are low on HP, continue with melee until you die? It seem better to me to dodge back and switch to range until my HP regenerates more. 80% damage is better than 0% damage.
Your rifle will only inflict burning when someone else has a fire field, Longbow has its own and also has projectile finishers, meaning it would be superior in that particular regard as well.
And in a proper group settings, running dungeons you will not be taking enough damage that you would need to retreat, heal stacking is what provides this ability, meaning you can purely focus on DPS. Also dodge….works great.
Well, I did my first fractal yesterday and went with an axe/mace + longbow setup. At the end of the Thaumanova Reactor, there was the Thaumanova Anomaly boss. After failing a few times, I switched to rifle and did much better. I totally believe that some people could do melee and still dodge the disappearing panels, but I personally could not. Longbow support wasn’t doing much, but rifle was doing decent damage — not as much as axe, but the rapid buildup of adrenaline let me do a good amount of burst. However, if you’re facing a horde of gravelings, you probably do want a longbow, and the horde scenario is more common.
“Your rifle will only inflict burning when someone else has a fire field, Longbow has its own and also has projectile finishers, meaning it would be superior in that particular regard as well.”
No, the rifle inflicts burning often enough in practice. I haven’t seen a lack of combo fields, though I have seen a lack of stacked healing. Yes, with the longbow you can self-combo, but in practice, that isn’t very useful.
“And in a proper group settings, running dungeons you will not be taking enough damage that you would need to retreat, heal stacking is what provides this ability, meaning you can purely focus on DPS.”
I can’t always rely on that being true (and you expect a proper group to do that but not create combo fields?). Plus, there are people who have the opposite view — that everyone should take care of themselves. Finally, one of the draws of this game for me was that there weren’t tank/heal/DPS roles.
“Also dodge….works great.”
I can often get out of red circles (which causes me to stop doing damage), but there’s so much chaos on the screen that I can’t see the animations for attacks. I can be at full health and take no damage and then suddenly get hit for half my health without knowing what happened. There are too many special effects. Finally, you can’t dodge constantly. Basically, I believe dodging to avoid damage works great for some people, but it’s not enough for me.
Ultimately, it feels like you’re advocating a build that has the highest theoretical DPS under ideal conditions and for a specific situation and that if you need something other than DPS, the group is doing something wrong. That doesn’t always match up to the reality on my screen, and I find it problematic if people expect everyone else to do the same thing.
There’s barely anything that you’ll ever need to range in a dungeon. I honestly can’t even think of anything besides Vahid (Melandru) in Arah P4 and maybe that dredge carrier in SE P3. Even those things you don’t have to actually range. It’s just how pugs usually do it.
Even if you do have to/want to range, rifle is generally speaking the worse option because of the fact that it doesn’t offer anything useful to a group. It’s single target and doesn’t inflict burning or have a combo field + blast finisher like longbow does.
It’s just a really trashy weapon for a warrior. There’s not much of any reason for you to be using it unless you want to roleplay as a soldier or something like that.
But ekarat.1085, if you plan to do dungeons I suggest Wethospu’s website http://www.gw2dungeons.net/ as he’s pretty much the best warrior there ever was as far as PvE is concerned (if I had to pick somebody). His website is full of very very useful and specific information for all encounters in dungeons & fractals, and if you want to make sure you’re a valuable dungeon slot you’d do well to take a look at it.
- Thank you for the dungeon link. I am reading it. I can’t absorb it all immediately on first read, but it will make learning the dungeons easier.
- Um, my rifle inflicts burning all the time in combo fields. That’s what rifle does.
- What do you do when you are low on HP, continue with melee until you die? It seem better to me to dodge back and switch to range until my HP regenerates more. 80% damage is better than 0% damage.
Why longbow over rifle? Why mace off-hand skills, even with axe main hand?
Well Purple Miku answered those already in his post, basically the Rifle does nothing while the longbow brings team support (might) and the offhand mace brings most damage compared to other offhands
I don’t buy that. Why is rifle “useless” while longbow is “support”? Both have support, and rifle does more single-target damage. The limitation on rifle is single-target, which is a valid issue.
As for mace, axe dual strike does more damage than mace crushing blow. Crushing blow does vulnerability, but spinning axe stacks a lot more. Plus, dual strike gives fury as a bonus. As for Whirling Axe vs. Tremor, both are terrible damage, so you have to think of them as control skills. Whirling Axe has control in the full circle, while Tremor is control in a narrow line.
Also, enough with the “use what you like” talk. I will be going into dungeons, so set me straight or suffer a clueless newbie taking up a valuable dungeon slot!
Why longbow over rifle? Why mace off-hand skills, even with axe main hand?
I’m disagreeing with Miku, despite the fact that I am a clueless newbie and Miku is stating well-established conventional wisdom. Why? Not because I think I’m right, but because I want to understand the reasoning. (There are probably cases where each answer could be right for that circumstance.)
In particular, I don’t understand why longbow is preferred over rifle and why the mace off-hand skills are not completely obsoleted by axe main hand.
I don’t even know where the entrance is. Presumably to one side of the front gate? At the very least, it’s going to take more than a few seconds to approach.
Anyway, I get killed in 2-5 seconds at range — well before I can see the front gate, let alone run through the others. There were snipers deliberately trying to prevent others from approaching. It was impressive.
Actually, another interpretation of that is that crude has 0% additional chance, but there is a 10% base chance anyway. Still, basic would then be 11% chance, not 12.5, so I still don’t get it.
Anyway, I still don’t see how the “Have Ecto, sell Ecto vs. sell Dust” calculation is negative or the “Buy Ecto, Sell Dust” portion is off by a factor of 10.
I would really like a chance to talk to the author.
That link’s pretty amazing, but I don’t completely understand the tables. If I have a level 60 wood weapon, which column do I use?
Unfortunately, the complete salvage tool isn’t finished yet.
I do have some questions on how up to date the tool is. Plus, I’m not sure about some of the calculations.
For example:
Luck from Ecto = 104
Ecto: 38s60c-40s19c
Dust: 21s25c-22s8c
Number of Dust per salvaged Ecto: 1.84
Buy Ecto, sell Dust = (buy ecto and salvage for 39s21c – 34s53c dust sale) = 0c.43 per luck
Have Ecto, sell Ecto vs. sell Dust = (34s16c ecto sale – 33s92c salvage and dust sale) = -0c.56 per luck
Buy Ecto, Sell Dust has a cost of 4s68c for 104 luck or 4.5c/luck, not 0c.43/luck.
Even worse, Have Ecto, Sell Ecto vs sell Dust has a sale price more than the salvage and dust sale price, so it should be a positive amount, not a negative one.
Also, are the following truly up to date?
Basic Materials Salvage Drop Rates:
Crude has 10% chance of higher tier
Basic/Infinite has 12.5% chance of higher tier
Fine has 13.75% chance of higher tier
Journeyman has 15% chance of higher tier
Master/Mystic has 16.25% chance of higher tier
BLSK has 22.5% chance of higher tier
Crude should be 0%, Basic 10%, Fine 15%, etc. The numbers don’t look right.
Can someone please explain “mobility” ? I’m getting the impression that it may not mean what I think it means.
Why forging? Forging is terrible. It’s only worth it if the weapon is less than 1/16 of the value of the average result of the higher tier. (Why? For every 16 weapons, you get an expectation of 1 of the higher tier back, assuming a 20% success rate. Note this includes getting back the same tier on failure — 5 rounds takes 20 but gives 4 of same and 1 upgrade)
Some useful information here, and some less useful information here.
I want to be able to calculate a “breakeven value” for the difference between selling and salvaging, and I want to calculate a “rarity value” for the difference between different salvage kits.
Now, it sounds like the “rarer materials” is a small enough effect and the difference between material costs low enough that you can ignore that. For runes/sigils, it’s easy to calculate. The main difference is luck and ectoplasm.
Quote from the wiki:
“Controlled tests1 estimate that Master’s and Mystic Salvage Kits yield 0.875 ecto/rare and Black Lion Salvage Kits about 1.25 ecto/rare:”
That times the price of an ecto gives me a value for that in rare/exotics.
Also, what about crude salvage kits? People say basic, but if there is no rune/sigil, why not use crude instead of basic? Is there a reason crude is worse than basic?
For luck, the wiki says “The salvage rate is not affected by the quality of the salvage kit.”
1 more followup:
I can research the value of a rune/sigil and do the math for the value of 1/5 of it versus 1/25 of the cost of the kit ==> 5x the rune’s value must be equal to the price difference of the kits to be worthwhile.
However, that ignores two other things. 1) What is the “chance for rarer materials”? 2) Does the higher value salvage kit do anything other than have more chances for runes or rare materials — like more resources salvaged? Even if 2) is nothing, then I still need to calculate an approximate value of the “rare materials.”
My usual method for level 80 stuff is salvage whites+blues with crude or basic kits, throw greens in the mystic forge (20% chance of getting a rare from them, which can then be sold, salvaged for globs of ectoplasm or forged again to roll for an exotic), salvage yellows that sell for less than the current price for one glob of ecto (~40s right now) with a mystic/master kit.
For items that are under level 65 I just salvage everything, as lower tier materials sell well.
If it’s an exotic, I first check if the rune/sigil sells for a high price. If yes, I use a Black Lion salvage kit. If not, mystic/master is good.
Wouldn’t a rare have to go for 16 times the amount of a masterwork for the forge process to be worthwhile? (80% chance of losing 3 masterworks vs 20% chance of losing 4 masterworks but gaining a rare = -3.2 master + .2 rare >= 0 => rare >= 16 master?)
Of course, that would require holding onto goods, but I don’t have enough free space for a single dungeon trip and have to sort through my inventory partway through. I usually use the trick of going back to open chests after everyone else is done. A dungeon does require ~30 slots free for a run. I’m not sure how people cope with that. After a run, someone suggesting trying again immediately. That would require 60 inventory slots free (well, more like 50, since some items can stack with the previous run). I’ve gone in with ~10 slots free and have managed to free up 28 slots at my best by getting rid of runes and sigils I can’t immediately use.
Most ppl I know use these rules.
- Basic Salvage kit for everything
- Master/Mystic Salvage kit for all rare. The price of ectos vs rare is linked, there is time where you should sell rare, but these time are usually short and you need to carfully follow the market for that.
- If you have black lion salvage kit, salvage all exotic that sell for less than 1,5gold. If they sell more than 1,5 gold then check if its the exotic that sell or it it the sigil/rune inside of it that sell for a lot. Usually, when it’s because of the sigil/rune you are better to salvage it with a black lion salvage kit and sell the sigil/rune.
- If you don’t have black lion salvage kit. Do the same thing, but the threshold should be around 1 gold.The threshold of 1 gold and 1,5 gold for exotic is not precise. It’s an easy trick to remember, and use. The situation is more complicated than that, these threshold change over time and depend on a lot more variable. But these amounts that I choose work fine most of the time even if they are not exact.
You bring up a point that I’m not clear about. When you say “sells for”, do you mean in terms of printed value or value of that item in the auction house? If you mean auction house, how does rune/sigil make a difference for that? Is there a different entry for each rune/sigil, or do all base items have the same entry? I was assuming the category was for base item and runes/sigils were either stripped out or effectively random. (I’m a newbie, so I really don’t know.)
I’m trying to save up to get gems for an inventory and/or bank upgrade. I just hit level 80, and I have 25 gold.
I’m trying to figure out how best to earn gold (and the dungeon once-per-day-per-dungeon bonus is the best I’ve found so far), but that’s not the focus of this thread. The focus of this thread is how to figure out when to sell and when to salvage equipment. If you are going to salvage, which kit is best to use for which equipment.
For the most part, I salvage (almost) everything. Almost, because it’s hard to pass up 50 silver for an item when all I have is 25 gold in total.
Sigils/Runes seem to be worth what you can sell them for to a shopkeeper (or at least the ones I researched were). That gives you a fixed value that you can calculate 20% probability x 25 uses of a salvage kit to give you an expected return for salvaging those runes. It’s less clear how many more materials (including rare materials) you will get by using better kits and whether the salvaged materials will be worth more or less than the original equipment. However, I figure that if people will buy that equipment, then it must be worth that much to salvage, assuming I’m using the appropriate level of salvage kit.
So, if all that is true, what is the best way to match up salvage kits with items? Does anyone want to suggest a different way of looking at things? Have I made any assumptions that are erroneous? (Pointers to gold making threads are also fine, but not the focus of this thread.)