Guild Wars 2

I wish there was more moa racing also — it’s a great way to pull gold out of the economy in a completely optional way (unlike other gold sinks like way-points which are penalizing if you don’t use them).

There’s a difference between the gem-store coffers and the coffers that drop from mobs. Don’t compare tickets on the two.

Nobody in our guild has received a ticket from a mob-dropped coffer, and we’ve opened thousands. In addition, there is no listing of a ticket for regular dragon coffers on the wiki (yeah I understand the wiki is not the absolute truth in matters).

Kal Spiro.9745:

Killing mobs isn’t a gamble because you’re not killing to the mobs for the express purpose of acquiring a specific thing, you are killing them to get XP, or to complete an event, which is a consistent reward. The loot is an added bonus on top, but should not be the objective. With gambling the objective is the profit.

Not 100% true. I’m level 80 so I kill mobs for one reason and that’s the express purpose of acquiring specific materials. That is my total, unadulterated objective.

Don’t lose site of the forest through the trees. It doesn’t matter that moa racing is gambling — that’s exactly what it is, period. However it’s an MMO with lots of other deranged things that you are forced to do. If you object to something in the game, then DON"T DO IT. If you don’t have that option then DON’T PLAY THE GAME.

The power is completely in your hands — completely.

Lily.1935:

playing the moa races made me feel sick. I’m against gambling. I come from a family who has a problem with addiction and I’ve known people who had this problem. It was very uncomfortable for me to do, and I ended up just minimizing the screen so I didn’t have to look at what i was doing.

Then why did you participate in moa racing at all?

It’s just a game and there are multiple avenues to achieve the wing reward. There was absolutely no reason to do it — did you really need the 5 achievement points that bad?

I just zoned out of overflow and got a second point, but again for a 3rd place race. So I’m 2 of 3 in the achievement with 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, and 3rd finishes.

Wierd.

I’ve won three races (3rd, 2nd, 3rd) and for some reason have only received credit for the very first race (3rd place) in the Winner’s Circle Achievement.

Am I understanding the achievement wrong, or is it broken?

Nothing on the wiki regarding winner’s circle either.

@Zacchary — so three of you took down one thief and ONLY after using a purchased trap and coordinated AoE. Yeah we don’t need any tweaks to stealth (sarcasm)

@FinalPatriot — WoW and SWTOR also have enhanced detection traits, reveal skills, and NO RESTEALTH IN COMBAT (except for a single skill on huuuuge c/d). So no, it’s not even close to the same.

I’m not against the stealth mechanic, but it is a bit much in it’s current state. If everyone was honest about it, they’d admit that clones and stealth are a tier above ALL other class mechanics in PvP/WvW. My main is a mesmer and although I can spot a real mesmer rather easily in a fight, many players still whack on my clones rather than me.

The real advantage to EM is the synergy with AH. You get 5x AH heals when your crit, capped at on per second. At level 80, that’s roughly 75 health per heal (x5 for 375). That’s not too shabby if you pull off frequent crits.

My problem is I only put 20 pts into the vit trait line, and I have to choose between EM and 2H Mastery. I prefer the 2H Mastery since it effects a large group of weapons. A 20% reduction in wep skills is a 20% increase AH heals from skills like symbols, empowerment, etc.

What’s the point of this topic?

Saying “I’m a good player” doesn’t make it so… why would you ever expect a favorable response in a semi-public forum?

ditto on the “people hate braggarts”, so true. Humility is good, you should try it sometime.

You can easily “guest” onto another world where the temple is unlocked.

Check out the gw2stuff website and it’ll show you a list of servers and event statuses.

eveleaf.4132:

When I see someone running around with a legendary, I respect that achievement because I know they played the kitten out of every aspect of the game – including the aspects I (or they) find annoying or tedious.

Actually when I see someone running around with a legendary, I usually think gem-store. I honestly feel most players toting a legendary are doing so with financial assistance from trading gems for gold.

You can “buy” your way through nearly all of the grind except for exploration and badges (and those are the only “play-the-game” aspects of the Legendary anwyay). Hell, you can even flat-out buy the legendary off the TP.

Most players in our guild that have a legendary have done so with cash-shop assistance or with player assistance.

You’d have to crit once a second at just the right time to maintain the maximum 5 stacks on yourself. In practice I rarely get more than 3 sustained stacks. With a GS it’s higher because the 3rd swing of the auto-attack chain also grants might.

There’s not too much the Dev’s can respond with. You certainly aren’t going to get a “yeah this is correct, we’re going to redesign it in the next expansion…”. That would just eat up engineering expenses for no corresponding benefit in revenue (in the short term).

The Holo mobs are still needed for the “kill 300” achievement which is why many players are still farming them I think.

I completed it this morning around 9AM EST since I was about the only player in Lornar’s Pass.

I use staff for melee range, not mid-range because:

- bounces hit me, and hit me fast
- eliminates the pain of the slow #1 projectile.
- allows me to lay various ethereal fields on top of both me and my foe (chaos storm, NULL field).
- clone creation and shatters at point blank range (including self-kittener)

Yeah I know sword is really good for this, but I find staff the most fun in melee.

Side note: I prefer to use NULL offensively because of it’s devastating effects on bunkers. If I get to stand in it too, bonus!

Other sources of reflection that don’t require focus (nor the focus “reflection” trait):

• Feedback (yeah I know, duh)
• Mirror (15s c/d heal with 2s reflect)

If you roll with Centaur then Mirror is almost mandatory given the cooldown. I thought I’d hate it but I love it. Just spam in a fight if you are not at 100% and taking range damage. It’s on such a short c/d you can use it a lot.

Yeah it’s gambling… but there are so many other moral failures in MMOs… drinking, killing, stealing, smoking… did we mention killing?

Oh yeah, and killing.

If you object on moral grounds to the moa racing, then please also stop killing things — otherwise we’ll say you have no objection to murder.

I run GS and Staff in WvW with Centaur Runes and Mirror (for heal). The build is 0/20/20/0/30 with shatters, +dmg/illusion, etc.

This is my favorite so far in WvW. The GS is great for the ranged battles and dolyak tagging. The Staff is great for melee battles and shatters.

The Centaur Runes are a must for this build and once you get over the loss of your favorite rune, you’ll be happy for the change. It’s nearly perma-swiftness, especially with some +boon food.

Mirror is really really fun in WvW. You can spam it and reflect those pesky riffle warrior adrenal skills, pistol thieves, longbow rapid fire rangers, etc.

EDIT: “Mirror” sorry not “Mirror Images”

I play staff up close so the change doesn’t impact me much. I feel staff is not really a good range weapon anyway.

I don’t think this was an intentional nerf. I think it was a side-effect of another change. That happens often when writing software for a complicated system with lots of inter dependencies.

If you do try 0/20/20/0/30 with the staff, don’t neglect power. You’ll need the power. Some players think staff is a pure condition weapon — I disagree. It can hit pretty hard and at point blank range with the bounce trait it’s 2x dmg.

The iWarlock can hit like a truck when it crits with high power as well.

I shoot for 1800+ power, 1800+ toughness, 40% crit chance. Anything on top of than (including crit dmg, condi dmg, etc) is bonus. Remember you’ll have 300 condi dmg anyway from 30 in the mez trait line.

Retrospek.4583:

So, let me get this straight, you are against gambling because you don’t believe in it in real life, but it’s okay to murder and kill things for money and loot?

I love this — tyvm!

I kill over 1000 mobs last night including helpless bunnies for Dragon Chest drops. Players are worried about “virtual gambling”?!?!?!?

Hypocritical to the extreme.

I agree with this, but also taking it a step further. They should be account bound from creation (BoA not BoE).

I think it impacts the component market when folks can make and sell the Legendary. If the legendaries are by account, then the only motivation to make one is because you actually want one. This keeps materials in the market for those players.

That being said, I don’t think there’s a serious number of players actually crafting legendaries to sell — but the TP may prove me wrong.

I think the event is very well done so far. I love the phenomenal drop rate on the regular chests. I don’t care that they are mostly candy, it’s fun opening stacks of them at a time… lots of fun. The reward is certainly worth the effort. In addition, there’s no reason to really farm the Holo nodes except for the “Kill XXX Holo mobs” achievement. I got more chests from farming trash mobs (which are not in scarce supply).

RNG complaints should be left for the purchased boxes — those are the ones that may hold a ticket (not the normal drop ones). However there’s an easy action to take if you don’t like ANet’s approach on the gem-boxes…. don’t buy them. Speak with your money, you’ll be heard.

I throw the red flag on this post — it seems more like market manipulation to me. Yesterday the normal coffers were selling for 8sp on the TP. There’s really no reason for them to be that high.

There are no tickets in the normal coffers. Our guild has opened a few thousand now with no tickets. In addition the wiki shows no data that a ticket can be obtained.

If you want to chance it, fine — but this clearly smells like someone trying to keep the price high in order to “SELL SELL SELL”.

Switch to 0/20/20/0/30 and run staff. Stack power and toughness in your gear stats.

Staff is an excellent up-close-and-shatter-your-face weapon. With the c/d trait and the extra bounce trait it’s a lot of fun.

These events get better and better. From what I’ve seen so far, this one is executed great.

I like the rate at which the dragon bags fall, even from trash mobs. Opening stacks of twenty at a time is great fun. Even if they’re mostly filled with candy, the rewards more than match the effort required.

To anyone who says ANet doesn’t listen to feedback, this recent patch should prove that wrong (if any proof was even needed). Just look at ectos salvaging into dust — if that’s not a great example of community feedback driven change, I don’t know what is.

I think folks are getting confused on making money crafting. Here’s an example:

Rare Level 80 Greatswords: 34.48 silver (nearly across the board on the TP)

Crafting these weapons requires:

24 mithril ore (blade, hilt, dowels): 10.08 silver (42c per)
6 elder wood logs (dowels): 2.64 silver (44c per)
15 T5 materials: varies, but a cheap on is Large Bones == 14.25 silver (95c per)

So if you would have just sold your mats you would have made 26.97 silver (in this example).

The net for making a lvl 80 Carrion Krait Slayer is really 6.38 silver (this includes the 15% fees between the two prices).

Now if you sell 100 of these you made 6.4gp — that’s not bad, but folks aren’t becoming rich overnight.

The DCs, skill-lag, and culling are the only problems I have with the event. These are pretty serious problems however.

The DCs are fairly new — only occurring since the Game Update for the queen event itself. They did not happen to me at all for any of the prior southsun content (recent content — not the original southsun which was a lag/DC fest).

You are right RandomFightFan that you can use team work, the game doesn’t prevent it. However the game doesn’t really require it (again with some exceptions). If you use some team work the game is that much more rewarding.

If all you have to do is nuke things down, faster is better, DPS is best.

Nobody is saying there shouldn’t be solo content. However if there’s team content, it should actually require team work — not just a collection of five people that happen to be killing mobs together.

Honestly very little teamwork is required in this game as currently designed. There are exceptions (like anything in life), but most content is not requiring any role other than DPS.

AndrewSX.3794:

juno.1840:

How is this wrong?

Check the ranged options of scepter, GS, and staff, and maybe pistol. For a flat-out power build, GS is the highest sustained damage at range.

At which range?

(not a irrilevant question.)

The OP said “at range” which to me implies that you are not in melee, or even mid range, but at the range of the weapon.

Agreed that if you are using a GS in “melee” that it is not the best, and may actually be the worst. However that’s not “at range” and clearly not what the original poster said.

I got a shark’s tooth axe skin from one chest. My friend got a ticket. Does that count?

I like it quite a bit and overall I’d say that it was fun and worthwhile.

PROS:
- great content to farm for drops
- achievements were fine and had reasonable effort
- events were generally challenging and rewarded well for the effort involved

CONS:
- Too much quest text to read through. As a result I didn’t really “get” the Canach story at all.
- Soon it’ll be over — goodbye +200% MF

Dub.1273:

Alissah.9281:

Greatsword has the highest ranged damage in a power build.

Wrong.

How is this wrong?

Check the ranged options of scepter, GS, and staff, and maybe pistol. For a flat-out power build, GS is the highest sustained damage at range.

randomfightfan.4091:

Sure there is skill in the “holy trinity”, but it’s nothing compared to a game where the best defensive tool is dodging (controlled entirely by the player and their ability to implement it). I’ll always be more impressed with a person who is able to avoid all forms of damage through timing and coordination more than I’ll be impressed with people who are able to out tank all the damage and healing themselves (or getting healed) constantly. Tanking takes better gear, dodging takes better skill.

There’s no coordination or skilled “team” play with dodge. It’s just a short term damage aversion which is only required because you have very few forms of sustained healing, although there are other forms of damage mitigation such as the protection and aegis boons.

There are some ways a skilled team can “coordinate” to avoid damage, but Kab’s point is that it’s not really required to succeed (where as a healing role is required in a trinity design). If a role is not required to succeed, then maybe it’s not really a defined role, or the game is not designed to utilize the roll well.

In fact if dodge was removed from GW2, you would magically see a greater need for the support role because teams would die without it.

I like the idea, although down-scaling doesn’t work so well. I crazy powerful running around on my level 80 in a level 12 area.

However this would distribute players across the map (at least to the sweet lowbie farming spots for T6s). That could be considered an advantage — unless ANet doesn’t want new players to see the dirty laundry of T6 grind.

So I got one of these mobile mystic toilets from a southsun crate that dropped. And part of me thought… “wouldn’t it be a nice easter egg to have a higher precursor drop rate from the mobile forge”…

Anyone try it out?

shimmerless.4560:

I have to say, when I first read up a bit on the Clovers, I was prepared for a good reaming… and then I was rather underwhelmed. Two of the mats needed can be bought for karma and skill points, and one you get for free with your Daily. In the end it’s just an Ecto trade, and Ectos aren’t the most painful thing in the world to come by.

I really don’t think Clovers are all that bad but maybe it’s just me.

It’s not the materials really — it’s the fact that the experience can differ from player to player. That’s pretty bad when it comes to game design. One player can be very lucky and hit 40% (and use 192 ectos). Another player can be very unlucky and hit 20% (and use 385 ectos). That’s a rather extreme range but it’s possible. There shouldn’t be potential for such extreme disparity between players trying to do the same thing. That’s why RNG is bad design for crafting.

Anyway I finished my 77 clovers last night using a grand total of 292 ectos/shards/coins for a return of 26.4%. This was 59 ectos more than the “average” which is disappointing. I essentially had to pay 12g more for my 77 shards than the average player — for no reason other than RNG.

EDIT: This was also 59 extra skill points and 59 extra mystic coins. Now I need to grind out 59 more levels to “catch up” with the average player making clovers for their legendary. This is a problem because I’m shy the additional 200 needed for final gift. I’m sure they’ll come while grinding out the rest of my T6 mats…

Maybe a skill that spawns three phantasms when used (signet of spirits anyone?).

It couldn’t be a mantra obviously since that would be totally OP. A signet would be cool but what passive could you pair with such awesomeness?

FinalPatriot.8034:

…and then die to an up-leveled ranger.

I never die to WvW rangers (up-leveled or otherwise). I usually regard them as free badges.

For PvP a shortbow pet ranger is only a challenge when running as a staff condition bunker mesmer. I eat them up with my GS mesmer.

@Xavi:

Because this build rewards running with max illusions. When keeping three illusions up I deal 9% more damage, and take 9% less damage. In this mode of operation the illusions will typically die from direct attack rather than shatters. This penalizes nearby foes with AoE confusion (although a trivial amount).

If I were to run as true shatters I would probably drop the +3% damage and -3% incoming damage traits and convert to 0/20/20/0/30 with Shattered Strength instead -- which would be more in line with Osicat’s guide.

Mice.8921:

@Juno – no, not a full bunker build, and I do understand what you mean – that’s why atm I’m trying shatter, it gives my some decent burst…

@Osicat – thanks for the number – I’ll check my build and see where I fall!!!

@Jarettellis – I would actually be interested in seeing that build – I love stealthy builds on my thief so I would love to have one for my mesmer too!

I run a hybrid shatter build with centaur runes as well. I like this setup a lot in WvW:

http://tinyurl.com/mjr9b35

The gear selection is important in this build in order to get power up towards 2k, and keep crit chance above 45%. I also wanted toughness near 1800.

You can swap out Portal with Blink when required. When soloing I’ll do that as well as swap out Feedback for Decoy, and Time Warp for Mass Invis.

Greatsword is for ranged combat, staff for mid/short range. I shatter when using the staff.

This is one build out of many possibilities, you’ll definitely want to check out Osicat’s guide as well (it’s excellent).

Everything Nevhie said is spot on.

Also it’s auto-attack is fast and pulses many small attacks over the duration. This is good for:

1. Tagging (especially dolyalks in Wvw). iZerker is also good for multiple-mob tagging.
2. On-Crit effects from Sigils
3. Vigor on Crit trait

From range the GS damage is excellent. As mentioned it’s not as good up close, but that’s when you switch out to Staff (really an up-close type of weapon) or Sword (totally awesome as well).

The AR requirement in fractals is a good example of player selection. There’s no rule that says if you finished fractals 10 that a group must allow you into fractals 11. However a team will be disadvantaged (sometimes seriously) by bringing in a player with insufficient AR. This is possibly the best example of an inspection feature you could make.

I played WoW and it was elitist for PuG Raids. It was never elitist for dungeons, and the dungeon finder pretty much eliminated showing anyone a gear score. To get into a high level raid you needed to be in a Raid Guild. This is no different than in GW1 in some high level areas like FoW, UW, and the Gate of Anguish. PuGs typically failed unless they took the time to train up players (and those were usually guild-run pugs). This is not a bad system… you essentially join a guild and learn the ropes. PuGs are not ideal for learning the ropes.

There is no aspect of GW2 other than high level fractals right now that should scare anyone regarding elitism and an inspect feature. All the content is simple for any group. However I would like to know if a player is running MF gear at the expense of the rest of the team. You can view that as a form of leeching unless the team concurs you can wear your MF gear.

Make Portal an elite skill, make Mass Invis. a utility skill.

Mass Invisibility is rather unimpressive as an Elite — it’s a great skill, just not really a game changer like the Manifesto says an Elite should be. Portal on the other hand is very powerful in a skilled player’s hands.

Unrelated: Please make Mass Invis. “instant cast”. A stealth skill that lasts 5 seconds should really happen instantly. This is especially true for an Elite skill. The 1.75s cast time is a bit excessive for a non-damage dealing, limited duration, situational skill.

FYI – Dawn was 600g the other day. It varies, but it’s not always 450g.

Also people are not saving 460g for a gift of fortune. They are working there ends off gathering up the materials. Yeah they could sell for 460, but then they’d have to farm them again. That’s the whole point.

I think the precursor would easier to swallow if it wasn’t RNG where the experience of obtaining it varies from player to player. Some players get it easy with a few tries of the MF, others incur significant costs because they weren’t lucky with the RNG. That’s a bitter pill.

How would this help the player base as a whole? If it slows down the vet spawn rate, everyone suffers (because it’s not like the campers are going to go away).

The problem with a bunker build (0/0/25/25/20 or 0/0/30/30/10) in WvW is that enemy players can just turn tail and run from you. You won’t die, but neither will they. So having just enough DPS to wear your opponent down isn’t ideal for WvW. Some burst is necessary imho.

That being said, you can complement your bursty DPS build with toughness gear. I would recommend that over a pure bunker build. (NOTE: I don’t think you were asking about a pure bunker build, so don’t get me wrong. I just felt compelled to talk about it specifically.)

Yes the certainly will go up in price over time. Look at candy corn — it has doubled since halloween.

Honestly I couldn’t figure it out initially and my clones pretty much finish Canach off with confusion (pre-condition fix).

Afterwards I was like “Hmmm I know I didn’t do that right…”

I didn’t bother going back in for more runs as I didn’t care to figure it out. I agree with previous posters that the skills are “disarm” skills in the description which is counter-intuitive to the goal. Better tool tips would help, like “rearm”, “rewire”, or “retrigger”. Something other than disarm.

Agreed that you could probably read your way though it, but GW2 is suppose to be a game without “mountains of text to read” per the manifesto. It’s a “visceral and visual” game that’s very “intuitive”.