Guild Wars 2

Have the daily achievement have a zone focus. For example:

1. Kill 60 foes in <place zone here>
2. Kill 15 different types of foes in <place same zone here>
etc.

Hammer is a superior guardian weapon. The damage is often greater than GS — see AH build post that stickied to the top of the guardian thread for DPS comparisons.

The control of the weapon is superb.

Finally the protection buff is amazing and provides the single greatest survivability boost of any guardian weapon. We already have lots of heals going on. Given our mechanic is to out-last damage through regeneration, the use of protections makes us 33% more guardian.

Aye.8392:

Really, it is far too devisive as it stands now for people who want to play fractals with guildmates and friends. PUGS can keep spamming for appropriate level players for as long as it takes, but guild members are always forced to downlevel their play. The current system is not good for guilds.

This is a great point.

I’m the only lvl 80 guardian and lvl 80 mesmer in my guild. My guard is at lvl 11 in fractals, my mesmer at lvl 2. There are times we really need my mesmer (like when another tanky guild member is in the team). Other times my guardian is desired (like when we have a lot of glass on the team).

Regardless I’m the same player, I put in my time to level a toon through fractals 1 – 10. Why should I have to replay it on my mesmer? It penalizes me and my guildmates.

I think the con can be alleviated by removing the lvl restriction, or making the restriction the “highest obtained level” for any play on the team instead of the “lowest obtained level”.

Agreed this lets players skip through to the high levels if they find a buddy that made it that far. What harm is this other than the possibility of some very inexperienced PuGs wiping on high lvl content?

Another alternative is to enforce the gating starting at lvl 10 instead of lvl 1. I’m not sure this is a real fix as it just postpones the original problem.

I’m hoping for some references to previous dev posts. I’m not sure any exist on this specific question.

It’s been discussed before, but I can’t find anything in reddit or any other source.

Does anyone know if there are future development plans to fix the exploration “star” either on the clones or on the mesmer itself?

This is a concern for me in PvP. In WvW not so much as that’s not really balanced to begin with (since star or not will be of zero help in a zerg).

Background: After completing 100% map exploration, the player gets a gold “star” next to their name. The star is an easy identifier for the “real” mesmer in PvP as the clones do not have the same star by their name. The star is exceptionally easy to spot because it floats in the name above your head… no targetting is required.

The rewards are indeed account bound, but this restriction is a burden to Players who have alts. I have two toons I really enjoy (guard and mesmer). If my team really needs my mesmer, why should they be penalized because I leveled fractals with my guard.

Conversely why should I have to regrind lvls 1 through 10 just to get my mesmer to the same point as my guard. It’s a complete waste.

This game is not a charity so why should I be forced to regrind to keep some players in the 1-9 ranks?

I think it would be a nice anti-grind improvement to track a player’s fractal progression by account rather than by character.

Pros:
1. eliminate repetitive grind for players that play many toons
2. freedom of play

Cons:
1. May reduce number of players doing low lvl fractals (since you can do lvl 1 once and be done with it).

I’d argue that the con is acceptable. It’s an artifical problem created by the design of fractals having levels to begin with.

I have an 80 guard, 80 mesmer, and I’m working on my engineer (currently lvl 11). I thought the mesmer was complex, but the Engineer has it beat. Guard is the simplest of the three.

At low levels a Guardian will feel very powerful (like OP). However by the time you get to 80 it’s power feels on-par with the other professions (or even a bit less powerful DPS wise). A guardian can be extremely squishy or extremely robust depending upon the build.

I know you didn’t ask about Mesmer, but for comparison purposes to a guard, the mesmer is very underpowered until level 40-ish. At that point it picks up and becomes a complete powerhouse at level 80.

I don’t know how Engineer will turn out at 80, but I’ve been PvPing with mine and I have to say it can be as survivable as the Guardian, or even more so (amazing I know). The amount of CC with the Engineer seems incredible compared to the Guardian.

You’re well off with either choice — you can even play both if time allows (which it sounds like not).

Asura was the race… don’t remember the name. The map was Temple of the Silent storm.

I had a rough go on that map between this skilled engineer and a different group which was a roaming ele + thief + ranger. I don’t expect to survive a 3v1 for very long, but I consider it a victory if I can hold out a while as that allows my team a 2-up somewhere else.

The engineer I ran into 1v1 and I could not do beans against that player. I’m pretty sure I died in that fight from all the conditions, but there may have been a roamer that came in afterwards from behind.

What PvP build was this engineer using?

I just got into PvP last week and I’m really enjoying it. I’m only rank 5 at this point. I play a hammer guardian and love to park on control points or cycle between two adjacent points.

Anyway I ran into a Engineer yesterday who completely out-played me. It was like watching art. This Engineer also had a build which shut me down a lot (but not in an unfair way — he was just good!). Afterwards I hopped onto my little-played Engineer to try and reverse-engineer it (heh, pun?). I’m not having much success so I’m asking the community. Here are the details I know:

1. Dual pistols
2. Turrets (although my have been from elite instead of utility)
3. Locked me down often with daze, immobilize, cripple, and an occasional knock-down. I think this was mostly from glue-shot, net turret, and pistol 4 (but not sure). Also no clue where the knock-down was coming from.
4. When I did land some hammer blows it did not do as much damage as I expected. The sequence of hammer3 + full-hammer1 + hammer2 took off around 25% of health (give or take). This includes burning from F1 which he may have purged quickly. He may have been standing on an elixer — not sure.
5. I’m not sure if he had any speed boosts since he could stop me often. I think he was a bit more mobile than me but he was also out-playing me greatly.
6. I didn’t see him break out any kits although it’s possible. There were frequent AoE circles on the ground around him which I thought might have been from turrets. One of these AoE circles would knock me back/down if that helps identify the source.

Any thoughts related to his build?

Some applications of protection require no skill at all. The only example I can think of right now is the Guardian hammer auto-attack chain. You get protection from the symbol created on the final attack. Protection in this case happens simply from auto-attack and is not really something you’re going to “time” to skillful perfection.

Other application like “Hold the Line” and a traited Virtue of Courage can be applied skillfully.

Redswitch.6198:

juno.1840:

Don’t go glass cannon and skip out on your other attributes.

Why would you not go glass canon? Especially at range and with so many ways a mesmer can escape dangerous situations using defensive stats is nothing more then a dps loss imo.

It’s not as good in WvW and PvP imho, but play how you like. These discussions are all opinion based honestly. In PvE there will be times where a bit of extra toughness and vit will save your life and help your team.

JaironKalach.4938:

juno.1840:

try to envision some aspect of the game you hate being on the monthly every month.

But it’s already there. The action it would require of me is playing more than I find fits my schedule. Yet I’m not posting a complaint, because I understand that by not meeting the requirements, I’m not entitled to the reward. I might post in suggestions a request that there be a monthly achievement for a player with less time, but I see no reason that the existing achievement should be changed just to fit me.

Again the use of “entitled” which completely misses the mark.

It wasn’t a discussion of “time” — it was a discussion of “enjoyment”. Every one of the monthly achievement items changes from month to month except the WvW kills requirement. Folks are asking for that to change as well (some folks asked that it be removed as it doesn’t fit with a pure PvE achievement).

Lastly you did very little “envisioning” as I described in my post. Zero points on your ability to empathize…

Veldan.4637:

Why does everyone think they are entitled to get the monthly no matter what they play? If you don’t play WvW then the monthly isn’t for you.

Keep “entitlement” garbage out of the discussion please — it’s assinine and not a constructive conversation.

Nobody here asked to receive the monthly for “free” or “zero effort”. Some players are simply expressing their frustration that the monthly achievement continuously has a specific slice from the game which is WvW. It’s there every month.

If that particular slice of the game is unappealing, then you are perpetually forced to “suffer” through it for the monthly, or you avoid the monthly. To that group of players, it’s a lose-lose choice.

I personally enjoy WvW, but I don’t fault players who dislike it. Try not to belittle other players in the community simply because you like something they don’t. A bit of empathy goes a long way too… try to envision some aspect of the game you hate being on the monthly every month.

Zombie.2310:

And as said, it is possible to get fully equipped without even touching a single ecto.

Depends upon your definition of “fully”. I would say no if fully is ascended. If it’s exotic, well you can avoid “touching” ectos by buying the end-items from the TP. As mentioned before, you cannot use karma for exotic jewelry. So ultimately the price of ectos does impact your ability to get “fully” equipped. Don’t belittle it.

It is strange to tie a single crafting material to 100% of all high-end gear.

I’d actually remove them as “armors” and replace them as “skins”. Think of HoM rewards for the Heritage armor pieces. This would remove all discussion about the “value” of the items as “armor” — because let’s admit it, the value is horrible as armor.

However their value as “skins” is probably justified in their current price.

Ayrilana.1396:

1. WvW is technically not pvp in a sense. While you do fight other players, there’s much more to it than a simple pvp match.

There are a TON of things to do in WvW — which makes it even more disappointing that the achievement is simply “kill 50 players”. That type of achievement does force you into a direct PvP mode of play. In WvW this is achieveable only in a zerg (reasonably — yeah you could solo 50 players but in a much greater length of time).

It would be nice to have the monthly use additional or alternate metrics such as “15 events completed in WvW”. I don’t want to argue about the “15” in this example, but rather discuss the example itself.

I love WvW so in this case I get the monthly simply for “playing the game”. I think that was the intent with the monthly, however there are many ways to play the game. It’s impossible to satisfy 100% of the player base.

1. No monthly subscription fee
GW2 has this but it’s tarnished a bit by the cash shop. Comon do I really need to buy a BL salvage kit to reliably get my upgrades off my gear or pull ectos out of my yellows? Yeah I do

2. No grind to max your toon
GW2 fails here miserably. The gear treadmill exists and has actually grown since launch. Even the go to level 80 seems tedious. Honestly I tap my skills out by level 50 and the last 30 levels feel like a pill. There’s no “build perfection” in this game since I can only configure 5 skills (and two of those are seriously restricted to small pools).

3. Can play the way I want to play
GW2 is pretty good here, but not as good as GW1. I could hero/henchie missions and zones on days I didn’t feel like playing with others. There were exceptions like the Domain of Torment (at least initially). My time is limited and I hate sitting around for 45 minutes trying to organize a pug just to play some aspect of the game.

4. Player Roles (aka something like the trinity)
Defined player roles are some of the fun of role playing and RPG enjoyment. GW2 has very little for player roles. Everyone is an autonomous island of skills. Team composition is irrelevant, and in most cases team work is also irrelevant. I don’t miss the “Group 7 of 8, LF monk then g2g”… but I miss the ability to play “like” a monk.

To turn this question around a bit… here are some things I like about GW2 that are not in GW1:

A. Trading Post
Sorely needed in GW1 and it’s great to have a place to easily buy and sell items. Unfortunately this has also brought all the undersirable aspects of having an open game economy including bots, gold sellers, and grind.

B. More accessible PvP
GW2 shines here. I could not play in random PvP in GW1… it was agony. I’ve played both WvW and random sPvP. I actually enjoy sPvP the most. It’s easy-in, easy-out, balanced, and fun. It is actually more fun than PvE imho because there’s zero grind… just play.

stof.9341:

It’s 1 :

The fact you need 50 for an ascended back piece and 250 to infuse it on top of it isn’t a stranger to that.

That sounds reasonable, but there may be more supply as well from players grinding fractals.

In addition, this doesn’t explaing other incredible price increases like 500% on dyes or 400% on some superior sigils (fire was at 5gp last night — I bought a sup sigil of fire last month for 90sp).

The price rise is intriguing on the ectos. I’m not sure what’s driving it. It could be:

1. Increased demand
2. Reduced supply
3. Inflation
4. Something else entirely that I don’t know because I’m not God

The effects 1 and 2 are easy enough to understand — however there could be many causes (reduced bots, reduced drop rates, more players at level 80 than last month, etc.).

I have a hard time believing supply is down. Especially with the introduction of fractals with better rewards and high player population grinding it. That just screams more ectos on the market. Although this is completely speculation on my part regarding effects on supply.

Inflation would be an interesting point to discuss. Gem prices have really gone up in the last two months — so players can convert RL money to more in-game money than before. This was needed to counter-act gold sellers (which ANet can put out of business simply by making gem sales more attractive to the gold buyer). A possible side effect is more game gold flowing into the economy driving up prices. Again pure speculation.

I think everyone can agree that the price rise is substantial — over 100% in the last few weeks. Similar price rises can be seen on other items like dyes (500% or more for the best dyes). So it’s not just ectos and items derived from ectos.

There are many problems putting fractals onto the monthly:

1. Fractals is heavily gated (this is a crazy topic all on its own)
2. It’s a very narrow slice of the game.
3. Fractals requires a team
4. Was the same monthly as in November
5. There is already sufficient reward for running fractals (best in game)

I did my 7 fractals last night with a guild team. That was the only reason I wasn’t sitting in LA for an hour (or more) spamming “LFG Frac 7”. Yeah I could have went with any group running levels 1 through 7, but ANet designed fractals in a way which compels players to advance their level access.

The game is what it is and definitely won’t make everyone happy. I doubt ANet could construct a set of monthly achievements that 100% of the community would like. However I think there were many better choices available than fractals.

It’s important for other players to hear the shouts. It’s an audible queue that they have stability for example. That’s important if you want them to change their game play at that moment (one example: not spend their own stability buff because they see the same knock-down coming).

Otherwise nobody knows they just received stability (unless they are actively scanning their buff icons).

In a twitchy game like GW2, it’s bad to not have the guardian shouts audible.

Agree with the tweaks to mantras. I like the mantra skills themselves but the mechanic to recharge them is problematic for exactly the reasons the OP listed:

1. Cannot recharge to “full” when only partial charges remain. Have to consume the remaining charges and put the skill on c/d before recharging to full.
2. Cannot recharge during the c/d period.

I’m not looking to eliminate the c/d, but a great “fix” would be to allow the recharging during the c/d so the matra is available after the c/d expires. To me this would be the single greatest improvement to the mantras. It’s very easy to find yourself in a situation where you cannot recharge the mantras after the c/d has expired (i.e. in a new combat fight). It’s unreasonable to expect the mesmer to stay out of combat until his mantras finish c/d so he can recharge. Yeah you could say “that’s how mantra’s work”, but the risk is currently not worth the reward imo.

Make stealth fail if the thief is blind. Also steal as well if it isn’t already effected by blind.

Attunement switching should fail and go on c/d when blind.

Utility belt skills should fail and go on c/d when blind.

Death shroud should fail on go on c/d when blind — maybe lose all life force as well, but maybe not.

Adrenaline skill should fail and all adrenaline lost when blind.

Pet should “un-summon” when ranger becomes blind and summon go on c/d.

Virtues should become disabled when guardian is blind. Using any virtue should fail when blind and go on c/d.

/sarcasm off

Those are clearly bad ideas — all of them. So why have something similarly preposterous for Mesmer?

20/20/0/0/20 (10 points to spare, I put mine in precision for a full 30 pts)

In power line select the GS trait for reduced c/d and increased power
In precision line select clones on dodge
In class line select illusionary elasticity (extra bounce attack)

This build requires a decent crit rate (40% or higher is my recommendation). Don’t go glass cannon and skip out on your other attributes. I use my gear to balance out my stats to 2000 pwr, 1800 prec, 1300 tough, 1200 vit.

This is a powerful build and you can find it in many places throughout the forums.

Alternate weapon sets are completely up to you. A lot of people run with sword/pistol as a second. I use scepter/focus because of focus4 for swiftness and also because I like to remain at range (and scepter is the only 1H range we have).

Utility skills are a personal choice. A good general purpose setup is blink, null-field, feedback, time warp. If you go with a matra build, then 3 mantras plus time warp (skip mantra of pain because it’s rather redundant with the high DPS output of the GS).

Anyway this is all personal preference and opinions. You can find lots of other build input in this forum. There are already a million mesmer greatsword topics already.

ok — so in that twilight video, do the clones have the black spooge by their feet when they move in for a shatter?

It probably doesn’t matter as clones don’t move otherwise. If the mesmer moves it’s a give-away, but black at your feet is sort of advertising it more imo.

cgnius.8539:

I’m still enjoying the game although that’s probably because I’ve not reached level 80 yet. I also thoroughly enjoyed the halloween event (Most fun I’ve had on an MMO for a loooooong time) and I’m hoping that next month’s event will be on a similar level

Of course there are things about the game that annoy me, but I guess that coming from Runescape makes GW2’s problems look like a drop int he ocean :P

I enjoy it more now that I’ve reached 80. I skipped all dungeons except AC before 80. I actually find leveling up toons to be a bit slow and tedious. I have two lvl 80’s and no plans to make another. Instead I’m now enjoying a lot of the content I skipped earlier, focusing mostly on dungeons. After that I plan on world exploration. After that lots of casual WvW.

I’d recommend a stat distribution of:

> 2000 power
> 1800 precision (>45% crit rate)
> 1300 toughness
> 1200 vitality

Glassy is great until you get hit then you’re dead. I love running into glassy mesmers on my GS mesmer because I know I’ll win.

Also glassy is only effective in a zerg where you can “hide” in the crowd. Get into a real fight (which you will at some point I guarantee it) and you’ll die quick. Then you’ll be like “<insert profession here> needs to be nerfed!!!”. In reality you just built your toon to die easy.

dre.8973:

I’m not even kidding i hit an ele for 500 with my izerker, the skill says 630 and i have 3400 power… … … … moot face … O_O

I think you meant 3400 attack power. Your actual power attribute is probably low 2000’s.

Anyway, the dev’s already said they’d fix it. It’s not a game-ender for GS mesmers. My iZerker still hits pretty hard in WvW and part of the bonus was the cripple which is still there.

There are plenty of oher things to be concerned about — prioritize your fights

I have only two lvl 80 toons — mesmer and guardian. I love them both. Mesmers rely upon two things (in general) to win the fight: illusions and kiting.

If you identify the real mesmer you have a much better shot at winning because you’ve taken away the shell game. The easiest method is to use CTRL-T on the real memser before any clones appear. The red target reticule will stay on the real mesmer throughout the fight. If that ship has sailed, then find the mesmer with a graphic by his name (map completion star or WvW commander shield). Those graphics don’t appear by the clones’ names. Lastly you can look at the off-hand weapon if the mesmer is using 1H gear. The off-hand will not appear in the off-hand of the clones. The CTRL-T method is the best here.

To counter the kiting you’ll need a few tools: (1) gap closers, (2) immobilizers, (3) condition removers. Don’t forget condition removal. If it’s a GS mesmer you’ll be crippled a lot. Close the gap with various wep and utility skills. We also have more than a few immobilizes in our toolbox.

Clones will drop quick with some AoE but I would ignore them if you can identify the real mesmer. There are a few reasons for this: (1) a shatter mesmer can make more clones in a heart-beat, (2) they’ll just shatter them in your face for 2k crits per clone, (3) killing a clone in melee range may give you cripple, confusion, or some other condition.

Illusions are a different story and they can hit you hard — but consider that it’s front-end damage. The illusion will likely attack before you even get close enough to kill it. Then it’s on c/d until it’s next attack 7-10 seconds later. It’s probably shatter fodder before then.

Even with the recent player-relations bungles, I have to say GW2 is still a very fun game to play. Last night my friends and I ran all three paths in AC for the first time and had a great time.

The core mechanics of the game are very good and the design of the various content is superb.

I’ve been very critical lately of the bungled events, the new tier of gear, and game bugs. In time things will settle down as ANet gains experience in this new realm of MMOs (consider that GW1 was not really an MMO and GW2 is new territory in that regard).

So anyway, despite all the recent negativity (mine included), this game is still a blast to play.

Watari.1037:

juno.1840:

One advantage to moving WvW kills to the PvP achievement is it would reduce the load on the WvW maps (i.e. less people would go out to WvW).

Right now having WvW in the PvE achievement forces players that PvE into the WvW zones (if they want the PvE monthly). This hurts everyone because:

1. People who don’t want to WvW are mad because they “have to” for the PvE monthly
2. People who love to WvW have longer queue times because some players are there only for the monthly PvE.

If you move WvW to the PvP monthly the PvE players who hate PvP will never touch it (because there’s no chance of getting the PvP monthly unless you go into s/t PvP).

Another option: make a monthly WvW achievement with 4 WvW type things (keeps taken, dolyaks killed, players killed, etc). The only risk here is possible karma explosion for some players doing all three monthly achievements (45k x3, plus boosters).

Karma explosion? PvP daily/monthlies don’t give Karma since it wouldn’t really benefit a PvP player. They give Glory if I remember correctly. My guess is if they set up a WvW daily/monthly, it would reward Blueprints and Badges of Honor? Although Karma is still beneficial to a WvW player, so it is possible that would be a reward.

That’s good to know. I extrapolated the PvE monthly reward to the PvP montly (and a hypothetical WvW monthly). It makes sense if it’s Glory.

I also agree that there’s enough to do in WvW that it could be it’s own monthly achievement — which was one of my main points in my original quote.

Does ascended gear make the crafting professions worthless for anything pre-level 80?

I’ve been researching Ascended gear a bit. There’s a surprising lack of clarity even though ANet has tried to explain it.

What I have found suggests that the current Ascended items are drops or can be “crafted” using the Mystic Forge. Nothing is crafted using the Crafting Professions (in this case Jewelcrafting).

Not sure if this has been mentioned previously, but here it is:

Please make “infusions” like it was in GW1. It was a gating mechanism back then too, but it didn’t require new gear — just modifying your existing gear.

So make the same thing in GW2 — a quest/story/whatever that takes your current gear and adds an infusion slot. * BOOM * not only is that nostalgic but it’s also fun. This way gear can stay “as-is” with an upgrade slot and an infusion slot. You can even get creative with how to get infusion slots, cost of infusion slots, etc.

If you want a grind, then make the infusions themselves the tough item to obtain — not the gear.

If you want “tiers” of gating in this mechanism then it’s managed by the tiers of infusions that you can slot (i.e. higher +agony resistance).

(We discussed this a bit in this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Please-don-t-obsolete-Runes-and-Sigils)

One advantage to moving WvW kills to the PvP achievement is it would reduce the load on the WvW maps (i.e. less people would go out to WvW).

Right now having WvW in the PvE achievement forces players that PvE into the WvW zones (if they want the PvE monthly). This hurts everyone because:

1. People who don’t want to WvW are mad because they “have to” for the PvE monthly
2. People who love to WvW have longer queue times because some players are there only for the monthly PvE.

If you move WvW to the PvP monthly the PvE players who hate PvP will never touch it (because there’s no chance of getting the PvP monthly unless you go into s/t PvP).

Another option: make a monthly WvW achievement with 4 WvW type things (keeps taken, dolyaks killed, players killed, etc). The only risk here is possible karma explosion for some players doing all three monthly achievements (45k x3, plus boosters).

Not possible to make a “hard mode” when the world is a persistent MMO world.

If you want hard mode then run around naked with no elites nor utility skills

boneduste.4023:

They mentioned the purpose of ascended gear was to give those who reached exotics something to do in the massive gap between exotics and legendary. Maybe the point of having them not take sigils/runes is to make people chose between a stats+ability (sigil) vs a pure stats (ascended). What if they add to this gap by making some sigils more powerful or increasing the proc time. It would help even out the gap between exotic and Ascended.

There was no gap between exotic and legendary (other than time required to obtain). Statistically they are the same gear.

Everyone I’ve talked to in my guild says “infusion” should be like it was in GW1. It was a gating mechanism back then too, but it didn’t require new gear — just modifying your existing gear.

So make the same thing in GW2 — a quest/story/whatever that takes your current gear and adds an infusion slot. * BOOM * not only is that nostalgic but it’s also fun.

If you want a grind, then make the infusions themselves the tough item to obtain — not the gear.

We thought this up in about 5 seconds… why didn’t ANet do the same?

Jezath.7395:

or have 2 slots maybe? one for infusion and one for sigil/rune

It would be sweet if they just added an infusion slot to all lvl 80 gear — automatically or through some quest event (like in GW1 to get your armor infused).

This solves many problems:

1. Doesn’t invalidate runes and other socketable upgrades
2. Doesn’t invalidate existing gear (I don’t want to toss my expensive exotics)
3. Elimates the need for an “ascended” tier of gear
4. Loosens the gating mechanism a bit by making the gate “infusions” rather than “ascended + infusions”

Brilliant Jezath!

In GW1 nobody asked about what gear you had (although it would be nice to know if a player was toting three superior runes since they would be incredibly glassy).

However GW1 players DID ask you to link your skillbar — rightfully so since very specific build combinations were needed to complete some content. Unfortunately that was a side effect of the content design imo.

When a game has gear that “gates” your content progression, your doing the same thing — forcing players to validate their setup by linking their gear. There’s no other way around the limitation in game design.

ryan.5106:

I use the Precision/Vitality/Healing exotics from Ascalon Catacombs, Berserker Greatsword/Staff, Clerics Amulet/Earring, a Knights ring, Valkyrie ring and Earring, as well as +healing runes (doesn’t matter what type, really) for stats that equal out to:

~2500 Power
38% crit +55% Damage
2700 Toughness
16,540 HP / +900 healing power

Traits are 0/15/30/20/5 focused on empowering might, altruistic healing, virtue activation, and faster recharge on shouts. That’s what works for me, and i’ve had a lot of success with that setup.

I use the exact same build, but my stats are no where near yours. Granted you are in full exotics (and I’m not), but your numbers for toughness and power are really high. You vit is not bad either to get 16.5k HP on a guard, same with precision to achieve 38% crit rate.

I have a mostly green gear with some yellow weps/jewelry using power/vit/tough armor, knights jewelry, Knights weps. This gives:

Power 1700
Precision 1600 (36% crit chance)
Toughness 1900
Vit 1400 (15.6k health)
Healing 196

I have garbage for gear, but I don’t think I’d see +1000 to toughness and +800 to power by upgrading to exotic gear. If so then great!

A suggestion I have is to commonize all the barter currency (dungeon tokens). If all dungeons rewarded the same currency it would enable the following:

1. Allow players to play what they want to play
2. Provide more diverse rewards to the player base
3. Reduce storage requirements for the tokens

This runs the risk of creating “grave yards” out of some dungeons — players wouldn’t play them again after completing them the first time. However that’s a result of dungeon quality rather than a side effect of common barter currency.

If enforcement of dungeon completion is a requirement, then ANet could tie a requirement to each piece which is completion of a particular path in the dungeon (i.e. you could not wear the item without completing the associated achievement). This way a player couldn’t get a full Arah set without having completed all paths in Arah. If this sounds silly, then so is having Arah-only tokens because both have same impact on the player (run Arah multiple times).

Strange enough it will reflect Guardian Staff 2 which is not specifically a projectile. It doesn’t seem to block Mesmer Mirror Blade (GS2) which is a shame because of the high damage it does.

I made an itemizer spreadsheet a while back. It’s referenced here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/Juno-s-Boom-Boom-Wheeze-Itemizer

The download is here:

http://stooges.enjin.com/forum/m/5527682/viewthread/4614953-itemizer-spreadsheet

It never hurts to have a plan!

Magic find is one of those mechanics that forces a player to make “hard” decisions. In this case the decision to trade 1/3 of your gear stat bonuses for improved drop quality. It’s intended to have consequences and it definitely does.

If there’s a flaw, it’s that some classes handle the stat penalty better than others. Mesmers for example rarely get “touched” by mobs when using shatter/legion builds. That makes the decision for them rather painless as they could probably PvE in their underpants.

/signed

The folks who managed to play the event wouldn’t have “suffered” if the event was repeated multiple times over a span of days. If they say otherwise, then they are arguing for the sake of arguing… it in no way changes their play experience (other than making it better by spreading the player load out and reducing lag/culling).

ANet would have far fewer complaints for this event if the loot was not “best in game”. Think about it — no other activity in the game (NONE) gave the same quality of loot as this one-time event. Not dungeon chests, not map completion rewards, not personal story rewards. The reward here was two exotics, two rares, and a chest that contained another exotic and a 20-slot bag.

I read players stating that the loot is not “must have”… and they are right. But the fact is it was the best loot offered in the game to date. That’s a great way to make dedicated players (and big fans) mad — schedule something they can’t attend and then give best-in-class rewards for it.

Absolutely should be easy — that’s the premise set by GW1.

A good MMO is very accessible to it’s player base, rewarding both casual and hard-core players.

Many aspects of GW2 are amazing. I really enjoy playing the game.

As a good MMO it’s off to a rocky start. I really dislike missing out on content due to inaccessibility (caused by any number of things like lag, bugs, poor execution). These ruin the play experience and over-shadow the great mechanics of the game.

The good news is the accessibility can be fixed over time by correcting bugs, improving the server capability or software performance, and the ANet staff learning from execution mistakes (I hope).

Conncept.7638:

juno.1840:

Conncept.7638:

juno.1840:

Conncept.7638:

They added a single new tier, it’s still capped at a clearly visible ceiling just like it was before, just slightly higher than the previous one.

This made me laugh.

Glad to add some mirth to your day, but if you have any real proof of your claims that vertical progression will continually be added, then how about you show it? Otherwise, your case is baseless.

But as things are, there is a hard cap, and the jump from the second highest tier to the highest is now lower than it was. What you find humorous doesn’t matter next to those facts you seem intent to ignore in your blind accusations.

Your drama aside (I don’t recall acusing anyone of anything), I could just as easily say “can you provide proof that vertical progression will not be added?”

History in GW2 has one more level of vertical progression added (ascended). I think history is against your position so far.

Innocent until proven guilty, and you agreed with the OP, who made exactly that accusation.

One more tier of vertical progression was added — guilty.

Conncept.7638:

juno.1840:

Conncept.7638:

They added a single new tier, it’s still capped at a clearly visible ceiling just like it was before, just slightly higher than the previous one.

This made me laugh.

Glad to add some mirth to your day, but if you have any real proof of your claims that vertical progression will continually be added, then how about you show it? Otherwise, your case is baseless.

But as things are, there is a hard cap, and the jump from the second highest tier to the highest is now lower than it was. What you find humorous doesn’t matter next to those facts you seem intent to ignore in your blind accusations.

Your drama aside (I don’t recall acusing anyone of anything), I could just as easily say “can you provide proof that vertical progression will not be added?”

History in GW2 has one more level of vertical progression added (ascended). I think history is against your position so far.