Guild Wars 2

@Facepunch

I understand where you’re coming from, and I get your point that they might not upgrade ascended when the time comes. I transmuted my Frostfang onto berserker stats because I’m not going to weaken myself with the generic PVT, and I don’t think anet should punish those who choose to not stick with PVT.

While I realize transmuting makes a legendary it a new item, I still think anet has the power to locate these transmuted legendary weapons, and upgrade them accordingly. If not then I’m hoping they at least send those with transmuted legendary weapons an ascended weapon with the same stats to transmute over.

Anyways I doubt we’ll be getting ascended weapons anytime soon, so we don’t have to worry for now, I just hope Anet realizes the situation and how the community feels about it.

Actually it isn’t because I want to sell expensive runes, it’s because I hate throwing away expensive runes if I want to try a different rune set (recently destroyed 9g of runes to try different ones).

I realize the whole balancing the economy thing, and how people might exploit this system to extract runes for a profit, in which case they can implement a system that makes any extracted rune soul/accountbound, thus eliminating any impact on the economy, while still allowing people to try out different runes/sigils without throwing away gold.

While I don’t like the WoW to GW2 comparison, I agree with the OP and I would like to see more rewarding/challenging PvE content.

There could be a ‘hard-mode’ of each dungeon with increased chances of rares/exotics/lodestones, and might give more dungeon tokens too. Fractals was suppose to be high-end content for hardcore players, but the reward scaling is off, and lv30+ loot is not much better than lv20 loot.

I would really like to see a way to remove upgrade components from an item without destroying the item itself/transmuting the item/upgrading over the item. Maybe there could be a vendor who’d charge a fee for extracting an upgrade component, costing more depending on the level/grade.

I’m pretty sure you can’t even put transmuted ascended back-pieces into the mystic forge, so no you won’t lose the skin, because you cant upgrade it to infused anyways.

I may be wrong, the only way to check is to open the mystic forge and see if it appears as a forge-able item.

@Nachtz

I completely disagree with you. I think anet is required to upgrade any transmuted legendary weapons, because they are still legendary and will always remain ‘best in slot’ as stated by anet.

Prezzy, I have a transmuted legendary and can tell you it retains the purple text now. I would say go for twilight and transmute it freely. Even if they don’t upgrade to ascended you can still always re-transmute it. DO NOT under any circumstance transmute your precursor though, that would be a huge mistake.

Musty.3148:

Homonavn.6348:

I heard its just something visual when killing some certain mobs. with incinerator, your enemy sometimes burn to death etc.

Ahhh, I think you’re probably correct. Can anyone confirm this? Thanks.

I can confirm this statement. I have Frostfang, and have experienced enemies displaying ‘cold’ death animations. Similarly, some enemies have unique fire or lightning death animations, and I assume those now show for bolt/incinerator/rodgort.

The change is merely visual as stated, and only changes the death animation of enemies you kill.

Apparently it alters the death animation of enemies, but I have yet to test this out for myself.

I believe it refers to how if you use a lightning attack (or bolt) to kill an enemy, it’ll have an electrocuted animation, or a burning animation with fire attacks (or incinerator/rodgort) etc…

Doomslay.3504:

“when the ranger dodges the pet also dodges” for me thats all we need for pet survivability, nothing that would require traiting either, as for something traited :“when the ranger gains evasion the pet also gains evasion” (eg. from weapon skills)

This could be one solution to pets in dungeons, the only problem I have is that the ranger himself must waste his endurance, as well as constantly watch his pet (in a sea of particle effects).

I would much prefer if all pets were just immune to AOE, since many dungeon mobs and bosses have AOE abilities that 1 shot pets.

The patch notes say it’s only Obsidian Sanctum (WvW Eternal Battlegrounds JP) that is once per day per account. This is to prevent people from farming the jumping puzzle for badges of honor on multiple characters a day.

While I understand the change, I would like to see a buff to jumping puzzle chests across the board, since getting blues and greens isn’t that much of a reward (especially for some of the more difficult jumping puzzles).

I agree with most of the suggestions you made, although a few might be a bit over-powered. Pets/Spirits immune to AOE, improving Lightning Reflexes (should break immobilize IMO), Hunter’s Call applying some sort of condition (blind, confusion, bleeding), and longbow improvements are all things I would really like to see.

I think we need some trait-line improvements as well, but any of the simple improvements above would be great.

From what I’ve heard, the only legendary weapons you can put into the forge are Sunrise and Twilight (for the Eternity recipe).

They haven’t done much along the lines of legendary visual effect updates recently, but I agree that Meteorlogicus and a few other legendary weapons could use some much needed love.

It would also be cool if Meteorlogicus had unique projectiles, maybe it could shoot clouds?

While I haven’t quite finished my Howler yet, a few videos caused me some concern with the audio effects; particularly this video:

While I think it’s awesome that Howler actually howls, and the wolf’s head animates and such, the fact that it repeats howling for seemingly ever is off-putting. I could understand 1-3 howls, but anything beyond that is excessive and obnoxious.

In addition to it repeating too much, the audio itself is also more of a moan than an actual ‘howl’. Instead of moaning over and over, it would be better is Howler actually howled once or twice on skill activation, then ceased.

Everything else about Howler is amazing, I love all the visual effects and can’t wait to see them for myself, but an audio fix would be amazing!

I like most if not all of your ideas, the only thing you forgot though, is that Storm Spirit’s passive effect is utterly USELESS. “35% chance to apply swiftness on hit” is garbage. 1-2s Quickness would be much better.

There’s one additional place you can buy Obsidian Shards outright, which is from the Laurel vendor.

Rezz.8019:

You’re quite lucky actually, you’re getting tons of profit from t6 material.

You’re incorrect. Out of all the possible drops from the mystic clover recipe, only 7/20 possible outcomes of the mystic clover recipe are profitable, and out of those only 4/7 are ‘highly’ profitable. Since lodestone drops are so low, the only things you could hope to make a profit on is powerful blood, crystalline dust, and armored scales. Anything else would be a minor or huge loss.

I have continued to play berserker ranger. While yes quickness was butchered hard, it just means rangers are even more of a “sustained damage” class rather than a burst class. Quickening Zephyr still serves a purpose, the added stun break is nice, and it can still be used to res allies (somewhat) faster.

That being said, because of the greatsword buff I’ve playing around with it and builds focused around it more.

Munkee.3542:

Needs 5 Crystalline Dust.

This.

Plus why would you even want to forge leather? If anything you’re losing money in the process. Not even t6 mats are worth forging right now (because dust is extremely costly).

Let’s break down your ‘lovely’ comment AEFA

AEFA.9035:

Anyway, this is good since we’ve been asking ANet to make these unique bosses worth our while when they appear in the world. So good news that these bosses actually do drop unique items, thanks for confirming that.

The problem is, this is the ONLY mystic forge crafted skin (that requires a legendary gift) that drops from a meta-event chest. It seems unfair that only Wintersbite would drop and not other skins like Infinite Light and even Wintersbark.

AEFA.9035:

why is that worth 250g

The reason it should cost 250g has nothing to do with the skin, but the recipe required to make it. The materials used to craft Wintersbite total around 230g

You can see the price here:
http://www.bravevesperia.com/

AEFA.9035:

Final Rest looks kitten than that deformed child plays snow longbow from the shiverpeaks.

This is all up to personal preference, I and many others actually like the skin (Final Rest on the other hand looks like crap imo).

Fred Fargone.3127:

Well, I can agree on that. Then again, people rage about everything. Still, chrome as a dye would be superbly awesome. Just get a better effect for juggernaut -> People who got juggernaut for the effect now can dye their armor for the effect, and still have a weapon with unikittenfect (Given that juggernaut gets a new effect)

EDIT: Apparently, you can not say “unique” followed by “effect”. Maybe someone could finetune the word filter?

All I can say is that auras and special effects have, and always will be reserved for legendary weapons. While unique dyes is a cool idea, it would ruin many current and future legendary weapons in the game.

Fred Fargone.3127:

Wait… Chrome as a dye would make more sense than a weapon making your armor somehow more reflective… Maybe just do the chrome as a dye and come up with a better effect for juggernaut?

The Chrome effect is the defining effect of The Juggernaut, it is a special aura which drives people to make the skin. While I don’t have the skin myself, I’m pretty sure anyone with The Juggernaut would rage if Anet removed the chrome effect (just look at what happened when they changed The Predator’s sound effect…).

I agree with the OP; I like the idea of “unlocking” skins on a character (kind of like a built in wardrobe or pvp locker), this way we could equip the stats we want, and apply whichever skin we desire at the time (possibly including legendary weapons and town clothing).

Geotherma.2395:

Chrome dye, I heard a weapon makes your armor shine or something? Maybe I read it wrong.

You are correct, the legendary weapon “The Juggernaut” has a special effect which makes your armor metallic and reflective. Due to this, I don’t think they should make a chrome dye to trivialize The Juggernaut’s effect, but I do like the idea of exotic or special dyes overall.

@Chopps

We obviously have very different play styles, which isn’t bad as you said, you can play your way and I can play mine.

I too have done hundreds of dungeon runs, and have a thousand some hours played on the class, but that doesn’t make either one of us “right”. As you said, rangers have to be very adaptable, which is something I’ve learned after many strenuous hours of fractals and other dungeons. Gear, utilities, weapons, and pets are things rangers have to change depending on the situation, unfortunately I still haven’t optimized the use/swapping of pets.

All that being said, I still prefer a damage build focused on the ranger (using pet to tank/support), but that’s my preference. I tested out going pet-damage, and while it was good, I found myself sacrificing too much to my liking.

Thank you Nafnir for the enlightening post above.

If anyone still questions that Wintersbite does in fact drop, I’ve added links to my original post that support my claim.

I have to disagree with anyone who says main-hand axe is a weak berserker weapon. I’ve been a full berserker setup for quite some time, and I’ve found main-hand axe is actually one of the STRONGEST dps weapons for rangers.

Let my clarify; while yes main-hand axe sucks against a single target, it is easily optimized in dungeons where there are mobs of clumped up enemies, I can easily do around 1600 critical damage per bounce un-buffed, whereas short bow does only 1100 crit dmg per shot (while yes those shots are faster, you can’t guarantee they’re going to hit 3 targets, or ricochet back to the original target).

With the “Honed Axes” trait, main-hand axe is very strong. I haven’t had much experience with offhand axe so I’ll reserve judgment. And while yes, splitblade is a condition skill, it can also be used point-blank for raw damage, and is the only main-hand axe skill that applies a damaging condition. Shortbow or sword are much more suited for condition builds.

EDIT: The only improvement I really see main-hand axe needing, is Winter’s Bite bouncing like the auto-attack.

I agree that we should be able to salvage them, but t6 materials wouldn’t make much sense. I’d prefer Vials of Mist Essence (with a chance for globs/shards) and globs of ectoplasm to drop.

All lodestones have the same drop rate, which is honestly fine where it is. They’re suppose to be rare crafting materials, not exotic crafting mats.

Faux Play.6104:

IMO crafting one of those is like being the dude that bought fastest video card the day it was released. It will always be the most expensive right after it comes out and will drop in price, probably significantly over time. There will always be a newer sexier skin. You should know right away that you are throwing money in the toilet. Besides how many people out there are willing to sink 250g into a longbow for their ranger?

First off, I really hate this “you payed more to get it first” ideology, it’s completely false, at least for GW2.

Secondly, you just stated my point exactly. “Who would be willing to spent 250g on a longbow”, that is my point. You should only be able to get the skin if you REALLY want it, and if you put the time/effort/commitment in to craft one yourself, otherwise you shouldn’t be able to get one at all (especially not for 150g less).

@Chopps

Since he’s going glass cannon, I have to disagree with many of your statements. For one, Lightning Reflexes and Quickening Zephyr are a MUST for this playstyle, since stun-breaks and mobility are key.

In terms of Sick Em, Guard, and Muddy Terrain, I don’t see any of these being overly useful. For one, Sick Em is bugged and will end if you command your pet to do anything, and I just don’t see Guard being useful at all. Muddy Terrain is a fine skill, but is only situationally needed, just like Entangle.

For pets, Jaguars do very, very good damage, but I don’t see them being all that useful in dungeons since they die very quickly.

I mostly agree with what you said about longbow, but barrage is useful on occasion, and sometimes the long range can be useful in situations. You’re suggestion of using sword/warhorn makes little sense though, since sword is more of a pvp weapon, and he has stated this build is about ranged attacks, in which case axe/warhorn would be more suitable.

As for your second post (I wrote all of the above before reading it), I am intrigued by your build, but what I can say is, in my experience, pets die too quickly and are too unreliable to be used in such a fashion (not referring to open-world or cof p1).

I wouldn’t consider myself a ‘pro’ ranger but I do have a lot of experience with the class. My build has been glass cannon ranger since day one as well.

SKILLS:
I don’t see anything blaringly wrong with your skill selection. Lightning Reflexes and Quickening Zephyr are both solid skills. Healing skill is just a matter of taste, so I won’t comment here. Signet of the Wild is fine for some added survivability. For elite, I used to use entangle a lot too, but personally found it only worked well in certain situations, and thus gave it up for RAO.

TRAITS:
First off, I would like to question your 15 into Beast Mastery, since you said you mainly use drakes/devourers, why would you increase your pet’s healing power? I can understand 5 into Beast Mastery for the quickness, but anything above that seems unnecessary if you’re going glass cannon. Now that quickness has been nerfed too, I would give up Beast Mastery altogether.
As for your other traits, 10 into Wilderness survival is good. 20 into marksmanship and 25 into skirmishing is OK, but I also question using Pet’s Prowess, since drake/devourers don’t have that high of precision, I wouldn’t use this trait. The only pet I would use this trait for is Jaguar.

EQUIPMENT:
Since your using shortbow, I see you’ve decided to opt into condition damage a little. Honestly if you’re going for a PvE glass cannon build, I would say just run all berserker gear, but that’s just my opinion.

Overall you’re build seems to be a mixture of raw damage + minor condition damage, with a hint of personal and pet survivability. My final conclusion is that it’s a bit unfocused, if you’re going for glass cannon, it’s best to go FULL glass cannon, especially with your mentioned play-style of kiting and ranging enemies.
I’m not going to tell you how to play though, its your ranger, play however you choose.

Jemmi.6058:

OK so you are saying it should only be available through MF/Crafting, so that it keeps its prestige. You then say that Twilight and Sunrise have lost their prestige, even though both of them are only available through MF/Crafting. It seems like keeping it to MF/Crafting is not the solution to holding prestige.

Yes, I did somewhat contradict myself. The point though, is that nobody is going to spend 250g (or farm the equivalent in mats) unless they really, really wanted the skin. Now that people can buy it for less than its actual value, more people can get the skin without as much effort/commitment.

Jemmi.6058:

I think that running Jormag takes more effort than MF/Crafting, and thus rewarding someone for doing Jormag makes more sense to me.

I’m sorry but I completely disagree with this statement. I have run the Claw of Jormag event hundreds of times, and never gotten a single precursor or wintersbite drop. You cannot farm the Claw of Jormag event trying to get the skin, those who get a wintersbite are being rewarded for absolutely nothing, stupid random chance, which is not ok in my opinion.

Jemmi.6058:

If you were to ask someone, “what do you think would take more effort, throwing a bunch of random stuff in a toilet or killing a dragon?”, what do you think their answer would be?

It’s not random stuff that you throw into a toilet. It’s a specific recipe that you work for over time, again making it an achievement, not random dumb luck.

Jemmi.6058:

I do think that Legendaries should drop :|

I may be wrong, but I imagine it was in the loot table, but the loot tables were buffed recently. This is similar to Final Rest.

I also never said it should be an easy drop, in terms of effort you could argue what takes more effort. I find crafting takes little ‘effort’ but is very tedious.

Also the same thing could be said about almost anything. For example, you should not be able to buy exotic gear off the TP, because it is easier to farm gold in CoF path 1 and buy a full set than it is to farm karma in Orr and buy it there. Is that also something you want, due to the fact that one method is way easier and trivialized those who farmed Orr for Karma gear?

This game already rewards people enough for random chance (aka precursor drops). Wintersbite and all other skins like it are suppose to be achievements, ones that you work for over a period of time. Allowing these skins to randomly drop takes away that achievement, since there was no commitment/effort in getting it.

As for your second point, yes there are multiple avenues to gearing a character, some more efficient than others, but while everyone should be able to gear their characters by playing how they want, not everyone should have access to cool looking skins, otherwise those cool looking skins would be meaningless (look at twilight/sunrise for example, so many people have it causing it to loose prestige).

Jemmi.6058:

I 100% disagree with this. I believe all items should be droppable and that crafting at MF or purchasing them trivializes the item. Personally, I do not like crafting or MF and appreciate that I have the ability to gain these skins through the way I want to play the game.

In that case, they should make infinite light and mjolnir drop, and heck even legendary weapons should drop with your kind of attitude.

My point is not whether or not special skins should drop from meta-events, it’s that something that previously required time/effort to make, shouldn’t be rendered trivial and meaningless by simply adding it to loot tables where it was previously absent.

Just because you don’t have the desire/patience to craft a special skin doesn’t mean you should be able to obtain that skin for far less effort than everyone else.

Rakuren Kenshou.7689:

Even if they remove it from the loot table, the damage is done. It has dropped, and people have gotten it for “free”.

It’s not like they can take the ones that have dropped back.

I understand where you’re coming from. I paid 5 dollars for my greatword (Winter’s Edge) from the Gemstore during Wintersday. If suddenly they started dropping from mobs, I wouldn’t be happy. But at the same time, I bought it because I wanted it, just like you crafted Wintersbite because you wanted it.

They can’t just lock the loot tables for the rest of eternity. At some point things are going to change and people are going to be like “I paid 300 gold 4 months ago and now this is worth 6?”, but that’s fine. You wanted it early and you got it early. I don’t think ANet wrote in their terms of service that every item you gain will keep it’s rarity for the rest of time.

I really dislike the whole “you payed for a premium” argument. What if they all of a sudden made legendary weapons drop from meta-events? Yes I know this is an exaggeration but it is the same concept. If something requires a certain recipe to craft, and a certain amount of materials (and gold) to craft, then it should always cost that much.

I understand that the damage is already done, but if they remove it from the loot tables now, the price will balance over time (back to what it should be).

Guardian Of Tyria.6397:

Um, I made the ascended quiver for the ascended, quiver of swift flight, function only (didn’t care about the look) and a few weeks later anet came out with the fractal ascended back piece. If they would have said that they were going to do that, and that it wouldn’t cost any gold, I would have waited, but instead I wasted around 100g on crafting a back piece that I could have gotten for free.

Was I irritated about if, sure, for about a day, then I just said “oh well” and got on with my life. I didn’t go and start complaining that it “cheapened” what I did…..I got what I wanted when I wanted it and it was my choice.

People who crafted Wintersbite got what they wanted when they wanted it. You don’t see people complaining about The Crossing/Arachnophobia/The Mad Moon do you? Those are craftable but cost way less to buy because they were out of a chest.

I would like to first point out that the ascended fractal back-pieces were introduced the same as ascended quivers and books.

That being said, the halloween skins The Crossing, Arachnophobia, and The Mad Moon only dropped from a chest for a limited time during a special event. Wintersbite was never a part of an event, and never dropped from a chest, until they decided to render the recipe useless and add it to Jormag’s loot table.

Conner.4702:

And you are showing you have no clue what you are talking about. Just like the poster above you.

It is not 150 Gold less because people put less value on it. It is 150 Gold less due to them not having to have spend time crafting it, which means they also didn’t spend any money on it. Winterbite costs around 300-400 Gold to craft. You might get 1 or 2 people to undercut the crafting price by a 100 Gold, but not a constant stream unless it started dropping from some chest.

Anet is directly shafting crafters if they continue to make crafted items drop from chests. That is not play how you want at all.

Thank you for this post….

I’m getting tired of explaining to people that they’re not even getting my point……. and arguing something that has nothing to do with it….

azurrei.5691:

jwaz.1908:

frostflare.6390:

If someone buys it for 90 G what is it to you. How is it effecting you? You already have it., and it is already soul bound to you. I mean, it is not as if you can turn around and sell it when you don’t want it.

What’s it to me? It makes the bow less of an achievement, and less special if other people can go out and buy it for much, much cheaper than it cost to craft it. That’s what it is to me.

Not sure I’m following…how is ANYTHING that can be purchased an “achievement?” Oh right, it’s not (that would include Legendary weapons.)

I’ve made both my Wintersbite and my Frostfang on my own, and did not purchase them. The point I’m trying to make though, is not that Wintersbite shouldn’t be allowed to be sold, but that it shouldn’t drop from the Claw of Jormag event, and cost 150g less than when crafting it.

frostflare.6390:

If someone buys it for 90 G what is it to you. How is it effecting you? You already have it., and it is already soul bound to you. I mean, it is not as if you can turn around and sell it when you don’t want it.

What’s it to me? It makes the bow less of an achievement, and less special if other people can go out and buy it for much, much cheaper than it cost to craft it. That’s what it is to me.

Interesting idea. I’d be all for this, maybe specific events or meta-events would have a chance to drop special pieces that combine into a unique skin.

Fractal themed Minis sounds like a great idea!

But why stop at kitty golems. They could make a Mossman mini, an Imbued Shaman mini, a Captain Ashym mini, a Shaman Lornarr Dragonseeker mini, and maybe even a Colossus mini!

I agree with you, Mini Pets are not very user-friendly. Not only do they disappear when you change zones, but they can also be accidentally deposited as a collectible, and move so slowly that they can never keep up.

I think some sort of Mini Pet slot in the hero panel would solve many, if not all of these problems (and a speed boost).

The Ajax.4967:

Exotics, yes I realise I shoulda banked it straight away but with two forges left I just made sure to be very aware of what I was throwing in.

I think the biggest problem, is that most of the precursors and other high end skins have the SAME icons as blue items, making things like precursors impossible to distinguish from other items.

I completely agree with you, it’s total crap that Wintersbite drop from the Claw of Jormag chest, especially since those of us who crafted one spent around 250g to do so. And Wintersbark doesn’t even drop, so there’s a huge disparity in prices. They either need to remove Winterbite from the chest, or add Winterbark to it as well.

I made a similar forum post here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Wintersbite-Remove-from-Loot-Table/first#post1868807

Puru.4217:

It’s an underwater legendary so it not having footsteps makes sense.

I think by “footstep” he means trail. Kamohoali’i Kotaki has a trail of blood, which is somewhat of an underwater “footstep”. Kraitkin doesn’t have a trail either to my knowledge, but it would be awesome if it left a trail of ink or something. Frenzy could use some additions too, if nothing else, then at least unique projectiles.

Substance E.4852:

Somehow I doubt it’s as common a drop as all that and probably has such a low cost because it’s A: butt ugly, and B: a longbow, which is kind of crappy on the only two professions that can even use it.

A: If you think the picture below is ugly… then personal preference…
B: I can’t really argue this point, since you’re probably right….

But neither of your points have anything to do with my original post :P

Azure Prower.8701:

aocypher.9172:

I was under the impression that Winterbite had always dropped from Jormag chest; similar to how Final Rest had always came from the shadow behemoth chest.

Why was Final Rest never looted from Behemoth chest until recently?

The loot table was bugged, making Final Rest never drop, but they fixed that recently, so yes.

Mirta.5029:

jwaz.1908:

aocypher.9172:

I was under the impression that Winterbite had always dropped from Jormag chest; similar to how Final Rest had always came from the shadow behemoth chest.

Wintersbite didn’t start dropping from Jormag until they introduced guaranteed rares from Meta-Events. Whether or not it was originally suppose to drop is unknown (similar to Final Rest being broken), but now that we’re many months into the game, they shouldn’t just add Wintersbite to Jormag’s loot table.

So final rest shouldn’t drop either?
Let people keep their loot.

Final Rest is NOT a mystic forge crafted item, and does not cost 250g to craft, thus you cannot compare the two.

aocypher.9172:

I was under the impression that Winterbite had always dropped from Jormag chest; similar to how Final Rest had always came from the shadow behemoth chest.

Wintersbite didn’t start dropping from Jormag until they introduced guaranteed rares from Meta-Events. Whether or not it was originally suppose to drop is unknown (similar to Final Rest being broken), but now that we’re many months into the game, they shouldn’t just add Wintersbite to Jormag’s loot table.