Guild Wars 2

Guardian focus 4 blinds, which is better then vulnerability & because of the way bounces work can stop 2-3 attacks.

Traits also give guardian focus 4 direct healing, vulnerability, and Protection and the skill itself gives 3/5ths of a burning proc from virtues. Necromancer Focus has slightly longer regeneration (that it can’t even use in shroud) and about 10% more raw damage.

Meanwhile Necromancer focus 5 is unusable (too long cast time), but guardian focus 5 is one of the best blocks in the game (vital for securing stillness or channeling mist essence).

Nike.2631:

nekretaal.6485:

Did you just make those runes up? They look real but I was hoping for something better.

Just suggesting something that uses existing parts and should dovetail into Reaper mechanics nicely .

I’m certainly open to suggestions as long as they fit within the scale/patterns of existing runes.

Whew. Would prefer critical damage runes, or even damage modifier runes (like ogre) over precision runes.

I don’t see any mention of Lunatic Inquistion on the release page.

Does this mean that achievements will not require 80 games this year? If yes, great!

Actually, if that’s true, and halloween is just the maze, clock tower, short mini dungeon (presumably limited to daily attempts either account or character bound), and town festivities, then there should be plenty of time to farm up the new halloween weapons (or recipes for them), play in the WvW maps and start on guild hall & hot content.

Dungeons aren’t going anywhere.

There’s still a Dungeon Achievement worth 200 AP & a very grindy Dungeoneer Achievement to do.

Dungeon Tokens are needed for all existing Legendary weapons as well as some very attractive, very expensive, non legendary weapons. The Halloween weapons all require dungeon tokens to craft for example.

And if the nerf isn’t that bad, it will not matter. Dungeon rewards were actually worse in the past when players primarily grinded dungeons for gold.

Let’s face it: the big XP and karma rewards for dungeons had to disappear. The dungeon completion pop up is still happening, and the gold numbers on that pop up are being tweaked.

We knew for a long time that the numbers on some paths were too high, so this move is long overdue. I simply hope that the numbers on the under-run paths like Aetherpath, or SE part 3 aren’t nerfed down too badly.

Nike.2631:

gavyne.6847:

If you want to talk shafted, visit tempest, daredevils, and dragon hunters.

Dragonhunters are fine, thanks. In fact I’m kinda shocked the forums didn’t explode with finger-pointing envy when they got the best +damage% trait IN THE GAME a couple days ago.

The Guardian forum is the loudest complaining forum here. They were part of 90% of every pvp meta and 100% of every WvW and PvE meta.

And they never get nerfed.

The stuff they complain about (their shield) was perfectly useable, just defensive in nature. It got super buffed to a great state & people still complain.

Dragonhunters are close to imba. Compare their low cooldown high duration immobilize to dagger 3. Their longbow has two lines of warding. It’s a stability ripper. Longbow 2 is a short cast sniper shot at long range.

They’ve still got all the defensive stuff (focus5) to avoid getting hit while doing damage, and they are top tier at damage, ranged damage, and condition damage.

Ok the Dragonhunter name kinda sucks, but the class specialization will be great, offering a whole lot at the cost of being slightly worse 1v1 on a capture point.

Honestly I think the Ranger/Druid got shafted.

It

(1) Doesn’t have 100% healing skill form uptime
(2) does almost no damage in its form
(3) Doesn’t provide useful boons like Aegis or Protection. It only heals

Why bother with a druid when you can blast water fields & take a character who helps you better beat the raid timer?

The markets on the sigils and runes are dropping, so no players don’t think so.

And, its also likely that new runes & sigils get added to crafting instead of to the mystic forge loot table, further reducing the value of old minor and major sigils.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

The mini Charlotte spider could be purchased with cobs last year. It’s quite possible that it will be again this year so if support can’t help then there still may be a way to get it.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mini_Ghost_Carlotta

Yeah it was very cheap to buy last year.

Don’t buy the minis (or the finisher) from the gemstore until you know it isn’t on sale for cheap first.

Did you just make those runes up? They look real but I was hoping for something better.

I hope he still is around to kick the crap out of his emo son. The dialogue the two has was hilarious.

Halloween’s always the last two weeks of October in GW2

I would go and buy the:

old pillowcase.

That unlocked last year’s halloween collection. If it doesn’t drop this year, manipulators will drive the price from 42 copper to 50 silver or more. 80% of the stuff on that collection can be had now for a few copper over vendor price. The other stuff is inexpensive food.

It might drop again next week, but I would just do it now. Why take the risk.

As for getting ready for the content? It scales you to level 80 so make sure you have proper gear for your level and you will be ok.

If the labyrinth isn’t tweaked, it is magic find heaven. Literally the only place in the game where magic find makes a huge difference.

It’s also one of the very few places where Gold Find makes a significant difference. Individual mobs can drop 50 copper or more.

If you want to stock up on Omnomberry Bars to increase your gold and loot, that’s a good idea (Candy Corn Cookies that probably will drop keep you fed with max magic find if you don’t care about the extra gold).

ovan.5947:

Wouldn’t it be more logical to make lodestones’ prices reach at least 1g/each? As it stands, glacial and crystal lodestones are utterly useless or near to be.

.

John Smith (& Guild Wars 2) likes RNG.

So if you get a Lodestone Bag (from a karma converter or elsewhere), you can get a charged lodestone ($$) if you are lucky, or a Crystal Lodestone (not used to craft any pretty weapons) if you are unlucky…. or a Pile of Putrid Essence (6 silver, nearly useless) if you are really unlucky.

And they like it that way.

ovan.5947:

Hi all,

Now, what about lodestones? Looking at this market, and especially on the charged one, changes have started and i don’t get the reason.
.

Somebody who had charged lodestones is dumping them.

Maybe he just wanted money.

It’s all speculation at this point. Even those with insider information are just speculating.

It looks like CoE is getting nerfed, & karma is getting nerfed, & spirit shards were nerfed. That’s three major sources of charged lodestones all nerfed. So even if charged lodestones pop up as a map reward or something, it could all even out on the supply side.

But there’s the demand side too. If the HoT new shiny doesn’t need charged lodestone, I don’t see how they keep their high demand.

Mischief Sigil should be in the discussion if you are Traited with chilling darkness.

Dasefex.4810:

Forget heart of thorns mad king is back baby

+1000

And hopefully with a chance to get 2012 stuff from his chest. If the chance is low and account bound that should be fair

A single target skill that does almost no damage doesn’t need a long cast time.

At 0.25 cast time, & no bonus damage (a 66% nerf), it’s competitive with pre-buff reaper shouts in its power level.

That’s not OP.

Chill isn’t a particularly strong condition (thieves 100% ignore it) but it does provide a form of non damage pressure. With a quick-ish cast and a shorter cooldown, spinal shivers could be something that Reapers toss around to force enemies to react and go on the defensive.

Right now, for cast, cooldown, and non-cleaving reasons it is an unuseable skill.

Edit:

I am not overlooking the fact that if you change spinal shivers from a damage tool into a control tool, then non zerker builds, such as condition builds can use the weapon.

Reaper shroud is a hammer. Swapping to reaper shroud counts as swapping to a hammer.

Death Shroud counts as a transform, but it follows different rules than other transforms.

In any case, hopefully we’ll get the same treatment for both RS and DS. It will help us pick sigils for our weapons (right now, swap sigils are near worthless in DS but fully useful in RS).

striker.3704:

nekretaal.6485:

I prefer that spinal shivers be a useful chill generator and boon ripper. I don’t care for the damage. Reapers touch has damage.

Anet shoul keep the boon rips and chill, & lose the bonus damage and lower the cast time to .25

If “they are being conservative with the skill because it hits like axe skills,” then nuke the skill entirely. It has no business being in the game if they are going to treat the skill like that.

Honestly instead of losing the damage, I’d love to see the skill corrupt 3 boons instead of simply removing them, make the cast time like 1 second or .75 seconds.

However, removing 3 boons+chilling on a .25 second cast time would simply be too strong, as the lost damage is negligible. This is why the trait chill of death gets so much hate.

In fact, buffing spinal shivers in any way is gonna be an issue with chill of death as that would inadvertently buff chill of death as well (unless they forget to update it like they did spiteful spirit). Chill of death isn’t a trait that really needs any buffs.

The skill is still single target in a game where nearly every other skill cleaves or is AoE. It ought to be really strong. .75 cast is still too long. This weapon is up against Warhorn!

Also the cooldown needs to be looked at. Right now the cooldown is too long for use as a reliable boon ripper or chill generator.

The lost damage isn’t negligible. That’s 66% damage removed.

And Chill of Death is a cheesy proc effect that nerfs the damage potential of every other necromancer damage skill (and was also responsible for the necromancer downed state nerf). I will trade good spinal shivers for chill of death in a heartbeat.

180 dungeon tokens drop in a reward track (and three dungeon weapons selectable & 1 Dungeon Armor)

Anyways, dungeon gold rewards can fall to the level where they were during the days of CoF farming and still be viable. I just hope the dungeon team nerfs the dungeons according to how they are run, so that something like Aetherpath can still get groups.

They can get nerfed down to the level where they were when players were CoF farming and still be ok.

We saw the screenshot of the precursor crafting requiring 10 ascended leathers.

Just speculating, but I note. 10 ascended leather times 38 precursors == 380 ascended leathers for the set.

Is that enough t5 leather for you?

Pvp: Worse spot. Reaper is worse than base necromancer because it has no ranged pressure, is slow, and chill durations are too short. Reaper Dead on arrival until Axe fixed or staff/scepter get a big buff. (Watch Nos get destroyed by Phantaram on Reaper then go turn around and destroy him on Necromancer).

WvW: Same Spot. You will still be using necromancer and it will still be good.

WvW Roaming: Necromancer is terrible (no escapes), Reaper is somehow worse.

PvE (open world): Anet seems to be making open world event trains a thing on all maps. Reaper will be great for this.

PvE dungeons: Dungeons are dead,

PvE Fractals: Gimmicks like unholy sanctuary will help the necromancer be part of the first few groups that “beat fractals” despite not enough AR. Otherwise same place (not good).

PvE Raids: Since Raids are designed by the teams that like to put everything on timers, Reapers In a bad spot. No team support, cant be healed, and not #1 at DPS. (DPS is all melee and axe sucks so any anti melee attacks on bosses will severely kitten reapers who have to face tank).

Tl;dr. Reaper not good. Needs axe to be fixed.

I prefer that spinal shivers be a useful chill generator and boon ripper. I don’t care for the damage. Reapers touch has damage.

Anet shoul keep the boon rips and chill, & lose the bonus damage and lower the cast time to .25

If “they are being conservative with the skill because it hits like axe skills,” then nuke the skill entirely. It has no business bein in the game if they are going to treat the skill like that.

(1) Speaking of broken, underused materials, what about mystic forge stones? Their main use was tossing into the mystic forge with three random exotics to get a Precusor, but a lot of people didn’t even use them for that (and that just got devalued).

They are an achievement and gemstore reward, is there any chance that they can get a more intitive sink?

(2) Superior siege weapons depend on spirit shards (nerfed) and t5 ore and wood (nerfed). Is the Wvw community which pays for this siege just going to eat both nerfs? Is this a market you’re looking at? (The WvW community would love the ability to buy superior siege, even overpriced siege, at a vendor for gold, badges, or karma)

(3). I suspect Linen is another broken market. Ascended bolts require 40 linen and linen is not farmable on a level 80 character. I suspect that karma forger/salvagers and low level champ bag openers contribute a major portion of total supply. This looks like its getting fixed with nerfs. But is there going to be another way a level 80 character can obtain linen (and leather) in the future?

(4). Am I limited to just two of the new Legendaries due to account bound rewards, or can I collect them all?

(1) Speaking of broken, underused materials, what about mystic forge stones? Their main use was tossing into the mystic forge with three random exotics to get a Precusor, but a lot of people didn’t even use them for that (and that just got devalued).

They are an achievement and gemstore reward, is there any chance that they can get a more intuitive sink?

(2) Superior siege weapons depend on spirit shards (nerfed) and t5 ore and wood (nerfed). Is the Wvw community which pays for this siege just going to eat both nerfs? Is this a market you’re looking at? (The WvW community would love the ability to buy superior siege, even overpriced siege, at a vendor for gold, badges, or karma)

(3). I suspect Linen is another broken market. Ascended bolts require 40 linen and linen is not farmable on a level 80 character. I suspect that karma forger/salvagers and low level champ bag openers contribute a major portion of total supply. This looks like its getting fixed with nerfs. But is there going to be another way a level 80 character can obtain linen (and leather) in the future?

(3)

I hope John Smith has plans for Linen (other than a temp injection at Wintersday).

Linen is impossible to farm outside of a very narrow range and I imagine that the karma forge/salvagers and level 51 champ bag openers contribute a very significant % of the overall linen in the game.

I suppose that the t4 leather could be included in the discussion with linen now too.

If u just activated a paid account today you get

1. No Free to play restrictions on your account
2. Daily rewards (the laurels alone are worth 55g/Month)
3. free outfit
4. Free dragon mini
5. 4 character slots instead of two

Candy corn isn’t a lost cause. 90% of it was removed 2 years ago. There was only enough on the TP to make about 140 cobs at one point.

If he wants to get rid of candy corn:

(1) Put highly demanded stuff (ghost dog?) available for purchase at the cob vendor

(2) Decrease Candy corn drops by making ToT bags drop other stuff instead sometimes (cloth, quartz crystals, zhaitaffy all good choices).

(3) New sinks for candy corn (additional craftable Halloween weapons overdue)

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Instead of complaining about how poor you are, and how everyone inflated the price of items at HoT launch so that you can’t afford them, now is the time to make yourself rich instead!!!

John Smith specifically said he would be correctly markets that have long been broken. Which markets are those you may ask?

John Smith likes items that have well balanced supply/demand. He considers silk to be one of his best successes. It was a super common material that sold for below vendor value. Now it is selling for nearly 4s a scrap!

So what other items are similar to silk that he will be looking for fix? The things I have identified as most likely to increase in value are:

1. T5 leather. This stuf has been sold to vendors for 3 years. It is the best bet you can make.

2. Lodestones. Glacial and Crystal Lodestones have been significantly cheaper than their counterparts for 3 years. You can bet John Smith is going to be looking to increase the prices of these.

3. Jewels/Gems- all those jewels and gems you get from mining have been fairly useless for years now. These are another safe bet.

If you have any other items you think will be fixed in the upcoming expansion let me know and i’ll add them to the list! Happy fortune making everyone!

1. Leather is a good bet

2. Glacial Lodestones are due to hit a seasonal high due to players crafting Halloween weapons which require sigils of the night

3. I wonder if they (jewels/gems) are crafting materials for the new profession. The t5 ones are the ones he’ll want to burn out the fastest if he goes this route. Argument Against: the sands of time used these).

Are raids glorified dungeons?

Serious question

2 charges per reward track is fine. You also get charges from daily login (at least everybody who can post here gets those charges).

If you don’t like this change, well you’ve got a week.

I agree with the people who say that the Tomes are pretty useless. Hopefully anet will change this by making spirit shards more valuable (various spirit shard nerfs indicte that this may be happening).

I think you owe it to your teammates to fight the whole match.

Somebody who tanks the rest of the match because they see the match is lost is ruining any enjoyment 9 other people have. That person is a selfish jerk, a kitten kitten.

The people who rage quit and just sit there are also making the lost game last longer. Every additional death is a +5. Waiting for the ticks is actually slow.

I hit the cap tomorrow.

From there, it’s just Giant Slayer, Black lion weapons, Crab toss, & grindy WvW + EoTM + Pvp achievements left.

I think I’ll take a mini break until the expansion.

No thanks.

Anyways, I’ve been using my buy orders as a “Watch list” of sorts for items I’m interested in buying when the price is right.

I’ve also got investment buy orders set for when prices fall to a certain level. I can wait.

If Halloween is another rerun this year, load up on your magic find and go to the labyrinth.

Magic find makes a huge difference there. N Its a glimpse of how loot progression could have gone in this game

Nice effort. You have a great platform to set up indecies to model inflation.

I’d set up my indexes as

(1) High end WvW consumables. Basically foods and oils that serious WvWer pay for.
(2). Legendary weapon related markets: Rares, T6 mats, T5 materials, mystic coins…
(3) Non precursor, non collection exotics. Exotics that can’t be mystic forged and aren’t part of a collection.
(4) Set up a index immediately for any Pvp only drops
(5) Drops related to HoT precursor crafting and new Legendaries.

Probably ToT bags.

You can see that these new dyes aren’t going to be rare like the BL dyes. And, we’ve got a new crafting profession that gets materials from dye salvaging.

I bet the ToT bags drop a metric ton of the new dyes, but they don’t stay cheap long.

Now that guardian shield is fixed (and pretty good!) focus is probably the worst offhand weapon in the game. And somewhere anet agreed it underperformed but chose to buff the range (meaningless!) instead of addressing the real problems.

I’ve posted my thoughts elsewhere, so I’ll ask this Question:

How come Focus underperforms so significantly to all to the other attacks with a bouncing mechanic? (Mesmer, GS2. Guardian Focus 4….)

Hopefully the Wintersday Achievements are less grindy.

Merge Chilling Darkness into the Reaper minor trait Shivers of Dread.

Move Terror back to a minor trait, where it always should have stayed.

(The real problem however is bad condition damage scaling on poisons, torment, and bleed… Terror builds will suck until that’s fixed).

Wanze, I think you mean Halloween 2 years ago. Because if you open a Halloween bag today, charged quartz doesn’t drop.

Anyways, I bet there are new stat combinations to worry about in HoT, diminishing the demand for the stuff

This is not going to be an issue. Pvp exclusive PvE items have been done before and didn’t become super overcostly on the TP.

Second, the spirit shards appear to be part of the precursor crafting collections. Don’t want a precursor? They’re useless. These are one time only collections. Finish them and you’re done. Want all of the precursors? Get all 38 precursors and you don’t need any more shards.

At launch there will be no use for the things since precursor crafting is a grind to unlock. A stockpile will build up on the TP before they start to get bought.

After the initial rush, prices should settle down like mystic coins did.

What’s stopping the Reaper from tanking is bad access to block & dodges and no ability to be healed in Reaper Shroud.

Wait for HoT.

I expect an expansion’s worth of new runes and gear stat choices.

People speculating now are going to get burned.

Early high level Pvp tests, eg Nos vs Phantaram streams, suggest that the Reaper is poor at high level pvp and also a downgrade versus the necromancer.

The main problem with Reaper is inability to pressure kiting enemies.

The biggest things that need to be done to help the reaper are

(1) Fix Axe (and scepter and focus), but especially axe
(2) longer chill durations

Right now the Reaper spec is DOA in high level Pvp (and I don’t just mean the greatsword which nobody expects to ever be viable).

As for weak traits, you missed “Shivers of Dread,” which ought to be combined or merged with anything else because it just doesn’t do much in an actual game.

The shout trait and greatsword trait should be totally reworked. Nobody will take them in their current state. The shout trait ought to be as powerful as the guardian trait (converts conditions to boons) or the warrior trait (heals) and not just some meaningless cooldown effect or lifesteal. The greatsword trait will never be taken in its current form (no need for cooldown reduction on gravedigger spam & no lifesteal synergy with other traits). The greatsword trait should be scrapped entirely & replaced with something else (my suggestion is conditions).

Any tower or keep lord in WvW is immune to chill

Odds are high that this year will be another rehash.

They’ll have to do some work with the new LA. So, hopefully they could bring back Reaper’s Rumble & Descent into madness. (Bringing back Descent into Madness as a Fractal would be sweet). Also, hopefully they will not require 80 games of lunatic inquisition again.

Also, hopefully they fix the candy corn maize balm instance. That got ridiculous last year.

Maybe even a loot table adjustment so the balm doesn’t drop so much would be nice.

Every year, they’ve dropped new items. Hopefully they can do the same this year to ease the glut of candy corn and candy corn foods on the TP.

Maybe they can also drop Zhaitaffy this year in some bags instead of just candy corn. This would nerf candy corn, but also be the first source of zhaitaffy drops in three years (and allow players access to holographic dragon wings from jorbreakers with enough zhaitaffy)

More mystic forge crafted Halloween items (and a collection for crafting sets of them) would also be nice. There’s a bow, a staff, and a shield. One day maybe we can get a whole set. That would be a great long term goal.

What’s wrong with winning by attrition?

Serious question.

God I hate timers.

Anet should design more bosses like the molten duo who can be holy hell if your DPS is too low if it intends to enforce DPS checks.

Hopefully they give us an extra week of Halloween before the expansion hits.

Especially if it turns out to be a rerun. I would love to not have to worry about finishing 80 games of Lunatic Inquistion when the expansion is out.

I’m also worried that the maze content could “die” quickly due to poor rewards if those aren’t updated and players rush the new content instead.