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Thanks Vayne… it struck me as I was swearing to myself when I reached the halfway point of Dusk and realized how much more time and gold it would cost me.
The 8 for living story is doing all the achievements for each chapter. Some of which you can’t get unless you redo that chapter from scratch if you weren’t aware of them when you did the chapter initially.
I can’t get anybody to do the Skritt Queen, everyone who shows up just want the rich quartz node. Plus it’s only open 10 minutes every hour.
Also, some of the LS2 achievements are mutually exclusive so multiple repeats are required, and you can’t skip the tedious cutscenes.
Like OtterPaws said… 8 for the story itself without trying for achievements, you should note my initial post excluded the LS achievement MPs from the total.
OK, so remove skritt queen… 21 MPs. In fact, remove 1 Tequatl MP cos it’s challenging to get sucked into the vortex… 20 MPs. Still enough for Pact Commander. You can probably get 2-3 of the SW legendary mobs achievement quite easily too if you spend plenty of time in SW. TBH who hasn’t? :P
My point still stands: Pact Commander and Fractal Attunement are balanced for their respective content. Legendary Crafting is balanced around the fact that precursor crafting itself requires you to do a whole lot of content you may not be comfortable with, all across the whole game.
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Just as a heads-up as to the things you will look forwards to when you finish the Legendary Crafting mastery line, I’ll use the collections you need to craft Dusk as an example. Keep in mind this does not include any of the in-between steps, which generally are crafting items which suck even more mats out of you.
Twilight I:
3 fractals
1 jumping puzzle
7 world events/bosses
Plus a few other random locations.
Twilight II:
Tons and tons and tons of crafting
Currencies or mats from SW, DT, Southsun, Orr and fractals (some can be purchased)
Twilight III:
5 fractals
6 jumping puzzles
4 mini dungeons
2 world bosses
SW breech event several times
Plus several other misc places or events
So yeah… unless Anet makes drastic changes; If you can’t stomach the effort to get your MPs for Legendary Crafting, you certainly can’t stomach the effort of precursor crafting.
Maybe I’m showing my age, but I always compare ascended to the legendary armors from vanilla WoW. I feel as a system it asks much less of a player than MMOs before it.
GW2 you can get ascended from crafting, drops in fractals, drops from some world bosses, completing collections. They are max stats and easily stat swapped, so your grind ends when you get that piece of equipment. You can also easily give your equipment to an alt if you decide you want to try a different class.
Vanilla WoW you get your legendary armor from raids only. That meant finding 39 other players who have 3-5 hours to run the raid. There will be 1-2 items dropping from each of the 5-6 bosses in the raid, and if you were lucky enough for your class specific armor to drop, you would be rolling “need” against the other players of the same class for that piece. As you can only run a raid once per week, fully gearing your main took 3+ months if you were lucky and able to constantly raid. Each piece is also soulbound so forget about giving it to alts. And when you finally equip yourself with Tier X legendaries, Blizz then releases the next raid/expansion, and you start the whole process to get your Tier X+1 equipment. Not fun at all and I burned out in 6 months with only a handful of Tier 2 and 3 gear to show for my efforts.
Not only that, but during my non-raiding days, I really struggled to find anything to do… lesser dungeons had poor rewards, there was always other players camping valuable resource nodes, there were no open world PvE events worth doing, PvP was PvE-gear dependent so I was always owned by players who had more raid equipment than myself, crafting was completely redundant. All I did was grind for bandages and healing pots for use during my raid days.
(I know WoW changed from 40-man to 10-20man raids, but otherwise AFAIK the system is still the same. I’ve got no experience in the modern WoW expansions… maybe someone can enlighten me)
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Do fractals, it’s the all-in-one raid preparation :
- Ascended rings/armor/weapons
- Lots of gold
- Polishes up your skills for raiding
- Only needs 30-45 mins a day if you only concentrate on the 56-67-77 swamps for the champ daily chest.
Easy points:
8 personal story
8 completing LS 2 story (not the achievements)
2 Tequalt
1 Karka Queen
1 LA exterminator
1 Dry Top skritt queen
1 for first character reaching lvl 80
That’s 22 points without doing fractals, dungeons, JPs, LS achievements, difficult bosses or rare spawns. And that’s easily enough to max out Pact Commander (19 needed).
As for Fractal Attunement, it pays for itself in terms on MP’s…11 needed, 14 available. Most of the time I get these by accident, asking the group if we could work towards it, or creating a LFG stating it was a MP run. But if you don’t do fractals, this line is useless to you and you can ignore it.
Legendary crafting is a funny one… to craft a precursor, you will need to do lots of different content (Fractals, JPs, specific champs/events, specific achievements, mini dungeons, max level crafting) If you think getting the MPs required to max this mastery out is too much, precursor crafting is more of the same but arguably much harder and definitely more expensive. As someone who has crafted Dusk, I can guarantee the MP requirement is only a mild obstacle in the grand scheme of precursor crafting. If this crafting process doesn’t appeal to you, you can ignore this mastery line too.
TLDR:
Core Tyria masteries ARE tuned to your gameplay preferences:
Pact Commander for everyone: enough easy MPs
Fractal Attunement for the fractal runners: enough MPs in fractals
Legendary Crafting: crafting process requires you to do lots of different and sometimes annoying/difficult content, thus reflected in the remaining MPs coming from all sorts of content (some of which are annoying/difficult)
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And in answer to the monitor question itself:
Panel type: TN vs IPS (AHVA and PLS are different versions of IPS)
TN panels are cheaper, faster refresh rate (easily up to 144hz). They suffer from reduced viewing angles, poorer colour reproduction.
IPS panels are more expensive, have wider viewing angles and better colour reproduction. They tend to be slower (usually up to 60hz) and have a “IPS glow” which can be distracting.
That said, advancements in both panel type have meant although the differences still exist, they have become less significant i.e. you can find TNs with pretty good colour, and find IPS panels at 100+hz. Generally, if you do colour critical work (photo editing, graphics design) you should go IPS. Hardcore FPS players will benefit from 144hz, but GW2 and other less fast paced games won’t benefit to the same degree, if at all.
Resolution and aspect ratio
1080p 16:9 (your monitor) is still the most common. 1440p and 4K the next steps up. Be aware, these higher resolutions can make text look very small. Your GPU should be able to drive 1440p, but will struggle at 4K.
In the last couple of years, ultrawide monitors have become more popular (21:9). These come in 2560×1080 or 3440×1440. The lesser resolution isn’t too hard on your GPU or your wallet, but the higher one is taxing on both.
Adaptive sync
This is the future of gaming monitors. Eliminates tearing/stutters. It’s an effect you have to see in person to believe… difficult to capture that effect in graphs or videos. Unfortunately your GPU (280x) does not support it, so you won’t benefit from it immediately, but any future upgrades will. Also be aware AMD and nVidia have competing solutions (FreeSync vs G-Sync). They perform similarly, but AMD’s is open source and incorporated into the latest Display Port standard (with a HDMI version planned). nVidia’s is proprietary and costs more than a similar FreeSync monitor. It’s open to debate, but FreeSync will probably be the de facto, due to the cost advantage and incorporation into the industry standards.
Generally, the larger, higher end gaming monitors cost hugely, but there are ones are within your budget. E.g. http://www.amazon.co.uk/AOC-G2460PF-24-Inch-Gaming-Monitor/dp/B013YIRF4S/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1456630745&sr=1-2&keywords=freesync+monitor or http://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-25UM65-P-25-21-Ultrawide/dp/B00I3GJ8RY/ref=sr_1_5?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1456631246&sr=1-5&keywords=lg+ultrawide+monitor (I don’t think the LG one has FreeSync)
Have a look at http://tftcentral.co.uk/ It’s got lots of in-depth reviews on a variety of monitors… if nothing else, I’ll give you an idea of the new tech.
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That’s true Znake, but that Acer monitor only has DVI and VGA, so a new monitor will be mandatory for a different connector type. Most modern monitors have HDMI or DP (which are available on the 280x) so there shouldn’t be a problem with connectivity.
OP, before you spend money on a new monitor, have a look at your graphics setting, some can actually cause blurriness:
Resolution: it’s always best to have this match your monitor’s resolution (in your case 1920×1080)
Antialiasing: “FXAA” can cause smeared edges, turn AA off and see if it helps.
Render sampling: “Sub-sampling” will make things look awful. See if “native” or “super-sampling” gives you a better picture.
Post-processing: Not sure if it’ll make much difference, try changing it and see if it does.
Depth blur: Just like post-processing, may nor may not improve your image.
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It also may be a sticky space bar… does it double space when typing? Give the keyboard a clean and see if that helps.
I don’t know who told you that guardian/DH is a ranged class. It’s still primarily a melee class, either GS for burst or hammer for sustained DPS. Vanilla guardian always had a below average ranged weapon (scepter) and DH’s longbow is a really good upgrade… but neither are so good that you would want to go ranged over melee when given the choice.
The posts talking about getting kicked because they aren’t running the HoT meta builds tend to be in relation to raid pugs (and perhaps dungeon/fractal speed clearing)… no one really cares what you run in other content as long as you are pulling your own weight.
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You need to be a bit more specific.
Which specific R9 200 GPU is it? Some are based on older chips which don’t support FreeSync. (e.g. a 280 or 280x don’t, but a 285 does)
What are you upgrading for? And why do you feel the need to upgrade? It’s hard to recommend anything unless we know what your baseline is, and what you want to get out of a new monitor, other than being “better”.
Also knowing what you use your PC for is also useful… games, movies, multimedia editing, etc
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Btw, don’t go straight to 50 before getting used to the fight’s mechanics on 25. It’s a frustrating fight if you’re not prepared
Have you already crafted a Dusk? They’ve stated before you can only craft one of each precursor per account.
Send a ticket and they may refund you the mats
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You don’t need to finish all 21-50. Just finishing 50 will let you buy the skins
I’m not sure why WoW is a good example of fair pricing.
Yes, you can pre-order Legion without the rest of the game… but wait, what is that price? USD 49.99 That number sounds awfully familiar.
Note, if you’re a new player, you’re also required to buy base WoW and Warlords (~$20 each). That’s an awfully high price of entry without even considering the subscription.
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That looks like a reasonable set up.
As long as the PSU is from a reasonable brand, you’ll be fine. Just avoid the absolute cheapest, and if you are upgrading, get something with more W than you currently need. Anything with a 80plus rating will be of reasonable quality. Case is completely up to your discretion unless water cooling is in your future plans. I personally use a Phanteks Evo pro with a Silverstone PSU.
In terms of number if slots, it’s only useful if you think you’ll end up upgrading in future. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, I can’t think of any game that benefits from greater than 8gb RAM.
An additional money saver is to get a mATX motherboard instead of a ATX. You lose PCIe slots, but unless you are requiring them, e.g. SLI, capture card, etc, you’re not losing much.
I have to agree with skyshroud; skimping now will probably mean you’ll end up with something that needs upgrading in a year or 2.
An option would be to get a reasonable CPU, say an i5, and just use the iGPU until you’ve saved up enough for a discrete GPU. Graphics performance won’t be great, but iGPUs now aren’t the complete garbage that they used to be.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Can-my-computer-support-Guild-Wars-2/5998391
Also, both AMD and nVidia are rumored to announce/release their 14/16nm GPUs this half year, so it may be a nice upgrade from the current architectures that are based on a 4+ year old process node. At the very least, when that happens, the current gen GPUs will get a discount.
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Do you also need a copy of Windows?
If you do, this was the best I could do at about $500, but the specs aren’t great and its not very future-proof… I’m not sure if I can recommend it as a gaming PC
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wb9jf7
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Do you have any parts from an old PC that you can keep? Monitor, OS, keyboard, mouse, etc? Helpful to know if those things need to fit in your budget too.
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There’s a stickied Dev post at the top of this forum. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Policy-3rd-Party-Programs-Multi-Boxing-Macros
It’s probably going to be part of LS3. They did a similar thing with sinister in LS2
Revenant doesn’t have racial skills because its class mechanic swaps all utility skills as a set. You’ll have to use any other class for racial skills
Balbosa, I’m not sure if this applies to you:
You only get 1 mastery point for each story step across all your characters. E.g. if you complete the 1st story mission with Asura and get your point, you can’t complete a Charr’s 1st story mission and get another point.
Is there an official explanation somewhere that says that?
Looking on the wiki it implies that a person should be able to get a mastery point per step per race, but only once.
So using your Charr example above I could get a point for the first time I do my level 10 and say picking Blood Legion, but if I make a new character and choose Ash Legion I won’t get it again, but starting up a Norn should let me get another.
Again, I’m basing this off the wiki so if there’s something else I should be looking at I’d be interested to see, otherwise I just wasted a few nights making a human for no reason…
No, you won’t get 2 MPs for completing the lvl 10 story on 2 different races. It’s an account wide thing.
If you look at the “Notes” section of the wiki:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hero_%28achievements%29#achievement28
It references this post:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/central-Tyria-mastery-points-non-HOT/first#post5814303
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Yeah, nothing I can do about my upload issue. Just using it as an example where latency can sky-rocket due to a local issue. My point was that it pays to consider these things when trouble shooting a high ping
It will “run”, but whether you’ll enjoy the experience is a different matter.
I sometimes run GW2 on my Surface Pro 3 (i5 4300U 2.9Ghz, Intel HD 4400, 8Gb RAM). It’s not a pleasant experience… choppy frames, awful textures. I think the main issues with gaming on ultra-portables is that they thermal throttle quite quickly, thus they will always have lesser performance compared to similarly specced desktops. Plus a touch pad is completely unusable.
I do this only when I’m on the road to do simple things like dailies or TP. Maybe do a champ trains with the zerg. I wouldn’t be running 50+ fractals on my SP3.
Just give it a go… you may have a better experience that I did.
Should run OK-ish.
I sometimes use my Surface Pro 3 (i5 4300U 2.9Ghz, Intel HD 4400, 8Gb RAM) on rock bottom settings. It’s not a pleasant experience… choppy frames, awful textures. I use it mainly when I’m on the road to do simple things e.g. dailies, TP.
I’m sure mine thermal throttles, so you’ll likely have a more pleasant experience on a desktop. If you don’t, you can always add a mid-tier GPU to the setup.
Where is your location?
2-3 weeks ago a submarine cable somewhere in the Pacific got damaged and everyone from SEA/OCX region had horrible latency (Pings so high, the game gave up on even measuring it). It’s a lot better now, but I still get periods of higher than normal latency. AFAIK the cable isn’t fixed yet.
I know it’s an obvious question, but is anyone else using the internet at the time? Whenever someone uploads videos/photos in my household, my pings go through the roof. Doesn’t seem to happen when they are downloading though.
Turning down your graphics may help.
More importantly, a dying PSU can cause damage to your other components. You should prioritise a replacement before it causes a bigger repair bill.
Are you running the native mac client, or Windows client via boot camp? If it’s the latter, you can try the 64 bit windows client. Not sure if there is a 64 bit mac client in the works.
If you have a friend with the game within travel distance, you can copy the game files from them and plonk them directly into your game folder. The dat file is what you want… It’s the only 20+ gb file there so you can’t miss it
It’s not just 10. All windows I’ve ever used (95, 98, XP, 7, 10) don’t like it when you alt-tab in and out of a fullscreen application too many times… games just happen to be one of the only program types that still have a true fullscreen mode, most other programs run in windowed modes, whether it is a fullscreen window or not (e.g. maximizing your video player).
Alt-tabbing once or twice is usually OK, but do it too many times, or too quickly, something will break.
BTW, was it really necessary to make 2 posts on the same issue?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Too-Easy/first#post5996033It really is. Fractals completely casualized to something even easier then dungeons should be posted a million times over.
I wonder at which part of their “let’s make fractals harder” plan they decided to nerf boss dmg by 90%. That was just a brilliant idea.
I’m not arguing fractals couldn’t do with improvement. I’m questioning OP posting in 1 forum, then the same question in another 3 hours later when the original thread has already pointed out he should just attempt higher level fractals and not limit himself to lvl 26
Balbosa, I’m not sure if this applies to you:
You only get 1 mastery point for each story step across all your characters. E.g. if you complete the 1st story mission with Asura and get your point, you can’t complete a Charr’s 1st story mission and get another point.
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BTW, was it really necessary to make 2 posts on the same issue?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Too-Easy/first#post5996033
Anyway, back to your original point:
Like it or not, all MMORPGs need some sort of incentive for their players to keep playing. Some MMOs make it near compulsory to repeatly complete a lower tier dungeon in order to get the better gear so you have a reasonable chance at a higher tier one. Or you need to gain XP in increasingly difficult zones in order to progress your level. GW2 is different in there is no further gear progression once you get max tier equipment and there level progression is capped too.
Instead one of it’s major incentives are getting the cooler/rarer skins. Immobulus is a great example… when giant eyes used to cost 5-8g apiece, who in their right mind would ever consider owning one? But people did, and they did it for the prestige it gave them. Black lion weapon collections are a similar extreme (Interestingly, I’m surprised I don’t see threads complaining about the impossibility of BL skin collections). Some other collections are so trivial, noone values them (e.g. Bandit/Krait weapons). Auric weapons falls in between somewhere.
I feel Auric weapons are a reasonable compromise… it’s easy to get the 2-3 skins that you really like, but the whole set requires a lot more effort and planning.
My personal feeling is that the whole concept of grind is a subjective thing in relation to cosmetic items. You can perceive it as grind, or as a valuable reward for your effort. It’s just like owning a Ferrarri; for some it’s a major milestone in life, but for others it’s money better spent elsewhere. A Ferrarri is never compulsary.
Unless Anet decide it has made a mistake and changes the system, we’ve got to live with what we’re given. I like a few of the skins (which I now have), but don’t value the whole collection, nor its reward, that highly, so I spent my efforts elsewhere in the game. Easy choice. You obviously attach more value to that collection, so you are considering the opportunity costs of the Auric collection. Less easy choice, but it is still a choice.
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Apologies, I did misunderstand both those posts.
Open world PvE in core Tyria does not represent end-game combat very well (e.g. raids, fractals, HoT maps) nor does it give you a good idea how PvP combat works.
Anyway, look at the bottom of this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/What-class-to-play-1/first#post5992917
What fractal level are you playing?
Since the expansion, fractals now have 100 levels instead of 50, and the lower fractals were made easier. Fractals under 20 ARE for players to learn the encounters. It only starts getting challenging at 30.
Different characters have always been able to earn their own rewards in the personal story, even in the core game. It’s the achievements/mastery points that can only be earned once.
Dulfy has a page which suggests which weapon each class should select in order to minimize costs:
http://dulfy.net/2015/11/08/gw2-hot-weapons-armor-and-backpieces-guide/#Auric_Weapons
TBH, you should just run in windowed fullscreen. Many games that are run in fulscreen modes don’t behave when you alt-tab in and out of them multiple times. My assumption is that windows tries to suspend the program’s processes, which causes issues when you try resume. In windowed fullscreen, your processes continue to run uninterrupted when you alt-tab out.
Have you compared your FPS with and without windowed fullscreen? I’ve used it forever and for the convenience of running a browser for wiki/youtube, never found FPS loss to be unacceptable. Rendering 2 instances of GW2 will use more resources than the desktop.
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1. All races should run at the same speed, but the animations make it look faster/slower. e.g. a small asura looks like its running faster than a charr or norn even when it’s the same. You can check by having that charr race against an asura and see if there is any difference (both must be guardians though… see below).
The second possibility: guardian does not have any traits/signet/etc that give passive +% run speed, so it seems slower than other classes that do have that trait.
2. It’s not a crash, right? Just minimized window? It probably is your computer… some other program running in the background is trying to take “focus” away from your game. Some virus scanners have a “game” or “do no interrupt” mode. In my case, it was the nVidia Gameworks (or whatever they call their game app)… I uninstalled it and everything was fine.
3. I can’t help with this one. I didn’t know “bags of wonders” existed in this game… I can’t find it in the wiki either.
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It’s not THAT hard to max out… the main issue is that you have to be willing to play a wide variety of content and ask for help if you can’t do it by yourself.
E.g.
LFG/friends can help with LS achievements.
Some guilds run Triple Trouble on a regular basis that you can join.
Fractals are a gold mine for achievements.
Map completion is long, but rewarding, plus you need to do it at some point if you’re planning on a legendary like OP is (I’m assuming the old legendaries here)
Is it there all the time? Does it occur in a predictable manner?
I sometimes get artifacts where multi-colored streaks flicker across my screen… it usually originates from a point sources e.g. if it originates from a particular player/object, adjusting the camera so that object isn’t on screen makes the artifacts go away.
Changing my graphics settings to “Best performance”, then back to what it was before fixes it for me.
In terms of challenging PvE, again it’s a mixed bag.
Yes, raids will challenge your individual and collective skills.
Yes, the new HoT maps are full of enemies that will destroy you if you’re not on your toes.
Other content less so… the new bosses (Tequatl, Triple trouble, Shatterer, all the HoT meta events) are map organization >> individual skill. The only open world event where I felt my individual skills actually mattered was the Tangled Depths meta before it got ner… I mean “fixed”.
Yes and no. Unfortunately the answer isn’t easy and will depend on what kind of content you want to play.
Dedicated healers are only required in raids, and even then they should bring other forms of support and need to be active participants in the encounter’s mechanics… not be stationary heal bots like some other MMOs.
In open world PvE however, healing still doesn’t have much impact… a player that doesn’t use dodges/blocks/etc will only live a nanosecond longer even if you were trying to heal him. Even in high end fractals, a dedicated healer is really nice to have, but you could still get through without one.
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As mentioned above, without knowing how you like to play, it’s hard to say what would be “strongest”. And also, what is your definition of “strongest”? DPS, durability, jack-of-all-trades vs specialist, ease of play, etc. When we speak of the “meta”, it usually assumes good group coordination with max buffs, active instead of passive defense, and emphasizing damage over all else.
E.g.
Ele has “strongest” direct damage, but doesn’t mean anything if you are downed all the time.
Engi has “strongest” condi damage but only if you can learn it’s rotations.
Some classes/builds are are really good solo/pug, but lose their effectiveness in a well organized group, and vice versa.
Heck, you could argue bowbear ranger is “strongest” because it’s effortless to let your pet take the aggro and you pew pew from range.
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The skin, they make you stand out. It is a huge accomplishment and usually inspires awe in those who do not have one. I currently have kudzu which leaves unique footprints, and I am about 90% complete on the bifrost which fires unique projectiles, has a rainbow aura, and leaves footprints.
That…
Plus you can swap the stats anytime you want without any mats or the mystic forge. It’s the grind to end all grinds… unless the new generation is prettier… then you start grinding all over again -_-
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Ah. I read 1500 as a price instead of a quantity.
Map completion isn’t that bad. Use a character that has easy access to swiftness to make if quicker. It also rewards you with various mats and sometimes a black lion key.
If you do lots of Wvw, you can use the proof of heroics to at least get the hero points painlessly.