Guild Wars 2

Pyrial.2917:

somsom.5201:

Michael.3279:

Razor.6392:

You serious? Staff is viable and has it’s uses but you cannot defeat any remotely decent D/D users with it.

I’m almost convinced that this is a troll thread because of the PVT / healing accesories mention.

The gear rounds me out, I’m still packing quite a bit of power though and I outheal incoming D/D damage so… yeah, D/D hasn’t been much of a problem for me. Biggest pain in my kitten is perma-stealth thieves.

IMO the only way around that is a good initial block and then having the dmg to burst them down. Beyond that, no amount of healing power is going to help you out. I’ve had good luck with the following combo: arcane shield, lava font, arcane blast(combined with a Fire sigil has a guaranteed 30% proc chance), flame burst, and maybe an auto or two. If the thief is dumb they will stand and tank it, usually resulting in a dead thief. If they are smart, they will still take some dmg, which should allow you enough time to setup an aoe or perhaps regroup with your party. Either way, thieves are probably the least of my worries in WvW(bunker D/D eles or Rangers are probably the most annoying due to mobility/roots respectively).

Anyone who knows how to strafe is going to avoid most of your damage.

Right, but only on the autos. The others can obviously be avoided by ranging, but then that opens it up for me to use autos, aoes, any other attunement/skills or escape.

Michael.3279:

Razor.6392:

You serious? Staff is viable and has it’s uses but you cannot defeat any remotely decent D/D users with it.

I’m almost convinced that this is a troll thread because of the PVT / healing accesories mention.

The gear rounds me out, I’m still packing quite a bit of power though and I outheal incoming D/D damage so… yeah, D/D hasn’t been much of a problem for me. Biggest pain in my kitten is perma-stealth thieves.

IMO the only way around that is a good initial block and then having the dmg to burst them down. Beyond that, no amount of healing power is going to help you out. I’ve had good luck with the following combo: arcane shield, lava font, arcane blast(combined with a Fire sigil has a guaranteed 30% proc chance), flame burst, and maybe an auto or two. If the thief is dumb they will stand and tank it, usually resulting in a dead thief. If they are smart, they will still take some dmg, which should allow you enough time to setup an aoe or perhaps regroup with your party. Either way, thieves are probably the least of my worries in WvW(bunker D/D eles or Rangers are probably the most annoying due to mobility/roots respectively).

Force.5861:

somsom.5201:

Force.5861:

far as i know, D/D use evasive arcana to proc an extra might aoe in ring of fire after going to earth for 4->5. they also want 30 arcane for faster attune swapping and boon duration.

D/D definitely does more damage than staff, but without aurashare it does not bring as much utility to the group. When pugging (for dungeons and large DEs) i find that my teammates often need my help removing conditions and healing… giving them vigor (and fury) with aurashare will not help if they are not using their dodges to begin with. With cleansing water (regen removes conditions) i can cleanse an absurd amount of conditions with staff water – something like 8 removals over 6 seconds with 30 water and 10 arcane. It is also possible to bodyblock some projectiles with the staff earth aura up to protect teammates, but that is a bit more situational than the condition removal.

Solo farming is slower with staff than dagger, particularly if you keep a support focused build, but i choose to save the respec cost and just stay staff 24/7 now.

i typically run a 10/0/10/30/20 build, taking armor of earth, cleansing water, and blasting staff. the fire is 10% fire attune damage to help damage contribution for solo/small group play.

No, and your build is the reason why. Staff can drop CRAZY numbers, especially when you synergize with firery greatsword. You are running a support staff build, which obviously will do less numbers than any kind of D/D setup. Try a serker setup with glyphs/arcane utilities and the synergy/dmg you will get from it is quite crazy.

Can you elaborate a little on that please? I dont see how FGS gets better for a staff than it would be for a D/D. I have tried a might-stack build with S/D and 30 fire (the might stacking one, not the field duration), and FGS in fire attune still gives might stacks. Just comparing the damage on the skills, i see D/D can get 100% burning uptime and staff cannot. dagger fire 1 and earth 1 both out-dps staff equivalents. Air and water in both specs do not have substantial sustained damage, or are at least outperformed by fire.

I meant that FGS works well with Staff due to the build I’m currently using, not that Staff inherently buffs it or anything. It just synergizes better IMO than what you routinely see build wise for D/D eles and their usual trait setup(not to mention equipment choices).

You’re right that D/D does have some benefits to dmg increase, but I hardly ever see players going balls out D/D(there are some that have started recently with good results, but the majority so far are still doing bunker/heals builds).

You’re also right about water and air, although I would say that air for staff isn’t that much worse than fire, however it does require more situational use to maximize potential: specifically with multiple targets for the lightning to multi-hit(quite effective with zergs).

Force.5861:

far as i know, D/D use evasive arcana to proc an extra might aoe in ring of fire after going to earth for 4->5. they also want 30 arcane for faster attune swapping and boon duration.

D/D definitely does more damage than staff, but without aurashare it does not bring as much utility to the group. When pugging (for dungeons and large DEs) i find that my teammates often need my help removing conditions and healing… giving them vigor (and fury) with aurashare will not help if they are not using their dodges to begin with. With cleansing water (regen removes conditions) i can cleanse an absurd amount of conditions with staff water – something like 8 removals over 6 seconds with 30 water and 10 arcane. It is also possible to bodyblock some projectiles with the staff earth aura up to protect teammates, but that is a bit more situational than the condition removal.

Solo farming is slower with staff than dagger, particularly if you keep a support focused build, but i choose to save the respec cost and just stay staff 24/7 now.

i typically run a 10/0/10/30/20 build, taking armor of earth, cleansing water, and blasting staff. the fire is 10% fire attune damage to help damage contribution for solo/small group play.

No, and your build is the reason why. Staff can drop CRAZY numbers, especially when you synergize with firery greatsword. You are running a support staff build, which obviously will do less numbers than any kind of D/D setup. Try a serker setup with glyphs/arcane utilities and the synergy/dmg you will get from it is quite crazy.

Michael.3279:

So it really is all about RTL then? Pages and pages of threads devoted to a build that helps you run away from a group?

If a group gets the jump on me, sure… otherwise, Teleport and perma-swiftness get me out 9 out of 10 times.

For non-bunker D/D builds, yes. For bunker D/D builds, HELL yes. Either way, a lot is built around mobility with(depending on the player)group support being a secondary build style. There has been a shift recently towards a more dmg D/D spec, but IMO it fails compared to more dmg oriented Ele builds(see staff).

As for OP: yes, I agree that staff is kittening great. I predict we’ll be seeing an influx of staff players/builds in the coming weeks after this nerf. D/D will still be around, although I think only in a purely support build.

Thunderbrew.7034:

Arcane Blast is the only one I use as a staff ele. Very short CD,
and ideal at getting instant damage for kill credit, or that last
needed burst on a fleeing enemy.

Yep. Blast is kittening amazing IMO. I have Fire on my staff and while it isn’t a guaranteed crit(30% AFAIR), it procs often enough with the crit of AB to equal 2x ~4k hits back to back. Useful for kittening up near death people in WvW or GC thieves trying to backstab you(drop lava font, pop your shield, they will wail on you until the shield explodes, then they get hit for usually ~10-12k combined dmg from all the above).

Are they somewhat situational? Sure, but for the build I use in WvW/PvE(mostly GC staff), it ends up working wonders. I wouldn’t recommend them for full PVT D/D builds though, as you’re better off going for cantrips or something else.

Healix.5819:

Riss.1536:

Currently, master kit has a 25% chance of having rare mats. Black Lion Kit has 50% chance. I want a up to 75%, that’s what I meant so I don’t think you would have less by upping the kit. Otherwise, it’s better to directly buy the ectos than to buy gems or use gold for the black lion kit.

“50% chance to get rarer materials.” It means when salvaging something that you usually get mithril from, you have a 50% higher chance to get orichalcum.

Salvaging ectos has the same rate if you use a rare, mystic or black lion kit. I used to salvage in batches of 100 and after about a thousand salvages using a mystic kit, I found it to be at around 85% to get 1 ecto. Out of my batches of 100, the worst was around 60, while the best was almost 1:1.

One thing I noticed was failing to get an ecto could happen 10+ times in a row when quickly salvaging. After seeing this happen a few times, I began to pause for a few minutes after every 3rd fail. I havn’t seen long strings of failure since. Not sure if coincidence, pseudo RNG failure or if ArenaNet uses a predetermined loot table like some other games.

I’ve noticed this as well and I’ve started pausing for a few seconds between salvages. It seems like when I super fast click through stuff I end up with less than 1:1, but if I spread it out a bit I usually average 1:1 or greater.

What server are you on OP? LA is ALWAYS filled with people on SoR. Even out in the wilderness I run into 3-4 people at a time(in really remote spots).

I got an 80 rare from it on my latest attempt today, so it definitely drops 80 gear. Timer is 24hr per character from what I can tell.

Nice. I’ve been hearing a lot about hammer recently; I’ll have to give it a shot tomorrow night when I do some CoF speed clears. I mostly rock greatsword an max out at ~ 9k, but it sounds like hammer is even better.

Infernia.9847:

@Burnwees & somsom – I tend to think it was a hint whether intentional or not. It could be part of a long event chain or simply the timer is on a long reset or the conditions that need to be met create a longer time to reset.
Didn’t someone mention that the Demagogue event had a long reset? Taida Covington event can be done multiple times per day? Both aren’t farmed nearly enough times to produce results yet.
I haven’t done either but am going to check them out next chance I get.

Yea I managed to do Demagogue twice today on different chars. After that the chest wasn’t lootable(it was ~12hrs between checks, so I’m guessing a 24hr window maybe?). That said, the second time I did it, I did get a rare lvl 80 greatsword from the chest, so it DOES drop up-leveled stuff.

Rookni.2469:

Berz/berz all the way my friend. You need to evolve from safe womb of PVT

This. Even the “master” himself of the D/D build has gravitated away from straight PVT. It’s nice and all to “learn” on, but beyond that…you’re basically playing a “roam through a zerg unscathed” simulator. Best to have a mix of dmg/survivability(which we have enough of already).

Pandeh.5248:

Mesket.5728:

It is the big one cliche and most common armor in GW2… since the first couple of weeks where dungeons had no DR and people farmed and farmed for hours CoF 2. It is a big sign for farming dudes (in most cases). Lol I remember one of my friends stood up 15 hours in that place getting 3 full sets of armor in one day.

Ever since that day, it is the most farmed and common place.

Let me set you straight there with you statement. Yes, people farmed it. But it is way easier to get today than back then. I farmed my greatsword like that and it took me, I dunno alot of runs. If you want a greatsword today you can get it in less that one day if you commit for it. Back then you had to do like 50+ runs to get enough for 1 piece.(Don’t slaughter me if I’m wrong on that number, but I remember doing it non stop for several days, maybe even a week to get it.)

Yea it’s definitely “faster” now, especially if you have alts to do it with. I can bang out p1+p2 in ~25mins; do that across 4 characters and you’ve got ~500 tokens. Compared to launch, which was still pretty fast, this is insanely fast.

BurnWeed.5902:

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Hi, I just wanted to give an update. First, I’d like to apologize for setting off such a firestorm of speculation—I was trying to provide assurance that Final Rest is, indeed hooked up and working, but it’s not likely to have dropped yet. Like I said, the odds that I posted were a quick calculation after looking at the drop chance, how often the event runs, and other factors.

On a totally unrelated note, large event chests are being upgraded to make them more rewarding, so the odds of Final Rest and other rare items appearing should see an increase in a future update.

Yup, I noticed that too. His previous comment was about people doing it once a day. One could interpret that as simply a figure of speech or that the event is hard-capped to once a day or the timer is so long, that a “normal” gamer would only see the event once a day. I’m inclined to think it was a hint more than a figure of speech, but who knows.

Uhhh it was cliche since day one.

Armor with flames? Check. Abyss? Check. Looking like everyone else? Priceless.

Black Frog.9274:

I considered that event as well, but after the other event I ran in Brisban, I don’t think Final Rest is going to drop on a low level map.

Running an event once isn’t indicative of anything though. We already know that level 80 stuff can drop from lower level events(ex: Shadow Behemoth), so that doesn’t rule anything out.

uhhhh dungeons/WvW makes it SOOOOO easy to do this. I make an Anomaly like twice a month.

Gotta change your playstyle I guess.

Thor.1756:

urzen.7096:

Speaking for myself, I think its more fun to have even, challenging fight than to fight doors. Points dont matter cause you dont win anything. Having more points than someone is not entertaining. FIghting them for an hour to defend a tower is.

Then SoR should be adapting, splitting up into smaller groups when the fight calls for it, and fighting the enemy where they go, having your even fights in smaller groups. Not simply complaining when some of your enemy disappears and calling them cowards. I’ve seen single JQ guilds do this multiple times, leaving a main force of 20-30 on one map, and sending 10 to organize pugs on another. I’ve yet to see Choo, TW, or any other SoR guild employ this kind of flexibility.

Then you must consider looking at the scorecards in this thread as “playing”, because you surely aren’t actually playing the same game I am.

Moxtidus.4576:

CHIPS.6018:

Necro=>no kill=>no badges=>no/weak wvw only skill.

We are further screwed now. Direct damage classes (warriors, thieves, etc) will be able to level up their wvw only skill super fast. While necros will take forever to level them up to a usable level.

We will be so screwed it won’t be funny. Same goes for engineers and rangers. We are all screwed.

Necro/el can farm 150badges in 2 hours.

This.

The amount of badges I get on my ele is silly. My necro, when I played it, was second in terms of badges per hour. L2P issue here is all.

Thor.1756:

Burl.9567:

We see you guys around….but then you leave after 30 mins or so. Not sure why…

Well if we leave it’s either

1. we’ve already won the match and are just running XP/Karma trains
or
2. SoR’s concentrated all of its forces on one borderland in one giant amorphous blob, and since we care about PPT AND fights, one of the groups on the border splits out to another one to cap all your kitten.

This is called “strategy.” We routinely laugh our kitten off as your giant blob fails to cap anything more on this map while losing everything else your server owns. You may claim that your victories in your one big group mean you’re more skilled players, but some people may think that the ability to divide forces into smaller groups and cap more objectives is another indicator of server skill. Crazy, I know.

Suuuuuuuure you do.

We routinely laugh our kitten off too when we see outmanned buffs suddenly after wiping your so called XP/Karma trains.

But no, that must be “strategery”(tyvm GWB).

titanlectro.5029:

There is a reason that the guards are NPCs, because standing around in a tower is boring, and this is a game. We are here to have fun. We let NPCs do the boring stuff.

So let the NPCs do the scouting please. Heck, it is not even scouting, it is standing watch. Scouting is fun, standing watch is not. I don’t want to be a watchman. Requiring watchmen adds nothing to the game, and only serves to make defense even more boring and even less rewarding.

What will happen when defense becomes more boring, less effective, and less rewarding? People won’t do it. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that it will “force” anything. People will just defend less. The game will become an offensive capping race.

Boohoo. What happens then? You lose the keep. Don’t want to defend your keeps? Too kittening bad.

All this carebear talk about wanting swords and drone reports. Give me a break. Do some old fashioned scouting instead.

I’m well over 800 fractals(the vast majority were 20/30+) and I’ve received:
1 short bow
2 hammers
1 rifle

So yea, the drop rate is utter kitten.

Both variants are likely either an MF recipe or a drop from an as now unknown event chest.
My guess is they are more likely an MF recipe, as someone posted recently on Reddit a list of MF/exotics and these two bows would have fit perfectly in place due to their item id.

I’d much rather have ZERO indicators at all and have commanders rely on scouts, than have a setup that encourages zergy play(lets be honest: if you see swords now, you don’t necessarily send a huge force; if we see swords with this patch…obvi we send a large force).

Carebear kitten imo. What we need is LESS handholding and MORE focus on actual “skill”.

Staff skills miss ALL the time and I’m not even talking about dodges either. It’s similar to scepter for Guardian: if the player is moving/gaining height it will completely kitten up the shot about 30% of the time.

Nurse.1085:

somsom.5201:

Nurse.1085:

Quotherin.1326:

Had nothing better to do while the servers were down so I went to take a look on the official wiki and at the lists of orr events with the skuls by them, meaning you have to beat champions.

Well, out of all the cursed shore listed less than half have descriptions.
Checking if some of these spawn chests might also be a good place to start since
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/NPC_rank says that “These creatures are very rare to see, they can only be found in dungeon instances or in Ruins of Orr group events and require an organized group and concerted effort to take down. They can be identified by a special purple starburst frame with two crossed swords around their target portrait.”

When I can finally log in I’ll go take a look and see if any of the ones with blank pages are up and get some info.

My money is on it being somewhere in Orr.

That isn’t correct (@ Legendary’s only being in Orr). The boss Taidha Convington in Bloodtide Coast is a Legendary.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Campaign_Against_Taidha_Covington

She’s one of the few Legendary’s that have a “chance” at triggering, making her unique/rare. In addition, the treasure chest is a large one.

But yeah, I think that’s what they meant when they said it was a “rare boss” or a “unique boss” was that it was a Legendary, not a Champion. Just a guess though.

I’ve been trying to do it off an on the past week or two and it keeps “bugging” out at the point where the Lionguard are supposed to attack(you go downstairs, kill the risen boss and all the mobs, but it doesn’t trigger anything afterwards).

I tried guesting on a few other servers and it was the same there(risen boss is killed, NPCs show up, stand around in the camp outside, then disappear and the risen boss in the bottom spawns again).

I’m in that area quite often, but I’ve honestly only seen that event properly working once, and that was RIGHT at the beginning of launch. Other than that, there has either not been enough people to even kill the risen boss or the event has been bugged.

If someone has a server with this working let me know and I’ll guest over there an try it out.

It’s working on Tarnished Coast.

That’s what makes this event so rare, it only has a random chance of triggering the meta event to kill Taidha Covington. You need to keep Lionguard Jenny alive, she’s the merchant at the Covington Keep near the skill point. If she’s not alive when you defeat the Champion, the meta event will NOT start no matter what. So, 1 person needs to guard Jenny while the other group of people kill the Champion. If you see Jenny, Bill and Hekja leave the island then you know the meta is starting.

Most people don’t know that though, you won’t be starting the meta event with out Jenny because Jenny leads you to the Taidha Covington event.

Ahhh that must be the issue then, as I was only seeing Bill and Hekja and a couple random Lionguard running about. I’ll give it another go tonight then.

Nurse.1085:

Quotherin.1326:

Had nothing better to do while the servers were down so I went to take a look on the official wiki and at the lists of orr events with the skuls by them, meaning you have to beat champions.

Well, out of all the cursed shore listed less than half have descriptions.
Checking if some of these spawn chests might also be a good place to start since
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/NPC_rank says that “These creatures are very rare to see, they can only be found in dungeon instances or in Ruins of Orr group events and require an organized group and concerted effort to take down. They can be identified by a special purple starburst frame with two crossed swords around their target portrait.”

When I can finally log in I’ll go take a look and see if any of the ones with blank pages are up and get some info.

My money is on it being somewhere in Orr.

That isn’t correct (@ Legendary’s only being in Orr). The boss Taidha Convington in Bloodtide Coast is a Legendary.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Campaign_Against_Taidha_Covington

She’s one of the few Legendary’s that have a “chance” at triggering, making her unique/rare. In addition, the treasure chest is a large one.

But yeah, I think that’s what they meant when they said it was a “rare boss” or a “unique boss” was that it was a Legendary, not a Champion. Just a guess though.

I’ve been trying to do it off an on the past week or two and it keeps “bugging” out at the point where the Lionguard are supposed to attack(you go downstairs, kill the risen boss and all the mobs, but it doesn’t trigger anything afterwards).

I tried guesting on a few other servers and it was the same there(risen boss is killed, NPCs show up, stand around in the camp outside, then disappear and the risen boss in the bottom spawns again).

I’m in that area quite often, but I’ve honestly only seen that event properly working once, and that was RIGHT at the beginning of launch. Other than that, there has either not been enough people to even kill the risen boss or the event has been bugged.

If someone has a server with this working let me know and I’ll guest over there an try it out.

Dansa.1860:

“Aurora’s Remains” is a fairly hidden area in Brisban Wildlands and there is an event to kill a ghost witch spawns an chest. Possible candidate?

Event: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Draw_out_and_destroy_the_Demagogue%27s_spirit

This has been mentioned before, and I was actually going to post it again(after re-reading the latest dev input on the subject) because I think this might be the place.
-The event is fairly out of the way
-I know for a fact that not many people have done it(at least done it on a regular basis)
-The chest itself was bugged on some servers near launch, thus potentially discouraging people from going back again
-The event has a direct link to GW1
-It has a “boss”(from GW1)
-It drops a chest

Hjorje.9453:

The shadow behemoth isn’t being farmed by level 80s though. I think this should stay on our list for now. It was broken for a while and when I go there, there isn’t a lot of lvl 80s around.

I will continue to do this on my 80 and see if I can get some more players there with me when it comes up.

uhhh it most definitely IS being farmed by 80s. On my home server, as well as the ones I guest on, it is being timer camped just like the dragons. I routinely see 30-50 players, the vast majority of which are 80s(can tell by just looking at how many are in CoF gear…).

The Lover(or Dwayna’s Feathers if someone would ever figure out the MF recipe/drop location). I’m glad I dropped ~400g for it, without ever planning on making the legendary(which is ugly as sin).

Turn off auto and master the reverse leap. ’nuff said. Totally a l2p issue here(not trying to be a kitten, just stating the obvious).

Daddydeath.9371:

kidbs.8920:

Daddydeath.9371:

Thiefs can be beaten with aoe, knockbacks and cc. eles can be beaten with condition or high burst, so far im yet to find a counter for that ranger build, if u do know plz let me know, since its not op as u say then there must be a way 2 counter them? if so i would like 2 know it. rangers may need buffs in some builds i agree, however the trap/condition/evade combo is a nasty one and should be nerfed

All good thieves are running with condition removal + regen on stealth, so conditions alone won’t kill them. If a thief ever gets too low on hp he always has the option of completely escaping and resetting the fight (something that no other class has except maybe an ele).

A good bunker ele will not be beaten by a thief either due to their insane healing and condition removal. Eles also have excellent mobility and CC, so they can also easily get away if needed.

Really you just listed 2 classes that should have very little problem killing a ranger and are considered the most OP duelers in the game… I don’t mean to be nasty but I think an L2P is in order.

am willing 2 duel u in spvp anytime, show u it isnt about skill, come duel me then say l2p after

How exactly will that prove it “isn’t about skill”?

You will either win or lose, which proves…nothing. Just because someone beats you doesn’t mean they have a build that needs to be nerfed. You just proved the Ranger side of the argument and made your own point ****ing moot.

See above comment on how to deal with this kind of build. Either a) take out the pet, negating a LOT of dmg or b) force the Ranger to move, negating dmg, screwing up their trap placement, etc.

Really isn’t that hard OP. Only thing that might be tricky is if they have mastered the sword reverse jump trick and kite you like a boss. If that happens: just stealth and run off like you normally do.

OP do you play WvW? Still think “standing still and watching hotkey animations unless there is a red circle” works there?

Blackhair.6245:

Yes, Ascended items have higher stats than exotics besides the agony resist. Ascended items can be used outside of Fractals so yes, their stat gains can be used outside of the dungeon. Only amulets and rings exist right now but they plan on adding more items.

Don’t be pushed away by ascended items though. Their stat gain isn’t much higher than exotics. You can also get them from turning the daily tokens in (Laurels) if you don’t like the Fractal dungeon.

Last I checked we can only get rings from dungeons(better than wasting 35 dailies on one though), so if you want to gear alts…have fun spending a month per alt just for one piece of gear(gear that people are already requiring to run dungeons with lol).

Heijincks.9267:

Tolmos.8395:

So far only 3 of the ascended items have been introduced and they require between 20-60 days to get all 3. So I imagine when the new ones are introduced, the amount of time to get them will be joyous.

The 10%+ difference in stats between exotics and ascended gear has been just as horrid as everyone expected it would. While the 3 items available so far don’t make much of a difference on their own, it has become apparent to almost everyone (minus 2 posters above me) that the full set will be quite a leap from the current stats of exotic gear.

And yes, despite what one would consider common sense, the stats still affect the world outside of fractals… including WvW.

However, one change has happened in Forums at least- Ascended gear grinders have begun whining right alongside the ascended gear haters at the realization that yes, a level cap increase is coming and yes, this means all their gear grinding is pointless and they’ll get to do it all over again. Looking at some of the “Do you want a level increase?” threads and seeing an overwhelming “No” from both sides at least shows some small semblance of mutual understanding can be reached.

So yes, it is painfully obvious the treadmill was introduced. Grind grind grind to get exotics. They introduce ascended gear. Grind grind grind to get ascended gear. They’ll raise the level cap. Start over grind grind grinding to go back up to the ranks to ascended gear. And the only guarantee we have in all this is that no new tiers will be added in 2013. They were quite specific on that.

So… I hope you like grinding!

Level cap increase is likely not going to happen the way you think it would. If ANet is smart, they’d do it in an expansion independent from the main game. I don’t think they’d simply just “bump” the level right now from 80 to 90.

Likewise, full ascended has not come yet, so we don’t even know how they’ll be obtained. That said, it would be too inconclusive to say we have to grind for it the same way we have to “grind” for our current ascended.

If you think they’re going to make it “easier” to obtain the rest of the ascended gear…lol ok. It’s easy now, in the sense that you can really only gear one alt without a grind. Beyond that, yea not so easy spending a month per amulet, plus 10 days (fractal daily 20/30 for the pristines for rings).

Factor in earrings/“ascending” armor…lol ok. I’d rather have an option to just dump gold and get all ascended via the TP than this current method.

For weapons you could go with storm(or tsunami for the non-pre version) if you like scepters. Pair that with a firey dagger of some sort like the destroyer dagger. That would take care of fire and water, then you could use a mystic spike or something if you want to d/d for the air. For earth maybe a staff? Depends on what kind of build you are going for but there are definitely LOTS of options.

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

I’m still not sure why everyone is so busy getting hung up on lore. If you go around trying to do every single event that has anything to do with the slightest mention of anything related to a gargoyle, the staff is never going to be found. Instead of wasting time speculating about finding the tiniest event chain in the darkest corner of the map (like what most of you have probably been doing for months already, as the staff has yet to be found), get a guild group and farm events like Megadestroyer, Shadow Behemoth, and other similar bosses that have unique chests. Taking that route is simple, can be done easily by a large number of people, and will probably lead to the staff being found (or not being found, in which case you can go back to scavenging for events that are related to a gargoyle’s mom’s pet dog). Focus on the big and easy ones first, then move on if the staff isn’t found after a month or so.

The issue is that with only doing the “big and easy ones” you’re focusing on the non-rare ones, which is counter to what devs have said multiple times now.

Shadow Behemoth has been farmed to death on my server(even before the “fixes” to it); now it’s routine to see more people than Jormag there(50+) during ALL times of the day.

My vote goes for a REALLY obscure event chain that probably is time of day dependent or at the very least dependent on some certain map/area wide conditions(read: other nearby events).

Meh, I get what you’re saying OP, but honestly I don’t see a huge issue with it. I’ve played Staff in PvP and WvW with hardly any issues, aside from the obvious(don’t try and 1v1 thiefs).

You just need to get a good feel for casting times, ranges, etc. I have zero issues setting up targeted spells with longer casting times, as I often use shield depending on the situation, or make use of terrain to give me those few seconds to cast it unmolested.

If you start messing with casting times or allowing us to move about while casting…meh, I think it would make some abilities op(and we would likely see a HUGE nerf due to it).

The biggest issue is the AOE cap, which I can understand is frustrating if you don’t get proper placement with your spells. Best advice is to keep trying it and work on perfecting it. There are a lot of ways to negate dmg while still casting our more powerful spells(play around with LOS, higher terrain, etc).

My Sweet Lily.1952:

Well if you want the Short Bow skin, buy The Lover. Beautiful skin (same as the Dwayna Bow) and you can see the golden transparent feathers fall of it.

I believe there is no way of getting either of the Dwayna Bows. It’s exactly like Final Rest. It’s there, but no one has it.

There is a longbow version too, which I’m mainly interested in(already bought The Lover for the skin only…).

Would love to see a Red comment on whether this is an MF only craft(which is what I suspect) or an actual world drop.

lolwut?

It costs usually under 2g if you straight buy EVERYTHING without using karma stuff.

Look up the Dynamic Crafting Guide and you’ll be done in under 20 minutes.

edit: I see the man himself posted it above; seriously, use it, it’s great.

Heh, I’ve been running a build like this for almost a month now, although mine has a little more toughness(Knights 4/6, Berserker 2/6, Berserker/Knights accessories). I also have a few traits different than you, but for the most part everything else is identical(GS + sw/focus).

Gotta say, it absolutely WRECKS classes and the toughness really helps for frontline in-out gameplay.

Glad to see someone else going for a similar playstyle.

New color scheme

@ OP: it has INSANE use in WvW. I understand what you’re saying, but to just add extra abilities to current abilities is a little silly. If ANet did as you suggested, added ranged block to churning earth, that would mean a TON of wasted dmg in WvW.

Sorry, but the focus has a definite use. Either learn to use it or use something else.

False.

In terms of “better” loot, the only thing better is that you get guaranteed infused rings instead of normal rings and “better” chances at fractal skins. Other than that, nope. You are better off doing a sub 20 fractal, usually something in the ~10 range, and doing it faster than a 30-50.

The drops used to be better, and even though ANet says they didn’t nerf drops in fractals…they did something to them, as I went from an average of ~3g per run to less than 1g(mostly just blues/greens, maybe once a week I get a run with 6+ rares; makes zero sense).

This would just be too easy with some of the classes. I mean, it’s easy enough as it already is to break combat, let alone give a free “evade for 10s” waypoint option.

Mix of Human T3, Priory, HoM rewards.

Ahhh BRIGHT!!!!

I’ve actually gotten a lot of compliments, but that said, I have seen a fair number of statements/posts on GW2LFG saying otherwise.

A fair amount of the “hate” revolves around people who just plain don’t understand the class or aren’t specc’d for the playstyle. Sorry to say it, but when you’re running two bears…you probably aren’t going to be super helpful at all. I have ZERO issues running 2 cats, you just need to learn how to micro your class(the pet) and keep it up. If that means pulling it back for a heal, then do it. Just picking bear and sitting back to pew-pew isn’t helping anyone at all and is just lazy.

I’ve actually had a few 3-4 ranger groups of CoF p1 that destroyed warrior/mes groups in terms of time.

tl;dr: it’s more of a l2p issue for a majority of Ranger players out there(there are definite class issues, but they aren’t as bad as people suggest).

I recently started using a similar build(similar in that it is primarily for front line combat) and I REALLY love it.

I went with Toughness, Power, Pre, Vit, Healing, in pretty much that order. ~2900-3000 Toughness, ~3000-3200 Power, Crit is ~25-35% depending on food/buffs, ~12-13.8k HP.

I run it with sword+focus/GS(or Hammer, depends on situation) and find that it absolutely wrecks the glassy players out there. The only real issues you might run into are players set up to do 100% conditions, but with a good group(condition removal fields) this can be easily mitigated. Anything non-conditions is pretty much a joke due to the toughness.

Thobek.1730:

its only natural for a team who has just reached T1 to be enthusiastic. They have certainly turned out in force the the final week before reset. It will be interesting to see where SoR’s strengths are during the week.

Quite a few have been on T1 before; think of it as a return for many.

Yup, the past 2 days have been dc’s every couple of minutes. Tried everything: restart client, restart computer, change half a dozen internet settings, different houses, etc. Issue is with ANet.

Dontcare Aboutnames.9284:

Well to get this back on topic, great fighting with SoR @ Umberglade this morning at around 11:00 PST. Thought we had lost it until we got those ballista’s down that turned the tide until you finally wore us down with the over whelming numbers good fighting though

Yep that was a pretty good fight, probably one of the better ones in awhile.