Guild Wars 2

Something tells me hes a Revnant that got boosted…. because the only other class that has lack luster direct healing is Thief, and they have more then enough mobility skills to make up the gap in this specific situation.

Silverwaste is also NOT a direct part of the expansion. And despite my grievances with the mordrem skill sets, they are still manageable with core class traits and a couple of control skills.

Gerrand.3085:

Good law. Why did it take China to come up with it -.-

Because businesses and accountants don’t like transparency where the money they make is based on perceived value. Using TP as an example, the price of some Precurors are incredibly low, despite the fact that the legendary crafting should had otherwise set a floor on the price. It costs 500g to craft the Energizer, but they sell for 150g on TP because theres very little demand for them.

With only 7 characters, that means theres at least 2 class you’re not playing. :P

Now you know what to use the scroll on.

Dungeons, when first released, where essentially “raiding lite”, since GW2 doesn’t use a hard trinity class system. They are significantly harder to do, required a cohesive build, and required the player be able to understand simple mechanics and enemy tells. This lead to a much smaller margin of error compared to open world, but any half way competent player could easily make their way through most exploration paths. The story paths were just interactive story elements, and even back in the old days could done solo if you’re build was even semi-durable.

What poisoned Dungeons was the speed run meta/zerks meta, due to it having the highest payout rate of any PvE content at the time. This was before champ bags, before chest trains, before pop up chests and meta rewards, and before Magic find could be had in significant amounts. Back then 100g was considered a big deal, and could take a couple months to get with open world farming. But dungeons would pay out in gold and tokens, and those tokens could be converted into gold/precurors via the mystic forge. It was also the fastest way to gear up a character with zerk armor, since T6 mats in general were difficult to obtain. Its also a requirement for Legendary weapons. And so people wanting to make gold would speed run dungeons for the daily token bonus, with any additional drops/chests being extra money on top.

For the most part, those people aren’t there to enjoy the content… they’re there to bang out the rewards as quickly as possible, so they can move on to the next most rewarding thing they can do with their time. Raids have the same issue as well; where the population is distilling in toxicity, as everyone wants experienced people, but no one wants to train new people so they get better.

Zenith.6403:

laffingseals.5934:

+ For gods sake, allow WvW players a way to get ascended armor by playing WvW.

You’ve got to craft it. Every objective has grafting material dispensers that refill every so often too.

Except for people who farm Raids, who can outright buy ascended armor using only Gold and Tokens. Or Fractal farmers, where T4 fractals drop ascended gear on a fairly regular basis.

Open world players obtain large amounts of salvageable loot, can generate and hoard enough gold to buy materials they can’t normally obtain. WvW offers nothing anywhere near that level of output to do via crafting… so really it will boil down to them buying refined ascended materials, and presuming they already have lvl 500 crafting. There needs to be a WvW reward track that gives out Asc armor pieces, or even bundle it into the Triumphant Armor reward box (since its a WvW exclusive anyway).

She shows up several times more while you’re doing plot stuff in BitterFrost…… gets trippy because you never expect it.

Zeivu.3615:

I can confirm this. There is something about the minions being present that drastically increases it’s health regen. I had to die and re-enter the boss fight due to my minions interesting inability to drop dead themselves in the fight.

peffy.8765:

I actually had a lot of trouble with this boss. I think it is bugged. It may have been related to my build – I was using a necromancer with a lot of minions.

I did the thing where I had to stand in the white circle and use the special skill. The boss would lose about 75% of its health, but then it would regen back up to full health before I could use the skill again. I did this for 15 minutes (!!!) before I decided to try killing off as many of my minions as I could. After I did that, the boss stopped regenerating to full, and I was able to kill it after 2 or 3 uses of the skill.

My guildmate said the boss should’ve died way quicker than that, so it looks to me like there is some problem with the minions.

Its because the Leecher’s attacks have life stealing; so all the hits hes getting in on the minions are replenishing his health. It also doesn’t help that the attack rotation is incredibly long, so players easily get confused as to whether or not they need to take action, or are supposed to wait (as was instructed).

The expectation is that you evade until it does its spin attack….. but given the designs of most other events in game, the player automatically thinks they need to actively do something to expose the weakness, thus giving Aurene an opening to attack.

IndigoSundown.5419:

To me, this is a symptom of an apparently necessary evil. In order to foster the story, “I” end up choosing things that I would not do, say things I would not say, etc. It’s nearly impossible for me to form any bond, emotional, or even cognitive, with my character when I would never have chosen most of my actions or words. ANet should look at Bioware stories. While the choices are somewhat simplistic, and usually end up in the same place, at least there is some choice. In ANet stories, it feels like I am watching a movie that makes little to no sense to me, while NPC’s emote about various things, and while nothing I want or feel makes the slightest difference to the outcome.

But wasn’t a complaint about the game early on on how the Personal Story lacked substance, and was largely attributed to the fact that the choices you made didn’t really matter in the long run, and thus the effort and resources put toward them was minimal. I’ve even seen an argument made that the scenarios themselves only existed because a choice was needed, and as a result, the writing quality had to suffer in order to be opened ended enough for the player to feel like they have control. Even in early HOT missions, all the choices converged to the same result, and even the picking NPCs to accompany you was barely worth the changes in witty banter,

Case in point….. the Polarization of Tybalt’s arc, and the player base’s animosity toward Treherne. Both of these are a direct result of how the player are introduced to these characters, and exposes some very big issues with how the fragmentation of the personal story ended up doing more harm then good from a story telling stand point.

Its been 3 years… so I’m not gonna bother with Spoiler tags given this is all Pact Tyria, and we’re in the Living story forum….. if you didn’t know by now that we kicked Zhaitan’s kitten , then even knowing who Brahm is means you’re a time traveler.

Anyway….. I picked Vigil and got Warmaster Forgal as a mentor…. and I didn’t even bother finishing the personal story once it got to Orr, because it didn’t feel like the story could keep my attention. Forgal dying simply wasn’t emotionally impact, despite the attempts to make him like a surrogate father figure. So over the next year, I’d see on and off references by players to Tybalt…. I had no idea who he was, other then a mini pet that shared the name. I eventually stopped playing after South sun (which I’m still regretting, after learning about the whole Scarlet story arc), and came back half a year later. Again I came across the references to Tybalt and Apples, and decided to look him up. I found out hes on the Whispers story arc, and decided I may as well do the Personal story for achievements.

But what surprised me was how well written, and how relateable a character he ended up being. He came across as a good buddy to have, and I could finally see why so many people remember him over any other character in the whole of the personal story line, other then Treherne becoming Marshal. And that dialog exchange at Claw Island…. that actually hurt.

Now on the flip side of all this, you have Treherne. Sylvari was never a popular race choice, so most players didn’t get exposed to him until the formation of the Pact. The problem here is that his entire existance within the story ONLY makes sense if you had played the Sylvari, and had picked the story path that gives you the back story on Caladbolg. Its as if the the players, regardless of how they got to that point, were expected to understand several things about Treherne, the Wyld Hunt, and his activity prior to Claw Island. Without that knowledge, Treherne does really feel like they forced him into the limelight, despite the player essentially being the hero of the story; and I can easily understand why players never had much respect for him.

Whats happening now with LWS3 is the writers quickly trying to tie up a bunch of loose ends, because the Commander is probably going to be isolated (either by failure, or division of duty) by the time the new expansion story gets under way. They’re going to pull a Logan with him, they’re gonna use Aurene as the catalyst, and the reason for it is they’ll be using a diversity of resources for the upcoming dragon fight. The Pact was 1 large military force when they went against Zhaitan, reduced to a Guerilla force for Modremoth, a barely holding together as they try to find a new Marshal. When its all said and done, there is going to be several factions in play, and spread out against the various dragons. And the Commander’s role in all of this is juggling the fostering of Aurene, while simultaneously trying to make headway against whichever dragon becomes the most immediate threat.

The reason changes depending on the state of the Dev team. For the first year, it was claimed it would require too much work, and believed most skills served the right function, but could be fixed by changing its stats. By year 2, they said they didn’t have anyone on-staff who could change the skill mechanics because of how their engine was designed…. and they couldn’t find anyone qualified to make the necessary changes- This would force them to remake the skill set from scratch, and it was too high effort. (This was the one I’ve seen cited as to why Ranger Sword AA “Leap” couldn’t be changed so it doesn’t root the player on execution)

With HOT, the engine was overhauled to do all these things…. But the lead designers for some of the classes cough cough Ranger refuse to accept that the functionality of some skills are either not competitive, or even counter productive to how combat works in this game.

As for the Ele Scepter, the mechanics of the attacks aren’t so much the problem as their overall damage output. Air AA is actually really powerful, because its a multi-hit, zero-travel channel that still allows Instant cast skills to function while in use…. in fact, its even paired with 2 skills have instant cast on slots 2 and 3. Fire AA is a steady source of burning, Water AA is multiple projectiles (which can trigger and expend defense traits on the first hit, leaving them open for the 2 other hits), Earth AA being similar despite being on a short channel. The truth is all the skills on Ele scepter are actually good to excellent delivery mechanisms; but the one thing they all have in common is lack luster damage coefficients that don’t reflect the high risk of channeled skills. The only skill that ever had any real big issues was Dragon Tooth; and that one was recently changed to ground targeting so you could aim ahead of a target.

You have to think of Aegis effect as being a transparent decal…. once you start thinking this way, you start looking at things that have synergy with either the shape or color scheme. FlameSeeker is an obvious choice, so is Kyrtan’s Embrace. Other good candidates include round shields, the tower shield, Legionnaire shields, Gallant, SAB shields, and the Vigil one. The ones that don’t look good with the effect are the Ornate style shields, which include the Asd skins, roughly half of the Black Lion skins, and ones that have boss details that don’t contrast with the Aegis’ glow.

The better solution is to change the Collection requirements that involve events that only occur on failure. This was a problem with several of the Legendary collections, at least 4 of which would frequently bug out and not complete, at least 3 which only occurred on a failure path of an event chain, and 2 which involved events that were removed since beta.

If all the collection items were on the winning side of event chains, or have the ability put an event back on track when it derails after a failure, none of what you’re talking about would ever be an issue.

LouWolfskin.3492:

BlackBeard.2873:

LouWolfskin.3492:

I wouldn’t mind the Tempest as much if Arcana got a big buff, turned into an elite spec in itself (i still think all core class-lines should get that Treatment) and turned into a line that unifies weapon-cooldown, faster swapping and AoE Buffs through swapping so that you are a real alternative to the more damage focused Tempest.

Give each variety a bit of flavor and so on.

The thing is, tempest is supposed to be the support option, but Arcana is already support/boons themed. They didn’t make tempest a new role, they just made it the same role, but in a different way (and higher numbers!).

I do think core specs should have an “elite” option from their mechanic-enhancing line. (like Arcana, Illusions, Virtues, Discipline, etc.) Problem with eles, is that tempest never really was different. They would have to really change tempest into something actually coherent. I do think WP is correct, tempest was probably supposed to be a damage line – overloads are absolutely damage, but when sword wasn’t any different from dagger they slapped “support” ontop of overloads and were left with a total mess.

I honestly wish elites weren’t stronger than baseline lines so I would never have to take tempest again.

But if Elite-Lines shouldn’t be stronger than base we’d have to turn one baseline into an Elite.
I already hate the fact that they aren’t because, as it currently is, you can affect your class mechanic in two ways which screws up Balance in quite some ways.

Pretty sure Illusions, for example, is mandatory for one of the Meta Chrono Builds.
That never should be an option though.
I want my core classes to be just as much an option as the newer versions.

We’d probably need a gigantic balance patch for that though.
Reworking core lines, reworking the elite lines, reworking a lot of mechanis, adding the still missing heal and elite-skill Options and so on.
But at the same time: That’s something that should have happened with HoT already when it was released.

That varies depending on the class in question. In concept the Core trait of a profession is intended to support the other trait lines…. but when they limited it to 3 trait lines, it slightly polarized the Core profession trait line as it doesn’t synergize with weapon and utilities the way the other trait liens do. With the Elite specs occupying 1 of those lines, the other 2 end up being chosen to enhance the weapons and/or utility skills directly. The 5 Trait system allowed you to cherry pick specific traits without committing to grandmaster, so it was possible to grab an important minor trait without sacrificing the more useful major traits from other lines….. but it also meant that trait teirs made certain classes harder to use, and forced you to take stats that might be useful for the build.

A good example of how lopsided some of the traits choices are- the Guardian rarely used Virtue related traits, because Virtues Active in general weren’t worth using. So the only reason people put points into virtue was to get access to Concentration cool downs. Under the new trait system the Virtues line offered better traits, but none of the desirable ones were linked to Active Virtues.

I do agree that Core Profession trait lines should be handled as an Elite specs in terms of power scaling. But if they were to do so, they should decouple the weapon and utility traits from them, and re-orient the traits to support direct damage, condi damage, or Class mechanic utility as their major trait focuses. This brings them inline with how the Elite specs work, except they surrogate the Elite Weapon/Utility supporting traits with ones that favor build functions rather then specific skill categories.

…………..

If you transplant those concepts to a map meta where fully geared players are the front line units, and the undergeared/inexperienced players are running meaningful support functions, it allows both ends of the spectrum to contribute to the battle, and fosters a sense of cooperation instead of adversity. This is what Silverwaste SHOULD had aimed for by being so close to Brisban (a low level area), where only the first quarter of the map is easily accessible to low level players for most of the meta, with the rest of the map open to fully geared and leveled players by way of survival. But during the last phase of the meta, low level players are given an opportunity to move forward into an area normally to too dangerous for them by way of escorting a siege engine (which offers them protection) up to the front line. High level players typically won’t favor siege because it hampers mobility, but low level players would greatly enjoy it, as it allows them to punch above their weight class. An example of the Vine Wrath event modified to support this, has under speced players holding down the entrance with siege support, while the high level players form the assault force that goes after the Mordrem champs. The only difference in that part of the event compared to the current setup, is the addition of a fortified position to protect under speced players and allowing them to attack an area around it. When the events over, the area is cleared of modrem to allow low level players to do some exploration, and eventually warn them to retreat back before the Mordrem activity resumes.

As an introduction to the precursor events of HOT, this gets them amped up against an enemy that they not only know is tough; but now aspire to eventually reach a state where they can heroically battle on the front lines like those they’ve been supporting. It could even be enough to entice some F2P players, by giving them a taste of the enemy that lies behind the expansion pack. Its a hook that the personal pre-story was very close to nailing, as you aid a member of Destiny’s Edge in a boss fight against some Big Bad…. and one that should be put in as the Tyrian Gateway to the Expansion Regions.

maddoctor.2738:

The new players have loads to do in other zones. There is no need for non-80 zones in an expansion

I would postulate that it needs both, far more then you realize. F2P players can be fine with the existing content… but new players who actually bought the game, which means they have the expansion, want to jump straight to current events and join people where the action is.

But given the game’s much higher build complexity then most MMOs, you can’t drop a brand new player directly into a system that thrives on intricacy and expect them to do well. Even looking at the vast majority of the population, and its over-dependence and overvaluing of sites like Metabattle, its pretty clear this aspect of the game is not well understood by the players, and very poorly utilized as a result.

The point here is that the Lv80 Booster exposed a huge problem with how this game’s learning curve works… and to top it off, they dropped players into what is arguable the most overly difficult map Core Tyria players have ever faced. This was a tutorial Snafu on level unlike any I’ve ever seen in any game to this day… and games which lack tutorials have actually fared better then this situation. More over…. the Soliders gear they give the player doesn’t really improve overall survaiblity, but significantly diminishes their damage output against an enemy that has both burst and sustain, and slathered with hard CCs. New players lack understanding of the builds they’re given, lack the reflexes and mechanical understanding to employ defensive skills and dodging, can’t read the short tells on the enemies (even seasoned players turned more predictive then responsive against the Mordrem), and have not even a clue of possible counter tactics against them. Its literally setting them up for failure, and then asking them if they like the class and want to keep it.

But to get back on point…. LS2/HOT made mistakes all over the board by focusing too hard on lvl 80 players only. When the Mordrem invaded the 2nd Tier maps leading up to the HOT release, low level players were avoiding the maps entirely, because they were severely under-equipped and under-prepared to be anywhere near the those events… and those events were everywhere! That lack of fore planning had single handedly isolated all the low level players from a critical lore driven episode, and gave them no avenue to even contribute to those events due to the sheer overwhelming AOE damage and unshakeable hoards.

These series of events could had been an extremely exciting time for those new players. An enemy capable of overwhelming even seasoned players in direct combat, invading areas all over the map, throwing everything into chaos. But knowing full well that they would not be able to combat the enemy head to head, the possiblity to contribute via a series of support roles or aid contributions – IE gathering sub-objectives, Support bundle weapons (shield bubbles, etc), delivering weapons, and AI driven Siege units the players could fight near for cover)- could not only allow ill-prepared players to take part in the events, but contribute to them in a significant manner.

Case in point is Dragon Stand. Each lane has access to Siege weapons if the complete the fortification events at each camp site; yet I doubt most people are even aware of them. South lane is perhaps the best at projecting this, since Golems and SCAR weapons can be found right near the camp. North Lane has Enchanted Armors, and Mid lane has Glider bombs, but both are obtained away from their main camps. The siege weapons have lower overall power coefficient compared to most players (probably to discourage people stacking them), but their support functions during the assault phases are massive. Enchanted armors can decimate break bars, the Air bombs can throw DOT over a large amount of enemies, and the Golems provide Defense bubbles, area CCs and additional damage against grouped enemies.

…………

Stun break only works on hard CCs, of which Immob is not.

An under appreciated combo is Earth shield and Lighting Rod. Its a risky strategy, but every hard CC deals damage, and Earth shield 3 can hit multiple times. Might not be optimal DPS, but its fun as hell.

SS uses similar mechanics to Sanctum sprint and the Aspects found in Dry top. One thing most people don’t know is that skills can be used together. Especially Wind and Sun, which allows you to leap while dashing, or dashing mid leap. In SS, you can also use Sun to dash while gliding for huge burst of forward movement without the risk of falling.

Yeah, I got the whole 6th tier of gliding filled in one afternoon of Ember Bay events. (Btw, you’ll want to focus on that first if you don’t already have it. As its incredibly helpful for getting around in places the Lava tubes won’t go).

Soldiers: Warriors of the martial disciplines, uses heavy armor, and built for Survivability.

Warrior: While tanky, Warriors are better described as Brawlers and Scrappers. Built from the ground up to jump directly into the front line, and beat down everything within arms reach…. not invincible, though you sometimes feel you could be. Their class ability is Adrenaline, which builds up as they fight, powering some of their traits, and can be unleashed in a powerful burst attack for heavy damage. With plethora of weapons at their disposal, as well as supportive shouts and war banners, they’re a strong, but uncomplicated class to play.

Revnant: The first (and last) “new” class to be added to the game, the Revnants channel the spirits of legendary figures of Tyrian History against their enemies. Each legend has a specific build theme, and a set of abilities that work off of it. The class itself was built for Raids, so they rely on being part of a group to reach their full potential. Solo in open world they can get a little frustrating, since they’re made to resonate with other classes rather then buff themselves. But even being around one other player, the Rev as a class really starts to shine. Their class ability to swap between 2 legends, which completely changes their utility skills based on which one is active.

Guardians: About as close to a traditional tank as the game gets, they’re not meant to soak damage, but actively neutralize it. Relying heavily on Boons to boost both defensive and offensive capability, the class excels at staying upright while sharing its defensive capabilities with the whole group. Because their skills include themselves when applying boons, and have access to multiple condition purging, they are the most forgiving class to play for new players. So while they have the lowest tier HP pool, their respectable damage, inline group support, and powerful active defenses makes them one of the most common classes in the game. Their class mechanic is Virtues, which passively applies offensive and defenses buffs on themselves (which can be traited to be shared with the group), or can be activated for a burst of extra damage or extra defensive abilities.

Guardians tends to be most people’s fall back class (for achievements or troublesome content), because it can survive in most places while still maintaining a high power average.

(kitten you 5000 letter limit)

Adventurers: Med armor, emphasizing mobility and utility.

Thief: Somewhat like a typical rouge class, but not quite. Excels at selective combat, high single target burst damage, and access to a lot of evasion and mobility skills. With easy access to stealth, their power comes from being able to engage and disengage an enemy at will. Mainly used to quickly shut down targets of interest; the thief has a fairly high skill cap, and benefits from a very high paced, fast reacting play style. If you have fast reaction times, this is a very fun class to play in any game mode; even offering group stealth for speed runs of dungeons. Their class mechanic is shadow step, which teleports you to a target, and grants a single use item which has an effect that helps counter the class you’re attacking.

Engineer: A literal jack of all trades, they can, and often will, do a little bit of everything under the sun. Their play style centers on various “utility kits”, which swap their weapon skills out with that of the kit. Each kit is geared toward a different play-style/function, making them incredibly adaptable. Even without directly traiting for it, each tool kit brings something thats worth using at some point in a fight. Difficulty wise their builds range from both the easiest to hardest, but is only moderately tricky to use effectively in most situations…. most of that is just learning how and when to rotate into different kits for the best impact on the fight. Their class mechanic is Tool belt, which gives you a set of 5 extra utility skills based on your currently loaded utility skills. Made to expand (or at least compliment) the utility they’re based on, it makes them even more adaptable then they already are. This is a big reason its my favorite class, as you can easily change up your build without feeling at a disadvantage.

Rangers: This class is fairly straight forward on the surface, but its build meta is difficult to explain unless you’ve played the game for awhile. Their class mechanic is an Animal Companion, which autoattacks for damage, and has access to some utility abilities. However, where they really start to shine is the Druid Elite specialization. This spec majorly changes up the class to be a powerful support healer thats largely been avoided in the game thus far. I haven’t had time to fully play with it, so I can’t comment it on it in depth…. but Druid is often considered a big choice, as it majorly changes the class role from Damage dealer to a Support Healer. The reason this is really weird, is that most classes have a core strategy that you build up on…. but the Druid actively replaces that core strategy. This has caused it to bounce in and out of Raid meta, because the game was never really made to accommodate a dedicated healer.

Heres a quick break down of the classes, and some of their highlights. This should help hone in on what classes you might interesting as a “go to”. But before I go into that, I HIGHLY recommend you keep the lvl 80 Booster for a Follow up character, as the game’s learning curve benefits greatly from getting to at least lvl 60 normally on your first character. You also obtain writs of Exp and Tomes of knowledge from daily rewards, which will help speed the initial leveling process to get to the useful skills faster.

Scholar Classes- Light armor, caster by nature.

Elementalist: Classic mage type class, but has a significantly higher skill cap then most games due to how hyper their skill rotations work at high level play. Class mechanic is Elemental attunement, which completely changes the attack skills from their weapons “on the fly”. Each element focuses on different functions, with fire being raw damage, water for healing and condition cleansing, air being critical damage and controls, and earth being condition damage and defense. While most classes have access to 5 attack skills from their weapons (and swapping between 2 sets), Eles only carry one weapon set, but have access to a total of 20 skills (all on separate cool downs) across all the 4 attunements. They are, hands down, the most versatile class in the game; capable of switching between DD, Support, control, purging, and buffing, all in mid-combat. An obvious group favorite, they are a bit glassy when solo….. although, if you can learn to manage your defense and mobility skills, they can well enough on their own.

Mesmer: Often considered the Utility caster, they’re a somewhat difficult class to understand at first. Both loved and hated, Marjory describes it best… “Helpful if they’re on your side, annoying if they’re not.” They summon illusions that deal damage, impart effects onto a target, and are used as fuel for the Class Mechanic…. Shatters; which explodes the illusions for damage and additional effects. While capable of respectable damage and heavy bursts of control skills against single targets, they are most well known for being insanely slippery in PvP/WvW, with an unparalleled degree of mobility and misdirection, and capable of sending an enemy team into chaos. Most of this power goes to waste in PvE; but their potential can be seen on anything more robust then a trash mob. They have the highest skill cap (as a class) in the game, are very rewarding if you can get a handle on them, though utterly frustrating if you can’t.

Necros: A non-traditional mixed bag of a caster class, Necros represent a combination of buff Corruption, condition damage, and Tanking. You heard me…. this sucker can survive a ludicrous amounts of punishment. Each one of their trait lines are fairly powerful, and have fair utility. However, they’re geared more toward sustain damage (most of the game favors burst damage), and feel really sluggish and lack luster until you have a fully fleshed out build. The Reaper Elite spec is phenomenal though, and really makes the class fun to play once unlocked. You’d pick this if you’re looking for caster type class thats very survivable.

Better solution

- Legendary Rune unlocks (only logical place to have them as an unlock), by bringing 32 super runes of the type in question to the Legendary crafters, to infuse them into your legendary armor sets. Embeds into account meta-data, so it won’t require potentially large amounts of meta data since the armor is in pieces.

- “Rune Replication Infusion” Recipe for the Mystic Forge. Upgrades an Ascended Helmet with a Rune infusion (just the Helmet) which replaces the Rune slot, and overrides the runes on the rest of the armor set.
- Recipe: Created by Combining an Ascended Helmet, 6 Superior runes of the type desired, an Essence of the Scribe (obtained from Miyani), and an item crafted from a lvl 500 armor crafting discipline for the type of helmet.

- Concept: At a initial steeper cost, enables a player to switch between multiple rune sets by swapping just the Helmet. This is only economically feasible in situations where you’d need to regularly swap between 2 sets of runes under the same basic armor stats, and only really worth the cost/effort for difficult/expensive to obtain runes. Only requires an additional meta data flag for helmets to indicate how to treat the existing rune meta data for the item.
- Limitations: Is bound in the Helmet’s meta-data, and can be erased if the helmet undergoes a stat change in the Mystic Forge. The infusion is not mobile between armor types, which addresses certain concerns for runes which can be bought on TP.
- Pros: Doesn’t impact existing armor sets which already have runes, but enables more flexibility moving forward. Process also applies to Rebreathers, which adds some QOL to the few places where this is still applicable. (If you make an ascended rebreather, you did so with a purpose anyway). Doesn’t require an entire second set of armor of identical stats, which is currently the biggest hurdle to build swapping for Raids and WvW.

Short comings: Stat swapping the helmet destroys the infusion due to how mystic forge operates. Unsure if this is addressable, given how MF destroys the old item and spits out a new one to get the new item ID. But considering the cost difference for the convenience, its actually a minimal concern….. the price of 2 sets of runes and 2 ascended helmets vs 2 full armor sets.

HeavyMetal.2730:

Hi guys, i’ll cut it short, I might start to play again soon and I have a question.
Since i bought the game (when it was buy to play) do I have to buy the expansion too or it’s free for us?

2 important things to note about how they changed their business model.

1. The base game is essentially Free2Play now, and gives players access to all Pact Tyria content. This is mainly to get people into the game and hopefully upgrade to a full account. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/play-for-free-today/

2. Instead of their old scheme of ongoing content, they changed to expansions for big updates at the demands of the player base. However, this introduced 2 changes that are difficult to swallow at first. Every expansion includes all previous expansions, sans the Living story chapters which are unlocked if you play during the event, or pay gems to retroactively unlock them. The price of all expansions moving forward are expected to be full price, and will block players from new content (including Living Story) until they pick up the expansion. Part of this is because new LS content will start relying on Mastery systems for the maps, and one of the Mastery Tracks (Gliding) is going to be integral for almost all maps moving forward.

HOT’s launch was problematic, and a lot of those issues have only recently smoothed over. At 50% off, its worth it for the Elite specs alone; however, their new big ticket PvE content (Raids, Legendaries, Collections, and Map events) still has a measure of initial frustration attached to it. There are still semi-regular public trains to unlock base line stuff on HOT maps (Hero points for Elite specs, and mastery points); but being completionist for achievements (which are required for full mastery unlocks), and is going to require the help of a guild or a public train, as nearly everything in HOT is designed as large scale group content.

Elite specs are also pretty important to operating in HOT and Season 3 Living story, because they’re designed to go hand in hand with the new Mob designs. And trust me….. if the Mordrem in Silverwastes give you a hard time, you’re going to want to ask for help with getting your builds updated.

considering the number permanently banned names created by spam bots…… its probably looking got some kind of check to flag them faster by weird names.

So far I’ve never had issues with names unless I’m trying to mimic something in pop culture. Edge lord names also seem to be taken up en mass.

…………….

GW1 gave a much different experience, because there was an emphasis on single target control to compliment the trinity system in place at the time. I do NOT feel going back to a Trinity is the answer…. but individual mobs need better strategy design, but their group density and group comp have to be carefully setup to push players to understand certain strategies, but not destroy them if they get it wrong. The ability for players to diversify strategy within a single build is what makes combat in this game interesting for most.

To that end, I actually think the Mordrem guard (individually) got this balance right….. but its then utterly lost in the way they’re used as a hoard to offset the massive amount of AOE players have access to. Theres also talk about skillful engagements with classes…. but its been proven in WvW that AOE scales easily, and is thus always the best strategy when available. HOT has also shown that you can’t give all mobs access to hard CCs (I’m looking at you Hylek), because their population density can easily shut down players by way of total attack frequency. The same problem occurs with the Chak’s difficulty curve depending on player party size; because at less then 3 players, Chak are incredibly hard to fight due to focus fire…. but above 3 players, they can’t focus, then easily wiped out by player AOE.

I see an ideal where most battles are spread out over a small area, where each player is in short range of, but not blatantly stacked on each other; each engaged with a few mobs of single or mixed strategy, and players able to engage, disengage, adapt, and support each other on the fly, team up for combos, and/or selectively focus down individual targets while others keep them from focusing back. This rings of PvP combat; and it works because thats how the skills are designed and balanced to work. The difference is that PvE can get away with a lower information flow rate…. which is how Raids are designed from play perspective, but are made punishing by having a wide net of failure conditions.

Overworld mob design can learn from this, because trash mobs that are easily faced rolled are fine….. but there also needs to be something mixed in their ranks that feels more rewarding to beat. Vets should be filling that role; but by simply being the same mob with more HP, they don’t feel like an accomplishment to beat. Champs on the the other hand, with the break bar mechanics, offers a much more immediate difference in strategy that they can be fun to fight…. but them having enough HP to take at least a few minutes to fight makes them way too intense to go after on a regular basis as a solo player.

But the Mordrem guard….. they combine both mechanics, and are in a scale of damage/HP thats fun to fight in single or small groups. That break bar gives them enough general durability that simply bursting them down won’t work… but then has a moment of vulnerability that enables you to wail on them with a satisfying advantage. Fighting 2-3 Mordrem guard provides that mixture of strategy that encourages you to focus them one at a time, changing your strategy as you change targets. Scattering these patrols among the existing trash mobs makes you aware of them (and easy to identify), and giving you the option to go around them (if desired), or spend a few moments in a fight to go through them.

If you don’t believe me, look how the mobs in Bloodstone Fen have break bars for the durability bonus, but are always reinforced. Their a pain to fight, because its like fighting the SW mordrem if they were immune to CCs. This is obviously them experimenting because of complaints about HOT difficulty…. but I do notice that White mantle aren’t densely grouped like Mordrem forces, and that is having an impact on how fighting them feels.

The problem runs deeper then that….. its not the lack of challenge, but the lack of engaging play options in how Core Tyria mobs behave. They’re basically dumbed down to the point where you just face tank and auto attack, causing players to grow lazy instead of putting a little thought into basic things such as positioning and skill timing. The flat design of the maps don’t really help the situation either.

I’m NOT advocating for “harder” play or more punishing mobs (I’ll explain that more later)… I’m advocating for mob AI design that encourages players to change up tactics, without having to resort to “surprise attacks” that one shot them if their aren’t careful. This is big reason Zerk meta happened in the first place, because most mobs hit like trucks, have stupid amounts of HP, and only attack once every 5 seconds. But their damage is tuned to overwhelm tanks in the long game, thus rendering high defense builds useless, and high DPS preferable to shut them down before you run out of active defenses. The longer the fight goes on, the more likely players are to lose… thus fast TTKs are by far the best defense.

IIRC, the mobs were smarter in early beta, and made efforts to juke the players, and avoid lingering AOE. The Irony is that this is the SAME change they made in GW1 around the time EotN came out, and was met with out crys as mobs were no longer clustering up like good little targets for the hand full of really powerful AOE skills the game had to offer. Since 90% of the skills in GW2 are either AOE or Cleave, this same clustering tactic dominated PvE after they told the AI to stop avoiding them. Complicating this further was the long cool downs on everything worth using, because thats how the balanced PvP…. but those key skills lose a huge amount of their potential on PvE mobs, because they A. Don’t last long enough for their control effects to matter. B. They spawn in too many numbers to use them effectively. and C. failing to shut them down quickly allows them to scale their aggregate damage enough to kill you.

Which brings us to the Mordrem, Karka, and Toxic alliance. The only reason these mobs were considered “hard” is because they were insanely punishing, rapidly outscale player power coefficients, and use very cheesey tactics to catch players off guard or out pace their control skills. The classic core specs were so ill-prepared for this, that ranged builds were the only ones that could engage them relatively safely, but couldn’t bring them down enmass fast enough for them to retaliate. This was completely intentional, because they were trying to break the zerks meta and stacking by turning player tactics against themselves. They’re a cake walk now, because Elite specs power crept players upward, and gave them easy access to traits that actively combine CCs, Range, and damage output; because thats how HOT maps are designed in general.

While the net effect of forcing players to spread out was accomplished…. they had stubbornly denied the root of the problem to be Mobs and AI designs, as if they were afraid that using the dynamic combat design to actually be dynamic would be hated by players. Part of that is true, but part of it is also in the limited, and often stiff ways the skills work, that make engaging multiple targets not at all fun.

THAT I feel is the real root of the problem. Engaging mobs in 1v1 is largely a waste of your better skills, and is more a DPS race then any real engaging skill. And yet engaging groups of mobs is not much different, except you bait them into using an attack, then “leap in” to dump a bunch of DPS before backing out to repeat. With post Zhaitan fights, its the same strategy, except you’re more aware of control skills.

…………..

Adorable, Genius, and all around Safety Hazard.

The Valks/Decimate defense combo is incredibly flexible for power Necros because of easy access to vulnerability in a lot of skills and traits. In PvE group settings, where 25 stacks of vul is pretty much guaranteed, this lets you sink more points into Vit, boosting your shroud tanking, and lets you keep the DPS going while the shroud soaks the damage. If you have Siphon traited, the speed and hit radius of the Reaper attacks actually becomes a respectable source of healing if surrounded. For open world, Reaper shroud does best if you play it as a brawler, and actually gets stronger sustain the more things you can engage at once.

This is a huge deal on HOT maps, because both events and the mob traits in general are made to overwhelm you, and thats when Reaper shroud is at its strongest. Their noticeably less impressive in 1v1 engagements, but thats mostly because its losing out on the substantial Life force generation from RS auto attack. But out of shroud, the Necro’s other skills have no issues dealing with single targets. This polar difference in Reaper shroud tactics (at the flip of a switch) gives the Necro a level of flexibility it lacked in older Core traits, and makes several builds viable that weren’t really possible with Core traits alone. Its seriously a shame chill damage took a hit, because it made for some respectable hybrid damage in the same way Ele and Guards do with their in-line burning.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAR3dnM0At1gdbCe1As3glpBL+DmCfhTtsLwxSaAUACAA-TRhSwATU+ZUJYNdDRV/Bw+DAA-e

This is a Minion Master build I run in Open world….. its the tankist thing outside of a Hammer Guard, doesn’t require a single piece of defense gear, and has respectable sustain damage. I’m not even in full ascended gear, and the only place I still consider dangerous is the Blighting Towers in Dragon’s Stand and their endless AOE. I even send my minions out to go engage mobs, while I do some kind of event mechanic or operate a turret. You don’t even need to hit things to send them out, so long as its an offensive skill and you have a target selected (including auto attacking the air) . It’ll take them several seconds to kill basic mobs on their own… but with that 90% dmg reduction rule on companions, they can stay alive for a pretty long time. Conditions aren’t an issue as long as your minions are up, and have near constant healing because every hit double siphons life, and minion hits add a 3rd source of healing. (Vampiric passive trait, and Vampiric aura stack). Combine this with Unholy Martyr, and you draw conditions from allies, gain life force from it, and send it back out via the minions.

All in all, up to 12 minions under normal circumstances, “Rise!” minions absorbing damage for you (and then self healing), toughness from each minion, toughness from Shroud, multiple life stealing on hit, shroud as a second life bar, substantial damage increase and life stealing ability while in reaper shroud, access to 2 very strong CCs, easy access to strong soft CC, can burst stacks of vulnerability when needed (for Decimated defenses), and can fight while standing in all but the strongest damage fields. You’re only severe weaknesses is lack of stun break, and awkward Stability skill; but not a big issue in PvE, since you can activate shroud while disabled (maybe not stun, but every other disable CC still leaves it available).

Its not a particularly high skill build (ie, its pretty lazy outside of onslaught events), but its very survivable/forgiving in HOT maps without giving up the requisite damage potential… and thats not a claim the other classes can easily make.

Fun fact 1: If get access to an AOE healing skill on a turret or bundle, I’ve managed to get up to 6 jagged horrors up at one time using only the trait passive by healing over their HP degen. Theres an event in Auric Basin for a tower reactivation that has turrets, where I think its technically possible to create an unlimited amount of minions as long as they are far enough out to use the healing skill on them.)

Fun fact 2: Minions can life siphon through most invulnerability states. While the damage is pitiful, its still nice knowing you’re doing damage while not one else can.

Fun Fact 3: This would probably be a Meta tank for raids if it was a straight up fight….. but cheeky mechanics like to wipe whole parties if one person isn’t standing perfectly on a marked spot. So once again, the terrible AI control system they refuse to address still keeps pets/minions massive liabilities in “difficult” content.

Masteries require fairly active monitoring because it requires interaction once the bar is filled.

You need to:

1. Select a track, and set it to active to begin training it
2. Once full, you have to go into the menu and SPEND mastery points to purchase the benefit, which unlocks the next tier, which must again be affirmatively selected to resume training.
3. If you lack the mastery points to spend on the track once filled, you have to switch tracks manually, or lose exp in the mean time.

Mastery tracks exp requirements are multipliers of the old lvl 80 roll over. Since events give a % of a level’s worth of exp (based on the event level), roll over was pretty frequent (~15 events in Tyria to repeat lvl80). Opening mastery tracks tend to be double that, and the amount scaling upward as you progress into them.

So if you need to hammer out mastery tracks, THE best way to fill them is multi-event meta chains, maps with frequent events (like mad lab), or Multilane metas that give you time to participate in multiple lanes (Octovine, Living Story events, and a few Orr assault metas). Dungeon speed runs are also a good way to get exp, as the daily bonus nets you 177,800xp (base lvl 80) toward mastery tracks.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Experience

For Tyrians, this is extremely useful. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Map_bonus_reward/profit

The map rewards generate tend to generate a lot of activity on certain maps, and its very common for Commanders to lead event chains/champ farms on maps with Bloods on it reward tables (which typically the most profitable map anyway). Since events generate map bonus rewards, all that activity easily contributes toward your exp gain due to the speed the train runs at.

InsaneQR.7412:

Revenant is most versatile class, but what it exceeds in flexibility its lacking depth and is lackluster and buggy atm. Take guard and mes first, come back later when this class had its fixes.

I think more to the point is that Revs aren’t as dynamic as the other classes. All the classes gained significant power from the Elite specs, but don’t sacrifice anything significant to get it. More importantly, the first round of Elite specs were made to fill in blind spots of the class; giving no good reason to not want to take them.

But Revs are different in that they’ve become the new Ranger. Its a state of being underscoring a lack of compounded power via build synergy; and exemplifies the fact that while your individual skills are fairly strong, its unsatisfying (and sometimes frustrating) knowing there are always very easy to exploit blind spots in your build.

I finished up a Rev after the nerf (avoiding it largely due to not being able to deal with the constant CC in HOT maps); and I can tell that while it is doable in PvP, it feels terrible in PvE because of how they expose scaling problems within a build. The weapon choices are extremely Overt (staff of CC, Axe for mobility, Mace or Condi, Sword for Damage, Shield for Defensive pops, and Hammer when you need range/AOE tagging), and aren’t much use for combat without their paired trait line. Legends tend to operate the same way, and creates this situation where swapping either weapon or legend isn’t actually changing you’re play dynamic so much as accessing a one-off tool you can’t use otherwise.

Looking at the glint Meta worked previously, the linger time on the boon are the only reason you could switch out to your damage spec in order to temporary boost your DPS. Eles operate on a similar concept, but everything about it is not only more fluid, its also way more adaptable on the fly to recover from mistakes or unexpected flow changes in party behavior. Thats why I’ve always found the idea of skill rotation in Revs to be insanely clunky, as Eles rotations can flow in multiple directions, but the Revs are designed around “reversion” where one half of the class is power boost, the other is effect output, and you are built as sustain, but acts like a burst build. Its just so stiff in practice that if you’re not part of a team comp, you’re always exposed to something stupidly common in PvE maps…. where as every other class can weave support into their DPS builds.

Rangers didn’t really have anywhere to go when HOT launched, but I’ve seen mention of Druids now overtaking Revs because Support functions don’t cost them DPS, where as Rev coefficients were being slashed across the board.

Nikal.4921:

I don’t understand their not letting us know how long the festival will last. What’s the point? People might like to know how long they have to complete achievements, mine candy corn, etc.

Thats the entire point….. You don’t know, so you compulsively bang away at the achievements and gem stores as much as possible. This keeps you focused on the events,

Djinn.9245:

I often wonder whether the “scarcity” model of “buy it quick because it might disappear” really makes them more money than having the items all the time which in addition to not being frustrating for people who know what they want, also allows for impulse buying. I suppose it must work otherwise why would they do it. I’m sure Anet has professional marketing people figuring this stuff out. But that doesn’t help people like the OP.

It doesn’t even need to be scarce… all you need to do is convince the buyer that the opportunity is. Just look at the infamous JC Penny restructuring, where they got rid of sales and simply knocked down their regular price to match the sale price all year round. Their sales plummeted, and nearly bankrupt them in less then 3 years. Nothing about how the prices were determined changed… just the way they were presented to the public.

Apparently people only pay attention when they think something is special or limited in nature. Thats why Kmart has “every day low price” yet still does flash sales through out the day. And we’ve all seen the riots during Xmas sales.

And now that you’ve experienced a let down, next time you see anything you might “possibly want”, you’ll buy gems and grab as many items as you can. Plus you’re also compulsively watching the Gem store now to see when it, or something else, show up there. They used to bait people all the time with gem store freebies that they’d never announce publicly.

Or get an SSD, and find out how badly you’re network bottle necked. :P
(PS, its not a lot)

But then you wouldn’t obsessively chase after these items, just to see if they look good, get bored with it, and then repeat the process. :P

Another thing to is that Mobs prioritize targets based on toughness, and it takes a lot of damage to override that. I’ve also noticed the AI likes to switch targets more often now, so if they start ignoring the tank, toughness raises you high on the target list.

Because of this, you don’t want to raise your aggro enough to pull from the tank. This aspect is tricky because a toughness speced tank doesn’t do a lot of damage, but a zerk tank that knows how to avoid hits can hold aggro as long as the the DDs don’t burst too high. Thats why you usually see the Tank mix in a little toughness to exploit this behavior, but just run everything else as damage spec to keep DPS up.

The second reason is that pretty everything in this game can be mitigated better with boons and skills then with defense gear stats. Theres really no reason not to run DPS spec (which if you’re power is going to be Zerks, or Valks if you have alternate source of Crit chance), because raids are still DPS optimized. In fact, Raids still rely heavily on very high damage spikes, which would kill anyone without all def spec gear anyway…. so its not worth the loss in DPS since the rage timers will kill you instead.

It wouldn’t help unless the utilities themselves can fit multiple functions….. Rev skills don’t really work that way, and are meant to fit one specific function. So all it would do is pick the best 3 utilities, and ignore one completely.

If you look at the layout of each sub-category for utilities, they’re meant to be used as a group or individual skills used in conjunction with a different trait line or weapon from their primary. Ele is a good example, as many of their utilities offer great stand alone utility, or pair well with multiple traits or weapons.

On the other end of the Spectrum you have Guard utilities. They are very powerful stand alone; but their traits enhance utilities by group, so builds tend to stack one type, or cherry pick based on their overt effects.

Then theres Mesmers, where trait lines pair with other trait lines.

What Revs need is better interaction between the weapons and Legends, so the utilities don’t have to live in isolation. The problem is Revs are inherently strong in one function per legend, but they don’t have the kind of total synergy other classes get that let them do 3 things at once. This works great for PvP and Raids, but nowhere near as good in pugs or open world where you can’t easily organize team comps. This leaves Revs with a selective blind spot thats unavoidable in every single one of their builds. Key survival abilities (like stunbreak and condi clearing) are only available on legends which give up offensive power (unless you’re Shiro… in which case you get stun break, but unreliable healing). Its rough when you don’t have a team mate to take care of that for you.

Huskyboy.1053:

Lonami.2987:

I don’t think it’s just about some legendary status, but an unique legendary power as well, which doesn’t belong in any of the other professions.

I agree with this general sentiment. A character’s uniquity and how they stand apart from others is important. Ventari has always been a strange Legend choice since he’s not really remarkable other than being a peaceable (unusual) centaur who planted a tree.

I’m not sure I fully understand your objection to Urgoz’ uniquity; while Rangers deal with nature, so do Elementalists. The difference there is that Ranger deals with living things like non-sentient animals and plants, and elementalist deals with the non-living classical elements. Necromancers and Rangers both deal with “life,” but while Rangers deal with things that are currently alive (like vines) and nature spirits, Necromancers bring things back to life (which may be construed as forcing spirits into dead bodies, who knows how minions become animated). And of course both Ranger and Necromancer have auxiliary things like marks, traps, etc. But the underlying theme of “nature manipulation” is shared between Eles and Rangers, and the theme of “manipulation of life” is shared between Necros and Rangers.

Obviously I’m being generous in my comparisons, but really uniquity is just about how you look at things. It seems to me that Eles and Rangers and Necros are distinct professions because, even though there could be thematic overlap, Anet has made sure to separate them by what makes them different. I don’t see why an Ele couldn’t control vines, plants are full of water right? And why is it that Rangers can control both animals (has a brain somewhat similar to humans) but also can control plants, which don’t even have brains? It’s just a design choice, there are certainly facets of Rangers that are just soldered together and could easily be separated. Why not have Beastmaster and Gardener? Because Gardener isn’t cool enough tbh.

Urgoz’ corrupted nature is certainly outside of Melandru’s ability or desire to control, and is in fact the result of the Jade Winds, Shiro’s corruption of Dwayna’s power which she gave to the Canthan Imperial line. In my biased view, that separates him pretty clearly from Rangers, though they both control plants and monsters.

The way I’ve always seen it is they start with a build concept, and then decide on a legend that thematically meshes with it. The back story is then used to fill in the specific skills. This is kind of the reverse of how most people think they were designing things, where they pick a name, and make a build around it. The names may lend to a build idea, but the logic of “we’ll pick names everyone knows, and make a gimick out of it” doesn’t make nearly as much sense as “heres a build archetype- what do you think would match it?”. Thats why Shrio is so awkward feeling, because hes essentially a thief with one trait line. They all have that in common, because the other classes tend to operate in multiple roles at once (with each skill able to be used in 2 or 3 situations), while the Revs are generally stuck in one, and each skill only serves one function.

When you view it that way, not only the internal logic start to come together, but it also shows what the Devs were thinking (or weren’t thinking) about when designing the class cohesion.

As for the thematic of each legend, they don’t really need to be functionally unique. For instance…. the entire Jalis kit has nothing in common with Jalis from GW1. Hes a Hammer Warrior, and was more offensive then defensive through most, if not all of Prophecies and Eye of the North. So why does Jalis seem to make sense as a defensive build? Its almost entirely because Dwarves are thought to be hardy and durable.

Ventari makes internal sense because it uses a hand full of common fantasy tropes, and the role the Tablet plays now with the Sylvari and the Pale tree. A warrior turned pacifist, creates a new philosophy based on the tenants of life and its protection. While he himself was a Pacifist, the tablet he later writes doesn’t expressly forbid combat; only that war is wasteful, and life should be cherished. This leads into the next trope… the staff as a melee weapon. This is staple weapon of non-lethal fighting styles, because it neither cuts, nor pierces, crushes, or snap in twain.

There a crap ton of potential build ideas that pair up with various names in the lore. Kilbrone with a non-crit life leech build, Gwen with a duality build (signets if you want a different mesmer trope), Morgan with a shout based build, Killroy Stonekin for a much needed weakness leveraging build (remember the old Bunny thumpers?), Togo with a bundle kit style build….. and if I could make any sense of what Archemorus and Viktor’s fighting styles were, I could find a build that fits them as well.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

starlinvf.1358:

But one thing you’ll notice is that Revs can’t juggle roles, while Eles as a design concept are essentially made for it. So expect to be disappointed with Ventari, unless you’re in a niche situation, and the rest of the team are built around you.

I’m not so sure I agree with you on juggling roles, depending on the situation of course. As an example, I play a hybrid build, using Glint and Mallyx. When I’m with my group, I have glint on in boonbot role and using the elite for CC. When I need to go damage, I switch to Mallyx. Similarly, if need to tank, I might switch out Glint with Jalis. On rare occasion, I’ll use Ventari for area control or (laughably) heal, condi cleanse, and projectile block.

I will agree that Ventari healing is disappointing. However, I’ve never maxed out my HP stats either.

I meant within a single build. Eles naturally have a bit of everything, as certain build features are tied more directly with the attunments then the weapons themselves. Burns and Damage in fire; Heals, chills cleanse in water; Protection, Bleed, CCs in Earth, and Blinds, Stuns, Speed in air. Regardless of their overall build, they’re always stacking condi, stacking boons, and have access to lots of AOEs.

The only other class that streamlines that well is the Guardian; and is more or less the reason both classes are in almost every group meta.

Going back to Year One, Dagger/Dagger was an insanely powerful build where you traded some raw DPS for a huge amount of utility and survivability. Dungeon groups used to hate it, but often times I’d be the only one standing…. and that was back when dungeons were actually hard, and the speed meta hadn’t set in yet.

Not really. Everything I’ve seen of Ventari (and Rev support legends in general) is geared toward passive or upkeep functionality, while Ele is built for Burst functionality (and field combo juggling). Almost all of that comes from their attunement rotation canter, as Eles are effectively never on cool down, and simply oscillate between build functions.

Since Combat in GW2 heavily favors bursting (in both PvP and PvE), upkeep abilities (like Soothing mist and regeneration) only serve to counter act off-focus damage sources…. But when things get dicey, if you have no source of burst recovery/healing/cleanse, the cumulative effects of multiple damage sources turn into a burst, and can easily wipe you out before upkeep based healing/support can act on them.

Thats a huge reason why Revs have permanent-passive support functions; as its designed to raise the bar to down a player, but not really designed to mitigate burst damage in the way Guardians do. Its the same conceptual difference between Protection and Aegis boons. Prot improves your endurance, but can’t stop overwhelming damage; while Aegis prevents a single blow, and hoping that was the brunt of the damage. If Eles were a Boon, it would be “Out of Combat healing”…. because if nothing is harassing them, they’re kitten near unstoppable.

But one thing you’ll notice is that Revs can’t juggle roles, while Eles as a design concept are essentially made for it. So expect to be disappointed with Ventari, unless you’re in a niche situation, and the rest of the team are built around you.

The problem boils down to this……. Daily schedules enforce the idea that if you’re not participating in that daily activity, you’re bottlenecking yourself later when the reward might be of value to you. Ascended mats have this same problem, where most people still craft the time gated pre-mats (mithrillium, silk weave, reseidue, cord), because at some point down the line they have a need for a bunch of them; and this way they only bottle neck is the T2-4 mats to produce the final material.

But this issue is the same thing going on with Mystic Coins- You don’t “need” it most of the time….. but when you do, the time gate becomes a source of constant frustration. Thus, its encouraging us to hoard them until we DO find something to do with them. You could by some of these materials off the TP…. but the mark up created by the daily limit is significant, and it’ll compound because it also means you need a lot more then is what you can produce in a reasonable time frame.

The way I see it, Guild Wars 2 expects the player to only work on one crafting project at a time, and everything is gated with that in mind. But the reality is players tend to juggle 5 or 6 projects in parallel because of how certain rare mats are collected… and when those projects share a common resource behind a time gate, they hit the wall hard on the time gate. The option to “buy” some materials are there…. but then it causes the player to shift to basic gold farming circuits (champ bags, etc) which is time not spent doing the 6+ dailies of unique mats/currency.

“Impulse” is not the problem, but it does make the time gate issue far worse. If something needed could be generated in unlimited supply via effort (like a unique item in the map reward cycle), then its basically a matter of just playing that zone as long as you need to get that item, and then stop or switch off.

As of right now, every hour not spent in Mad Lab is huge drop in my gold generation despite the each bag being only 5 silver. However, that surge of gold on the market has driven up the price of everything else (as its done every year since launch). Thus I have 2 choices…. do I farm Mad Lab until my eyes bleed, because its profitable and only around for a limited time? Or do I do my daily farm runs to get unique currencies I need for the projects I’m working on?

Having weighed a lot of factors, the gold is currently worth more for my time; but it sets back all my projects for 2 weeks…. and I don’t have the 8+ hours a day to do all of them each day. With things that have a practical attainable life span (like Living story achievements), when those chapters release I lose a weekend to go full bore on them, because getting help for it after the fact is difficult….. especially in a guild where they’ve already gotten sick of doing that achievement run, or the achievement itself was made harder due to fixes/changes in the week following.

People “talk” like crafting projects and progression work like the PvP reward tracks, where you focus on one at a time- but the reality is that much of these projects have overlaps, time gates, or bottlenecks that encourage us to do things in Parallel, so that no matter what we’re doing, we’re getting closer to a goal.

This is why the collections for the HOT legendaries had such an uproar, because you couldn’t even work the collection for the next phase until you did all the crafting requirements from the previous one. And considering the some odd 1000 Ingots and wood planks needed at each phase, followed by 15 each Spirit wood and Deldrimor ingots, I would had casually worked on the collection while in the process of gathering mats…. but I can’t. So instead I’m compelled to hammer out the Collection as fast as possible, so I can then spend all my time farming the mats I need for the crafting portion (which generally takes 5 times as long, even with buying mats to help top off). It runs too serial in a system that punishes the player on time if not working in parallel.

Edit: And adding to this further is the fact that most of how the game “works”, does not unless we have a full set of gear. <—- If want to know what the source of motivation is, this is the root. Remember Elite specs on Day 1 of HOT?… and how most classes needed their Grand master trait to really pull the class together? But you weren’t allowed to do that because “its was supposed to be a journey”? Its a reward system thats designed to be at odds with the game play system.

Sunrise is typically cheaper to obtain (even crafting). If you want an Eternity, its cheaper to buy it outright…. or if you’re selling, bind both the Twilight and Sunrise (for the achievement) and then forge them into an Eternity to sell.

Aesthetically the Twilight is more popular because the dark effects stand out much better against the majority of ground textures and background (anything not flora tends to be a shade of tan or partially reflective).

Personally I like Sunrise’s texture more because it has a notable color gradient when panning from high to low angles (basically turning sky blue when viewed from below). However, foot falls are kind of small, making them hard to see in detail unless zoomed in. For character looks with lighter color tones, the Sunrise is nothing short of Majestic. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sunrise

But at some point you will be tempted to make an Eternity…… and since you have one sword already, theres no reason not to make the other down the road. I bought a Dawn because it was cheaper, and then crafted a Dusk when HOT came out. The Eternity is the most frivolous project I’ve ever worked on, but the updated effects they did for it look great on almost every class that uses it.

if you want farming, theres tons of that in the game. Raids? Am I right?

There are certain places where you can trigger this bug with a fairly high level of consistency. Theres a gap somewhere in the animation routines that essentially cause IK to break, which is why its not being used in that scene. Certain animations or actions will expose this gap, and it will stick until theres a reason for the system to do another IK check (like touching a surface that has a different angle, jumping, starting or stopping a run/walk cycle).

There was a spot on the hill that the Shatterer foot zerg would camp on that I could get to do this like 90% of time. But its been so long, I can’t remember where it is.

It seems irritating at first, because time efficiency becomes a major concern with the amount of farming GW2 has us do. But since events give a % of your level exp (masteries give you exp as if you were level 80), they added up pretty quickly. It was only a gripe when HOT first launched, because optimal trains were still being figured out, and you needed several early mastery unlocks to get access to the Hero points needed for the Elite specs (and holy crap did you need a lot of them).

Once the dust settled, I got lazy with the mastery unlocks. But notice that maps that come out with living story are very farm oriented….. these are there to allow catch up on unfinished masteries, as I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that abandoned finishing a mastery track since I wasn’t putting myself through making a HOT legendary. I got the ENTIRE L6 (Leyline) gliding track filled in one day of farming there.

And I have no doubt this same process will repeat on the next expansion; because its the same methodology WoW uses for its expansions to recapture players. Bottle neck the players on the newest content so they don’t burn through it as quickly, and then release a catch up system leading up to your next content release so they can get the required gear/lvl/abilities needed to for the old system, and/or new system that might need them. And since gliding is in Core Tyria now, I expect it to be a staple in the new areas, and purposely hamstrung in specific areas to force the use of another mechanic.

Tekoneiric.6817:

I wish they would upgrade the minis to do something other than follow you around. Some could play little games with you, some could interact with other players minis, others like a mini-pig could offer truffle bonuses when gathering, bunny for extra carrots, etc. There are lots of possibilities that would add value to them in the game. They still need to add a mini-me that looks like a smaller version of the player’s character. I’d like to see some minis usable as a distraction in combat. Use the right mini while in combat with specific creatures could have specific reactions either from the mini or the creature. I can see limiting it to PvE only but the possibilities are there for lots of fun and discovery.

Exactly how long has Polymock been in development? The CEO was “personally” working on it to make sure it was awesome.

On a side note… mini pets should NEVER offer bonuses; if anything, minor utility. I’ve seen it done in a lot of other games, and the meta goes ape kitten because certain “bonuses” are more valuable then others. Considering this player base’s obsession with out of combat bonuses, a 10% bonus to gathering would result in mini pets being the price of some rare weapons for its economic gains.

However, with Pact mastery containing autoloot, that takes away the one easy function all mini pets could have without interfering with the game meta.

Arden.7480:

So the Egg absorbed death’s magic, when it was with Master of Peace.

But it means that we will see changed Icebrood and Branded as well. But why these changes appeared after Mordremoth’s death?

Why didn’t Mordrems were changed by Zhaitan’s death?

They did….. You didn’t notice it the first time through HOT, because you’re too preoccupied with Mordremoth.

I’ve taking my necro back through HOT’s story to fill out some achievements, and knowing the discoveries Taimi made in LS3, I started noticing very important clues from as early as Chapter 1.

HOT Map metas if you have a train to follow….. but for solo, Ember Bay after the mobility masteries seems less time efficient, but has significantly less overhead and has no time commitment (unlike Dragon Stand). I managed to do the whole leyline gliding mastery in 2 days farming there. If you have Leyline gliding, Bloodstone Fen is also a good event train when populated. They operate like the old Orr event trains, give a a good amount of Exp, and is guaranteed to hit gold because of how easy they are.

I would Agree on Necro being a top pick, as Reaper opens up a lot of possibilities for build diversity that the Core Necro simply can’t muster on its own. I ran into someone who gave me a Reaper Minion master build centered around Valk/Zerk and https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Decimate_Defenses ; As a straight forward power build that will out-survive any other class in PvE, and makes a good go-to when you need to sledge hammer overworld content.

While this doesn’t sound interesting on the surface, the reason I bring it up is Necros are inherently tanky, and Reaper as a spec allows you to take full advantage of that for both power and condi builds. This gives you a lot of flexibility for atypical builds, and is one of the few classes where taking hits is an intentional part of the strategy. Behind Engineer, I’d say its the most fun to tool around with, because the traits have a lot of non-standard conditionals. Without Reaper, the class sees more strength as a DOT support class, contrasting the Mesmer’s Burst oriented support strategy. Core Necro isn’t too bad, but Reaper really managed to fill in the gaps to so its no longer frustrating to play.

The problem runs a lot deeper then that. Its essentially the same problem MM necros had at launch, where AI further complicates the already poor triggered utility. This puts them in a bad place, as they have all the problems associated with Pet AI, Emplacements (IE Turret), and “utility only” skills rolled up in the same package.

One of the 3 above needs to be removed in order for the equation to work. Otherwise its intently fighting with itself, as it fails to execute its utility in light of the unresponsive Pet AI system that drives it.

The Whirl Gyro’s is that its just a whirl finisher… it was never intended to be a source of damage. And if it was intended to be a source of damage, then that Dev is lying through his teeth. The whole concept of it needs to be rethought as either damage centric, or around a new utility function.

General Tips: The majority of Exp earned in the game is level tuned or % tuned. Level tuned means it gives an amount of Exp in relation to the level its designed around.. this includes mostly heart quests, which use fixed values. Almost everything else uses % of level as its basis for the exp reward. This has 2 functions in the game design.

1. It prevents power leveling by immigrating players trying to sneak into high level areas, thinking it has a higher Exp value.
2. It offers players incentive to return to other areas for other reasons, without sacrificing exp gain or passive rewards.

Second, the game has a very heavy handed diminishing return penalty if you spend too much time in one area. Its another anti-farming/bot measure, and is pretty nebulous in terms of its triggers…. This is rarely an issue for most players, provided they wander around the map, rather then camp a spot for repeated targets. Its useful to note that the general consensus (by player research) suspects “Area sections” (within a zone) is how it decides if you leave the area to ramp down DR. DR impacts Exp gains, drops, and quality of drops; and ramps up pretty quickly once triggered.

The reason I mention this, is because players have a habit of sticking to a familiar area when not forced to travel by a quest. Since this game uses passive, area specific tasks, new players get confused on the optimal early leveling strategy. As a rule of thumb…. you make the most exp through exploration and dynamic events, as both award Exp based on % of your current level. However, in the lvl 1-15 and 15-30 zones (first trip), pure exploration and heart quests don’t level you as fast as you can clear them; this is because the Heart quests themselves are actually designed to KEEP you in an area long enough for the Dynamic events to spawn, and that is meant to fill that Exp gap. Highly efficient map clearing runs into this problem a lot, as experienced players can clear several hearts in the time it takes most events to cycle.

Long term, most of your class power comes from trait synergy. Without a full compliment of traits to mix together, most classes are really weak until around level 65/70…. but once you get 2 full trait lines and parts of a 3rd, the power scaling ramps massively. In the interim, look to strong stand alone traits or skills that look good in simple combos. Unlocking the Signet that gives the 25% movement speed is also a big help with getting around the map faster. In fact, the signets are the easiest to work with early on, as the thief ones offer flat stat boost as their passive effects.