Showing Posts For yellow stang.5618:
Thanks for the quick replies. So is there any other way to benchmark PvE weapons/gear?
I crafted my first ascended weapon – Zojja’s Spire – a Staff with Berserker stats. Compared to my Exotic Berserker Staff, the stats were increased like this:
— Damage from 985-1,111 to 1,034-1,166
— Power from 239 to 251
— Precision from 171 to 179
— Ferocity from 171 to 179
I added two WvW Mighty Infusions to the ascended staff for 10 additional Power. Both staffs had identical Sigils – Superior Sigil of Battle and Super Sigil of Strength.
I went into the PvP lobby and tried to compare the staffs damage by attacking the practice Golems. I just auto-attacked with my Ele’s #1 Fire Skill (Fireball) and counted how many hits it would take to kill the light armor Golem.
Surprisingly (to me), it took 28 hits with both Exotic and Ascended Staffs. ??? Can anyone explain why the Ascended staff wouldn’t kill the Golem with fewer attacks?
Actually yes… That’s probably it. Thanks!
If you are roaming as a Guardian and want more speed, an easy solution is to wield a Staff. The number 3 skill gives you swiftness and if I remember right, there is only a 5 second difference between the duration and cool down so you can run with almost a constant 25 percent speed boost.
I could swear this used to work but last night I opened the Friends/Contacts window, right-clicked a player, and the only option was “report”. I thought there should be other options like whisper, email, etc. The player was online at the time of course.
Is there an option that maybe I changed by mistake?
I have four level 80 characters, including a Mesmer. The Chaos Armor change didn’t affect the fun of playing the character at all for me.
A-Net is constantly attempting to balance professions, so if you’re looking for an uber-profession, even if you find one, it’s likely to be changed at some point to balance it among the other professions.
Keep playing the Mesmer. It’s a fun profession, and with Time Warp and Portal Entre, there are no shortage of groups looking for Mesmers in Dungeons and WvW.
I have the 77 Mystic Clover requirement for the Legendary now, by using the 10-clover recipe, and then doing the last 7 with the 1-clover recipe.
Working on the Tier 6 material list now, and I’m finding this the most difficult of the requirements so far (not counting the precursor which I do not have either). So far after 1200+ hours playing this game, I only have 40-65 each of the T6 mats.
I got a good percentage of the T6 mats while forging the Clovers – it seemed that if the Clovers weren’t created, then I got about 30 of one type of T6.
So I’m wondering if using the Mystic Forge to create the T6 materials is a good way to go?
The other question I had is whether I can do anything with the extra Mystic Clovers that will be generated if I go this route? Can they go back into the Forge?
Being an elementalist is not fun for me. You have to play your keyboard like a piano just to survive two mobs and if you pull a third you might as well kiss your butt good by.
There is no control over situations. There are mobs everywhere spawning around you at all times and you just get overwhelmed a lot as a elementalist. I was killed countless times while in the pirate area by cannon ball fire until I just happen to look around when the cannon fired and see the puff of smoke. When your a ele those cannon balls take a third of your life and if you are already fighting a mob you might as well give up.
I started a hunter. At least with a pet class I’ll have something to distract mobs with. Ele’s are just not fun at all.
Again, if you’re not having fun playing an Ele, then don’t play the Ele. :-) Why do something that isn’t fun?
Just for the record, I settled for an Ele as my main after trying 6 different professions. I found all the professions fun, but the Ele is the most versatile in my opinion. I was able to complete every Heart and every Skill check in all the PvE maps with the Ele. Solo.
Granted, the Ele is challenging to play. You have to have pretty good memory for one thing, as you have 20 weapon skills with any one weapon – while every other class in the game only needs to memorize 5 per weapon. Same thing for underwater weapon skills. I was frustrated myself until about level 35 when the understanding really kicked in.
I personally play Dagger/Dagger and Staff. There are countless videos on how to play the D/D ele, which is one of the best burst DPS builds in the game.
But the Ele is not only a good offensive player – it is among the best classes for healing power as well. Most Ele players max out the Water trait line – if you’re not doing this, that could be your problem. Most Eles go with traits as follows:
Air – 10
Water – 30
Arcana – 30
Obviously, you can’t max out the traits like that while leveling, so with survivability your main complaint, make sure to max out Water along the way. You also want to choose the Arcana trait perk that gives you a skill while dodging – when attuned to Water, you get Healing Wave, which should heal back almost a third of your health – just by dodging.
Use the Ele’s escape skills to get out of trouble before it’s too late. Mist Form is excellent for this as it gives you a few seconds of invisibility – the NPCs ofen move on to another target while you’re running away invisible.
Finally, make sure to outfit yourself properly. Go for Toughness with your armor, runes, and jewelry if you’re being killed all the time. The Knight’s stuff has Power and Toughness stats.
Yes, Ele is challenging to play and level, but once properly outfitted and traited, the Ele is one of the most versatile classes in the game. In PvE, but also in WvW.
It’s sounds like you’ve done the game, leveled a character or two, and got a taste of most things in the game. Maybe it’s just not what you’re looking for.
I have 4 level 80s, two more chars in the 20s, and I still love the game. I actually liked leveling the characters though. I always centered my leveling around the personal story. I tried different races (Sylvari, Human, and Norn), and tried each different Order, so I could experience all the different story arcs. I liked the story so this was a big part of the enjoyment for me.
I also am a borderline OCD completionist, so this game is perfect for my personality. I am at 99% map completion now on the character I finally decided to be my main (Ele), and completing each map along the way was reward in itself. Add in the Daily and Monthly achievements, titles such as Dungeon Master, etc., and completionists like me always have a multiple goals to work towards.
After almost 1200 hours among my characters, there’s still no end in sight for me. I recently starting doing WvW since those maps have the remaining points to get my 100% map completion, and I feel like I just discovered a whole new aspect to the game – one that I didn’t even think I would like, but it turns out that I love!
But, like I said, this game fits my personality like a glove. And it doesn’t seem to fit yours. I certainly wouldn’t continue to spend my free time doing something I didn’t like, so I would just say if you don’t like this game, try another one. It sounds like you’ve given it a good shot – it just didn’t work for you.
Wow, 10 waypoints is almost a whole map – are you sure you’re not missing a map?
I have 99% – the only things I am missing are 3 vistas, 2 skill checks, and 8 POI. All of them are in the WvW maps (and I’m going to have to be patient to get those, because they’re in spots that are usually controlled by opposing servers).
But once I finished all the PvE maps, I think I only lacked 6 waypoints. One trip into the WvW maps got all of them. I think it’s impossible for anyone else to tell you what you might be missing. If I was in your situation, I would go to the MMORPG Life maps at http://gw2.mmorpg-life.com/interactive-maps/ and verify that I have every single map.
I’m looking for the “Been There Done That” title. My question is how to complete the WvW maps? I have the PvE maps complete, and that gave me about 92%. That was over a week ago. Since then I have only been able to manage 95% – this was by completing most of my server world’s borderlands since we controlled most of it. But not all. And the other 3 maps we hardly control any areas at all.
I’m on the Yak’s Bend server. And I have to admit that I have not played much WvW prior to needing it for the title, so I don’t really know my way around those maps, or the differences in gameplay from PvE. So any advice on how best to finish this title would be most welcome. :-)
I did the jumping puzzles mostly solo in two nights, about 5 hours total. I went to Dulfy’s puzzle guide to get the starting points, and chose mostly the “easy” puzzles – the 3 in Lion’s Arch to start, 3 in Caledon Forest (though the timed puzzle was not easy and took almost an hour by itself, with help from another player). The puzzles are definitely do-able before month’s end, and actually, quite fun!
I want to get the Been There Done That title. I also would like to get the Explorer achievements for Krytan, Orr, Maguuma, Shiverpeaks, and Ascalon. Is there a title or reward for completing all 5 of those Explorer achievements?
I’m assuming the achievements are account-wide, and can be completed with any combination of characters – is that correct? For the Been There Done That title, I don’t know – does that require 100% map completion with a single character?
I have 3 characters at lvl 80, and a 4th character at lvl 71. But the highest map completion for any of these is my Ele at 62%.
I am close to the Explorer achievements, but am guessing that there are some hidden areas, since I have close to 100% map completion with my combined characters:
Krytan Explorer: 174/175
Orr Explorer: 60/60
Maguuma: 161/167
Shiverpeaks: 170/175
Ascalon: 169/176
Am I close to any reward/title, or still a long way away? :-)
When I got my first 30g, I spent it on the Human female light Tier 3 armor. Just the coat: http://www.gw2armor.com/human/female/c3/light/display_looks.php
I had my eye on that one for a long time, the coat cost 30g, and I just wanted it. I actually forced myself to wait until I had 40g, just so I wasn’t broke. :-)
As far as crafting, I don’t think it’s that fun. YMMV. I have attained level 400 in Jeweler and Chef. I like both of those crafts because any character profession/race can use everything they produce. So my jeweler can craft accessories for all my characters, and the chef can provide buffs to all of them. Of those two, the jeweler is much more useful, however, because the exotic accessories sell for 3g each and you make them for “free” using the materials obtained just from playing the game.
I wouldn’t worry about being “dead weight” in a guild… Many good guilds have the max 500 members, with anywhere from 50-100 members typically online at any time. I have not helped my guild much in terms of WvW, since I prefer PvE and working on numerous individual goals and achievements. But I don’t consider myself dead weight at all. I have contributed a bunch of influence points to the guild. I have joined guildmates in dungeons. I have joined guildmates in farming runs. I have helped (and been helped by) guildmates in earning difficult skill points or group events. I have joined guild bounty missions. And I reply to guild chat questions whenever I know the answer. These are really the only types of things you need to do to be considered a good guildie.
I think you answered your own question about the PUGs… join a guild where you’re more likely to get friendly groups.
That said, I have not experienced the bad things you mention with PUGs, and I have played almost 900 hours now. I did have one negative experience in a dungeon PUG with a player who was a complete arrogant jerk. I was the target of his ire, and after a few minutes of his crap I volunteered to be kicked from the group. To my surprise, the party kicked him instead, and helped me through that dungeon! Just two nights ago, a random player offered a party invite when we were both doing the same jumping puzzle, trying to get the monthly achievement. We ended up doing two more puzzles, one of which I would not have been able to do without his help, and had a great time. I’m still thinking about it, and how nice he was.
Like the real world, there are a lot of bad apples, but the good outnumber the bad in GW2, if you ask me.
A week after the monthly reset, I had 3 of the 4 required monthly tasks done for the achievement: Daily achievement (4), Veteran Slayer (100), and Event Participation (100). I do mostly PvE so the WvW achievement would have been my last choice. That left the Fractal Frequenter (10), Spy On This (sonic periscope logs), and the Puzzle Jumper (12).
I started on the Periscope audio logs, and after 2 nights only had 35 of the required 150. It’s certainly do-able, and is not really difficult at all if you use the maps on Dulfy’s website showing the locations of all 50 periscopes. But it is slow-going, and incredibly boring. Defeats the purpose of the game, [to have fun] if you ask me.
I had discounted the puzzle jumping achievement because I’m not a particularly good jumper – I never did get the Mad King Clock Tower at Halloween or the Winter Wonderland puzzle at Wintersday. Nonetheless, I went to Dulfy’s jumping puzzle guide http://dulfy.net/2012/09/16/gw2-jumping-puzzles-guides-guild-wars-2/ and considered giving it a go.
It turned out to be a fantastic choice! I started with the Lion’s Arch puzzles since there are no monsters to deal with, and got through those 3 in less than an hour. Then I went on to the “easy” puzzles in Ascalon, and in about 2 hours (maybe 3) I had 7 puzzles done.
The next night, I finished the achievement going through a puzzle in Blazeridge Steppes, and the 4 puzzles in Caledon Forest. The Spekk’s Laboratory puzzle in Caledon was by far the trickiest of the 12 puzzles I did, but luckily I had teamed up with a super-patient player (Faustian S___) who pushed and helped me into finishing the puzzle (and my monthly achievement). The Spekk’s puzzle is solo-able, but it is a timed puzzle and it helps greatly if another player is there to re-activate the timer for you in the middle of a section, essentially giving you double the time you’d ordinarily have.
Anyway, the main point is not that the puzzle jumping achievement can be done more quickly than the audio log achievement, but rather that it is MUCH MORE FUN, and much more satisfying. There’s a bit of frustration along the way, because you will fall (maybe to your death) many times, sometimes requiring you to start over – and there’s some anxiety, when you’ve spent 15 minutes or so on a puzzle, and are at the last jump wondering if you’ll make it or miss. It’s all fun though, and of course, CHEST rewards at the end of them!
I also have more newfound respect for the developers, becasuse the puzzles are just so clever – the Lion’s Arch “Weyant’s Revenge” puzzle for example, with the maze, and the completely dark room, etc.
If you’re choosing between the audio logs and jumping puzzles, my advice is to go for the puzzles! After you’re done there’s nothing stopping you from collecting audio logs if you want the Karma reward or just are a completionist, but I think the jumping puzzles will provide much more enjoyment (along some anxiety and frustration perhaps). :-)
Stunning Storm
(edited by yellow stang.5618)
I started this a couple nights ago, going through Wayfarer, Ashford, and Diessa Plateau. I dedicated a couple hours to this last night to see how many of the 150 I could get, and only got 15.
Is anyone getting them any quicker? I have to admit that I did not use the guide listed above for the locations, but not sure how much time that would have saved anyway.
I have both a level 80 Mesmer and Necro, and almost exclusively do PvE and dungeons. I still love them both and would have a hard time choosing if I could only play one.
I play the Necro maximizing Curses and Soul Reaping, so it specializes in Condition DoT and Death Shroud mode. Main weapon set is Sceptor/Dagger with Staff as the alternate.
I maximize Illusions and Chaos with the Mesmer and use a Phantasm/Clone mix. Main weapons are Greatsword and Sword/Torch.
Necro:
Pros – great survivability because of Death Shroud; great AoE spells; great DoT; Death Shroud mode does amazing damage; Lich Form elite does amazing damage; Spectral Walk adds mobility/speed
Cons – not much burst DPS; average group abilities
Mesmer:
Pros – nice damage output with weapon skills; clones/phantasms are both offensive (shatter) and defensive (decoys); second only to Thief in stealth; great group abilities like Time Warp, Feedback, and Portal; tremendous fun once you learn the profession
Cons – somewhat difficult to learn/master; no speed/quickness skills; survivability can be tricky
For me, I prefer the Mesmer in dungeons because Feedback and Time Warp are nice group skills. I also think the Mesmer is more fun to play in general. I prefer the Necro for Cursed Shore farming because the AoE wells and AoE weapon skills take down multiple foes in tight mobs, not to mention the Death Shroud Life Transfer skill and Lich Form elite skill that absolutely trash mobs.
I have a level 80 Necro, Mesmer, and Ele. The Necro and Mesmer both have full exotic armor, weapons, and jewelery, and 100% map completion on Cursed Shore. The Mesmer has also completed the Personal Story, while the Necro has finished the Story except for Arah. The Ele only reached level 80 last week, so I don’t have as much experience with her, but I do have enough to have opinions on the differences between the professions. This opinion is mostly about PvE since I rarely play PvP.
With the builds and playstyles I use, the Necro has the best survivability – she is very hard to put down. The reason is that she has an Ace in the hole with the Death Shroud mode. My Soul Reaping trait line is maxed out, which means that this Necro has a Death Shroud that recharges quickly and is extremely potent. The Consume Conditions healing skill is pretty good, and usually heals almost 1/3 of the total health supply. But when the skill is still recharging and your health is dangerously low, the Necro can switch to Death Shroud mode for a second wind. The Ele and Mesmer don’t have that option. Offensively, my Necro build is Curses-based, which means that DoT is her specialty. The damage is good too, but it is not burst DPS like the Ele. But in DS mode, it has high-output burst damage, especially with a full Life Force bar. Finally, the Necro’s Lich Form elite skill is amazing. It only lasts 30 seconds, but wow, does it apply some damage!
The Mesmer is a blast to play. IMO, the most fun of the three light armor classes. It is also the best light armor support class for PvE dungeons. There are a number of stealth/decoy options with the Mesmer, giving her the ability to run through mobs of dangerous foes fairly easily. This character has unique utility skills such as Portal Entre and Feedback that are essential in certain situations, particularly with groups. And this character has two awesome Elites – Time Warp and Moa Morph – the former is crazy good in dungeons, while the latter is a game changer in PvP. The fun part of playing a Mesmer is watching the foes chase your Clones thinking it’s you. Not to mention the damage the clones and phantasms do when you shatter them. Takes a while to get used to using the clones/phantasms effectively, but once you do, you are formidable indeed.
Finally, the Ele is the burst damage specialist. I mostly use the standard Dagger/Dagger build, and it is devastating. Throw in the elite Fiery Greatsword (which lasts almost two minutes if you are able to use both swords one after the other), and even mobs with a veteran or two go down fairly easily. The Ele is the most difficult of the 3 to play, however, because you have 20 weapon skills to learn and remember (as opposed to 10 for every other profession). Plus another 20 underwater. By level 30 or 40, you will become quite good at it, but it could take that long to learn.
So which to pick? To me, each was really fun. If I had to live with only one of them – I don’t know which I would pick! I could make an argument for all of them for sure. Easiest – Necro. Most fun – Mesmer. Most challenging – Elementalist.
did you at least get the Laurel points?
I was planning on finishing my monthly achievement tonight, but now I’m afraid I won’t get the 10 laurel points (if that is bugged too)…
Fixed for me tonight (17-Dec-2012 about 10 PM US/Eastern). There was a bug fix patch applied and when I logged back in, Warmaster Gurrn was showing the “Talk” option instead of the “Greet” option. When I talked to him this time, the cutscene followed and the story resumed.
I’m not 100% positive the patch fixed it because there was also a group of peeps at the fort and the Warmaster was kicking off an event for them. So if the patch has not fixed it, maybe the workaround is to wait for a group to kick off the event.
Yep, I have been stuck here for a couple days now. Map shows the green asterisk and Warmaster Gurrn shows the green asterisk over his head. But there is no “Talk” option – the only option is to “Greet” him, and he does nothing other than respond with a simple Hello.
I’ve approached him probably a dozen times now, doing things like finishing the Heart quest in that area, logging on and off, leaving the map and coming back, teleporting to the map using Waypoint, running to the map point from another area, etc.
Some forum suggested a workaround of going to the Black Citadel and looking for Quest markers there that would advance the story, but no such luck.
I hope my story isn’t stuck here as that would be disappointing to get this far and not be able to finish it!
(Server: Yak’s Bend)
I also died many times doing this story chapter with a level 77 necro… finally succeeded by hiding behind one of the stone pillars, resurrecting one NPC, and attacking the mouth in Death Shroud and then using the Lich Form elite skill. Even then it was still close and took a bit of normal attacks. Every time the Mouth started focusing on me instead of the NPC, I would run behind the pillar and regroup.
Seemed to me that the Personally story really got a lot more difficult around level 70, after I was able to handle it fairly easily solo up to that point. Plus, just getting to the map points was quite a challenge after level 70 – some of them many trips and resurrections.
The massive group made it fun for me. Yes, some of the event was tedious, but with so many folks in the battle, there were a ton of hilarious comments. I couldn’t believe it was 2.5 hours when I looked at the clock because honestly, it didn’t feel nearly that long. Was it perfect? No, but what is? I’m really glad I was part of it. Definitely epic.
I do sympathize with those who spent 2.5 hours and got disconnected, or in some cases died at the very end and were not rezzed to claim the chest. That definitely would suck. On the other hand, it looked like a hundred players or more on the OF server that I was on were all over the chest at the end. I saw a lot of celebrating, myself included. I think the event was epic, and I hope A-Net gives us more of this. So glad I was able to attend the final Lost Shores event after missing the first due because of work and family committments.
Luckily I was able to attend today’s event, after missing the first two due to work and family committments. As far as the awards being excessive, not sure that I agree. At least in my case with a Level 50 character, I got the 20-slot bag, a level 62 exotic pistol, a level 62 Berserker’s exotic mace, 2 rare level 47 weapons, and some trinkets. I can’t use the mace with any of my chars, so I put it on the Trading Post – at the time it was selling for 80 silver or so… a few hours later it was down to 30-40 so mine hadn’t sold. Now it’s down even more.
Yes, the pistol is really nice and I will save that for myself when I get to level 62. But there’s no way I got 10-20 Gold from the event. More like 1 gold… which I think is fair considering the 2.5 hour effort involved.
Since these are one-time world events, maybe there’s really no easy way for A-Net to make them accessible for every player.
Their other boon, i forgot what it was, reduces the effectiveness of CC by 90%. you’re better off using a daze on their bigger hits than wasting moa on that rather than, say, a veteran add.
I would not waste moa on a champion.
Thanks for the comments. Very helpful.
However, I don’t understand why you say you would not waste moa on a champion? So are you saying that I should just go through the dungeon and not use Moa at all? When exactly do you personally use Moa in the dungeons, if not on the Champions?
I took my level 39 Mesmer through the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon for the first time, and used Moa Morph for the elite. It worked great for most of the fights.
But it didn’t work on the some of the Champion foes. Somehow they are invulnerable to that skill. The skill just resets when I cast it, and I can keep casting it but it does nothing. Why is that?
To gain XP quicker – look at the Achievements tab in your Hero panel. The Daily Achievements are fairly simple to meet, and give you a nice XP + coin + loot reward. Plus there are a lot of other achievements. That said, level 11 in 20 hours is not horrible. Everything you do in the game does not give you XP – for example spending the time to equip your armor and weapons with nice upgrades.
Mesmer is a really fun class to play, but it is also quite challenging to be good at it. I would say most of the other classes are easier. But do what is fun for you – that should be your main goal.
At level 35 I did my first dungeon last night. Sort of a disaster. :-) 3 friends plus one random guy, all first-timers, went in. Within 10 minutes, one of my friends lost his connection and never came back. So we restarted with a 2nd random guy. After almost an hour, a couple in the group were getting frustrated, plus it was after midnight, and decided they had had enough.
I think we would have finished. Not sure how long it would have taken. Each mob took us several attempts, and we were all spending a lot of silver repairing our armor.
I’m sure I’m partly to blame. I went with a Staff and Phantasm-heavy shatter build, using Phantasmal Defender and Phantasmal Disenchanter in the Utility slots, along with Decoy. The elite was Moa Morph.
One group that gave us a lot of trouble was an Elementalist, Ranger, and Warrior. The Elementalist especially killed us with massive damage, while the Ranger trapped and poisoned us to death. After like 5 attempts we finally were able to drop the Ele and beat the mob, but that battle alone took 15 minutes or so…
So rethinking it now, I’m wondering if I’d have been more help to the group using Time Warp and Feedback? I think the Ele was using Arcane Blast, but not sure… Could Feedback cause an Ele (or Ranger) to kill themself? And is Time Warp a better dungeon elite than Moa Morph?
im happy that youve found a build that made you happy, let me know how it turns out vs players that actually knows how to play.
This type of response is just the worst.
It comes from a jaded player trying to ruin a good post from someone trying to help the community and likely isn’t very good at the class to begin with.
OP thanks for taking the time to create this post for us all to enjoy.
Click on WarKeeper’s name to see his other posts. They’re all pretty much like this. I think he is the best Guild Wars 2 player on the planet, and no one else knows anything in comparison. On top of that, he’s a real class act. :-)
A couple question about Rune statistics:
I have an Acolyte Band armor piece – Defense 14; +7 Power; +5 Precision. I added a rune that reads like this:
Minor Rune of Scavenging (4/2)
(1) +11 Condition Damage
(2) 3% Magic Find
Questions:
1) What does the (4/2) mean? It’s in Red on this particular piece of armor.
2) If the Rune added Precision, would it stack with the Precision already on the armor?
How is this thread not a Sticky?! The guide is awesome. TYVM!
This might be a dumb question, but where is the target field you’re using for practice?
In the original Guild Wars game, A-Net offered Stylists that could change your appearance (including hair, face, etc.). You had to buy credits for the Stylists from the In-Game store (for real money). Not sure if GW2 would offer this or not, but if it’s a way for them to make extra money, I would say it’s possible.
I don’t think any of the professions are “one-button,” but if you want a profession that is more tricky than most, try Mesmer. It’s tricky because you have a combination of weapon combat and illusion creation, and you don’t have much armor – so you have to be a skillful player with good timing to survive. They are very fun to watch with the illusions in the hands of a skilled player. The Mesmer is not recommended for beginners, but sounds like what you might be looking for.
I forgot to mention Traits, but I filled out the Curses line first to make the Conditions more effective. For the first tier Trait skill, I went with Weakening Shroud, which casts Enfeeble every time you enter Death Shroud. For the next Trait line, I went with Soul Reaping to increase the Life Force pool.
The Necro can deal a lot of damage, especially with AoE skills, and also is not as squishy as you might think. Using the Staff, 4 of your 5 skills are AoE. Start with #2 Mark of Blood to apply bleeding to a group, or #4 Chilbains to chill and poison the group. In scenarios where a group of foes and enemies are together and the allies are taking conditions, cast #3 Putrid Mark for high AoE damage, plus it transfers the conditions from the allies to the foes.
The biggest damage dealer the Necro has, however, is when you go into Death Shroud mode (F1) with a full bar of Life Force. The #1 Life Blast skill deals massive damage as long as your Life Force remains high. Use Spectral Armor in a utility slot to mitigate damage and stuns, as it boosts your Life Force so you can go into Death Shroud mode.
Finally, for an added heath benefit, use the Signet of the Locust in a utility slot. This one increases your speed so you can escape better when there is no alternative, but in Active mode it steals health from nearby enemies. You also might consider swapping Consume Conditions into your #6 healing slot instead of Summon Blood Fiend. Yes, you said you like the minions, but you can use the more powerful Summon Shadow Fiend minion skill instead of Blood Fiend, and then use Consume Conditions to heal when your health is low, plus remove any Conditions you have (and get bonus health for each condition removed).
For the alternate weapon set, I play the Sceptor and Dagger. This build is more for single foes, and has excellent DoT (damage over time) skills. Start with skill #2 to apply bleeding and crippling to the foe. Kite around the foe hitting with #1 Grasping Dead while you watch it bleed to death. Apply #5 Enfeebling Blood to apply weakness and more bleeding, then finish him off with #3 Feast of Corruption which is high damage plus bonus damage per condition.
I find myself using the Staff probably 80% of the time, even for single foes. If it’s a Veteran, I may switch to the Sceptor/Dagger if all the Staff skills don’t seem to be enough, but normally, just popping back and forth between Staff and Death Shroud mode gets me out of most situations.
My character is level 21, the Topaz Nugget says Required Level 20, double click to apply to item with unused upgrade slot, but when I double-click it and apply it to either a Staff or Sceptor it just turns red and does nothing.
I can apply lesser jewels like Amber Pebbles, so why can’t I apply a Topaz Nugget?
The title says it all… if a skill is listed at Damage (5x): 125, does that mean it deals 125 damage over 5 separate hits (so each hit is 25)?
Why are some skills listed like that? For a specific example, my Level 10 Mesmer “Confusing Images” skill shows the stat above for damage.
Got 100% map completion for the Caledon Forest area. Is there a particular 16-25 area that logically comes next for Sylvari? Does the game lead you to these areas?
Also, I have not finished the personal storyline and wondered if I should keep going with that before going into the next level areas?