General nonsense

[apricotsoup]

As the main thread has been taken over by people asking for invites I thought I'd open this up for general banter and shenanigans.

First order of the day, how annoying it is that the monthly survivor xp resets when you log out. Got booted from the server at 66k xp. Boo.

[Timofee]

Indeed.

Level 40 and 50 dungeons were pretty awesome - but very hard, that being said there were only four of us

We developed a really cool tactic for the 2nd Champion in the level 50 dungeon revolving around kiting the giant pack of mobs around while slowing killing the boss from afar. Took many attempts before we figured that out but really satisfying when we did.

Some of the high level zones have had really awesome event chains including Harathi Hinterlands and a big chain about taking Centaur camps.

Also, gotta love 300% xp for being some of the first people in a zone.

EDIT 1: Also - no separated loot / interact key Anet? really? REALLY? I can't even count the number of people I saw complaining about this over beta weekends - it makes NO LOGICAL SENSE.

EDIT 2: Similarly: no option to restart/cancel instances...

This touches on a point I've made before about how they seem to have made all these great calls with the big game design issues and then screwed up lots of little ones

[Screwie]

Damn, level 50 already? Really?? :(

My favourite moment of frustration/silliness came form a point in my personal story. Spoiler free, the quest is a one-on-one boss fight that I just could not manage in one sitting (the bad guy has a few interrupts which really mess my elementalist up), but the respawn point is literally 10 yards from the fight. So I would kite him towards the point and then re-aggro him after each death before his health regened. Dirty cheating but worked like a charm.

That this whole encounter was framed within a sportsmanlike duel just made me laugh. :)

[sendmark]

Best unintentional moment - getting a bug which caused permanent swiftness. I think it was from using a glyph of swiftness and a speed boost together. Although it was nice to feel like Usain Bolt, I'm going to try and replicate it and submit bug report if I find the cause.

Best intentional moments - Game keeps getting better and better with each zone imo. The characterisation of NPCs is the best of any mmo I've played.

[Beard Of Bees]

I was barely able to play over the weekend. Level 10 and counting - Thursday night will be a big push for me I think as I should have the house to myself. Very much enjoyed what I've played so far though.

Still trying to get my controls set up just right. Despite not seeming to need that many keys, by the time you've got dodging, weapon swapping, and things like Mesmer shatter abilities in the pot, there's quite a lot to map out. I finally had a "click" with the combat system last night whilst fighting a pack of Ettins. I set up a chaos field and got a phantasm lobbing spells with my staff, then swapped to sword and pistol, got another phantasm up and then leapt in with my illusionary leap. Total spell effect overload and a lot of fun.

[unruly]

Man, all these people I know are reporting that their characters are already at level 25-30, or even higher. Meanwhile, I'm sitting pretty at 14 and haven't even really bothered to venture out of the Plains of Ashford yet. I've been trying to do just about everything though, so maybe that's it. I mean, it takes a long time to run around and gather materials to level my weapon and armorsmithing. I mean, it's taken me forever to get the two professions to level 25. I can't keep up with my own level at all. Especially not with the way that the simplest of recipes require me to get uncommon drops. I figure a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm leveling two professions that use the same primary material(metal), but at the same time that seems to be all I can find. Armorsmithing requires a fair bit of cloth too, and even with the fact that I'm salvaging practically everything I can't seem to ever find enough of the stuff.

And I just can't seem to figure out the discovery system all that much. I kind of figured it would be a means to waste materials, but it won't let you actually attempt to craft anything until you have a guaranteed discovery. So that idea is out the window. And I've figured out that not everything mixes in with each profession. But it just seems fairly random how stuff fits. Like, one time I had the ability to add glittering dust to my discoveries, but only that one time. Now I can't add it at all. It doesn't even show up as an option to add it in anymore. Was there seriously only one item in the entire profession that used glittering dust? Or is it just trolling me?

Also, resource nodes seem to take forever to respawn. Added in with the fact that you de-level as you go to different areas, and so you'll always pull aggro from nearby hostile mobs, it makes profession leveling just seem extremely tedious. I mean, I try to hit all the nodes as I come across them, but having to fight big groups of stuff in order to reach some of them and not having much more of an advantage over them than I had two days ago when I was just starting out makes it a bit annoying. Though I guess it does make it a bit more exciting than WoW's "I'm gonna ride my mount in circles for all the nodes in the area!" method, because I actually have to get involved.

Aside from that, I'm really enjoying the game so far. It's a nice change of pace from other MMOs because, aside from the aforementioned professions, it doesn't seem to be making itself rely on super-grinding. And figuring out how stuff works is actually interesting in this game, even if it does confuse me to no end sometimes. Though I do wish the trading post was open already, because damn it! I need crafting materials! UNRULY CRAFT! *furiously makes a new shield and pair of boots*

[zanchito]

Do not feel bad, I'm up to level 20 and I've been playing like crazy, I don't get how people are already level 50. :)

[Screwie]

I mean, it takes a long time to run around and gather materials to level my weapon and armorsmithing. I mean, it's taken me forever to get the two professions to level 25. I can't keep up with my own level at all. Especially not with the way that the simplest of recipes require me to get uncommon drops. I figure a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm leveling two professions that use the same primary material(metal), but at the same time that seems to be all I can find. Armorsmithing requires a fair bit of cloth too, and even with the fact that I'm salvaging practically everything I can't seem to ever find enough of the stuff.

And I just can't seem to figure out the discovery system all that much. I kind of figured it would be a means to waste materials, but it won't let you actually attempt to craft anything until you have a guaranteed discovery. So that idea is out the window. And I've figured out that not everything mixes in with each profession. But it just seems fairly random how stuff fits. Like, one time I had the ability to add glittering dust to my discoveries, but only that one time. Now I can't add it at all. It doesn't even show up as an option to add it in anymore. Was there seriously only one item in the entire profession that used glittering dust? Or is it just trolling me?

I'm no crafting expert (this guy is (http://gaiscioch.com/tavern/guildwars_crafting/post_35198.html)), but I find the discovery system is key to quick advancement at the start of a crafting tier, then known recipes are generally the fastest way to finish each one off. Discovery is absolutely magic, and can jump you 3 or more levels for each one.

I believe that once an ingredient turns red in the discovery pane it means you've no use for it until you reach the next level band or tier. Bearing in mind you'll be getting ingredients all the time for tiers/level bands above what you can use right away, it's a handy indicator for not clogging your inventory with things. No it's not a true discovery system which is a shame, but this is countered by the fact there's no chance of failure and the rewards are really nice anyway.

I'm only just past level 75 in my two chosen professions though, so if the guide above contradicts me, then follow the guide :)


Do not feel bad, I'm up to level 20 and I've been playing like crazy, I don't get how people are already level 50. :)

Me neither! I'm back at work now though and can only play a few nights a week from now on, so getting left behind seems inevitable. This might make me feel less rushed - and I may also change my tack and not focus on 100%-ing areas for a while.

[sendmark]

To be honest given the ongoing party zoning issues and other bugs, the game will be more fun to play when they are fixed. So leveling slower has the benefit of a more polished experience. I'm definitely slowing my pace now for this reason.

Trick to crafting I think, as per the guide, is to stick to refinements first until you no longer gain skill from them (i.e. they go grey). So gather everything you come across and hold out on making stuff. Then do discoveries, one of each insignia type for each weapon type until you hit the next tier, at which point it's back to refinements. So you don't actually need to grind lots of one particular rare material or end up with multiple copies of the same item.

[zanchito]

I'm always open for grouping, the Guild screen should tell the character level so you can send invites to the appropiate people.

[Drayk]

I am completely lost...

I spend 3 evening and at least 12 hours on the game making and deleting characters... So far my most advance character is a level 4 thief...

It's impossible to find the perfect class/race for me. I watched tons of vids, especially PVP because that's what I fear the most: bad choice for PVP.

Alright, I'll give it a try. Maybe you guys are wiser than me.

Deep down, I am a more of mélée player, but I like to have ranged options when needed. I like to be able to move fast, and I tend to play offensively. I like shiny magic effects too.

I love to pvp but always go stupidly in the middle of the fray. So either I learn to play smart or I have to choose a really sturdy class.

So I thought I might find my luck between mesmer, thief and guardian. There seemed to be too much warriors already.

I tried the 3 classes for a (really) little while. Mesmer (my first choice since it felt special): I fear not having enough mobility and I find illusions useless in (early) pve, everything dies before they start to shine. I am not sure I would be able to use my shatters properly too... Thief, I fear to be too squishy, but I really like to be quick and to have all those evasive maneuvers. Guardian, I fear that the class would be too slow to play and not playing the class adequatly if not supporting my allies properly.

In most MMOs I feel like ranged player have the edge in mass combat, is it the same here ? the combat is hectic and at times i had troubles to understand what was going out.

Right now I just want to choose a class and stick to it. Today's flavor is Mesmer again. WIth greatsword for long range combat and dual swords to satisfy my lust for blood...

Sorry for the trouble, any advice is deeply welcomed.

[zanchito]

Thief has some good survivavility if you specialize. Against melee, for example, it has a skill you can spam on the secondary pistol that creates area blind. For PvP specifically, I can't tell you, I haven't tried it yet, to be honest I'm a little scared of doing ridiculously bad. Also, the thief in my oppinion is kind of a late bloomer, you really need to be level 15-20 to start seeing the beauty.

[DiamondDog]

I don't have much experience with many of the classes, I've picked a Ranger and I'm sticking with it for now. All I'll say is, if you feel like a class has a particular weakness you don't like, it might be the kind of thing you wouldn't notice in a group. When you end up playing with people you know well and get communicating, you usually find other classes have the abilities to plug the gaps where you're weakest. So the obvious example being a Thief getting some extra protection from a Guardian and lasting longer in a fight.

At the moment the PvP I've played has all been a bit chaotic, so getting the different classes working together is tough. Although last night our group finally had a Guardian with us, and I could definitely notice the extra survivability I had in fights.

[sendmark]

Well bear in mind you can create any class for pvp and be max level with the best gear straight away, you do not have to pve with your pvp character at all.

[Drayk]

Well bear in mind you can create any class for pvp and be max level with the best gear straight away, you do not have to pve with your pvp character at all.

Yeah I just discovered that... I'll try a bit of pvp that way, but I won't have the leveling time to practice, but it can be a good indicator nonetheless.

[Wolfenswan]

Are the traits maxed as well in PvP?

[Screwie]

Are the traits maxed as well in PvP?

Yep, and quickly respeccable too.

[BobbyFizz]

Anyone heard anything about the mail system? At the moment we can't send mail to players who are offline, do we know if that is going to change?

[zanchito]

Holy crap, is that true? Doesn't make an ounce of sense!!

[Ritashi]

Keep in mind also that while a Warrior is baseline more survivable than a thief, that difference pales in comparison to gear. If you build straight Power/Precision on a Warrior, you will die in five seconds (but you'll deal great damage for that duration). If you build straight Toughness/Vitality on an Elementalist you'll be able to tank crazy amounts of damage. Every class can play the bruiser, every class can play the glass cannon, and everything in between. So if you want to build a thief that jumps into the melee, does some damage but is pretty tanky, you can do that.

Fun fact, Guardian has the lowest base health pool of any profession (tied with two others, idr which).

[Wolfenswan]

Who the fuck thought that an "Exit to Desktop" button without any confirmation would be a good diea?

[Drayk]

Who the fuck thought that an "Exit to Desktop" button without any confirmation would be a good diea?

Yeah it surprised me too thefirst time...

I also got 2 crashes yesterday...

@Ritashi and the others:
Thanks for the tips, I didn't new stats added such differences. The more I learn about how they created classes the more I think this game will hook me a while... I was amazed by the size of the borderlands too... Now if I just could make my mind...

[Bankrotas]

Getting "you're not in the guild" chat issues for the first time :/

[Logax]

Had an amazing experience this evening in Diessa Plateau. Running around minding my own business when I suddenly meet 2 guildies and we decide to group up and do some hearth events together. We suddenly decide to do this big group event close by and after a while end up in some underwater mini-dungeon doing puzzles and stuff. At the end we got to kill a freakishly hard champion mob (underwater) and got tons of loot out of it (9 chests :O ).

It's crazy how this game can suck you in and distract you to do something completely different then the thing you set out to do, while having amazing fun while doing it. While having some things that are still not on point yet this is simply the best MMORPG I've played in many years, and I've tried many. And I don't have to pay a subscription even! :eek:

[Lightbulb]

Are the traits maxed as well in PvP?

All weapons, runes, armour, equipment, etc etc is max level. All skills are unlocked and all traits and abilities too.

Thats sPvP though not WvWvW.

[lasikbear]

Any idea what the "steady" PvP items are? You can buy them from the battle points vendor in the PvP area.

[FriendlyFire]

Fun fact, Guardian has the lowest base health pool of any profession (tied with two others, idr which).

Thief and Elementalist. The critical thing you fail to mention is that Guardian is the only class outside of the Warrior who can wear heavy armor. Elementalists have light armor and thieves have medium armor.

[President Weasel]

Who the fuck thought that an "Exit to Desktop" button without any confirmation would be a good diea?

I like it. It's refreshing and simple!
I get grumpy quickly, and genuinely find camp-character screen-exit game-are you sure?-YES I AM SURE DAMN YOUR EYES annoying.

[FriendlyFire]

I like it. It's refreshing and simple!
I get grumpy quickly, and genuinely find camp-character screen-exit game-are you sure?-YES I AM SURE DAMN YOUR EYES annoying.

+1 on that. It's the games that make you go through hoops for quitting that I hate. In my opinion, just like Alt+Enter always makes a game go fullscreen, Alt+F4 should always exit it immediately, no confirmation required, with perhaps a small delay to save if saving is required. That there's a menu option that does just that is icing on the cake.

[footlingsummers]

Any idea what the "steady" PvP items are? You can buy them from the battle points vendor in the PvP area.
I believe they do the same amount of damage on every attack. I guess it's to get an idea of the baseline damage of weapons or sumfin.

[unruly]

So I'm running into a dilemma. I'm trying to level my crafting to match my character level and location, but I just can't get enough materials. Specifically the "fine" materials, like tiny scales, weak blood, totem fragments, and the like. I need them to make insignias and inscriptions, which let me do my discoveries, which are the best way to level crafting so far. So I run around harvesting all the materials that spawn in nodes, killing tons of stuff along the way, and I just always come up way short in the materials department. So I'm stuck at level 50 for my armorsmithing and level 40 for my weaponsmithing. But I'm level 18 now, and I'm in areas where I'm gathering materials that require level 75 to use. I've spent the last two days just running around my starter area farming materials and it's been a big disappointment to find out that I still don't have enough to get up to where I need to be to match the area I'm in.

Does anyone have any good farming spots? Because crafting is obviously one area that isn't really working out as just happening naturally, unlike pretty much everything else in the game.

[Screwie]

I like it. It's refreshing and simple!
I get grumpy quickly, and genuinely find camp-character screen-exit game-are you sure?-YES I AM SURE DAMN YOUR EYES annoying.

GW1 had the 'X' in the top right corner while playing the game, too. You learn to avoid that corner quickly.

[Drayk]

Hallelujah !

I finally met my avatar for GW2, he is a sturdy, Energy filled, Asura. His name is Tiny Raz and he is a warrior.

I tried 4 classes in PVP against the training class bots (brilliant idea btw). Mesmer, Thief, Guardian and warrior.

I like 3 out of 4. Mesmer, Thief and Warrior. I think all of them have excellent abilities but the warrior was the most satisfying for me (probably because his mechanics are pretty easy to grasp)

I wanted to stay away from the most played races for warrior (thanks GW2 census) and first made a sylvari warrior, he was pretty decent but his aninations where the same a Norn and human (as far as i know); I then went for Asura. Which feels a bit odd considering their stature, but is amazing to watch. (take a look at the greatsword animations ^^ )


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ScNqC5t5Po

I also love the Asuran setting. (but the Sylvari warrior racial armor is excellent).

I will finally get to play this game ! \o/

[Broen]

Stumbled upon this interactive map. It's definitely not the most detailed map out there, but it's pretty useful and some of the descriptions are funny, too.

(Spoilers! Duh!)

http://www.littlethings2.com/GuildWars2/map.php (http://www.littlethings2.com/GuildWars2/map.php)

Edit: I guess the descriptions of some events/bosses/etc. makes it the map with the most details I found on the web.

[Slicedice]

Unruly, regarding grinding mats for leveling crafting, rather than grinding in your starting area, you should consider going to another 1-15 area and getting the 100% map exploration there and picking up the crafting bits along the way, infinitely more "fun" than just grinding one area repeatedly, at least in my opinion. Or roll an alt :P Personally I had to complete like three starter areas before passing 75 skill..

[Broen]

Hallelujah !

I finally met my avatar for GW2, he is a sturdy, Energy filled, Asura. His name is Tiny Raz and he is a warrior.
(snip)
I will finally get to play this game ! \o/

The Asura warriors great sword animations are fucking awesome! I love how they put their sword over the shoulder while running. They look so determined and stubborn (because the sword is so big and they are so tiny, you know! "I don't care that this sword looks like it's to big for me! I'm going to whoop your ass with it and then carry on talking about how superior we Asura are!").

[harvb]

First off, fun fun fun - I am loving this game. It's just got something, I love it. I don't know what it is, I just love it.

It feels more like a solo game, which I love, but a solo game in a good way. Every time I run around I meet someone, we smash things up together, and then I'm on my own again. It's great, what's not to like?

The biggest problem I have so far is that it just feels a bit too complicated for me at the moment. I do lots of things and I get nice pretties and I get skill increases and then it all feels like A + B + F + H = ZZZ. I mean I'm confused as hell. Still, it's actually pretty fun finding my feet.

It's also pretty neat being rewarded for exploration again, that was sorely missing from other games.

Overall, I'm loving it.

One question; I'm primarily playing a Norn but I've got mates playing Asura and Humies. How the hell do you meet up??

Cheers all, fun fun fun.

[Broen]

Unruly, regarding grinding mats for leveling crafting, rather than grinding in your starting area, you should consider going to another 1-15 area and getting the 100% map exploration there and picking up the crafting bits along the way, infinitely more "fun" than just grinding one area repeatedly, at least in my opinion. Or roll an alt :P Personally I had to complete like three starter areas before passing 75 skill..

That's actually a good idea. I was thinking about grinding my starting area a little bit more to get more mats. Maybe it's time to visit one of the others. I wanted to keep them fresh, for when I'm going to do them with an alt. But there are always the different personal stories to keep things interesting. And the DEs make sure, that there will still be surprises on the way.

[starmatt]

Yeah, I really love this game! My favorite moment was when I got permabanned cause I got hacked, how fun :D Apparently it's a phishing problem, beware people! Even though I never clicked on any suspicious link (and apparently like a lot of people who also got permabanned out of the blue), it still happened. I'm pretty frustrated right now! YEAH!

[zanchito]

harvb: use the asura gates in the initial cities to travel to other initial cities. I felt the game was a bit overwhelming at first too, but give it a bit of time and you'll get the hang of it rather quicly, you'll see!

[harvb]

@zanchito, thanks for that mate, much appreciated.

Oh I knew there was something I meant to ask! Is there anyone out there willing to make some bags for me, please? I'm sure there are a bazillion other players wanting this too. Just tell me what I need to send you, and I will send you what I can.

I should actually learn!!!

[President Weasel]

First off, fun fun fun - I am loving this game. It's just got something, I love it. I don't know what it is, I just love it.

It feels more like a solo game, which I love, but a solo game in a good way. Every time I run around I meet someone, we smash things up together, and then I'm on my own again. It's great, what's not to like?

The biggest problem I have so far is that it just feels a bit too complicated for me at the moment. I do lots of things and I get nice pretties and I get skill increases and then it all feels like A + B + F + H = ZZZ. I mean I'm confused as hell. Still, it's actually pretty fun finding my feet.

It's also pretty neat being rewarded for exploration again, that was sorely missing from other games.

Overall, I'm loving it.

One question; I'm primarily playing a Norn but I've got mates playing Asura and Humies. How the hell do you meet up??

Cheers all, fun fun fun.

Beware - the Norn female has apallingly wooden voice acting. "I talk with this emotionless, wooden affect to honour the trees".
Seriously, whoever they hired was terrible at voice acting.

I was under the impression GW2 just had bad voice acting, oh well, live with it - but Eurogamer says Femshep is voice acting the Sylvari female, and Nolan North the human male, and both of them can actually do voice acting.

[Drayk]

Beware - the Norn female has apallingly wooden voice acting. "I talk with this emotionless, wooden affect to honour the trees".
Seriously, whoever they hired was terrible at voice acting.

I was under the impression GW2 just had bad voice acting, oh well, live with it - but Eurogamer says Femshep is voice acting the Sylvari female, and Nolan North the human male, and both of them can actually do voice acting.

I like the Male Asura voice actor too. Steve Staley it seems. IMDB tells me he does mostly anime stuff.

[Screwie]

Beware - the Norn female has apallingly wooden voice acting. "I talk with this emotionless, wooden affect to honour the trees".
Seriously, whoever they hired was terrible at voice acting.

It's Ivanova from Babylon 5. Also how dare you, it's Ivanova from Babylon 5!

The norn female voice was a bit jarring at first, but I've grown used to it. Mostly I think the norn script is clunky, but again I've gotten used to it - the story is interesting enough despite it.

The asura male is amazing, though.

[Anthile]

The male Norn voice tries a bit too hard sounding like a klingon. Doesn't help there are some beards that look like the iconic Klingon beards. It's not awful but it makes it very hard to take seriously at times.

*chops wood* IT'S MY DESTINY!

[DanielSF]

@ Screwie
Yeah, for whatever reason, his voice works perfectly. So much so, that I'm going to have difficulty rolling another male Asuran at a later date.
Whereas when I did a female Norn in the beta weekends, I got to the Norn intro cutscene and was wondering who the hell that voice was because it did NOT fit the character I'd just created.
And I'm going to have to roll a female Sylvari at some point, just for Jennifer Hale.

[zanchito]

@zanchito, thanks for that mate, much appreciated.

Oh I knew there was something I meant to ask! Is there anyone out there willing to make some bags for me, please? I'm sure there are a bazillion other players wanting this too. Just tell me what I need to send you, and I will send you what I can.

I should actually learn!!!


Harb, let me point you towards our crafting requests Google spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aqrwzgk8pgWJdHA5OXVaZ3VpR2dieDkyeUx3OTJsM 0E#gid=0

[harvb]

Oooh ta. I'll go do that now.

[President Weasel]

It's Ivanova from Babylon 5. Also how dare you, it's Ivanova from Babylon 5!
.

No way, Claudia Whatsername? She sucks at voice acting then.

[unruly]

I won't say much as to the quality of the Charr voice acting(I gotta sound gruff and mean! Gravel voices for everyone!), but one thing I like is one of those little details they added while the Charr are talking - little slobbery noises that just kind of mesh in with the speech. They're not super-loud and obnoxious, but they're noticeable. And it's a sound like what you'll hear a dog make sometimes when they've got real loose jowls and they're chewing on a bone or trying to eat peanut butter. I dunno why, but that little touch just kinda tickled me.

[zanchito]

I don't know, the writing is so bad I can't really appretiate any acting. The world of GW has lots of nice lore, but the actual story writing and dialogues are so generic and clichéd I actually think they did it on purpose!

[sendmark]

Trading Post is online, albeit unstable. I managed to buy and sell a couple of items at least.

Something obvious I realised today, doing /kneel in front of a Norn shrine either confers a buff or triggers an event.

[zanchito]

Even if you are a puny asuran?

[boyspud]

Getting "you're not in the guild" chat issues for the first time :/

I'm getting that right now. My first instinct was to restart the game, but then I started getting Error 42. I eventually got back in (running the game as administrator seemed to work) but I still cant speakin guild. Does this just happen arbitrarily?

[Screwie]

Something obvious I realised today, doing /kneel in front of a Norn shrine either confers a buff or triggers an event.

That is so awesome. Really happy shrine kneeling has returned for the sequel! I thought with the introduction of new races making the human gods less important, they wouldn't bother. Now I will go kneeling at every shrine I find.


No way, Claudia Whatsername? She sucks at voice acting then.

I freely admit the effect of my own rose-tinted glasses on this. I absolutely love the norn. Their culture is really interesting, and was heavily fleshed out in GW1. That GW2 hasn't done a brilliant job of highlighting this, through quest content or script or voice acting (especially compared to some other races), is disappointing but does not make me love them any less.

[iamthejuggler]

I'm getting that right now. My first instinct was to restart the game, but then I started getting Error 42. I eventually got back in (running the game as administrator seemed to work) but I still cant speakin guild. Does this just happen arbitrarily?

I've not been able to speak in guild or see guild chat yet. Was about to ask if anyone else was getting the "Not in a guild" message. I can see the roster and online people, just not talk. Also, what do the "represent" and "stand down" buttons do?

[harvb]

I *think* I've sussed the guild thing. It seems - for me anyway - that it's only if you're in the overflow. Soon as I'm in the main world it's fine.

[boyspud]

I've not been able to speak in guild or see guild chat yet. Was about to ask if anyone else was getting the "Not in a guild" message. I can see the roster and online people, just not talk. Also, what do the "represent" and "stand down" buttons do?

Youve got to hit represent to see chat. Its so you can be in a number of guilds at once, but you still can only be a 'part' of one at a time.

[Screwie]

I got the dreaded password change email last night while I was out, but I can't change my password right now as that functionality has been disabled by ANet until they get authenticators online (source (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/z1poz/guild_wars_2_status_wednesday_august_29/)).

So my account's been poked by hackers. I have a pretty strong and unique password but if you see me in-game today before ~10pm, then that's not me and I've been hacked. Marvellous.

At least they're working on it.

Recommended action if you receive a password change email (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/z1poz/guild_wars_2_status_wednesday_august_29/c60uw2h).

[squirrelfanatic]

I got the dreaded password change email last night while I was out, but I can't change my password right now as that functionality has been disabled by ANet until they get authenticators online (source (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/z1poz/guild_wars_2_status_wednesday_august_29/)).

So my account's been poked by hackers. I have a pretty strong and unique password but if you see me in-game today before ~10pm, then that's not me and I've been hacked. Marvellous.

At least they're working on it.

Recommended action if you receive a password change email (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/z1poz/guild_wars_2_status_wednesday_august_29/c60uw2h).Whoa, that's bad. Thanks for the headsup though, I've created a new email address that I'll use exclusively for my GW2 account and will adjust my account settings accordingly tonight.

[Drayk]

Whoa, that's bad. Thanks for the headsup though, I've created a new email address that I'll use exclusively for my GW2 account and will adjust my account settings accordingly tonight.

They tried to change my password twice too... I don't know what's happening but I'll take preventive mesures.

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

Just a heads up: Looks like you have to buy the master's training manual or whatever it's called. You can't skip to grandmaster straight away at level 60.

I don't have enough money to buy that. This is going to be like GW1 for me all over again, isn't it?

[Screwie]

Some official advice has been put on the official website:

Tips for keeping your GW2 account secure (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/tips-for-keeping-your-guild-wars-2-account-secure/)
How to use the GW2 email authentication system (http://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9192/)

Not in a position to check if the authentication is already in place or not, but it's coming very soon.

Also I love that their official advice references and encourages the technique from that particular xkcd comic strip (http://xkcd.com/936/)!

[Wolfenswan]

Curses, they changed the prices from the lvl 40 cultural weapons from 1k to 9.8k, just as I hit lvl 40 :(

[20phoenix]

I like the way everyone seems to be flying through the levels. I keep wandering off because I see something shiny

[Screwie]

I like the way everyone seems to be flying through the levels. I keep wandering off because I see something shiny

I like the way you can level by doing this. :)

[Drayk]

Did anyone have a bug with the skill point quest in north of the asura training grounds ? Because I couldn't use the damn thing to unlock the skill point...

[DeVadder]

Yeah for me its just wandering around whatever looks interesting. As sometime interesting things happen to be way below my level, i suppose it takes me a little longer to gain levels, but then again who cares. ^^
Also it appears that doing stuff below your level gets you more xp than you would expect from other games. It is more interesting as well because of the scaling of course.

[Anthile]

So I tried to create a human character earlier and wow. Guild Wars 2 humans look incredibly effeminate with absurdly smooth skin and hair right out of a fashion magazine. It's really difficult to make it not look like a Final Fantasy reject.
I carried it to the logical conclusion and created a David Bowie look-alike, mainly to answer one of the greatest questions of our time: what if David Bowie had a bear named Ziggy Stardust?
http://i.imgur.com/h8lmr.jpg

[Wolfenswan]

should have picked a Norn obviously

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/559825079524319265/715DDC267F7FD780705129B5BC63CA5F2083ED14/

[harvb]

So I tried to create a human character earlier and wow. Guild Wars 2 humans look incredibly effeminate with absurdly smooth skin and hair right out of a fashion magazine. It's really difficult to make it not look like a Final Fantasy reject.
I carried it to the logical conclusion and created a David Bowie look-alike, mainly to answer one of the greatest questions of our time: what if David Bowie had a bear named Ziggy Stardust?
http://i.imgur.com/h8lmr.jpg

That's not so much David Bowie as much as David Beckham, mate.

[Screwie]

The face is actually young Clint Eastwood, though. :)

[Drayk]

The face is actually young Clint Eastwood, though. :)

Absolutely... there is a gw2 look alike video somewhere *shuffle in his bag of tricks*

There it is. Their Eastwood is quite good.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ9yx3M758Y&feature=player_embedded

[TheMoo]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to say this but whatever.

If you didn't do it yet: Go to Lion's Arch and find and complete the pirate dungeon thing. Just do it. It's one of the best things ever and just... just do it damn you.

[Skalpadda]

Sir, yes sir!

Unrelated: Why do female Norn run like little girls? One moment all fierce and strong, the next hopping away with flapping arms.

[Wolfenswan]

For a short while our guild emblem was a beaver on black, white and red making the roman salute:

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/559825079534215965/3EF2EC5345297273D3F2C67637C5D64020945024/

[zanchito]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to say this but whatever.

If you didn't do it yet: Go to Lion's Arch and find and complete the pirate dungeon thing. Just do it. It's one of the best things ever and just... just do it damn you.
Is it as good as the cattlepult or the cowmmandos?

[TheMoo]

Is it as good as the cattlepult or the cowmmandos?

No idea, haven't seen those. But it really is quite fun.

[Shooop]

I'm a bit miffed about having to only be able to pick one ally from the charr warband per character to stick around. I love their dialogue and it would have brilliant to watch and hear them talking amongst themselves. Even just picking one per each personal story mission to accompany you would have been nicer than just "You picked that one at the char creation screen, so that's all you get!"

[Timofee]

For a short while our guild emblem was a beaver on black, white and red making the roman salute:

*snip*


Yeah, we need to decide on logo.

Thematically its a bear (which is what it is at the moment)
Historically (i.e. the beta weekends) its a unicorn - which was great
Alternatively there is the happy beaver who could well represent one of the single greatest sigils of all time. When I'm not so lazy I'll do a post about it with images n stuff

[zanchito]

I'm a bit annoyed at the teleporting costs. It's affecting the way I play and actually making me skip some social gaming. Not really somehting you'd want in a suppousedly social game.

[harvb]

Yeah, we need to decide on logo.

Thematically its a bear (which is what it is at the moment)
Historically (i.e. the beta weekends) its a unicorn - which was great
Alternatively there is the happy beaver who could well represent one of the single greatest sigils of all time. When I'm not so lazy I'll do a post about it with images n stuff

*giggle*

A happy beaver.

[Drayk]

Yeah, we need to decide on logo.

Thematically its a bear (which is what it is at the moment)
Historically (i.e. the beta weekends) its a unicorn - which was great
Alternatively there is the happy beaver who could well represent one of the single greatest sigils of all time. When I'm not so lazy I'll do a post about it with images n stuff

Hum... I like all the options.

It's not that I am not lazy but I am not a patient man, so here are emblems I think... Don't have the right colors though.

1849

1851

1850

and here, one of my favourite :
1848

[zanchito]

Oh Shiva, the beaver is beyond awesome!!!

[apricotsoup]

I still vote for the happy octopus with trident, but bear comes in second :]

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

I'm a bit annoyed at the teleporting costs. It's affecting the way I play and actually making me skip some social gaming. Not really somehting you'd want in a suppousedly social game.

Are you salvaging your drops instead of selling them? That's one of the biggest mistakes people make in the hopes of finding crafting materials, and it results in many empty bank accounts and grievances with the waypoint system.

In general, sell all weapons, sell all green and blue armor, sell all heavy armor.
Salvage only light and medium armor.
Keep yellow and higher to sell to players.

It's not worth salvaging a 1 silver green armor only to get one piece of iron ore. Metal and wood are plentiful, only cloth and leather are rare. The biggest bottleneck in crafting is fine crafting materials anyway.

[zanchito]

I just don't find lots of higher priced loot. I've kept a few pieces, but with the trade post down, I can't sell them. It's rather crappy you can't harvest leather and cloth. Metals and woods can be harvested AND salvaged. :/ Thanks for the tip anyway!! :)

[unruly]

I just don't find lots of higher priced loot. I've kept a few pieces, but with the trade post down, I can't sell them.

He's meaning sell them to vendors as trash. Which is the best way to go about it, really, because it gets you a fair amount of cash when you offload an entire inventory's worth. Unless you want the sigil off of a green piece, that is. Then you hit it with a fine or better salvage kit and hope for the best. Otherwise, just salvage light and medium armors and any actual salvage pieces that you come across. Otherwise you're losing money pretty badly.

[zanchito]

Mkay, that must be it then, I'll keep a closer eye on the loot. I'm level 25 with a bit over 1 gold, it's not like I'm starving for money at all (I haven't actually bought anything with coins, just karma), but I'm also actively avoiding teleports.

[sendmark]

So I have everything for monthly achievement, including survivor, but with one exception - 125 more items to salvage. Not sure if I should push for it (if I even have time) or if I should leave it.


I'm a bit annoyed at the teleporting costs. It's affecting the way I play and actually making me skip some social gaming. Not really somehting you'd want in a suppousedly social game.
I actually appreciate the costs quite a bit now, as it forces players to explore the world and trigger events. Some of the the best moments in the game for me have come from walking through a couple of points when I could have teleported. It's surprising just how much stuff you can miss otherwise.

[zanchito]

sendmark: yes, I don't mind walking around a bit because of that same reason, random events. But oftentimes I just want to go back to town for crafting / repairs and get back to exploring or join someone somewhere.

[sendmark]

By getting back to town you are using Mists - Lions Arch - City asura gates, right? For repairs, it's maybe better to just press on and wait for drops/heart rewards. I find the repair costs are simply not worth it given how quickly you can find replacement gear.

[Screwie]

Hum... I like all the options not that I am not lazy but I am not a patient man, so here are emblems I think... Don't have the right colors though.

...( images)

I think the bear is perfect (but the octopus is damn cool too).

[zanchito]

Sendmark: Mists what? Show up the map and press a waypoint in my home city. If there's a way going to PvP hubs and then to the home city, ANet should simply make regular teleports to town free and save us one loading screen, seriously. About repairs, I don't have that quick a rotation of gear, my stuff stays with me for 2-5 ingame hours, that's a lot of time to play with cracked armour. Or maybe I'm doing that wrong too, wouldn't surprise me right now. I'm kinda annoyed that all these mechanics are so obscure that someone has to explain them on a forum.

[sendmark]

Yeah there is a thread on reddit pointing out that it is a bit silly making players go via the Mists, but it's >2 mins to get to any city, so worth saving the money. I guess it's all part of their business model, people who don't want to spend the additional time buy the cash with their gems.

[Winged Nazgul]

and here, one of my favourite :
1848

That's actually my guild's emblem. :D

[zanchito]

I hope they change that and make porting to town free. I deal with enough bullshit in the real world to pay a game company for the privilege of not wasting my very scarce leisure time. Thank you for the information and references! The best gaming communities I've seen are truly RPS, Gamers with Jobs and Gaming Steve.

[Slicedice]

About selling vs salvaging gear, personally I sell white and blue gear, and I save green gear to stick into the mystic forge in lions arch - managed to get a few useful yellows / oranges from doing that (ok, just the one orange, but the possibility is there!).

[Screwie]

About selling vs salvaging gear, personally I sell white and blue gear, and I save green gear to stick into the mystic forge in lions arch - managed to get a few useful yellows / oranges from doing that (ok, just the one orange, but the possibility is there!).

I've not dared touch the mystic forge yet... I should really start doing this.

[squirrelfanatic]

Haven't tried sticking things into the Mystic Forge yet, but generally, I'll salvage anything that is worth less than 20-30 copper and sell the rest. Mind, I am level 40 at the moment, so that threshold might change in the future when better stuff is starting to drop or if I manage to calculate the cost/reward ratios for salvaging vs. selling directly.

[harvb]

I'm hearing really good things about the MF, like some great results - more good than bad, certainly.

[noaru]

Guildhead has been launched (was wondering when it would happen). Most other databases I've seen lack the design and usability wowhead had, so I'm quite happy about this. The map is pretty good, altho slightly bugged (started an infinite loop of redirections for me).

http://www.guildhead.com/

[Howlee]

Don't know if this has been said but to me it's a very important deal /disclaimer off

To bind actions to your mousewheel until they fix this (I'm assuming something like this cannot be intentional) - for example dodge - go download AHK at http://www.autohotkey.com/ and create a script that for example sets "mwheel down" to "PgDn" and then bind dodge or whatever it is you want on the wheel to PgDn (or what you put in the script).

The drawback is this will cause headaches when you realize you can no longer use your mwheel for anything else like zooming the map or scrolling your bags...

[Wolfenswan]

Anyone else experiencing a major slowdown when starting the Game launcher since the latest update? Before it was a matter of less than 5 minutes to get into the game, now i have to wait several minutes alone to be able to log in.

[Skalpadda]

Nope, even when it's been patching it only takes a couple seconds from clicking the launcher shortcut to being in the game here.

[20phoenix]

As well as giving us a kicking in WvW the frogs have also been busy with this http://mastodonte.fr/outils/tool-combo#en

Quite useful for figuring out what combines for combos and what you actually get from the combo.

[ambing1]

Do not feel bad, I'm up to level 20 and I've been playing like crazy, I don't get how people are already level 50. :)

i'm close. i was planning to put tons of hours on this game but some personal reasons prevents me from doing so. i can only manage an hour or two every other day.:(

[zanchito]

ambing: Play the game at your own pace, really. Sometimes I play in groups that go faster than I use to and although it's fun, I really enjoy slowing down and doing my own thing, watching the vistas, trying to explore, etc. If you see me online, give me a holler and I'll try to party up with you. Account name is zanchito too, character name Gatonegro.

[sendmark]

Yeah you're not missing anything from starting later or playing gradually - trading post still not up and party issues still being worked on. The game will be much better in a week or so when they finish fixing them and the initial overload has eased off.

I hit 80 on my asura mesmer last night, first thought was thinking about my Norn Engineer alt :p It's a game which is very alt-friendly, wouldn't surprise me if I ended up with level 80's in all my character slots.

[Wolfenswan]

The guild bank is overflowing with useless shit. Can we have a tombola or something?

Edit: Took mater into my own hands and gave away the low level rings in guild chat and removed the weak potions.

[sendmark]

The potions are useful, albeit only if people take them and use them :p

There were lots of minor sigils in there last time I looked which definitely should go first imo.

[Screwie]

I wasn't even aware we were using the guild bank... I just pinched a couple of minor sigils for personal use - but then I left some cakes in there in return. :P

I guess we could raffle the items off - or feed them to the mystic forge and then raffle the results off?

[squirrelfanatic]

The guild bank is overflowing with useless shit. Can we have a tombola or something?

Edit: Took mater into my own hands and gave away the low level rings in guild chat and removed the weak potions.This is possibly due to the wonkiness the guild features are showing at the moment. For example, I couldn't access the bank in any way yesterday, because apparently, I was not a member of the guild.

Another idea to deal with this "problem" is to set up a bunch of rules/mechanisms for managing the guild bank. Some ideas from the top of my head:

1. Think before you pour your stuff into the bank. Donations are very welcome, but they are supposed to be helpful to other players. Always try to keep that in mind.

2. Every week (or every other day) an officer could look through the general access tab(s) and clean out the trash (for this to be manageable, idea #1 should be working reliably) or items that have been sitting in the bank for a while. This stuff can then be sold and the money put into a more restricted bank tab for later use, for example consumables for guild events (Moa dungeon runs, anyone?) or parties. Cash is easier to store than items.

[Screwie]

That's not a bad idea, in a pinch we can always sell the clutter and then deposit the profits back into the bank.

[zanchito]

I tried to do some cleaning, but it'd not let me withdraw stuff even though permissions say I should (knight). I dropped some materials and had no trouble with that.

[Timofee]

Yeah, basic rule should be feel free to put stuff if the Guild Bank if you think its of use to others but don't be offended if we vendor that trash :D

PS the guild bank is NOT a place to put precious items because your own bank is full. You have been warned.

[sendmark]

Well having a look in guild bank now - people do need to be careful before getting rid of things. Potions have a level requirement and the weak potions are very useful for levels 5-19, as the 10xp a kill actually has some weight. Right now we only have potions from levels 20-35.

So although don't want bank to get flooded with all types of consumables, I think stacks of them should take priority over the flood of 1 stack green quality runes and sigils we have in there.

[Wolfenswan]

Well having a look in guild bank now - people do need to be careful before getting rid of things. Potions have a level requirement and the weak potions are very useful for levels 5-19, as the 10xp a kill actually has some weight.

wasn't that a bug and it's +10%xp? does it even work?

I still have the potions with me and will put them back later. Also I can make tons of new potions I people are interested. You get 5 for 3x1 different fines/food items so you can easily make a lot.

[Screwie]

I believe it's just a bug in the tooltip's writing and it actually awards a 10% bonus.

Although all this time on cooking buffs and I haven't been paying attention, haha.

[Wolfenswan]

We could just throw all the minor runes into the forge and hope for majors.

What's the policy on the better items in the vault? What's with requests from people that can't withdraw from the forge themselves?

[unruly]

Gonna derail the guild bank discussion a bit here, but does anyone know about cross-server mail? With the way that character names are supposedly worldwide rather than single-server things, as well as the worldwide Trading Post, I would figure that mail would work between servers as well. But, as of last night, I tried sending mail to a friend of mine on another server and it didn't work. Is this something that's supposed to come later, like when they add in server guesting, or is mail going to be server/region locked?

[Drayk]

I will take a look at some potions and items in the guild bank as soon as i have access to it :P I have the not in a guild bug again.

There are probably some weapons and armor i could use (I think i still have some parts from level 4 and I am level 15...)

[President Weasel]

Today I made a Charr character called Brak Space Cat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL69Zo0W2WY&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=HR_JdJgQXPQ

[Wolfenswan]

You have to love the prices at the Trading Post atm.; low level mats sell for insane prices.

Even if you don't plan to run an alt in the future it should be a safe bet to get rid of T1 stuff atm, I'd be suprised if the prices don't drop in the future.

[FriendlyFire]

Likewise, you can make a killing selling your old jute and farming copper in low level areas.

I can also highly suggest stocking up on tier 3 and 4 materials, as they are currently dirt cheap and will most likely rise in price once more people reach those crafting levels. At the moment you can get them at vendor prices.

[Roarster]

Apologies for the basic questions but this is my first MMO so it's all new to me. How does the guild bank actually work? I noticed I was able to deposit something but I wasn't able to actually take anything out of the bank. Does someone else need to do this for me or do I need to be granted access? All I wanted was a tasty looking blueberry pie!

[squirrelfanatic]

Hey Roarster, the guild bank works with different panels which in turn have different access permissions. I think our bank is set in a way that lets anybody put stuff in and has a restricted access for some panels (see also here (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild#Shared_storage)). Maybe that is why you couldn't take something out of the bank, although I suspect it is more likely to be bug, since I wouldn't expect a blueberry pie to be in a restricted panel.

I'll look into this when I get home.

[Screwie]

That may have been my fault - I wasn't aware we had multiple panels in the guild bank so when I added my pies tot he stockpile I put them in the only panel I saw.

Free pies for all!

[Drayk]

Free pies for all!


yeah \o/ !!!*

*Elected most useless comment of the week

[magiuspaulus]

Hey guys,

Do you have problems with the monthly XP survivor achievement? Somehow, my XP is frozen and doesn't increase, no matter how much xp i earn.

[squirrelfanatic]

That may have been my fault - I wasn't aware we had multiple panels in the guild bank so when I added my pies tot he stockpile I put them in the only panel I saw. Free pies for all!Oh my, I think I just called Screwie a bug. Sorry, mate!

[Screwie]

I can live with that :P


Hey guys,

Do you have problems with the monthly XP survivor achievement? Somehow, my XP is frozen and doesn't increase, no matter how much xp i earn.

A little confusingly, the bar on that achievement shows your "high score" - which may or may not be your current attempt.

[Roarster]

I didn't even realise there were multiple panels! I'll have to look again later on (wife dependant of course...).

I assume if something is in a panel I have access to then it's ok for me to help myself? I obviously don't intend to take everything but some of the experience boosters would definitely come in handy.

[Screwie]

Yeah - we have a policy of don't put anything in the vault that you're not willing to lose, so if you can make use of it you're welcome to it.

[Roarster]

Yeah - we have a policy of don't put anything in the vault that you're not willing to lose, so if you can make use of it you're welcome to it.

Excellent, I'll be sure to drop some stuff off as well, especially as I'm having most luck levelling a craft I can't actually use for my character (artificer with a ranger).

[Choca]

Anyone knows if ArenaNet has given an ETA on guesting (the thingy that will allow you to play PvE on other servers) ?

[Ian]

I'm such an idiot. Only last night, having just reached level 20, did I realise quest-givers have goodies you can buy with karma after you've finished their quests.

[Winged Nazgul]

I'm such an idiot. Only last night, having just reached level 20, did I realise quest-givers have goodies you can buy with karma after you've finished their quests.

It's okay. That just means you have that much more karma to spend on your end-game gear.

And you will need the karma.

[zanchito]

Ian: don't feel bad, you've saved quite a bit of karma by not spending it prior to level 20! :)

[Ian]

It's okay. That just means you have that much more karma to spend on your end-game gear.

And you will need the karma.

Good point, I'll have to make sure to only spend it on upgrades that are particularly worthwhile.

I also ought to, like, get around to joining the RPS guild. D:

[squirrelfanatic]

I also ought to, like, get around to joining the RPS guild. D:Giiiive ussss youuuuur detailsssssss...

[Screwie]

Bah, as of last night I'm hit with the guild bug and nobody shows up for me.

Although last night I also went and visited Ebonhawke for the first time... it's awesome. I love the merging of a city into a regular zone, with (mostly non-combat) events and hearts. I wouldn't mind seeing little events like that in the proper cities too.

Also I had to go and read all the open history books, and the gravestones... Professor Yakkington ;-;

[squirrelfanatic]

Also I had to go and read all the open history books, and the gravestones... Professor Yakkington ;-;Yakkington was a jerk, he never handed out the good stuff and rather kept it all for himself.

[Wolfenswan]

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/news/Update-Notes-September-9th-2012

YES

Pets can no longer be revived using the “F” prompt. This is because you can either use F4 to swap pets which will bring that pet back alive or you can wait until you are out of combat at which point you pet will revive automatically. We felt it was doing a disservice to Ranger players to incentivize them to spend a long time reviving their pet when it was a very inefficient thing to do and happened after combat anyway. This will also help clear up “F” to interact functionality.

YES YES YES

Interact “F” should use the following priority:
1) Your current selection
2) Loot
3) Revive/Stomp
4) Anything else



Also I had to go and read all the open history books

I was a nice touch that they gave an achievment.

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

Tome of Wrath – Removed Stability

It's a tragedy. Well, maybe the other elite I don't remember the name of, the one that isn't a tome, will see some more use.

[noaru]

So I asked at some point whether the two Guild Wars books are worth a read or not... the responses were ok, so I read them.

TLDR: read Ghosts of Ascalon, don't read Edge of Destiny.

GA has good writing, a lot of lore and decent character development. I really enjoyed it and it gave me a very nice background into the pre-GW2 events.
ED is written like a video game, 90% of it is action which gets very tiring after the first battle or two. They start to be the same and you just feel like skipping to the end. Speaking of the end, it was the only decent part of the novel and gives you the reason for that very cold reunion in the Stealing Secrets level 30 storyline quest in Lion's Arch.

[Wolfenswan]

Some people have discovered that: (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/zlrs0/mystic_salvage_kit_recipe_for_mystic_forge/)
One each of yellow, green, and blue salvage kits + 3 mystic forge stones nets a 250 use Yellow Quality (Master) Salvage kit when thrown into the Mystic Forge.

You can buy the first ones from vendors or some karma vendors (iirc the weaponsmith trainer) and the mystic forge stones from the gem store (ca 65 for the gems needed). Alltogether this costs about 95s, compared to 1g 50s for 10+ yellow kits.

[Screwie]

I've had mystic forge stones drop form zone/daily completions too. (Not 3 though, yet, or I'd try this out tonight.)

[magiuspaulus]

Is there a Mystic Forge primer somewhere? I hear a lot of people talking about it, but don't really undertstand how it works, even after reading the wiki. I mean, i know that i have to use 4 items in it, but can those be completely random, or is there some logic in it? Is it only good on high level, or is it worth a gamble reforging low (l30-ish) items instead of selling/salvaging them?

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

So magic find increases the chance of getting ectoplasm from rares?

That's good to know. It's also good to know that I made money with that despite having no magic find whatsoever.

[Screwie]

Is there a Mystic Forge primer somewhere? I hear a lot of people talking about it, but don't really undertstand how it works, even after reading the wiki. I mean, i know that i have to use 4 items in it, but can those be completely random, or is there some logic in it? Is it only good on high level, or is it worth a gamble reforging low (l30-ish) items instead of selling/salvaging them?

There is some logic behind the randomness, and there are some very definite recipes that work every time. Right now though people are still figuring out everything it can do, so snippets of information are scattered about and guides are incomplete.

[ambing1]

There is some logic behind the randomness, and there are some very definite recipes that work every time. Right now though people are still figuring out everything it can do, so snippets of information are scattered about and guides are incomplete.

seems like a good explanation. i've been looking for some more detailed info about Mystic Forge as well but could not find one.

[Wolfenswan]

Anyone experiencing heavy lag with the gem exchange atm.? I spent 70s on gems this morning and still haven't received any (the silver was deducted alright...)

[zanchito]

I got 387 gems for 1 gold on saturday and it was instantaneous. It's going to take forever to get the 2400 I need for the 3 char slots to have 1 of each profession.

[Screwie]

I picked up about 200 gems yesterday evening with no delay.

Speaking of, anyone else kind of surprised at how cheap it is to get games with in-game money?

Or conversely, anyone else terrified by how much the in-game money is worth in real world money right now?

[zanchito]

Yes, I thought getting gems would be much more of a problem. Still, I'm pretty sure inflation will make things way more expensive in a lot less time than I'd like.

[Screwie]

CAUTION! The following trailer contains spoilers of endgame images. (Also, it's a bit daft.) You may not wish to watch it if you haven't been to Orr yet. (I wish I hadn't...)

Official GW2 Live Action Trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4R5Q0ZOTa8)

[imirk]

Also ANet have started selling the game again. weeee for those sillies that haven't gotten it yet.

[unruly]

Anyone experiencing heavy lag with the gem exchange atm.? I spent 70s on gems this morning and still haven't received any (the silver was deducted alright...)

I haven't used the gem exchange yet, but last night I ran into a bit of an issue when buying gems straight-up. I went to buy 1600 gems, entered my credit card info, and it rejected it. Then I tried again, using the exact same info, and it went through just fine. I was only charged once, to my knowledge so far, but it was still kind of weird.

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

CAUTION! The following trailer contains spoilers of endgame images. (Also, it's a bit daft.) You may not wish to watch it if you haven't been to Orr yet. (I wish I hadn't...)

Official GW2 Live Action Trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4R5Q0ZOTa8)

It really just spoils the look of Zhaitan. There is no scene like that in the game.

I wish there was.

[Screwie]

I didn't want to see Zhaitan (or any Orr-related stuff) until I got there myself, though. :/

[Shooop]

The vistas are excellent - they give you XP for stopping and admiring the great art direction. This is one of the very few games I may actually buy an art book for.


The two starting areas for the charr were absolutely brilliant. Mad Mardine is absolutely hysterical. Moving into Norn territory though just doesn't feel nearly as comfortable and the difficulty spiked too quickly.

The personal story gets hard as hell way too fast. My NPC comrades are not at all helpful against groups of 6 or more enemies and even if I wasn't a thief who's only good at one-on-one combat it'd still be a tough scrape. I'm completely stuck at the Order of Whispers mission to steal some evil organization's research.

I know this is a MMO, but if it's a personal story why is it suddenly a requirement to ask for help from other players?

[squirrelfanatic]

I didn't want to see Zhaitan (or any Orr-related stuff) until I got there myself, though. :/I wish I hadn't watched that trailer. Spoilers galore. :(

[Nalano]

I know this is a MMO, but if it's a personal story why is it suddenly a requirement to ask for help from other players?

Did it fine on my extremely glass-cannony ranger. It's really just either speccing for survival or getting really good at dodging.

[Skalpadda]

Did it fine on my extremely glass-cannony ranger. It's really just either speccing for survival or getting really good at dodging.

Rangers have a pretty easy time not taking damage though, between avoidance skills, pets and kiting. Some of the quests are simply poorly constructed and don't seem to take the differences between classes into consideration.

My initiation to the Priory required my mesmer to take on a boss (ranged) with three adds (melee with stuns) who summoned another set of three adds during the fight. My normal weapons were replaced with a sword, meaning no illusions, no avoidance skills and only one very weak ranged skill. I had three NPCs who were supposed to help me but they died within 15 seconds of the fight starting. It took four deaths and ten minutes of running around the boss in a circle while spamming my one ranged attack to complete the fight. I can't see how that's the intended way for the quest to play out and if it is, someone over at ArenaNet needs a good shouting at.

[DeVadder]

Yeah i really dislike the 'Use this weapon' story quests. You loose your own weapon and skills and all of a sudden, the main thing remaining of your character is his health/defense.
I mean, i am on the good side there, playing a pretty tanky warrior, but still, it kinda feels like i spend all that time training on my weapons and thinking about my build for nothing.

[unruly]

Ran into an event boss last night who was either bugged, or was the epitome of anti-melee. I'm playing as a guardian, level 58, with a greatsword as my main weapon and a sword/board as my secondary. Come across an event where I'm supposed to kill a Veteran mob. So I try it, and as soon as I get into melee range it starts stacking burn on me just by virtue of me being near the thing. I back off, heal, charge in, repeat a few times and manage to get it down to half health so I start thinking that I can manage this, but that it's going to be fairly tough because I really have to pay attention to the fight like I did for some of the boss fights in AC. Well, I lose, go back, and try again. Get it to half health again, back off to heal myself, and end up having to dodge twice in rapid succession. In the time that it took me to use my heal, start moving back in, and dodge twice, the boss had apparently gone into non-combat mode and went from half health up to full health. So I back off, recuperate and get my skills of CD, then go right back in. Same thing ends up happening. I start beating him in the face, then I back off to get out of the burn radius, heal myself, and have to dodge right when I get back into melee range. And guess what happens? Yup, he goes right back to full health again. Oh, and the event wasn't listed as a group event either, which made sense to me as the boss was a veteran and not a champion, and was by himself.

Drove me nuts.

[imirk]

Ran into an event boss last night who was either bugged, or was the epitome of anti-melee.

Ran into a champion who was immune to projectiles.. erf.

[Nalano]

Ran into an event boss last night who was either bugged, or was the epitome of anti-melee. I'm playing as a guardian, level 58, with a greatsword as my main weapon and a sword/board as my secondary. Come across an event where I'm supposed to kill a Veteran mob. So I try it, and as soon as I get into melee range it starts stacking burn on me just by virtue of me being near the thing. I back off, heal, charge in, repeat a few times and manage to get it down to half health so I start thinking that I can manage this, but that it's going to be fairly tough because I really have to pay attention to the fight like I did for some of the boss fights in AC. Well, I lose, go back, and try again. Get it to half health again, back off to heal myself, and end up having to dodge twice in rapid succession. In the time that it took me to use my heal, start moving back in, and dodge twice, the boss had apparently gone into non-combat mode and went from half health up to full health. So I back off, recuperate and get my skills of CD, then go right back in. Same thing ends up happening. I start beating him in the face, then I back off to get out of the burn radius, heal myself, and have to dodge right when I get back into melee range. And guess what happens? Yup, he goes right back to full health again. Oh, and the event wasn't listed as a group event either, which made sense to me as the boss was a veteran and not a champion, and was by himself.

Drove me nuts.

Some things are anti-melee.

Earth elementals are anti-ranged.

Since everybody is able to do both, this is simply encounter design, not a bug.

[unruly]

Some things are anti-melee.

Earth elementals are anti-ranged.

Since everybody is able to do both, this is simply encounter design, not a bug.

I was thinking more along the lines of its incredibly fast switch to being considered "out of combat" and how fast it was able to regen health as the bug. I know that some mobs are more strictly anti-X than others are, but this guy would seriously go back to being at full health if you didn't hit him for more than 5 or so seconds. I've run into some mobs that healed themselves, but they were nowhere near the amount that this thing was healing itself for and their heals looked like actual skills. Outside of the "invulnerable" crap that happens as a result of terrible pathfinding bugs, of course. The only time I've seen a mob's health shoot back up that fast without the pathfinding bug is when I died fighting them, never when I've just dodged away for a second and healed myself.

[mnemnoch]

Yeah i really dislike the 'Use this weapon' story quests. You loose your own weapon and skills and all of a sudden, the main thing remaining of your character is his health/defense.
I mean, i am on the good side there, playing a pretty tanky warrior, but still, it kinda feels like i spend all that time training on my weapons and thinking about my build for nothing.

Are you not allowed to drop the weapon?

I remember my necro doing a mission that ask me to pick up a rifle, tried to kill the mob with it at first then when I'm about to be overwhelmed, I just switch to lich form and slaughtered those risens.

Edit:

I also ran into a champion Troll last night. Took me 3 tries (the last one with the help of two other players) to kill the bastard. And what I got as a loot? A fckng crumbling bone.

[downgrade]

I was in a group slaying some spider champion. At least 15 people hammering that thing like there's no tomorrow and it took 3 or 4 tries before it went down because it would just reset to full health. I guess there was a very strict timer on it. In the end we trapped it in a corner and killed it :D

And yeah, the loot from the veterans and champions is really nothing special. Sometimes theres a chest to make up for it though.

[vee41]

I was in a group slaying some spider champion. At least 15 people hammering that thing like there's no tomorrow and it took 3 or 4 tries before it went down because it would just reset to full health. I guess there was a very strict timer on it. In the end we trapped it in a corner and killed it :D

It's encounter feature. That spider goes first to 75% and resets, then to 50% and resets, then 25% and reset, then it dies. The small spiders do it I believe.

[downgrade]

Hmm, odd mechanic. Feels quite buggy when you don't know about it.

[vee41]

Hmm, odd mechanic. Feels quite buggy when you don't know about it.

My thoughts exactly.

[Nalano]

My initiation to the Priory required my mesmer to take on a boss (ranged) with three adds (melee with stuns) who summoned another set of three adds during the fight. My normal weapons were replaced with a sword, meaning no illusions, no avoidance skills and only one very weak ranged skill. I had three NPCs who were supposed to help me but they died within 15 seconds of the fight starting. It took four deaths and ten minutes of running around the boss in a circle while spamming my one ranged attack to complete the fight. I can't see how that's the intended way for the quest to play out and if it is, someone over at ArenaNet needs a good shouting at.

If that weapon was anything like the weapon for Whispers initiation, three of its five abilities have AoE crowd control.


I was thinking more along the lines of its incredibly fast switch to being considered "out of combat" and how fast it was able to regen health as the bug.

I was in a group slaying some spider champion. At least 15 people hammering that thing like there's no tomorrow and it took 3 or 4 tries before it went down because it would just reset to full health. I guess there was a very strict timer on it. In the end we trapped it in a corner and killed it :D

Nah. Encounters in this game have a very short leash so as to stop asshats from training them onto unsuspecting players.

[Skalpadda]

If that weapon was anything like the weapon for Whispers initiation, three of its five abilities have AoE crowd control.

If I remember it right, it had one single target knockdown, one ranged attack and two AoE attacks which rooted you in place while they were being cast, can't remember what the last one was but none of them had any amazing AoE CC magic going on (and if they were supposed to it certainly wasn't working at the time). So trying to knock down one add: get stunned by the other two and eaten alive. Try to AoE: get stunned. Try to kite: run out of energy and get stunned, etc.

I am assuming the NPCs weren't supposed to die so fast, or maybe it was a scaling issue (I was 10 levels over the encounter) or a bug or something else. In any case, dropping you from a cutscene into immediately being attacked by 4 enemies using insta-kill abilities with all your weapon skills replaced is simply a bad way to make an encounter, however you look at it.

[Nalano]

If I remember it right, it had one single target knockdown, one ranged attack and two AoE attacks which rooted you in place while they were being cast, can't remember what the last one was but none of them had any amazing AoE CC magic going on (and if they were supposed to it certainly wasn't working at the time). So trying to knock down one add: get stunned by the other two and eaten alive. Try to AoE: get stunned. Try to kite: run out of energy and get stunned, etc.

I am assuming the NPCs weren't supposed to die so fast, or maybe it was a scaling issue (I was 10 levels over the encounter) or a bug or something else. In any case, dropping you from a cutscene into immediately being attacked by 4 enemies using insta-kill abilities with all your weapon skills replaced is simply a bad way to make an encounter, however you look at it.

On the Reddit link on the other thread, the guy argues that a set of toughness/vitality/healing gear makes a world of difference in such encounters. I concur with him.

[Shooop]

On the Reddit link on the other thread, the guy argues that a set of toughness/vitality/healing gear makes a world of difference in such encounters. I concur with him.
You shouldn't have to search for specific gear just to continue the game if finding that stuff isn't an in-game quest in itself. That's just shit game design.

[Nalano]

You shouldn't have to search for specific gear just to continue the game if finding that stuff isn't an in-game quest in itself. That's just shit game design.

It's an MMO. The whole point of the game is to get new gear. You can't call it shit game design if it's the main impetus for playing.

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

Searching for suitable equipment without having it spoon-fed to you is shit game design? Are you seriously saying this?

Yes, that particular encounter is badly balanced, but to turn around and get to that conclusion is absurd.

[Nalano]

Searching for suitable equipment without having it spoon-fed to you is shit game design? Are you seriously saying this?

Yes, that particular encounter is badly balanced, but to turn around and get to that conclusion is absurd.

And folks wonder how we got to the "players are goldfish" school of game design.

[Shooop]

Searching for suitable equipment without having it spoon-fed to you is shit game design? Are you seriously saying this?

Yes, that particular encounter is badly balanced, but to turn around and get to that conclusion is absurd.When said equipment is not something that you can obtain by any way other than just just hoping you get lucky with a random item drop then yes it is - it's called grinding and grinding has and always will be shit design.

[Shooop]

It's an MMO. The whole point of the game is to get new gear. You can't call it shit game design if it's the main impetus for playing.
There's a big difference between playing for an item you know you need that you will get when you meet the conditions and grinding. The former being a valid incentive and the latter something only Korean gamers enjoy.

[Nalano]

When said equipment is not something that you can obtain by any way other than just just hoping you get lucky with a random item drop then yes it is - it's called grinding and grinding has and be shit design.

And you play MMOs because...?

[downgrade]

Karma vendors offer frequent upgrades to equipment, crafting and the TP are also valid ways to get what you need. Am I missing the grind part of GW2?

[Nalano]

Karma vendors offer frequent upgrades to equipment, crafting and the TP are also valid ways to get what you need. Am I missing the grind part of GW2?

I can get a full level 80 set - 6 pieces of rare armor - in any flavor I want for at most 1g65. So I have three: DPS, Survival and Farming.

The Farming set is based on the Reddit suggestion that one set be for "magic find," and that maxing that out makes collecting drops much more efficient when you're out in the world.

Meanwhile, I can make 1g65 even without the farming set in about an hour and a half. In fact, most of my cash goes to nonsense convenience and vanity items.

[Wolfenswan]

When said equipment is not something that you can obtain by any way other than just just hoping you get lucky with a random item drop then yes it is - it's called grinding and grinding has and always will be shit design.

Or craft it yourself or buy it at the TP (nearly everything <lvl 70 is dirt cheap. You can get lvl 80 blue/green jewelry for <10s...). Or just dont bother because in regular PvE and story mode dungeons equipment does hardly make a difference until you hit lvl 70. Only when you've been grinding zones often enough or do explorable modes there's a point to either focus on glass cannon, vit/toughness or magic find.

[Skalpadda]

On the Reddit link on the other thread, the guy argues that a set of toughness/vitality/healing gear makes a world of difference in such encounters. I concur with him.

I'm sure it would and at higher levels it might even be a sensible approach, but this was a lvl 30 quest where there's very little room to switch traits around and expecting someone to go out and buy a whole new set of gear in order to balance out a 30 minute solo quest seems a bit daft. Considering the difficulty curve has been pretty smooth so far (played through the first 50 levels with two characters and my glass cannon warrior hasn't run into any problems like this with the Vigil quests) I'd guess it's just poor tuning/bugs that cause the occasional mess.

[Shooop]

And you play MMOs because...?
...Because Guild Wars 2 was said to be almost zero grinding and therefore is the first MMO I've ever bought. I was told it wasn't going to be another slot machine simulator.

There's a design flaw somewhere in this game basically - either the personal story isn't supposed to be played alone the whole way through (and the game doesn't ever suggest that for some reason), or there's items you're supposed to have that you would have never logically thought of before.

That aside I like it, but that is a genuine, "Wait what the hell guys?!?" moment.

[Nalano]

...Because Guild Wars 2 was said to be almost zero grinding and therefore is the first MMO I've ever bought. I was told it wasn't going to be another slot machine simulator.

And what did you expect to be doing? I'm honestly curious.

I'm saying this as somebody who doesn't like grinding, has played enough MMOs to understand what constitutes grinding, and doesn't see GW2 as requiring anything approaching a grind.

[Shooop]

And what did you expect to be doing? I'm honestly curious.

I'm saying this as somebody who doesn't like grinding, has played enough MMOs to understand what constitutes grinding, and doesn't see GW2 as requiring anything approaching a grind.

Mostly exploration and fighting. The beta I got into was almost nothing but that and a few side activities. I really, really hate to see it devolve into "Kill this enemy 80 times to get one piece of a key to get to the next area!" like Vindictus. Tell me it doesn't.

Don't get me wrong, I think the game is fine for the most part but the difficult spike I just hit in the personal story is outlandish. I get the message, I'll try to get some help. But dammit devs, don't pull the rug out under me like that.

[Nalano]

Mostly exploration and fighting. The beta I got into was almost nothing but that and a few side activities. I really, really hate to see it devolve into "Kill this enemy 80 times to get one piece of a key to get to the next area!" like Vindictus. Tell me it doesn't.

It doesn't.

It doesn't have lockouts. It doesn't have tiered gear you can only get by raiding. It doesn't force you to grind in a fight against the random number generator. It doesn't make you do anything you don't want to do in order to get the stuff you want. The more people you play with, the more drops everybody gets, because drops are based on the player, not universal. Crafted gear equals everything out there, and low-level gear can be transmuted into high level gear. There are so many ways to get what you want, and the game practically throws it all at you in a constant river of loot.

In fact, what you get from doing the hardmodes of instanced dungeons or PvP/WvW is unique-looking gear with mediocre stats, which you can then use as "skins" over whatever better gear you already have. That's it. You're literally dungeon-running for fashion.

I mean, I understand the "wtf difficulty spike" of, say, Ascalon Catacombs, but the humor is that to prepare especially for that, even at 30, takes about ten minutes.

[Wolfenswan]

I really, really hate to see it devolve into "Kill this enemy 80 times to get one piece of a key to get to the next area!" like Vindictus. Tell me it doesn't.

It does not if you don't want to. I hit level 80 a few days ago and still haven't ground anything. Sometimes I took a longer route because I knew I could kill some mobs along the way that might drop something helpful, but apart from that? Nothing but fresh experiences.

Though, I started doing zones mostly in small groups with RPS chaps after about level 60 because it's way more fun that way. I've done all my Personal Quests alone so far but they are getting worse and worse and after the latest (lvl 74, horrible underwater level) bugged out right before the end I'm not in the mood to get back to it. Dungeons, too, have been a lot of fun with RPS, even when we died horribly.

Out of sincere curiosity: did you play Kingdoms of Alamur and if so did you like it?

[Bankrotas]

Out of sincere curiosity: did you play Kingdoms of Alamur and if so did you like it?
I'm interested where this is going. Since I liked KoA:R and like this too.

This game does depend on personal view on it's questing system honestly. I don't know much about wow, I have maybe played it 1,5 combined and didn't like it, but stayed with people. However, from the start for me it felt distant and grinding. Mind you, I played on private servers mostly and never liked it's fundamentals. And if you view this like WoW, yes it might look as grindy, but to me, I look at it as mmo brawler x moba. Ah heck. who I'm kidding, can't write anything what I want to say in long text.
In short game is great, it has flaws, but grind isn't one of them, it's a flaw of human personal view. My personal view, I see it as a game story, where you go with your character, not too hard learning basics and being cocky as hell, to wise thief, being still an asshole, but not as naiive as you used to be. He as a character begins to know his limitations and going from "I'm going to conquer all!" at level up to "I'm becoming stronger" is a significant change to me. I'm going through event's and points of interests just to see something whacky. Honestly, one of most fun I had, was in Lornar's pass, where you had to use a rifle and as a thief, it felt different and new, shooting lighting from it, what was even more fun. I kept the rifle long the event, I got it at had finished and had fun with way underpowered weapons, just because it was fun. Other guy could've remembered it just as "Oh I had to tag X ammount of imps and kill them to get reward and move on.", to me it was "Cool I can use a weapon, I usually can't and it shoots lighting!"

[Wolfenswan]

I'm interested where this is going. Since I liked KoA:R and like this too.

I thought he might enjoy it more than GW2 if he hadn't tried it. I personally did not enjoy it too much, mostly because i got too much of the "Singleplayer MMO" vibe. I believe if it clicks for you you're really in for a blast, it just didn't to it for me.

[Bankrotas]

I really loved the combat, what was more than enough for me to like it. I'll not discuss KoA:R here, not that forum space, nor am I interested enough in it now, with GW2 out.

[Shooop]

Is the thief class just really, really terrible for solo play? Because the farther I go into the game the less effective my moves are against enemies and the more there seem to be of them. There's been more than a few times I started fighting one creature and 3 more who weren't even visible yet jumped in. That's the kind of difficulty spike I'm getting - everything I'm fighting is getting stronger and more numerous while I'm definitely not.

Have I screwed myself from the very start just by making a bad choice of class?

[Bankrotas]

Might be, that thiefs gameplay not be for you maybe.

[FriendlyFire]

The game gets harder for all classes as things progress. I had to made a dramatic change in the traits I was spec'ing to survive, otherwise I was simply unable to do anything.

As Bankrotas said, maybe Thief just isn't for you, but before entirely giving up on the class I'd check out some builds for PvE on the net. Perhaps all you need is to change traits and switch out your weapons/utility skills.

[Anthile]

Most people quickly figure out that tanking isn't really possible in GW2 and in response tend to build ultra glass cannons. However, a solid investment in vitality, toughness and survival traits can make all the difference whether you go down in one or three hits.

[downgrade]

I'm doing really well with my thief around level 50. My main attack is dual dagger death blossom. 3-5 of these over a group of enemies and you can stand back and watch them die. I can solo pretty much everything from veterans to large packs. The only thing I'm missing is a good ranged option. Pistols and shortbow seem really weak damage wise.

[zanchito]

I find that all of thief's ranged options (even mixed ones like DP and SP) sacrifice quite a bit of damage for increased survivavility. I'm mainly SB with SP for some special things. I kill slow but am generally safe.

[Wolfenswan]

I thought dual pistols was one of the builds with highest DPS?

[zanchito]

Well, I can tell you for sure they are not using my pistols.

[downgrade]

I'm fully specced for condition damage and for me it's just way more efficient to get back in the fight and death blossom as soon as initiative and health are back up. I only switch to ranged when I'm totally out of resource which rarely happens before everything is dead. For the nasty heavy hitters with cc's it would be nice to have a valid ranged option but nothing even comes close to the damage I churn out with db bleed.

[zanchito]

I feel part of the issue is we want to use one build for everything and that's probably not optimal at all. I like the forgiveness of my build, but it's not as fast as DD for killing stuff (I can still defend myself decently though), but I think DD would have trouble in dungeons. I wish we could change attributes as freely as we can change skills, and there was a way to save/load build templates in-game, just as there was in GW1.

[FriendlyFire]

I actually wish you could tie your current weapon(s) to a template including traits and utility/elite/heal skills, so for instance my staff could have more AoE utility skills with a weapon spawning elite and traits focused on a glass cannon build, whereas my scepter/dagger could be more survivability/melee.

[Wolfenswan]

The first WvW rankings are in (https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Current-world-rankings), on which the longer lasting server match ups will ultimately be based. Surprisingly/Shockingly Gunnar's Hold isn't doing that bad at all, Top 10 EU.

[Nalano]

I'm fully specced for condition damage and for me it's just way more efficient to get back in the fight and death blossom as soon as initiative and health are back up. I only switch to ranged when I'm totally out of resource which rarely happens before everything is dead. For the nasty heavy hitters with cc's it would be nice to have a valid ranged option but nothing even comes close to the damage I churn out with db bleed.

In the harder dungeons, the point is not to kill things quickly. It's to outlive things.

I was in a dungeon with a group that had two condition-damage-heavy thieves. Therefore, Murphy's Law dictated, the next boss had to be one that healed by converting condition damage. HEYOOO

[downgrade]

I haven't done any dungeons yet, but would probably change my setup before entering one. Out in the open world of PvE, however, I'm pretty happy right now.

[whykt]

Just discovered Keg Brawling minigame, so much fun! :D

[Shooop]

I haven't done any dungeons yet, but would probably change my setup before entering one. Out in the open world of PvE, however, I'm pretty happy right now.

The official forums have an amazing thread about how to work as one of the best support units in the game.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/professions/thief/Kirin-s-Guide-for-Aspiring-PVE-Support-Thieves/first#post87030

[downgrade]

Thanks. My class just got somewhat more complicated. I got a bit tired of the same old death blossom spam, so I'm gonna try some of the more supporty skills :)

[Wolfenswan]

AN introduced (temporary) mystic forge recipes to counter the surplus of some items, reddit discovered their yield (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/zwgun/new_temporary_mystic_forge_recipes/).

On a different note, Screwie will love these stats released by AN:
1921

[Screwie]

Considering all the previous polls I've seen, I am very surprised elementalists are as low as that, and that norn are as high as that o.o

[apricotsoup]

Little bit surprised by the races (except human) and professions (I'd have thought weaponsmithing lower) but the classes look right from my experience.

[sendmark]

As an Asuran Mesmer Artificer, I feel pretty special now :p

[FriendlyFire]

I wonder why Artificer is so low. I know potions aren't that good, but surely making scepters, staves and foci is just as important as making swords and daggers?

[unruly]

I wonder why Artificer is so low. I know potions aren't that good, but surely making scepters, staves and foci is just as important as making swords and daggers?

From my experience with them on a guardian, staves and scepters are lackluster weapon choices. Maybe they do better in dungeons or something, but for regular play I've been much better served by just about every other weapon.

[Skalpadda]

Only the cloth classes make a lot of use of staves and sceptres whereas every profession can use some of the weapons made by a weaponsmith. I guess there's also a bigger incentive for warriors (who make up the largest population block) to pick up a weapon crafting skill than there is for the others, since they can use so many different melee weapons.

[noaru]

I wonder why Artificer is so low. I know potions aren't that good, but surely making scepters, staves and foci is just as important as making swords and daggers?

Crosscheck the profession balance and you'll see why: lots and lots of warrior/ranger/guardian/thief which mainly use non-artificer weapons and will choose accordingly.

[Screwie]

Since launch, various clever people have been deciphering how much it would take to craft one of the game's legendary weapons. For giggles, someone on reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/100d8e/crafting_sunrise_a_legendary_guide/) made an infographic detailing the recipe for one of the greatswords, Sunrise:

http://i.imgur.com/L81Ky.jpg

[Ian]

I will definitely never posess a legendary weapon.

[DiamondDog]

Shame some of the designs for the legendaries are truly awful (http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/64363-legendary-weapons-guide/). Look like accessories for a He-man toy.

[Screwie]

I'm withholding my opinion on those until I see them in action, as it looks like most of these items have special graphical effects.

Sadly, first impressions mean some of them will probably be avoided more than others. Likewise, who would craft an underwater weapon as their first (or even second) item?

[DiamondDog]

I'm sorry, but no amount of graphical effects will stop that pistol from looking like a gaudy mess. And yeah, it does seem a bit insane that anyone would go to all that effort to make an underwater weapon.

Actually, I can't wait to see someone running around with that pistol. Comedy value should be a stat on that thing.

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

I want the shield. If I remember the lore correctly, you have to do Sorrow's Embrace for the tokens?

(I'll never get a legendary)

Edit: The Crucible of Eternity is where Droknar's Forge used to be. Maybe that dungeon. You just can't be sure.

Edit2: It's Ascalonian Catacombs.

[Screwie]

Well if the legendary items are a bit much (and they probably are), there are still many exotic weapons to be found in the mystic forge, which also have their share of special graphical shinies. Research is ongoing, but the recipes (while not insignificant) require a lot less toil than legendaries.

You can take a look in reddit threads here (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/10209r/lets_have_a_nice_discussion_about_level_80/) and here (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/zfr9x/mystic_forge_recipes_and_research_it_makes_exotics/). Some interesting ones include a guardian spirit hammer you actually hold in your hands (http://i.imgur.com/XVO9s.jpg), a glowing ball of light (http://i.imgur.com/5i47H.jpg) for a focus, or a mug of ale (http://www.guildhead.com/item/31038/ambrosia-of-water) for the same! :)

[desvergeh]

Hey everyone, hope you are all enjoying the game.

Now I feel that I am actually going to have some weekends at home, I was looking to try to get a bit more involved in what is going on with the guild.

Are there any regular events going on? I'm keen to run some dungeons (although only high enough level for AC story), or join in some WvW. Any nights that are particularly good to find other guild members to hook up with for this?

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

I think I'm done with the game. It's fine. We had a good run, but all things must come to an end.

[noaru]

Decent changes, although they jumped on the "daily dungeon" bandwagon pretty fast.


1) Dungeon tokens are now rewarded at the end of an explorable chain. This was done to stop players from repeatedly entering a chain and farming the first boss that dropped tokens rather than playing the entire chain. At some point in the near future, we will make up for this by making dungeon tokens a rare drop so that even players who are not completing a chain can make partial progress toward the rewards.
2) Dungeons reward 20 tokens for completion and now reward an additional 40 tokens for the first time they are completed each day. This means that if players can complete all 3 chains of a dungeon in a day, they’ll receive a total of 180 tokens, which is enough to purchase some of the smaller rewards.
3) Dungeon tokens should be account bound. This will allow players to have a single character farm tokens for their other characters.

[harhis23]

I have just read from one of the posts in this thread regarding Guardian. :) I am not aware that these fighters whose role is to protect their allies against the enemies have the lowest base health pool. Thanks for the heads-up.

[iamthejuggler]

I wouldn't let that put you off. We also have lots of damage prevention and healing to offset the lower health pool.

[Shooop]

I have just read from one of the posts in this thread regarding Guardian. :) I am not aware that these fighters whose role is to protect their allies against the enemies have the lowest base health pool. Thanks for the heads-up.
The guardian though is based almost entirely around skills that prevent damage to them and their allies. And they work on champion enemies, unlike blind.

[squirrelfanatic]

A quick and big "Thank you" to Jill and Anne for yesterday evening's valiant effort at the Eternal Battlefield (why do I want to write Eternal Borderlands?) jumping puzzle. Despite cursing myself for going to bed so late I think we - mostly you two - did a great job. Well, apart from the dying of course. Next time, we will bring some more people with us.

Anyone up for a multi-party run through this ghastly gauntlet?

[Magnetic]

YES

when? I haven't played gw2 for about a week because I wanted to get TL2 'out of the way'.

*i'm delphine guillem

[squirrelfanatic]

YES

when? I haven't played gw2 for about a week because I wanted to get TL2 'out of the way'.

*i'm delphine guillemI should be online tonight and will post in guild chat / whisper you. There should be at least 2-3 other people around to tag along. The more, the better.

[Blaaaaaaag]

A quick and big "Thank you" to Jill and Anne for yesterday evening's valiant effort at the Eternal Battlefield (why do I want to write Eternal Borderlands?) jumping puzzle. Despite cursing myself for going to bed so late I think we - mostly you two - did a great job. Well, apart from the dying of course. Next time, we will bring some more people with us.

Anyone up for a multi-party run through this ghastly gauntlet?

That was a lot of fun despite our eventual failure. I got 12 kills for my monthly's on that run, felt like a boss for a while there.

And a most emphatic 'yes' to a multi-party run from me, that could be a blast.

[Shooop]

About PvP and WvW...

If you're already level 80, do you get to pick your traits for free every time you go into it?

[Labbes]

In sPvP, meaning in the Heart of the Mists, you are automatically set to level 80 and get max equipment, as well as all skills and trait points and you can set your traits any way you like as long as you are not in the game.
In WvW, you are also set to level 80, but only as far as the attributes go (all attributes scale with level). Your armor, weapons, skills and traits are the same as in PvE and you have to pay to reset your traits, just like you have to in PvE.

[Magnetic]

So I take it not as many people are playing gw2 right now?

shall we announce a date to announce when we can get a large group going?

[Battlehenkie]

So I take it not as many people are playing gw2 right now?

I have noticed exponentially less people on as of late. Just throwing it out there, but am I not the only one that feels no itch to log in and play whatsoever?

[Malfious]

I Log in occasionally to do the daily achievement & some WvW

[Labbes]

I didn't play for a week or so because I had seriously overdone it. Now I log in to check if someone is doing dungeons, or we're not getting slaughtered in WvW, or someone wants to play a tourney. I still have to complete Orr, too.

[apricotsoup]

I've been distracted by darksiders 2 and xcom but should be popping back a bit more for some spvp.
New builds to try and all that.

[Kismet]

I'm still enjoying the game - probably being an altaholic helps - though the reduced activity of the guild is making it hard to get a group going for dungeons during the time I'm typically online (euro day) and sticking to open PvE for most of the time is likely going to burn me out eventually.

It's a pity ArenaNet has not implemented alliances like in the first Guild Wars, a common chat channel would probably help putting together groups without having to go the PUG way.

[noaru]

I'm still enjoying the game - probably being an altaholic helps - though the reduced activity of the guild is making it hard to get a group going for dungeons during the time I'm typically online (euro day) and sticking to open PvE for most of the time is likely going to burn me out eventually.

It's a pity ArenaNet has not implemented alliances like in the first Guild Wars, a common chat channel would probably help putting together groups without having to go the PUG way.

I enjoy the fact that there's no rush to do anything and I can bide my time... I still have on the list 100% map completion, leveling the mesmer, doing more spvp, doing more wvw.... but most of all I suffer because there is no organized way to get groups going for story/explorable modes.

I still haven't done anything past AC/CM/TA and even those are not explored completely. I have two mates that want to do the same thing, but when we tried to fill up the group from /g nobody answered.

PS And all of this in a working man's hours (meaning evening and/or weekends) .... when I'd have figured more would be available for such things.

[Labbes]

I still haven't done anything past AC/CM/TA and even those are not explored completely. I have two mates that want to do the same thing, but when we tried to fill up the group from /g nobody answered.

Add me ingame as Urraca Aldor, I'm pretty much always available for dungeon/WvW/sPvP stuff. If I am online, that is.

[Magnetic]

well, it happened by accident but we had a whole bunch of people (still) playing tonight; a few split-off to do dungeons, the rest did some short pve then wvw. must've been 15ish tonight? relatively not a great number but it was pretty fun.

mumble got some use too, it makes everything much easier so try to get on if you can ;)