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[Ceres]

Gotta laugh, this pick up group failed to defend Magg 3 times in a row in CoF 2. I start watching them more carefully trying to work out why the flame legion are building up so much and no one seems to rally much. Warrior's got the rifle out, Mesmer is rocking the greatsword and the thief's going with dagger dagger. Uh guys is nothing hinting aoe weapons here? Not newbies either, all at least 2k achievement points.

eh. I've got over 5k achievement points and had never done a dungeon run besides COF1 prior to this weekend.

Which reminds me. Anyone want to do TA story tonight? Want to start doing all the dungeon paths soon.

 

[Virzeth]

As someone who owns the Deluxe, just buy the heroic edition. Unless you want to collect all minis, there's nothing in it particularly great. Golem banker although nice to have only lasts 5 days from first use and when you're in desperate need of a bank and don't want to pay for a trip to LA or another outpost, hopping into WvW is a free bank stop if your server can hold garrison/keep. Sign out to character screen while in WvW and when you log back in, you'll be wherever you were in the PvE world.

Even better, you can also access the bank using the crafting stations in your own BL's citadel, and the closest TP spot is 10 seconds away from that waypoint.
Just remember that every afker in WvW takes a spot in the queue, so try not to abuse that.

 

[Hawkian]

to be fair, dd is pretty much the only aoe melee thieves get.

Lie lie lie lie lie! Why would you even say that?! ;_;

Thief sword has a huuuge cleave as the autoattack and it hits hard, in addition to the multi-hit flurry from Pistol Whip on S/P. And as expected, it's totally perfect for that part in COF2.

edit: And yeah, Mesmer Gs is perfectly good for that as well. iBerserker can hit almost every thing in the group with one attack!

I'll run TA story with ya tonight Ceres. Can never get enough lesbian plant romance

 

[Noisy Ninj4]

Lie lie lie lie lie! Why would you even say that?! ;_;

Thief sword has a huuuge cleave as the autoattack and it hits hard, in addition to the multi-hit flurry from Pistol Whip on S/P. And as expected, it's totally perfect for that part in COF2.

sword autoattack only hits 3 targets though, while pistol whip will root you and get you killed. Deadly blossom keeps you safe while attacking and gets you dagger #4 for aoe cripple. 1, 2, and 5 give you the tools to spike down the assassins, too.

Really, you should mostly use s.bow in that part, though.

 

[Hawkian]

sword autoattack only hits 3 targets though, while pistol whip will root you and get you killed. Deadly blossom keeps you safe while attacking and gets you dagger #4 for aoe cripple. 1, 2, and 5 give you the tools to spike down the assassins, too.

Really, you should mostly use s.bow in that part, though.

Three targets is the number of targets hit by every Cleave skill in the game. The sword chain does it three times and cripples on the third hit while using no initiative, unlike Dancing Dagger which will drain it quickly, as will Death Blossom, and the evade the latter gives you is borderline useless in the situation we're talking about. Dagger sets at that point are undoubtedly best used to spike down the assassins alone with Backstabs and Heartseeker. Daggers don't give you the tools to do this too, those skills are by far what they're best at. You can be perfectly useful as a dagger thief in this scenario but lazor specifically mentioned needing more AoE damage.

Meanwhile, Infiltrator's Strike immobilizes and damages assassins while the auto chain cleaves, and Pistol Whip's stun also stops assassins and then it either cleaves with a simultaneous 2 second evade or you can cancel it and move, so I have no idea where you get "will root you and get you killed" from. It's a fantastic skill and I've used it in the exact instance we're talking about many times.

Finally shortbow is also a totally great AoE option for this scenario and especially if they're finding themselves going down a lot there it's the best one. But the only comment I was actually referring to was "dd is pretty much the only aoe melee thieves get" which is wrong. S/P is substantially better melee AoE, dagger sets are substantially better single target. I didn't think this was a controversial opinion.

 

[Ceres]

Even better, you can also access the bank using the crafting stations in your own BL's citadel, and the closest TP spot is 10 seconds away from that waypoint.
Just remember that every afker in WvW takes a spot in the queue, so try not to abuse that.

I always forget about those. Probably because the bank is so close to the WP. And yeah, I don't stay in long if I'm using that. Besides that, you'll be in the queue on reset anyway and normally we only queue EB outside of that unless there's an event/karma train or emergency defend rush to a keep.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

I need a new WvW (and all around purpose build) for my Warrior. Greatsword + Longbow are my favorite weapons.

I am not a fan of berserker(too squishy) or banner(too stationary) builds. I want the survivability.

With the skill balances recently I feel a lot of builds are outdated. Would it make sense to go about a shout healing build again? or a condition removal? or some sort of healing regen build?


Please give me help mateyss!!!

 

[Hawkian]

If you feel like a lot of builds are outdated now, wait until a week from tomorrow before doing ANYTHING at all, lol

 

[Levito]

If you feel like a lot of builds are outdated now, wait until a week from tomorrow before doing ANYTHING at all, lol

Yeah I'm sticking with condition damage build on my Mesmer until the patch, even though I want to work out a new build now.

I'm now 50% complete world completion! It's really enjoyably just exploring everything, I actually can't think of a game with such a rich and gorgeous overworld, single player or MMO alike.

 

[Kos Luftar]

This update has really slowed the OT. Not much to talk or complain about.

I think we are overdue for a Story Time post on the official blog.

 

[Noisy Ninj4]

Meanwhile, Infiltrator's Strike immobilizes and damages assassins while the auto chain cleaves, and Pistol Whip's stun also stops assassins and then it either cleaves with a simultaneous 2 second evade or you can cancel it and move, so I have no idea where you get "will root you and get you killed" from. It's a fantastic skill and I've used it in the exact instance we're talking about many times.

Finally shortbow is also a totally great AoE option for this scenario and especially if they're finding themselves going down a lot there it's the best one. But the only comment I was actually referring to was "dd is pretty much the only aoe melee thieves get" which is wrong. S/P is substantially better melee AoE, dagger sets are substantially better single target. I didn't think this was a controversial opinion.

pistol whip has never given an evade in my experience, just a stun with cleaves. Hence my "root and get killed" comment. I have had that happen fairly often during the leveling of my thief.

I dunno about you, but I haven't had much issue fueling death blossom.

Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying sword is useless for applying melee aoe, just that dagger is better in the case of quickly killing stuff. I have always used sword as a control and evasion weapon. Really seems more like a difference of opinion than anything.

 

[TrounceX]

Hmm just heard that Anet is putting out a GvG map. Apparently it will be similar to the EB jumping puzzle where you can enter from the map, or alternatively you can queue up directly from the menu. It will have it's own separate player limit and obviously will not be affected by the bloodlust buffs.

Good news!

I'm also hearing that they are looking into shutting down servers, or looking into consolidating the WvW population somehow due to the dwindling population.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I keep feeling guilty that I haven't logged in for quite some time, what with other games competing for my attention and getting up to speed with daily routine again. Also cats. I do keep lurking the thread.

On the other hand, this will make my eventual comeback all the sweeter, as it often happens when I spend some time away from the game.

 

[Lunar15]

The last few updates have been "one and done's". Both Teq and TA were things I did once and was satisfied.

Well, I ran TA twice, but you get the point. As I've said before, this is the drawback to bi-weekly updates. Unless there's something built in there to force you to keep doing something, there's little incentive to stick around since another update is around the corner. For me, it's quite wonderful because I get everything the game has to offer without putting much time in. But for them, I'm sure it's a pain.

 

[Kos Luftar]

From GW2 Facebook page.

Who do you think is in there or is it just filled with Candy Corn?

Hopefully it is one of Mad Kings victims rising up to take revenge.

 

[Lunar15]

Something RNG related, I'm sure. *rimshot*

see also:

 

[Hawkian]

pistol whip has never given an evade in my experience, just a stun with cleaves.

Well I don't know what to tell you, try it again

It's an incredibly useful, powerful skill that like Blurred Frenzy can allow you to continuously damage through huge, even one-shot enemy attacks. It's such a good skill that its damage was reduced by 50% in a hard nerf and it still rules. Seriously, I can't recommend enough that you play around with it some more.

I dunno about you, but I haven't had much issue fueling death blossom.

If DB is all you're trying to do, or you're specced for init regen, you can do it many times. Was just saying that initiative would be better spent on C+D/Heartseeker on the Assassins, if you did want to stilck to that set.

Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying sword is useless for applying melee aoe, just that dagger is better in the case of quickly killing stuff. I have always used sword as a control and evasion weapon. Really seems more like a difference of opinion than anything.

I gotcha. It was just you saying D/D is "pretty much the only melee aoe thieves get" when in my experience there's a clearly better option for that specific purpose.

Of the melee sets, S/D is the ultimate control/evasion/disable set, S/P is the best for melee AoE, and the dagger sets each have a claim to be the best for single target damage and each have their own pros and cons.

Hmm just heard that Anet is putting out a GvG map. Apparently it will be similar to the EB jumping puzzle where you can enter from the map, or alternatively you can queue up directly from the menu. It will have it's own separate player limit and obviously will not be affected by the bloodlust buffs.

Good news!

I'm also hearing that they are looking into shutting down servers, or looking into consolidating the WvW population somehow due to the dwindling population.

Are you getting this from somewhere other than Sacrx's rant?

 

[Ashodin]

Well it finally happened, the Puzzle and Dragons thread got forcibly locked, haha.

One of the guys in there has been working on the OT2 for literally months, and we were almost reaching 25K posts. nicoga (who you might remember plays some GW2!) is working on the new one, but it was funny to see it still up even past 20K.

 

[Retro]

This update has really slowed the OT. Not much to talk or complain about.

We've been down one robot poster because of Terraria. Fortunately, the flaws and limitations are starting to become quickly apparent, so I don't see that lasting too much longer. Did make it all the more obvious though that Starbound is going to wreck me in a big way.

 

[Ashodin]

We've been down one robot poster because of Terraria. Fortunately, the flaws and limitations are starting to become quickly apparent, so I don't see that lasting too much longer. Did make it all the more obvious though that Starbound is going to wreck me in a big way.

After this TA update, I've been more wanting to work on Apexicon, and I've gotten a lot more done. Which makes me happy. It's nice to take a break every once and a while.

 

[Hawkian]

My hype's bubbling for tomorrow's news about Mad King goodness. I really just love the atmosphere ANet cultivates for Halloween, it's just fun stuff in all directions.

 

[jersoc]

hope they ban chars and norn from the jumping tower.

also asura

 

[theMrCravens]

My hype's bubbling for tomorrow's news about Mad King goodness.

Yeah, I haven't played since last patch.
Probably worst one since launch because of long ass dull dungeon.

Bring on Mad King!

 

[Complistic]

hope they ban chars and norn from the jumping tower.

also asura

They just need to scale them down.

 

[Lunar15]

They just need to scale them down.

Knowing the Mad King, he'll just make Asura, Humans, and Sylvari really big and Norns and Charr really small. Just to be mean like that.

 

[Weltall Zero]

It's an incredibly useful, powerful skill that like Blurred Frenzy can allow you to continuously damage through huge, even one-shot enemy attacks. It's such a good skill that its damage was reduced by 50% in a hard nerf and it still rules. Seriously, I can't recommend enough that you play around with it some more.

I remember thinking (and telling you) that the skill seemed outright broken. Stun the enemy AND evade all attacks while multihitting? My thief runs S/P half the time solely because of that skill. It's just nuts.

Hell, I'm still surprised it hasn't been nerfed!

 

[Jira]

Hmm just heard that Anet is putting out a GvG map. Apparently it will be similar to the EB jumping puzzle where you can enter from the map, or alternatively you can queue up directly from the menu. It will have it's own separate player limit and obviously will not be affected by the bloodlust buffs.

Good news!

I'm also hearing that they are looking into shutting down servers, or looking into consolidating the WvW population somehow due to the dwindling population.

Are you basing that off of random speculation because ANet said that WvW has continued to grow and is bigger than it's ever been. I'm guessing you're saying that cause random guild X has some people quit therefore everyone is quitting because they are and what they do is indicative of the entire population as a whole. /s

 

[lazorexplosion]

S/P is crazygood for PvE. Pistol whip is amazing and black powder is even better, it just destroys the damage output of whole groups of any mob that isn't defiant or blind immune while you smack them around with those big sword #1s so it rules in that part of CoF. And if an assassin gets to Magg you just drop a black powder on him and he's fine. D/D is amazing for dps on bosses and single targets, but for that bit eh.

These guys had for sure done CoF2 before, they clearly knew where to go and what to do without anything being said. And then they all quit one after another immediately after the 3rd failure before I could even say anything. I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

 

[TrounceX]

Are you getting this from somewhere other than Sacrx's rant?

Yes, although I wouldn't doubt if my source was the same as Sacrx's, because we seem to be hearing the same things at around the same time, and it's been that way for a while now. There's also good reason to believe said person because they have been correct many times in the past.

Are you basing that off of random speculation because ANet said that WvW has continued to grow and is bigger than it's ever been. I'm guessing you're saying that cause random guild X has some people quit therefore everyone is quitting because they are and what they do is indicative of the entire population as a whole. /s

It's unfortunate that you think I am that stupid. I realize that guilds will come and go, and that it is not necessarily indicative of the overall population. That's just common sense :\

I was simply letting you guys know what I've heard because I thought it was interesting.

 

[Ashodin]

HALLOWEEN SHOTS AH MAH GAD

^
ITS BACK

Doors look eeriely like the Chest posted on Facebook. Same style of the doors.

Sick Necro looks

The Mad King's Realm is back!

 

[shysaursoft]

Thanks to [TTS], I finally got in a Taco kill. That, felt amazing. If this is Anet's idea of a Raid, I'm all for it.

 

[Ashodin]

Thanks to [TTS], I finally got in a Taco kill. That, felt amazing. If this is Anet's idea of a Raid, I'm all for it.

Yep it's the best open world content I've ever experienced.

 

[Luigi87]

I am so excited for next week's update!
Since I started in November last year (29 days away from one year), I missed out, and the Mad King events were always my favourite in the first Guild Wars.

 

[lazorexplosion]

Some redditor's Lara Croft tribute:

Hah that's so great.

 

[Jira]

HNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG NEW HALLOWEEN STUFF OMGGGGGGGGG

 

[SixMachine]

Thanks to [TTS], I finally got in a Taco kill. That, felt amazing. If this is Anet's idea of a Raid, I'm all for it.

I still didn't kill him yet. We had a really awesome run one time with perfect burn phases that literally happened in 30 seconds at one point. But at the last mega laser part, people ran away from the batteries too early and let north die. Oh well, shit happens.

I tried not sticking with the zerg at one point and moving a bit more left while still being able to hit him and I didn't die after that. It was much easier to see aoes on the ground and much easier to roll out. I honestly think the stack gets a lot of players killed because of all those cloud stacks and how much harder it is to see things like the tidal wave.

 

[jersoc]

They just need to scale them down.

they just need to fix the fucking camera. ffs it's been over a year.

also, fix teq bugs. gg wasting 2 hours earlier today when the megalaser said FUCK IT IM DOWN at half hp

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

I am so excited for next week's update!
Since I started in November last year (29 days away from one year), I missed out, and the Mad King events were always my favourite in the first Guild Wars.

The Mad King might be the best fictional character ever put in a fictional holiday (sorry santa).

 

[markot]

I hope the mad king kills scarlet. And traherne...

 

[Arkanius]

The new harvesting sickle is a CLOWN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_aIuYhaxc0

 

[Saprol]

The new harvesting sickle is a CLOWN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_aIuYhaxc0

Amazing.

 

[Arkanius]

Amazing.

I hate clowns D:

 

[Blinck]

- The best armor will always be Exotic. All exotic gear has the same statistical value, just distributed across the stats in various ways. As long as you're in Exotics, you're good. The exception to this are your accessories, which can be Ascended quality. Ascended armor will be added in the near (?) future, but that's a longer term goal and not something you must have right away. Weapons go up to Ascended now as well, but again, that's a goal, not something you MUST have. Honestly, you could probably get by just fine in most content in Rares and no one would be the wiser.

- You can tell what distribution of stats an item has by the name; for example, "Berserker" will always mean Power is the main stat, with Precision and Critical Damage as the minor stats. You can see all of them here; http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item_nomenclature

- People figured out what the Mystic Forge can do via experimentation, data mining, or ArenaNet just updated the wiki themselves. I don't know if this is still true, but I believe a few months ago one of the developers said there were still undiscovered recipes for the forge. As for it being random and useless, they don't call it the Mystic Toilet for nothing.

- They various options for different gear doesn't really matter; those are just alternative ways to get the same stats (i.e. Soldier's gear from Ascalon Catacombs tokens is statistically identical to Soldiers gear bought with Karma at the Temple of Balthazar). You just have different options. See more here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Equipment_acquisition_by_stats

Item stats just go up with required level and also item quality from white - blue - green - yellow (rare) - orange (exotic) - and purple (ascended). There are also legendary weapons, but they are just cosmetic. Armor only goes up to exotic quality at the moment, everything else has ascended quality items.

As a fresh level 80 I'd go to the trading post and buy level 80 rares to kit myself out in they are cheapish and decent while you start upgrading to exotic items. Ascended items will probably come later, being much harder to get. Exotic rings, amulets and earrings are most easily and cheaply got by buying them from the trading post; that will use your gold income for a while. Dungeons provide both tokens and nice gold income, and tokens are the best way to fill out your weapon and armor slots with exotic gear. Drops are great if you get them but are unreliable. Join the guild and give us a shout and you'll almost certainly find people willing to show you through dungeons.

Dontain has a video on it; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyHQWT91heQ

mysic salvage kit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e6hc7YMmWg

Thank you very much for the help guys, really cleared things up !!!
Unfortunately I'm on EU so I can't play with the GAF guild

Once again this is such a great game and I'm really happy I came back to it!!
Cheers!

 

[Arkanius]

Thank you very much for the help guys, really cleared things up !!!
Unfortunately I'm on EU so I can't play with the GAF guild

Once again this is such a great game and I'm really happy I came back to it!!
Cheers!

We have a transfor fund for people to transfer from EU to US servers I think

 

[Blinck]

We have a transfor fund for people to transfer from EU to US servers I think

I really appereciate it but there is no need for that hehe
I'm also playing with some friends from work and I would feel bad abandoning them
But thanks for the offer


Also a quick, non-gameplay related question:

What sort of gig do I need to run this game at a stable 60fps in every area? It seems that areas with a lot of fog and trees ( ascalonian forests and such) drop my framerate which is a bit annoying, and also areas like Lion's Arch or places with a lot of people, although I guess this is more normal.

I have an i7 3770k @ 4.2 / GTX 670 / 16gb RAM

 

[Arkanius]

I really appereciate it but there is no need for that hehe
I'm also playing with some friends from work and I would feel bad abandoning them
But thanks for the offer


Also a quick, non-gameplay related question:

What sort of gig do I need to run this game at a stable 60fps in every area? It seems that areas with a lot of fog and trees ( ascalonian forests and such) drop my framerate which is a bit annoying, and also areas like Lion's Arch or places with a lot of people, although I guess this is more normal.

I have an i7 3770k @ 4.2 / GTX 670 / 16gb RAM

That should have been more than enough for the game

 

[Bl4ckSunsh1n3]

Also a quick, non-gameplay related question:

What sort of gig do I need to run this game at a stable 60fps in every area? It seems that areas with a lot of fog and trees ( ascalonian forests and such) drop my framerate which is a bit annoying, and also areas like Lion's Arch or places with a lot of people, although I guess this is more normal.

I have an i7 3770k @ 4.2 / GTX 670 / 16gb RAM

I don't think I've seen a rig yet that will run this at a constant 60FPS in every area with every single graphical option at the maximum level. When I think about it, it's kind of crazy because I can also run the game on my laptop (low end gaming machine).

LA has always been kind of bad with the frame drops for me but, it doesn't really matter (to me anyways) since there is no combat there.

 

[Hawkian]

Also a quick, non-gameplay related question:

What sort of gig do I need to run this game at a stable 60fps in every area? It seems that areas with a lot of fog and trees ( ascalonian forests and such) drop my framerate which is a bit annoying, and also areas like Lion's Arch or places with a lot of people, although I guess this is more normal.

I have an i7 3770k @ 4.2 / GTX 670 / 16gb RAM

Your rig is more than enough, there's just no perfection. I'm not sure about the fog and trees specifically, but generally shadows and reflections seem to make a substantial impact out of the settings.

edit: Details are starting to filter out about the 15th update, Blood and Madness.

 

[Lunar15]

Your rig is more than enough, there's just no perfection. I'm not sure about the fog and trees specifically, but generally shadows and reflections seem to make a substantial impact out of the settings.

edit: Details are starting to filter out about the 15th update, Blood and Madness.

I have a feeling the Mad King has a rival. Perhaps... a vampire?\

EDIT: Ah, his son, Bloody Prince Edrick.

 

[Hawkian]

Looks like Thorn's boy took over parts of the Labyrinth. Seems pissed. I wonder if the Mad King himself will be mostly absent, or maybe trapped until the end.

Official page still isn't up yet but the haunted doors, labyrinth, clock tower, and Lunatic Inquisition (pvp minigame, a complete blast if you hadn't tried it) are confirmed to be returning.

Handful of themed rewards of course including a Candy Corn perma node for you home instance (lol, Tyrian dental work skyrockets)

I'm actually most psyched for the combat/skill changes. This feels a lot like some of the GW1 skill balance patches where they tweaked underlying systems in the same patch as changes to skills, and I remember those feeling really good.

I do want to know what a Grand High Viscount of Candy Corn can do, ha

I have a feeling the Mad King has a rival. Perhaps... a vampire?\

EDIT: Ah, his son, Bloody Prince Edrick.

Oh I get it, Blood and Madness, the Bloody Prince vs. the Mad King. Hope we can expect some kind of showdown.

edit: Lol, I think Candy Corn speculation is happening. Watch the market if you have some stockpiled (cleared them out of my inventory in the summer sometime )