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Guild Wars 2 |OT3| Two Week Updates, One Box, Zero Subscriptions
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Mr_Antimatter
Member
lots of normal pirates are sylvari IIRC.
Condition builds are garbage for PvE. Phantasm is generally the most effective especially for dungeons. Something like 0/20/20/30/0 gives you great survivability and strong phantasms.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
I think the Queen will babble, and then the true enenmy will appear. The person behind all these things in the living story. As well as the awesome Steampunk monsters from deep within the earth.
It will be some super-hero cartoon villain with a wacky reason for wishing world domination. and just maybe a Divinitys Edge member will die.
*crosses fingers*
It will be some super-hero cartoon villain with a wacky reason for wishing world domination. and just maybe a Divinitys Edge member will die.
*crosses fingers*
Scarlet is the true enemy (leader of the Aetherblades) and it's rumored that they and the steampunk monsters are from an alternate universe.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
Do you think that place is where the humans originally came from, or where the six gods are?
BrettWeir
Member
I will NOT be part of this group this time. I hated the game after a few months.......well, to be more clear, I hated WvW due to my high expectations before launch. I've come to realize that it is what it is. Which is better than 99% of other "PvP MMOs". I was also really pissed off when they introduced Ascended Gear. I'm not a PvE person, simply because I don't have time to dedicate to a few hours grouping to make it through Fractals/Dungeons. I'm VERY happy that they have implemented the Ascended items into the WvW vendors. Now I have something to spend my 3000 Badges on.....Of course, I need Laurels which is an easier pill to swallow.
I'm really hoping that the Anniversary Gem Store sale has Rox quiver in it!
I would actually think probably not, at least not significantly, since the percentage of the player base that regularly runs dungeons I imagine is rather low. But that's just a guess.
I haven't been dungeoning as much lately. Combination of a little boredom with the same old and doing some other things for making gold with the living story stuff.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
I am also a lot less irritated by Ascended gear now. But I do never want them to make another tier. Ever.
Small pocket progression per day (1 laurel) = "okay" but the more ways to get them, the better. you should be able to get them as a pvper, as a crafter. You should be able to progress by just doing what you want to do. But its fine if it has to take a while as long as it's not long-stretches-of-time-consuming of one gaming session having to last for hours and hours.
GW has always for me been about being able to play it in small pockets of fun. Never having to do a 4-5 hour thing.
Aren't the steam monsters definitely from an alternate universe?
If you picked the Infinity Ball as part of the Asura personal story it goes into it.
Jest Chillin
Member
You can get them through pvp. You can't through crafting but this games crafting isn't nearly where it should be for that to be a legitimate path.
That's very reasonable, I mean... GW2 (like many MMOs that are wide in scope, I suppose) suffers primarily or even entirely from NIMBY problems. Which is to say, with startlingly few exceptions, the playerbase isn't unified to any significant degree behind universal likes and dislikes. Everybody has their own pet area they want given the most attention, but from the perspective of the people making the game, it's tough to separate the signal from the noise- especially when this game contains so many different types of players- from the hardcore dungeon-running, reward-oriented player who spends time min-maxing and only speedrunning with experienced groups, to the casual, could-care-less-about stats RPer just looking for cosmetics and spending loads on the gem store, to the players who live and breathe WvW and would never step foot in PvE if avoidable, to the people who only compete in PvP and have never acquired a single experience point, to community-focused and mission-oriented players who log in primarily to interact with friends and guildmates. There're just so many that it's a miracle any one of these groups ever contains a content majority, let alone a a majority across all of them!
It's such a tough needle to thread, and that's where I think that "it is what it is" can really be looked at as a compliment in many cases. I think key to really enjoying GW2 is 1) understanding that there are a lot of different facets of the game, and none of them are as good as they absolutely could be, and 2) your favorite aspect of the game is likely to still be among the best found in any similar product on the market. I actually believe that for every type of player except for the purely narrative-driven, story-focused gamer (SW: TOR and The Secret World ostensibly having done a far better job catering to those types), this really holds true.
And that's a lot of what has me pumped for the next release. I've been interested in the Living Story, especially on a conceptual level, all year- but this is the first time I'm actually feeling invested in what's going to happen. I'm trying to come up with my own theories about what could be going on. I want to avoid spoilers. I'm curious for unseen forces to be revealed and I'm intrigued as to the fates of characters I care about. I realized that these are qualities found in games with stories I care about. If they can make it compelling, make it something I actually continue to care about, it will be quite an addition to their bag of tricks.
With Ascended gear, it's the kind of thing where when it was added I had no desire whatsoever for it personally, but I cautioned people it was less important that it appeared and would become easier to get over time. To wit I am now essentially overflowing with the various currencies and methods of acquisition by which to gear up my 80s with ascended stuff, and it still doesn't carry that much stat weight in the first place. Started out only being able to get it in one area of the game. Then sneakily they've continuously made it easier to get by adding four news ways to get it. Then making those ways easier over time. Then augmenting the stuff you need to get it with achievement rewards.
It's at the point now where I, against all odds, am actually a little psyched for the addition of the rest of the Ascended gear to the game. It gives you a nice, thought mostly inconsequential, medium-term goal and has the advantage of being very straightforward to acquire for every character, even if gated by time. I too hope that no further tiers of gear are added, but I'm not as completed disgusted by the concept as I once was. I have played games with gear treadmills and I know what a gear treadmill entails; this is absolutely nothing of the sort, and anyone should be able to admit that objectively.
I'd say it's a 96% certainty. Rox and Braham stuff was exclusive to the Gem store, and they're active in the current story arc. Gotta represent
Despite all of the recent reward and acquisition changes, inflation has been relatively non-burdensome. Some of the new champ skins are selling for plenty of gold, and people have been acquiring rapid stockpiles to quickly blow on a precursor or other expensive preexisting item on the TP. So people started sinking gold back into the economy pretty rapidly, and I don't feel like mine has lost value.
Gold->Gems is painful, especially with the recent addition of expensive, permanent, dersirable cosmetics. But it's frequently taken for granted that you can do the converion at all
You should try running some less popular stuff in light of the new rewards. I've become sort of taken with running Story modes since the change. Champ bags everywhere, and a number of them are easy and fun for a quick 50s.
Had a blast running through Champs Chumps with you all last night with my warrior, Brock Doombringer.
I wish my Ele was higher level (only 10 right now) because he could have taken advantage of some of dat XP.
I'm just now coming back to playing after quite a few months and while I absolutely love the changes, frankly I feel a little lost.
So many currencies, bags, boxes, etc. I feel like I'm doing a lot of things 'wrong', at least in terms of maximizing my time and currency spent.
Any tips or places where I can go read up a little more?
I wish my Ele was higher level (only 10 right now) because he could have taken advantage of some of dat XP.
I'm just now coming back to playing after quite a few months and while I absolutely love the changes, frankly I feel a little lost.
So many currencies, bags, boxes, etc. I feel like I'm doing a lot of things 'wrong', at least in terms of maximizing my time and currency spent.
Any tips or places where I can go read up a little more?
That was a lot of fun, I saw at least 3 event chains in Fields of Ruin I had never taken the time to run before, so thank you all for that. For those that couldn't make it, we hunted down literally every known Champ in that zone, plus our group scaled up any balloon events we came across to spawn multiples. Since Branded Strongboxes are a bit rare, it's actually really handy to know about that stuff. Weapon drops from them might correspond with big profits if there's anything unique to them.
Next zone mob like that we do could be in a low level zone.
Well, you're not doing it wrong unless you're not having fun!
In terms of maximizing your time and efficiency it sort of depends what you're going for. If your current goals are to gear a character in fully Ascended stuff I'd have totally different stuff to suggest than if you're going after a special skin or a Legendary, or if you're more interested in rapidly leveling your Ele.
edit: Bleh. I just got spoiled on something (not a story element, but a piece of content that is coming) on the reddits. Realized as soon as I read it that I didn't want to know about it or anything else in advance. Tread lightly!
Woof, this fuckin' Anniversary thing is looking to be a monster. I hope people spend a bit of time looking at it because I tucked all sorts of cool visual elements in there. The 'painterly' look of GW2 allows for some nice silhouettes and stuff to blend in... plus, it wouldn't be a GW2 thread without some quaggan...
Ascended Gear was something that should have been in at the beginning, between Exotic and Legendaries, hard to get but not as hard as a legendary. The fact that it was post-launch, and was implemented with only a single method to obtain them, is what really caused the wildly negative feedback. Now that they've had a chance to flesh things out a bit, it shouldn't really bother anyone. You can get Ascended Gear from Guild Missions, even.
Crafted Ascended gear is coming before the end of the year, according to the latest Blog post from Colin.
Ascended Gear was something that should have been in at the beginning, between Exotic and Legendaries, hard to get but not as hard as a legendary. The fact that it was post-launch, and was implemented with only a single method to obtain them, is what really caused the wildly negative feedback. Now that they've had a chance to flesh things out a bit, it shouldn't really bother anyone. You can get Ascended Gear from Guild Missions, even.
Crafted Ascended gear is coming before the end of the year, according to the latest Blog post from Colin.
I still don't think Ascended Gear should have ever been implemented. Instead, they should have just brought the bar down for Legendaries. Which they then started saying they would do but haven't come up with any changes on them for months.
Especially with how trivial it is difficulty wise to get most Ascended pieces, I just can't bring myself to bother getting any despite all of the laurels I own. There's no real reason to get them other than for Fractals, a tiny part of the game compared to everything else.
Especially with how trivial it is difficulty wise to get most Ascended pieces, I just can't bring myself to bother getting any despite all of the laurels I own. There's no real reason to get them other than for Fractals, a tiny part of the game compared to everything else.
Implementation was weird, but they wanted to have an "endgame progression" through the fractals. I understand the sentiment behind the concept, but yeah it was just strange. People freaked out because they thought the stats were super important, but really they're there for the AR.
NobleXenon
Member
I think they should make the Ascended Gear kind of like what they'll be doing with the Legendary Weapons in the future; which is being able to change the prefix stats out of combat. Ascended was originally used to change your secondary in Guild Wars 1, but they could have it to where you can change your prefix at will in this game. They could come up with a system where you had to build up many different prefixes, whether buying them with fractal stuffs, crafting certain ascended pieces with spectral essence, etc. It would be great horizontal progression for your character.
Kos Luftar
Member
They are probably just going to release legendary gear as well with same stats as ascended but you can change stay distribution on the fly.
I think many run a Knights set + soldiers runes for durability and attack strength with a shout build. It works well for frontlining a zerg in WvW. I've only done half of my guardian build as the build I was speccing required a few sentinels which is expensive because it had limited availability during the Molten Weapon Facility. I may just end up going full Knights and grab Sentinels if they bring it back in the future so the price drops.
You can get Knights through Badges of Honor, Crafting, or Dungeons I believe.
Of course, how you play can make a difference. If you're not zerging in WvW, you might not find the need to get Knights. Overall I don't find dif armors to have that much an effect in PvE unless you're doing dungeon runs for time. When I jump into PvE, I notice a lot of players seem to just stand in range and spam 1 not minding if they're downed constantly. Not sure if that's due to MF armors or laziness in play method.
The system for crafting/obtaining a precursor through structured means as well as new legendary items will be implemented by the end of the year.
If it's Claw of Jormag, definitely laziness. People show up, stand just outside the debuff radius and plink him while they go make a sandwich. You see stuff like that at other events (Golem is another) that don't require a lot of action from everyone involved. That's one of the reasons claw takes so long; nobody is killing off the ice sometimes so the golems can't get through.
I'm still waiting to actually see it. If it comes out in a December patch it will have been almost a whole year of waiting.
I'm not looking for one myself. I'm just annoyed that this is even an issue, and ascended gear ended up coming out while being completely portrayed as a band aid fix, no matter what they wanted to originally do with it. Especially with the way it uses later currencies to obtain.
I'd go with power / toughness / vit armor & melandru runes, but that's me. - Karma armor is probably the easiest. You need around 252k or so for a full set. I'd save the karma for the jewelry at the temple of grenth if it were me. Ascalon Catacombs armor is p/t/v, and AC 3 is a really easy run. But it takes a while to get enough tokens.
Not crazy about another tier of gear being added. I'm the type that prefers to have lots of alts all geared out incase I need to change rolls in guild groups. Its what I did in GW, and its what I plan to do in GW2. Getting full exotics after dinging 80 isn't currently too difficult. But ascended stuff is a bit more worrisome.
Everything in Colin's blog post is coming sooner in the year rather than later so don't be surprised to see it in September.
To make it really simple:
Knights Armor with Soldier Runes
Berserker Trinkets
Berserker Weapons
30 in Valor - Altruistic Healing
30 in Honor - Pure of Voice
Congratulations, you are now nearly invincible in PvE, formidable in PvP/Solo Roaming, and suitable for frontline WvW play on any server not named SoR, BG, or JQ.
I ran that build for months, and I can't even begin to tell you how nice it is to hop into any game mode and instantly have a viable build. It's become a lot messier recently though given how quickly the WvW meta is changing. I'm retraiting multiple times a night these days based on my guild/party composition (30 in virtues = also op)
I should admit, I don't think I really understand the perceived issue. If you're not looking to make one yourself then why does it matter where the bar is, or what is it you've been waiting to see?
find a spec that sounds fun and craft the gear for it imo. full berserker and a knight set is generally pretty solid.
Agreed, there's far more pressing matters to be dealt with besides whether or not people can obtain a cosmetic item quickly because they have no patience.
I find it weird that we're having the ascended gear debate at all again, going by how much of an exaggerated non-issue it ended up being.
It should have been there since launch, but I also don't think it was intended to be a band-aid fix so that people could get closer to a legendary. No, it was mainly intended as a progression mechanic for fractals, and it acted as incentive for people to run that content alongside other dungeons.
That being said, implementation was awful, and they should have expected a lot of the conclusions people jumped to.
As for precursors/legendaries they should always remain ludicrously hard to get. That's the point. Anet's given us plenty of pretty skins in the meantime.
It should have been there since launch, but I also don't think it was intended to be a band-aid fix so that people could get closer to a legendary. No, it was mainly intended as a progression mechanic for fractals, and it acted as incentive for people to run that content alongside other dungeons.
That being said, implementation was awful, and they should have expected a lot of the conclusions people jumped to.
As for precursors/legendaries they should always remain ludicrously hard to get. That's the point. Anet's given us plenty of pretty skins in the meantime.
It's still very easy to get by with the exotic accessories and rings from crafting and the temple vendors. In fact, I liken my thief's level 78 chest piece that's been used since maybe October/November 2012 to the difference between exotic and ascended accessories. It's not a big deal save for them being used as an agony resist container as stated before.
But people want it now.
But people want it now.
Yeah I guess I personally don't exactly even like the idea of legendaries being made easier to get, though I guess "not easier but less random" is the angle Colin was plugging and that sounds okay.
I definitely don't see any parallel between ascended gear and legendaries in terms of function; besides the back pieces none of it even has an aesthetic component whereas legendaries are pure aesthetics and nothing else. The primary function of Ascended gear was always access to infusion slots. In terms of reward-driven game design, I definitely get that they are both goals to work toward at 80, but with ascended gear being much easier to get... the thing is, in my opinion it filled that role pretty well. It was/is something to work toward gradually over time but nowhere near as difficult to reach as a legendary. And it's crucial in both cases that neither one is really necessary to get, excepting the need to do higher and higher level fractals.
As far as the implementation it was definitely awkward as all hell at first, but now there's a really nice variety of ways to get it no matter what you focus on.
I definitely don't see any parallel between ascended gear and legendaries in terms of function; besides the back pieces none of it even has an aesthetic component whereas legendaries are pure aesthetics and nothing else. The primary function of Ascended gear was always access to infusion slots. In terms of reward-driven game design, I definitely get that they are both goals to work toward at 80, but with ascended gear being much easier to get... the thing is, in my opinion it filled that role pretty well. It was/is something to work toward gradually over time but nowhere near as difficult to reach as a legendary. And it's crucial in both cases that neither one is really necessary to get, excepting the need to do higher and higher level fractals.
As far as the implementation it was definitely awkward as all hell at first, but now there's a really nice variety of ways to get it no matter what you focus on.
Interesting level of viral marketing going on over at reddit right now.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1keue8/obey/
This is the very first stickied post on that subreddit made by a brand new user and then stickied by a mod. No new user or any other user has had their stuff stickied before and it leads me to believe this is ANet's doing as part of the story hype. For those who don't know, that is the White Mantle emblem.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1keue8/obey/
This is the very first stickied post on that subreddit made by a brand new user and then stickied by a mod. No new user or any other user has had their stuff stickied before and it leads me to believe this is ANet's doing as part of the story hype. For those who don't know, that is the White Mantle emblem.
Ill second this for a solid all-around build, and would reccommend the last 10 traited into Virtues. If you okay a lot of sPvP you may need to change it up though.
YES PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YES PLEASE
PLEASE tell me the aetherblades are future white mantle and agony resist means MURSAAAAAAAAAAAAT
Here's a quote from Robert 9 days ago:
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/livingworld/jubilee/Missed-opportunity/2563072
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/livingworld/jubilee/Missed-opportunity/2563072
Jest Chillin
Member
If they make Agony a part of anything outside of Fractals, that would be a huge mistake.
Kos Luftar
Member
Wonder if ANET contacted the subreddit mods to tell them that the account is from someone at ANET.
Would have to be and my thread will be going up in a couple minutes. I'll link it here.
I'm not gonna let myself get drawn in by this. I've been going back to it all day but I am just assuming trolling for now. The implications are way, way too awesome to get my hopes up. Would be massive for GW1 lore nuts...
edit: Robert's forum comment a week ago would be grandmaster-class misdirection if we end up seeing Mursaat by the time this is done.
theMrCravens
Member
Already agony is a joke right now anyway.
Gating system for fotm (and future content) needs to change.
Kos Luftar
Member
Agony is not a good mechanic to use to try and make fractals more and more difficult as you progress into the higher levels.
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