Taril.8619

October 3, 2020

Are there any power builds that aren't Holo Kit?

Yes.

Are they any good?

Not really.

Holosmith just provides the most damage due to Holoforge being a really strong "Kit" to swap to.

Outside of Holoforge, most of your damage will come from Grenade Kit (Shrapnel Grenade + Poison Grenade) and in PvE Bomb Kit (Auto attacks)This is also the case for Condi builds too (You'll also use Fire Bomb and Concussion Bomb from Bomb Kit. You'll also use Flamethrower too)

Even meme builds like kitless Static Discharge builds, just end up working better in Holosmith because of Holoforge (Also Photon Wall for the low CD toolbelt skill)

At best, there's the meme Juggernaut Scrapper build for power DPS, where you use the Juggernaut trait in Firearms and sit with Flamethrower out to stack Might and proc Applied Force on cooldown (Bearing in mind, that the only skill on Flamethrower that has relevant power scaling is the auto attack. So it's a pretty passive build). You could probably make it more viable by having Grenade Kit to swap to and get some Explosives value.

October 3, 2020

It's just a byproduct of Soul Reaping specialization.

You load into a map, then get affected by Soul Battery which then increases your max LF. This leads to a loss of overall LF, especially if you were full.

Without Soul Reaping specialization equipped, this issue does not occur due to no Soul Battery interaction.

October 3, 2020

@Yggranya.5201 said:When the other elder dragons die, they simply explode, magic scattering everywhere. Why was aurene exempt from this?

1) She was not an Elder Dragon at the time she died (She only became one after killing Kralkatorrik and absorbing his magic). We can see from Glint's remains that a dragon dying doesn't necessarily explode (Vlast did, but he was hit by a literal god)

2) She had Joko's immortality, which could have negated some of the after effects of dying.

@Yggranya.5201 said:Since its own blood made into a weapon is the weakness of kralkatorrik, seems resonable to expect that to be the weakness of its offsprings. Getting impaled by crystal would do it, right? Unless it needs to, conviniently, be made specifically out of its blood?

It would seem to need to be specifically its blood. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so much of a hassle trying to get Kralk's blood to make the Dragonsblood Spears as Glint's and Aurene's blood would have been viable as Kralk's kin.

So even if the expectation of having the same weakness applies, it would still be a case of requiring a weapon made of Aurene's blood in order to work.

October 2, 2020

This isn't a thing because apparently it'd be super broken for certain specs to have actually useful weapons.

Some might argue about the unfairness that would happen for some classes who's E-Spec weapons are quite niche due to mechanics being closely tied to the spec itself (I.e. Druid staff is pretty bad even as a Druid, the thought of using it outside of Druid is laughable)

Others might just cry about PvP balance as if many E-Spec weapons are actually utilized in high level play and thus would see additional use on alternate E-Spec builds...

All this aside, personally, I think it could be interesting to have fully unlocked E-Spec weapons. It would significantly open up a plethora of new competitive builds, such as;

Condi Mesmer with Axe
Condi Chrono with Axe
Condi Reaper with Torch
Tempest with Sword
Weaver with Warhorn
Power Necro with GS
Power Deadeye with Staff
Heal Scrapper with Sword
Power Scrapper with Sword
Power Holo with Hammer
Condi Herald with Shortbow
Power Herald with Shortbow
Healigade with Shield
Alacrigade with Shield
Condigade with Shield
Power Berserker with OH Dagger (Maybe MH Dagger gets a Primal Burst skill that makes it a usable weapon?)

Though, there is something to be said about additional workload with things like Primal Burst for Warrior MH Dagger, Malicious variant of Thief Staff stealth skill and additional dual attunement skills for Weaver Warhorn...

October 2, 2020

@Astralporing.1957 said:
@Taril.8619 said:The reason she survived that and didn't have her magic dispersed, was literally because she had absorbed Joko's magic which meant that her body was trying to heal itself despite these wounds.The question of course remains, why Joko was killed by Aurene absorbing his magic, but Kralkatolrik was somehow unable to do the same to Aurene, even though he was apparently capable of effortlessly absorbing whole realities (domains of gods, several of which got completely absorbed)

Possibly dragons have some resistance to being absorbed by other dragons (Otherwise, why didn't Glint simply absorb Kralkatorrik when fighting alongside Destiny's Edge?)

Outside of that, well... Kralk didn't want to kill Aurene. He wanted Aurene to kill him. To end his suffering that was the byproduct of absorbing the magics released by the death of the other Elder Dragons and Balthazar. While showing mercy to his grand-daughter because he wasn't totally heartless.

@Astralporing.1957 said:
Though, to be fair, having Aurene get Joko's magical immortality is pretty terrible writing. Not only due to how it was a let down of a climax when facing Joko, but it also gives Aurene literal "Plot Armor" (And cheapened her "Death" at the end of that episode)It 's a very weak plot armor though. I mean, Joko had it and it didn't prevent him from dying. Which in reality makes it even
worse
writing.

It's plot armour all the same. They can have Aurene take a literal nuke to the face and have her live "Because Joko powers!", though, doing so makes the death of Joko cheaper and more idiotic each time it is used to escape death...

Between this, "Glints Prophecy" and the relationship to the Commander (Including the masteries that give us the additional skills to use while mounted) she's got enough plot armour to where she could do whatever the heck she wants with 0 consequences.

October 2, 2020

@Yggranya.5201 said:
@Taril.8619 said:At the very least, Aurene will be sticking around for a while (Given that she has Joko's immortality)

I have been curious about this. If aurene is immortal like joko and as we all know, joko was undead, when is aurene going to transform to look more like zaithan? Maybe not exactly, but a sickly green hue would be appropriate.

Joko was also human. And had died numerous times.

Aurene is a dragon. One who also has a lot of magical energy within her.

Other Elder Dragons were not physically altered by absorbing literally Zhaitan/Mordremoth energy, so it shouldn't be expected that she'd start having her appearance altered due to any magics she's absorbed.

@Yggranya.5201 said:
@Taril.8619 said:
@Hannelore.8153 said:
@Taril.8619 said:Probably more dragons.
I doubt that "End of Dragons" will be literally the death of all dragons.
At the very least, Aurene will be sticking around for a while (Given that she has Joko's immortality)

As we've seen though, this immortality only applies to death. Being transformed into some other kind of state, like by just being eaten, defeats it. Therefor its possible for Aurene to "die" as well, though not by conventional means.

But, given that;1) Aurene is an Elder Dragon2) The Commander is her Champion3) Dragon's Watch, the Exalted, the Zephyrites and the Crystal Blooms all want to protect her

It's unlikely that she'll be dying anytime soon.

Is it possible? Yes. Heck, we even saw her die after the first fight with Kralkatorrik, piercing her heart with brand crystal will prevent the healing to revive her. Just, she was revived after the aforementioned people removed the brand crystals from her.

In other words: No, it won't ever die, not really.

sigh

I wonder why all the other elder dragons just die when they get stabbed/shot by puny mortals, and aurene just slides over everything like nothing happened? Aurene must be some mutant to not get all that magic dispersed, for reasons. You may not agree with me, but the reason is terrible writing, of course. At first, i thought to just go through the story once to see what it was about, but now i would rather just skip it all. Too bad that isn't allowed.

1) Zhaitan was shot to heck with magical cannons after being crippled and starved throughout the entire Orrian section of the Personal Story.

2) Mordremoth required the Commander to go into the Dream and kill his mind ALONGSIDE a massive assault by the Pact forces and in the end, what killed him was him impaling himself on a spike.

3) Kralkatorrik was shot to heck with blasts of Aurene's magical energy from the Commander, amplified by Zephyrite crystals using Dredge amplification technology, blasted directly by Aurene in the face, blasted to heck by Aurene while flying through the various worlds, had his wing torn off, was assaulted by a giant Pact force armed with magical spears made out of his own blood AND then had his heart then destroyed by Aurene to kill him.

So far, the closest Aurene has got to death, was when she was pelted with brand crystals after the first confrontation with Kralkatorrik, wherein she was killed until the shard piercing her heart was removed.

The reason she survived that and didn't have her magic dispersed, was literally because she had absorbed Joko's magic which meant that her body was trying to heal itself despite these wounds.

So no, it's not like other ED's "Just die when they get stabbed/shot by puny mortals", in all cases it required use of the one weakness each ED had (Zhaitan's weakness was the need to constantly consume magical artifacts to maintain strength. Mordremoth's weakness was a direct line to his mind within the Dream he created for his minions. Kralkatorrik's weakness was the resonant frequency found within his body and thus weapons made out of his actual blood)

If mortals were to go after Aurene with her weakness, whatever that may be, she too would be killable. Though it would be harder than for other ED's due to Joko's magic.

Though, to be fair, having Aurene get Joko's magical immortality is pretty terrible writing. Not only due to how it was a let down of a climax when facing Joko, but it also gives Aurene literal "Plot Armor" (And cheapened her "Death" at the end of that episode)

October 2, 2020

@Hannelore.8153 said:
@"Taril.8619" said:Probably more dragons.
I doubt that "End of Dragons" will be literally the death of all dragons.
At the very least, Aurene will be sticking around for a while (Given that she has Joko's immortality)

As we've seen though, this immortality only applies to death. Being transformed into some other kind of state, like by just being eaten, defeats it. Therefor its possible for Aurene to "die" as well, though not by conventional means.

But, given that;1) Aurene is an Elder Dragon2) The Commander is her Champion3) Dragon's Watch, the Exalted, the Zephyrites and the Crystal Blooms all want to protect her

It's unlikely that she'll be dying anytime soon.

Is it possible? Yes. Heck, we even saw her die after the first fight with Kralkatorrik, piercing her heart with brand crystal will prevent the healing to revive her. Just, she was revived after the aforementioned people removed the brand crystals from her.

October 2, 2020

Probably more dragons.

I doubt that "End of Dragons" will be literally the death of all dragons.

At the very least, Aurene will be sticking around for a while (Given that she has Joko's immortality)

October 1, 2020

@"apache.8746" said:Hey there fellow players!
I as many others, have previously spent a lot of time playing WoW. Now, I'm having lots of fun with GW2. But, one thing I am definitely missing, are achievements based less on grind, and more on exploration. Let me explain:Would anyone else be with me on this? (Obviously other, similar types of achievements could be added for other things than killing stuff.)

A lot of the more grindy achievements are from the base game. There have been very few achievments added to the base game since (A few side activities and side stories such as the Ley-Line Anomaly stuff)

Outside of that, achievements are typically made specifically for each new map that is added. So things like "Kill one of each type of creature" aren't really an achievement since maps don't often have huge varieties of enemy types.

LW maps often provide several exploration achievements though, with collections scattered throughout the map as well as a tendency to have containers spread across the maps too with an achievement to open all of them.

Rare mobs are typically done via Events, of which there are achievements for participating in.

Of course, the issue with exploration achievements is that many people don't find them fulfilling to complete. Especially if there's a meaningful reward for its completion. As they often end up feeling "Forced" to simply open up a map that points them to all the locations they need to get the achievement as otherwise naturally running around a map trying to stumble across things can take ages and can be annoying (Due to enemies attacking constantly)

October 1, 2020

@Lily.1935 said:Not all skills need to be good in PvE. I think it could still be situationally useful. Its a matter of design for me. At the Minimum the 50% in PvE would be nice.

No, but it certainly helps overall design when skills are compatible with all modes. Axe 3 is arbitrarily useless in PvE (The mode that uses AoE's in much of its most popular activities). There's no reason why this should be the case.

@Lily.1935 said:It not being as strong as Axe 2 isn't a flaw. It heals you, its a sustain weapon and that should be its function.

It's a flaw, because it will forever limit its use in PvE. If it does the exact same thing as another weapon, but worse. Why would anyone ever use it?

The self sustain can be important in PvP/WvW... But then at the same time, Axe 2 provides sustain via Life Force generation too (While having better range and better damage)

Overall, MH Dagger, is hampered by it trying to be too many things and sucking at them all. Its auto attack is melee (But not very good DPS). Skill 2 is ranged power damage and self sustain that is bolstered by specifically Bleeding being on targets. Skill 3 is a short range immobilize with a self bleed for reasons...

Like, what is MH Dagger wanting to be? In an ideal world where it was balanced. What niche is it trying to accomplish?

Is it trying to be a power based melee weapon for Core Necro? If so, it needs Skills 1 and 2 to be stronger for damage while skill 3 needs to better enable gap closing.Is it trying to be a sustain weapon? If so, it needs some sustain synergy with skill 1 (Maybe life siphon on 3rd hit of auto chain) and for skill 3 to not self harm.Is it trying to be a condi based weapon? If so it needs better condi application on skill 1, skill 2 needs to deal condi scaled damage and skill 3 needs to not self harm.

@Lily.1935 said:Special functions are nice and all. I Do not think this weapon needs healing on it at all. As a Utility it would be nice if it provided us with high damage pockets which Unstable horrors are quite destructive. Which We don't have a proper Power offhand. As for Spinal Shivers, it could but we've never seen skills specifically gain bonuses against defiance.

Not having healing is fine. It's just easier to make a transition if it maintains some of the current theme, which is life siphon for damage + healing.

Also, just because we've never seen specific bonuses against defiance, doesn't mean we can't get them.

Plenty of people have suggested bonuses vs defiance for Necros in the past, in relation to their conditions and boon corruptions/strips that provide no value against defiant foes. Having it apply here would provide Necro with a nice Power OH since Spinal Shivers deals a bunch of damage fully stacked, but is absolute trash in current PvE due to the lack of boons to rip (It also makes that trait that procs a Lesser Spinal Shivers also trash even without competing against the other traits on the tier)

@Lily.1935 said:I'm not big on those changes. Seems a bit random if you ask me and doesn't add much to the design of the Staff. I could rework it, but like I said Its a discussion I want to save for another time. I'm not big on Marks as a mechanic, they're uninteresting as they are now.

Not that random. It's merely taking the idea of Staff being a supportive weapon (Which is its primary use since its damage sucks in both Power and Condition builds) and taking its already existing theme (Mark of Blood providing Bleeding to enemies and Regeneration, the opposite effect, to allies) and applies it across its other skills. Skill 3 providing Chill, also provides Swiftness (Something that Necro would like access to, and also an opposite to Chill's slowing effect). Skill 4 applies condi's to enemies, but also removes condi's from allies. Skill 5 provides CC in the form of Fear, but also provides its opposite effect of Stability (Something else that Necro would like access to)

Marks may be an uninteresting mechanic, but they're not a bad mechanic. Staff in its current functionality isn't bad and some people rather like it. Its major pitfall is just how limited it is in what it does, with low damage and low support (Outside of WvW, where the AoE Chill/Poison and Fear can be useful especially in the form of Marks to create "Traps")

@Lily.1935 said:Okay. That's fair, I don't feel the same way. I don't think its a real flaw with it as Warhorn is sorta a control weapon.

Well, 50% of its skills is control and 50% of its skills is damage/sustain (Just in a really anemic form just like pretty much most of non-Revenant Life Siphons in the game)

It's only used as a primarily control weapon because skill 5 is so meh in doing anything meaningful in part due to how poorly it scales damage and sustain.

That said, if wanting to double down on its control nature, it could always trade the Swiftness on cast for something like Cripple on hit (Especially if Staff is capable of providing Swiftness instead)

October 1, 2020

Tankiest class? A well played Firebrand.

Though, when optimizing for DPS, you'll get one-shotted for ADHD mistakes with that...

Full Marauder Reaper is very forgiving though. Plenty of HP + Shroud = One-shots will rarely happen. Throw in some minions (Especially the skill "Rise!" and Blood Magic) and it becomes easy to just face-tank most things.

If you want to be OmegaTank, pick a class, build a Condi spec and run full Trailblazer/Dire and you'll be hard as heck to kill, able to solo pretty much anything you want. The epitome of tankiness would be classes that can go with full Dire and still have 100% condi duration (I.e. Burn based classes with Runes of Balthazar. Such as Firebrand, Holosmith and Weaver/Tempest)

September 30, 2020

@Lily.1935 said:
Axe
Unholy Feast should have its bonus blast trigger if the foes struck still have boons on them and not at specific health thresholds

Sounds like Axe 3 will continue to be trash in PvE...

Honestly, the only problem with Axe (Aside from the small fact about unlike GS, Axe doesn't provide LF with its auto) is how trash Unholy Feast is in PvE, with its low damage and 25% threshold still.

I'd simply suggest that Unholy Feast puts on a debuff to targets hit that will explode when they go below 50% life. Allowing it to be more flexible in PvE by making it usable whenever, instead of only when targets are all <25% life.

@Lily.1935 said:
Dagger Main Hand
Give Life Siphon a transformed skill when you begin bleeding for 3 seconds as opposed to the buff. The transformed skill will be an AoE version of its normal self The flaw with this skill is the reliance on being bleeding at the time.

The flaw with the skill is that it doesn't do comparable damage to Axe 2 (Even vs Bleeding targets) making it de-facto unwanted in PvE. Beyond that, it's a Power based weapon that gets benefit from having Bleeding on a target (Which it cannot apply itself) as well as the gimmick of Core Necro's "Self Conditioning" which serves no purpose in the game as it stands (In PvE, Guardian Light Field spam negates many condition applications. In PvP, all it does is kill yourself or cover your opponents damaging conditions so you can't cleanse them effectively)

@Lily.1935 said:
Dagger Off Hand
Not much to say about Off Hand dagger. I don't think its a bad weapon at all. Its serviceable in what its trying to do.

I still feel that Deathly Swarm should apply a single stack of Bleed or Torment by default. So it does something in PvE.

While Enfeebling Blood needs a shorter post cast delay/faster animation so it can more reliably actually land in PvP (The cast time makes is quite dodgable. But the delay post cast time means that you don't really need to dodge it...)

@Lily.1935 said:
Focus
Replace Soul Grasp With something more fun and useful I'm going to give an idea for what it could be replaced with, but its not a definite "This should be its replacement" Its just what I'd like to see.
Vile Summoning: AoE ground target skill. Range/ 1,200/ Radius 180/ : Damage does and gain 11% life force. Summon an unstable horror at that location. Count charge 2/ recharge 15 seconds/ 3 second recast time. An idea I had for the Focus. Striking the foes to gain life force should stick to Focus. But the Life gain is a bit unnecessary in my opinion and creating distractions that explode would make this more of an engaging skill to use. its my personal desire but perhaps you have a better idea. I like unstable horrors and would like to use them more and Focus seems like the perfect home for them.

Soul Grasp could definitely see a replacement. The projectile is slow, easily countered and not particularly strong.

Having it deal damage and healing rather than life siphon would be a start (Similar to Dagger 2 and Death Shroud 4) which would allow the possibility to crit.It could also utilize Lich 5's Vitality stealing too as an interesting idea.

Outside of that... Whatever really. Something similar to Spear's skills Deadly Catch or Dark Spear could be neat too.

Spinal Shivers could do its max damage versus Defiant foes so the skill is in any way usable in PvE.

@Lily.1935 said:
Staff
Staff honestly deserves its own separate discussion all on its own. This is a hotly debated weapon, should it stay the same? Should it be made into a support weapon to expand necromancer's support kit? There is no doubt that staff is a very useful weapon in PvP and WvW and that it is still used quite frequently. I Don't want to have that discussion just yet. I'll simply voice my opinion on this. I Do think staff should be completely reworked into a support weapon. However, I wont get into specific desires on how that'll look because I don't know myself. I have some ideas but nothing solid as of right now. So for now, We'll just leave staff on the table for a future discussion.

Personally, I think its kit is okay. With a few small adjustments it could be a solid off-hand option:

Make the Boon from Mark of Blood apply in an area both around the Mark and the Necromancer (A la Sand Shades)
Increase the power coefficient of Mark of Blood
Add a Swiftness boon to Chillblains
Add an AoE Condi Cleanse to Putrid Mark
Add a stack of Stability to Reaper's Mark
Optional: Turn skill 1 into an attack chain. Attack 1 sends out the spectral hand. Attack 2 sends out piercing scythe blade that causes bleeding. Attack 3 causes a spectral scythe to cleave an area around the target causing torment and enfeeble.

It is now a "Necro-themed" support weapon. It still relies on hitting enemies with marks and applying conditions, but now also provides some limited ally assistance too.

@Lily.1935 said:
Warhorn
The Last weapon of the list and the one that I'll say at face value, has perfect skills for its design.

Locust Swarm should stop being life siphon and instead be damage and healing. Thus allowing the potential for crits. Also allowing it to proc Vampiric/Vampiric Presence.

September 29, 2020

Reaper is a predominantly Power based specialization that is focused around doing a lot of damage.

Scourge is a hybrid of Condition damage and Support that generally errs more towards providing Support for allies.

Core Necromancer, is a very Tanky specialization that lacks in damage.

For PvE, Reaper is generally the best option. Though there are some rare times when Scourge is useful to a team for instanced content such as Strikes.

Core Necromancer is generally inferior to both Reaper and Scourge in PvE. It however is more viable in PvP/WvW due to its tankiness.

September 28, 2020

Time Bubbles.

Dragon's Stand and Dragonfall open world areas are at a time pre-killing of the Elder Dragon.

With the inferrence that when you are participating in the Meta event, that is when the Commander™ is going through the events in the story to enter the Elder Dragon and kill it from within.

Likewise, when you are doing the story to enter the Elder Dragon and kill it, it is inferred that the Pact forces are leading an assault on the body of the dragon (I.e. The meta event)

This is backed up with the story of HoT having you enter Mordremoth's mind to destroy it (Then finish its seed planted in Trahearne's mind) with the Heart in the Domain of Vabbi where you teach the students having you mention that Mordremoth died by impaling its head on a spike (Which is the result of the meta event in Dragon's Stand). It also explains why Modremoth impales itself on the spike, because the Commander™ has just finished destroying its mind.

September 28, 2020

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Full sets alone, for asura females alone:

It's worth noting, that while there may be a large number of skins with different names, their appearances aren't always dramatically different.

Such as how the vast majority of medium chest pieces are some form of leather coat, or how many light armour leggings are a skirt + tights.

This kind of repetitive design results in very small amounts of options to really make unique looks when 90% of what you have available looks so similar, even if there's a good number of different items.

September 26, 2020

If we're going with how useful Necro's signets are and combine it with how useful their Elites are...

I'd probably expect a Necro Elite Signet to be something like:

Passive:+180 Concentration

Active:Corrupt 1 boon from enemies in 600 radius. 90 second cooldown (500 seconds in PvP/WvW)

September 26, 2020

@"Lily.1935" said:But what do you guys think? Do you think Minions are doomed to forever be passive or are you like me and see some interesting potential for some explosive active play?

Probably.

It'd take work for ANet.

ANet doesn't have the resources for work on old stuff.

Take a look at all classes and their trash utility skill lines to see, when many simply need a few number tweaks rather than an entire overhaul of their mechanics.

Minions could be more active. In theory. But in reality it just won't happen and is made even less likely to happen given that they're utility skills.

Since, something like that quest/heart in Domain of Vabbi where you control the Awakened mooks with a banner would be a functional way to bring about the "Minion Master" fantasy without minions being passive, giving a weapon set that tasks you with directing them and triggering their abilities.Or something like PSO2 which I've been playing a bit since it got a Western release, where the Summoner class uses their pets as their weapons, which is similar in a way to the aforementioned banner but with the ability to swap weapons to bring out a new pet that has new attacks.

The best I could see, is an E-Spec that replaces Shroud with "Minions" that you can then control with the new Shroud skills (Whether it'd be a transformation like Death Shroud/Reaper Shroud or a set of independent F skills like Scourge is up to what ANet deems most suitable). Which could happen because it would be creating something new, which ANet can justify working on.

But in this case the actual "Minion" utilities will still be mostly passive where you just use Shadow Fiend's active every 20s and Flesh Golem's active every 40s and never use Bone Fiend's active or Bone Minion's active because they're not worth using. Of course, Flesh Wurm exists in a state where it's ONLY good for its active, because its a terrible minion but provides a nifty bit of mobility for Necro in PvP.

(It's worth noting, that the suggestion about having Bone Minions respawn on timers to replicate how Mantra charges work would make using Bone Minion's active worthwhile. Bone Fiend's active just plain sucks though)

September 25, 2020

@"Amanda Whitemoon.6173" said:
Ascension. In gw1 we had ascension, closer to the stars and Hunted! who all basicly had the same function ingame, but lorewise its different, now i recently saw a video that had all the nightfall cinematics . one of the lines in it , near the end is "we are all touched by abaddon, even who opposed him".Now this god me thinking, what if ascension is just being touched by the gods? Ascension in prophecies basicly is it, Closer to the Stars is it maybe in a way and with Hunted! thta happens right after you get pummeled by abaddon's demons and maybe his energy, and then purify that sanctum wich if im right has something to do with melandru, your basicly touched by the gods too , specifically Abaddon. so all 3 are all just about being touched by the gods.

It's stated in PoF, notably in Elon Riverlands where the Path to Ascension events take place, that Ascension has nothing to do with gods. Which is why there are charr there helping with it despite their shunning of religion.

Though, how accurate it is...

Honestly, most of the details around it seems to utilize Forgotten magic rather than gods.

@"Amanda Whitemoon.6173" said:
Whats with all the french named food dishes in the world, where do they come from, as so far we know there is no france on the map, but looked at food there is a france-inspired region somewhere that makes alot of food, where do you think it is?

There's multiple possibilities.

1) One of the races in Tyria could have a language that is similar to French. Given that for story purposes, every single race in the game speaks the same language, but realistically, each race likely developed its own language before learning the currently used one.

2) An ancient civilization could have spoken French. I.e. Orrians. But has since been destroyed.

3) Humans could have brought knowledge of other languages with them from their home planet. There's no "France" in Tyria... But what of their home planet?

September 24, 2020

@Vincible.1065 said:
Magic Find Max - is this a worthwhile goal?

It's useful, but not overly so.

I wouldn't invest any gold into it as you'll end up with eventually getting to the 300% cap from just normal salvaging stuff at level 80 to sell on the materials from on the TP. Not to mention log in rewards offer Luck consumables regularly.

@Vincible.1065 said:
Home InstanceWhat are some quick ways to get a few nodes in here?

Quickest way is to purchase off the gem store.

But I wouldn't recommend that. At best, maybe pick up some of the HoT/LW ones that can be purchased with their respective currencies if you have some spare.

@Vincible.1065 said:
LaurelsWhats worth going after?

Ascended gear can be useful, although there are easier places to get Ascended accessories (LW3 and LW4)

Infusions can be good to, while +4 stats isn't the best (Highest you can get is +5) it's easy to obtain compared to farming for +5's in Fractals or WvW (Of course, you'll need the ones from Fractals if you are doing Fractals due to the Agony Resistance)

Otherwise, grab material bags to turn into gold or craft stuff with.

@Vincible.1065 said:
KarmaShould I be trading these in for gold, or trying to save for a 'big ticket' type item?

I'd say save your Karma for now. There are useful items to purchase in Living World maps that require Karma.

After you obtain everything you can find for Karma, then start looking at exchanging spare Karma for gold (Though, you'll be hard pressed to find good trades, ANet keeps cracking down on any efficient Karma > Gold conversions)

@Vincible.1065 said:
Time gated craftingIs there much profit to be made from these items? Not sure how it compares to things like glyphs for investment vs payback, but it seems like crafting can be a big gold sink.

Not a lot... But some things can be useful.

Pieces of Skyscale Food are decent, with also use for when you want to get your own Skyscale mount too.

@Vincible.1065 said:
Dungeon currencies

Dungeon currencies are not worth much anymore. There's easier better ways to obtain level 80 exotic gear (For example, many core stat distributions are cheap on TP. A full set of Berserker gear, including armour, weapons and accessories, costs like 10g total) while any HoT stat distributions (4 stat gear) can be acquired from Verdant Brink.

Much of the use of dungeon currencies is merely for skins and a few Achievement Points for getting the collections. Though there are also some uses for the Runes obtained in some dungeons (For example, Rune of the Nightmare can be useful for some Condition builds)

September 24, 2020

There's actually quite a lot of skins available to earn in game.

The real issue is that they're either awful and look like something a hobo wore before giving it to you because it looked too bad for them.

Or they are locked behind ridiculous RNG (Teqatl weapons for example) or other such gates (Like getting a bajillion AP for the Zenith/Pinnacle weapons and Radiant/Hellfire armour. Or the large amount of materials required for Legendary items)

Of course, you'll stuggle to find sympathy for additional things to (Reasonably) farm for, because of the usual excuse of "You can farm for gold and convert that into gems to get gemstore items from playing the game"

Which is technically true. Albeit not quite as satisfying as say, working on a collection or doing specific events and getting drops especially when efficiency dictates doing something like farming Dragonfall 24/7 for maximum GPH...

September 23, 2020

Additional quest rewards are a reason to replay the story on additional characters.

Notable things include, free Order weapon skin from PS, 2(3) BLC Keys from PS, free Pact weapon (Worth like 10-25g on TP) from PS, Bladed Helmet box from HoT, Viper/Grieving box from HoT, Broken Caladbolg from HoT, Map Currencies from LW4.

PoF kind of gives sucky rewards though, with the garbagy rare items...

PS also gives a ton of those blue bags of loot which have a good chance at containing Unidentified Dyes. While LW/Expansion content gives different bags of trash with their quests.

September 23, 2020

@"RedCobra.7693" said:I think a lot more people would like hearts if they actually gave better rewards, other than a few heart vendors giving unique consumables theres no reason to actually do them, 1 silver and a bit of karma is a bit of a laugh, if its a one time completion the rewards should be much better.
Hearts should have had their own unique currency from the start and not be tied with events and karma, this way you always feel like your progressing with something rather than only being rewarded with the map completion at the end

Many hearts also give items that are used in Collections...

But yeah, one of the issues of Hearts is that they're not very rewarding. Made worse by the fact that all non-max level hearts give trash leveling gear that's easily outleveled and replaced by level up/PS gear...

Outside of that, they seem to fill the space of fluff content to pad out World Completion for Gift of Exploration especially in an age where mounts exist and trivialize obtaining Vistas/PoI's/Waypoints.

But to be honest, the same can be said about a lot of pre-80 content and rewards... It's all useless these days. Which is a shame, since I originally liked GW2 because unlike other MMO's it had leveling content that actually mattered. Nowadays, though, it's devolved right back into the same "Only max level matters" as every other MMO with free leveling gear given out like candy, E-Specs for level 80's only and every expansion and LW chapter only adds to level 80 content (One of the things that was actually good about LW1 was that because it happened within zones that were not necessarily level 80 zones, it was playable by low level characters)

@Zaoda.1653 said:Yeah honestly the heart completion things are just tedious. Some are quite quick to do, whilst others are painstakingly long. I also think there should be an option to pay a large gold fee (say, 100g?) to unlock all the waypoints on a character, only IF you've ALREADY completed world map completion on 1 character. That way if you want other alts to get around the world, you just pay 100g and all the waypoints are unlocked for that character.

Such a thing already exists.

Central Tyria Waypoint Unlock Package costs 2000 gems on the store, which puts it at ~654 gold.

I highly doubt they'd release this for 100g when they're selling the package for $25 worth of gems...

September 22, 2020

@Mortifera.6138 said:One of the benefits of ascended trinkets and accessories is that they're account bound.

And one of the benefits of Legendary accessories, is that you can change their stats on the fly.

@Mortifera.6138 said:But now that classes are running more than zerker

For the most part, they still are.

Zerker for Power builds (Marauder if you want more health)Viper for Condi builds (Greiving if you cap out your relevant condi duration)Marshal for Heal builds (Minstrel for WvW)Diviner for Boon builds.

@Mortifera.6138 said:we need ascended to adapt to this change: allow for stat changes on the fly, for free.

No we don't.

It's easy enough to obtain a set of Ascended trinkets in each relevant stat to have every build covered.

It's even easy enough to get a set of Ascended trinkets in each relevant stat, for each character you own.

@Mortifera.6138 said:I'm not getting the legendaries

Then you're not getting on the fly stat swapping.

Since that is a benefit of Legendaries. Just like being account bound is a benefit of Ascended.

September 21, 2020

Just have it so that in OW PvE, it only affects targets you're in combat with.

So neutral mobs and critters are unaffected unless you've aggro'd them.

No need to remake the thing entirely.

That said, I wouldn't be opposed to a rework to it given how awkward the current version is with its limited radius (Due to the inherent design being busted if it were to get a larger radius to allow for more AoE siphons)

@"Redpawa.4108" said:They are unlikely to change it to leech from foes on hit, as the thief signet already does that.

Thief's signet doesn't leech. It only heals on hit.

Also, if that was a strong argument, there wouldn't be the Elementalist signet that does the same thing.

September 20, 2020

@robertthebard.8150 said:
@Taril.8619 said:
@robertthebard.8150 said:
@Taril.8619 said:
@robertthebard.8150 said:
@Taril.8619 said:
@Laila Lightness.8742 said:This is an issue of ppl spying on what other ppl do in groups.

If people are wanting to do some content that requires a certain amount of DPS, surely they should be allowed to make note of when people are not performing to a satisfactory level?

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:Or kick ppl for not playing the meta.

Ironically, DPS meters help prevent this very thing.

Without DPS meters, people will kick for "Not playing meta". While with DPS meters, people can actually see if you perform to a satisfactory standard on a non-meta build.

DPS meters are the reason why people are allowed to play Necromancer. Before DPS meters were popular, people would not let Necro's into parties because they "Weren't meta" but once people realized that Reapers could actually put out decent numbers (For a rando PuG run) they're now accepted into parties.

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:Pleasw explain why you choosed an option

DPS meters are a helpful tool. But they're just that, a tool. It's down to how a person uses it.

Many people don't care about other people's DPS, so long as it's not abysmal. They'd rather just focus on improving their own performance and DPS meters are the way to accurately track that.

Discrimination from DPS meters is a minor aspect of them as a whole (One that is not unique to them either, just look at LI/killproof complaint threads...). An aspect that their very existence can actually help combat.

So I'm confused, on one hand you state that DPS meters do allow "non-meta" builds, but that they aren't used to evaluate other player's DPS...

When did I say they aren't used to evaluate other player's DPS?

I merely stated that most people don't really care about monitoring other player's DPS and/or discriminating against people for having mediocre or bad DPS so long as it's not abysmal (I.e. A pure DPS class being out DPS'd by the full Marshal geared Healer)

Even THEN many people don't even care until it starts to actually be a problem, such as failure to beat bosses in time.

A large number of players whom use DPS meters, really just care about personal DPS and self improvement. With the discrimination usage only being in some extreme scenarios for them, where players are actively harming the ability to complete some content.

A minority of players simply want to discriminate against players because they're buttheads and will try and use DPS numbers to aggressively discriminate against anyone they can (Sometimes without regard for their own terrible performance)

A useful tool for a majority of players shouldn't be removed because a minority of players are buttheads. Otherwise, we'd have to get rid of everything because no matter what, a minority of players will be buttheads...

DPS meters are, in fact, used to track other player's DPS, or nobody would know that "Necros are fine".

The notion of "Necros are fine" isn't necessarily indicative of DPS meters being used to track other player's DPS.

Since the notion can be brought across because someone on their own Necro managed to hit numbers similar to other classes and then disseminated that information. Then, when it becomes public knowledge, people no longer need to use a DPS meter to know "Necro's are fine".

Which is the case. Not everyone uses DPS meters. But most people know that "Necro's are fine". As it's public knowledge now. There's no need for Necro's to perform to a standard while being monitored to prove their right to be in a party, people just invite them and get on with things.

Such a thing is true across the board. No-one needs to prove their classes worth because people who've tested things with DPS meters, have made the knowledge widespread that there are no classes in the game that are horrible DPS. Even if they're not "Meta" any class can be utilized and perform well.

With the only notable exceptions are when looking at the top 0.01% min/max scenarios with (Nigh) perfect performances across the board where "Non-meta" classes get pushed down.

@robertthebard.8150 said:It's evidently not just the "buttheads" that are doing it, right?

It's just the "buttheads" that are prioritizing DPS meters for discrimination purposes.

Most people prioritize self performance (Or team performance in static groups) and discriminate only in more extreme situations.

@robertthebard.8150 said:Also of note, I did not call for their removal.

Nor did I state you did.

Then why did you claim it was:

**Ironically, DPS meters help prevent this very thing.

Without DPS meters, people will kick for "Not playing meta". While with DPS meters, people can actually see if you perform to a satisfactory standard on a non-meta build.

DPS meters are the reason why people are allowed to play Necromancer. Before DPS meters were popular, people would not let Necro's into parties because they "Weren't meta" but once people realized that Reapers could actually put out decent numbers (For a rando PuG run) they're now accepted into parties.**

This is copy/pasted from the first post I quoted in this chain...

Yes, I wrote that.

Have you read it though?

Nothing in that is specifically mentioning that DPS meters are used to monitor other players DPS.

Only the line "While with DPS meters, people can actually see if you perform to a satisfactory standard on a non-meta build" could be construed to mean that, but it isn't the only meaning.

People will look for a "Satisfactory standard" of DPS, but most people don't care enough to specificy what that is unless a group is failing content where they will then look at what the problem(s) might be and thus look to see if player(s) are not performing very well at all.

The popularization of DPS meters, means that more people are recording their own DPS on various non-meta builds and disseminating such info across the game, build sites (Like metabattle and even Snow Crows puts up non-meta builds) and also the forums.

If someone is being a butthead about DPS numbers and discriminating heavily as a result, well... Now they can do it based on your actual performance by checking their DPS meter, instead of doing what these people used to do, which was discriminate based on arbitrary things such as Class or Achievement Points and thus deny access to a party before you even entered.

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