Joe Schmoe.6981

Gw2 dead? Hell no! This game is like New York, it never sleeps. It's totally unlike when I played FF XIV, where by late evening (US Central, FWIW) it's already starting to die down, and by early morning it's dead as a doornail. Same with WoW. Here, stuff's going on at all hours. It's one of the reasons why this game is my favorite MMO right now. 😄

Favorite weapon: Would Elite Mortar Gun count? (although I'm burnt out from playing it so much). Favorite weapon skin: Any of the Plain Jane level 1 ones. I don't do fancy. Playstyle: Short answer, I hate tab targeting! Otherwise, I prefer healing/support builds, so my weapon choices (staff for guardian & revenant, Med Kit for engineer, etc) reflect that.

My big rule: Don't follow the herd. Otherwise . . . . . . . . It might be easiest to explain why my main is a mortar/alchemy engineer (and occasionally a flamethrower scrapper):• Not a very popular build. Apparently engineer is one of the least popular professions, and the fact that mortar isn't very popular either - I seldom hear mortar sound effects other than my own when in open-world content - makes this even less so. As stated above, I don't like to follow the herd.• Most of its abilities must be manually aimed. Most of gw2's abilities don't require a target per se, but with mortar it's completely pointless to do so. Truly tab-free targeting!• No elite spec required. I do have a scrapper spec, but it wasn't easy to get the 250 (I think) hero points required though, and I definitely didn't do it overnight. Thank god I had my mortar/alchemist build to carry me through.

My fave? Probably my mortar/alchemist (think, the chemist from Final Fantasy Tactics) core engineer (should be in my sig below), where most of your abilities have to be manually aimed. I hate tab targeting! I'll also play my flamethrower scrapper from time to time as well, as flamethrowers don't need a target either.

I chose "for fun", but there's actually a few reasons as to why I do world bosses: • Difficulty. The difficulty of them, overall, is just right. Not too hard, not too easy. • Fun atmosphere. World bosses reminds me of the Eureka mini-game in Final Fantasy XIV, where it's basically this big outdoor festival, with lots of people around, except we're all there to fight a big boss and not rock out to the band that's on stage lol. • Loose timings. With a few exceptions (Karka Queen & Golem Mark II come to mind) you have plenty of down time until the next boss/pre-events starts up, so there's little need to rush, unlike 5-man stuff, where it's GOGOGO!

It's taken up almost all my time, but I'm also the kind of person that can only play one MMO at a time (previously it was Runescape, then World of Warcraft, then Final Fantasy XIV) , so there's that as well. I do however, play a 2D fighter called alongside gw2, often while waiting for world bosses to spawn. I'll also have an idle game called Melvor Idle (although it should really be called Runescape Idle, since it's what the idle game is based off of) running in the background as well.So basically, this supposed "side MMO" is actually my main MMO, with other games along for the ride lol.

You could always do world bosses. I find them to be my "sweet spot", difficulty-wise. Not too easy (in general), not too hard. Plus, you'll be around lots more people than just being jammed in with 4 other people, which makes for more of a party atmosphere than being in an actual party lol.

Sure do! It's one of the biggest reasons engineer is my main (especially his Elite Mortar Kit, not to mention that all of its abilities have to be manually aimed. I hate tab-targeting :angry: ). Although like others have said, it seems that not everything that glitters is gold (I mostly use water and light fields, with an occasional ice field. I hardly even touch the poison and fire ones). The combo system could definitely use some improvement. ;)

What do I like about this game? Ohhhh, let me count the ways: • The fact that there's only 7 gear tiers, as opposed to other MMOs I've played (namely Runescape, World of Warcraft, and Final Fantasy XIV), where it's a huge multitude of item levels (ranging from ilvl 1 to ilvl 535 in Final Fantasy XIV :o ). Gear is kept simple in this game. • The many different paths of gearing you can take, especially at the end game. The best gear in the game can be gotten from PvP, PvE, crafting, etc etc. Most other MMOs I've played the only way to get the best gear is by doing raids and that's it. Any other activity only nets you the subpar stuff. Basically, everything you want to do in this game is worth it. • Versatile classes, kinda like a game called Grim Dawn. Rangers and necromancers, to name a few, can also be melee fighters as well. Elementalists, aka mages, can also be healers. Other MMOs would've just shoehorned these classes into one-trick ponies (warriors only melee fight and can't wield bows, rangers/hunters/bards can only use ranged weapons, etc etc). Truly makes for many many ways to play. • Useful abilities (mainly heals and buffs), especially in open-world content. Abilities that affect "allies" affect all nearby players, not just ones in your party. Even NPCs can be affected as well! With other MMOs I've played - Final Fantasy XIV first comes to mind - a lot of their abilities only affect party members, with only the low-level single target heals being castable on non-party members. Makes random acts of kindness not so worth it. :/ • Useful ground-targeting. I prefer to hold down the attack button and then releasing it, rather than just toggling on and off. No other MMO I can think of has this option. And speaking of ground-targeting,.... • The only MMO where your whole attack mode can be ground-targeting/manually aimed (via engineer's mortar and grenade kits). I love this mode, especially after having to deal with tab-targeting since the 2010s (World of Warcraft & Final Fantasy XIV)! A welcome change from all that crap. • The fact that the open-world gets a lot of love in this game. Other MMOs treat it like it's just a stepping stone to dungeons & raids. Lots of the world bosses - dragons, huge elementals, etc. - that you see in open-world content would only exist in higher-tiered content in other MMOs. In those, all you see in open-world is just larger versions of mook monsters and that's it. sigh • Actual hard & varied dungeons/fractals. Nearly every other MMO I've played they've all been just glorified corridors, with some monsters & bosses thrown in. Not here. Jumping puzzles, carry item A to receptacle B, and other mechanics I can't think of at the moment give a lot of variety to these. • The different types of mounts. Leaping mounts, high-jumping mounts, hovering mounts, among others. Other MMOs, notably World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV, it's either they fly or they don't. Not much variety there. :/ • As controversial as it might sound, being able to buy gems/gold. It's such a time & grind saver, just buying what I need, and not have to spend time running all over God's Green Country to get what I need to get. All I can think of at the moment. Might be more later. ;)

I really don't have much of a history, since I've only been playing this game for a couple of months. So I guess what I can do is just show my rather short list of "keepers" (I've tried all classes except guardian and engineer), and my inspirations behind them. My first character that stuck, a warhorn/mace/greatsword warrior. I'm a warrior guy, and it's nice to see warriors that don't just "You point, I punch!" for once. This is my second character. Other than wielding an axe instead of a mace, he's an exact copy of my other warrior. The name "Good ol' Charlie Brown" was inspired by this comic (I'm a weirdo, I know.....): This is my current character, a healing/support revenant. My all-time favorite DPS class has been, and probably always will be, . . . . . not even a DPS class at all. It was the healer monks in World of Warcraft, when the Mists of Pandaria expansion first came out, and the rev healer plays almost exactly like it, healing orbs, a healing totem (that you can move, unlike WoW), and best of all, you can melee-heal (I hate ranged/casting)! So, it looks like I'll be playing this guy a while. Oh, and the name Linus came from:

Nearly all the items listed here. I've also converted a lot of gems -> gold (bought ~ $500 worth. I'm not proud :/ ) as well, as I brought a lot of "bad" habits with me coming into this game, having played Runescape for 6 years, World of Warcraft for 4.5 years, and Final Fantasy XIV for about 3.5 years. This game plays a lot differently from other MMOs, so it definitely makes for a "wish I knew then what I know now" moment.

Yeah, he's me. What you see is what you get. Role-play just goes over my head, so basically my characters thoughts/opinions are mine. ;)

A slight lean towards "no". Personally, I like them. It's cool as hell analyzing all the stats, painting a big picture of a run. Problem is, like some others have said, is it often gets abused by short-sighted people who only look at the DPS numbers, and not all the other stats that factor in that explains why the DPS is what it is, or the underlying reason why a wipe occurred. For this reason, I'd gladly go without this feature if it means that it would give players one less reason to be douches. Side note: 99% of my experiences with DPS meters comes from an addon called Recount, which is what I used back when I played WoW. I tried ArcDPS, but it was crashing my game, so I stopped using it, so I don't know that much about it.

My "default" character choice has been, and always will be, the warrior. But it has to be a certain kind of warrior, like what you see in a game like this, or a game like say, Diablo 2. Multi-faceted warriors that can do a variety of things, like in this game, banners and shouts and whatnot. I've seen warriors poorly done, like in FF XIV. In there, they were just the dumb muscle big axe-wielding rage-filled "HULK SMASH!" characters, very one-dimensional (still my all-time favorite MMO though, don't get me wrong). Lots of cheap RPGs do this as well, just make them the "Guys that bring the red/STR-flavored damage". Very boring. I'm into the Sun-Tzu/Zhuge Liang/Musashi/David Goggins/Jocko Wilink kind of warriors. Otherwise, I'll typically try each class at least once. But in this game, with the exception of maybe the thief, (the engineer and guardian I don't plan on playing as I don't care for them for one reason or another, at least not yet anyway), I ended up coming back to my warrior. Oh, for what it's worth, here's a previous thread post about how I chose my main.

But to be fair, I have tried other classes, but they didn't pan out for one reason or another (FWIW none of these are at 80. I'm a newbie player as well, so there might be something I missed):