adrunkmunkey.6059

Windowed Fullscreen on dx11 seems to give me some frames back, but eod has been pretty bad for me since launch overall. Echovald runs fine, but the city and seitung are all over the place. Takes a full 10 seconds for my mount to load almost everytime. Everything else and every other map runs buttery smooth.

Get an elite spec and make sure all of your gear, including trinkets and rings and such, are exotic quality and share similar stats. Don't go jack of all trades (if you do, get celestial gear though it's quite expensive and not really worth it unless you're a specific build). Get stuff that enhances whatever you do. Side note: toughness also increases aggro from enemies. Not exactly sure how this works with the ranger but I assume if you have a lot of toughness the enemies will target you over your pet

I'll say this about elementalist. Don't be put off by how "difficult" the class is. I started as a guardian, which despite what everyone and their mother says, is not the Uber easy cheat mode class everyone seems to think it is. Sure, it's a beast in endgame, but it's also incredibly squishy and now that I have 5 total classes at 80 I can confidently say it is not a beginner friendly class. I struggled but I learned, and by the time I finished Path of Fire I finally felt like I truly learned that class. My point here is, sure elementalist is squishy and there's some complexity with having to switch between 5 elements. However, you only have a handful of weapons to choose from, so you'll have one weapon with 5 different sets. By the time you're 80, you'll know which element to switch to press which button on for what situation. You'll know dodge timings and I frames better than necros (imo, the true easy mode class). If you look up online, the thief is supposedly terrible in pve stuff bc of how squishy it is and it can't put out the stupid numbers some classes can. You know what it can do though? Solo a champion, take on a group of mushroom bombers or snipers, and carry you through surprisingly tough fights because of it's insane dodge roll for the daredevil. Every class is viable, and unless you are looking for hard mode raids, top tier pvp or just to show off your dummy numbers, pick the class that seems cool and feels fun. And even in those super mega high level content stuff, every class has an elite build that's either meta or close enough too it.

Gonna throw my bone in here to balance this out. I love the jumping puzzles. Sure, they're a bit out of place, but it adds to the environment in such a cool way. It adds that missing element from Skyrim of "ok, how do I get up there now?" I don't even need Tyria mastery anymore and I still love doing vistas and such when I come across one I haven't done (I don't even cheat with the bunny... most of the time). Having said that, I don't think they should never be seen in any form of quest, but at least have some kind of option in story missions to skip after a few fails. I can see how that would feel like a gate. On top of that, having enemies that slow or knock you down on the fractal puzzles is obnoxious. Wind or platform mechanics are welcome, stupid enemy aggroing you is not

First off, just in case, put "action camera" in your keybinds to something close to your hand. Idk why this is off by default, but I'm always in action camera mode during gameplay (but you sometimes need an unlocked cursor). Now one I really wish I knew before hitting 80, you can keybinds combos like shift + whatever. This literally unlocked access to my utilities, since up till that point I barely used them. Now, shift A/S/D are my utilities, shift side mouse is my heal and shift middle is my ult, and they're fired off almost always off cool down (when appropriate of course). I have my mounts on shift+ keys, and a couple of my F abilities changed as well. Went from frantically trying to play piano in HoT maps to... well, at least not playing piano but much more effective

My buddy and I did a dungeon at 2am on a Monday. It was a low level dungeon and I threw it up on lfg just to see. We waited maybe, maybe 5 minutes for it to fill up. I was expecting like one person but we did the dungeon with a full group, at 2am. People still do them. Also, there's no way just making a new account is the same as starting fresh for the first time to compare, as you already have experience with the unlocks. Practically everyone has gone through the f2p experience by this point. The only major difference in paid vs free on the first run is stuff that doesn't matter much till 80 anyways like responding in map chat (just whisper to group up). Everything else unlocks just the same. If you want your friends to stay, do what I did. Sell the game as a relaxing, casual experience, bc it is until you hit the endgame (and even then, only when you're doing the hard content. I still go back to early maps to get mats and just chill out on metas and enjoy the music and artstyle).

Yes please. And while we're at it, change revenants main attack sound for... Like all of the weapons. I keep hearing scepter everytime I attack with that class.

I get social anxiety, I have it myself, but you really don't need to talk to people that much unless you're trying to do really hard stuff. If you have the apple mentor tag, just put it up and people will usually stop by to see what you're doing. Try builds that may not be considered meta, since the meta builds assume you don't need to worry about survivability (I'm a guardian main. Most meta builds for guard forego survivability for increased damage ala "kill them before they kill you") Throw on a cheap set of maurader stats and try to avoid elite or champions, since those are designed for more than one person or very very skilled and patient players. I don't want this game to be easier. The difficulty hits such a nice spot for me, even as one of the easy to learn, hard to master classes. If you're really struggling and just cannot do anything social whatsoever in this game, then idk man. Play Necro lol

Stepping into Heart of Thorns for the very first time. Though the core maps are beautiful, and still hold up as sometimes I still choose to walk instead of mount up in the old maps, but stepping into HoT for the first time and standing on that rock looking out is just incredible. The sheer depth of the map, the tangled angry vines, the fog, the playful music. Then you get melted by the first mob. You don't know what happened, you don't know why, but that endgame challenge you expected hits you harder than you thought and you start the slow but most rewarding journey in the game: learning the versitality and limitations of your class. You learn your style of play: popping in for dps bursts, tanking with boons and reactions, controlling mobs and the flow of the fight, etc. You start gearing and re-gearing depending on your play style. You learn an elite specialization and realize how drastically different it plays than the core, even if it doesn't seem like it would by looking at the stats. If I could replay anything, it's that moment of beauty and difficulty of hitting that first expansion. Now, looking back, I know why people told me the game begins at max level. It really, really does

Willy didn't really click for me until I geared for condition and started throwing that f2 into the end of my regular rotations. It pulls you out to adjust targets and so you can teleport back in with one of the many port skills. With the way I play it now, I become the AoE by laying down claws around weaker parts of the mob so justice can keep refreshing and I can have multiple claws down while zipping around picking my targets and barely getting hit. With single targets, I've taken down elites by basically dancing with them so they have to keep adjusting to attack me.

Only one of the new professions I've tried is willbender, and I can't seem to want to switch back to firebrand. It doesn't put up the numbers quite as well, not does it buff like a madman, but flying around fights laying down claw flames and cotton candy colored spin-to-wins is just so much fun. I feel like I have more survivability due to the added movement skills, on top of being able to pick out problems in mobs and adjust. Switching back to firebrand just feels so sluggish and limiting now (but easy, since both benefit from condition bonuses, so you can use FB gear on Willy for a minor loss in DPS)

Literally made a thief last week named Quietly Farting. I don't think there's an issue with names being taken

I've played a ton of fb and have been playing wb for weeks now. You can easily run both, as both can have the same gear and as others said suffer only a minor DPS loss (meaning, you can run the same gear as condi fb on your willy and be just fine. It's what I do). The main difference is coop friendly versus imo more survivability. For fb, your survivability is tied to what skills you use and when, where as for wb it's moreso similar to theif where it's more about placement and movement/dodges. Willy clicked for me when I realized having multiple teleport moves allowed for more strategic movements with my f2 ability. It fires off quickly, it's an evade, breaks movement condis, and gives alac. With fb I'm raining down hellfire while moving around slightly and slowly. With Willy I'm zipping around throwing down flaming claws and picking out the problems in the mobs. Edit: for people complaining about the loss of quickness, I just slot in a quickness rune on my sword since I'm critting almost every attack anyways. Sure, it doesn't have the uptime or the insane DPS burst, but I much rather have the movement and dodges instead.

This is exactly what I was thinking. This is their opportunity to finish adding MMO things like player housing and such. Plus, playing through the old maps again with a buddy and my alt, the underwater portions that were so heavily advertised when the game came out seem so forgotten. The underwater combat sucks bc it's been untouched for so long, and my dreams of these vast underwater cities to explore ended up being these empty seashell "houses" for the ugly dumb dolphin people. No lighting, no decorations, just these empty shells with those creatures floating around. Come on, I want a reason to show off my submarine manta ray

Just tag up on the map chat every hour or so. If people start joining, keep posting on the map till you guys start. That way people just porting in can also join. I've noticed that maps that are quiet when a meta starts sometimes just need someone to spark it up, like last night when I did queensdale