EpicName.4523

I think most people are missing the point. Yes, most IBS masteries are kinda useless. Yes, HoT also had difficult to get mastery points. Yes, I suppose making the points to fill the masteries difficult to obtain leads to more replayability of the content. Problem is, most masteries are useless AND the points to fill them are difficult to obtain. If the masteries were actually gamebreaking (like gliding) it would only make all of this even more frustrating. Points are harder AND more time consuming to get than in HoT, because very few things in HoT required you to do things like collecting 5000 commendations x 4 for each point, doing 15 metas for Bjora or 10 for Drizzlewood with next to no alternatives. And finally, once you finish the achievements to acquire said points, for masteries that are mostly useless, you are already done with that content and there is very little use for those masteries. United Legions line is the exception. Oh, and forgot to mention that instead of providing rewards that people would want to obtain in order to make the metas more replayable, they simply make them mandatory for the points. It is a stick without a carrot policy where you are punished for not grinding metas to death.

Icebrood masteries are plentiful. Many of the higher ranks (rank 4 essence of valor, resilience and whatever the last one was) are absolutely pointless while also consuming tons of points. Game would be better if they never existed. And to get mastery points you have to grind. You have to grind metas, you have to farm commendations, you have to do the same thing over and over and over again, so you can grind one useless point more in order to finally start acquiring spirit shards. The fun part is that by the time you actually finish all the masteries...you have done all there is to do in Icebrood. Like, you are done. There is no point or need for this. Instead of using the masteries to improve your gameplay, you play in order to finish said masteries and hopefully never come back again. You might do the occasional strike mission here and there, but that's about it. This system is a huge fail. I only hope the devs have enough sense not to repeat it in EoD...

Maybe this is not the best place to ask, but I don't know where. I am after a particular look on my elementalist that I thought impossible to recreate until recently. My idea was to combine fire on one side and ice on the other. Basically the character should be like split from head to toe in red and blue. Think the weaver gauntlets. This, combined with Elemental Fury Backpack is very theme appropriate, I think, but impossible to do. Or so I thought? Today, I saw a revenant with this very same backpack and his left side was white, while the right one was black. As far as I know you can't paint your gear that way unless I am missing something? Any ideas?

EU This is not about strength. There is very little damage to be done on the last mission, but lots of dodging. Dodge the plant bombs, dodge the earthquakes and meanwhile prevent shadows from extinguishing the flames. More people means that they can activate the bombs faster and more easily prevent extinguishing.

Living world season 2 story achievements, the last ones in particular ( Mystery Cave) are veeery annoying. I'm looking for other people who have not yet done it to party up.

Celestial stats seem to be very flexible all around. They work pretty well in open world and WvW. However, some professions seem to be able to get more from it than others. I view guardians and elementalists as pretty good candidates for celestial gear and already have equipped mine with such sets. Questions is, what other professions benefit the most from celestial? Which specs are truly better with celestial compared to other stats?

I convinced a friend to try out the game (free to play, obviously) and I wonder what profession to recommend him to start out with. I believe warrior, guardian, ranger and possibly thief might be the simplest options. However, I wonder, if you don't have access to elite specs, which profession will allow you to be viable in most end game? Which core profession available on F2P will find a place in fractals, dungeons, pvp and so on without much work?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skyscale_Ascension_Mounts_Pack I have a question here. The above mentioned pack is 2000gems on the store. What I want to know is if you have the option to buy individual skins from this pack. The wiki is suggesting it is either all or nothing. If this is the case, then there is a very shady business practice going on here. Why? Well, I bought the Branded mount skins years ago. 1600 gems. Four skins. I want to finish my collection and get all the Branded stuff. Right now I see Warclaw pack for 2000 gems and no option to buy individual skins. This means that instead of 1200/400 or something, they want me to spend 2000 gems for skins I would absolutely never want to use. Then comes the Skyscale Ascension which also costs 2000 gems and, as I suspect, no option to buy what I really want. 2000 instead of 1200/400 for branded warclaw. Nice trick. Here comes the punch line - The Branded beetle is in the Mistborn pack. You CAN buy it for 400 gems according to the wiki! Come on, Anet. You want money. I want skins. I assure you, however, that if you try to cheat me, you won't get my money. This leaves us both unhappy. I can play without skins, but you ( I assume) want more cash. How about you stop trying to cheat and give players the option to buy the thing they actually want instead of the things they DONT want?

For open world and possibly WvW, what would be better for an elementalist - marshal or celestial? Any builds you find to be particularly effective with any of the above two stat combinations?

I have invested a lot of time in this game to simply leave. However, you know that S is hitting the fan if the buyer is: -EA - Nothing bad said about this company will be untrue. Literally nothing. -ActiBlizz - The real talent left and the only thing pushing these guys forward is corporate greed creating wealth on the backs of overworked and underpaid staff. Complete lack of passion or vision. -Epic - Well-known sleazebags with connections to Tencent and capable of extracting personal information without you even being aware. Amazon - Company owned by one of the richest, most well connected men of earth, throwing its tentacles at everything and polluting it with its filth. Any of the above can make me quit if it comes to it.

No idea. Nvm, found someone to finish the achievement so the thread is irrelevant. Delete thread, please.

War Eternal in season 4 (Dragonfall) has an achievement in the first story instance to shoot Kralk's wings from Aurene's back. It is clunky as hell and cannot be skipped. 18 from 18 achievements or no corsair boots. I've tried this three times on three different characters and still can't do it. I'm afraid I will run out of alts to attempt this, because when I quit a chapter and press to "play again", it returns me to the very same part of the story. Is there any way to completely reset an episode/chapter? On the Internet it was suggested to find a group of several people to do this easy. If someone has this on their "to do" list, I will gladly team up. EU.

Reward track doesn't grant you the staff thing?

This achievement has some of the most annoying requirements out of any mastery I have seen so far. Not only numerous, but annoying. You also can't do it in WvW. Why? I have seen a lot of complaints in map chat while trying to finish this horrible chore, so I guess I am not the only one. Feels like someone made this to: A)force down the throat of others this "amazing" content B)extract some kind of revenge on the playerbase

I guess you can't skip dialogue then. Very unfortunate...

The NPCs...I am doing Seasons of the Dragons and this means finishing every story mission all over again. NPCs just talk too much, especially if you redo certain mission all over for achievements. Someone told me that in season 4 you can skip dialogue, but not in season 3. Is that true and how to do it?

Elementalist is the lowest health, squishiest profession in the game. The original concept was of a ranged caster which mutated into some huge mess of a melee button masher. And for all the difficulty of the button mashing, for all the survivability problems, there is no pay-off. You press several low impact abilities to do the same thing other professions do with one. One trap from a dragon hunter can do more damage than several damage skills of an elementalist, for example. Additionally, the removal of the ability to switch weapons in combat means that if you are ranged, you will deal very little damage and if you are melee, you are at a huge risk of dying. It is not fun. My suggestion is simple. If we cannot switch weapons in combat, because that is clearly overpowered...oh boy, just make each attunement more specialized. Fire should be all about condi damage with very little direct damage, with the bleeds from earth being turned into burning. Water should be all about healing and defensive buffs, many of which are now also in earth. Air should be all RANGED abilities since we cannot switch to ranged in combat and vice versa. Earth should be focused on hard hitting, power based skills. Basically, instead of mixing several attunements and waiting for cooldowns, to both heal and defensively buff yourself(earth and water), you have one attunement for that. Instead of constantly switching between fire and earth to deal condi damage, you have one attunement to get the job done. This reduces the annoying button mashing, where you press several abilities to do the same thing, but since there are so many of them, their individual effects are kinda pathetic. Balance? And finally, in case you get low on health or simply prefer to blast from a distance, you can go air (ranged) without feeling constantly kitten, unlike some other professions.

Nobody mentioned sinister. Has condi as a major stat, power and precision. Isn't that better than carrion?

What about trailblazer?

I wanted to finish certain achievement (fearful) where you have to kill an enemy with as few attacks as possible. I watched a video of a guy using trailblazer gear. In order to finish the same achievement I crafted a dire set , including daggers and it worked pretty well. Simply copied metabattle condi daredevil build with dire instead of trailblazer. On the forums, I have seen people suggesting carrion. Vallun made a video not too long ago using celestial. In the end, what stats to go for as condi thief? The idea is to primarily focus on open world and achievements, but if it works in say, WvW, it would only be a plus. So carrion, dire, trailblazer or celestial and maybe a build suggestion to go with it?

The real question is: What is the purpose of Catalyst if we already have Weaver? Catalyst was trash and remains so to this day. Just because they turned up the damage numbers on a golem doesn't make it good and more importantly - FUN.

Nvm, pls delete.

The future of Catalyst is clear - over time it will likely be buffed to dish out great dps in PvE, regardless of how boring the concept is or how clunky it is to play. Anet will then pat itself on the back and claim Catalyst was a major success.

Recently watched a video by a guy who likes to eat potatoes made out of wood. This guy mentioned how he would prefer to have p2win mechanics in the gem store rather than cosmetics. He was insane, of course, but that doesn't matter. Point is, seems that a lot of people thought that the gem store undermines their in-game cosmetics and wanted to have the option to unlock said items after some delay in-game. Personally, I think the gem store is absolutely fine the way it is(except mount skins), but it led me to think what I want. You know what I want? I want the option to reliably unlock those super cool looking cosmetics bought with black lion statues after certain period of time has passed. Come on, 60 statues for a single item available for a limited time? Be reasonable! If the unlock is through achievements or through gem store, I don't care. This will allow the devs to retain their revenue and add something cool for the players. Win-win?

Ah, here we come again with the mount skins. I already made a post some time ago how poorly the mount skins were handled, but this time Anet did a whoopsie that will hurt their pocket, not mine. Warclaw Frontline Mount Pack. Five skins. For the same mount. 2000 gems. Why? Who in their right mind would buy five skins for the same mount? Give me the option to get one at a reasonable price and you will have a customer. Sell me the one I want + four others and no sale for you. It's not a rant, really, but the one who chose to sell these skins in that particular way should really find another job...