Malice.5867

Hey guys, I have the quip "starter pack" from the vault and a free aurene precursor from the gem (don't even remember how and when I got it) and they are both soulbound. If I use them to craft leggies, will they be soulbound as well? Thanks

I would either press W and spin around holding right mouseclick or I'll hold both mouse buttons to move. I've been using QER for my utility skills since day one and it never even crossed my mind to use them to move lol

I think that the issue is most likely the randomness of of your gear and the efficiency of your rotation. For referrence I would suggest checking the wvw build- https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Weaver_-_Staff_Backline it's probably the closest thing to what you are trying to achieve. You can find a lot of details regarding the usage of the build and I'm sure that there will be something helpful inside. Once you check the build and make sure that you are doing the right things I would suggest optimizing your gear asap. This is something that I used to neglect but it is actually a huge deal. Here is a very rough example: a fully berserker geared character has about 2300 power. Adding scholar runes to the gear provides additional 175 power, over 200 ferocity and 5% damage. Adding infusions is another 90 power. The best food gives you 100 power and probably another 100 from the correct utility. Sigil of force on your weapon will provide 5% damage. So in the end the optimized berserker gear will have about 2750 power and two 5% damage modifiers. That is a very signifficant increase that will have a huge impact on your damage. The more you min/max the equipment the greater the effect of these small modifiers will be.

I think you should do what you enjoy the most. If you are in to the story do them in order, if you don't care about it and you are trying to speedrun the game or something get the mounts first. However, keep in mind that the mounts are not cheap and there are some timegates that can't be skipped. So if you decide to go that route it won't be as simple as do the POF story before the HOT story. Of course, there are few more things to consider like what are you planning to do as endgame content? If you are planning on playing primarily pvp or instanced pve content there is no point for you to rush the mounts. If you are planning on doing mainly open world stuff then you will get a lot more value from them. Personally, I would do them in order. If you are already max level and you have to do is the personal story quests you can do tyria in no time. HOT is not that long either and the map is build around gliding, so the mounts won't help that much (except the skyscale in some places)

Honestly, unless you are doing serious raiding with a min/max group you can make any class work for you in open world content. I would suggest playing around with all classes that you find interesting in the pvp lobby. Just make a lvl1 thief or w/e, go to the mists and you will be max level with everything unlocked. This way you can test the actual gameplay of the build on the various golems and npcs to see if you like it. Enjoyment beats performance (again, unless in a serious T4 fractal, raid, ect). Warriors have a super easy rotation, deal great damage and are really useful for group content, but you find them boring to play, so they might fit your criteria but are you willing to play something that you don't enjoy? Also, keep in mind that some of the elite specs are very transformative. You mentioned that you played Rev- the herald power sword build has a very different playstyle compared to the condi renegade. I'd suggest that you give the rev a further look, especially the condi shortbow build. It has a pretty easy rotation and I faceroll everything (you also use just shortbow, so no need to switch weapons). As for your thief question- the staff power daredevil is meta for all high end instanced content. The staff really ruins the thief easthetic for me so I don't like it at all, but it is super powerful and you shouldn't have troubles finding groups. My personal recommendation would be the trapper dragonhunter (https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Dragonhunter_-_Power_Greatsword). All you have to do is place your traps, spin with your sword and everything will be dead before you even finish "your rotation" (if you are looking for a lower intensity build you can just ignore the second weapon set and stick with greatsword only).

I'm not sure that I agree. Rangers and Thiefs are great for roaming and I'm encountering plenty of roamers (especially in the evenings and weekends). I also don't think that what you are suggesting is going to make any difference. Just look at it from a new players perspective. They decided to join the mode, spent half an hour running around like a headless chicken getting ganked left and right for basically 0 rewards and in this case 0 fun. Do you really think that if a change like this gets implemented this player will think "well, now that the boons are shorter the mode will be fun for me" ? However, I do agree that the mode feels icredibly stale and new players avoid it like the plague. To make the mode feel fresh, exciting and lure new blood we need something a lot more gamechanging then tweaking the boons. The way I see it we need increased incetives for literally everything in the mode. Things like: Weekly WVW quest/achievement type of thing that requires you to get X amount of solo kills to promote roaming. Extra reward for the world that is first, so the blob players will be incentivised to cap more things. EOTM revamp. This is probably the map with the coolest aesthetic in the game and it has been dead for years. Giving new players something: like an option to rent warclaw if they don't have the expansions and/or some beginner-friendly weekly achievements/quests like the ones mentioned above but way simpler.

That is just plain wrong. If you truly believe this you most likely never crafted a legendary and/or you are playing the game for a couple of hours a week. As I said most chapters can be replayed within an hour- the vast majority require you to complete the story (15-30 mins of instanced gameplay), gather 50 times (15 mins) and do the meta event of the map (some are like 10mins long others 30, so let's say a 20min average). Even if you are doing everything slower, doing extra events on the side and so on it should not take you more then 2 hours per zone. Assuming that this is the case it should be a total of about 45-50 hours to complete all 23 achievments. After these 45 hours of slow, suboptimal gameplay you will end up with a legendary and enough resources to buy an additional 6 ascended trinkets. The only thing this costs is your time. The rest of the legendaries cost between 2 and 3k gold and some of them have timegates that require you to wait for weeks (even if you have all other resources). So if you are correct, you should be able to easily farm 2.5k gold in 45 hours? I don't want to sound rude, but if jumping puzzles take you multiple hours and you can't find or organize a group for a meta event FOR DAYS I really doubt that you have the capabilites of farming that gold.

Agreed, I should've suggested flattening instead of completely reversing the rewards so people would get a better idea of what I mean by my post instead of thinking that I want a system that promotes less gameplay or gives free things to the new players.

I would suggest trying them all out before making a decision. Make a new character and go to the pvp lobby. You will automatically be scaled to max lvl and have everything unlocked. This way you can try some of the builds and see if you like the gameplay. I did this mistake a few times, I saw "a cool guy" absolutely crushing with a spec that I don't play. My first thought was "dam, I want to be able to do that". I found the build, tested it out and realised I have absolutely 0 fun playing it.

I'm sure that a lot of the veteran players (including myself) would love that. However, the idea is that the first rewards are not lucrative enough to attract new blood to the mode. The new players will never make it to diamond in the first place.

I said EASIER then completing a long collection. Maps like Grizzlewood reward like 15-20g per hour, the game gives you 2g for the daily, the HOT metas take literally minutes and give you a few gold as well. And that is just the super casual content, I'm not even suggesting Fractals, Raids, etc. (and not even farming the casual stuff) Assuming that you don't get a lucky drop and you casually do a few meta events here and there you should have absolutely no troubles getting 20-25g a day just from playing the game. This way you can get an outfit per week if you want to. Of course, this is just a rough example to show that IT IS possible and not that difficult to obtain gem items without the need of implementing thousand new collections.

I'm not sure that I agree. The people that like and play WvW do it primarily for fun. The vast majority of WvW players play it almost exlusively (not everyone ofc, but this is the main mode of the game they play). They are high ranks and already have most of the rewards they can possibly get. I've never gotten the last chest and think to myself "whelp, now there is no point to play anymore". So the core WvW players will play and cap the rewards no matter how they are structured, the afk pip farmers will always do the same because it takes no effort to do it. And this leaves only the new players affected by a change like this. (and this is not even a recommendation to change it, just wanting to see how other players feel about the current structure).

I see you point, but you can obtain any gemstore item with gold. Why make a ton of unnecessary collections (they will be a ton because there are a buttload of gemstore skins) when anyone can just play the game, save up some gold and buy the item this way? The average outfit/skin is 700-800 gems and that is roughly 200g. Especially for PVE players that do meta events and things like that it will be way faster to farm up that 200g then to run around and complete a long collection that has multple stages. To implement something like this would require a lot of work from Anet to resolve an issue that does not exist in the first place.

You are absolutely right- people will never be happy and will find something to complain about. I don't want anyone getting free stuff nor I believe that wvw should be the fastest and most efficient way of obtaining legedary gear. However, making it a tiny bit better for new players might attract more people into joining wvw and some of them might actually stay past the rewards. Cutting a 15 week timegate to 10 could be huge for some players (still the ones that want to go all the way are going to get the required tickets in 6 weeks) As an experienced casual player I decided to join a newbie guild so I can help others get into the game and the main thing I'm noticing is that over 90% of these players avoid sPvP and WvW like the plague. I'm assuming that this is the general new player experience, not just the people I'm interacting with and I don't think that this is very good for the longevity of the game.

I think that main issue is that there is nothing meaningful to add. Players get showered with free laurels and the LS maps are incredibly easy to do. You can do them on multiple characters, so if you really need an ascended trinket you can probably get one in under an hour of gamplay just using map resources (basically for free). The legendary amulet is incredibly easy to get as well. In most cases you need to replay each story, gather 50 times and do the meta event of the map. This takes roughly an hour per zone (espeically if you are replaying it and skip all dialogs etc). It can be a little annyoing but after about 20 hours of gameplay you get a legendary neck that you can use on all of your characters thanks to the armory. Also, completing the return achievments rewards you with 250 of each map currency, so in the end not only you get the amulet, but enough currency to buy a few ascended rings and trinkets.

You don't get it for free, you can see the exact materials in here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Conflux You need a buttload of wvw materials and roughly 1700 gold to craft the ring. The tickets are the only thing that is timegated and prevent you from just buying everything of the trading post. It's the same thing for the legendary armor (you can check the materials here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_armor ). If I remember correctly it's' about 600g a piece and to get the required tickets you need to cap the wvw reward chest for 22 weeks.

Hi all, I've been doing WvW for quite a while and I never really thought about the way the claim tickets are rewarded ( I just play the mode because I enjoy it and never really cared). Recently, I got my last piece of legemdary armor that used my remaining tickets and soon after I decided to go for Conflux. I started researching it and realised that it will take another 6 weeks of capping the wvw rewards to get it. That is a pretty reasonable timegate for a legendary, but it got me thinking- why do the first chests reward barely any tickets? Imagine a new player joining the mode and deciding to go for some of the rewards ( I know the mode is not created to farm rewards but still people like to work towards something). This player will be Wood rank, probably playing for an hour a day or so and I'm assuming that their world won't be first all of the time. If that is the case, at best this player will complete up to the gold chest and they will get around 150 tickets a week, meaning that if they want to go for Conflux the timegate for them would be around 15 weeks (assuming that they play every day, in reality it will be more). This would feel incredibly overwhelming and they will probably get discouraged and go play something else. Especially if they check the Pip calculator (https://gw2.limitlessfx.com/wvw/pips.php ) and realise that to cap the points each week they have to play the mode for 15-20 hours- that is like having a part time job lol. Wouldn't it be way better if the ticket rewards from the chests are reversed? This way newer players will be incentivised to play the mode more and I don't think that a change like this will make any difference to the vereran players since the time required for them is cut basically in half and they are going to cap anyways. I understand that the linear progression generally makes sense, but is it the best way to have it in this case? This is not a rant or anything like that, it just got me thinking and I want to see how the rest of the communty sees this. Cheers!

There are few builds that work pretty well, especially the perma alacrity support one, so I wouldn't say that mesmers are weak in fractals. For general pve you can go condi mirage and stay blurred like 80% of the time allowing you to crush difficult solo content. For raids you can go either power, boon support, alac, condi - according to metabattle these are all raiding meta builds and they are all quite different. The GS mirage is a meta build for tagging as well. Virtuoso looks amazing, but I believe it's a bit too early to draw conclusions. I would recommend picking a bunch of classes, going to the mists and testing out the gameplay to see what you like the most. For example I play guardian, mesmer and rev most of the time. I would occaisonaly see a warrior or a scourge doing insane amounts of damage and immediately think to myself "dam, I want to do that", then find the exact build, test it myself and see that it is incredibly boring and I quicky go back to the professions I actually enjoy. I would rather perform 10% less but enjoy the game, then play something dumb in order to min/max (especially since playing with pugs and not in a super hardcore raiding guild).

I think that they made it this way because there are a ton of casual players. In some places, you need to level a specific mastery to progress in the story. Imagine a super casual player that logs in for an hour every other day or so. If they make the bars 5 times longer to fill this means that this player will have to spend the next few gaming sessions (probably about 1-2 weeks for him) to grind it out. How excited will this player be to play the game? He wants to finish the story and he is randomly bottlenecked by a 5 hour grind he doesn't care about. As someone that has a bit more time to play, I would prefer if it worked the way you suggested, but I understand that this is not the best for the game overall. The Spirit Shards on the other hand- I believe that we need better rewards indeed. Unless you go for ascended/legendary you don't need them at all. And even when you do, you don't need that many. Now that I have all the ascended/legendary gear I need and get rewarded with a Spirit Shard I don't even think about it as a reward. It's just another useless thing that piles up for no reason.

I really like the idea of AP...in other games. I believe that achievments are a great tool for you to stay engaged into a game. Lets say you normally WvW, but currently don't feel like it? Go chase a randnom collection or pick an achievment to do. This way you won't feel bored, will be able to work towards something "meaningful" and enjoy different aspects of the game. GW2 completely ruins this with the daily quest rewarding 10 AP. Some of the most annoying and hard achievments in the game reward you with 5 AP and huge collections that require sooo much time reward you with 10-20AP. In all other games when I see someone with a lot of AP I think to myself "this guy plays the game", when I see someone with a lot of AP in GW2 I think to myself "this guy probably logs in for the daily, and then logs out until tomorrow".

What makes it most valid as a discussion is the fact that the game is played world wide right. The average salary in some eastern european countries is like 400 euro a month, and that is very different compared to other parts of europe where paying 25-30 euro for a single meal is normal and not even considered as spending a lot of money. I think that this is a very important thing that people need to have in mind and they clearly don't. I completely agree that over the last few (not even few) years GW2 has seen barely any meaningful updates. sPvP and WvW have been on life support for years. I can see why a dedicated PvP player won't be excited about the expansion AND if he is from a country with lesser income paying 25 euro for a game that brings nothing to the mode he plays won't be a very attractive deal at all. However, that does not mean that the entire expansion is bad and not worth buying. It's not worth buying for that specific type of player and I wouldn't argue with this or try to convince anyone in this position to buy it. But, objectively speaking we're getting new zones filled with new events, achievments and so on, we're getting 9 new specs, new mounts, etc. and for 25 euro that is a lot of content (especially compared to the crappy LS that brings 1 new map once every few months).

You are 100% correct, but I believe that you kind of missed the point of the comment above. He basically said that the game is so cheap there is no point in discussing it. It's a bit of a rude way to say it, but it is kind of true. Most indie games are like 20 euros these days and the AAAs are 40-60 euros

I think that you (and quite a lot of other people I see on the forums recently) are overthinking this. People are making "in-depth" analysis and predictions based on pretty much nothing and get into pointless arguments. Just look at the comments here- people are either upset because the expansion did not change the things they were hoping to get changed or they are super excited about the upcoming content. Unfortunately, this is how our tribal monkey brains work and I seriously doubt that anyone can make the decision for you. But since you are asking, here are my 2 cents: I look at video games as a form of entertainment and naturally I compare their value to other forms of entertainment. If I go to the movies I'll probably spend 25 bucks for the ticket, popcorn, drink, w/e and this will bring me a couple of hours of entertainment. Buying EOD for the same amount of money will bring me a lot more hours, so it is a lot more back for my buck. Even if the expansion ends up not good enough. I'll spend at least 50 hours doing the story, exploring and checking all new crap they add. Then, I'll spend at least a few hours playing out each new spec to see how they are. When I find the one I like the most I'll probably take it out for a spin in WvW, fractals and so on(I'll probably do this with multiple specs). So at the end of the day, by the time I do all this I would spend at least 100 hours of having fun and playing around with thigs. Even if everything fails and burns to the ground as some people suggest, I literally bought 100 hours of fun for 25 bucks. I'm sure I'll spend a lot more than that, but realistically this is the bare minimum if the expansion is total garbage and the game dies with it. Also, when it comes to spending money on random things I go by "if there is doubt, there is no doubt". In your case you are clearly not overly excited about the expansion, so just don't buy it now. The game won't be released for another 3 months or so. If you don't buy it now it does not mean that you can't buy it later on. Maybe you will get some extra money and won't care about the 25 bucks "wasted", maybe you will see something that intrigues you later on or maybe some of your friends will decide to start playing and you will get hyped because of them. This is a video game, not an investment or a lifetime commitment.

https://imgur.com/a/AY0GnUk

I never got around the idea of the chairs and never liked any of them. I never thought I would ever spend money on something like this...but this one is actually amazing.