I have been gone for two months. What awesome things have happened?
Halloween came and much rejoicing was had by all (Generally enjoyable content, some good loot chests from events that were up often). The the karka weekend, and people raged at needlessly difficult fights... until they hit the end of the one time event Sunday, in which completion was worth 2 exotics (random), 2 rares (random), a 20-slot bag, and a exotic accessory. And then people raged more about some people getting precursors. And such.
Edit: The permanent result is a number of new jumping puzzles, a new map, a new dungeon, and some new pvp areas.
So I cleared Fractals 6, and the difficulty is slowly crawling up to that of a 'real' dungeon, but with significantly better loot and it feels faster(although it really isn't.)
They definitely need to tweak standard dungeon drops now, or the population for those is going to drop off to almost nil, even when the new shiny feel of Fractals wears off.
So I manged to get my bloodstone shard in two days. I made an alt, craft leveled it to 80 on sunday. Then used only 3 skill points for some utilities (used the terrible wolf elite) and went around grabbing skill points in the world on the alt. It was muuuuuch faster than exp grinding them on characters that have the world ones already used up.
I also found that mesmer is silly amounts of fun since thats the alt I used.
It does get boring, but I just watched shows on my other computer while clicking craft queue stuff.
The longest part is buying the item list for each tier. But 4-5 hours to get to 80... can't complain. Its not even that expensive, because a lot of rare stuff I sell back at the end of each craft.
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
Well, it does get expensive. I had to spend about 30G being a penny pincher and doing prolly 11 or 12 of the levels manually.
Also, looks like its time to be stocking up on ori. Shits tanking so hard its sad. Not worth it to sell right now cause hopefully it will be back up. If not, its almost not worth it anymore.
0
mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
agony is pretty brutal. When you hit tier 3 it will be a definite gear check. I would think everyone would need multiple regens and agony resists to make it through alive.
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
Well, it does get expensive. I had to spend about 30G being a penny pincher and doing prolly 11 or 12 of the levels manually.
Also, looks like its time to be stocking up on ori. Shits tanking so hard its sad. Not worth it to sell right now cause hopefully it will be back up. If not, its almost not worth it anymore.
Is it under 2 silver per ore? I haven't looked in a while, and thats where I noticed it was just going down more and more.
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
its a little above 2s per ore, so you make less than that.
Can't really bring myself to farm ore at that rate when I could be magic finding events. I hate risk and stockpiling it for a price increase prolly will not work since I don't know why it would go up in cost. There is more ways to get it than before.
0
KlykaDO you have anySPARE BATTERIES?Registered Userregular
agony is pretty brutal. When you hit tier 3 it will be a definite gear check. I would think everyone would need multiple regens and agony resists to make it through alive.
The thing I enjoy about this though, is that the gear check is only necessary for people who want to go this far in.
You are never in any way forced to do the higher difficulty fractals. There is no content you are missing at all.
I like that design.
its a little above 2s per ore, so you make less than that.
Can't really bring myself to farm ore at that rate when I could be magic finding events. I hate risk and stockpiling it for a price increase prolly will not work since I don't know why it would go up in cost. There is more ways to get it than before.
As long as Ori remains the metal for high end crafting, it'll go up...if they release more recipes for Ascended gear that requires lots of Ori, expect a big jump. Personally, I may buy up a few gold's worth a 2s and see. Worth case, at least I still have something valuable in the event I go for a Legendary or something else.
0
mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
agony is pretty brutal. When you hit tier 3 it will be a definite gear check. I would think everyone would need multiple regens and agony resists to make it through alive.
The thing I enjoy about this though, is that the gear check is only necessary for people who want to go this far in.
You are never in any way forced to do the higher difficulty fractals. There is no content you are missing at all.
I like that design.
For sure. more focused on the hardness of it and not the gear check. will be fun.
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
But why have a "gear check". Why not just make the higher levels require more coordination and better skill?
I've always thought gear checks were just a cop out. They serve no other purpose than to lock people out, since if you actually pass the gear check, the relative difficulty level doesn't really change.
0
KlykaDO you have anySPARE BATTERIES?Registered Userregular
But why have a "gear check". Why not just make the higher levels require more coordination and better skill?
I've always thought gear checks were just a cop out. They serve no other purpose than to lock people out, since if you actually pass the gear check, the relative difficulty level doesn't really change.
To give some people new stuff to grind for.
Some people just HAVE to grind, otherwise they are not content.
Outside of Agony, are the higher fractals really a gear check? Getting a full set of Exotics at 80 isn't a huge deal (I've just been lazy about filling mine out), so it seems like the Agony stat is the only one that really matters, and with only two Ascended slots atm it's not much effort to get that.
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So since most of my tiny guild is off at college, my BF, BFF and I ended up caving in and pugging over the weekend, both fractals and normal EMs. ("old" dungeons seem to still be going strong, on GoM at least) So yeah, here's how that went...
Fan-freaking-tastically. I love pugging new content right after release, folks tend to be cautious and generally helpful. When we'd get into a fractal someone had done, they'd give brief tips to the group... If nobody had been there before we'd take the few seconds to try to figure out what we thought we were supposed to do. After 12 runs with 1 death, I am no longer terrified of pugging.
I'm thinking about buying the 250 ancient bone now, since it used to be around 50c per before the weekend, now it's settled around 2s for a few days. I'm assuming that less people are fighting risen so the items might not go down in price. That means, 5 gold to buy 250 of them for an ascended back.
Prices vary though on the stats you want. All books/quivers take 1 vial of condensed mists essence, 24 skill points worth of crystals or philosopher's stones, 50 ectos and 250 of a T6 blue mat.
According to gw2spidy, it looks like this is the cost for each as of right now:
I don't watch the markets enough to determine if now is a good time to buy, but it seems like for ancient bones, 5 gold plus salvaging rares for 50 ectos isn't a lot to pay for an ascended back item, provided you're patient for drops and such to get the ectos.
If you're looking for ectos, it all depends on how lucky you think you are. Price out the mats, you might be better off selling the base mats and just buying ectos or listing a price for them. The below examples assume you buy now.
Example below:
Weaponsmith: Cost of mats to make exotic daggers for example: (22 mithril ore, 12 elder wood logs, 15 large bone = 4.4s + 1.92s + 15s = 21.32 silver, estimated)
Ectos currently cost 24.21 silver.
Black Lion Salvage Kit costs 300 gems, which right now, means spending 3.53 gold for 25 uses. The cost per use is 14.12 silver. so the cost to salvage each rare you make is roughly 35.5 silver. Not counting the potential mats you get from salvaging, the average salvage rate for rares is estimate to be 1.5 ectos per salvage (1-3 per successful salvage, 50% chance to be successful). Thus, you should, on average, get 36.32 worth of ectos per salvage, plus a few mats back. So you're saving yourself less than 1s per salvage right now, which is still gambling to an extent.
So, if you get a black lion salvage kit from daily, map completion or black lion chest, salvage for ectos! If not, might be better to sell the mats you find and put in an order for ectos.
0
mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
Fractals = ecto farm. You should be able to get those off drops fast.
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
I really want to see them commit to fixing some of the big problems with Fractals, like how if anyone in your group disconnects, they can't get back into the dungeon.
Last night a guildmember got dropped and missed out on the last Fractal + bonus boss. On the other hand, we felt pretty pro four manning it.
Fun fact: You can run through all the trash before the Jade Maw. Though frankly I prefer killing it for the chance at drops. Especially since the Jade mobs give me a reason to break out my toolkit.
I should be on around 8pm CST once I'm back from racquetball and I'm willing to help anyone who wants to either try a fractal for the first time or move up in difficulty scale since I'm at 5 right now.
It seems to be fine as long as we avoid the groups that are "LF1M [whatever] EM must be 80 with Exotics." I never trust that guy. I'll gleefully spend 7 extra minutes in a run with level 45 guy if I can avoid the goose that thinks gear = skill. Ironically, the absolute worst person we partied with over the weekend was in full dungeon armor. (OK, it was CoF gear) On the bright side, I did get loads of rez exp from scooping him off the floor, and I get to feel like a rock star saving people from repair bills.
For the fractals, do you need to complete every map per tier? My first attempt, the group couldn't get it together enough to do the mole one with miners and the drill. When we wiped someone chose to go back to the hub instead of the checkpoint. When we restarted we were on a different map and we cleared maps until we got to fractal level 2 but never had to retry the first one we mucked up on. Now it says I'm good for level 2 and can join them. I'm just hoping it's all good going forward.
Also, what's the level ranges on the fractals. Since you're leveled to 80, is it just a gear check as the difficulty goes up?
My understand is as long as you complete a set of 3 maps, any 3 and get sent back to the hub you have completed a difficulty. You should be fine going forward.
For the fractals, do you need to complete every map per tier? My first attempt, the group couldn't get it together enough to do the mole one with miners and the drill. When we wiped someone chose to go back to the hub instead of the checkpoint. When we restarted we were on a different map and we cleared maps until we got to fractal level 2 but never had to retry the first one we mucked up on. Now it says I'm good for level 2 and can join them. I'm just hoping it's all good going forward.
Also, what's the level ranges on the fractals. Since you're leveled to 80, is it just a gear check as the difficulty goes up?
the gear check is only on AGONY. which starts at tier 2 (fractal level 10-19) on bosses only. Further tiers = agony at all times.
If you have +5 agony res it halves the agony damage, so +10 should prevent it. Thats two pieces of gear, and cheap infusions with tokens. So thats the only gear check minus the harder mobs.
mojojoeo on
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
I have been gone for two months. What awesome things have happened?
Halloween came and much rejoicing was had by all (Generally enjoyable content, some good loot chests from events that were up often). The the karka weekend, and people raged at needlessly difficult fights... until they hit the end of the one time event Sunday, in which completion was worth 2 exotics (random), 2 rares (random), a 20-slot bag, and a exotic accessory. And then people raged more about some people getting precursors. And such.
Edit: The permanent result is a number of new jumping puzzles, a new map, a new dungeon, and some new pvp areas.
Whoa what?
I'm really sad I missed that event... was in class all day.
Oh, and the real reason I came here which is to re-advertise Fract til You're Raw and amend one of the rules:
1) Difficulty scale minimum is now 5 because OOPS RYSK IS A DUMMY AND DOESN'T HAVE 6 AND MAY NOT BE ABLE TO GET IT TONIGHT.
I wondered when your math yesterday about getting to lvl 6 didn't add up I'm lvl 5, and normally would be up for it, but I'll be out of town for Thanksgiving.
Thanks @tulabelle and @REG Rysk for feedback. I went and got myself a full set of the dwayna karma armor for my mesmer. I'm curious if this whole try to keep near constant regen up on the group thing is worthwhile or not in fractals. I have a full set of superior runes of the undead if they turn out to not be very helpful.
But why have a "gear check". Why not just make the higher levels require more coordination and better skill?
I've always thought gear checks were just a cop out. They serve no other purpose than to lock people out, since if you actually pass the gear check, the relative difficulty level doesn't really change.
Their boss design team hasn't figured out how to make both fun and hard fights yet. They are getting better though, so there is hope for the future. Arbitrary gear checks are an easy way to gate people and add some difficulty, even if it doesn't actually make it more fun.
Thanks @tulabelle and @REG Rysk for feedback. I went and got myself a full set of the dwayna karma armor for my mesmer. I'm curious if this whole try to keep near constant regen up on the group thing is worthwhile or not in fractals. I have a full set of superior runes of the undead if they turn out to not be very helpful.
Please let us know how that goes. Sounds like an interesting concept.
Posts
Halloween came and much rejoicing was had by all (Generally enjoyable content, some good loot chests from events that were up often). The the karka weekend, and people raged at needlessly difficult fights... until they hit the end of the one time event Sunday, in which completion was worth 2 exotics (random), 2 rares (random), a 20-slot bag, and a exotic accessory. And then people raged more about some people getting precursors. And such.
Edit: The permanent result is a number of new jumping puzzles, a new map, a new dungeon, and some new pvp areas.
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They definitely need to tweak standard dungeon drops now, or the population for those is going to drop off to almost nil, even when the new shiny feel of Fractals wears off.
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I also found that mesmer is silly amounts of fun since thats the alt I used.
Now just karma grind time, or fractals.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It does get boring, but I just watched shows on my other computer while clicking craft queue stuff.
The longest part is buying the item list for each tier. But 4-5 hours to get to 80... can't complain. Its not even that expensive, because a lot of rare stuff I sell back at the end of each craft.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, looks like its time to be stocking up on ori. Shits tanking so hard its sad. Not worth it to sell right now cause hopefully it will be back up. If not, its almost not worth it anymore.
Is it under 2 silver per ore? I haven't looked in a while, and thats where I noticed it was just going down more and more.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Can't really bring myself to farm ore at that rate when I could be magic finding events. I hate risk and stockpiling it for a price increase prolly will not work since I don't know why it would go up in cost. There is more ways to get it than before.
The thing I enjoy about this though, is that the gear check is only necessary for people who want to go this far in.
You are never in any way forced to do the higher difficulty fractals. There is no content you are missing at all.
I like that design.
As long as Ori remains the metal for high end crafting, it'll go up...if they release more recipes for Ascended gear that requires lots of Ori, expect a big jump. Personally, I may buy up a few gold's worth a 2s and see. Worth case, at least I still have something valuable in the event I go for a Legendary or something else.
For sure. more focused on the hardness of it and not the gear check. will be fun.
I've always thought gear checks were just a cop out. They serve no other purpose than to lock people out, since if you actually pass the gear check, the relative difficulty level doesn't really change.
To give some people new stuff to grind for.
Some people just HAVE to grind, otherwise they are not content.
Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4
Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles
On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts
Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
Fan-freaking-tastically. I love pugging new content right after release, folks tend to be cautious and generally helpful. When we'd get into a fractal someone had done, they'd give brief tips to the group... If nobody had been there before we'd take the few seconds to try to figure out what we thought we were supposed to do. After 12 runs with 1 death, I am no longer terrified of pugging.
You will be...
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Still waiting on Dan "Man of his Word" Ryckert to eat a hat
I'm thinking about buying the 250 ancient bone now, since it used to be around 50c per before the weekend, now it's settled around 2s for a few days. I'm assuming that less people are fighting risen so the items might not go down in price. That means, 5 gold to buy 250 of them for an ascended back.
Prices vary though on the stats you want. All books/quivers take 1 vial of condensed mists essence, 24 skill points worth of crystals or philosopher's stones, 50 ectos and 250 of a T6 blue mat.
According to gw2spidy, it looks like this is the cost for each as of right now:
56 Condition Damage, 35 Precision, 35 Toughness (250 ancient bone, 5 gold to buy)
35 Toughness, 35 Vitality, 32 Power, 5% Magic Find (250 vicious claws, 21.75 gold to buy)
56 Power, 35 Toughness, 35 Vitality (250 vicious fangs, 37.5 gold to buy)
56 Toughness, 32 Power, 5% Critical Damage (250 armored scale, 48.75 gold to buy)
56 Power, 35 Precision, 5% Critical Damage (250 powerful blood, 62.5 gold to buy)
I don't watch the markets enough to determine if now is a good time to buy, but it seems like for ancient bones, 5 gold plus salvaging rares for 50 ectos isn't a lot to pay for an ascended back item, provided you're patient for drops and such to get the ectos.
If you're looking for ectos, it all depends on how lucky you think you are. Price out the mats, you might be better off selling the base mats and just buying ectos or listing a price for them. The below examples assume you buy now.
Example below:
Ectos currently cost 24.21 silver.
Black Lion Salvage Kit costs 300 gems, which right now, means spending 3.53 gold for 25 uses. The cost per use is 14.12 silver. so the cost to salvage each rare you make is roughly 35.5 silver. Not counting the potential mats you get from salvaging, the average salvage rate for rares is estimate to be 1.5 ectos per salvage (1-3 per successful salvage, 50% chance to be successful). Thus, you should, on average, get 36.32 worth of ectos per salvage, plus a few mats back. So you're saving yourself less than 1s per salvage right now, which is still gambling to an extent.
So, if you get a black lion salvage kit from daily, map completion or black lion chest, salvage for ectos! If not, might be better to sell the mats you find and put in an order for ectos.
Fractals = ecto farm. You should be able to get those off drops fast.
Last night a guildmember got dropped and missed out on the last Fractal + bonus boss. On the other hand, we felt pretty pro four manning it.
Fun fact: You can run through all the trash before the Jade Maw. Though frankly I prefer killing it for the chance at drops. Especially since the Jade mobs give me a reason to break out my toolkit.
1) Difficulty scale minimum is now 5 because OOPS RYSK IS A DUMMY AND DOESN'T HAVE 6 AND MAY NOT BE ABLE TO GET IT TONIGHT.
Sounds good to me. A group of us hit four last night, so five should be a lock assuming there's enough interest.
It seems to be fine as long as we avoid the groups that are "LF1M [whatever] EM must be 80 with Exotics." I never trust that guy. I'll gleefully spend 7 extra minutes in a run with level 45 guy if I can avoid the goose that thinks gear = skill. Ironically, the absolute worst person we partied with over the weekend was in full dungeon armor. (OK, it was CoF gear) On the bright side, I did get loads of rez exp from scooping him off the floor, and I get to feel like a rock star saving people from repair bills.
It should be stated - Groups of all fractal levels will most likely be running.
Also, what's the level ranges on the fractals. Since you're leveled to 80, is it just a gear check as the difficulty goes up?
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the gear check is only on AGONY. which starts at tier 2 (fractal level 10-19) on bosses only. Further tiers = agony at all times.
If you have +5 agony res it halves the agony damage, so +10 should prevent it. Thats two pieces of gear, and cheap infusions with tokens. So thats the only gear check minus the harder mobs.
Whoa what?
I'm really sad I missed that event... was in class all day.
Unfortunately I have class tonight that I won't get home from until 8pm PST. I may try to run one set then.
I wondered when your math yesterday about getting to lvl 6 didn't add up
Their boss design team hasn't figured out how to make both fun and hard fights yet. They are getting better though, so there is hope for the future. Arbitrary gear checks are an easy way to gate people and add some difficulty, even if it doesn't actually make it more fun.
Please let us know how that goes. Sounds like an interesting concept.