New poi in LA. When you get it on a character that has world completion you get 4 chests. The chests include elonian skins, and "awakened" skins which are new Undead (probably the palawa joko faction of them) looking skins. They're labeled like ((42247250)) so probably a bug that we're getting them early.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
The fifth anniversary of Guild Wars 2 is coming soon, and we’re celebrating with sales every day in the Black Lion Trading Company’s in-game store! We’ve also added new items to help you prepare for Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire™.
Path of Fire Preparation Pack
There’s no telling what you’ll encounter in the Crystal Desert—prepare yourself with this value pack of upgrades and items! The Path of Fire Preparation Pack contains 1 Character Slot, 2 Bag Slot Expansions, 1 Black Lion Instant Level-80 Ticket, 1 Unbreakable Gathering Tools Container, and 10 Black Lion Chest Keys.
Black Lion Instant Level-80 Ticket
Instantly boost one character to maximum level and take on everything Tyria has to offer right away. Your new level-80 character will receive a starting set of exotic gear and a box full of useful items to help you on your journey.
Black Lion Exclusives Chest
Black Lion Chests now have a chance to drop a rare chest containing nine exclusive items previously available as uncommon Black Lion Chest drops. These chests can be sold to other players on the Trading Post, and they offer a choice between the following: Grasping Phantom Glider, Mini Celestial Rooster, Infinirarium Glider, Candelabra Staff skin, Bitterfrost Vantage Point access, Noran’s Safe Room Pass and Key, Elemental Sword skin, Sworn Zaishen Helm skin, and Hounds of Balthazar Mail Carrier.
Rival Skies Package
Wield some dramatic contrast with an Icy Blade Axe and Fiery Blade Axe! These skins are available exclusively as a combo package.
August Anniversary Sales – Week 1
August 09: 20% off Amethyst Aegis and Emissary’s Staff
August 10: 20% off Peacock Scepter and Dragon Kama
August 11: 20% off Caithe’s Bloom Dagger and Belinda’s Greatsword
August 12: 20% off Kurzick Dual Axe and Storm Bow
August 13: 20% off Chain-Whip Sword and Replica Mirror of Lyssa
August 14: 25% off Watchwork Mining Pick
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
Dat expanded world map. I know a previous leak suggested we'd only go as far as Vabbi for the expansion, but it looks like Anet is giving themselves the chance to eventually have all of Elona explorable.
Heads up mesmers got a ridiculous damage buff in that patch. The new illusions trait, phantasmal force, buffs our illusion damage by 25%. Early preliminary tests put power mesmer damage at 32k with that, which is competitive with other damage classes with the added benefit that phantasms are a stupidly easy build - just summon 3 sword phantasms and never use shatter.
Heads up mesmers got a ridiculous damage buff in that patch. The new illusions trait, phantasmal force, buffs our illusion damage by 25%. Early preliminary tests put power mesmer damage at 32k with that, which is competitive with other damage classes with the added benefit that phantasms are a stupidly easy build - just summon 3 sword phantasms and never use shatter.
The meta is changing at an arming rate!
I'm pretty psyched I used one of my free lvl 80s on mesmer; I'll probably keep on keeping on with my engineer (so many buttons!) but I've always been partial to those crazy purple guys.
Are mesmers still really annoying to level though? I'm trying to get a friend into the game and he's intrigued by mesmer but I kind of tipped him away from that since I've heard they don't come into their own for quite a while. If I'm off base I'd like to let him know but I don't him to have a hard time with his first char.
Unrelated but I just felt like I should say it: I really really really enjoy Verdant Brink and I'm kicking myself for not getting HoT sooner. Strong concept, well executed, with an event chain that hits right where it should in terms of both theme and pace. Can't wait to see more of the other HoT and S3 zones. I could EASILY see myself spending a lot of time here even after PoF release.
New poi in LA. When you get it on a character that has world completion you get 4 chests. The chests include elonian skins, and "awakened" skins which are new Undead (probably the palawa joko faction of them) looking skins. They're labeled like ((42247250)) so probably a bug that we're getting them early.
Unfortunately I missed getting this :bigfrown:
Bug Fix:
Fixed a bug that was granting incorrect map-completion rewards.
Heads up mesmers got a ridiculous damage buff in that patch. The new illusions trait, phantasmal force, buffs our illusion damage by 25%. Early preliminary tests put power mesmer damage at 32k with that, which is competitive with other damage classes with the added benefit that phantasms are a stupidly easy build - just summon 3 sword phantasms and never use shatter.
The meta is changing at an arming rate!
Sword/sword power mes is in vogue?
The time has come. Gotta hook up my computer finally.
Hey @naengwen , can we build a rocket ship in the guild hall, somehow? To further our Charr space program? I think this is important. We have to get out of Tyria before we're consumed by bad writing elder dragons.
*edit* nevermind. I forgot how fucking expensive and ridiculous decorating is in GW2. I got used to ESO where it's actually a thing you can do.
Heads up mesmers got a ridiculous damage buff in that patch. The new illusions trait, phantasmal force, buffs our illusion damage by 25%. Early preliminary tests put power mesmer damage at 32k with that, which is competitive with other damage classes with the added benefit that phantasms are a stupidly easy build - just summon 3 sword phantasms and never use shatter.
The meta is changing at an arming rate!
I'm pretty psyched I used one of my free lvl 80s on mesmer; I'll probably keep on keeping on with my engineer (so many buttons!) but I've always been partial to those crazy purple guys.
Are mesmers still really annoying to level though? I'm trying to get a friend into the game and he's intrigued by mesmer but I kind of tipped him away from that since I've heard they don't come into their own for quite a while. If I'm off base I'd like to let him know but I don't him to have a hard time with his first char.
Watching a video of the rotation of the new power dps spec, a big chunk of the damage comes from just summoning 2 sword phantasms at the start of a boss fight (sword 5, signet of ether immediately, sword 5 again) followed by another one and then letting them do their thing. That's pretty contrary to how most fights go in open world stuff like leveling where stuff does too quickly to really get as much out of phantasms.
On the plus side activating mantra of pain and letting a charge accumulate between uses so it never fully runs out does give a somewhat more consistent boost to damage not dependent on setting up illusions when leveling.
Heads up mesmers got a ridiculous damage buff in that patch. The new illusions trait, phantasmal force, buffs our illusion damage by 25%. Early preliminary tests put power mesmer damage at 32k with that, which is competitive with other damage classes with the added benefit that phantasms are a stupidly easy build - just summon 3 sword phantasms and never use shatter.
The meta is changing at an arming rate!
Sword/sword power mes is in vogue?
The time has come. Gotta hook up my computer finally.
Oh man. Might give me a reason to get some exotic berserker gear for my mesmer.
Hmmmmmm I picked this back up but don't know what I'm doing really. Got a level 40-ish Necromancer, and various other guys who have benefited from leveling boosts.
What is....I guess what do I do? Since my Necro got boosted with an item to 40, I just kind of ran around the Sylvari starting area and got it to 100%
Where do I go next? Also, how far can I go without the xpacs? (And how gimped would I be in PvP without them?)
My username is, Zinnar.7126, if someone wants to chat in-game.
It's a huge shakeup, for certain. Effects are still under review, as a number of classes got huge buffs in PvE. In raid situations for instance, the staff phantasm might actually be a more powerful choice due to the fixes they made to it's damage while conditions are up, so you might see staff mesmers in raid for the first time
It's a huge shakeup, for certain. Effects are still under review, as a number of classes got huge buffs in PvE. In raid situations for instance, the staff phantasm might actually be a more powerful choice due to the fixes they made to it's damage while conditions are up, so you might see staff mesmers in raid for the first time
Huge shakeup but also hard to gauge how long the effects will last. There weren't any real nerfs to condi reaper specifically (just some general nerfs to condi food) despite a lot of messaging about that coming so now people are expecting that to come with the expansion proper in a month given expressed intent to make Scourge more of the condi necro spec instead of Reaper pulling double duty as both power and condi boost. At least in that case we know that there will be some condition damage build though.
I'm not eager to run out and choose prefixes for armor on other classes though. If Mirage turns out to be much more condition oriented (which its axes skills seem to be as well as some traits), I'd feel a bit silly for getting a bunch of zerker ascended light armor for my mesmer.
Hmmmmmm I picked this back up but don't know what I'm doing really. Got a level 40-ish Necromancer, and various other guys who have benefited from leveling boosts.
What is....I guess what do I do? Since my Necro got boosted with an item to 40, I just kind of ran around the Sylvari starting area and got it to 100%
Where do I go next? Also, how far can I go without the xpacs? (And how gimped would I be in PvP without them?)
My username is, Zinnar.7126, if someone wants to chat in-game.
You can go pretty far without the expansions depending on what you want to do. While you can 100% each area as you encounter it, it's probably not the best use of your time. You still get exp for fighting stuff you're downscaled to but IIRC it's not as much for stuff closer to your actual level. When you're past the level range indicated for a zone on the world map, it's a good time to move onto another zone.
The base game world is still pretty big and you do have access to dungeons and fractals later on. How high you can progress in fractals is going to be limited without masteries from the expansions but that won't kick in for quite some time.
PvP . . . it kind of depends if you mean pvp matches or World vs. World. I don't think there are any great base necro builds for pvp matches. Some would argue there are no great necro builds in pvp matches though. World vs. World should still let you throw down wells with a staff into a crowd of enemies though with no one paying much attention to you not being optimal.
Hmmmmmm I picked this back up but don't know what I'm doing really. Got a level 40-ish Necromancer, and various other guys who have benefited from leveling boosts.
What is....I guess what do I do? Since my Necro got boosted with an item to 40, I just kind of ran around the Sylvari starting area and got it to 100%
Where do I go next? Also, how far can I go without the xpacs? (And how gimped would I be in PvP without them?)
My username is, Zinnar.7126, if someone wants to chat in-game.
You can go pretty far without the expansions depending on what you want to do. While you can 100% each area as you encounter it, it's probably not the best use of your time. You still get exp for fighting stuff you're downscaled to but IIRC it's not as much for stuff closer to your actual level. When you're past the level range indicated for a zone on the world map, it's a good time to move onto another zone.
The base game world is still pretty big and you do have access to dungeons and fractals later on. How high you can progress in fractals is going to be limited without masteries from the expansions but that won't kick in for quite some time.
PvP . . . it kind of depends if you mean pvp matches or World vs. World. I don't think there are any great base necro builds for pvp matches. Some would argue there are no great necro builds in pvp matches though. World vs. World should still let you throw down wells with a staff into a crowd of enemies though with no one paying much attention to you not being optimal.
Is there an up-to-date skill builder I can tool around with?
Hmmmmmm I picked this back up but don't know what I'm doing really. Got a level 40-ish Necromancer, and various other guys who have benefited from leveling boosts.
What is....I guess what do I do? Since my Necro got boosted with an item to 40, I just kind of ran around the Sylvari starting area and got it to 100%
Where do I go next? Also, how far can I go without the xpacs? (And how gimped would I be in PvP without them?)
My username is, Zinnar.7126, if someone wants to chat in-game.
You can go pretty far without the expansions depending on what you want to do. While you can 100% each area as you encounter it, it's probably not the best use of your time. You still get exp for fighting stuff you're downscaled to but IIRC it's not as much for stuff closer to your actual level. When you're past the level range indicated for a zone on the world map, it's a good time to move onto another zone.
The base game world is still pretty big and you do have access to dungeons and fractals later on. How high you can progress in fractals is going to be limited without masteries from the expansions but that won't kick in for quite some time.
PvP . . . it kind of depends if you mean pvp matches or World vs. World. I don't think there are any great base necro builds for pvp matches. Some would argue there are no great necro builds in pvp matches though. World vs. World should still let you throw down wells with a staff into a crowd of enemies though with no one paying much attention to you not being optimal.
Is there an up-to-date skill builder I can tool around with?
I don't think the skill builders have really caught up with yesterday's changes yet.
That said, leveling necro builds aren't really tough to cobble together. It's largely a mix of getting permanent minions and stabbing things with a dagger. Some times swapping over to an axe if you need to avoid melee but mostly stabbing things with a dagger. Focus offhand lets you weaken things so you do more damage while stabbing them with a dagger. Warhorn is another option as it's a source of swiftness (albeit one that will hurt things around you and pull you into combat if you in some instances) so you get to to places more quickly. With dagger and minions as a focus, that means Spite and Death Magic are your two trait trees to focus on while leveling up. Tricks with conditions will wait til much later.
Anyone know if you pre-order the new expansion and get the ultimate edition, will you get the crystals at time of purchase or when the expansion is released?
Anyone know if you pre-order the new expansion and get the ultimate edition, will you get the crystals at time of purchase or when the expansion is released?
Anyone know if you pre-order the new expansion and get the ultimate edition, will you get the crystals at time of purchase or when the expansion is released?
Hmmmmmm I picked this back up but don't know what I'm doing really. Got a level 40-ish Necromancer, and various other guys who have benefited from leveling boosts.
What is....I guess what do I do? Since my Necro got boosted with an item to 40, I just kind of ran around the Sylvari starting area and got it to 100%
Where do I go next? Also, how far can I go without the xpacs? (And how gimped would I be in PvP without them?)
My username is, Zinnar.7126, if someone wants to chat in-game.
You can go pretty far without the expansions depending on what you want to do. While you can 100% each area as you encounter it, it's probably not the best use of your time. You still get exp for fighting stuff you're downscaled to but IIRC it's not as much for stuff closer to your actual level. When you're past the level range indicated for a zone on the world map, it's a good time to move onto another zone.
The base game world is still pretty big and you do have access to dungeons and fractals later on. How high you can progress in fractals is going to be limited without masteries from the expansions but that won't kick in for quite some time.
PvP . . . it kind of depends if you mean pvp matches or World vs. World. I don't think there are any great base necro builds for pvp matches. Some would argue there are no great necro builds in pvp matches though. World vs. World should still let you throw down wells with a staff into a crowd of enemies though with no one paying much attention to you not being optimal.
Is there an up-to-date skill builder I can tool around with?
I don't think the skill builders have really caught up with yesterday's changes yet.
That said, leveling necro builds aren't really tough to cobble together. It's largely a mix of getting permanent minions and stabbing things with a dagger. Some times swapping over to an axe if you need to avoid melee but mostly stabbing things with a dagger. Focus offhand lets you weaken things so you do more damage while stabbing them with a dagger. Warhorn is another option as it's a source of swiftness (albeit one that will hurt things around you and pull you into combat if you in some instances) so you get to to places more quickly. With dagger and minions as a focus, that means Spite and Death Magic are your two trait trees to focus on while leveling up. Tricks with conditions will wait til much later.
Well, I did that wrong then.
What about Mesmers? (I know they just got massively redone....)
Also what do each of these bring to raids? I'm thinking I'm going to jump on spending $50 for both expansions and I get a level 80 boost, and I am trying to decide if I Mesmer or Necro
Raids are going to be uncertain til folks get the measure of the new changes. Currently Chrono is massively more wanted (except for one specific fight), but things will change with PoF.
Hmmmmmm I picked this back up but don't know what I'm doing really. Got a level 40-ish Necromancer, and various other guys who have benefited from leveling boosts.
What is....I guess what do I do? Since my Necro got boosted with an item to 40, I just kind of ran around the Sylvari starting area and got it to 100%
Where do I go next? Also, how far can I go without the xpacs? (And how gimped would I be in PvP without them?)
My username is, Zinnar.7126, if someone wants to chat in-game.
You can go pretty far without the expansions depending on what you want to do. While you can 100% each area as you encounter it, it's probably not the best use of your time. You still get exp for fighting stuff you're downscaled to but IIRC it's not as much for stuff closer to your actual level. When you're past the level range indicated for a zone on the world map, it's a good time to move onto another zone.
The base game world is still pretty big and you do have access to dungeons and fractals later on. How high you can progress in fractals is going to be limited without masteries from the expansions but that won't kick in for quite some time.
PvP . . . it kind of depends if you mean pvp matches or World vs. World. I don't think there are any great base necro builds for pvp matches. Some would argue there are no great necro builds in pvp matches though. World vs. World should still let you throw down wells with a staff into a crowd of enemies though with no one paying much attention to you not being optimal.
Is there an up-to-date skill builder I can tool around with?
I don't think the skill builders have really caught up with yesterday's changes yet.
That said, leveling necro builds aren't really tough to cobble together. It's largely a mix of getting permanent minions and stabbing things with a dagger. Some times swapping over to an axe if you need to avoid melee but mostly stabbing things with a dagger. Focus offhand lets you weaken things so you do more damage while stabbing them with a dagger. Warhorn is another option as it's a source of swiftness (albeit one that will hurt things around you and pull you into combat if you in some instances) so you get to to places more quickly. With dagger and minions as a focus, that means Spite and Death Magic are your two trait trees to focus on while leveling up. Tricks with conditions will wait til much later.
Well, I did that wrong then.
What about Mesmers? (I know they just got massively redone....)
Also what do each of these bring to raids? I'm thinking I'm going to jump on spending $50 for both expansions and I get a level 80 boost, and I am trying to decide if I Mesmer or Necro
Everything I wrote earlier in the thread about how phantasms still aren't great for leveling still applies. So it's mostly going to be hitting things with a sword in melee and using mantra of pain's power spike skill without depleting the charge count. Phantasms will come out about every other fight to speed things along as well. Shattering illusions is often less damage than letting a phantasm stay up but if the mob a phantasm is targeting is about to die you might as well get some AoE out of it. And the mesmer also counts as another body for the purpose of shatters so even if the phantasm and clones are far away the shatter still will does something if you're next to mobs. Offhand can be sword or focus. Focus has an AoE phantasm and a source of swiftness. Sword has a better single target phantasm and a block/riposte. Ranged option for damage will be either a greatsword or scepter.
To that end, dueling is probably the first trait line to fill out. After that, either Illusions or Domination I imagine.
As for raids . . . uh, someone else can give a more detailed explanation and things kind of just got shaken up a bit too.
Mesmers or more specifically Chronomancers have some of the strongest group support boons in the game. They can also be rather durable by the game's standards due to being able to reset health via their special elite shatter as well as blocking skills. So they tend to be favored for group support and tanks for some fights. I guess some people bring out condition damage mesmers in some fights too. Previously Mesmer pve damage was laughably low, hence why all the talk about them since the patch.
Necromancers mostly deal condition damage in raids. They have some boon support and can corrupt the mob's boons. Mass minions can distract some mobs too so combined with their high health they can act as a tank on some fights. Power based damage builds are pretty much unseen.
It's really the non-raid high end pve content that necros really stand out though. Using the Epidemic utility skill lets a necromancer copy the conditions on a target mob to other mobs. This makes condition damage necromancers really strong in fractal groups where there can be a lot of adds in fights or tough trash mob packs. Since specific roles aren't important outside of raids, this means two necromancers can coordinate this. A boss fight with two mobs will have both necros dump all the conditions they can on the first target, one necro then copy those conditions onto the second target, and the other necro then make another copy of those conditions from the second mob back onto the first. Now bear in mind that without group composition requirements, you can bring along 5 condition necros into a fractal run group. It's not unheard of for a boss mob to end up with 100 stacks of bleeding on it in such a group. This isn't the fastest way to clear this kind of content but because it's pretty easy to do, necromancers are really durable, and condition necros can do their thing without being in melee range most of the time it's one of the safest ways to clear this kind of content in a PuG. On top of that, necromancers have multiple ways to remove conditions from players and either convert them into healing or transfer them to a mob plus a small amount of projectile destruction.
Similarly, non-raid Chronos don't really act as tanks anymore and focus more on the group support. Against trash packs or groups of adds, the ability of a focus to pull mobs together makes it easier to cleave or AoE them down. They are also the kings at projectile reflection and hence really handy against bosses with strong and frequent projectiles.
Hmmmmmm I picked this back up but don't know what I'm doing really. Got a level 40-ish Necromancer, and various other guys who have benefited from leveling boosts.
What is....I guess what do I do? Since my Necro got boosted with an item to 40, I just kind of ran around the Sylvari starting area and got it to 100%
Where do I go next? Also, how far can I go without the xpacs? (And how gimped would I be in PvP without them?)
My username is, Zinnar.7126, if someone wants to chat in-game.
You can go pretty far without the expansions depending on what you want to do. While you can 100% each area as you encounter it, it's probably not the best use of your time. You still get exp for fighting stuff you're downscaled to but IIRC it's not as much for stuff closer to your actual level. When you're past the level range indicated for a zone on the world map, it's a good time to move onto another zone.
The base game world is still pretty big and you do have access to dungeons and fractals later on. How high you can progress in fractals is going to be limited without masteries from the expansions but that won't kick in for quite some time.
PvP . . . it kind of depends if you mean pvp matches or World vs. World. I don't think there are any great base necro builds for pvp matches. Some would argue there are no great necro builds in pvp matches though. World vs. World should still let you throw down wells with a staff into a crowd of enemies though with no one paying much attention to you not being optimal.
Is there an up-to-date skill builder I can tool around with?
I don't think the skill builders have really caught up with yesterday's changes yet.
That said, leveling necro builds aren't really tough to cobble together. It's largely a mix of getting permanent minions and stabbing things with a dagger. Some times swapping over to an axe if you need to avoid melee but mostly stabbing things with a dagger. Focus offhand lets you weaken things so you do more damage while stabbing them with a dagger. Warhorn is another option as it's a source of swiftness (albeit one that will hurt things around you and pull you into combat if you in some instances) so you get to to places more quickly. With dagger and minions as a focus, that means Spite and Death Magic are your two trait trees to focus on while leveling up. Tricks with conditions will wait til much later.
Well, I did that wrong then.
What about Mesmers? (I know they just got massively redone....)
Also what do each of these bring to raids? I'm thinking I'm going to jump on spending $50 for both expansions and I get a level 80 boost, and I am trying to decide if I Mesmer or Necro
Everything I wrote earlier in the thread about how phantasms still aren't great for leveling still applies. So it's mostly going to be hitting things with a sword in melee and using mantra of pain's power spike skill without depleting the charge count. Phantasms will come out about every other fight to speed things along as well. Shattering illusions is often less damage than letting a phantasm stay up but if the mob a phantasm is targeting is about to die you might as well get some AoE out of it. And the mesmer also counts as another body for the purpose of shatters so even if the phantasm and clones are far away the shatter still will does something if you're next to mobs. Offhand can be sword or focus. Focus has an AoE phantasm and a source of swiftness. Sword has a better single target phantasm and a block/riposte. Ranged option for damage will be either a greatsword or scepter.
To that end, dueling is probably the first trait line to fill out. After that, either Illusions or Domination I imagine.
As for raids . . . uh, someone else can give a more detailed explanation and things kind of just got shaken up a bit too.
Mesmers or more specifically Chronomancers have some of the strongest group support boons in the game. They can also be rather durable by the game's standards due to being able to reset health via their special elite shatter as well as blocking skills. So they tend to be favored for group support and tanks for some fights. I guess some people bring out condition damage mesmers in some fights too. Previously Mesmer pve damage was laughably low, hence why all the talk about them since the patch.
Necromancers mostly deal condition damage in raids. They have some boon support and can corrupt the mob's boons. Mass minions can distract some mobs too so combined with their high health they can act as a tank on some fights. Power based damage builds are pretty much unseen.
It's really the non-raid high end pve content that necros really stand out though. Using the Epidemic utility skill lets a necromancer copy the conditions on a target mob to other mobs. This makes condition damage necromancers really strong in fractal groups where there can be a lot of adds in fights or tough trash mob packs. Since specific roles aren't important outside of raids, this means two necromancers can coordinate this. A boss fight with two mobs will have both necros dump all the conditions they can on the first target, one necro then copy those conditions onto the second target, and the other necro then make another copy of those conditions from the second mob back onto the first. Now bear in mind that without group composition requirements, you can bring along 5 condition necros into a fractal run group. It's not unheard of for a boss mob to end up with 100 stacks of bleeding on it in such a group. This isn't the fastest way to clear this kind of content but because it's pretty easy to do, necromancers are really durable, and condition necros can do their thing without being in melee range most of the time it's one of the safest ways to clear this kind of content in a PuG. On top of that, necromancers have multiple ways to remove conditions from players and either convert them into healing or transfer them to a mob plus a small amount of projectile destruction.
Similarly, non-raid Chronos don't really act as tanks anymore and focus more on the group support. Against trash packs or groups of adds, the ability of a focus to pull mobs together makes it easier to cleave or AoE them down. They are also the kings at projectile reflection and hence really handy against bosses with strong and frequent projectiles.
Goddamit both of these things sound fucking awesome and I'm still stuck trying to decide which to powerlevel first. I think the Chronomancer will be first, though, since I enjoy leveling the Necro more.
Goddamit both of these things sound fucking awesome and I'm still stuck trying to decide which to powerlevel first. I think the Chronomancer will be first, though, since I enjoy leveling the Necro more.
Mesmer is more of a pain to level traditionally for sure so definitely boost that one. Even if you get a second boost from somewhere I'd use it on another class besides the necro.
"Chronomancers have some of the strongest group support boons" is a very very strong selling point to me
The ability to speed up everyone's attacks and reduce everyone's cooldowns are very potent. A chronomancer's personal damage tends to be awful but they buff up everyone else's damage to such a high degree the personal damage doesn't matter much. The order of operations can get complicated though. A few nights ago a bunch of us were half joking in guild chat about how what we look forward to most about Mirage was how we were all so bad at playing Chrono.
Anyone know if you pre-order the new expansion and get the ultimate edition, will you get the crystals at time of purchase or when the expansion is released?
You get it within 48hrs of pre-ordering.
Their little order page says it can take up to 72 hours.
I preordered last Sunday and haven't received my gems yet. I'm expecting them tonight.
"Chronomancers have some of the strongest group support boons" is a very very strong selling point to me
Good chronos are able to produce a significant amount, if not permanent, alacrity and quickness for their groups, which reduce the cooldowns of skills and speed up skills to improve the overall damage of the group significantly.
Mix that with the inspiration line, and you also gain some significant condition removal. This got nerfed in the last patch, but is still present and notable when combined with mantras. Most importantly though is distortion share, which allows you to make your group invulnerable for a second whenever you get distortion placed upon you on a 5ish second cooldown.
Mix THAT with Blurred Inscriptions from Domination, which allows you to distort yourself every time you use a signet. Also gives you some extra time to pick people up when they got themselves downed in dumb things and anyone who tries to pick them up in the dumb things will also get killed by the dumb thing.
That all together makes you king of support, hard as hell to kill, and savior of raid groups.
Posts
I am new to fractals and fear pugs
does anyone want to run them with me tonight
and, you know, lead the party because I also hate being in charge
just tell me where to shoot I'm good at that
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
Huh. Doesn't look like the big condi reaper nerf people thought was incoming.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
Let me know when and i'll run you through as many as we have time for.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6sgg6o/datamining_upcoming_features_from_the_august_8/
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
The fifth anniversary of Guild Wars 2 is coming soon, and we’re celebrating with sales every day in the Black Lion Trading Company’s in-game store! We’ve also added new items to help you prepare for Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire™.
Path of Fire Preparation Pack
There’s no telling what you’ll encounter in the Crystal Desert—prepare yourself with this value pack of upgrades and items! The Path of Fire Preparation Pack contains 1 Character Slot, 2 Bag Slot Expansions, 1 Black Lion Instant Level-80 Ticket, 1 Unbreakable Gathering Tools Container, and 10 Black Lion Chest Keys.
Black Lion Instant Level-80 Ticket
Instantly boost one character to maximum level and take on everything Tyria has to offer right away. Your new level-80 character will receive a starting set of exotic gear and a box full of useful items to help you on your journey.
Black Lion Exclusives Chest
Black Lion Chests now have a chance to drop a rare chest containing nine exclusive items previously available as uncommon Black Lion Chest drops. These chests can be sold to other players on the Trading Post, and they offer a choice between the following: Grasping Phantom Glider, Mini Celestial Rooster, Infinirarium Glider, Candelabra Staff skin, Bitterfrost Vantage Point access, Noran’s Safe Room Pass and Key, Elemental Sword skin, Sworn Zaishen Helm skin, and Hounds of Balthazar Mail Carrier.
Rival Skies Package
Wield some dramatic contrast with an Icy Blade Axe and Fiery Blade Axe! These skins are available exclusively as a combo package.
August Anniversary Sales – Week 1
August 09: 20% off Amethyst Aegis and Emissary’s Staff
August 10: 20% off Peacock Scepter and Dragon Kama
August 11: 20% off Caithe’s Bloom Dagger and Belinda’s Greatsword
August 12: 20% off Kurzick Dual Axe and Storm Bow
August 13: 20% off Chain-Whip Sword and Replica Mirror of Lyssa
August 14: 25% off Watchwork Mining Pick
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
are you serious
I can become a Catmander
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
And new cats in wvwvw! And catmander tags... It's a good day to be a crazy cat lady...
The meta is changing at an arming rate!
I'm pretty psyched I used one of my free lvl 80s on mesmer; I'll probably keep on keeping on with my engineer (so many buttons!) but I've always been partial to those crazy purple guys.
Are mesmers still really annoying to level though? I'm trying to get a friend into the game and he's intrigued by mesmer but I kind of tipped him away from that since I've heard they don't come into their own for quite a while. If I'm off base I'd like to let him know but I don't him to have a hard time with his first char.
Unrelated but I just felt like I should say it: I really really really enjoy Verdant Brink and I'm kicking myself for not getting HoT sooner. Strong concept, well executed, with an event chain that hits right where it should in terms of both theme and pace. Can't wait to see more of the other HoT and S3 zones. I could EASILY see myself spending a lot of time here even after PoF release.
Unfortunately I missed getting this :bigfrown:
Bug Fix:
Fixed a bug that was granting incorrect map-completion rewards.
Sword/sword power mes is in vogue?
The time has come. Gotta hook up my computer finally.
and boy was a warrior really surprised to see me before it finished capping
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
*edit* nevermind. I forgot how fucking expensive and ridiculous decorating is in GW2. I got used to ESO where it's actually a thing you can do.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Watching a video of the rotation of the new power dps spec, a big chunk of the damage comes from just summoning 2 sword phantasms at the start of a boss fight (sword 5, signet of ether immediately, sword 5 again) followed by another one and then letting them do their thing. That's pretty contrary to how most fights go in open world stuff like leveling where stuff does too quickly to really get as much out of phantasms.
On the plus side activating mantra of pain and letting a charge accumulate between uses so it never fully runs out does give a somewhat more consistent boost to damage not dependent on setting up illusions when leveling.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Oh man. Might give me a reason to get some exotic berserker gear for my mesmer.
What is....I guess what do I do? Since my Necro got boosted with an item to 40, I just kind of ran around the Sylvari starting area and got it to 100%
Where do I go next? Also, how far can I go without the xpacs? (And how gimped would I be in PvP without them?)
My username is, Zinnar.7126, if someone wants to chat in-game.
Huge shakeup but also hard to gauge how long the effects will last. There weren't any real nerfs to condi reaper specifically (just some general nerfs to condi food) despite a lot of messaging about that coming so now people are expecting that to come with the expansion proper in a month given expressed intent to make Scourge more of the condi necro spec instead of Reaper pulling double duty as both power and condi boost. At least in that case we know that there will be some condition damage build though.
I'm not eager to run out and choose prefixes for armor on other classes though. If Mirage turns out to be much more condition oriented (which its axes skills seem to be as well as some traits), I'd feel a bit silly for getting a bunch of zerker ascended light armor for my mesmer.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
You can go pretty far without the expansions depending on what you want to do. While you can 100% each area as you encounter it, it's probably not the best use of your time. You still get exp for fighting stuff you're downscaled to but IIRC it's not as much for stuff closer to your actual level. When you're past the level range indicated for a zone on the world map, it's a good time to move onto another zone.
The base game world is still pretty big and you do have access to dungeons and fractals later on. How high you can progress in fractals is going to be limited without masteries from the expansions but that won't kick in for quite some time.
PvP . . . it kind of depends if you mean pvp matches or World vs. World. I don't think there are any great base necro builds for pvp matches. Some would argue there are no great necro builds in pvp matches though. World vs. World should still let you throw down wells with a staff into a crowd of enemies though with no one paying much attention to you not being optimal.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Is there an up-to-date skill builder I can tool around with?
I don't think the skill builders have really caught up with yesterday's changes yet.
That said, leveling necro builds aren't really tough to cobble together. It's largely a mix of getting permanent minions and stabbing things with a dagger. Some times swapping over to an axe if you need to avoid melee but mostly stabbing things with a dagger. Focus offhand lets you weaken things so you do more damage while stabbing them with a dagger. Warhorn is another option as it's a source of swiftness (albeit one that will hurt things around you and pull you into combat if you in some instances) so you get to to places more quickly. With dagger and minions as a focus, that means Spite and Death Magic are your two trait trees to focus on while leveling up. Tricks with conditions will wait til much later.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
You get it within 48hrs of pre-ordering.
I got mine a few days afterward myself.
Well, I did that wrong then.
What about Mesmers? (I know they just got massively redone....)
Also what do each of these bring to raids? I'm thinking I'm going to jump on spending $50 for both expansions and I get a level 80 boost, and I am trying to decide if I Mesmer or Necro
Everything I wrote earlier in the thread about how phantasms still aren't great for leveling still applies. So it's mostly going to be hitting things with a sword in melee and using mantra of pain's power spike skill without depleting the charge count. Phantasms will come out about every other fight to speed things along as well. Shattering illusions is often less damage than letting a phantasm stay up but if the mob a phantasm is targeting is about to die you might as well get some AoE out of it. And the mesmer also counts as another body for the purpose of shatters so even if the phantasm and clones are far away the shatter still will does something if you're next to mobs. Offhand can be sword or focus. Focus has an AoE phantasm and a source of swiftness. Sword has a better single target phantasm and a block/riposte. Ranged option for damage will be either a greatsword or scepter.
To that end, dueling is probably the first trait line to fill out. After that, either Illusions or Domination I imagine.
As for raids . . . uh, someone else can give a more detailed explanation and things kind of just got shaken up a bit too.
Mesmers or more specifically Chronomancers have some of the strongest group support boons in the game. They can also be rather durable by the game's standards due to being able to reset health via their special elite shatter as well as blocking skills. So they tend to be favored for group support and tanks for some fights. I guess some people bring out condition damage mesmers in some fights too. Previously Mesmer pve damage was laughably low, hence why all the talk about them since the patch.
Necromancers mostly deal condition damage in raids. They have some boon support and can corrupt the mob's boons. Mass minions can distract some mobs too so combined with their high health they can act as a tank on some fights. Power based damage builds are pretty much unseen.
It's really the non-raid high end pve content that necros really stand out though. Using the Epidemic utility skill lets a necromancer copy the conditions on a target mob to other mobs. This makes condition damage necromancers really strong in fractal groups where there can be a lot of adds in fights or tough trash mob packs. Since specific roles aren't important outside of raids, this means two necromancers can coordinate this. A boss fight with two mobs will have both necros dump all the conditions they can on the first target, one necro then copy those conditions onto the second target, and the other necro then make another copy of those conditions from the second mob back onto the first. Now bear in mind that without group composition requirements, you can bring along 5 condition necros into a fractal run group. It's not unheard of for a boss mob to end up with 100 stacks of bleeding on it in such a group. This isn't the fastest way to clear this kind of content but because it's pretty easy to do, necromancers are really durable, and condition necros can do their thing without being in melee range most of the time it's one of the safest ways to clear this kind of content in a PuG. On top of that, necromancers have multiple ways to remove conditions from players and either convert them into healing or transfer them to a mob plus a small amount of projectile destruction.
Similarly, non-raid Chronos don't really act as tanks anymore and focus more on the group support. Against trash packs or groups of adds, the ability of a focus to pull mobs together makes it easier to cleave or AoE them down. They are also the kings at projectile reflection and hence really handy against bosses with strong and frequent projectiles.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Goddamit both of these things sound fucking awesome and I'm still stuck trying to decide which to powerlevel first. I think the Chronomancer will be first, though, since I enjoy leveling the Necro more.
Mesmer is more of a pain to level traditionally for sure so definitely boost that one. Even if you get a second boost from somewhere I'd use it on another class besides the necro.
The ability to speed up everyone's attacks and reduce everyone's cooldowns are very potent. A chronomancer's personal damage tends to be awful but they buff up everyone else's damage to such a high degree the personal damage doesn't matter much. The order of operations can get complicated though. A few nights ago a bunch of us were half joking in guild chat about how what we look forward to most about Mirage was how we were all so bad at playing Chrono.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Their little order page says it can take up to 72 hours.
I preordered last Sunday and haven't received my gems yet. I'm expecting them tonight.
Good chronos are able to produce a significant amount, if not permanent, alacrity and quickness for their groups, which reduce the cooldowns of skills and speed up skills to improve the overall damage of the group significantly.
Mix that with the inspiration line, and you also gain some significant condition removal. This got nerfed in the last patch, but is still present and notable when combined with mantras. Most importantly though is distortion share, which allows you to make your group invulnerable for a second whenever you get distortion placed upon you on a 5ish second cooldown.
Mix THAT with Blurred Inscriptions from Domination, which allows you to distort yourself every time you use a signet. Also gives you some extra time to pick people up when they got themselves downed in dumb things and anyone who tries to pick them up in the dumb things will also get killed by the dumb thing.
That all together makes you king of support, hard as hell to kill, and savior of raid groups.
Armor Sets from PoF
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.