As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
[GW2] Season 2 Episode 3 - The Dragon's Reach Part 1 (Use Spoiler Tags!)
Geod
swim, swim, hungryRegistered User regular
swim, swim, hungryRegistered User regular
Welcome to the Penny Arcade Guild Wars 2 Community Thread!
If you’re new to GW2, check out the official Guild Wars 2 site for more information on the game. Every two weeks the game has an update through the “Living World” events.
Current Living Story
Season 2 - Episode 3 - The Dragon's Reach Part 1 (July 15, 2014)
Spoiler Policy: Please use spoiler tags for anything for the current season (Season 2), but anything in the previous seasons or the personal story is fair game.
For returning or new players, the GW2 Wiki has a summary for all that’s gone on so far in regards to the living story.
What A Nice Guild [NICE]
The Penny Arcade Community guild in Guild Wars 2 is called What A Nice Guild [NICE]. We play on the Fort Aspenwood server, although guilds are cross-server and we have members who play on other servers. It is easiest to participate in guild activities if FA is your home server, but you can join in most activities via guesting (with the exception of World vs World pvp). To permanently switch servers, you have to pay for a transfer or delete all your characters. Fort Aspenwood is a North American server, but we have plenty of people from other regions including Australia and Europe playing with us on FA, so don’t let that dissuade you if you’re located in another region.
Commanders:
@Geod (Geod.5024, Geod)
@Ky13 (kyonethree.9814, Teldra)
Officers:
@Draygo (Draygo.9473, Delarme)
@Enig (Ansatz.6498)
@Lagnar (Lagnar.9281, Lagnar)
@Leandriell (kalzana.3192)
@Kylindra (Kylindra.1794, Sage Persephone)
@mojojoeo (MojoGroove.8253, Mojojoeo)
@naengwen (Sharkey.9805, Sharkey)
@Psyfer (Psyfer.1026, Psyfer)
@The Deranged Hermit (Tavalisk.9463, Tavalisk Eristoff)
@TolerantZero (TolerantZero.4305)
@Vivixenne (Vivixenne.3465, Vivixenne)
To join the guild:
You can ask for an invite by posting your account name (<name>.####) in this thread, and one of the officers will invite you. Alternately, you’re welcome to whisper in game one of the leaders or officers above. Anyone from the PA community may join the guild, along with any friends and family. Being active on the forums is encouraged but not required. Guild policies are loosely based on the PA forum rules – don’t be a dick. If you have any issues with anyone, please contact a guild officer.
Guilds are limited to 500 members, so occasionally we have to cull inactive members. If you find yourself removed, just ask for an invite again.
Teamspeak 3 Server
The guild has a Teamspeak 3 server, thanks to Draygo. Download TS at http://www.teamspeak.com. Even if you don’t have a mic, just listening will help greatly for coordination.
Server IP: 66.135.55.177:9999
Password: pa
Admins: Draygo, Enig, Geod, Sage Persephone, Vivixenne
The below spoiler contains the Penny Arcade Guild Wars 2 Teamspeak FAQ, written by Draygo for everyone's convenience. Please refer to it for any queries regarding the GW2 PA TS3 setup. Server seats 100+ people and everything you want to know about it can be found below or by asking Draygo, as he put it together and has been hosting these servers for years.
Q) Where do I get it:
Download teamspeak here: http://www.teamspeak.com/?page=downloads
You can get teamspeak for windows, mac, and linux. As well as your Ithing and your android, if you so prefer.
Q) Cool, I installed it, now what?
Now you must connect to our totally awesome server. In order to do that you must first run teamspeak. Then hit Connections at the top. Select Connect.
Now you must enter the server details:
Server Address: 66.135.59.185:9999
Nickname: Your forum or In Game Name
Password: pa
Q) What does the banner in the top right do?
The community thread banner when clicked on will open the most recent guild wars 2 thread on penny arcade.
Q) How do I add a class or race icon next to my name?
You do this by right clicking yourself, put your mouse over server group, then left click any of the categories named with the race or class you want to choose. You can uncheck them at any time to remove the icon.
Q) So is there a skin/theme for this?
Yes and you can download it from our lobby. Right click the lobby, and select open file browser. You will see the installer file at the top. Download and run that file to skin your client.
In order to activate the theme/skin you need to go to settings->options, and click design on the left.
Then select Theme and change it to PA Guild Wars 2.
Q) Who made the theme?
Draygo did.
Q) How do I change my name?
Right click yourself and select change nickname. You can do this at any time. Do not change your name to impersonate an admin.
Q) What rules can I expect?
Don't be a dick. No personal attacks except 'silly goose', forum rules apply. If it is not appropriate on the forums, it is also not appropriate in teamspeak.
Q) Someone is breaking the rules, or is being disruptive, but no server admins are online. How do I complain.
First, I hope you can all be nice and resolve disputes by yourselves. If someone is being a dick, you can fill out a complaint. Right click someone and click make a complaint. Do not abuse this feature. If 5 people complain about one person in a short amount time, that person will be temp banned from the server. Do not abuse this. Admins will see the complaints that lead to the temp banning and will be unhappy to fix it.
Q) Can I make my own channels?
Yes!
Teamspeak is setup that you can make your own channels in any of the major channels (Except Admin HQ, Lobby, and Afk, for obvious reasons) First enter the channel you want to make the sub-channel in. Right click the parent channel and select, create sub channel. You can enter a name, even a password, as well as set any description you want. After you create the channel, make sure the Audio Codec selected is high enough audio quality.
Right click the channel you created and click edit channel. Click the audio tab and increase the Quality slider. Also decrease the latency slider to reduce lag time. Quality 7, latency 1 are the recommended settings.
These channels are temp only, when the last person leaves them they are automatically cleaned up.
The person who created the channel is the op of the channel and can kick people from the channel (not server). So if you created your own channel and want to remove someone, you can password protect it and remove the troublesome individual.
Q) Is there an overlay plugin?
Yes. There is a built in overlay plugin. To enable it, select settings then plugins. Check the teamspeak overlay plugin and then click settings on the bottom to configure it. Here you can configure any color of each of the elements, as well as transparency settings. I recommend you change the input settings to enable mouse polling, and change the initialization mode to minimal. Minimal mode only displays the one person who is talking, the other mode displays everyone in your channel even those that are talking.
Q) Does teamspeak work with my G15 keyboard.
Yes. There is a plugin for that. Pretty easy to configure again settings->plugins, and enable the G15 keyboard.
Q) I’m seeing graphical glitches when I use the overlay. How do I fix that?
Here's how to get the overlay working without graphical glitches:
1. Go to Settings->Plugins in TS3.
2. Select GW2.exe in the Profile dropdown.
3. Uncheck all the Direct3D options, except for Direct3D 9 (which is what GW2 uses).
4. Switch to Input tab
5. Check "Enable Mouse Poll" and "Use in-game" cursor
6. Switch to extended, and check "Used ID3DDevice:Present hook..." (This is what fixes the animations not showing in GW2)
Guild Schedule
The guild runs various activities together on a regular basis. A schedule and calendar can be seen below, and is also in the Guild Message of the Day (MOTD). All times are Pacific.
Guild Missions: Saturday 7pm PST; Sunday Noon PST
World versus World pvp (WvW): Monday nights, 5:30pm PST - Friday nights, 4:45pm PST
Guild Lottery: Drawing every Saturday at 7pm PST right before missions
Guild Missions
Guild Wars 2 has activities designed for large groups called Guild Missions. These missions include Bounty, Puzzle, Challenge, and Rush. Rewards for participation include commendations, rares, gold and chances at a precursor or other exotic items. Each night that we run guild missions, we’ll make one attempt at each mission type, although we don’t always win. You can earn personal credit (rewards) for participation once a week, so you only need to show up for one of the scheduled runs each week for maximum rewards. Credit resets every week on Saturday at daily reset time, so the Saturday night run is the most popular. Here’s a guide for missions written by Vivixenne.
World vs World PvP
Our WvW excursions are planned and lead by Mojojoeo. Matchups reset weekly on Friday a little after 6pm PST, so that night’s activities feature large crowds and huge battles. Tuesday night events are more casual and smaller scale. Yougottawanna has written a guide to WvW that is a good read.
Guild Lottery
Each week we have a 50/50 guild lottery, with half of the gold going to the winner, and the other half going to fund guild activities such as contests and the custom sPvP arena. All lottery entries are recorded in a Google Spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aj7W7InOt5dOdGRGd0ctS1V3dXBfdk5BMTdLclE5cGc
The drawing occurs every week in the forum thread, Saturday at 7pm PST, right before guild missions start. Lottery tickets are 1 gold each, and each guild member may buy a maximum of 5 tickets per week. Officers are not eligible to participate. To buy tickets, deposit the gold into the Guild Bank, specifically the Guild Stash (the top section). The bank logs will be used to record your ticket purchase and your entries will be reflected in the spreadsheet. Winners will not be eligible for the following lottery, but may enter after again.
Guild Competion Events
Occasionally, the guild will also host a guild competition for prizes. These events are scheduled by officers at various times, and have included jumping puzzle races, or scavenger hunts. The guild lottery funds these prizes.
[NICE] Guild Resources
Guild Tumblr Blog
We use this thread for most of our coordination, but we also have a Tumblr site that Vivixenne created to post guild information, builds, and other guides. http://gw2nice.tumblr.com/
Guild Bank
Vivixenne manages the guild bank, and has the following rules for using it. If you have used, intend to use, or think you may be interested in using it, please read this section by Vivixenne all the way through.
- WHY THE GUILD BANK EXISTS -
It is basically a guild storage for hard-to-find, useful items that people have generously donated to the Guild Bank instead of selling them. It is not a place for you to stick stuff (food) you’ve made but don’t want and can’t sell.
I cull stuff that is not meant to be there, keep the Bank tidy, and keep track of how often people withdraw as opposed to how often (and what) they deposit.
I don’t keep lists or databases. But if I check the log and see that you’ve withdrawn a lot of items and have not deposited anything within a few days after that, you may receive a message from me just as a friendly note that I HAVE MY EYE ON YOU.
- WHAT TO DEPOSIT -
Stuff that is appropriate to deposit are hard-to-find or useful items.
Hard-to-find is any piece of equipment that is
Useful is the following:
Please note that all Major Sigils or Major Runes will be stuck into the Mystic Forge to try to generate Superiors. We are no longer accepting Crests, Talismans, or Seals.
Useful is also any food containing the following buffs:
- WITHDRAWING -
You are free to withdraw from the free-access parts of the Guild Bank (Deep Cave, Treasure Trove).
Stash items are by request only, but you will generally be able to get whatever you request from the Stash. This is purely to prevent people joining the guild and grabbing a bunch of stuff and bailing - not likely to happen, but a possibility I would like to avoid.
To withdraw something from the Stash, you will have to go through me - via /g, /w, or in-game mail. If I am not online and you absolutely NEED that item RIGHT NOW and it can’t wait until the next time I log, you may approach another officer.
Exceptions will be high-cost Superior Runes or Sigils (anything that costs more than 2g in the Trading Post). These will not just be given because you ask - you must request to buy them from the Guild at a discount. The price fluctuates every day, so when you ask for such an item I will reply letting you know how much you need to send me before I will give it to you. You are free to decline the offer.
- RULES AND PENALTIES -
If you fill the Bank with trash that I have to tidy up, you will lose access to the Bank for as long as I think is appropriate - usually scaled to how annoyed I am at you.
If you withdraw something, you HAVE to be doing so to use it yourself - not to sell or pass on to a friend that is not in the guild. If you are caught, you will lose access to the Bank. Maybe worse, like a kick from the guild. I haven’t decided because this hasn’t happened yet - it may go to a case-by-case in consultation with the other officers.
It is basically a guild storage for hard-to-find, useful items that people have generously donated to the Guild Bank instead of selling them. It is not a place for you to stick stuff (food) you’ve made but don’t want and can’t sell.
I cull stuff that is not meant to be there, keep the Bank tidy, and keep track of how often people withdraw as opposed to how often (and what) they deposit.
I don’t keep lists or databases. But if I check the log and see that you’ve withdrawn a lot of items and have not deposited anything within a few days after that, you may receive a message from me just as a friendly note that I HAVE MY EYE ON YOU.
- WHAT TO DEPOSIT -
Stuff that is appropriate to deposit are hard-to-find or useful items.
Hard-to-find is any piece of equipment that is
- rare
- exotic
- legendary (if you are just MADE of money)
Useful is the following:
- crafting materials
- sigils (major+)
- runes (major+)
- potions (highest level potion only)
- dyes
- gold jewelry or better (for alts and just-turned 80s)
Please note that all Major Sigils or Major Runes will be stuck into the Mystic Forge to try to generate Superiors. We are no longer accepting Crests, Talismans, or Seals.
Useful is also any food containing the following buffs:
- Gold Find
- Magic Find
- Karma Boost
- Downed Health
- Critical Chance or Damage
- WITHDRAWING -
You are free to withdraw from the free-access parts of the Guild Bank (Deep Cave, Treasure Trove).
Stash items are by request only, but you will generally be able to get whatever you request from the Stash. This is purely to prevent people joining the guild and grabbing a bunch of stuff and bailing - not likely to happen, but a possibility I would like to avoid.
To withdraw something from the Stash, you will have to go through me - via /g, /w, or in-game mail. If I am not online and you absolutely NEED that item RIGHT NOW and it can’t wait until the next time I log, you may approach another officer.
Exceptions will be high-cost Superior Runes or Sigils (anything that costs more than 2g in the Trading Post). These will not just be given because you ask - you must request to buy them from the Guild at a discount. The price fluctuates every day, so when you ask for such an item I will reply letting you know how much you need to send me before I will give it to you. You are free to decline the offer.
- RULES AND PENALTIES -
If you fill the Bank with trash that I have to tidy up, you will lose access to the Bank for as long as I think is appropriate - usually scaled to how annoyed I am at you.
If you withdraw something, you HAVE to be doing so to use it yourself - not to sell or pass on to a friend that is not in the guild. If you are caught, you will lose access to the Bank. Maybe worse, like a kick from the guild. I haven’t decided because this hasn’t happened yet - it may go to a case-by-case in consultation with the other officers.
Guild Custom sPvP Server
The guild funds and runs a structured PvP server. The server is administered by Teldra and is named “[NICE] Persephone Exists, Nothing is Sacred.” The server is used for running sPvP nights, as well as tournaments and events. It is also available at other times for dueling and casual play. We’ll likely be starting up a daily night for casual sPvP soon.
To enter the custom arena, go to the Heart of the Mists and look for the NPC marked PvP Browser (the same NPC you talk to for hot join games). In the PvP Browser interface, use the Search Owner/Name bar on the left and type in Teldra. Once you find the arena, right click to mark it as a favorite so you can find it again later more easily.
Guild Wars 2 Resources
General
Guild Wars 2 Official Site
Guild Wars 2 Wiki
Dulfy Guides
GW2 Subreddit
NICE Guild Links
NICE Tumblr
Guild Bounty Spreadsheet
Guild Lottery Spreadsheet
Guides
Guild Mission Guide by Vivixenne
Making money guide by Sage Persephone
WvW Guide by Yougottawanna
Combo Field and Finishers by Vivixenne
Primer on Leveling Up by Vivixenne
Other Resources
Gw2spidy (Trading Post Data)
World Event Timers
Events and Temple Status
Resource Node Map
Dynamic Crafting Guide
WvW Matchups
gw2lfg (Find a dungeon group)
Into the Mists (Build Guides)
Armor Gallery
Karma Calculator
FAQ
Guild boosts? What are those?
Every time you log on, or complete events are part of the guild, the guild gains influence. The influence is spent on guild missions, and also guild boosts. Guild boosts are guild-wide buffs that are given to everyone representing the guild and include karma boosts, magic find, reduced waypoint costs, and reduced repair costs, not to mention others. These boosts are typically run on the weekend only. If you have karma jugs or other consumables, it’s recommended you wait until the weekend to use them since that way you’ll get more karma out of them.
What should I do after I get to level 80?
- World Completion
- Build your character how you want with armor/weapons/skills
- Achievements
- Dungeons
- World Events
- Legendary Weapon
- Crafting
- Personal Story
- sPvP/WvW
- Daily and Monthly
- Jumping Puzzles
- Make up your own goals - ie, get all dyes, get all minis
- Create an alt
- Have fun!
I see a lot of people in the guild with "Von Kraken" or "Copper" in their names. What's up with that?
We decided near launch of the game for some of our characters to be in the same "family." So Human Nobles will have their names with a von Kraken tag, like '<player name> Von Kraken.' Similarly, with Charr characters we've decided to form the Copper warband (cause copper, like in a penny. Get it?). Your Charr character can be named with Copper as the prefix or suffix of your name. For instance, 'Geod Copperstone' or 'Rysk Coppercrusher' or whatever you like. Feel free to join in with the naming fun if you'd like!
Geod on
+8
Posts
- TIS the gahdang season
Mojo's Diabolical WvW Blood Lottery III (a celebration of life) : MONDAY BLOODY MONDAY.
- Monday December 16 beginning 830 EST -
For the uninitiated (newguys read here)- the blood lottery is a WvW event that anyone has a chance to win. It uses the random metric of badges gained during the event to determine the winner. Literally any person of any level can win as badge drops are totally random. And best of all, since your wealthy benefactor (me) is mad mad maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad and rich.... this is a non guild funded event. Meaning the officers may participate. the officers so rarely get to play with us.... t'would be a shame if someone denied them their one chance to win. There will be two pop quizzes for small prizes and the grand prize. The blood curtains.....
Grand prize- 1st place may choose one of the following, 2nd can choose 1 from what's left:
Curtain 1 - 1 black lion ticket - I have the ticket you tell me what you want.... this can be held for any new patch of your choosing.
Curtain 2 - A Grenth hood- gifted to you
Curtain 3 - 25 Gold. mmmmmmm money money money.
-or-
Mojo's mytery box. Whats in the box? no one knows. Last time it was a "make your own artificial life-partner kit" containing a golem, a wig, a dress and a quaggan backpack. But it could be anything. 250 gossimer? 250 oribars? an onion? Gwenneth Paltrow's head? take a risk and take the box!
The day is finally here! come and get your wuv tonight!
Now more than ever. Our wvw attendance is way up and the dawn of the mega guild is over on FA. Roaming bands of heathens is the new fa meta with them coming together like magic to fight larger forces.
Please do swing through!
Keep an eye out if this is a method you've used to make money, there is still a nice profit in doing so, but the mats are all increasing significantly to do so.
I can't think of a reason yet, but it is a material that you can buy cheaply, and has been for a while.
I'll be selling bolts of damask until it isn't worth the time anymore, personally. I'm in no hurry to get ascended armor.
top end mats lose value in this model tho. you have to have ori and ancient wood to get to 500 and then no one cares.
thats my bread and butter so..... yeah... great....
The Laurel and SP costs on making Ascended Gear (especially if you're need a variety of stat sets) are pretty absurd though. For anything less than hardcore or longterm players, it's pretty much out of reach.
That would be nice (players spending time in the lower level zones), but if I can spend 30 minutes on 2 characters getting maybe 5 gold in T6 mats (not counting T5, or omnomberries for example) so I can buy the T2-T4 mats I need, isn't it still a better use of my time in the practical sense to continue what I'm doing and just buy the mats?
The fact that you need 30 laurels to get the recipes to make the 6 pieces of armor, not including the 5 it takes to also get the inscription, is pretty high in terms of cost, you're right. I mean, from one standpoint you can get around 40 laurels per month, if you do the monthly and every daily. However, some might argue that the ascended weapons (+5% damage and stats) for 10 laurels is a more cost effective difference in gameplay compared to 35 laurels for +5% armor (which is like, <2% damage mitigation I think) and stats.
Warrior/Guardian: Fenny, Doomy, Invectivus, Who-Psyd, Chibi. Cyreniea, Badwrong, Yngvar, Batavia
Other classes (gameplan incoming): Tamarsk, Kai_San, Viv
Repost is inside the spoiler:
CHOO CHOO CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA CHOO CHOO CHUGGA CHUGGA
First, the builds.
Warrior: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBiYDbk0p5t6xFCHOggeohZhAqKAHpHiBakGA-jkCBofCy0HwEIAUBQZPFRjtyqIasqZCyKbYqXJ1euIa1SBUkyI-w
Guardian: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJAWRlUgqCnFSPEm4ESmiRKBxUwRZ01DHKhYIA-jUCBofBi+IQJoDZNJFMLCqyqIasqZER16kY2zFRrWKgiUGB-w
For simplicity's sake I just used the signet heal on the warrior, but defiant stance might also work if you think you can pull the timing off. Also, offhand shield instead of offhand warhorn may work. Overall the warrior build has more wiggle room than the guardian build. In the guardian build I included a few sentinel's pieces since guardians have low base HP. If Sentinel's is hard to get (you can buy the insignias with guild commendations I believe, so the pieces shouldn't cost 100g anymore like they used to) you can use soldier's for example.
If you're not level 80 yet get as close to these builds as you can, and remember that preferred stats are vitality, toughness, and healing power. Gw2skills.net now assumes ascended for all slots it looks like, so our stats may not be quite as high as the ones listed, but they'll be close enough.
For the sake of an example, we'll take a group of 3 guardians and 2 warriors. The group will have:
-Lots of stability - Warrior traits will activate balanced stance for the first CC that hits, and between Stand Your Ground and traited Virtue of Courage we'll have six sources of group stability on top of that.
-Lots of group healing - Warriors will heal on shouts (for about 2000 on this build), guardians will group heal on dodge rolls (1100), and on virtue of resolve (2300 initial plus 1500 more from regen), and from empower (2400) and staff #2 (1300), plus 1700 more regen from Hold the Line. Guardians will also heal themselves every time they grant a boon to allies, and that'll be happening a lot.
-Lots of condition removal - Everyone's running a shout build with runes of the soldier, so you'll be cleansing conditions with every shout, plus Warriors'll be using shake it off, plus a good amount of light fields and the greatsword whirl finishers, which send out cleansing bolts.
-Good crowd control - Hammer warriors bring the pain, and guardians have the staff line and the greatsword chains. I also have Fear Me as the second shout on the warriors, but it should only be used at certain times (more on this below)
-Good rezzing ability - we'll have a pair of warbanners, plus three guardians with the bubble-on-rez trait. If one of us goes down, quickly picking them up should be doable even right in the midst of the enemy if we stay together and alert.
The gameplan:
Step one: have the people in the melee group group-target a person to follow. It might just be the commander. We'll stick close to them. If we get too spread out we'll lot a lot of group healing, boons, and effective focus fire, so stay as close as you can manage. (on a related note, whoever we're following should not make his or her movement too complicated - simple, straight-line movement is easier to follow than a bunch of zigzagging and such)
Step two: Once we get within 1200 range of them, we have to worry about the bomb. We'll appoint somebody as "stability one", and they'll use Stand Your Ground. Using dodges during the approach is also prudent. We have other stun breaks (other guardians' Stand Your Ground and Warriors' Shake it Off) if need be. Warhorn 4 is also an immobilize/crippled/chilled break.
Step three: Once we're within 600 range we want to be in melee as soon as possible, so now's a good time to use our gap-closers. This means Savage Leap for Warriors (which will have an immobilize, thanks to the leg specialist trait) and leap of faith for guardians (which will have an AoE blind). Warriors use their warhorn skills if they haven't already (26 seconds of group vigor means twice the dodges, and for guardians, twice the dodge group heals.
Step four: Now that we're in the fight and things are getting chaotic, using a script like the one in steps 1-3 gets less feasible. Overall we want to follow a pattern when guardians pull with chains, then everyone starts whacking and CC'ing the people they just pulled (earthshaker and hammer #3 are good for warriors, symbol of wrath and the #2 spin for guardians). Just remember to stay together.
Step five: The recovery. We want to clump up and use empower. Three guardians using it at once will mean a group heal for 7000+. However empower roots you so we need to stand still for this, and be close enough to actually get the heal. Another possibility, which I've never actually seen done before, is to have a guardian drop the sanctuary utility, have everyone run inside it, then use the big book heal. This'll heal their whole group to full. I've tested this in the mists and you can drop sanctuary, get your book out, run inside, and use the big heal all before sanctuary expires (it lasts six seconds). In theory with three guardians we could do this three times, making the other side absolutely hate us.
Then we just repeat steps three through five until they're all dead (or we are). I know that was a lot of typing, but I suspect once we give it a couple of tries it'll be simpler than it looks.
I'm currently thinking that the train will make its debut this coming Wednesday (12/18), though if you want to bring your character to the blood lottery on Monday to get some practice (if it's not your main) that's a good idea. I'll only be there for the first part of Monday (have to leave around nine or so).
Edit: we might have a new thread soon, so I'll repost this if that happens. Also, if you want to get in on the fun but don't have a warrior or guardian, let me know in this thread, I have more wacky plans in the pipeline
About the banners: this would probably be a good time to say that I was initially hoping for five singups the melee train and now have ten (including me). I don't want to eat up all the warriors and guardians in the guild for this one thing, or the main group won't have any. So for the moment other warrior builds should be with the main group, where they can be whatever they want. For the moment I'd like to keep Fear Me on the melee train bar - I suspect it'll have a lot of value for preventing the restack, and the long cooldown isn't as much of a weakness as you'd think. Fights are so often won or lost on the first push (or the first two) that long-cooldown skills are still valuable.
Right now I'm hoping for one melee train of five, and anyone who shows up beyond that we'll put with the main group (at least on wednesday). I love that so many people are interested but we still want some balance. A group with nothing but frontline has its own weaknesses. But I'm working on roles for everyone. If we can pull off the first part (the train), it'll be kind of like a proof-of-concept, and we can add new things from there.
Also, Blood Lottery tonight, everyone be there. Will there be pregame WvW?
Hey, it's me, Teldra! Did someone say "greatsword"? [Eternity]
yes there will be. The lottery starts at 830; the fun starts when you show up.
Also my level 20-something got a level 80 exotic war horn doing it.
In other news: Fuck toy golems.
Seriously what the hell.
Had some pop out and they killed me and then preceded to kill every npc or monster in the nearby vicinity.
Not sure what i want to do with it.
champ farming?
generally done in large groups and for hours on end
So I just go from Oak to Boar to Troll to Bandit.
The Apple Orchard in the top left.
That spider is only a veteran, the champion spider spawns near the hunting lodge.
Here is a map of the champion locations. http://i.imgur.com/0GaJqSu.jpg
It is so awesome that a couple of like minded folks in a non wvw guild can do the things we do. Excellent movement tonight good work all around.
The next blood lotto will have to have an even better mystery box. or worse.
I bought her Whispers armor. Still don't have nice weapons for her but I figure I can just dump off whatever exotics I make whilst leveling my Mesmer's crafting on her.
Yay!
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
It is one of the Necro starting helmet options I believe,
For those who don't know, the "CDI" (wiki: collaborative development initiative) threads are closely followed by the devs and are for discussing the current/future state of the game, giving the devs ideas/requests/thoughts/feelings, etc. The devs read these threads fully and respond frequently to posts. Despite being official forum threads I find them to bring up a lot of interesting suggestions for improvements/additions to the game.
The current topic is discussing character progression both vertical and horizontal. If you want to add to the discussion it is best to read through the thread so you don't just reiterate points that have already been made, and also because the devs will focus discussion on certain aspects at different points in the thread, either in response to someone's ideas or just to brainstorm.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
Anyone have any advice? I normally play a guardian or mesmer in wvw, but we needed those fields last night.
You want to start an engagement in air - drop static- on the bad guys. immediately swap to fire hit 3 -> drop a 2 field on the enemy, swap earth hit them with the instants, drop the earth wall in the middle of the stack (the confusion this adds to their side cannot be over stated). Swap water -> this should start regen on those near you -> Place water on the commander when called (or on instinct... if you get good at it you can just do it) and call out "water down". swap air. Tor-freaking-nado them if after the blast they are still all over the stack. Or go back to step one for thrust 2.
its a lot. and if things go poorly you need to swap water faster. or change the rotation up. you will be integral to success tho. we had 2 last night and frankly it was pretty rad.
there was only like 1 wipe where i felt we weren't overwhelmed and that one at the ne bay gate we almost pulled out.
And the cata rush was a thing of beauty where we side stepped their thrust and hit them in the sides. Yes we died, but outnumbered we drug 15-20 of them with us. they paid for it.
and near the end when we were flirting between garri and craig's- we didn't have a numerical advantage, or a siege one. what we did do is play together amazingly. Pick them off when they were weak, attacked their stack when they were stupid. and water was blasted when needed.
without the two staff eles that would have been close to impossible.
My only suggestion is to play with a commander and get the feel of it. @kylindra kind of felt like you do at first but it sort of clicks after a while. you have to make judgment calls- you have to anticipate your teammates a bit. its a task that feels thankless at times but rest assured- without a staff ele our nights are much rougher- and we are grateful.
Yep! The three Necro starting masks are actually some of the coolest helmet options in the game, IMHO. I'm never getting rid of my necro's cute skull facepaint.
TBH the real reason I went for Whispers armor is because it looks like a ribcage. If I can get some pants that also look skeletal/creepy/made of bone, I'll probably go for that.
*e* I might actually go for Tactical shoes and pants later, because skulls and bones.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Maximinzing being a jerk - a guide to walls.
Walls can be a great source of pain for the enemy- it can massively disrupt them in ways they may be unprepared for. The walls put the enemy in a knock back state. This includes line of warding and ground targeted sanctuary for gards. For eles you have the earth wall. Necros have a fear wall but this should only be used in scenario 1 and 3 as it causes scattering.
Key - we are blue. badguys red. walls purple.
Fig 1. On an initial thrust moving in with the staff out allows you to drop your walls behind the enemy- in this case you have removed thier ability to retreat. For an ele- drop the initial static then switch to earth and drop the wall behind them.
Fig 2. The enemy is breaking in a direction instead of cutting off their whole force - aim for the middle. You have created an instant Bomb target and greatly ruined their chances of whatever maneuver working.
fig 3. When 'tactically moving backwards' (full retreat) - many folks forget to throw down their walls in their own wake. this can make the enemy overzealously blow their cool downs (stability) and allow us a chance to turn a retreat into a 180 strike.
So dont forget the walls-
Bonus tactic - Gards blowing a trait on ground targeted sanctuary? why?
Its one of my few hopes for the game, tenuously based on a dev comment long ago in the sPvP forums:
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/pvp/The-most-important-change-for-sPvP/first#post741502
If they do merge the sPvP and rest of game armors like they said, but still keep it so that sPvP armor has no inherent stats except for the armor value itself, the described system would work great. You just get generic sPvP stat armor you can "dye" to any armor appearance you've unlocked across the whole game. And then the same for any PvE/Wuv armor you bought/crafted/got from token types. Its got stats and you apply an armor appearance from your list (of the same type, heavy, light, med).
Now that Hard to Catch has been moved to the second tier of acrobatics, I was trying it out last night. I found myself getting shadowstepped out of controls a lot (as much as the timer allowed), which it hadn't always been as apparent to me (no that there is a lot of CC, but so friggin much).
On a funny side note, I even got shadow stepped through an enemy wall of force meant to trap me last night. Had they merely used the wall, I would have been dead, but then trying to lay other CC on me and Hard to Catch zipped me right over and into the clear.
The thing is, the three things you just named are super useful. For a long time NICE was lacking in elementalists, and even in just the couple big fights I was in last night I could tell the difference a couple eles make. There are a few more things eles can help with though.
-Earth attunement has extra CC. #5 immobilizes in a line, and #4 is the wall as discussed above. It's good to hit #3 (the reflect) before you swap to a different attunement too.
-Water also has the AoE chill. I know I always hate it when the bad guys chill me.
-Tornado: you probably shouldn't tornado on the first push if you're the first water field, but otherwise go for it. It has an AoE blind and and AoE knockdown. Be careful where and when you use the AoE knockdown as you don't want to knock bad guys out of the bomb. Also sometimes you need to cancel Tornado early and bail if you're taking too much damage.
-Dropping Fiery Greatsword when we're hitting a gate. The trick is: don't target the gate (I just don't target anything) and use the #4 skill run into the gate. You'll do a ton of damage. While #4 is on cooldown use the #1 and #3 skills. Everyone should know this trick, not just eles, and when you see a fiery greatsword on the ground, pick it up and do this.
-Frost bow is useful for AoE bombing siege, as there are always some people who don't have AoE and don't have anything to do when we're trying to kill arrow carts on a wall. #4 is the big damage AoE skill, it melts things (or freezes them I guess?). Like the fiery greatsword, this goes for non-eles too - if we're bombing enemy siege, and you see a frost bow lying around and don't have AoE, pick it up and use #4.
Mojo covered a lot of the important stuff, but I can add some points here....
Think of yourself as a pilotfish, and our stack is a shark. Positioning is important! Running with the melee pain train may very well keep you alive because of all the buffs and healing flying everywhere, but it's hard to be as effective at placing fields when you're down in the chaos. So flit around the edges of the fight, but don't get separated from the shark. When the commander calls for restack, use blinding flash or mistform to make your way back if there is still significant danger and drop water at your feet. In siege situations, or fights that happen to have some real terrain, find a high spot on a wall or a hillock and rain down hell from a safe vantage point. But don't get too cozy! Some commanders (especially ones fighting long odds) will single out easy targets and try to "shave" down the enemy force a little at a time.
Some other minor points:
The Earth wall and static field are great, but against well organized units, Frozen Ground is the winner because stability won't block Chill. Realistically, do both and make them burn their stability AND condi clears.
Burning Retreat is great for those strategic retreats Mojo is talking about because it allows you to maintain your facing and keep dropping fields. Also if you're nifty with your "about face" key, burning retreat is a great gap closer to keep you with your team if you fall behind (I wouldn't recommend it for charging into battle).
Another important role is maintaining swiftness for everyone on the go. Get good at timing eruption>static field>arcane wave>arcane brilliance>wind borne speed. I run Boon enhancing runes and that combo will dole out just under a minute of swiftness. Make sure you're dropping it every time there's a pause in movement across the map (capping a sentry, or stacking up before leaving for instance). Unless a fight is imminent, then hold on to your static field.
Mesmer is better for small group or solo roaming I've found (phantasm build wins me most to all 1v1 fights), guardian is for large groups or zergs (AH build loses me most to all 1v1 fights), thief can do whatever (In zergs I usually run around with shortbow, but I mostly just trait for increased stealth and just run and finish the downed), ele is zerg (in training!) and my ranger hasn't seen wvw in a really long time.
I'll practice up, see if I can improve my ele skills if we're lacking.