Guild Wars 2

Vorph_sl said:

I still think it's basically the same thing. GW2 just saves you the trouble of finding the quest hub and picking up all the quests before you set out. Yes, that's a nice QoL change, and one that Blizzard has partially embraced in WoW with quests that auto-add and auto-complete, but it's hardly anything revolutionary.P

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It might not be revolutionary but for someone who hates quests (always have, even in EQ) it's a god send.

To be clear, what I hate about quests is the time involved in finding and talking to the quest giver, the time running to find the mobs to kill (if I don't have to spend time to google it first), then the time running back to claim your pathetically crappy reward afterwards. That is such a fucking waste of time and not fun in any way. GW2 bypasses that BS and just lets me log in and play right away. They keep track of the mundane stuff and get right to the action.

It is for that reason that I play GW2 much more than other mmo's over time (that and no sub). Other mmos are just as fun when you get into the action, but the thought of logging in and looking at a bank full of forgotten quest crap keeps me away. Too much effort for too little reward in the fun department.

Caveat: I love levelling, in pretty much every game.

I play GW2 quite a lot and I played it on and off since launch. When other games offer me something interesting, say a new expansion or something similar, I leave it for a while and then happily come back.
How do I play it? Well, I just pick a character and play that for a good while, but not exclusively, and just work on maps and puzzles. Occasionally I do a dungeon or a fractal, but while I enjoy the latter, I'm not too fond of the "skip trash" gameplay of the former. For me it's all about exploration and soloing champions. All my armor have a set of runes that spawns a pet, either the parrot from Privateer set or the rock dog from the Ogre set, which take agro like champs and let me do my business undisturbed with a very high uptime on pet distraction.

Playing this way I got to 80 5 times (thief, warrior, necromancer, mesmer, ranger) and will eventually get there with the remaining 3 classes, plus the revenant when the xpack releases. Once at 80 I usually get a set of exotic zerker gear and sometimes a set of soldier gear (dungeon tokens, karma and tp). I don't craft, except cooking which is sort of fun, and I don't care about ascended armor.

If I got nothing to do with a character, I either move to another or stop playing for a while. GW2 is the perfect example of how a non subscription based game can do wonders for a healthy population. Also for all the time spent in the open world, I never once felt annoyed by the presence of other players, where for example in WoW they just usually slow me down and harvest my resources.
It's a very different game and for me requires a different mindset from every other title I play or played in the past. Levels just happen, I'm not too concerned by them as there is plenty of content for all level ranges. You can level at least 4 characters without doing the same zone twice.

From every other point of view, the game is lacking depth: loot is generally uninteresting, no trinity has huge flaws, some classes are just useless in groups and some are way too good, skipping trash and stacking people for most of the fights is a lame way to do dungeons and the huge disparity in performance based on a simple weapon choice is extremely stupid, let's not even talk about condition damage in pve.

Ukerric_sl said:

I decided to make full ascended for my Guardian. I'm playing casually (a couple hours here and there, probably 10h/week).

I've begun preparing for that in october last year, and that entailed getting to 500 in weaponsmith (2h sword, spear, hammer, I think), armor (heavy armor) and artefact (staff, focus, scepter), plus getting the mats. It's march, and I've got 500 in weaponsmith, 425 getting ready to push 500 to artefact and armor, and stockpiling stuff. However, I need:

- 560 Iron Ingot, 280 Steel Ingot, 560 Darksteel Ingot,1400 MITHRIL INGOTS, 372 Orichalcum
- 460 Soft Wood Plank, 230 Seasoned Wood, 460 Hardwood,1150 ELDER WOOD, 281 Ancient Wood
- 500 Wool, 250 Cotton, 500 Linen,2500 SILK, 140 Gossamer

(I have most of the non-bolded mats, but like 20% of the main stuff. The Silk req are ridiculous. There's a reason all cloth cost so much at the AH)

To get all that, I should spend all my playtime in exactly 2 zones to farm all nodes. And once done, log the next level 80, and repeat.

50pt of skill gain = 1 level.

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Get ascended jewelry, it's comparably pretty cheap, either from WvW or through fractals. T5 mats are nice to get through just running boss events/dungeons, just salvage anything you come across. Running some nodes is nice, but I'd die of boredom, unless it's like jumping puzzle for the rich ones. Occasionally you can use the upgrade recipe in Mystic Forge, but it's usually not worth it unless you for some reason have a ton of lower grade materials.

Grim1_sl said:

It might not be revolutionary but for someone who hates quests (always have, even in EQ) it's a god send.

To be clear, what I hate about quests is the time involved in finding and talking to the quest giver, the time running to find the mobs to kill (if I don't have to spend time to google it first), then the time running back to claim your pathetically crappy reward afterwards. That is such a fucking waste of time and not fun in any way. GW2 bypasses that BS and just lets me log in and play right away. They keep track of the mundane stuff and get right to the action.

It is for that reason that I play GW2 much more than other mmo's over time (that and no sub). Other mmos are just as fun when you get into the action, but the thought of logging in and looking at a bank full of forgotten quest crap keeps me away. Too much effort for too little reward in the fun department.

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yeah, like, yesterday had a "silverwastes daily event" ..daily..
I decided to go on one of my alts. First time that char had even been to the zone.
Vinewrath 2/3 paths down. So, I high tailed it across the map and join in. first time that char visited the zone, and right into the fray of the endboss, and labyrinth. that is fantastic.



Perhaps an interesting thing on leveling. Alts are super easy these days. you get tomes of +1 level for logging in weekly. there are various boosters for instant level 20 as well, from various places. birthday boosters, as well as personal story. Spvp also gives tones of +1 level tomes. and, champ bags can give +exp tomes as well.

Zaphid_sl said:

Get ascended jewelry, it's comparably pretty cheap, either from WvW or through fractals. T5 mats are nice to get through just running boss events/dungeons, just salvage anything you come across. Running some nodes is nice, but I'd die of boredom, unless it's like jumping puzzle for the rich ones. Occasionally you can use the upgrade recipe in Mystic Forge, but it's usually not worth it unless you for some reason have a ton of lower grade materials.

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yeah, the general statements on this are:

Get ascended necklace from WvW laurel vendor. it is 25 laurels, and 250? badges of honor.
Get ascended RINGS from Fractals. it is 10 pristine fractal relics, to simply buy the ones you want. (1/day from daily reward.) you can even just do level 1 fractals do get this.
Get ascended accessories from guild events. 10 guild commendations to simply buy the ones you want. (1/day) the problem with this is you need a guild to do the pve to get the guild comms. Alternatively, buy them from the wvw laurel vendor. (much more expensive)

Get Ascended main hand weapon. The raw weapon damage is a fairly significant damage increase. The stats less so. thus offhands, which are a smaller portion of yuo rdps, are less important. As well as weapon swaps. Particularly CC weapons, or condition weapons.

Do not bother with Ascended armor at all.
with a standard zerker setup, ascended armor represents a 14 powder increase on armor. (44 if you have 6 +5 power infusions in all slots if you want to talk crazy expensive, look at the cost of 6 or 13 Versatile mighty infusions).
14 power, in the face of your 2880-3200 power fully buffed, and geared in ascended gear everywhere else, is insignificant. .1-.5% dps increase. A single stack of might is more.



silk is the most expensive part yeah. Its the most needed by just about everything.
so the current meta for items salvaging is:
Easy version: Salvage all light armor of all ranks. Vendor all blue/green everything else. Salvage yellow/exotics. or possibly check AH to see if that item is rare and sells well.
Longer version:
Salvage all light armor of all ranks. Store/blue green everything else. Salvage yellow/exotics. check AH for that items sell price first. Take those blue/greens you didnt sell to the mystic forge.
4 of a kind into it. (4 blues or 4 greens) as long a 1 piece of armor is included in mix, it has a chance of merging into a light armor piece(4 weapons=another weapon, 4 armor=another armor, a mix=either. it also has a chance of upgrading to the next higher tier. Cloth is that valuable atm, that you can blow 10 medium or heavy items for one cloth, and still profit.

"Sell everything" like this, gives alot of cash. at the cost of luck. no one seems 100% sure on how luck works. most seem to think its purely drop based, and doesn't effect bags, or chests.

Silverwastes is a really fun zone, it allows you roam around doing small events, or stay in one area doing the bigger defend events, or hop on a "chest train" and rake in tons of loot.

What kit do you use to salvage rares/exotics that aren't worth AH'ing? I assume you shouldn't bother with an expensive kit unless the upgrade in it is a useful one, or should you try to get the upgrades regardless so you can toss 4 of them into the mystic toilet? Also, what if the rare/exotic doesn't have anything at all in its upgrade slot?

I saw the new shadow dye in the gem store and was about to buy $10 worth of gems to get a few, then I read thats its a 10 in 25 chance at getting the shadow dye with other crap dye mixed in.

So I'm paying real money for achanceto get an item in a pay shop?

Thats fucking hilarious.

Vorph_sl said:

What kit do you use to salvage rares/exotics that aren't worth AH'ing? I assume you shouldn't bother with an expensive kit unless the upgrade in it is a useful one, or should you try to get the upgrades regardless so you can toss 4 of them into the mystic toilet? Also, what if the rare/exotic doesn't have anything at all in its upgrade slot?

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Mystic salvage kit.

Mystic Salvage Kit - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W)

This kit is far less expensive to craft (26 Silver coin 24 Copper coin) than the equivalent 10 Master Salvage Kits (1 Gold coin 53 Silver coin 60 Copper coin), ignoring the effort in acquiring Mystic Forge Stones. However, it is far more expensive per use if you purchase the stones with gems.

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the 3 mystic forge stones, you get from some achievements(5 every 500 points), and dailies. This is their primary purpose honestly. "chest of blacklion goods" daily can give mystic forge stones. random though. you can also get them in black lion chests,themselves. which you can get keys for by doing world completion, and personal story completion.)
3 keys for personal story. level 10, 40 and 60. (one in "tangled paths" living world season2 as well)
map completion, except cities has a 50/50 chance for a transmute or a black lion key.

Salvage kit - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W)

penalty_sl said:

I saw the new shadow dye in the gem store and was about to buy $10 worth of gems to get a few, then I read thats its a 10 in 25 chance at getting the shadow dye with other crap dye mixed in.

So I'm paying real money for achanceto get an item in a pay shop?

Thats fucking hilarious.

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packs always work like that. black lion kits.. all the previous dyes.

But yeah. "pool of 25 colors"
10 are exclusive to this "shadow dye" set.

so, there are 10 DIFFERENT exclusive dyes, you only have a chance for getting. its not even a 10 in 25 chance of getting the one you want.

Caliane_sl said:

Mystic salvage kit.

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Just so I'm sure, you use that even on rares/exotics that don't have an upgrade that you care about in them?

yep, the higher chance of orichalcum/gossimer, etc also still worth it.

Exotics can even drop insignias, and globs of dark matter.

Salvaging high level exotic gear yields between 0 and 3 Globs of Dark Matter. Using a Master's Salvage Kit, the estimated average is ~0.5 globs per exotic for exotic gear level 68 or better

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Pyros_sl said:

A lot of their cash shop stuff looked like that, it seems like fucking garbage to me but apparently a lot of people like that shit and buy a bunch of it. It's non intrusive since it's pretty much all cosmetics so I'm not like angry at it, but yeah pretty much nothing seems worth buying other than bags and shit like that to me, all the cash shop cosmetics shit looks way overpriced/too RNG reliant.

Dota2 kinda does the same shit with their new chests where you buy chests that give common items(you always get one you don't have though until you have them all) and a chance at rare/extra rare items that you might want, but if that's all you want you need to buy like 20-30chests to have a decent shot and even then it's random. You can just buy it from the market but they added some cooldown period to reselling new items or something I think so you can only do that like 3months later or some shit.

People have different priorities with their money though I guess.

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yeah, the reason for this is simple. the dyes are tradable.


Shadow dyes. 20-40gold for colors. shadow abyss 200 gold atm. ha.
The shadow skins are also all on the AH atm.

People love to gamble.

Pyros_sl said:

A lot of their cash shop stuff looked like that, it seems like fucking garbage to me but apparently a lot of people like that shit and buy a bunch of it. It's non intrusive since it's pretty much all cosmetics so I'm not like angry at it, but yeah pretty much nothing seems worth buying other than bags and shit like that to me, all the cash shop cosmetics shit looks way overpriced/too RNG reliant.

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Cosmetic stuff doesn't bother me too much in a non-F2P game, as long as they don't make it blatantly obvious that they save all their best art for the cash shop and make the normal stuff look plain or like shit by comparison. GW2 is ok there, I think. The shadow skins just introduced annoy me a little because I think they are some of the best looking weapons in the game, even superior to most of the legendaries. I'm not about to pay real money to gamble with Black Lion keys to get enough tickets to buy some of them though. Transmutation being a limited resource that you have to buy with cash if you ever exhaust the ones you get from exploration is pretty shitty too.

What does bother me is when they're extremely stingy with stuff like storage space to try to squeeze the equivalent of the full game's price out of you again in order to not have to slog through inventory micromanagement several times a day while playing. GW2 is one of the worst I've seen in that regard.

Not that any of that stopped me from supporting the cash shop bullshit though. I bought copper-fed salvage-o-matic, the pick that gives sprockets, and a second bank tab.

Vorph_sl said:

Cosmetic stuff doesn't bother me too much in a non-F2P game, as long as they don't make it blatantly obvious that they save all their best art for the cash shop and make the normal stuff look plain or like shit by comparison. GW2 is ok there, I think. The shadow skins just introduced annoy me a little because I think they are some of the best looking weapons in the game, even superior to most of the legendaries. I'm not about to pay real money to gamble with Black Lion keys to get enough tickets to buy some of them though. Transmutation being a limited resource that you have to buy with cash if you ever exhaust the ones you get from exploration is pretty shitty too.

What does bother me is when they're extremely stingy with stuff like storage space to try to squeeze the equivalent of the full game's price out of you again in order to not have to slog through inventory micromanagement several times a day while playing. GW2 is one of the worst I've seen in that regard.

Not that any of that stopped me from supporting the cash shop bullshit though.

I bought copper-fed salvage-o-matic, the pick that gives sprockets, and a second bank tab.

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while I said the same thing about transmutes. you get them from daily log ins. 3/month.. (+ possible from the chest of black lion goods as well)
And you can get them from Spvp. 4 per track completion.


Shadow skins can be bought and traded on the AH too. As well as any previous, did you talk to the vendor? there's like 10 sets of black lion cosmetic weapons, Crimson, Pact, Modrem, wintersday, etc.
And yeah, alot of them really are more involved/better looking.

Writeup on the new jungle borderlands maps. What is interesting about this is it IS replacing the current Alpine one. This is not just another side map like edge of the mists.
Essential Elements of the New Borderlands | GuildWars2.com

https://youtu.be/1eONphVCLoc

Even though this will initially replace the existing Borderlands, we have plans to bring back the classic alpine Borderlands. More information on that will come in the future.

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Caliane_sl said:

yeah, the general statements on this are:

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Additional note on Ascended gear - outside of L80 zones, they get downscaled to exotics.