Guild Wars 2

[Furiously]

Part 2 (heroes/pets) and Part 3 (titles) are up now.

I gotta say, those titles seem a bit... overly grindy. Good thing I'm not going for 50!

OTOH, the hero/pet stuff is fairly painless, I already got all the armor from the corsair challenge mission in less than 40 minutes and leveled the phoenix that I got from doing factions back in the day (doing luxon hardmode runs to get more points for the eventual luxon elite armor as well). I've read that "drop rates" in those other two hero challenges are not as good, but we'll see -- any experiences?

The close the portal one seemed not too horrid. I've yet kill more than one or two of the ghosts.

[Zetor]

Part 4 [elite armor] is up. The biggest payout seems to be luxon/kurzick stuff... also getting trade contracts via questing to trade for rubies/sapphires for vabbi armor. Obsidian armor... haha, no.  

Regarding challenge missions: I concur that the portal one is ok, though not as good as the corsair one. I got two drops in roughly 2 hours, which is passable (certainly when compared to the effort needed to max a title!). However, the pacman game seems really really annoying to play -- I've killed ~10 of those angry ghosts with nothing to show for it. IMO it's safe enough to ignore -- especially since Glint seems to be far easier and gives guaranteed armor that is usable by all EOTN heroes, unlike pacman which has a small chance of dropping an armor fragment that's only usable by 5 nightfall heroes.

[Furiously]

I'm struggling with glint too.  I'm sure I'm just using the wrong team for that one.

[Furiously]

Also looking to trade for missing pets... here are the one's I have.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1870260/list%20of%20pets.jpg

[Zetor]

I've done a few glint runs; it doesn't seem too soloable (maybe with a very overpowered hero build and lots of high-end pve skills). Ended up doing it with two guildies -- I was running discordway with 3 heroes, my 2 guildies had a healer and spirit spammer hero. We mostly kept together except for the few waves where dudes are coming from both sides at once at which point I split to one side and they took the other.

In other news, the zaishen key thing might not be so out of reach after all -- I did a lot of jade quarry / fort aspenwood to get jade for my elite luxon armor, and ended up with 6 z-keys over the weekend from balthazar faction. You 'only' need 200 and can buy more keys for 5k a pop... something to think about, it's 3 points after all!

re pets: 5 of my characters are getting a new pet in November, so I'll be sure to hit you up then. 

[Lantyssa]

I have a Google doc set up with the minis I have and what I'm missing, plus my few extras.  If anyone wants me to create a tab for them, or wants to see it just to have their own for tracking, PM me and I'll give you the link and set you up as a collaborator if you'd like.

[Zetor]

A more down-to-earth "how the heck am I going to get those points?!" post, imo it's pretty good: http://www.massively.com/2010/10/18/flameseeker-chronicles-stop-telling-me-how-to-get-50-points-whe/

Idle aside, but has anyone here gotten to rank 3 in the 'gladiator' title rank, aka random arena (as any class / build) solo without synced queues? I've gotten a few 10/15 streaks on my ritualist, but never a complete 25 streak... atm getting those 300 points with completely random groups looks like a worse proposition than trying to get exalted with silverwing pre-BC in WOW. 

[Murgos]

URL string says it all I guess: http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/18/guild-wars-2-hands-on-preview/

Part 1 of a 5 part series.

[pxib]

I've gotten a few 10/15 streaks on my ritualist, but never a complete 25 streak... atm getting those 300 points with completely random groups looks like a worse proposition than trying to get exalted with silverwing pre-BC in WOW. 

It's really a matter of luck. Every single group of builds, even a synced set, can be taken down by some other set of builds somewhere.

[EWSpider]

I took Lantyssa up on her offer for a tab in her Google doc and have updated it with all the minis I have, including which ones I have extras of for trade:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aoct0ydiAZbmdEFSNnNhaTExdTViWXhaZlZLa0hQUkE&hl=en&authkey=CJOfg5AG#gid=2

If you see a mini you need in the Extras section, and you have an un-dedicated mini that I haven't highlighted in the spreadsheet, then feel free to make a trade offer.

[Murgos]

URL string says it all I guess: http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/18/guild-wars-2-hands-on-preview/

Part 1 of a 5 part series.

Part 2 is up.  No more hirelings but it sounds like you do get to adventure with a fully scripted team of NPC's in Story Mode.  I like the Story mode vs Exploration mode bit, seems like it will give you a reason to hang around.

[Nebu]

Part 2 is up.  No more hirelings but it sounds like you do get to adventure with a fully scripted team of NPC's in Story Mode.  I like the Story mode vs Exploration mode bit, seems like it will give you a reason to hang around.

Does this mean that we will no longer be able to train and collect henchmen?  I enjoyed this part of the game. I'm fine with ditching the hirelings.  They were largely useless.

[Lantyssa]

Unfortunately it does.  Getting my heroes equipped and skilled up is something I really enjoy.

[Nebu]

Unfortunately it does.  Getting my heroes equipped and skilled up is something I really enjoy.

That's a bummer.  Some of the replay value was built into the "catch 'em all" mentality of both henchmen and signets.  I'll miss that a lot.

[EWSpider]

Word on the street is they're going to allow you to fill your entire party with Heroes in an upcoming patch:

http://www.arena.net/blog/what-does-it-all-mean-john-stumme-discusses-war-in-kryta-survey-results

Q:  How would you feel about having a party that you could fill with Heroes?

    Our final category proves to be another big positive—50.7% of people say that they “love it,” while 14.4% are between that and “OK,” which comes in at 23.1%.  Only 5.7% “hate it like burning,” while the final 6.1% were seemingly indifferent.  You can look forward to filling out your party with Heroes as another feature of the free update build that will include Embark Beach.

I'm looking forward to all the different party builds I could try.  Good stuff!

[Nebu]

Word on the street is they're going to allow you to fill your entire party with Heroes in an upcoming patch:

If that's true, that would make a HUGE difference in solo play. 

[Draegan]

Which game are we talking about now GW1 or 2?  I'm thinking 1 but it's very confusing.

[Sky]

Yeah, go talk your confusing GW1 talk somewhere else! 

[Nebu]

I believe EW is referring to GW 1 with regard to Heros. 

[Lantyssa]

Word on the street is they're going to allow you to fill your entire party with Heroes in an upcoming patch:

SQUEE

[EWSpider]

Yes, the heroes thing is in regards to Guild Wars 1.  It's relevant to Guild Wars 2 because it will make it much easier to populate your Hall of Monuments in GW1 for shinies in GW2.  

Edit:  Easier with less humans

[Maledict]

To be fair (unfortunately), it's more a thing they would *like* to do - they haven't confirmed it's going to be done at all. Hopefully it's something they can get done, but don't expect it anytime soon.

[Lantyssa]

Them saying "You can look forward to filling out your party with Heroes as another feature of the free update build that will include Embark Beach." seems like they are  confirming it.

[Ard]

SQUEE

My reaction also, especially after trying to do Ring of Fire with henchmen last weekend.  I wish I could just flag henchmen to move like heroes.  It's make pulling some of those nastier groups in that mission easier.

[Maledict]

Them saying "You can look forward to filling out your party with Heroes as another feature of the free update build that will include Embark Beach." seems like they are  confirming it.

You're more up to date than me - huzzah, this is fantastic news! Ive just finished the crystal dessert section of prophecies (never played the original through), and although I've gotten all the bonus mission objectibves so far things are becoming very tricky with henchmen. They are just so dumb!

[Lantyssa]

If you have Nightfall or Eye of the North, it's well worth making a detour to get a couple of heroes before getting any further.

Henchies aren't so much dumb as not possessing a great skill selection and no way of upgrading their capabilities.

[tazelbain]

Reminds how hilariously bad the original Henchmen A.I. was.

[Ard]

Henchies aren't so much dumb as not possessing a great skill selection and no way of upgrading their capabilities.

Actually, my major problem with them is that they really are dumb.  You can't pull things back to them like you can with other players or heroes.  They see a mob in your circle, and they want to kick it's ass then and there, which has lead me to getting smooshed by patrols a few times now.  In theory you can drag them backwards, but they'll get stuck in a cycle of healing and you'll lose your monks as they try to keep the henchmen up.  It's been a real pain in the ass on some of the later prophecies missions for me.

[Maledict]

If you have Nightfall or Eye of the North, it's well worth making a detour to get a couple of heroes before getting any further.

Henchies aren't so much dumb as not possessing a great skill selection and no way of upgrading their capabilities.

Yeah, I'm running with my main tank, healer and elementalist as Heroes, but the other 4 slots being henchmen really dampens the party. Will be a lot more fun having 8 differnet barbie dolls to dress up and choose skill sets for.

[Furiously]

There are going to be some horrendously nasty team builds. Like unstoppable.

[waylander]

Regardless this is a good way to get people interested in both GW1 and GW2 again, and to generate some additional marketing.  I know since this announcement went out a lot of my old guild players are picking up the game again, and even some new folks are buying GW1 to get this stuff so they can get a leg up in GW2.

[Nebu]

It has me considering a trip back to GW.  If I can run a group of myself and 7 heros, that's enough to help me grind out some of the Eye of the North content. 

[Ingmar]

Kind of increases the temptation to frivolously buy the PVP unlocks so my heroes have access to all the elites...

[Nevermore]

Just to show my ignorance, doesn't that only unlock them for PvP?  Now if they were unlocked for PvE too, I might be tempted as well.

[Ingmar]

Just to show my ignorance, doesn't that only unlock them for PvP?  Now if they were unlocked for PvE too, I might be tempted as well.

It unlocks them for PVP, but as a consequence of that it means they're unlocked for heroes as well, who only care if an ability is unlocked on the account somewhere, not if the particular character you have the hero hanging out with knows it. It won't unlock it for your characters themselves for PVE.

So for example, unlock Elite Skill #1 on character A, and character B won't know it - but all of the heroes belonging to BOTH characters will be able to use it.