Is this game dead or?

[amiable]

My thief feels slow compared to my perma swiftness/vigor engi.  It requires a bit of upkeep but you are certainly extremely mobile.

Trait perma-swiftness and add rocket boots (the tooltip is a high dps attack with a low cooldown as well).  It is among the most mobile classes in the game with these two abilities.   If you use medkit you don't have to constantly be switching kits either as you can stack a minute or two of swiftness with moderate boon duration buffs and using medkit 5.

[Threash]

Also if you are not broke runes of the traveler are pretty much perfect for engis now.

[Threash]

I would straight up drop about 30 bucks for one of the rainbow farting clouds from infantile mode.

[amiable]

Also if you are not broke runes of the traveler are pretty much perfect for engis now.

I would disagree, engineers can easily run perma-swiftness or near perma swiftness in a variety of builds.  That overrides the runspeed bonus of travelers (unless travelers is a unique mechanism that stacks run speed boosts, but that would be a departure from every other speed boosting ability).

[Phred]

Also if you are not broke runes of the traveler are pretty much perfect for engis now.

I would disagree, engineers can easily run perma-swiftness or near perma swiftness in a variety of builds.  That overrides the runspeed bonus of travelers (unless travelers is a unique mechanism that stacks run speed boosts, but that would be a departure from every other speed boosting ability).

Kinda a  fiddle fucky way to to get perma swiftness though.

[Setanta]

I did guild events tonight, the guild JP chest dropped a Angchu Weapon Chest that allowed me to choose an Ascended weapon with Power/Toughness/Crit Damage on it.

Not much use on my warrior but my engineer rocks it with Flamethrower spec and toughness converting to power trait.

Nice to see that I've saved myself 2 weeks of crafting :)

[Crumbs]

Also if you are not broke runes of the traveler are pretty much perfect for engis now.

I would disagree, engineers can easily run perma-swiftness or near perma swiftness in a variety of builds.  That overrides the runspeed bonus of travelers (unless travelers is a unique mechanism that stacks run speed boosts, but that would be a departure from every other speed boosting ability).

Kinda a  fiddle fucky way to to get perma swiftness though.

Everyone should have a 25% signet.  Since there are no mounts, swiftness is essentially the GW2 mount.  In this light, it's silly to say "some classes must spend trait points for a mount and others just get one for no trait points."  As an engineer who doesn't use the toolbelt kit, it's extra painful to lose 10 points just to not be slow.

[Setanta]

I don't quite see it that way.
My Ranger/Eles/Thieves/Necro can use a signet but that's a Skill Slot gone that removes some versatility from what they do. My Warriors on the other hand trait it as it's in a line that I max, freeing up a slot. The trait is interchangeable just as a signet is. All classes can put traveller runes on - I dropped some power on my engineer to do so (I had Flame Citadel runes on) but am not fiddling with kits and played with my gear to make it back up.

My Guardians and Mesmers can grant run speed to my group, but not permanently. It's a trade off but it's what they do and in a WvW group it's a godsend. No class is perfect, but all do useful things. Only necros get access to all 3 options (trait/sig/rune) and ele's get staff swiftness for the group.

Builds are about compromise, if you want X you give up Y.

[Sjofn]

Run speed isn't something that should require a big tradeoff for, though. A slot skill, especially on some classes, isn't actually that big a deal, but being forced down a trait line or use a specific weapon you otherwise hate (like I really kind of hate focus for mesmer) is. Like Crumbs said, it's not like there are mounts or anything in this game to put people on a level playing field, and in WvW, I would much prefer everyone be able to keep up instead of have stragglers because the field combo cap left them out and now they're juuuuust enough behind that the guardian swiftness puddles fade juuuust before they get to them (this has happened to my mesmer so many fucking times, and no my own runspeed group buff is not enough to catch me up). I don't like that some classes have to give up more than others to have a non-painful run speed, and think that's a weird imbalance to allow.

Clearly the answer is to UP THE BASE RUNNING SPEED. 

[kildorn]

17th patch preview is up:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/september-17-2013/

Teq update as promised, LFG tool (yay for me, I think everyone else hates dungeons BUT I WANT PRETTY ARMOR)

WvW is gaining a new bloodlust buff to replace Orbs. Kinda iffy on that one.

Many other world bosses updated to not be mindless dps fests, supposedly.

[EWSpider]

I don't get the hate for dungeons.  Most of the paths are super easy and there are only really a few "hard" ones.  I've done hundreds of dungeon runs (have my DM title as well) and every single run has been a pickup group.  I've had maybe 3 or 4 bad groups in all of those runs.  At this stage of the game most people know the paths by heart and can do them in their sleep, so even if you get 1 or 2 noobs in the group (or are one yourself) the other group members are always quick to explain whatever is necessary.  My best guess is people tried to do them while under geared and had difficulty.  If you had a bad experience previously give it another shot, especially if you are 80 now.  There are very few paths that take more than 30 minutes, and a lot of them can be done in far less time.  You can find a group in seconds using http://gw2lfg.com/ and next patch the lfg tool will make it even easier.  Anyhow, just throwing that out there if anyone has thought about trying dungeons again.


Edit:  Oh, and if you are new to a particular dungeon path just make sure you say so at the beginning of the run.  People don't mind explaining the encounters if you make them aware ahead of time.

[Threash]

I have had maybe 2 successful dungeon runs out of 15 or so tries if you don't include cof path 1, that one has a good 90% success rate.

[Zetor]

Definitely looking forward to the LFG tool. Honestly I didn't have many problems with pugging GW2 dungeons at all -- get a group with gw2lfg.com within minutes, go to the entrance, be done in 30 mins or less, profit. Didn't have any wipefests, even though it was my first time for all of them except for AC (which I ran to death in the first few months to get a set of PTV gear). A lot of the time the dungeon run consists of applying AOE blind / knockdowns to trash and knowing when to dodge on bosses, but there are some really interesting fights out there, too. Of course there are a few cockstabs (like Arah)... but I solve that problem by not running Arah.   Oh yeah, fractals used to be finicky at times with bad pugs (hi swamp/dredge/cliffside), but the few times I LFG'd for low-level fractals were painless as well. Guess everyone knows when to do what by now?

That said: GW2 dungeoning is definitely unlike diku dungeoning. If anything, it reminds me of doing COH TFs without any tankers in the group... which certainly is enjoyable (one of my best COH PUGs was a 5-defender 2-controller 1-stalker ITF), but you lose a lot of the pacing offered by a traditional tank/healer/cc setup. It's a lot more "everyone look out for themselves, sync up damage cooldowns + use your group buffs/cleanses as appropriate, get downed people up ASAP unless it'd kill you too". As someone who plays a healer and/or tank in almost every game, this took some getting used to... and it doesn't scratch the same dungeoning itches as running a heroic in WOW/Rift/SWTOR. ymmv.

[murdoc]

So i'm one ingredient away from crafting my first Ascended weapon.

And by one I mean 492 Dragonite Ore. How I have collected everything else and next to none of that baffles me a little.

[Threash]

Wish i could send you some of mine, i'm going on my third stack.  World bosses, you'll get most done right after reset.

[EWSpider]

So i'm one ingredient away from crafting my first Ascended weapon.

And by one I mean 492 Dragonite Ore. How I have collected everything else and next to none of that baffles me a little.

Find your server's World Boss zerg train and hop on.  You'll have 500 Dragonite in two nights easily.  Temples and Dragons give the most.  If you can't find the zerg use this to know when to be where:

http://us.gw2stuff.com/en/overlay

If you don't like using an app you can just use the website instead:

http://us.gw2stuff.com/en/events/gate-of-madness

[murdoc]

Thanks guys.

These account bound mats are a pain in my mostly casual playing ass. I have been able to get some more free time to play lately, but generally speaking a purchase at least a portion of my mats for all crafting off the BLT. I wouldn't even have a level 400 crafter, let alone a Grandmaster if I had to gather everything myself.

[Threash]

It's even worse for someone like me who plays a lot but doesn't want to bother with crafting until prices settle down.  I have an alt with 10 slot bags full of dust, that's 60 stacks already.

[kildorn]

Temples and Dragons have me down to 1 dragonite ore left.

I've got another day of quickly running a zone chest circuit on my 80s for the Shards as well, then I can make something.

Just.. not really sure what I want. I think I'll just make the zerk longbow for my ranger. Everything else I'm playing right now is condition spec for WvW and gives few fucks about ascended weapons.

[Setanta]

I had enough mats to get to 500 and am now having to restock my mats together for my first berserker ascended weapon. I'm tossing up between greatsword and axe although axe/mace is my primary set.

The time-gating shits me and may kill my interest in the game if they keep it up.

[Threash]

What did it take to get to 500? current guides have it at around 200g cost to raise the skill, which is nuts.

[kildorn]

What did it take to get to 500? current guides have it at around 200g cost to raise the skill, which is nuts.

Theorycost. You probably already have a lot of the stuff.

Basically, refine T6 mats (ori, whatever) until it's green/grey, then combine for your ascended ores until 475, then make six to ten random exotics.

[murdoc]

What did it take to get to 500? current guides have it at around 200g cost to raise the skill, which is nuts.

I figure it cost me between 80-100g to go from 400-500 but I had a few T6 mats saved up.

[Setanta]

I had a lot of mats already but even so it set me back 56 gold. Refining is the big key to it and sell off your lesser mats that you aren't using.

[Fordel]

Pretty good overview of what they are doing to the WvW borderlands: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/wuv/wuv/Bloodlust-in-the-Borderlands-Details

[Dark_MadMax]

I have had maybe 2 successful dungeon runs out of 15 or so tries if you don't include cof path 1, that one has a good 90% success rate.

ehhh  I dunno I had no major problems with mainstream dungeons. I even  got to like lvl 35 fractals  with 90% success rate . Only the ones I  had problem with are those  which- no one runs those ever (like arah explorable)

All the regular content updates in the game proved too much pressure for me though - like if you miss the content patch, its poof - gone, you never see it again. defeats purpose of casually playing game

[Tmon]

The regular patches have gotten me to play more, if the event is interesting to me I play it, if not I just wait for the next one.  That you only miss out on a title and some pretty loot for most of them pretty much makes them painless to skip.

[murdoc]

I bumped an Elementalist up to 20 and gave it a whirl this morning and... wow I am awful.

[Maledict]

Elements list is probably the hardest class to learn, especially at the start. Also due to the mechanics I really can't recommend jumping to 20 because they have so many abilities to use at once and you need to learn how to weave between them to survive.

[kildorn]

Jumping one to 20 shouldn't be that bad. But they are strangely squishy until suddenly their bunker specs work. There's no slow ramp up into being able to survive and pull 10 mobs at a time easily, it's just a sudden tipping point.

[kildorn]

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview

Interesting. High level preview of class changes coming in October.

[Yoru]

So I got this a couple months back and have been playing exceedingly casually. This past weekend, thanks to jetlag, I put in a few more hours than usual, and got my warrior into the early 70s. I must say it felt like smacking directly into a content brick wall; there's one zone with a bunch of group events that are always empty and another with just enough content to get from 70 to 72 before everything's too high-level to kill alone.

What's a guy to do here? Spend a bunch of cash on crafting? Go farm a whole bunch of 30-60 zones' content? Literally farm mobs and event failures in that 70-75 maritime zone in the south of the map?

Help?

[Threash]

You won't level any slower doing lower level content, that's how the game is designed.

[Yoru]

You won't level any slower doing lower level content, that's how the game is designed.

Cool, thanks. I'll go slum it then.

[kildorn]

Yeah, you also get mostly (like, 90%) drops for your actual level from lower level mobs. The whole downleveling thing is one of the very best bits of pve, even if it doesn't handle high level well geared characters at all in any zone below level 60 (you basically one shot shit because the content isn't scaled for exotic gear)

edit: If it's not broken on your server, there's an event in northern Harathi Hinterlands that is the usual powerleveling spot. Use food + oil (for the xp bonuses, so even level 10 food works), and go nuts.