Guild Wars 2

Valderen

Space Pirate
<Bronze Donator>
4,467
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Finally completed the elite specialization for my Revenant, it looks pretty interesting.

Time to start experimenting with different builds. Probably gonna try to make a tank type.
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Xenrauk

Trakanon Raider
1,214
889
Well, I got to do two great events in the last day - a guild hall claiming and a win on the event in the last zone of the expansion, Dragon's Stand.

The guild hall claiming was pretty neat and a good challenge; a definite huge middle finger to small guilds, but very cool for medium large ones. You are essentially on a huge map, and have to complete a bunch of events that are spread out all over it in a certain time limit. No way to zerg it; you have to split up into 3-4 groups and coordinate tackling them. Then, after that, a few big bosses. Felt good beating it for sure.

And Dragon's Stand, well, I finished the story a few days ago and thought, ok, well, what the hell could be going on in Dragon's Stand? Then I got to experience it and thought, whelp, here is the real end of the story. It was pretty damn cool. I'm sure it won't be after the 100th time I do it but it sure as hell felt epic doing it for the first time.
Tried Dragon stand event a couple of times, the map lasts for 2 hours then resets. First hour is basically escorting the pact down 3 lanes though checkpoints, the second hour is beating on 3 bosses which have 3 pods which need to be killed and kept down by killing the preserver that spawns to regrow the pod. All 3 bosses apparently need to be killed around the same time, so you need 9 small teams at the pods at all times, it's quite an easy fight when you look at it, but pugs, yeah never goes as it should. After you get the 3 bosses down you get to the last boss, Mordremoth maybe? not sure as I have yet to get past the 3 bosses :\
 

Faltigoth

Bronze Knight of the Realm
1,380
212
Tried Dragon stand event a couple of times, the map lasts for 2 hours then resets. First hour is basically escorting the pact down 3 lanes though checkpoints, the second hour is beating on 3 bosses which have 3 pods which need to be killed and kept down by killing the preserver that spawns to regrow the pod. All 3 bosses apparently need to be killed around the same time, so you need 9 small teams at the pods at all times, it's quite an easy fight when you look at it, but pugs, yeah never goes as it should. After you get the 3 bosses down you get to the last boss, Mordremoth maybe? not sure as I have yet to get past the 3 bosses :\
The strat we used with the pods was what folks are calling the circle strat: essentially, 5-8 people on each lane fight the boss, while the rest go in a giant zerg around the circle smashing the preservers and pods. It took awhile - we weren't doing a good job of keeping the spawning areas clear, just running like hell all around, so all kinds of people were getting picked off - but it worked.

You do indeed fight an aspect of Mordremoth, and it is more of the same, split into small teams across a bunch of flying islands that you get to using gliding (ley line gliding helps but not mandatory, updraft gliding though is required), defending them and getting in shots at Mordremoth during various mini events where he attacks your island or leaves himself otherwise vulnerable. Meanwhile there is all kinds of shit spawning on the islands to kill, a few legendary bosses, etc. Another example of coordinating small teams; it was easier than the shit with the pods though.

And yeah, the hardest part really is herding everyone around, at least for now; the winning strategies haven't really made it mainstream and are really still being developed so it is going to be rough for awhile. I also find it slightly humorous that the first big meta event I was successful at was the last one; haven't been on a winning Tarir yet - though that appears to be getting better and better - and Tangled Depths can just eat a giant dick.
 

Barab

Silver Knight of the Realm
446
35
Looking forward to it, sounds like a larger version of the epic fight in Silverwastes.
 

Xenrauk

Trakanon Raider
1,214
889
Yeah Tarir is another one it's quite simple when you look at it overall, but it's getting people to use the armors correctly, pulling or pushing blossoms out of the way, stunning the elites with freeze or pulls, and dpsing the octovine when it's time. East is the easiest , use your glider and drop 3 bombs on the vine, north is use the guns to burn the vines off then set up turrets to shoot the layers off, west is turning into mushrooms and dodging everything to go bomb the vine, and finally south is pushing a bomb to the vine. Problem is you end up with most of the idiots in the armors just trying to pewpew everything even after you explain what to do.

Also silverwastes is easier as you're only racing against the clock for the fort bosses, and you kill the 3 bosses at vinewrath in order, for Tarir you need to kill the vines at the same time close to each other on a 15min timer. Dragon stand I believe also needs all bosses down close to the same time.

Overall I enjoy those type of events, still need to get on a winning Tarir, last one I did had all the vines down to like 2% before time ran out, I had to switch from east to south to help cause like only one person had armor on. :\


P.S The small teams holding the pods work at dragon stand, it's getting all 3 lanes to do it properly is the problem. I was on mid lane blue pod and we held mid clear for 20 mins while north and south lanes struggled, eventually we had champs spawn and we got overwhelmed, did the same thing the night before at south lane, got the boss down to 10% while north and mid were still at 90% :\

Oh well should get better in the weeks to come, like tequatl, just sucks wasting two hours on dragon stand for a fail.
 

Valderen

Space Pirate
<Bronze Donator>
4,467
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I got map completion for Verdant Brink, that was fun/frustrating to get.
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You basically need glide, glide updraft and mushroom jumping to get it, and the night event completed since a few place are only available when the choppers are up.

The other maps look to require a lot more Masteries and events to be active or won to be done. I'm nowhere near completion in those. The meta events are simply not done successfully, they require too many groups to be successful at the same time to work right now. The zones are still low population, and people don't know the events well enough to make them work.

Gaining masteries in HoT is a pain, XP is pitifully low from events. I'm thinking of doing map exploration and story on an alt to get mastery XP...which sucks since I am not really in the mood to play an alt, but I feel it might be the best way to gain XP in HoT right now.

Masteries being account wide is nice though since alt will have all the mastery required for completion of Verdant Brink and complete the story.
 

Treesong

Bronze Knight of the Realm
362
29
Gaining masteries in HoT is a pain, XP is pitifully low from events. I'm thinking of doing map exploration and story on an alt to get mastery XP...which sucks since I am not really in the mood to play an alt, but I feel it might be the best way to gain XP in HoT right now.

Masteries being account wide is nice though since alt will have all the mastery required for completion of Verdant Brink and complete the story.
Masteries being account-wide is definately a good thing. I hoped we could maybe earn Mastery-xp with low level alts too though, maybe by setting a slider or some that would let you divide your xp between Mastery and Regular. It's more fun leveling up a new Alt(a revenant obviously) while taking him through all the zones again, then having to revisit all that with my level 80 Alt warrior.

I did notice the mastery xp is rather steady with my Alt, though the Dynamic Events themselves do not give that much XP(less then in verdant, I think). However all the Exp you get from simply exploring such a low level map and doing all the Hearts and such makes it go fast enough. Joining a solid Commander-train in Verdant is still the best way though. But I want those Heropoints for my Warrior anyway, so doing this is a nice break from doing HoT with my Main.
 

Barab

Silver Knight of the Realm
446
35
Some of these hero point boss mobs are fun to fight. Kinda looking forward to raids now.
 

Itzena_sl

shitlord
4,609
6
^^doesn't actually fix the memory leak or whatever it is that's causing crashes in zergs, but does defer it a decent amount.
 

Drakain

Trakanon Raider
1,585
688
I haven't played since early summer, whenever the last chapter of the Living Story ended, and I haven't bought HoT yet. Is there anything new to do sans expansion?
 

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
2,380
276
Not really - there isn't even much new stuff *with* the expansion. Feels like HoT is about twice the content of LS2 pluswhat they used to call a feature patch (rebalancing and revamps, think WoW 4.0/5.0/6.0).
 

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
<Silver Donator>
7,956
9,650
I haven't played since early summer, whenever the last chapter of the Living Story ended, and I haven't bought HoT yet. Is there anything new to do sans expansion?
Nope. You can't even unlock the old-world mastery system part without doing the expansion intro.
 

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer
14,625
10,138
there was a major class/trait system rework since you last played. Not really new content, but changed.
Cond damage is viable now.

WvW has the new maps for borderlands with HoT. this is content for everyone. thats.. about it.
 

Selix

Lord Nagafen Raider
2,149
4
To all

So I have the base GW2 game, the legendary HoT expansion and about 3k gems. If I were you what would you prioritize spending the gems on? Is the living story thing worth it? Anything else? Must haves?
 

Barab

Silver Knight of the Realm
446
35
Depends on what you want to do with the game. I would level to 80 and see what part of the game you enjoy then decide. You could invest in crafting legendary, your ascended armor, form a guild and use it building up your guild hall etc. What sever are you on ? If you need a friend send Barab.9016 an invite
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I am on jade quarry for wvw
 

Selix

Lord Nagafen Raider
2,149
4
Depends on what you want to do with the game. I would level to 80 and see what part of the game you enjoy then decide. You could invest in crafting legendary, your ascended armor, form a guild and use it building up your guild hall etc. What sever are you on ? If you need a friend send Barab.9016 an invite
smile.png
I am on jade quarry for wvw
I've got an 80 of nearly every class. Only one I really like right now is the Dragonhunter which is a lot of fun. Haven't invested any time in legendary or ascended crafting as the little I heard about it is massive time sink.
 

Bruman

Golden Squire
1,154
0
To all

So I have the base GW2 game, the legendary HoT expansion and about 3k gems. If I were you what would you prioritize spending the gems on? Is the living story thing worth it? Anything else? Must haves?
I'm really enjoying LS2. Each chapter is *much* longer than your launch personal story or the new HoT story. But I also really like story-driven play. After you beat each chapter once, you can replay them to go for achievements if that's your thing (like 'noone dies' or 'beat dude without being hit', shit like that).

As for pure gem store shit: highly recommend the copper fed salvage thing. After that, bags and bank space, depending on what you want. Bag space is on sale right now (350 instead of 400 and comes with some bullshit). There's also an account starter pack on sale that gives you 2 bank slots and 2 bag slots and a bunch of other garbage, but is just the cost of the bag/bank slots.

Once you got what you need there, there's the infinite use harvesting tools, but at 1000 gems each, they're pretty fucking pricey. Easier to just buy a stack each time you're near a vendor IMO, but they still tempt me.

After that, all sorts of cosmetics, dyes, and pets, whatever floats your boat.
 

Valderen

Space Pirate
<Bronze Donator>
4,467
2,633
Verdant Brink seems to be a lot more populated now that the Halloween event is over. So the events are being done, and people are starting to be good at it. The other zone are still not as populated or as well understood so events still fail...but hey at least it's progress.
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Skinner

Trakanon Raider
820
1,137
Tarir and DS should be near 75%+ success rates at this point for pugs. If people are failing these it's because they are on a map without any organization and with people who simply don't care, which can be fixed in 10 seconds by changing the map. If there are no commanders organizing before the event, leave. If there are, advertise in /LFG and your map will be filled in seconds.

TD is another story entirely and I'm not sure that event will ever have a 25%+ success rate in its current state with pugs given the various things that need to be done, the fact that you can't utilize a zerg (map lanes often wont have more than 15 people), and the DPS checks on Chak Gerent. It also doesn't help that the zone layout for TD is absolute shit so most people don't stay a second longer than they have to and the fact that the Meta is the least rewarding out of the four with the only real award being a collection piece and a mastery point that's not necessary.

It's like Triple Trouble, but with far less loot.