GW2 update

[Andile™]

Has anyone been playing recently? I'm still in the Cats guild though never representing. I'm also playing in Sea of Sorrows which seems to have good population number around the clock. If anyone is keen to come across, send me a message.

I've been playing primarily in a very small, casual but active guild and sometimes in two other guilds, much larger ones, one focussed on pve and the other on wvw. If you are moving across, I can refer you to any/all of them.

My guardian remains my main at 80. I haven't had the will to start alting yet as there is so much else I want to do before that.

[Taolas]

They are going to put in PvE guesting soon and do a large update, so maybe some people will be around. I play off and on, currently getting alts to 80. ~40 Ele, ~40 Mesmer, 10 necro, will eventually remake my thief.

[VKhaun]

Very interested in doing my elementalist and my warrior... EVE online actually put in my ships. If you went to the EVE online forums and found my posts from a year+ ago and compared what I wanted to fly to what they just put in? EXACTLY what I wanted. It's uncanny. Still no interest in any MMO but GW2, and no one I know plays anything but GW2 and SWTOR.

But I am not in an MMO mood at all. :/
No desire to log on.

[Zavon]

I actually was on a bit last night.

My problem has, always been finding a character that I couldn't get bored with. I think I've outgrown mmos.

[Pyrrhus]

I've been playing semi-actively with 2 RL friends, one who is very active. Currently leveling a bunch of alts to have access for WvW, splitting leveling between WvW and PvE has been my favorite thing ever so far. Keeping me from getting bored with any one aspect of the game.

[Taolas]

Has anyone tried this? I might give it a go on my guardian that recently hit 80. https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...aling-gameplay

[Andile™]

I'm working towards that but also trying my own tweaks. Not enough to report back on yet though.

It's deemed to be a very good build and I'm enjoying what I've seen so far.

[Andile™]

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...ld-in-PvE-solo

This is a very interesting discussion on the AH build and running solo. It highlights some of the tweaks you can do to the original AH build which I've been trying myself. Particularly on different weapon choices, slight variations to trait setup and solo farming.

[Taolas]

Today I effortlessly face tanked some level 80 Icebrood champs. It's alright... feels a bit more group oriented, but I appreciated how quickly I could regain lost health. I'll have to read up more on the solo stuff. I put 15 pts in radiance for renewed justice, because F1 spamming for 3x might every time something dies is too yummy. Sucks for bosses though.

[Andile™]

What did you pick for gear? I've been switching between two sets but am not convinced they perform terribly differently. Early days though. My second set is newly acquired and tested in one CoF run only.

Set 1 is the solo set: soldier armor and berserkers trinkets, all with ruby orbs. Focus on damage (both power and precision) and a decent crit chance with the berserker stuff. The soldier set gives me decent survivability from vit and toughness. Been happy with this setup but with the increasing amount of time spent in dungeons, I decided to experiment...

Set 2 is the group set: magis armor with magis crests and knights trinkets with emerald orbs. This set foregoes damage (again power and precision) to increase crit chance considerably and dish out might boons more often (with empowering might). Adding this effect to the significant amount of + healing in magis will to improve AH too. To compensate for the lack of damage, knights pieces bring in a lot of survivability through vitality and toughness. Not every dungeon or fight requires me to be a meat shield that dishes out healing but I'm trying to get in that situation more often and to see how it works out for the group. Can I stay alive longer than in berserkers and keep the group in one piece and dishing out the DPS? Not sure yet.

PS. Weapons are always berserkers with sigils of fire. Hammer and staff, 99% of the time. Have yet to upgrade my mace, scepter and focus to exotic as I don't use these in WvW.

[Boxy Brown]

Guild Wars 2 did it for me for about a month, which is 2 weeks more than your average MMO. Credit, given, due, etc.

But yeah, the sPvP is bad, the WvWvW is decent at best, and the PvE is GHASTLY. Pretty much the only things that I did enjoy were the leveling process (for about five zones until I realized that it's the same grind in different wrapping paper) and the crafting.

[Taolas]

All my equipment is green masterwork right now. I'm in all pow/pre/tough knight armor. My jewelry is soldier for vit with emerald (knight stats) gems. Got some +boon duration runes on my armor. I just went with knight weapons too, and put mostly on crit or on kill sigils in. I figured the 30 points for AH giving +30% crit damage was enough with almost 40% crit chance without fury. Overall, not really trying to dish out the damage, since I have a warrior for that. I should try a dungeon or two.

Yeah boxy, still no pvp updates.

[Andile™]

Shame it didn't work out for you, Boxy. I too think wvw is decent in that I can hop on and off and have fun. I like the pve as much as I enjoyed it in previous MMOs. The difference being I can actually go through content without relying on groups, if I don't have the time or desire to pull one together (one of my few gripes with MMO pve). sPVP... I couldn't care any less about arena type of play.

Taolas, last night I was checking dungeons vendors for exotic knights armor lol. Shame the Orr karma vendors don't have that. Karma is so easy to come by with dailies and monthlies. I need to do some maths though as I'm somehow under the impression that I could get similar distribution of stats to yours by switching some upgrades around.

More importantly, guesting is coming in the next patch so we should be able to do more together. :-)

[Taolas]

I really want to do more of the mini-dungeons and stuff they added awhile ago. One that I did had a boss fight over a shark tank that was pretty entertaining. They have achievements for some of them. It'd be a great excuse for guesting.

Soldiers armor (didn't you have it? You can karma it) and emerald trinkets would probably be close to my build. I solo'd a few mid level group event champs today. I am missing the higher damage of warrior, but it's pretty easy to stay alive. I'll have to take my warrior through those places and compare survivability. Also, I might drop F1 spamming, but it's still nice to have 15 points in the precision line, so hard choice.

[Andile™]

Soldiers armor (didn't you have it? You can karma it) and emerald trinkets would probably be close to my build.

Yes, I do and have karma'ed it. I can try that easily - emerald trinkets is what I have in set 2.

Also, I might drop F1 spamming, but it's still nice to have 15 points in the precision line, so hard choice.

I've been too keen on the 2h mastery (30 trait in honor) to try the VoJ refresh trait in radiance. I do use renewed focus on my elite so I can refresh my virtues every now and again.

[Taolas]

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Prot..._from_the_area
So this event on laughing gull island is a good one to test out a guardian with. The group event champion devastates most people and calls like 6 allies out every once in awhile. I couldn't tank him normally, but brought him to the bow of the ship, which I think put me out of range of an aoe or something he does. It gave me enough breathing room to solo him - most attacks still hit and he can yank you towards him every 6 seconds or so if he feels like it. If you don't have a strong rotation on protective skills and renewed focus, his damage starts winning out against your c/d. This is in green/masterwork gear, mind you. Used Mace/Focus + shouts mostly. The add-on trash was a non-issue, except for the guy that knocks you down for like 5 seconds.

I'm not sure if I really need to go crit heavy if I want to survive well. There's only that group str on crits trait that synergizes with AH, I think? Maybe some food too? That would mean either cleric or soldier gear over knights. Most things don't scale well with healing power and I did notice I got maxed out on health once in awhile during the fight... so I might try more vitality to buffer myself, as long as I can refill to full HP once in awhile with these bosses. Well, I still need to finish reading those articles too.

[Andile™]

Might to allies on crits = Empowering Might. It improves your AH as you're dishing more boons out.

There's a different heal build being discussed on the forums named the Healway Guardian, or something alike, that moves away from AH. I'm still trying my set 1 vs 2 but to be honest been lacking the time to play. Let alone read or test other ideas. :-)

My next objective is to get a new mace so I can test like for like. I know I'll keep a mace so I want one with a skin that doesn't suck.

Yes, I'm that vain. >.>