qq & pewpew

To the small guilds of Tumblr

If you’re looking for a place to do guild missions, please feel free to consider Oops.  We don’t have a rep requirement at all in our guild and we certainly won’t mind you tagging along with us assuming your personalities match our own (ie we dick around a lot but also like to get things done). 

We’re not flying through updates nor do we have a ton of influence, but we will be getting unlocks fairly regular.  Right now, to my knowledge, we do not have any small guilds who intend to do this with us, so the room is there.

You can message me here if you’re interested or ingame at Noxicon.4956

The GW2Guru interview with Colin Brohansen

First of all, this new text post box sucks.  Now that’s out of the way….

I was reading through the latest interview with Colin and found his comments on crafting to be particularly interesting.  He has a few nice quotes: 

I think it would be nice to [have] more reasons to level your crafting to 400 and have cool things from doing so. I think that’s one of the problems with crafting right now. There’s just not a lot of reason to do it.

I think one of the things that we’re missing is a core rewards system that we could infinitely expand and is unique from weapons and armor

For me the biggest one is is just making sure there’s a real reason to take crafting to 400 and things you can [get] rewards out of it. That’s the biggest thing.

So I started thinking, what would be a way to add new reward systems to the game while also adding something for crafting?

I don’t know how the community would feel about it (and that’s part of the reason for this post), but I’d like to see them add reputations and factions with rewards tied to your standing with them.  In addition, I’d like to see them add additional daily quests for each of those factions, that pop up specific to zones where those dailies would take place.  For example, the Pact could be a faction, and when in any of the Orr regions, you have a Pact daily that appears on the right of the screen with various objections such as completing events or perhaps a specific champion event or destroying various Risen.  Completion of this daily would add Reputation.  Place a vendor in Fort Trinity for reputation rewards relevant to your particular standing.  Since the Pact would be a high level faction relevant to zones level 70+, you could introduce new recipes for the crafting professions that have an item req between 70 and 80.  Reaching the max level of reputation opens up new exotic gear, consumables, everlasting tonics, town clothes, etc.  More than just shiny new skins.  Everyone is dying for new Town Clothes so I see this as a great way to put them in there. 

There are several factions within the game, some minor, even through low levels.  But with the cosmetic system in GW, recipes from them could still be valuable.  People would still do them to collect town clothes. 

Possible factions and zones they could work within:

Pact - Straits of Devastation, Malchor’s Leap, Cursed Shore

Lionguard - No clue

Ebonhawke - Fields of Ruin, Blazeridge Steppes

Vigil - Gendarran Fields, Hirathi Hinterlands

Order of Whispers - Bloodtide Coast, Sparkfly Fen

Priory - Lornar’s Pass, Dredgehaunt Cliffs

Kodan - Frostgorge Sound, Snowden Drifts?

Obviously these ideas are just proxmity based.  They could be refined to operate in areas where each faction is concentrated.  And that’s a small list that doesn’t include each of the races or other small factions (that I know exist, but escape me at the moment).  I know each of these already have vendors that represent them, but I find the system very limited and shallow.  I just think there’s a possibility to pull people into various zones of the map, zones that are otherwise barren, by offering dailies specific to that zone and for a purpose.  To me, it would solve a lot of problems we’re currently seeing (dead zones, player stagnation at level 80, etc.).

Any thoughts?

My current warrior build

First, I can take no credit for this build.  The original post about it can be found at this link.

This build is great in PvE and decent in WvW, largely from a support perspective in that regard.  It’s particularly useful in high level fractals and is the ‘current fotm’ if you will for warriors.  It allows you to stack and maintain 25 stacks of might by yourself in addition to granting might and fury to allies, applying 10 stacks of vulnerability (10% dmg increase for your party), and condition removal for yourself and allies.  It also gives you three 1400hp heals every 20 seconds. 

Weapon Combo: Berserkers Greatsword with Superior Sigil of Strength, Rifle with Superior Sigil of Bloodlust

Heal: Healing Surge

Utility Skills: For Great Justice, On My Mark, Shake It Off

Elite: Signet of Rage

Traits: 10 Strength (Berserker’s Power)

          25 Arms (Rending Strikes, Forceful Greatsword)

          5 Defense

          30 Tactics (Empower Allies, Lung Capacity, Vigorous Shouts)

Armor: Full Knight’s with 2 Superior Runes of Fire, 2 Superior Runes of the Monk and 2 Superior Runes of Water

Jewelry: Power/Precision/Crit Damage with Ruby orbs

If you have any questions, ask!

FOTM Tips and Tricks

I’ve been doing a lot of fractals lately and figured I’d post some of the tricks we’ve used to speed up the process.

Aquatic Ruins Fractal - If you get the ‘lights’ path, only one person needs to actually reach the end.  Once there, they can then suicide and the entire party will rez just inside the entrance to the last boss.  I assume this also works for dolphins but haven’t tried it. For the last boss, it has an insane health pool that can take forever to deplete.  Keep your group together and move near the electrical charges in the room, which will also damage him. 

Cliffside Fractal - It’s possible to ‘glitch’ the last boss into dropping multiple hammers.  When you’re close to stunning him, have everyone group directly on top of the boss, with only one person running out to kill chanters for a charge.  I’ve only done this once but it worked.  Not entirely sure how I feel about it but yea, there it is.

Snowblind Fractal - All the foes after the elemental can be skipped purely by running past them.  They will not cause you much harm.

Swampland Fractal - If you get the Mossman path, have all of your party but one person jump on top of his house and shoot from there with ranged.  They can do so safely without worry while the other person kites.  You probably want a heavy armor class, but a ranger could probably do it using snares. 

Underground Facility Fractal - Lots of tricks here.  In the first bit, where you must stand on pressure plates to open doors, use an Ash Legion Spy kit while standing there in order to keep the dredge off of you.  Also, use an Ash Legion Spy Kit in the last room to unlock the control panel as getting hit will reset the channel. After you get past whichever door path, you need to run up to the Vehicle and jump on one of the wheels.  This puts you out of range of the boss ability which can one shot you.  Just pick off dredge as you need to.  Melee can still hit from up here as well. 

Urban Battlegrounds Fractal - Hug the wall south of where you spawn and run around to Dulfy.  This will result in Dulfy being killed much faster due to NPC’s not trying to run through the infinite mobs which spawn. 

Volcanic Fractal - In the first room, if you’re being overwhelmed by spawns, move up onto the hill near where the boulders spawn.  This will allow you to pull individual groups.  There’s no point in using Melee on the first boss…he has a pushback ability.  I only use melee on the last boss when he pops up his heal bubble.  The rest of the time I strafe as ranged to avoid the hot foot debuff.

Uncategorized Fractal - When you approach the escalator from hell, you can dodge through the little beams.  On the last boss, you can simply the charges by calling one side of the room negative and the other positive.  This way, you won’t have to worry about crossing charges.

Solid Ocean Fractal - When you get to the maw, move around the left wall and up directly underneath the Maw in order to pick off tentacles without worrying about the irukandji.  They’ll disappear when you go into phase 2.  When you hit phase two, it seems to be easier if you congregate to the left of where you would cross over to fight the Maw.  Pick up reflecting crystals regularly so they won’t despawn.  Move out from this point as you need to in order to collect more crystals and take out tentacles.  Also, the Maw’s ability CAN be dodged. 

So there you go, a little starter guide that should get you through the first 10 levels.  Hope this helps in your adventures!.

Oh.My.Fucking.God. GW2 fans…WoW.

Gonna stick this behind a cut….

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Where Guild Wars 2 goes wrong

Massively has a nice article up about GW2 where they discuss the shortfalls of the game.  The piece isn’t a bash-at-all-costs piece, but one that very honestly looks at where the game just falls off. I’ll offer the listed shortfalls and my opinions of them.

Roles are horribly underexplained and unclear

Couldn’t agree more with this, and it’s something I’ve had a particular issue with since beta.  We had this tutorial but the tutorial did absolutely nothing to teach you about the game (other than the downed mechanic, which was removed from the tutorial area all together).  How do I effectively go about playing a support warrior?  Should I focus on specific traitlines?  The problem is that the answer is no.  For example, I run a healing shouts build (it reminds me the most of playing a retribution paladin, but I digress).  I have to go 30 points into the tactics line in order to do so.  That means I play the entire game as something else far less enjoyable because the way i WANT to play is arbitrarily hidden behind some numbers and traits that I really don’t even care about.  I don’t care that I gain additional vitality from the traitline because Vitality is damn near useless to Warriors (who have the highest health pool in the game).  Boon Duration is nice, but I’m playing a support build that offers boons to no one else but myself.  My point is, there’s no cohesion in the trait lines.  A healing shouts build would be better served in the Defense line of warriors, which awards Healing Power and Toughness.  Another example is that I recently took up an interest in playing the Ranger profession after playing on a friends account to help her with Wintersday stuff.  I had a particular interest in the traps.  Then I find out I have to go 30 points into a traitline in order to actually use them how she can use them,  which eliminates all the fun I thought I’d have playing the class.  That’s a problem.

Dynamic events don’t work in their role as quest replacements

They simply don’t.  It’s fun to be out and about and stumble upon an event.  It’s not fun to have the exact same event trigger 50 times.  They become static (more static than a traditional quest) and boring.  A lot of them seem to only be fun when you have a large group of people playing together, which seems to be less and less common until you get to Orr and the Pen/Shelter farming takes over.  Dynamic Events would have been amazing happening alongside traditional quest hubs.  As it stands right now, I just don’t feel like it pulls me into a zone at all.  I have no investment there.  My mind is only on one thing: completing the zone.  In addition, I don’t feel there are any dynamic events which stick out as ‘favorites’, something I really look forward to doing regardless of how many times I’ve previously completed it.  I still recall quests from WoW that, while static, I thoroughly looked forward to doing every single time I leveled a character.  Claw of Jormag had that feeling for the first 5 times I did it, and now it just feels like a massive zerg.  In other words, it was fun when it was new, not fun because of it’s implementation. 

Area flow is problematic

Recently had this discussion with a friend but I don’t feel like the game is pulling me through it ever.  Instead it just bombards you with a ton of shit to do and says ‘go find your way’.  That’s fun in theory, but it’s also overwhelming in a game of this magnitude.  Also, I’ve yet to play through on a character and actually be at level 15 when I get through the first zone.  Instead I’m level 13 usually, and that’s with doing PS, gathering all the things, and doing any DE I happen to stumble upon.  Due to the escalation of level in the level 15 zones, I quickly become 4+ levels underneath where I should be, which was fine when I played a warrior but annoying as anything else.  So instead I’m repeating starter zones just to get a few levels.  Which turns into completing the whole zone because that’s what the game rewards you for doing.  So then I outlevel the 15-25 zones and breeze through them, and that’s the way the game plays out until the end for me.  I’m either drastically underleveled or outleveled.  I hit level 80 before I even step foot into Straits of Devastation, the actual ‘endgame’.  In other words, the flow is just bad.  The pacing of content is just off.

Crafting is a freaking mess

Remember when Anet said  crafting would matter?  Yeah, not so much.  It’s good for the levels and that’s pretty much it.  It seems freaking impossible to just level as you go and instead is more of a ‘do it all at one time’ proposition.  Which means you never really even use the stuff you craft and just vendor it.  The only time crafting remotely matters is level 400 when you can craft exotics, but even then it’s actually cheaper to buy the exotics on the trading post than to build them yourself (the components have a greater value than the finished product).  I’d love to see them add some crafting recipes specific to the orders or at least SOMETHING to make your crafter feel unique instead of just one more in a long line of people who can craft the exact same shit.  Maybe add crafting recipes for dungeon tokens?  I dunno, just give me something.

The story is weak

I’m not one to comment on voice acting so I’ll leave that part alone, but I’m really frustrated that my character is never actually the hero, even in my own Personal Story.  Instead I’m constantly playing second fiddle to Kormirs.  You know, when I was first playing, I honestly didn’t mind Trahearne.  I actually kinda liked him.  Then I remembered Kormir and how much I hated her and how Trahearne does the exact same shit.  Yet again, I want to feel like a hero.  I play fantasy games TO feel like a hero, not to feel like just another in a large crowd of people.  If I wanted to feel that way I’d walk outside for a little while and not spend 8 hours a day playing a video game (i’m sad).  It just plays into my character never feeling truly unique or my own. 

Overall

The article is quite good and is in no way saying GW2 is a bad game.  Hell I have 800 hours played and spent probably close to $200 on gems so I definitely don’t think it’s bad.  But it could be improved and does fall short of some of the promises made during development.  I keep wanting to really love Guild Wars 2, but it’s just missing something that’s keeping me thoroughly invested. 

isaviel:

Wow, so I just heard what happened with the user organised 3-server event with FA, TC and CD. 

As far as I understand it an event was organised on the forums where all 3 servers got together to escort a Dolyak for funsies and peace times and general good-natured hijinx. Everything was going fine until two of OUR guilds, BT and PD, decided to fucking attack and kill everyone. The event was going peacefully and everyone was getting along great. But no, we have to fucking ruin everything. 

If you’re a member of BT or PD on the FA server who had a part to play in this you should be ashamed of yourselves. You won’t be, I realise, that would require you to have some modicum of intelligence or enough to realise that what you did was monumentally stupid. 

So anyway now TC and CD are double-teaming us, perfectly understandably imo. No wonder all the servers hate us. 

You play on FA?

Our guild has a very tainted view of FA.  Here’s why.

I do the EB jumping puzzle every day, and have for months now.  During my adventures, I’ve discovered that very few servers really give a shit about pvp in there and just run through doing their thing, using emotes to talk to people or straight up adding you to their party (still amazed that’s possible…apparently if you select an invader and type ‘/invite’ you can party with people on other realms).  I’ve only really discovered two servers that seem to give a shit about the EB Puzzle.

FA and IoJ.

Both are on my shitlist for some of the most bullshit moves I’ve seen.  It’s all within the ‘rules’, but it’s just bad form in my eyes.  I’d never set up siege in the fucking jp.  Ever.  Definitely not to sit and camp the Chandelier Room for 30 minutes, which actually happened to me.  I figured IoJ would just move on, but nope, they kept trying to kill me for 30 minutes to the point that I just left the puzzle.  FA pulled similar shit.

I play on Blackgate.  We don’t exactly have the best WvW reputation either so I’m probably completely out of bounds, but I cherish getting to kill anyone from FA or IoJ and will actually now seek them out in the JP if they’re around (we’ve been fighting IoJ for like a month now it seems).