Guild Wars 2!

[Draconi Redfir]

Gaddang i seriously need to get back into this, haven't played in ages o.0

[Karen Lynn]

So, just picked it up. Downloading now. Waiting...

No problems with the android based mobile authenticator so far.

[Amridell]

Just grabbed, gonna fight a midnight dragon :D

[Karen Lynn]

Anybody else disappointed with the 'epic event'?

I was. This is not what I expected from ANet.

[Turalisj]

Yeah, I'd expect this kinda stuff from Blizzard

[Karen Lynn]

Sad thing is, they had non stop complaints. Even Turbine has pulled DDO events to fix under similar occurrences(here's looking at you, Treasure Cove birthday event).

[Emmerask]

Anybody else disappointed with the 'epic event'?

I was. This is not what I expected from ANet.

Well the event would have been okayish if not for the culling problem,
the engine seems incapable of rendering more then 100 units.
So in the end I had a lot of my fellow players on screen but zero enemies and still about 60fps and no lag (So my pc would have been capable of displaying more^^).

It really is time that Anet accepts that their engine is **** (for that purpose) and either address this issue, there are multiple ways to solve it, or just instance these events for 30 or so players and adjust the difficulty accordingly.
I think if the players could have seen thee karkas the event would have been over in half the time.
Without this the event was needlessly prolonged and got quite boring especially at the reinforcement stages of the ancient.

Also I don´t quite get the 2 life bars of the bigger karkas, yes you destroy the armor... but why 2 bars it is just stupid, why not just make the karka lose its shell at 50% and adjust the armor accordingly???

On another note, I love the Fractal dungeons they really are fun, even with the issues when a player dcs etc^^

[Hullabaloo]

Sad thing is, they had non stop complaints. Even Turbine has pulled ALL DDO events to fix under similar occurrences(here's looking at you, Treasure Cove birthday event,Treasure Cove with wrong levels, MyBan, Mybar lag, Mybar wrong level, even risa iirc).

Fixed it for you. I hope ANet never takes a page from Turbine

Unfortunately I was gone all weekend, hopefully the keep up the pace with them coming out though.

[Amridell]

Well the event would have been okayish if not for the culling problem,
the engine seems incapable of rendering more then 100 units.
So in the end I had a lot of my fellow players on screen but zero enemies and still about 60fps and no lag (So my pc would have been capable of displaying more^^).

It really is time that Anet accepts that their engine is **** (for that purpose) and either address this issue, there are multiple ways to solve it, or just instance these events for 30 or so players and adjust the difficulty accordingly.
I think if the players could have seen thee karkas the event would have been over in half the time.
Without this the event was needlessly prolonged and got quite boring especially at the reinforcement stages of the ancient.

Also I don´t quite get the 2 life bars of the bigger karkas, yes you destroy the armor... but why 2 bars it is just stupid, why not just make the karka lose its shell at 50% and adjust the armor accordingly???

On another note, I love the Fractal dungeons they really are fun, even with the issues when a player dcs etc^^

The two life bars made me rage.I'd start walking away, then be like "Wait, crap! It has another life!".

[Karen Lynn]

Fixed it for you. I hope ANet never takes a page from Turbine

Unfortunately I was gone all weekend, hopefully the keep up the pace with them coming out though.

Fair enough.

[Shadow]

Anybody else disappointed with the 'epic event'?

I was. This is not what I expected from ANet.

I was quite pleased with it.
I realize that some people were having performance issues [and some of them were probably even legitimate rather than client side hardware issues, which would be the most common problem], but I had none. Zero. Zilch.
One player was whining incessantly about lag for about an hour, claiming that it wasn't a hardware issue, and said something to the effect of "Many people have good systems, maybe not high end, but good." To which I replied "I built my system for $650 and I am having zero issues, so I'd really like to know your definition of *good.*" The incessant whining then stopped, which was a relief.
All in all, the event was, as far as I'm concerned, exactly what a huge one time world event should have been.

[Karen Lynn]

I know it wasn't client side lag for me. I spent way too much on this system for that to be an issue. Couldn't be my web, as I was getting lag free performance on DDO. I just know it was unplayable for me. Any good loot?

[Tono]

The problems was the culling system. It makes it so that only so many characters are on a screen at one point in time to save on band width. Known issue, they are working on it, yada yada yada.

[Karen Lynn]

Now the real question, is it an engine issue, or a setting issue? Can they just say to the machine 'render everything' or 'render no more than x units at a time'? Bandwidth isn't an issue for me.

All things considered, I still love this game, and won't rage quit over this. Just want to see them fix it, is all.

[Tono]

Its an old issue that I don't feel like typing up completely. Heres the last official response that I know of, it does it for me.

[Hullabaloo]

Good find Tono, I thought of that when i was reading this on my phone on my way in and was going to go try and find it when I got on my computer. Basically they know its an issues, arn't happy its an issues as it affects WvW a signature of their game. Hopefully they can figure it out fairly quickly.

So I ran Fractals Lv1 last night. The group was ... weak... but we got to the first legendary boss fairly smooth. That boss was nasty, and while 4 of us figured out the mechanic, one did not... Details spoilered, cause they are a spoiler :)

Spoiler

Show

He is a large ice elemental I think. There are 4 large pots of lava (?or something) hanging around. You have to go hit the switch by them while he is under them, and he gets [superheated] and you can out dmg his regen. But the debuff only lasts for 25 seconds, then he regens very fast, say 20% of his health in 10ish seconds. But the cooldown on the lava pot is about 45 seconds. So you have to kite him back and forth, while DPSing.

Took us a while to figure this out, and we were bouncing him pretty well. But this one ranger just would not get it. He kept yelling "I'm stacking Vulnerability, my shots are doing like 3k!" While kiting the boss away so he would fully regen.

Even once he got it figured out, if you missed with a pot, he would regen like 30% before you could get him back to the other pot.

The fight alone took us at least an hour.

No great loot but fun. After that first boss, we broke up, as it had taken so long. But one guy said that was just part 1 out of 6, and you had to do all six to start at fractal level 2 next time, and you had to start over next time. Is that true?

That being said, the GitPG guild has been very quite. When I look there are only 2-3 others on, and none representing. Anyone wanna run fractals or something else? I have access to a mumble server, and I think runs could be smoother then my PUG experiences :)

[Turalisj]

I'm just sticking with my main guild for now over on Isle of Janthir. Over 100 members and growing, we've got a master crafter in every profession.

[Shadow]

I know it wasn't client side lag for me. I spent way too much on this system for that to be an issue. Couldn't be my web, as I was getting lag free performance on DDO. I just know it was unplayable for me. Any good loot?

Lag free performance on DDO? That's impressive. That game was a lot of fun for a long time, but there were always lag issues during events and whatnot for me.
As to the loot: Some decent stuff. The most notable were a decent back piece and a 20 slot bag, along with some random drop type rares.
I actually ran it on my Engy, which was only level 29 at the time, rather than on any of my higher level toons, so I can't actually equip a single thing that I got from the event for another 33 levels at the least [12 or 13 left now instead of 30+].

[Hullabaloo]

This months pvp achievement is torneyments, anyone interested? I think we need 8

[Karen Lynn]

Lag free performance on DDO? That's impressive. That game was a lot of fun for a long time, but there were always lag issues during events and whatnot for me.
As to the loot: Some decent stuff. The most notable were a decent back piece and a 20 slot bag, along with some random drop type rares.
I actually ran it on my Engy, which was only level 29 at the time, rather than on any of my higher level toons, so I can't actually equip a single thing that I got from the event for another 33 levels at the least [12 or 13 left now instead of 30+].

Don't be impressed. It requires a sacrificial kitten(<6wks) for every 2 hours of lag free game time, and will only work on a PC liquid cooled by the tears and broken dreams of small children.

That said: glad to hear the loot was nice. :)

[Delusion]

This months pvp achievement is torneyments, anyone interested? I think we need 8

You need just 5 for tournaments.

[Hullabaloo]

Don't be impressed. It requires a sacrificial kitten(<6wks) for every 2 hours of lag free game time, and will only work on a PC liquid cooled by the tears and broken dreams of small children.

That said: glad to hear the loot was nice. :)

As someone who played ddo for a long time, this is a perfect description ;(

[Hullabaloo]

ouch, we fell off the front page!

Anywho

Wintersday: The Wondrous Workshop of Toymaker Tixx
December 14 to January 3

The nights may be long and dark, but Tyrians of all races keep joy alive during the ancient holiday of Wintersday. While each race celebrates Wintersday in their own unique way, children all over Tyria share a common love of one thing: toys.

This year the city of Lion’s Arch will host the asuran Toymaker Tixx as their special Wintersday guest of honor. Before Tixx arrives in Lion’s Arch in his massive airship toy workshop, he’ll visit every major city in Tyria to deliver Wintersday toys and holiday cheer.

[mucco]

About time the other major cities got some attention!

[Octopus Jack]

It's been a while but I finally got GW2 working with my uni ports. Since then I have leveled my engineer from 22 to 47 and tried to keep crafting up to scale with my level which seems needlessly time consuming and levels you up far too quickly. However running around in a set of rare weapons and armour that you made yourself is rather satisfying.

I've also taken my first dip into PvP with a very tanky condition damage based build utilising the Grenade and Bomb kits with two pistols attempt to stack as much condition damage as possible whilst laughing at them. This is so far working quite well though if anyone has any advice on pvp engineers I'd love to hear it.

[Hullabaloo]

Never played my engineer, but are you talking structured PvP or WvWvW?

Passing along gw2lfg.com for anyone that has not used it. Its becoming more used as a way to find a group. I posted on it last night, and within 20 seconds got a PM from a group of 3 people that were doing a Fractals Lv2 run.

[Shadow]

I've also taken my first dip into PvP with a very tanky condition damage based build utilising the Grenade and Bomb kits with two pistols attempt to stack as much condition damage as possible whilst laughing at them. This is so far working quite well though if anyone has any advice on pvp engineers I'd love to hear it.

What's your build look like?
I have one character of every profession. My Engy has become my main.
My advice would be for you to consider off hand shield rather than pistol. The Engineer's shield is so much better than a pistol it's borderline ridiculous. That goes double for PvP play.

Consider:
Off hand pistol offers a close range burn and a tiny amount of CC.
Off hand shield offers better defense, a 2s block, projectile reflection, an AoE knockback, a stun (or multiple dazes instead), a blast finisher, and a projectile finisher. All on two skills. In my opinion, an Engy's shield is one of the best skill sets on a weapon in the entire game.

This is especially true if you have 20+ points in Inventions and take the cooldown reduction trait (and as you said you were "very tanky", this is possible).

I usually run a hybrid support/condition/crit build using pistol/shield and:
0 / 30 (II, IV, XII), 0 / 20 (I, VII) / 20 (IV, II)
med kit, elixir gun, and two of: elixir B, rocket boots, grenades, and tool kit (depending on the situation - if I don't know what's coming it's usually eB & RBoots)

[Hullabaloo]

Can anyone explain acended items? I received a vial of condensed mist essence, so want to craft a back or ring slot item right? The Tome of the Rubicon would be ideal i think, but is quite an investment for the 250 ancient bones (at about 1.5 silver each) and 50 ectos. I would get 9-10 gold in total? The Prototype Fractal Capacitor (Ascended) seems much cheaper, with pretty good stats still. Is there something I'm missing? The Prototype seems like a much better deal for me at my current cash flow levels :).

Thanks

[Turalisj]

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Koss_on_Koss

Oh god

[Hullabaloo]

short answer is that 1850 Fractal relics is going to be my limiting factor. Currently sitting at 100...

*Bit longer answer*
There are two ways to get back slot things it seems. The grind of getting two items which buy for a combined 1850 fractals, a mist drop I got, and spending 24 skill points. The gold way of buying 50 ectos, 250 ancient crating items, and some other stuff.

There are also rings, which seem to be drops from the lv10+
(HT and more info: Dulfy )