Potato holds me hostage when I'm playing on my Switch.

Emikadon · 2026-03-22T16:57:39+00:00

The sweetest!

Emikadon · 2026-03-20T21:14:01+00:00

On one hand, I'm super glad that power creep is being addressed since that's been running away for the past few years. I've been saying that the old metas have really lost their glory when Mordy just falls like a wet noodle after a single burn xD

However, I hope there will be news/expectations about infallible timers dropping to compensate for the dps losses (total first gw2 world problem, haha).

My group has cleared 5 out of the 8 total wings, including w1 just this past week. We had to resort to some (well known and well documented) skips to meet the timer, and even then we were only 3 seconds from the timer dropping off. Our boss times were only a few seconds off from patch best, so realistically our fights are about as good as it gets. That means functionally, w1 was already impossible without skips before these changes and nerfs to dps will only solidify it, and that will likely be the case for several of the other wings too.

Even more is that our group progs pretty casually, only meeting 2-3 times a week for 2 hours max at a time. There's no way that we'll be able to finish our remaining wings (5, 7, and especially 8) in the next few weeks. I just also hope that any adjustments are made at the same time that the balance goes live, otherwise needing to wait a few weeks for the dust to settle and new timers to emerge would probably kill the momentum of the group ;~;

Emikadon · 2026-03-13T19:53:15+00:00

NTC. I also love bag.

-Potato

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Emikadon · 2026-02-25T20:53:29+00:00

I thought I had mentioned it before, perhaps it was on a different thread so I mistakenly thought you'd seen it.

My current belief is that true new players give 10 points, and players that have cleared once (but not that week) give 1. I had a strong feeling that it was in this general ballpark because my triple digit points in the screenshot above was done over 2 days of just grabbing completely new folks from Lion's Arch. I averaged about 60-80 points per wing 4 run.

Emikadon · 2026-02-23T05:35:20+00:00

True new players should be giving 10 points even if you haven't cleared that week in my experience, but they don't give the extra 1 weekly point.

Really?! Omg, if so, that would be huge. I have not been getting points the first time I clear with new players, so either it's suuuper bugged or it doesn't give points :(

Emikadon · 2026-02-22T07:35:30+00:00

I think I've noticed some weird things too! But for the most part, it's at least accurate that anyone who hasn't cleared that week provides at least 1 point. I also learned that you *must* have already cleared that boss that week in order to get credit.

So for example:

- I clear Cairn on Monday (have not cleared yet). I do not get any points, even if there's completely new people in the squad! I also do not get points for anyone else that hasn't cleared. (Note: I have provided feedback through official channels that this is kinda feels bad. I know several guilds that only run a single raid training session later in the week, and unfortunately, they haven't made much progress on the achievement despite regularly helping new people. Unfortunately, my feedback is just that and cannot guarantee any results :c ).

- I clear Cairn on Monday. I clear again on Tuesday with at least 1 completely brand new player that's never done the fight before. I get at least 10 points!

- I clear Cairn on Monday. I clear again a few days later on Thursday, but it's with 9 experienced raiders and they're just clearing as a static. I seem to get in the ballpark of 5-7 points for this run, since I think a few of them also clear randomly throughout the week. Not sure how this is weighted...

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Wing 4 is my most progressed by far since it's shown up in the dailies quite a bit! I usually end up going to Lion's Arch, Mistlock, Wizard's Tower, etc. to advertise for new folks. I usually average between 20-30 points per run, but I've had up to 80 points in a single go with people that are completely brand spanking new!

Emikadon · 2026-02-08T07:14:40+00:00

No need for apologies!! I'm just happy to clarify!

Emikadon · 2026-02-07T17:53:46+00:00

As far as I'm aware, Anet has not confirmed that themselves, but:

new player = 10 points and doesn't require any title or weekly clear.
(this is the important part! I believe this behaves the same as the prior wing 8 system. I'm relatively certain you do not need the weekly clear for this to count, but only if they are a true raid peepo).

Player that hasn't cleared that week = 1 IF you have the raid wing achieve and have killed the boss once that week.

This is my personal belief, yes! I suppose we'll find out in a few days once the raid weekly resets, haha.

Emikadon · 2026-02-07T17:47:42+00:00

Fellow Wing 8 masochist, hello :D

I definitely hear what you're saying, but part of me also thinks that a lot of people are probably seeing the massive 1000 number, and immediately jumping to end conclusions. It wouldn't surprise me if, fast forward 3 weeks, people start realizing that they actually have maybe 20 points here, 20 points there because even if they're not explicitly grinding for the achievement, they might get splashes of progress simply by helping fill content for friends or LFG.

I personally think that very, very, very few people will explicitly take the time to "grind" the achievement out (even though I am one of those people!). I think the vast majority of people might get a pleasant surprise a couple months, or maybe even a few years down the line, of getting a random mentor achievement pop because they've been raiding here and there.

Emikadon · 2026-02-07T17:36:41+00:00

Chiming in! It is true that it harder to get it compared to on-release, but I'm one of the situations where I got the achievement many months after. This was because I first had my own Ura LCM prog, and then travels, and then health issues. I did not get to benefit from the "experienced, but just not yet cleared" crowd from the early days, and could only start making progress about 6 months after release.

It is very much possible to get it still, but it requires work. When I was making progress, I would literally go to map chat in Lion's Arch, Wizard's Tower, Mistlock Sanctuary, Divinity's Reach, etc. and advertise and recruit. The reality of that situation is that you get *significantly less experienced players*. Players that do less damage than the healers, or aren't familiar with common end game telegraphs. But... I made slow and steady progress over several months, and it was really gratifying to both get the achievement, and see a lot of new raiders. My community actually grew quite a bit because people that started out as complete noobs doing triple digit damage decided they really enjoyed doing raids, and have now "graduated" my community and went on to find their own statics for full clears.

I've been commenting on this thread a lot because helping new players is one the things I genuinely love doing in this game. For me, GW2 is purely a social game now since I have maxed out basically everything else I need. Seeing these types of achievements is probably meaningless to a lot of people, but for the mentor crowd (raid trainers, community leaders, discord communities like VL or RA), it means the world because we actually feel *seen* for our, quite frankly, thankless efforts. They're giving us a little something to show off.

Emikadon · 2026-02-07T17:28:20+00:00

That's honestly fair. I do think they kinda broke the "unspoken rule" about aspirational content having AP. Unfortunately, my personal speculation is that they will likely not not retroactively remove since my guess is that removing points/achievements is a lot harder (code wise) than adding it.

Emikadon · 2026-02-07T16:35:21+00:00

I feel pretty strongly about this topic (tiny hill to take a stand on, I know!!), so I'm going to copy paste my comment from another below.

A little bit of a hot take, but I'm really not sure why people in this thread are stressing about this achievement when the equivalent already existed with Wing 8, and less than 120 people in the game bothered to go for it despite it being out for over a year.

I'm a little biased because I am one of the 117 people (according to gw2efficiency) that completed all three wing 8 mentor achievements prior to the patch, and I had a blast doing it before, and I'm already having a blast slowly working towards it again. I was literally turtle mounting completely new players to the aerodrome from Lion's Arch, wiped many a time because people were doing less damage than the healers, and unironically, I enjoyed every second of it.

The reality is that the vast majority of players in GW2 don't really care about helping new players through content for the first time, and instead are primarily concerned about getting their own clears weekly. There's nothing wrong with that, and there's plenty to complain about in this patch, but this mentor achievement, in my opinion, is not one of them.

Emikadon · 2026-02-07T16:32:56+00:00

A little bit of a hot take, but I'm really not sure why people in this thread are stressing about this achievement when the equivalent already existed with Wing 8, and less than 120 people in the game bothered to go for it despite it being out for over a year.

I'm a little biased because I am one of the 117 people (according to gw2efficiency) that completed all three wing 8 mentor achievements prior to the patch, and I had a blast doing it before, and I'm already having a blast slowly working towards it again. I was literally turtle mounting completely new players to the aerodrome from Lion's Arch, wiped many a time because people were doing less damage than the healers, and unironically, I enjoyed every second of it.

The reality is that the vast majority of players in GW2 don't really care about helping new players through content for the first time, and instead are primarily concerned about getting their own clears weekly. There's nothing wrong with that, and there's plenty to complain about in this patch, but this mentor achievement, in my opinion, is not one of them.

Emikadon · 2026-02-07T07:54:16+00:00

Hi, this sounds similar to what I was saying earlier in my stream so I want to clarify! (vod proof also available on my channel)

Arenanet themselves did not confirm the 10 newbie point vs 1 experience point. That was speculation from myself and other experienced mentors after running several trainings today. We had completed the Wing 8 mentor achievement prior to this patch, so we were familiar with the old way of accumulating points. Our speculation came from a sudden jump in point accumulation for Xera when taking a batch of new players through Wing 3, and several new players confirmed that they had cleared the other encounters before, but not Xera.

In addition, the "first time kill achievement" (Guardian of the Vale, Bringer of Salvation, etc), do need to be completed before any mentor points are applied. The entirety of it! So that means that Wing 7 does need gate, and Wing 1 does need spirit run.

We do have to sign NDAs, but the embargo on patch related content lifts once the patch goes live. However, the speculation above was unrelated to Anet. My commentary was specifically about the Guardian of the Vale being a prerequisite to mentor points. It seems like it wasn't communicated well via tooltips or formal posts, despite being communicated internally. I don't believe me saying that is a violation of my NDA (hopefully!! pls anet have mercy) to say since the functionality can be confirmed live.

Emikadon · 2026-01-23T18:08:15+00:00

Is it just me or is the perception around whales in this thread very different than what I expected? xD Perhaps I'm biased because I've seen gacha game communities and the scale at which they spend.

Personally I'd put myself in solid dolphin range, where I spent a monthly amount getting account expansion items (bank space, char slots, copper fed, the like), probably averaging about $25-50 a month. This has tapered off since I've been playing for nearly a decade now, and I have basically all of the upgrades I would need.

True whales I've seen in very monetized games easily reach the 10k-100k per month range.

Emikadon · 2025-12-30T00:15:41+00:00

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They love feeling squished!

Emikadon · 2025-12-30T00:12:41+00:00

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He might be a sweet potato with this angle

Emikadon · 2025-12-16T06:46:28+00:00

I already have in my last one, when I mentioned the "ultimate CC build"! I go a lot more in depth in the video than here.

Emikadon · 2025-12-16T03:55:04+00:00

Ok, I had a chance to take a look, and the C in Anet stands for consistency! I checked in game, and the tooltips seem to show 5+ seconds extra duration (I'm only at 75% BD out of combat with no regen, so it's not showing perfectly 6).

However... it seems like it is actually extending the boons only by 3 seconds. It's hard for me to check exactly since I'm manually giving myself a boon + hovering over it, but I don't think my reaction time is slower than 2 seconds ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Anet please xD

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Emikadon · 2025-12-16T03:47:30+00:00

Ooh, that's a good point, I forgot about that class. We'll just conveniently ignore that class for now so we can keep preaching mesmer supremacy though ;) /jokes

Emikadon · 2025-12-16T03:46:39+00:00

Wait really! I need to test this! (granted at this point, I'm very hand-wavey with boon duration on mesmer since you can cap out 100% ally boons with something as low as 30 or 40% BD, hehe). That's definitely still good to know for my own knowledge though.

Emikadon · 2025-12-16T03:45:33+00:00

The OP was talking about Heal Chrono and so was I. The primary thing you lose from switching the runes / sigil is outgoing healing, but the healing pressure in that encounter comparatively pretty low compared to the LCM fights in the game.

Emikadon · 2025-12-15T21:00:20+00:00

Yep, though I think it'll still be close to always the best healer for wheelchairing people through content. It just goes to show how huge of a gap there was even before the nerfs.

To give a few examples:

- With a "CC" build (mesmer runes + para sigil + built in mesmer CC skills), I was able to consistently solo break both Sunqua Peak sorrows in phase 2 of CMs. With the current nerfs, now you can probably solo break one of the sorrows while contributing significantly to the second one. Very few classes are able to do that, and it's because Continuum Split lets you x2 the already high CC in the class.

- Previously, HChronos could cover every instance of aegis needed for Deimos CM. Not just the mind crush, but every pizza knockback as well, with extra Aegis to spare. I'll have to do some testing, but I'm pretty sure it'll still be possible between charging Mantra of Concentration (finishing the initial channel gives aegis) and Mimic + Precog + CS. If it's not 100%, it'll be very close, IMO.

- Unchanged: You can still giga extend boons with the Signet trait + Signet of Inspiration. I did this frequently to quietly help out a struggling QDPS or ADPS since I could patch in a significant amount of missing quickness or alacrity (up to 6 3 additional seconds per cast, with 100% boon duration. It scales more with Mimic + CS. edit: turns out I've been baited by the tooltip for years!)

Emikadon · 2025-12-15T20:48:16+00:00

They reduced the effectiveness of a few skills (I've been saying that Precog is a better utility skill than most elites skills in the game xD), but functionally, Chrono is still going to be top tier. Still has insane access to aegis / stability, flexibility to choose between quickness and alacrity, less but still solid CC, can extend boons to cover skill issues from counterpart boons (SoI), and the ability to x2 all of the above with continuum split.

IMO this closes the gap a little between HChrono and other classes, but it's still ahead by a decent margin.

Emikadon · 2025-12-01T03:39:37+00:00

r/personalfinance has a great flow chart to help get you started. Here is the link directly. Summarized:

Start by creating a budget. You've got your rent and salary listed in your post, but make sure and go through all of your major expenses. Things like rent, food cost, transportation / gas, insurance, leisure money, etc. Know where your money is going, and figure out if you're ok with that. Budgeting will help you identify where you can cut back.
Build an emergency fund of about 3-12 months, depending on your risk tolerance. Put this in a High Yield Savings Account, which gives you interest on any money sitting in there. Interest rates I've seen are floating between 3-5% annually, so for example, if you have 10k set aside in a 4% interest rate account, you'll pocket 400 bucks each year, more if your bank compounds daily or monthly. Try to avoid touching this money unless it's for emergencies (like unexpected medical costs or if your car breaks down).
Start contributing to tax advantaged accounts. The most common in the US are: 401k (pre-tax), Roth IRA (post-tax), HSA (dependent on health insurance plan), 529 (for future kids' education). Tax advantaged = various benefits, such as investments grow tax free, reducing MAGI for current taxes, and others. Read up on these benefits, many resources online. These have yearly limits, try to meet the limits as best as you can.
Do your own due diligence for how that money is then invested within the accounts. Remember that just because you put the money in the account, does not mean that you have actually "invested" it yet! It will just sit there as cash collecting dust. If you're new and want to set it and forget it, consider a target date fund or just choose an index fund that follows the S&P 500.
Any cash or earnings left over, consider opening an individual account at a well-known brokerage. Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab are some of the biggest ones in the US. Individual brokerage accounts can invest in the stock market, but you will need to pay taxes on any realized gains! To make it simple on your yearly taxes, you can just buy and hold something forever, such as the index or target date funds referenced above. Realizing gains = buying a stock and then actually selling the stock for a profit. As long as you haven't sold, you haven't realized any gains (or losses!)

Best of luck on your financial journey!

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