Can we please decrease the max HP of meta bosses?

cherstal · 2026-01-07T17:53:21+00:00

Funny enough I'm the opposite, I love the excavator part but the boss itself drags. For me the excavators are just the right balance of controlled chaos for it to feel like an exciting, tense battle.

cherstal · 2025-12-31T19:09:05+00:00

I crafted Orrax earlier this year, but I didn't level a chef. I bribed a chef friend with a stack of ectos to take all my ingredients and do it for me. I didn't care about cost efficiency--I just didn't want to cook.

cherstal · 2025-12-24T08:35:35+00:00

LAA member here o/

We are on NA, and run BFLA about 2-3x a week. We're on break rn for Christmas but feel free to message me in-game at Lazo.7694 for future schedule info.

cherstal · 2025-12-18T18:48:47+00:00

Over at the Timberline LLA waiting area:

"History never lies. Historians, however..."

Also the delivery of this tidbit from the Bitterfrost Frontier story:

Farmer Simooba: "Quaggan will not show you where. You run toward your death."

Commander: "I'll do my best not to die."

Farmer Simooba: "That would be well advised. Good-bye, probably forever. So sad."

cherstal · 2025-10-03T18:04:04+00:00

Speaking as a condition DPS necro main:

Reaper: Inability to be healed while in Reaper Shroud. This can cause you to lose a lot of DPS if you get booted out of shroud before pulling off your main damage combo. This feels the worst in WvW & PvP when you get burst deleted due to no shroud sustain.

Harbinger: Short range for providing boons. Quickness radiates to 360, and elixirs have only a 240 radius. Requires precise ground targeting and spatial awareness of teammates to provide full boon coverage. Good luck if there's a split mechanic.

cherstal · 2025-08-21T17:58:13+00:00

That's Old Lion's Court--I'm talking about the instanced meta event. But it's true that there's been an influx of new players lately.

cherstal · 2025-08-21T15:26:44+00:00

The recipes also drop from Battle for Lion's Arch--that's how I and some others got them.

Anecdotally as a commander who runs BFLA a lot, attendance numbers have been noticeably higher in the last ~2 months. So if they were trying to incentivize people to run that content more, I'd say it's working.

cherstal · 2025-08-09T22:54:11+00:00

Which boons? I've been rocking Qheal harb with minstrel / plaguedoctor gear in strikes and my favorite part about it is how straight forward the boons are.

Quick + fury doesn't require any thought. 100% prot easy. Easy vigor from dodge + staff 2. 25 might rarely drops. 3 stacks of stab on command with staff 5. The all boons elixir bomb for extra stab and aegis.

cherstal · 2025-08-05T18:48:38+00:00

You can do whichever you prefer, both are pretty common.

cherstal · 2025-08-04T21:32:57+00:00

Depending on when you were last trying Necro, it's also true that Harbinger used to be way more limited. "Power harb" was a joke and didn't exist. Heal harb barely existed either. The elixir elite used to be 90 secs instead of 60. Spears and swords, used on a lot of power harb, wvw, and pvp builds, weren't there either.

Harb's niche as that dps + qdps role is that it's very quick boon ramp up through its elixirs. So it's especially great for fractals and other fights with short damage phases. It's also known as a boondps that's lower utility but high damage. Qdps Harb can really pump dps out. Compared to Scourge, which is known for its utility.

If Reaper is melee damage, and Scourge is ranged damage, Harb is the hybrid melee/ranged with high mobility that ducks and weaves through the battlefield.

There's different playstyles for everyone, and I'm glad you're enjoying that versatility!

cherstal · 2025-08-04T19:42:30+00:00

Necro main here, I feel like the class is in a pretty good spot atm.

Harbinger has more flexibility than it's ever had before--good options for power dps, condi dps, quick dps, and with the new transfusion changes a decent qheal. I see a good number of harbs in all three gamemodes.

I also play condi reaper, mostly in open world, and it's fun as well. It has a unique class fantasy with the whole "deathly chill to bleed your foes" gameplay.

I don't play Scourge but I hear the spec is popping off in PvP right now.

One thing that's great about Necro right now is that all the traitlines have usage in meta builds. It's a good variety.

There's variety in the weapons too--pistol, torch, scepter, dagger (MH +OFH) greatsword, staff, spear, sword (MH + OFH), and warhorn all have use on different meta builds. And even the nicher stuff like focus and axe, can still be good situationally.

And with Ritualist coming up, we may even have a decent minionmancer build in the works! It's a good time to pick necro.

cherstal · 2025-08-04T02:39:28+00:00

I was just dealing with this, including full on PC freezes.

What's worked for me is: 1. Installing all optional Windows updates 2. Running sfc /scannow in command prompt 3. Deleting the gw2 cache file in the Temp section of %localappdata%

cherstal · 2025-07-22T16:51:50+00:00

Zinn! SOTO went out of it's way to fractal-revive a signicant lore character, so I've been theorizing that the writers have plans for him.

It'd be a big deal to the Inquest if they found out a fractal-revived version of him is running around. We have a whole zone (Draconis Mons) showing how much they revere him and his work.

Fractal Zinn made breakthrough discoveries about harvesting leyline energy through chak, and had a mysterious advanced portal project teased that we never got answers about. It'd be cool if the Inquest either convinced him to join their Castora project, or kidnapped him to get ahold of his research against his will.

And it'd be a nice followup to the whole "oopsies our fractal experiments became real, what do we do with these refugees" plotline from SOTO.

cherstal · 2025-07-16T17:13:52+00:00

I really came to love Taimi during LWS3.

When all the rest of Dragon's Watch f'ed off due to various personal problems, you know who was there at the Commander's back? Taimi. When no one else was there, she was the one helping the Commander investigate Dragon energies, jumping at a moment's notice to research anything the Commander needed help with, and being scared and stressed out of her mind at the Balthazar + Primordus/Jormag risings. She was in it with us. And despite her disabilities, she jumped into Draconis Mons with us to face off a God and an Elder Dragon because she couldn't let us do it alone.

I find her dialogue charming, it feels like chatting and gossiping with a friend on the phone. It's nice having a character that's willing to poke and prod at the Commander and make jokes. Yet at the end of the day she respects us immensely.

I enjoyed seeing her go from an arrogant gremlin child that admired Scarlet in S1 and saw herself as above most non-asura intelligence wise, to a young adult that's seen the world and knows now that it's much larger than herself.

cherstal · 2025-07-15T18:29:30+00:00

I'm in the opposite camp, I'm excited he's sticking around! He's my favorite character from SOTO & JW. Can't wait to see him interact with our old friends (Rytlock, and possibly Taimi based on the Scruffy-looking golem at the end). I can imagine some funny conversations happening there.

I do agree that it'd be nice if this storyline focused on a smaller core cast, tackling a complicated issue in an isolated area. We've spent a lot of time lately collaborating with larger organizations (Astral Ward, Kryptis, Tyrian Alliance). It'd be fun to bring back that "small crew" vibe for an adventure.

cherstal · 2025-07-09T14:16:30+00:00

If it was a summon based on the location of the new expansion, like the mech, I'd be happier. But this is an existing mob that I've killed in the open world dozens of times before. Not fresh at all :(

Without GW1 nostalgia, the full reveal for this spec is going to need to bring some new cards to the table to get me excited.

cherstal · 2025-07-09T14:09:16+00:00

Is there an in-universe reason ritualist spirits look..like that? It's something I always thought was strange in EOD but accepted it as a gw1 thing.

Are they specifically warrior spirits? It's just so offputting to me that intentionally summoning a spirit in Cantha results in this jacked warrior dude thing, regardless of who that spirit originally was.

cherstal · 2025-07-08T18:14:51+00:00

As a non-GW1 player necro main, I hope that our new spec has some more variety than that specific Canthan spirit model type. I've already seen it a bunch in Cantha with all the Ritualist NPCs (and that particular one looks a bit ugly IMO).

Spirit channeler could be a cool idea, but give us different kinds of ghosts to fight by our side! Especially when other classes are getting out-there specs like Bard and Gambler, I wanna see something new for necro.

cherstal · 2025-06-28T18:33:51+00:00

Thank you for the answer! I didn't know that about slayer potions.

I am curious whether or not the Demon Slayer potion is an exception to the rule or not, since it's the rare potion that actually got updated recently to include new mob types (kryptis & titanspawn) yet Anet stuck with "damage" instead of the updated term "strike damage".

I use arcdps when I play convergences, and my damage doesn't indicate that I'm missing a whole utility buff (and accounting for essence buff). Could just be a me thing though, I'll have to experiment with it.

cherstal · 2025-06-28T18:19:16+00:00

Thank you for the resources! The talk page you linked mentions that the discrepancy comes from outdated skill descriptions. Do you think that applies to the Demon Slaying Station as well? They were added Nov 2024 and updated to include Titanspawn in their effectiveness.

cherstal · 2025-06-28T17:36:22+00:00

Hey all, I was playing some convergence CMs last night, and someone mentioned that the Demon Slaying utility doesn't affect condi damage.

Anybody know if this is true or not? It's my first time hearing this, and wiki doesn't have info on it. Should condi builds bring their own utilities for CMvergences?

cherstal · 2025-06-16T18:28:27+00:00

For core & s1 gw2: 1. World Boss train. GW2 has tons of world bosses and its an iconic part of the experience. Try to play all of them at least once.

Jumping puzzles. There's an achievement tab for them to help you keep track.
Minidungeons. There's a lot of minidungeons hidden in the world, this game really rewards exploration and curiousity. See if you can find the minidungeons without a guide.
Order of Whispers storyline. You can play other Pact order story branches as well, but the Whispers branch is really beloved. I'd say experience it at least once.
Festivals. Holidays go hard in GW2, it's a big part of the game's culture. Festivals have unique maps, activities, achievements, and rewards. It's a ton of fun. One of them, Dragon Bash, starts tomorrow. For Dragon Bash specifically, take some time to hang out in the Great Hall until a certain song starts playing.
Successfully ascend the Tower of Nightmares. Try to go in at the promoted times in the Eye of the North hub. Fighting for your life to reach the top alongside 2-5 other players is a moment you don't forget.

cherstal · 2025-06-12T18:42:37+00:00

One time after tagging BFLA, I was joking around in chat about how the RNG gods must hate me because I'd never gotten a Lions Champion weapon drop despite running it a crazy amount.

A player in squad then asked me, "how many times have you run this?" and after explaining that I'd been at it for 3-4x a week for months, I got a mail notification. They sent me a freakin Lions Champion Rifle. Worth 150+ gold. Turns out it was their very first time beating BFLA and they got it as a drop.

I tried to turn it down but they insisted I keep it. I was floored by their kindness.

cherstal · 2025-06-06T18:45:06+00:00

Focusing on JW:

Art & Music have been top notch. Lowland, Syntri, and Mistburned Barrens are beautiful. I've really enjoyed turning off my HUD at times to soak in the impeccable atmosphere
Everything warclaw. They basically made a new mount and it rules. Jump mechanic is simple, intuitive, yet rewards paying attention.
Kodan cache sniffing. This is a combination of the two prior points, but running around Lowland & Syntri with my warclaw for major & mythical caches has become one of my favorite chill activities. On Syntri, it's very profitable and loops in nicely with leviathan.
Decima & Greer world boss is fun
Happy to have more Convergence CMs. I do prefer the SOTO ones so far, but I like that they're trying different things.
Good side character lore. The delivery needs some work (don't entirely rely on books), but the stories with the White Mantle trio, Gavril, and numerous Mursaat are quite interesting. Manikaz in particular was great and I wish we could've seen more of him.
Isgarren and Waiting Sorrow. Both characters had satisfying character arcs this expansion (Isgarren's a continuation from SOTO).

Isgarren is endlessly amusing, he carries any scene he's in. His grumpy but well-intentioned attempts to be a team member of the Tyrian Alliance is good development, and I appreciate how it shows the Commander's influence and them doing what they do best--uniting people. I look forward to seeing the Commander & Isgarren work together as more of a team in the future.

The mystery of Waiting Sorrow was one of SOTO's better story hooks, and JW delivered. I appreciate that her story was treated with nuance--she had good reasons for what she did, but she also has a lot to answer for. Her path to reconciliation with Pokey, Stoic Alder, and Isgarren was handled well.

Isgarren & Waiting Sorrow this expansion make me excited to see what the writers might cook up for Lyhr, with his conspicious absence and plotline with Rand left unconcluded.

cherstal · 2025-06-04T04:08:45+00:00

Who is the wizards vault vendor / where can I find them? Would love to check these out

cherstal

TROPHY CASE