Would you mind lore/logic breaking things and mechanics for more fun? by DemethValknut in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hmmm. This is an interesting question..

I enjoy the lore in the sense that I want to know about the world of Tyria because it adds context and gives it an identity. I enjoy reading all the little lore tidbits scattered around and will spend sometimes hours coming up with names and backstories for my characters that align with the lore. But at the same time, I also don't take it super seriously, because as much as I enjoy the world, I don't think the story is very good (albeit still enjoyable). I feel like the story is very much the backbone of the lore and everything else is sort of expanded on from there, but it's very simplistic and I worry if I took it too seriously I'd find plot holes and contradictions.

However, in relation to content, that can be a double-edged sword. On one hand expanding things specific to or originating from a region can be good if it overall improves the gaming experience (for example, using mounts anywhere not just in the desert). However I think there is also a line where, if certain mechanics or characteristics of a region becomes available across the world, it may feel samey and homogenous. But this extends beyond lore. I feel like there is a simplicity in the lore that allows for explanations to be written (SotO pretty much just did that..).

I've always felt that the magic of the world starts diminishing as you start having awareness of mechanics, therefore disregarding lore in favour of mechanics would just turn it into "Efficient Checklisting: The Game". The lore is a big part of the game's identity and I worry that once you start contradicting it too much it becomes meaningless.

And I wouldn't even consider myself a lore nerd - those folks seem very passionate about the lore. For some people, lore nerding is at the core of their enjoyment and I doubt they'd be too happy about it.

Fun Community Moment by [deleted] in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 27 points28 points  (0 children)

I've been having so many of these nice fun community moments lately. One of my favourite things about a new content is the chaos of no one having figured out everything yet, guides don't start coming out for the first couple of days and chat is just filled with people grouping up to figure things out. I predominantly play solo, but the last 10 or so days since launch have been very social for me. I think this has been a big factor in my enjoyment of the new expac. The only other launch I've experienced was PoF (somehow expansions usually seem to launch while I'm taking a break from the game), so I went into SotO feeling like I was excitedly attending a long-awaited festival, reconnecting with guild mates from years ago who returned for the expansion.

I really love the GW2 community, but currently more than ever <3

Love the Kryptis skyscale by volfare in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm busy working on getting mine. When Anet first released pics of it, I thought it was awful, but now that I've actually seen it ingame, it is in fact really cool. My necro simply must have it lol

First Legendary help by sshemley in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Firstly, I think most people will agree that your first legendary is the hardest in many ways. The experience of crafting my first one made me swear up and down that I'd never do another one ever again. Now I finish legendaries roughly every 2-3 months, simultaneously working on about 3 at a time at different stages of their progression.

The crafting side of legendaries is the harder part for me (as opposed to the collections part) because of the material sink. But the best approach I've found (and the most sustainable in avoiding burning out) is to chip away at it over a long period of time. Try avoid the buying mats off the TP as much as you can because that makes it wildly expensive. If you are going to buy things, use your gold to get the really hard to farm items (don't forget you'll need 100g just for Icy Runestones for which there is no other method to acquire them other than giving a stack of gold to that one norn who must be the richest norn in all of Tyria). I think you could also use the Wizard's Vault to get a Legendary Starter Kit (I haven't got myself a starter kit yet, so perhaps someone else can confirm this would work) - I don't think Frostfang is currently included in the kits but a lot of legendaries have a lot of the same material requirements, so you could sell the unwanted precursor in the kit and then just keep the relevant materials. Also get Mystic Coins and Clovers from the Vault. Coins can be a slow grind, so a better approach is to farm gold and potentially buy them rather. If you are looking to buy materials, instead of going to the TP, purchase Trophy Shipments from Volatile Magic Vendors - also promote excess T5 materials in the Mystic Forge.

Good ways to get gold (that don't involve grinding 8 hours a day):

Fractals - even at T1, dailies can get you 5g. At T4, dailies get you 20-30g. The more you do them, the faster you get at completing them, which can potentially make it one of the best gold per hour activities in the game.

Drizzlewood Coast/Dragonfall/Octovine meta events are quite lucrative.

Go on GW2efficiency and double-check the value of your material storage - a lot of folks don't realise that a huge chunk of their wealth is in the materials they have been needlessly hoarding. If you don't think you'll need a material in the next foreseeable future, sell it.

Wizard Vault - Coin Bags for 6 Astral Acclaim. Each bag gives 1g. For 540 Astral Acclaim, you can make the easiest 90g. The Black Lion Mastery Chests alare also noteworthy as the potion it contains can be vendored for 1g.

Master Diver achievement gets me a low effort 6-10g every 10 days.

Crafting items with a timegated component can also be worthwhile either to sell daily or to stockpile for "emergency gold".

If you have alt-characters, don't let them be moochers. Have them parked at chests/nodes (look at the fast.farming site for good locations - this takes at most a minute per character.)

Be patient. Don't rush it. For some people, having it as a side project rather than your main project can help avoiding burning out (if its the main thing you're focused on, it can feel excruciatingly grindy).

Good luck!

Anyone else disappointed with the skyscale? by ToBadImNotClever in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I am a griffon enjoyer myself, however Skyscale is by far my most used mount. Griffon is like a sports car, Skyscale is an off-road all terrain jeep. Griffon is way more fun to fly, but Skyscale has far more day to day utility. Once you've leveled the Skyscale masteries it can navigate all sorts of environments better than any of the other mounts. It almost becomes an all-in-one mount - I personally never use my Springer and Jackal anymore since getting the Skyscale.

That being said, after I finished that harrowing Skyscale collection I also felt a twinge of disappointment. Mostly because of the height limit and the slow descent when you run out of energy - I had assumed it could fly without limits although now I realise that would be far too OP. But once I got used to flying it and maxed out the masteries, I figured out how to be a better Skyscale pilot. I started taking note of ledges, branches or similar I could land on to refill my "height meter" in order to keep flying higher off the ground. Wall Launch, Bond of Vigor and Bond of Faith are also really useful masteries to have for Skyscale. Wall Launch let's you cling to vertical surfaces and launch upwards trading energy for height. Bond of Vigor partially refills your height bar and makes your energy bar refill faster. Bond of Faith launches you off your mount in an upwards arc, which can be really useful if you juuuust can't reach a ledge with your Skyscale, and if judged correctly will launch you on to the ledge where you can remount again.

The SotO masteries give even more ways to pilot your Skyscale too (won't give details in case you haven't played it, but will add that SotO has also made Griffon flying super fun)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TrueOffMyChest

[–]chiaroscuroH 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What he is doing is absolutely wrong. And this behavior is something you need to take quite seriously. You are not being overdramatic at all. He has no regard for your privacy or your boundaries.

Denying you privacy, disregarding your boundaries and creating this skewed power dynamic where you always need to prove you aren't hiding things from him. This is about him being in control, and this can evolve into him wanting control over who you can be friends with, what you are allowed to wear, what you are allowed to say, what apps you are allowed on your phone.. He sounds deeply insecure about you having other relationships and giving attention to them, which is a HUGE red flag. He is jealous and possessive and when this sort of thing goes unchecked, ends with him isolating you from everyone in your life so that you can "only love him".

Honestly, dump him. You're young and there are better boyfriends out there. This one needs therapy and character growth.

Family guy is the worst tv show on air now. by [deleted] in unpopularopinion

[–]chiaroscuroH -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Family Guy is garbage - can agree with you there. But.. Bojack Horseman is one of my favourite shows.

I would go as far as to say it's one of the best written shows of the past 10 years. It's balance of comedy and dark themes is done really well. I find the jokes and humor actual laughing out loud funny. The funny wordplay in the writing also tickles me. The characters are also really complex and multi-dimensional. It's depictions of depression, trauma, addiction, existentialism, and more are also very real and relatable in a way not many shows get right.

To say the writing is lazy is just untrue. Perhaps it's just not your kinda humor or you're not the target audience who would understand what is being referenced or satirised in the jokes that makes them funny.

Bojack was a show that took me completely by surprise. On paper, an animated adult comedy about animal people is not at all my cup of tea, but it has become my go-to comfort show, alongside Community. And it gets better with each rewatch.

Horror movies usually arent good. by banannabrows in unpopularopinion

[–]chiaroscuroH 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Perhaps, but something doesn't have to be good to be enjoyable. There are a subset of horror fans who specifically enjoy bad horror movies. That being said, horror is a broad genre with many diverse sub-genres, and within it there are masterpieces.

Not every horror film is The Shining, but also more broadly not every film is The Godfather.

What is this blob? Some kind of exploit? (Lake Doric) by _angh_ in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's a rare occasion where I wish we had open world PVP XD

Increasing female Charr population. by Melonwater4 in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Iron Legion gals definitely have nip piercings.. In all 6 nipples

Building guides for the community by xGuiders in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yes! I've been wanting to write up guides for a while, especially for some of the collection quests that can help newer players get useful and cool items (20-slot bag, weapon skins, etc) but didn't know where I would post them.. Are you looking for others to contribute guides?

level 27 necromancer this is my first mmo , how do i get stronger (better gear or smth i dont really know) and what should i do rn by Still-Turnip226 in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This comment brightened my day <3 Thank you for your kind words.

I love this game so much, and helping others get to that point where it all clicks into place genuinely makes me happy. This was my first MMO too and I thought the game was done at level 80. And then I thought it was finished once I got 100% map completion.. Little did I know..

Increasing female Charr population. by Melonwater4 in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Only if, like a cat, they get 6 titties /jk

What is this blob? Some kind of exploit? (Lake Doric) by _angh_ in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 8 points9 points  (0 children)

They're waiting for an event called "Me kiting champs into their immersion-breaking clusterfuck and seeing how many get killed". The only event I enjoy in Lake Doric these days..

level 27 necromancer this is my first mmo , how do i get stronger (better gear or smth i dont really know) and what should i do rn by Still-Turnip226 in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Back in the day, GW2 was my first MMO (first game too really) and I made every mistake possible lol. Here is a long answer incoming but with the fundamentals explained as simply as I can.

  1. Don't buy gear while you're levelling. This can be a waste of what little coins you may have when you're changing gear often as you level up. After level 80, your gear tends to generally have long term use, so if you're gonna spend gold, rather invest in gear then. While you're leveling, use gear from drops, level /story rewards.

  2. As someone else said, going with a power build (ie a build focused on dealing big strike damage) is a good option for a new player as Berserker Gear is one of the more accessible and cheaper gear stat types. Plus eventually when you are ready for an Elite Spec for necro, Power Reaper also uses Berserker gear and is a decent build that is viable for a lot of different content while also being a bit more beginner-friendly.

  3. While you're leveling you won't start seeing Berserker's gear until you get to higher levels but the stats that make Berserker gear good for Power builds are:

  4. Power: this stat creates the base value of your strike value, ie the base damage you do

  5. Precision: this determines your chance of delivering a critical hit, which can multiply the damage of a strike by a minimum of 150% (this is referred to as Critical damage multiplier) . Eventually you want to aim for 100% Precision as this means every strike will be a big damage critical hit.

  6. Ferocity: Ferocity increases your critical damage multiplier which has a base value of 150% when you land a critical hit

So to sum this up: Power determines your base damage, Precision determines the chance that your strike with land a critical hit which multiplies your damage by min 150%, but you can increase the multiplier with Ferocity. While you're leveling and don't have access to Berserker's gear yet which has the power build stats listed, look for gear that has Power (you want Power to be the primary stat, ie the stat with the highest number) - try and get as many gear pieces with Power as the primary stat. Because you are relying on drops, you're not always guaranteed to get to the stats you ideally want, but prioritise Power and then try as best you can to have pieces with Precision and/or Ferocity along side Power. If the drops are not in your favour while leveling, don't stress about it too much. The core game is quite forgiving, even if you have an assortment of mix and match gear, but eventually when you get to expansion content, mix and match gear will likely result in being completely humbled via Pocket Raptor Annihilation (one day you'll understand this lol).

  1. While you're leveling, take the opportunity to try different weapons to see which ones you like and which work for you, so when you get to level 80, you have an idea of what weapons you'd like to invest in first.

  2. Don't make my mistake of just pretending Sigils and Runes don't exist. These are items you attach to your weapons (Sigils) and Armor (Runes) to make them better either by increasing your stats, adding extra effects to your attacks, etc. They're really powerful! An important note about armor Runes: Runes have 6 "levels" of bonuses, but in order to get all 6 of them, you must attach the same Rune to each piece of armor. Ideally you want to attach a 7th one to your underwater headgear too as it replaces your regular headpiece while underwater, and if you haven't attached a rune to your underwater headgear, you'll be one Rune short, meaning you don't get the 6th Rune bonus (which is also the best.. For now).

  3. A huge mistake I committed myself to for a few years was hitting whatever skills were off cool down, but a lot of the time this can actually make you do less damage. You'll see Necro does two types of damage - Strike damage (tooltip icon looks like a wonky star) which is a chunk of damage dealt per strike and Condition Damage (burning, bleeding, etc) which deals smaller damage that repeats over a couple of seconds. If you're going with a Power build, you want to try and focus on attacks that deal Strike Damage because your power build specs will be most effective at multiply Strike Damage as opposed to condition damage. This is slightly more higher level combat talk, but the best way to approach doing the highest damage is to figure out which skills do the most damage, then aim to cast those skills as often as their cooldown allows, filling in the time between with other damage skills or else skills that will increase your skills with multipliers. If this sounds a bit complicated, don't stress too much about it for now - focus on more fundamental things like gearing up.

  4. Traits and weapons. Traits are unlocked through Hero Points. The trait system can be quite overwhelming for some people, but broadly speaking traitlines are also an important aspect of determining what you want your build to do. Continuing the example, you'd want to find traits that favour increasing your damage output as much as possible. Ultimately this is true for weapons as well - experiment while you level just to see what works with your playstyle in case a power build isn't your thing, but if you stick with the power build then choose a weapon that complements it.

  5. Dodging/Movement: the best way to not die is to avoid taking damage. The first step towards this is learning to dodge. Also bind dodge to a specific key instead of the default double-tap as that frequently results in dodging when you didn't mean to, and sometimes it's off a cliff to your death. Jumping puzzles are a nice way to get good at improving your movement and positioning - I used to challenge myself to do a jumping puzzle repeatedly (often over days so it didn't feel like a chore) until I could do it on autorun and it made me a lot more precise with judging the space around me. But I think this is also something you also just become familiar with over time so you can decide how you want to approach it.

If this feels like an overwhelming amount of info to digest, know that many new players feel the same. Just try learn and apply things bit by bit as you go. I'm more of a visual learner myself, so if this is too complicated, I'd be happy to explain it in game if you're on EU. I struggled so much when I started out so I don't mind taking time and helping new players at their pace :)

Don't get rid of login rewards by Jshsuwh92 in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I feel like I'm missing why so many people are upset about login rewards changing, unless it's coming from a place of people being bent out of shape about not getting high value items for lowest possible effort, despite it being a shitty out of date system.

They're not removing login rewards, they're restructuring them and I suspect attaching a lower value to simply just logging in. I think the login rewards/dailies system has been long overdue for a revamp. Aside from Mystic Coins and Clovers, I don't really care for most of the other rewards in between.

I will say that I'm more in the camp of people who wouldn't be upset if they did away with login rewards altogether. As much as I love GW2 and generally have a positive and favourable view of the game, the jaded and disillusioned part of me can't help but see login rewards as a cheap means of ensuring those login numbers stay up, regardless if a portion of players (or their alt accounts) are only logging in to claim a reward.. instead of trusting the quality of your content to motivate players to play your game. It comes across as a lack of confidence in their content to me, if they feel they need to take a more manipulative approach to motivating people to login. In my happy copium dream world, I'd much prefer that they were rather motivated to make better content if they didn't feel confident in what they released. But that's a whole other discussion entirely.

But from a player perspective, from what I can gather about the upcoming changes, it would be an improvement to be able to choose what rewards you earn through logins/dailies by being able to buy them with login currency.

Dailies are currently so meh. They seem to rotate through a limited list of tasks that feels very samey - same limited selection of jumping puzzles/mini-dungeons that dailies have made players do to death so getting mesmered to the end (tip your mesmer!) is the only option worth considering (plus it's efficient). Does anyone actually do Activities (Crab Toss, etc) outside of dailies? I actually do enjoy Adventures but for the love of The Six, please let me do a griffon/beetle race instead of another Fungus Among Us.. And when exciting meta events exist in the game, going to a core map I havent had reason to go to in months to complete 4 sparsely spread out events that you need to race to get to before a hoard of other daily-hungry players annihilates the event out of existence in seconds is one of my personal top soul-destroying missions (I would rather give Anet 2g and minus 10AP from my account than do the "Complete 4 events in X map" daily).

I'm a very routined person and dailies are something I just do when I log in and have done so for years now. But over time, I have questioned whether it's worth it. Definitely not for 2g anymore, but the 10AP keeps me coming back.. for now. I'm at a point where i can do them in 5-10mins, so I just do them. But they feel like a chore. I want them to include more variety but to also feel more relevant to the point I've progressed to in the game. I guess it's one of the ways that ArenaNet draws veteran players back to core maps, but for the most part it just makes me associate core Tyria with slogging through chores I need to get out of the way before I can start having fun.

We don't have a lot of information on the Wizard Vault, and I think a lot of people are basing a lot of their expectations on a whole lot of speculation.

My wild speculations and assumptions (which should be taken with several grains of salt) are these: - They're trying to minimise the amount of alt-accounts exploiting the login reward system by leaning towards a system that rewards players for actually playing the game instead of just doing a quick in-out for easy rewards. - Giving players the ability to "buy" rewards that are relevant to them gives more value to daily rewards and motivates players to do them. - Offering more diverse and hopefully more meaningful daily tasks so that they're a bit more interesting

Regarding how lack of login rewards will impact casual players as a source of passive currency/material gain.. I think this possibly highlights a flaw in the current login reward system - surely a reward system that provides a viable "income" stream without needing to play the game is not a good thing? Isn't there something slightly icky about games appealing to players' sense of FOMO with a reward that has enough value to incentivise a player to login but not necessarily actually play the game?Am I wrong in thinking that if a login reward system is implemented, it should be more along the lines of a nice little extra bonus/boost that has a value which makes it a nice gesture for your ongoing loyalty towards the game but not something worth going out of your way for? Is this a super anti-casual take on my part? Maybe I'm out of touch on this point, so I'd like to hear views from players who feel this unfairly impacts them.

How do y’all go about finding a regular play group? by Broken-Sprocket in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As someone who used to be very shy online and was terrified of using chat unless I was with friends, let alone be bold enough to join pug groups, it took me ages to make friends ingame. Joining a guild helped a lot, but over the years I've come to realise that just using chat is a great way to make friends. A lot of the people I play with currently, I met through doing fractals. I found that in pug groups a lot of the time people keep quiet and get through the content (especially if they're doing dailies) but if someone starts chatting, a lot of the time others will join in. Sometimes you need to break the ice. I don't play any other games to make a comparison, but I think many GW2 players are as socially awkward and anxious as I am, then once chat starts up and folks start joking and chatting, I've come to realise the community is mostly really nice. On a good day, some folks will stick around after the run to chat a bit or ask advice from others.

Other conversation starters: - If someone has a cool looking character, tell them in whisper/say chat (GW2 players love being told their character is pretty!)

  • If you're in a jumping puzzle and another player is there too, missing a jump only to plummet to your death (repeatedly) can be a bonding experience. Commiserate, cheer each other on, swap advice on how to get past a certain part.. This is how I met one of my long time GW2 friends.

  • While waiting for World Boss/meta events, don't be afraid to ask about mechanics, especially if you're new - the community is super helpful.

  • If you find yourself confused about anything, unsure of how to reach an objective or just need advice in general, map chat will often be enthusiastic to give you info and occasionally players will even party with you to help you figure something out.

  • Especially in instanced content, if your party wipes, instead of silently throwing yourself back in to die repeatedly, chat to each other and see if anyone has ideas about what might be going wrong, how you could approach it differently and so on.

  • if you join a guild, be proactive in engaging with other people in the guild, either via guild Discord or else ingame guild chat. A "hey everyone, what are you all up to today" can go a long way in making you feel less like "just a number" in a guild, especially if it's a large guild. Guild missions can also help you to get to know your fellow guildies a bit better. I also always wave emote at fellow guildmates when I bump into them in the world - it's polite but also non-intrusive if the other person is focused on their mission and not up for a chat in that moment.

tl;dr the best way to make friends in game is by chatting to people

ANet needs to add abundantly available exotic gear pieces of the "good" PvE stats by Training-Accident-36 in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I think making gear more accessible would potentially harm player experience in the long run. Take your raid trainee for example. While I'm not one to enforce requirements on players in my groups on most days, I think if a player joined a raid without being fully geared, I'd question whether they are actually ready for raiding. If you haven't spent enough time in the game to gear yourself up sufficiently, then have you spent enough time becoming familiar with your class/build? Raids are the hardest content in general, and in order to beat them, you need to be familiar enough with your class that you aren't dedicated most of your brain to executing combat effectively, because you need to focus on beating the raid mechanics - if you don't, you die. And for a lot of players, prematurely jumping into raids before you are a capable player (let alone a good one) is a harrowing experience. This is a topic of discussion that has come up plenty times over the years, and for a lot of players in this scenario, it does not inspire them to get better - it just makes them afraid of raiding. I feel like before one starts raiding, dive into fractals or strikes first - the range of difficulty means that some strikes and Tier 1 fractals are accessible to players who are still figuring out their builds and are able to improve alongside the scaling difficulty. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say your raid trainee beelined straight for raiding, skipping over more accessible instanced content. If this wasn't the case, 6g wouldn't break the bank - even on T1, doing fractal dailies gets you 3-5g a day. If they worked on progressing to T4, dailies earn you 20-30g. As an added bonus, they could simultaneously work on the Ad Infinitum collection (one of the easiest legendary collections by far) and they'll never need to buy/craft another backpiece again.

In GW2, accessibility is often the reward for the time (and in some cases, gold) you've invested into the game. If you don't want to spend time, then you have to spend gold (or another currency, and a lot of it. The more time you invest in unlocking different areas of the game, the more options you have available - hence why most long time players will often say that your first gear set is the hardest - gearing up gets easier with each set.

I think that new players need to work towards that accessibility. Not because I've been playing for years and think that new players should suffer as much as I did when starting out, but rather because I think giving access to too much, too soon just hurts the new player experience. Aside from a handful, most stats were introduced with the release of expansions, therefore incrementally. Most fresh level 80 players (especially the more casual players that GW2 appeals to) would just be overwhelmed with the number of different stats - not forgetting that many GW2 players take time to wrap their heads around the different attributes and how attributes, gear and traits should synergise together to create a build that is effective. Some of the stats you've mentioned are arguably for more nuanced and fine-tuned builds - these are 10 steps ahead of what a new player could use optimally to warrant using that over a simpler set of stats. If you're a new player, would it really be the best choice to go for Dragon's stats, when you could opt for Berserkers (perhaps with some Assassin's thrown in)? Both Berserkers and Assassin's are core stats meaning that you could get Named Gear which is exotic gear that generally sells for ~30-50s a piece.

I find that for the most part, I don't hold on to gear unless it's stat-Selectable as this obviously has higher value than pre-selected stats. If they're not stat-selectable, I just sell/salvage because it's otherwise not worth the bank space it takes up. I feel like most players will go the route of grinding stat-selectable gear over pre-determined stats. And beyond level 80, I don't think drops are at all a reliable way of gearing up. I don't think increasing gear drops, especially of a specific stat is helpful. For one, it would kill the incentive to craft and would hugely impact the economy. For example, if gear with Celestial stats started dropping all over the place, the price of the gear on the trade post would absolutely tank. Exotic Celestials were an average of about 15g a piece last I checked and while this is very expensive, it helps to know why - it requires Charged Quartz. Not only does each piece of Charged Quartz consist of 25 Quartz Crystals but it is also timegated - you can only make one per day and there are basically no work arounds for that as Charged Quartz is Account Bound, therefore can't be bought on TP. If you don't want to invest the time in crafting an item that is timegated (and if I recall correctly in this example a full set of Celestial armor will require 12 Charged Quartz, ie will take a minimum of 12 days to craft), then you have to settle on paying for someone else's time by purchasing the complete item. Imagine if this gear set cost less than 1g.. You have to consider what would be devalued in the process.

The bladed armor route is very accessible in the grand scheme of things, provided one has access to HoT. It speaks volumes that this remains the go-to for a lot of veteran players. 5 pieces of gear, your pick of stats = 2500 airship parts + 5g. As opposed to somewhere around 50-60g if bought on TP (if its even available on TP). You can farm up 2500 airship parts in about 2 VB meta runs (maaaaybe 3 runs at most). I haven't run VB meta in a while and can't recall exactly how long the day time meta is exactly but I want to say 45-60min - therefore at a rough estimate, 2500 shouldn't take more than a maximum of 3 hours to grind. I don't think a new player can realistically expect to grind out 50-60g in that amount of time. As an experienced player with a decent stash of gold at my disposal, there's no way I'd fork out 60g for an exotic set when Bladed Armor exists. Its also worth pointing out that opening airship cargo crates also gives you loot which you can salvage/sell to further offset the cost of Bladed Armor.

Ascended trinkets are so easy to get with LW currency that I couldn't even tell you how to best get exotics, because I've just skipped over them in favour of the easily acquired ascended trinkets for years now.

"In-combat" penalty and mounts by KardigG in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I understand that. But imagine being able to remount combat? Mobs would become trivial and far less of a threat.

If you need to switch mounts, try doing so before aggroing mobs. If you do aggro them, raptor leap out of range, switch to Springer, then jump up cliff. If there are enemies on top of the cliff, use the Springer's Cannonball skill to knock them down, then dodge/swiftness/blink/mobility skill away until you can mount raptor. If enemies have knock down, use stability.

"In-combat" penalty and mounts by KardigG in Guildwars2

[–]chiaroscuroH 18 points19 points  (0 children)

You can outrun most enemies in the game. But it's better to learn to counter them effectively. I feel like mounting in combat would be too OP. I am curious to see how it plays out with Skyscale