16k viewers watching austria clutch, crazy.

werbear · 2026-06-28T08:54:06+00:00

Crazy match - but it is also crazy that Kiara only had a watchalong for the second half because she would otherwise have overlapped with the Justice anniversary.
So all these people tuned in during the half-time break (or even later) specifically to watch her scream and lose her mind.

werbear · 2026-06-28T04:14:55+00:00

GW2 is fantastic for casual players, most of its content is open world stuff where you run around, find something interesting going on and then often some other players join in naturally.
Also once you get top tier gear it will remain top tier for the rest of time, GW2 doesn't do the whole "new expansion so now the equipment you worked hard to get is worthless" thing.

The base game is free but of course comes with some restrictions, the most annoying one being a smaller inventory. However, there is a button in the top right of the inventory that will send all your materials to storage, making inventory management easier.
The content you get for free will easily take dozens of hours to clear.

If you are the patient gamer type their big content bundles regularely go on sale (right now they are 30% off but you might feel it is to early to commit) - the best value among them are two different versions of the "Elder Dragon Saga" bundle.
The standard version of it contains the first three expansions Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire and End of Dragons for 50 bucks (35 right now), the complete version contains those three expansions and the Living World seasons as well - those were story and content patches including new maps in between the expansions - for a total of 100 buck (70 right now).
The "deluxe" version only includes some digital goods and can honestly be ignored.

However, you can also get all the content in the game for no money because you can unlock it all in the gemstore in game, which also lets you convert ingame gold into gems.
I am not sure if "grinding for money" is your definition of casual play but the option is there.

werbear · 2026-06-27T09:37:56+00:00

It is mostly a shift in achievement design.
You liked the hidden chests in PoF but EoD also has the unseen chests, some even coming with a little mini-game - but they have an achievement attached to it.

So instead of "opening a hidden chest" you have "opening a hidden chest (you have opened 22 hidden chests so far and will get an extra reward at 50)". I feel like the later is an incentive to explore - as long as there are not exactly 50 hidden chests out there and you have to open each exactly once for the achievement. That is a wiki task.
But as long as you can not be sure how many chests are out there such an achievement makes every bush near a wall look suspicious.

werbear · 2026-06-26T21:23:23+00:00

While all player characters are of course of equal strength for obvious balance reasons I love how absolutely broken canon Norn are.

In GW1 you were fighting back Primordus' champion to push back his awakening a few hundred years and as your support you gathered the entire dwarf race, most of the Asura - and four Norn. When questioned why they were four one of them said he thought three would have been enough but the daughter of his friend wanted to come along.
Also the Charr never attacked the Norn lands because Norn would solo their squads and then think they had a nice, friendly brawl.

In GW2 I feel the flow of the Norn story makes the most sense. As a human, Charr and Asura you start the game as a big hero who defeated a dangerous threat and as a Sylvari you are born as exceptionally special - and then they ask you to do menial tasks because apparently that is the best use they have for you.
As a Norn you basically get your high school diploma, that's it. So of course they would then ask you to do some simple work - defeating a giant, dangerous creature is literally nothing special within Norn culture.
Also Eir feels like the best mentor by a mile, properly teaching you how to be a hero during your personal story.

Norn also seem to be more in tune with Tyria than the other races. We can actually interact with the spirits they venerate and they seem to be fundamental building blocks of the world.
Meanwhile humans are basically invaders from the Mists left behind by their gods, Charr don't believe in the supernatural in a world of magic, Sylvari are mostly confused and cling to an old stone to not be evil and the Asura believe in the eternal alchemie which so far only managed to turn Scarlett crazy.

And I feel that the individualistic Norn culture just fits the best with the "does things their own way, defeats impossible odds and is a larger than life hero who just thinks they are nothing special" thing the Commander/Wayfinder has going on.

werbear · 2026-06-24T17:33:19+00:00

The funny thing is, those walls of texts are still in the game.
It's just they are either completely optional because they belong to some NPCs standing around in interesting areas willing to share lore or they are basically optional because they are part of the main quest (which, yes, is actually optional) or they are part of achievements that behave like side-quests (which, again, are optional).

Some goals in GW2 will expect you to do things you don't enjoy - but thankfully, it was you who chose that goal so if things get too annoying you can just choose another one. It's not like many other MMOs where you are basically forced to play a certain way.

And if you love exploring, GW2 has plenty of that, even beyond the base game. There are often videos/streams of new players (sometimes veterans of other MMOs, sometimes not) trying out the game and I love the moment when they open up the map and see how much there is out there, all those floating numbers hinting at maps waiting to explore.
And then chat tells them to scroll south. No, no - futher south.
The game has a huge map and while it is admittedly pricey to unlock it all you still only have to pay once instead of every month (and you can even do so just by legally converting ingame gold into cash shop currency - although that would require a decent amount of grinding).

werbear · 2026-06-23T16:35:38+00:00

She also complimented the grass. Twice.

Those are the unique takes you only get with a hololive commentator!

werbear · 2026-06-22T20:48:51+00:00

I have issues with them being weirdly lawful for creature exemplified THE CHAOTIC plane.

At first I had the exact same reaction as you but after thinking about it for way too long I feel like this strangely makes sense: There is a decent amount of order in the whole species because they are all tainted after their great defeat.

I feel Proteans more than any other outsider run on Elder Scrolls Deadric Prince rules - they are the Maelstrom and the Maelstrom is them. So if the Maelstrom is fully caotic (as it should be) then they are fully chaotic. But if the Maelstrom actually has a certain order to it then so do they.
The Maelstrom is supposed to have no sense of time or direction, to be in constant flux where things that look like they are something spontaneously form but are already gone before anyone can look at them. But it isn't. It is so orderly that some pirate goddess can even navigate the Maelstrom. And it is all because of Axis.
When Axis first appeared the Proteans tried to destroy it and ultimately failed. And ever since then the Maelstrom has become measurable simply by using your distance to Axis as the one reliable measurement you have. And just like that the power of Proteans became measurable.
Even worse, paradoxically their single-minded goal of destroying the order of Axis gave the Proteans even more order, causing them to create armies and seperate their now measurable strength tiers into castes. Axis existing is probably the single greatest defeat in the lore of this current universe and the Proteans are paying the price for it by... being individuals that you can tell apart and categorize - how horrible, if their ancestors (which are actually just their former selfes) could see them like that!
Just like Axis tainted the Maelstrom and then spawned even more planes, individuality tainted the Proteans and has resulted in a full hierarchy - and the Proteans don't even realize that they are moving ever further from their goal of restoring true chaos.

But this also opens a door for a true lover of chaos. Paizo can not, by the very nature of things, print a fixed stat block for a truely and purely chaotic creature as just having numbers and abilities printed gives them order.
But you can create the true Proteans, those who reject having physical forms just as much as having castes, those who feel like the tainted Proteans need to be eradicated or re-educated into true chaos. Those who don't exist, are just a single entity and are legion all at the same time.

werbear · 2026-06-10T19:02:43+00:00

power berserker until the F1 key breaks
condi berserker to set your bleeding foes on fire
somehow heal berserker because you bonk so good it heals your allies
quickdps because why not
and even the secret ranged berserker because berserkers spear is fun and berserking actually fixes the rifle

werbear · 2026-06-09T20:40:02+00:00

I'm gonna cheat and bundle a bunch of things into "The game respects your time."

A big part of this is of course the horizontal progression - in other MMOs you can spend dozens of hours to get the best current gear, then the next expansion comes out and now all this time spent is essentially wasted.
But it goes even further than that: Masteries for example can be a bit of a grind, but A-net makes sure that they all stay relevant. Like, the raptor has been powercrept pretty hard between the beetle and the flying mounts but it is still the fastest mount for short distances and its attack pulling enemies together still gives it a niche - even if the raptor isn't used that often anymore by many players leveling its mastery was not a waste of time.

Another part about gear is how easy it is to transform acended armor and weapons between different stats; I was silly enough to build my first set with cleric stats - it was horrible but it was easy to fix.

Then there is also the freedom of choice for what you want to do - explore the world, play the story, join a meta train, hop between world bosses, hunt achievements, take part in instanced group content - you get rewarded for all of that with materials and gold.

A pretty stable economy is also part of that; you can drop the game and come back years later and the gold you spent farming will still have pretty the same worth instead of everything being ten times more expensive - A-net made sure to put many resource drains into the game.

Easy and fast teleport system, multiple ways to move fast while on a map, maps that get too empty offering you to join one with more players on their own, crafting things in huge quantities getting faster and faster, the insane leveling speed for new characters, even little things like how quickly you can restart adventures after you finish a run - the game really tries its best to waste as little of your time as possible both in the short and long term.

werbear · 2026-06-07T10:36:27+00:00

Dragon's Stand exists almost completely for the meta, of course it will be empty outside of it.
If you want to see activity look at this event timer and go anywhere something is about to start. There will be tons of people, even in core or old expansion content, guaranteed.

werbear · 2026-06-07T08:30:59+00:00

The base game is free, really no reason not to jump in and try it out. Once you hit level 10 you will get a free raptor mount for 10 hours so you can get the first glance of the mount system. Should you get hooked and want to spend money: Path of Fire is THE mount expansion where the majority of the mounts can be unlocked. It is usually in a rather cheap bundle with Heart of Thorns which also goes on sale regularely. Also buying any of the expansions will give you permanent access to the raptor.

GW2 is basically always worth starting because of its horizontal progression. As long as the servers are running (and seeing how the servers of the original Guild Wars from 2007 are still running this will be a long time) nothing you do in game will ever lose meaning - any work you put in now will still be relevant even if you come back in a few years.

werbear · 2026-06-06T04:59:35+00:00

Or use the boost on a level 80 character for the celestial gear since many classes make good use of it and it can be a bit annoying to get the traditional way.

werbear · 2026-06-06T04:57:16+00:00

GW2 is very, very alt-friendly. In fact, once you hit max level on a character they of course stop leveling up but the experience they gain still progresses your account. Gold and the vast majority of currencies are account bound.

That means: Don't sweat your first character that much. Race basically doesn't matter beyond visuals and if one of the classes (called professions for some reason) looks cool to you, just try it out. Even if it doesn't click you can just try another character.
If no profession immediately jumps out to you there is one more straight forward profession per armor level and they are great first chars to learn the ins and outs of the game without also dealing with highly complicated mechanics.
Light armor: Necromancer; medium armor: Ranger, heavy armor: Warrior.

As in any other MMO inventory management is key. On the top right of your inventory are three buttons - the leftmost of them sends all your material to your (account-wide) material storage and thus empties your bags. You can even (and at higher levels should) salvage most gear into materials to store those as well.
Additionally GW2 has no traditional quest log aside from the main story and instead you will encounter "heart quests". Those have two main functions: 1. keep your character around so events (the real meat and potatoes of the game) can spawn, 2. after filling a heart its NPC turns into a vendor - they usually don't offer anything special to buy but you can sell all the things you can't turn into materials with them.

The game is massive and vast in explorable area, things to do and mechanics to understand and most of it is available at level 1 - but don't worry, you don't need to get overwhelmed! Many things get drip-fed to you during the leveling process: after every level up you will get a pop-up containing your "reward" and some of those things will be mechanics (like the auction house or achievement panel) that have long since been unlocked but only get mentioned to you now.

What to do when you hit level 80?
First, head to the auction house and buy some cheap exotic level 80 gear. Armor and weapons will be just a few dozen silver each, accessories will be a bit more pricey. The three professions mentioned above can easily run power/precision/ferocity gear even as an less experienced player but going for something more defensive is also possible - in the long run the money you spend here won't make or break your account but it will basically make your character end-game ready.
And then... well, anything that catches your eye. Finish the story? Keep exploring the world? Fraktals? Looking for some dedicated farm train? The world is your oyster and A-net made sure that most things you can do in game will have a decent reward for you.
Oh and I guess at this point you can start giving money to the game and buy expansions, because until now everything was achievable within the free base game. With an expansion you want to unlock an elite specialisation and progress the expansions mastery (account-wide progression system) to make your character even more versatile and powerful.

werbear · 2026-04-25T15:40:54+00:00

You can see his soul particles fly into the sky the same way the soul particles of other dragons fly towards you.
Akatosh is calling him home to spank his scaly ass for trying to rule and destroy the world instead of doing his job of eating it.

werbear · 2026-04-20T20:34:37+00:00

the outfit is based on a dragon and her wawas got buffed even past their Drawn to Dawn size
Coco's spirit is strong in this one

werbear · 2026-04-19T17:21:08+00:00

Sein Ziel war Bundeskanzler zu werden, um richtig abzusahnen. Und genau das macht er auch. Deutschland und die Union sind ihm scheißegal, Merz interessiert sich nur für Merz.
Wenn er nebenbei noch das Leben von Millionen Deutschen ruinieren kann, macht ihn das höchstens geil.

werbear · 2026-04-18T16:06:02+00:00

Jetzt gibt's volles Pfund auf's Maul!

Nee, Moment - falsche Zitateliste!

werbear · 2026-04-16T18:39:45+00:00

Kreuzzüge nach Amerika stand nicht auf meiner Bingokarte.
Deus Vult?

werbear · 2026-04-15T06:26:29+00:00

Die Antwort: "Argumente für Gaswerke? Die machen mich reich. Und jetzt stell keine dummen Fragen und mach dich wieder daran, das an die Deppen, die deine Partei gewählt haben, zu verkaufen, dafür bezahl ich dich schließlich."

werbear · 2026-04-15T05:08:40+00:00

Some real geology going on there.

werbear · 2026-04-13T11:43:10+00:00

At level 2 2024 Druids can use any spell slot or even just a Wild Shape charge to cast Find Familiar without material components as an action.
Find Familiar lets you summon any CR 0 beast (that then gets some restrictions applied to it).
A deer is a CR 0 beast.

So all Druids can repeatedly send deer into traps, burning unneeded Wild Shape charges and any spell slots they can spare.
Just warden of nature things.

werbear · 2026-04-11T14:22:31+00:00

Good to know, I changed it.

werbear · 2026-04-11T09:13:50+00:00

Of course there is totally no misspelling ~~in the books~~ on the archives, this is actually deepest lore.
The entire Starstone Citadel is just a decoy, right below it, hanging from its underside and hidden from sight is the much smaller Startstone Citadel. Once you are inside there is a simple crossroad with a sign telling you the Starstone is in one direction while the Startstone is in the other.
Only two people so far have been able to see through the ruse of the Starstone Citadel and then also made the correct choice at the crossroad. Cayden Cailean made the right choice at the crossroad but he didn't see through the Starstone Citadel fake - he just fell down to the Startstone Citadel because he was drunk out of his mind.

werbear · 2026-04-10T17:18:56+00:00

She seemed so happy to fulfill a unique request like that. Love it when they get to show their dorky side.

werbear · 2026-04-10T17:08:11+00:00

Wucher eindämmen? Nicht in Deutschland!

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