Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Queen of Hamsters]

I'm hearing hopeful things about the Underwater Skimmer mastery, guessing it's not as huge a grind as the others then?

[PACOX]

The HoT grind can still be a pain huh. It's actually nerfed. The grind used to be longer. Maybe it needs another pass. Mastery levels are kind of inconsistent. Some felt super fast while others seems to take forever...like the one I'm going for skimmer.

One thing that helps is to make sure you have XP boosts rolling. Food buffs, basically any, a utility buff, any, if you're in a guild there's a guild buff in your guild hall if unlocked, guild banner buffs. I forgot how much it adds up to but it's a lot.

Good thing about HoT is that it has a surplus of mastery points to go around.

Leyline is the most important thing from HoT, even then only if you are really raiding. HoT and PoF were initially independent so you don't need masteries from one for the other.

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I'm hearing hopeful things about the Underwater Skimmer mastery, guessing it's not as huge a grind as the others then?

The collection part is really easy. But that just allows you to unlock the ability to unlock underwater skimmer.

It takes like 5-8 points so the xp grind is decent. The annoying part, at least for me, is having to go back and do old maps that have been out of my mind for a while. So I'm going back have to do obscure achieves I've put off for years.

[Svifnymr]

It is for someone brand new to the zone. I literally have zero waypoints in most of the HoT zones, and those trains all work off of being able to go from one to the other quickly. I joined one in Verdant Brink yesterday and ended up having to bail after just one HP because I had no other waypoints.

A lot of them do run to the waypoints for unlocking them, so it may be advertised like that in the LFG tool. The main problem of course is knowing where stuff is to get stuff unlocked. As I've said before, I do wish they'd ease up some of the stuff for older content.

I wish the necessary masteries would unlock automatically with requisite story completion. Having to grind even a little bit to unlock a required mastery for getting around the zones just feels miserable.

HoT's issue was maze like zones and locking stuff behind mastery. PoF has a much shorter main story, and so only has like one thing that I recall locked behind mastery (you need level 2 Raptor before you get the bunny and it's the step of the story).
PoF's main issue is that the zones were bigger. It's not a bad thing in and of itelf, and was done because mounts ease the time to get places in general. But, it lead to zones getting population capped/ lagged even though people were so scattered that they weren't doing the same events. So some of the difficult metaevents just aren't done much.

I'll check it out. Maybe....I'm really enjoying the story and am loathe to put it on hold for too long to do grindy things if I don't have to.

Yeah, if you're close enough to completing Reaper, it's not a huge deal. They're 10 points each, so maybe running south of the city to kill the one veteran and hitting the djinn east of the city in the desert for 20 is worth it, but it's like I said above where it's complicated if you don't know where you're going. The wiki of course has maps, and both (assuming you don't die) would take 15 minutes to run over and zap, but of course it's easy to get side-tracked.
Nothing wrong with just continuing on. Hell, without World Completion, you might still have plenty of Old World HP's to get.

Most of the Old World Masteries are so-so, but one is an area loot, which is just super!

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I'm hearing hopeful things about the Underwater Skimmer mastery, guessing it's not as huge a grind as the others then?

The achievement, assuming events work, is a quick thing. I had extra mastery points, it takes 8, so not a big deal.
But yeah, it's 2mil XP. I've got a bank full of xp boosts, so just took some alts for zone completion and events in the PoF zones. Wouldn't be bad to earn over time, but of course I wanted it right away.

In practice, the skimmer swimmer is fluid enough, you dive below waves and surface pretty easily. Realistically, it's not important currently, and I probably could have just earned it over time via random wandering rather than focusing on it for a couple days.

[Katchii]

It's sorta self-contained for the most part IIRC, but you will miss bits if you haven't done all of HoT.

As for the raptor, it's not glitchy it just turns slowly a la some more "tank"-esque movement. That's by design, and not terribly unlike some of the player movement. Hopper is in the second PoF zone and will help HEAPS with getting to higher areas.

To clarify, I said twitchy, not glitchy. As in it will turn in directions I don't want it to, to go the direction it feels I'm pointed. It's caused me to fall on more than one occasion, and I still need to get used to it I guess. But it's still frustrating when that happens.

Honestly, I'd spend more time on mounts to get used to them in HoT because you'll be on them a lot in PoF. And you should never really need to worry about dying from falling (unless stunned etc.) because you always have your glider to stop you from taking full damage.

I think I'm going to power through the PoF story on the Revenant I boosted to get the Hopper because I see SOOOOO many people using it to cheese stuff.

Agreed, but again that's by design. If you can't get somewhere, especially if you see mushrooms or something that you haven't unlocked yet, then just save it for later. Glad they didn't really stick with this for PoF, but it's usually pretty clear when you need to unlock another mastery to get to a certain area.

Oh for sure, it's obviously by design. I'm just not necessarily a fan of that design. I realize it's part of getting players to stick around, but IMO it feels terrible to essentially be forced to farm/grind mastery xp or mastery points to unlock what is essentially a required skill to get to places. The first tier is fine, takes like maybe 20 minutes of working on it to train it. But the rest? Time and xp required is a little ridiculous.

That's probably in part due to you not being there during the events to get to the top area? You do need updraft and a few other masteries to get up there, but it shouldn't take too long to get all the core ones needed in each respective zone.

Gliding specifically, requires at least Tier 2? 3? I forget...Mastery in order to access updrafts which is a couple hours of grinding.

And they used to be even worse -_-

So I've heard. I have a pretty vivid memory of you specifcally making a "fuck Pocket Raptors" post on here a few months ago.

LOL. Yup, here it is.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...r#post52092696

I usually advise people to either skip HoT or just power through the main story and call it a day. I know some folks love it, but it was a deeply unfun expansion for me and I still do my best to avoid returning outside of a few meta events like the Tarir assault or Mouth of Mordremoth meta.

I'm doing it for the story and for the Hero Points to unlock my Reaper.

Assuming this is the pretty standard power build? GS and Axe/Focus? If so it's good fun, my Necro rocks a Reaper build with Berserker gear and shreds pretty damned hard. Minions don't do as much tanking really, but you've still got a fair amount of defensive tools to keep you alive while you melt things.

Its a Power based build using GS and Axe/Focus, yes but not the standard one. Uses Blood Magic, Death Magic and Reaper (of course). Focusing on enhancing minions and self healing with them, but the core of the spec is the "Rise!" shout coupled with the Death Magic trait "Flesh of the Master" where you gain "carapace" which increases your Toughness for each minion you control in this spec. All of your slot skills are minions. You will always have no less than 5-6 minions (depending on which ones you have slotted since Bone Minion summons 2), with the "Rise!" shout giving you one minion plus an additional minion for every enemy hit by it, up to 5. So you could theoretically have up to 12 minions, all adding to your toughness with them all feeding you health and Life Force for Shroud and the minions from "Rise!" actively absorbing damage for you while they're attacking.

It's crazy how much survival you have, apparently (since I haven't tried it yet) still unlocking it, just barely got enough points to feel like I could play it withotu too severely gimping myself.

IIRC if you just want the points you don't need to continue the story. The story takes you through the zones and whatnot, but you can always find a guide and just run through and nab 'em solo. Will give you the added benefit of getting WP's and whatnot so they're already unlocked when you go back to the story. But that's your best option if you're finding getting the HoT ones too annoying right now. It's either PoF or find a HP train for HoT zones : /

Yeah I think I will when I'm done with this next HoT mission. I was lucky and stumbled upon an HP train and got 3 in quick succession in the second HoT zone which was awesome, but had to bail again because everyone had Hoppers or Skyscales to get to places I couldn't because they were using shortcuts that didn't even use the mushrooms or anything.

Regardless, I'm having fun for now. Which is all that matter at the moment. But I am looking forward to being able to focus entirely on the story again after I unlock Reaper fully.

[qwerty123456]

I'm hearing hopeful things about the Underwater Skimmer mastery, guessing it's not as huge a grind as the others then?

The achievement is really easy. I used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXf5RfMhnCk

I have every path of fire mastery skill finished and would consider myself casual so I ended up needing to find i think 6 mastery points for it which were all pretty easy things like /kneel at the human god statues and stuff that you normally wouldn't do unless you are looking at the achievements. Still need to grind out the exp tho which i think should be pretty easy just doing the story on an alt or something.

Was thinking of maybe skipping it but that turtle skin was just too cute to not wanna swim underwater lol.

[Lazuli]

Well it took me and my guildies like an hour to do the skimmer collection, but I was really drunk so maybe longer xD 2mill xp is nothing after that.

I started playing my rev , and holy fucking christ is heavy army just awful awful AWFUL in this game. 0 good looking regular leggings, have to use a full costume all the time. I can't believe how bad heavy armor has it when I figured medium had it the worst with trenchcoats and buttcape aids. Now I have to grind mistshard to get semi-acceptable looking leggings and it still looks hilariously bad. I've played this game since beta, unlocked most skins, and have to do some out of the way dumbass grind to unlock decent legs.

Its like I've accomplished nothing , and same issue with medium I am still using my gem shop combo since first year of the game. When will they add actually decent looking armor in this game.. maybe cantha? LUL what a joke for a game supposedly based on visual progression. As a mainly pvper I don't care usually, but fuck it really gets to me how against good looking armor ANet is with GW2.

[Svifnymr]

Main issue I run into with heavy armor is that there is a hard line at the waist that needs to be planned around, but otherwise I've got plenty of heavies with a variety of styles.

The skimmer achievement took me about 20-30 minutes, though the last step was glitched first day so I did the race the second day. Got it on first try though, so not a problem. Frostgorge event was having issues, but a quick groupfinder look had "frostgorge skimmer unborked event" and I hopped to that server and got it quick. Krait took me about 15 krait to get the drop, not too bad.

[Cattleya]

Started Heart of Thorns today after finally finishing LW season 2 (and 100%ing all core tyria maps including the LWS2 ones + Southsun), honestly after hearing so much about these maps, so far I'm pleasantly surprised. Verdant Brink and Auric Basin are so much more enjoyable to me than Drytop and Silverwastes were, even with the hero challenges being group events.

[Svifnymr]

Drytop was pretty fun when it first arrived, it was even done in stages. So the little path in the house to get to the rest wasn't there, and the higher vine bridge wasn't there.

Now, yeah nothing great there. You still find folks doing the meta stuff sometimes, but it's a bit more mechanical than release. Silverwastes was always pretty mechanical rote.

Hell, back in the Ancient Days of The BeforeTimes, the Temples of Orr were a pretty organized thing, and karma trains in Orr were how lots of folks wasted time.

Auric Basin was usually pretty fun, and still folks doing the meta. Dragons Stand too, especially if the daily is "Dragons Stand Events". Tangled Depths is bleh, Verdant Brink is just boring for me, but was certainly a bit more of a pain in the ass before getting various Masteries. (Stupid frog ninjas!)

[Edge-]

Teaser for the new fractal coming next week, forgot it's already almost here!

Edit: Finished the latest LS episode and...mmmmmmeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Knew it was coming, but the hard-turn to "YEAH BOI, YOUR BOIS THE ELDER DRAGONS ARE STILL HERE AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE THE MOST BORING ENEMIES!"

I really, really enjoyed the non-dragon related episodes. The Char zone when they got together was great. The first part of the civil war was great. I still need to do the new meta (I haven't been playing much), but returning back to yet another "DRAGON GONNA KILL US ALL!" storyline is just so...bleh. I'm fuckin tired of killing boring ass dragons, this will be what, the fourth one we have to kill already? Give me more Joko. Give me more Balthazar. Give me more racial stories and conflicts between races, not just dragons.

As much as I enjoy the story in this game, it follows the same narrative wheel of WoW in that it seems to largely retread the same general theme over and over. Big dragon comes. Big dragon surprises the races of Tyria. Commander and ragtag group must defeat big dragon while some form of other larger army is involved in distracting them elsewhere.

I just wanna know what happens with Taimi. I know they hinted that she's basically gonna die of whatever disease she has, but damnit she's my favorite and I miss her.

[Katchii]

Teaser for the new fractal coming next week, forgot it's already almost here!

Edit: Finished the latest LS episode and...mmmmmmeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Knew it was coming, but the hard-turn to "YEAH BOI, YOUR BOIS THE ELDER DRAGONS ARE STILL HERE AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE THE MOST BORING ENEMIES!"

I really, really enjoyed the non-dragon related episodes. The Char zone when they got together was great. The first part of the civil war was great. I still need to do the new meta (I haven't been playing much), but returning back to yet another "DRAGON GONNA KILL US ALL!" storyline is just so...bleh. I'm fuckin tired of killing boring ass dragons, this will be what, the fourth one we have to kill already? Give me more Joko. Give me more Balthazar. Give me more racial stories and conflicts between races, not just dragons.

As much as I enjoy the story in this game, it follows the same narrative wheel of WoW in that it seems to largely retread the same general theme over and over. Big dragon comes. Big dragon surprises the races of Tyria. Commander and ragtag group must defeat big dragon while some form of other larger army is involved in distracting them elsewhere.

I just wanna know what happens with Taimi. I know they hinted that she's basically gonna die of whatever disease she has, but damnit she's my favorite and I miss her.

Shhhhhh, I just got to the second zone in Path of Fire and FINALLY unlocked my Springer mount, lol. No spoilers.

I didn't realize how tired I was with the whole Elder Dragon stuff until I started NOT dealing with them. Really looking forward to the rest of the story.

I'm enjoying myself a lot more now that I fully unlocked Reaper, bought myself a full set of Exotic Berserker gear and can basically roflstomp any open world content...it's so refreshing after the huge difficulty spike in HoT BS and my experience with some of my other more squishy classes (I hate when open world "easy" content gives my obviously OP savior of the world character any trouble).

[Svifnymr]

(I hate when open world "easy" content gives my obviously OP savior of the world character any trouble).

I always thought it'd be fun to have reverse agro in lower level areas. Where my Asura riding a dragon while wearing flaming armor rides in and the Queensdale Bandits run away...

[Edge-]

Shhhhhh, I just got to the second zone in Path of Fire and FINALLY unlocked my Springer mount, lol. No spoilers.

Sorry, I'll try but it's hard to spoiler everything that's over a year old >.<

I didn't realize how tired I was with the whole Elder Dragon stuff until I started NOT dealing with them. Really looking forward to the rest of the story.

PoF has a pretty decent storyline. Balthazar isn't the most exciting of dudes but he's at least not a dragon. Joko though...you'll have more fun with Joko if you get that LS episode.

I'm enjoying myself a lot more now that I fully unlocked Reaper, bought myself a full set of Exotic Berserker gear and can basically roflstomp any open world content...it's so refreshing after the huge difficulty spike in HoT BS and my experience with some of my other more squishy classes (I hate when open world "easy" content gives my obviously OP savior of the world character any trouble).

Ye, getting a proper build helps mountains, and thankfully kitting it out with full exotics is very doable for casual players given how cheap it is. Reaper is so much fun when you line up debuffs and some buffs, pop your shroud or whatever and hit the spinning attack (4th ability) and just watch the numbers skyrocket. "Oh, you had life after your breakbar? Well, you had life, it's gone now."

[Katchii]

Sorry, I'll try but it's hard to spoiler everything that's over a year old >.<

Was kind of kidding, I don't expect stuff that's this old to be spoiler free, it's my own "fault" for not playing it sooner. =)

PoF has a pretty decent storyline. Balthazar isn't the most exciting of dudes but he's at least not a dragon. Joko though...you'll have more fun with Joko if you get that LS episode.

I have everything unlocked and ready to play, just have to get there. I just finished the part after where you go to the Mists in PoF and everyone scatters to try and find the next lead. Still excited.

Ye, getting a proper build helps mountains, and thankfully kitting it out with full exotics is very doable for casual players given how cheap it is. Reaper is so much fun when you line up debuffs and some buffs, pop your shroud or whatever and hit the spinning attack (4th ability) and just watch the numbers skyrocket. "Oh, you had life after your breakbar? Well, you had life, it's gone now."

Well I tried a condi minion Reaper with GS and Scepter/Dagger at first because it was what I had the gear for going in to HoT, and honestly didn't like it. With how hard stuff was hitting, how many enemies there usually were, and how many damned AoEs and shit things threw around and how "slowly" things died to conditions rather than raw damage they weren't dying faster than I could heal. Also, Scepter/Dagger just wasn't gaining Life Force fast enough to replenish Shroud in the amount of time to make it feel good to use. And honestly GS while amazing looking, has abilities with cooldowns too long to make it something to use often unless it's a big enemy with less than 50% health. Switching to Power Minion Reaper with full Berserker and GS + Axe/Focus changed my life, lol. It's just so much smoother, easy to use, feels so much more powerfuland with full Vampiric Runes (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sup...e_of_Vampirism) I almost can't die and things just melt.

Breaking an enemies Defiance bar (if they have one) shrouding, using 2 to get to them quick, GS 5 then GS 4 just decimates everything. Since everything dies so quickly, with the Vampiric runes healing me for 10% every time something dies it doesn't matter how much health I have, I almost always have full health or in tougher fights, 50% or more so I'm rarely at risk of dying. Even the fight with Balthazar and Vlast where Balthazar is apparently supposed to one shot you to end the fight......he had to do it three times, lol.

[Svifnymr]

I enjoy a minion build for running around and tagging a bunch of stuff during events and letting minions murder stuff. Usually axe or whatnot.

For actual killing stuff, Reaper is fun, but I still haven't figured out how to enjoy the Scourge. I assume it's a raid type deal.

[Greyvax]

I've been playing for a little over 2 months (Never played before this) during a break from WoW. Thoroughly enjoyed it. However, 600+ hours in, i've completed all of the stories + LWS's, crafted a legendary (Astralaria), and now feeling burnt out. Guess it happened just in time for shadowlands.

[Zmagoslav]

Wait... so now they are pushing story forward via Fractals?
Never played one... what's the deal with them?

[PACOX]

Wait... so now they are pushing story forward via Fractals?
Never played one... what's the deal with them?

The main story is not told via fractals (unless you count the copies of the season 1 instances)

The fractal is an 'alt reality'.

[Zmagoslav]

The main story is not told via fractals (unless you count the copies of the season 1 instances)

The fractal is an 'alt reality'.

Phew... and it doesn't complement it? (like story quests and world events usually do? with happening at the same time, just telling an event from a different perspective)

Another question; Wouldn't it be time for the next episode of living story again? They usually drop every 2 months.

[PACOX]

Phew... and it doesn't complement it? (like story quests and world events usually do? with happening at the same time, just telling an event from a different perspective)

Another question; Wouldn't it be time for the next episode of living story again? They usually drop every 2 months.

Yeah story is about every two or three months but they are also going back to add all the old VA so it might be delayed a bit. They haven't done their quarterly newsletter/announcement yet.

Also I completely forgot that the fractal with Joko is directly story related, but they did say this one is sort of an alt reality while being a bit of a teaser at the same time. It doest take long to do. It's basically just 3 boss battles with very little trash in between.