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#252 Sep 11 2012 at 10:43 PM Rating: Good
Ranger:
Skirmishing 5 and 15 only benefit swapping weapons in combat.
Beastmastery 5 and 15 only benefit when swapping pets.

Engineer:
Explosives 25 only boosts explosions, not sure how specific they are with that designation.

Those are the only other classes I have, I've found online skill trees to be inaccurate to say the least. It's no benefiting a single element, but be careful when you throw absolutes around.
#253 Sep 12 2012 at 8:27 AM Rating: Good
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You're not understanding my objection, because none of those traits have it. They are like the arcane minor trait, which I really don't have many issues with. The choice not to swap your weapons doesn't disable the effect of it. Like how not getting hit means you won't trigger the fire trait. The trait has 100% uptime, only the effectiveness varies.

The attunement traits have uptime in proportion to how much time you spend in that attunement. And the effectiveness only goes down from there.

Your choice not to dodge roll or weapon swap means you aren't accessing the traits' benefit. It doesn't mean you are entering a state in which you couldn't possibly access the trait's benefit. And that's a big difference.

As for the Explosion buff, it's not the same at all. That line gives you two traits that lay down explosives when normal combat conditions are met. So it has a minimum effectiveness that is not 0, and 100% uptime as a buff.

[EDIT]

And I might as well point out, any ranger who didn't want to weapon swap could just equip, say, two longbows and get the bonus without ever changing their skill set.

Edited, Sep 12th 2012 11:06am by idiggory
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#254 Sep 12 2012 at 8:54 AM Rating: Good
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selebrin wrote:

Engineer:
Explosives 25 only boosts explosions, not sure how specific they are with that designation.

Those are the only other classes I have, I've found online skill trees to be inaccurate to say the least. It's no benefiting a single element, but be careful when you throw absolutes around.
I'm only level 35 so I can't test it, but the pistol's basic attack is a shot which explodes. I don't know if Explosives 25 boosts that or not.

Edit: I forgot I could go to Heart of Mists to test it, so maybe I will if I remember later.

Edited, Sep 12th 2012 10:57am by Spoonless
#255 Sep 12 2012 at 10:44 AM Rating: Good
Spoonless wrote:
selebrin wrote:

Engineer:
Explosives 25 only boosts explosions, not sure how specific they are with that designation.

Those are the only other classes I have, I've found online skill trees to be inaccurate to say the least. It's no benefiting a single element, but be careful when you throw absolutes around.
I'm only level 35 so I can't test it, but the pistol's basic attack is a shot which explodes. I don't know if Explosives 25 boosts that or not.

Edit: I forgot I could go to Heart of Mists to test it, so maybe I will if I remember later.

Edited, Sep 12th 2012 10:57am by Spoonless


Yeah, there are ways to access explosions, but there are also power-builds who would not have any, depending on what counts as an explosion.

I guess I just don't get it. The 25 skills are all element-neutral, the 15 ones all add some area damage when switching, and the 5 ones all boost an element's inherent nature when you're in it. It's a class built around cycling elements, and the abilities are based around the same. For 5 points does anyone else get fire shield? 80 toughness? Permanent regeneration? Engineers can get regen for 10 seconds when attacked at 25% health, in which case they're probably already dead. All an elementalist has to do is swap into water, at the cost of not being in fire for 13 seconds, but they've got other things to do.
#256 Sep 12 2012 at 12:08 PM Rating: Good
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Regen for 10 seconds at 25% health is vastly superior to passive Regen in water if you have no intention of using water, and have not taken any traits or gear to buff it.

And the trait that buffs explosions is third in a line that first establishes two different ways the class may passively lay down bombs. So it's guaranteed to be useful, even if you don't take any explosive weapons/skills.

My problem with the system is that it's contrary to the design philosophy that applies to every other class. Every other profession allows for hyper specialization--you are fully able to fully specialize in one task and one weapon, or spread out your points to maximize as many as four weapons/skill types. Short of taking the skills that specifically only buff one weapon type, your spec will be useful enough for any weapon you decide to take. So switching it up doesn't hurt you.

Elementalist doesn't apply this way. If you fully spec in Fire, but are bored one day and want to use Earth spells, you are losing the effects of at least two skills. Almost certainly at least 3, because you probably took fire spell recharge (and I'm disqualifying the buff-in-fire trait, because it's synonymous with the weapon buff traits that most professions get). If you want to hyper specialize in Fire spells, you lose the effectiveness of traits (but there's no penalty for a Ranger only using longbows).

Not to say that every trait will perform as well with every weapon, but no other profession faces those problems like the elementalist.

Plus, because the trees are too specialized, it hurts you to spec into an element you don't use much. If you never use Air spells, because they are so skewed towards PVP, you might still have plenty of reason to spec into air. But at least two of those required traits will be useless to you. And that's problematic, because no other profession has potentially useless skills.

Is it the end of the world? No. But I'm simply not interested in a pure hybrid Elementalist with the current state of balance and skills. And being forced in that direction does not make me happy.
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#257 Sep 14 2012 at 1:31 PM Rating: Good
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Soooo . . . anyway. Pretty quiet in here.

I got one character up to 26 last night, and I understand the first dungeon is at L30. I'm looking forward to running it, not for the loot but to get a basic idea of what I need to work on. I always assume the worst, so I'm expecting that I have no idea how to play my Ranger. We'll see.

I won't have much time during the day this weekend, as we see our daughter then, but at night I should have plenty of game time and I may even be able to get to 30 tonight.

Anyway, that's it for this filler post.

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#258 Sep 14 2012 at 5:25 PM Rating: Good
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My Thief is 31 currently with all my other toons 12-20 ish. I got a mail informing me about the dungeon. I would be willing to give it a spin sometime this weekend.
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#259 Sep 15 2012 at 6:43 AM Rating: Excellent
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cynyck wrote:
Soooo . . . anyway. Pretty quiet in here.


I haven't been able to play because I was getting debilitating headaches at my computer so I had to order some old people glasses and now I can't sit here for more than half an hour until they come in. Much pouting.

I love my elementalist though. Smiley: smile 30 points in arcane and you can swap all day long. I think the hard thing for me though has been getting rid of my WoW mentality of my build being What I Am instead of just some bonuses that support how I play. That's been hard for me to get used to with every profession I've tried. Builds here are really about taking the traits you want and then getting your stats from gear, and hybrid builds are often actually preferable. I agree it's a little harder with the elementalist because each trait line gives bonuses that only work for that attunement, but those bonuses are really enhancing the attunements you play in most often - they're not making the others useless.
#260 Sep 15 2012 at 7:11 AM Rating: Good
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I'll run AC whenever. I completed Story Mode twice. They say it's one of the most difficult dungeons, which is a shame because it's the first one you get to do. Apparently it's turned some people off from dungeons, and then when they are higher level and go back for completion's sake, they find out the other dungeons aren't nearly as bad. Anyway, I think it's fun. Some of the trash is a bit rough, and there's one boss fight in particular that game my groups some fits, but I don't think it's harder than learning Heroic 5-mans in WoW.

One of the biggest things you'll find out from experience in AC is that you'll need some survivability cooldowns. If you've been running WvW or sPvP, you probably already have some in your loadout, but I can see where someone who has solely been playing the PvE content to that point would have nothing but offensive abilities. Also, make sure you have some up-to-date gear. I found that at 30 I was still running around with two pieces of gear that were like level 10-12. You can get some decent upgrades for a silver or less on the TP, so it might be prudent to do so.

I'm working until ~6PM EDT, but if anyone wants to run it after that point, I'll come if you need a body. I have run it on my Engineer, but I also have a Guardian I could bring (which I haven't played since I started my Engineer, so I might be a bit rusty). That said, if there are 5 people who haven't done it that want to go, I'll certainly step aside for them.

I haven't completed Explorable Mode yet. We downed the first boss, with a bunch of death runs, and then the group fell apart. Smiley: lol

Supposedly the level 40 dungeon is short and gives a really great amount of EXP per completion.

Edited, Sep 15th 2012 9:16am by Spoonless
#261 Sep 15 2012 at 2:14 PM Rating: Good
The exploration modes, despite being 35, 45, etc, are balanced around being 80 with the appropriate talents and such. "Endgame" for those folks for shiny-looking gear.

Which, you know, would be nice if they SAID that in-game. We suffered through CM butler and succeeded, but it was full of 1-shotting trash and bosses who took a week to die.
#262 Sep 15 2012 at 4:58 PM Rating: Good
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I was looking up info on some of the starter zone bosses. I had fought the Fire Elemental in Metrica, and just yesterday found out about the Shadow Behemoth in Queensdale.

Shadow Behemoth, so much cooler than the Fire Elemental. Better drops, Better chest, Cooler Fight... and you don't die 50x.

But, in the process of looking them up I learned about another boss AFTER the Fire Elemental. Something about a special key you find randomly on the ground in the reactor, and using the key on the Golem after you kill the Fire Elemental. Enables a teleport to a Golem boss, which is a Group Event, and drops a chest similar to the Shadow Behemoth. I have not done this in game or ever heard anyone mention it in game.

Boss fights are just fun (Except the Fire Elemental) I have yet to try the Dungeons, I guess I could try CM now that I'm level 40 and received the mail invite to it.
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#263 Sep 15 2012 at 10:33 PM Rating: Good
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Well, I hit 30 on my ranger, and I didn't read this thread until now (12:25 a.m. on Sunday) so I'm sorry I didn't try and set something up. I didn't realize the dungeon was part of the class story, so I'll try to get to it. I haven't really been doing the Sylvan Ranger class story because I, personally, find it bo-ring.

Anyway, I was asking tonite about a vent server; I have one that is paid up for a few months so someone can put the info in the guild MotD. It has a couple of months on it, and if there turns out to be any real interest I'll go for another couple/few months.

As far as builds go, I've been concentrating on vit and toughness traits for my Ranger to get some survivability, and looking for the same on about half my gear. About. I seem to do O.K. with staying alive and not too bad with pew-pew, although certainly not off the chart.

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#264 Sep 16 2012 at 12:52 AM Rating: Good
Yeah the Fire Elemental pisses me off. Anet really needs to do something to make death easier to avoid on that fight. What the hell is the fun of trying to kill a boss which kills you so quickly and often that by the time all your gear is broken, he's not even 1/4 dead? I've tried doing the boss twice now, and I've given up both times. I've heard from other people in general chat that the other zone bosses for the starting areas are a lot easier. Seems stupid and unfair to me.
#265 Sep 16 2012 at 3:14 AM Rating: Good
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I've done the story mode of 4 dungeons: Catacombs, Manor, Inquest (forgetting its specific name, but in the volcano zone), and Arah. If I had to rank them in difficulty, I'd say Manor, Catacombs, Arah, and then Inquest from easiest to hardest. However, Arah had its moments which I'm perhaps keen on blaming to bugs.

I feel like why some say Catacombs is so hard is due to it both being their first dungeon with some still thinking in common MMO terms. But if you take your time, it's really not so bad. Only let one person open caskets at the beginning, for example, and don't be afraid to kite mobs back to more advantageous locations. I will argue that playing ranged style regardless of class probably makes them all easier, but once you get a feel for some of the bosses, switching to melee isn't impossible.

Arah spoiler: The hardest fight for my group was undoubtedly the fight against the two dragons on the air ship prior to Zhaitan. The six cannons you're supposed to use to shoot at the dragons have a shield to presumably block their vomiting of mobs onto the deck. However, none of us ever got the shield to work. So, not only would we get knocked away from the cannons by the barf, taking some modest damage, each round would spawn some mobs, possibly having up to 8 mobs around if I wasn't missing some based on us being spread out. Depending on the types, I could solo 2-3 at once (and they're veteran class), but even if I did kill them, they'd just be replenished soon after. So, this basically contributed greatly to that particular fight's difficulty. If the shields were working properly, I'd say it'd be one of the easier encounters, Zhaitan itself, I believe, bugged to also be stupid easy. But this could also have been Anet's way of saying, "Hey, you put up with all this sh*t. Enjoy blasting him to hell."

Why I rank Inquest higher: The very first pull greets you with a bunch of ranged attacker mobs who hit pretty hard. Something we also didn't realize initially was there was an alarm you had to disable, otherwise they'd keep respawning. So for like 10 minutes we just kept killing the same mobs until eventually we sent people to MGS ahead to try and find it while we'd handled them. Part of me feels this first pull will always be rough, but for those doing it for the first time, learn from our pain.

Next up is simply what some of the later mobs do. There's sort of a mini-boss fight which are multiple mobs that do different things, like a golem that flame shields its allies, one that lobs fire AoE around, another that launches homing lightning balls, and something else I'm forgetting. Our party felt like the fire AoE dude should have priority, but I felt like the lightning guy was the most dangerous of the bunch since they moved faster than you could walk, can turn well enough to counter dodge rolls, and only seemed to poof if you ran into a specific corridor. Think 2 lightning guys showed up in a fight later, too. Anyway, there was also a part where you had to follow a golem through some radiation. If you don't do this, you have to wait until the rest of your party does some stuff at the end, as otherwise trying to run through it will kill you. After that, the believed "final boss" seemed way too easy, but eventually swapped to a form with 1-hit KO gun. I kept trying to discern some kind of timer or signal to when he's going to fire, but between dying and resurrecting party members, I didn't get a good chance to. I think I only actually dodged it once. The actual final boss after that wasn't too bad. Just took a while.


Anyway, I haven't heard much on the other dungeons, except for maybe that Citadel of Flames is easy to farm. I haven't been researching on any of these, either, as it's usually not too hard to figure out a given encounter's mechanics, especially with NPC helpers around barking commands or the mobs themselves having obvious descriptions like "Summons grubs, Eats grubs" which replenishes that given mob's HP if you don't kill them..

Edited, Sep 16th 2012 5:23am by Seriha
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#266 Sep 18 2012 at 8:01 PM Rating: Good
Today I have killed two champions of the dragons, crystal and ice.

Holy ****, cool-looking events. I was still on my way to crystal when he landed, and I could see him from across the map.

Holy **** the laaaaaaaaaaaag. We're talking slideshow here. Don't try to doge the death, just rez people when you can because by the time you see something coming at you it's on your face.
#267 Sep 19 2012 at 10:04 AM Rating: Good
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So far, I've played through Story mode on the first three dungeons. I think both Cadecus' Manor and Twilight Arbor are significantly easier than Ascalonian Catacombs, mostly because of the amount of room you get to kite mobs. AC has some terrible trash packs where you're fighting elementalist mobs in a tight corridor, or multiple rangers, plus the boss fight where you have to throw boulders to keep the two apart might be the most difficult fight out of the three that I've played, if you don't get the initial separation down (I suggest having someone dedicated to throwing boulders the whole fight).

The adjustment to CM does make it a bit more difficult than it was. I haven't quite gotten down the timing on the ranged mobs' targeted ability (that places a reticule underneath you), and get one-shot by it. That said, if the pulls are done cautiously, the dungeon isn't too bad.

TA was super easy with the groups I ran with. Of course, they all had an Elementalist in them, and I'm an Engineer, so we had a decent amount of healing going out as well as AoE damage. Apparently a couple of the fights can be rough if you don't have much healing/AoE damage. Also, I suggest equipping an ability to strip debuffs off of yourself.
#268 Sep 19 2012 at 12:09 PM Rating: Good
I have a serious case of altitis. I decided last night that I was bored of the Necromancer a bit, so I played my Mesmer instead. Part of it might be that I have now completed the Asura starting area twice... but even though I've moved on to bigger and better things with her, I'm still kinda bored. And I only got to level 4 on my Norn character during the stress tests, so it didn't take long for me to get to new content. Main hand sword is fun! It kills **** really fast, but because it's a melee play style you have to wait for them to come to you, which sucks. I like Great sword a lot too. Now I just need to unlock all the abilities on the staff and I'll be able to figure out what play style i want to go with.
#269 Sep 19 2012 at 1:44 PM Rating: Good
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My level 50 Thief Order of Whispers story quest was so freaking epic last night. I also got to fight one of the world dragons briefly, earlier this week. Still loving this game so far.

Especially my pistol dagger build with power and crit line traited for extra pistol, venom, and dagger damage with 5 points in trickery to get initiative on steal. Oh and my 30 point dagger storm slot skill is just crazy good to take down a group ASAP in story mode when getting swarmed by undead. Pop spider venom traited to give might, hit dagger storm and watched the crits and bleeds fly in every direction. Then vanish the agro with a stealth move sending them all back to the NPC's. Hop back and finish the remains with crippling 4 chain hitting dagger throws, mixed with steal for more init.

Love that sh*t to death, with enough space you are about untouchable.
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An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

~ Matsuo Basho
#270 Sep 19 2012 at 2:20 PM Rating: Good
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Man, you guys are making this game sound fun. Dammit.
#271 Sep 19 2012 at 3:39 PM Rating: Good
That's because it IS fun! Smiley: tongue
#272 Sep 19 2012 at 4:13 PM Rating: Good
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I'm tempted. I deserve some major retail therapy after the day I've been having at work.

Edit: looked and it is totally unavailable. Which is... interesting.

Edited, Sep 19th 2012 4:30pm by Olorinus
#273 Sep 19 2012 at 6:31 PM Rating: Decent
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Olorinus wrote:
I'm tempted. I deserve some major retail therapy after the day I've been having at work.

Edit: looked and it is totally unavailable. Which is... interesting.

Edited, Sep 19th 2012 4:30pm by Olorinus


Sales and registration servers are currently down, give it a day or two.
#274 Sep 20 2012 at 12:30 AM Rating: Good
Played for about 6 hours tonight, with a RL friend of mine, and got my mesmer up to level 14. They may be a bit weak in terms of AoE (other than Chaos Storm with the staff), but they're still a lot of fun. Not sure if I like it or my Necro better, but it's fun to switch things up. Hopefully I'll be able to restrain myself from leveling up my Engineer to 15 for a while lol.
#275 Sep 20 2012 at 2:33 PM Rating: Good
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Raolan wrote:
Olorinus wrote:
I'm tempted. I deserve some major retail therapy after the day I've been having at work.

Edit: looked and it is totally unavailable. Which is... interesting.

Edited, Sep 19th 2012 4:30pm by Olorinus


Sales and registration servers are currently down, give it a day or two.


Last I'd heard, they'd actually disabled digital sales so servers could better distribute. However, if you're willing to go buy a box copy somewhere, it should be doable.
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#276 Sep 21 2012 at 10:13 AM Rating: Good
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Seriha wrote:
Raolan wrote:
Olorinus wrote:
I'm tempted. I deserve some major retail therapy after the day I've been having at work.

Edit: looked and it is totally unavailable. Which is... interesting.

Edited, Sep 19th 2012 4:30pm by Olorinus


Sales and registration servers are currently down, give it a day or two.


Last I'd heard, they'd actually disabled digital sales so servers could better distribute. However, if you're willing to go buy a box copy somewhere, it should be doable.

They recently re-enabled them. The official site's buy page is working now, just checked it.
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"the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Hermann Goering, April 1946.
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