Guild Wars 2

[Icepaw]

Kinda sad to say but I may need to hunt the vanilla world bosses for tokens for the decade celebration armor. It also wants me to suffer through maguuma events. At the very least the PvP and WvW stuff there are people that will help acquire those from what I've seen but I still dislike having to fight other players. I for one know I'm not the best at any class I play but that being thrown in my face as I'm torn apart by other players is never exactly fun to endure. On one hand I could avoid a few of the things but you have to complete them all for the cape that goes with the armor. One of the areas I gotta do events is Dragon's Stand of all places. Honestly having to question if I honestly need a flashy cape at this point

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

Finally able to complete the map Echovald in End of Dragon... and I'm not a fan of the renown heart to sabotage the Speakers. I could barely do anything without raising suspicion because the whole place was packed, and everyone was watching, because of they all had the eye icon above their head. Also, note to self that I gotta get a power core for the Jade Bot just for it to function...

Kinda sad to say but I may need to hunt the vanilla world bosses for tokens for the decade celebration armor. It also wants me to suffer through maguuma events. At the very least the PvP and WvW stuff there are people that will help acquire those from what I've seen but I still dislike having to fight other players. I for one know I'm not the best at any class I play but that being thrown in my face as I'm torn apart by other players is never exactly fun to endure. On one hand I could avoid a few of the things but you have to complete them all for the cape that goes with the armor. One of the areas I gotta do events is Dragon's Stand of all places. Honestly having to question if I honestly need a flashy cape at this point

I'm skipping anything and everything that is in Heart of Thorn territory... if I need to farm for money, Secret of the Obscure is more tolerable.

I'm the same, I'm not the best at any one class I play, I'm only decent enough ; and, I'm not competitive enough to do PvP (let alone WwW), ever. I'm always more for PvE, and if it's PvE then I only need exotic gear.

Skin-wise, I prefer to keep things simple with my characters ; literally running with the BASE skin for my weapons and armors, and not flashy in the slightest. If anything, I might just dye the armors with different colors so I can tell which set is for which build, but otherwise same skin.

 

[Icepaw]

I gotta get a power core for the Jade Bot just for it to function...

A max level jewelcrafter is needed to make those and they go from level 1 - 10. Higher level the core the more you can use the jade bot for like in my case I got one mod on the bot that salvages trash for jade shards I can trade in for other currency and thanks to my guardian upgrading his own core to 10 his vitality is higher and my jade bot was able to use the sensor array that speeds up the revive ability. Making a level 10 core uses a ton of jade and orichalcum but each level core is also made from one of the various metals which include certain metals only weapon crafters or the Armorsmith can make such as steel. They're not too crazy to make they just burn through a lot of that precious metal as every piece of jade needs it and for some cores you need more than one piece of jade. All trade skills that can make equipment seem to be able to make the piece of jade but only jewelcrafters can build the cores. Cores also take research notes with level 10 requiring a good few hundred. Sad as it may be to say you may be better off buying one from the market unless you got a crafter able to build them and a fair share of excess material on hand. You can get the recipes for each level for research notes in a fishing village in the first zone of Cantha but the cores cap at level 10, I've not seen them go any higher. The jade bot is a very nice item as it can help in many situations, and just saying this now I'm not sure if you knew all this but I figured I'd say it either way for anyone who may like tips from this topic. Always nice for us veterans of the game to leave tips for anyone who may be just starting out after all...despite the fact exact numbers and details can be found on the wiki

As for skins I do collect some but only because the basic look of some weapons in the game seem odd, like the fleshy weapons you get off kryptid in Secrets of the Obscure

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

Well the wiki doesn't have everything ; a lot of the articles still have missing information (mostly lore or dialogues though ; I guess people wanna focus more on the gameplay and mechanics)...

Plus, the wiki never exactly explains how the specialization works ; back when I was still new to the game, I had no clue, and had to learn it myself to see that they're basically sets of passive/active skills that automatically activate with certain requirements (such as when your health drops below half, etc).

The Kryptis weapons are indeed fleshy and weird-looking, they're demonic after all. Not my type.

The jade bot is a very nice item as it can help in many situations

I have yet to discover much of its use outside Cantha... mainly cuz I haven't found a workbench to install the core yet, as awkward as it sounds. I'll give it a look though.

 

[Icepaw]

The core can be installed from anywhere, the chips for either of the two slots require the table. One neat thing I learned recently was with Janthir you can pick up a recipe to build that table for your homestead. The first slot of the jade bot can be used right away with as much as a level 1 core, the sensor array I think it was that's slot two requires a higher core. Right next to the guy who sells the recipes is a jade workbench btw you use to install those upgrade chips

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

Elementalist with hammer is a bunch of fun. Though, funny thing is, even as confusing as it can be with 4 different elements, I still get the hang of it easier than Mesmer. Very little in terms of defense, though, so I usually found myself trying to clutch super hard against multiple enemies or an elite-rank enemy.

Pistol is alright, but if the enemy has projectile reflection, I'm screwed for unable to swap weapons, and all elements have peojectile attacks with pistol, so it's not gonna be my option.

Based on the Rune of the Elementalist, which has bonus for power and condition damage, I run Fire and Earth, with Arcane skills (and respective specializations).

Normally, I'd gear up for the elite specializations with the associated armor rune (for the example above, Rune of the Elementalist has bonus for power and condition damage, so I use quipment that has power, condition damage and vitality) ; however, for Tempest and Weaver, it's bonus to all stats, which means the only armors and weapons for these runes are celestial... and I'm not buying celestial, way too expensive. So, I'm just gonna use the same equipment for all the different elite specializations.

Currently training Weaver, but I don't think I'll play this class, too complicated with the element combination for me. I'll try Catalyst next to see how it plays out.

 

[Icepaw]

Spear weaver is fun but yeah i can see how the elemental combo system isn't for everyone. It was the one spec for elementalist that in its own way appealed to me though as it lets me mix and match elements and by extension the ability to at times gain healing and a shield if I recall right or turning my foes into lightning rods. Spear does sorta got its own little mini game of sorts where you hit 5 then do a few spells to charge it and it unleashes a big attack at your foes, although i could of sworn I saw a video where they were comboing all four elements fifth spear ability but idk how that works exactly or if I saw it wrong. A nice thing I found out is the meteor shard spear is still available but it requires Janthir to obtain as you're pulling the thing out of a meteorite that slammed into that area. Also comes with some gloves but you can take the infusion out of the gloves and put it into the spear to keep the fiery appearance going on spear without the gloves, which I did as I had tow ear the gloves to retrieve the spear and I did this on my engineer so gloves had to be medium but elementalist uses light armor so I used an upgrade extractor to pluck the infusion from gloves and insert it into spear to keep the ignite effect. Gloves don't need the infusion to cause that effect so removing the infusion didn't harm them any and it just means if I get fond of spear on a medium armor class I got gloves for them as I think the effect might trigger on transmogged spears but idk for sure...nice thing about ascended weaponry is it doesn't bind to user. Janthir also added a legendary spear but Idk if I'll ever be able to have one of such things myself...they cost a lot to make and even the ones on the market aren't cheap

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

Last night I remember seeing someone raging about annoyingly specific tasks to get the required item for a legendary item... somewhere in Heart of Thorn. Even though I'm not trying to make legendary equipment right now, I can feel their frustration (ouch). Getting the mastery points in Heart of Thorn (including the story missions) is already a pain in the ass. Trying to navigate around the maps is already a pain in the ass. The enemies are all a pain in the ass. Did I mention the whole expansion is a pain in the ass (lol) ?

 

[Icepaw]

Heart of Thorns legendaries are a nightmare to build yeah, they require you obtain the precursor of the weapon you're trying to make, the gift of the legendary itself, and like certain other gifts which require a ton of stuff to make. This tends to involve hunting for specific rare materials in those woods and some only come from events if I recall right but you gotta complete the event and there is barely anyone around to do that these days. More people would make the vanilla legendary or the aurene ones from end of dragons than Heart of Thorns unless they're after a specific skin. Then there's a legendary back item that requires I think WvW or Fractals of high level to build, an entire legendary armor in all three types that I think is from Secrets of the Obscure... it may be possible to fully deck out in legendary gear but it's hell to do for most and all those special appearances going off at the same time must be blinding at times. Only legendary I want atm is Eternity and the two blades two blades to make it...I'm a fan of two handed blades despite not using them often

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

there is barely anyone around to do that these days

I don't even wanna imagine how MISERABLE it is to try to get enough players for Dragon Stand... as much as I want the ascended Warmaster Backpack, I feel that it's never gonna be possible. Heck, last night no-one showed up at Auric Basin either. Then again, Heart of Thorn might be super old and dead for veteran playyers anyway.

Though I'll still try my luck today and tomorrow with Dragon Stand, and grind for hero points for my Elementalist in between.

Not sure who next after that, though... I don't particularly feel it for Thief or Mesmer. Also, energy management with Revenant is gonna be even more difficult for me than bouncing between Elementalist's 4 elements...

 

[Icepaw]

Yeah it's going to be incredibly rough to get people together for that. On another note I have an update on your question involving being able to use the same spear for water and land...answer is yes you can. If you want to use your underwater spear on land you can move it to one of your weapon slots for land and it can be used as a land spear and if you wish to move it back to your water set you can. Only possible out of combat but I found out recently on my guardian when the Kodan asked me to wield a spear against target dummies for them. I moved the one from my under water set to my land one and it worked just fine then when i was done I put it back on the water set. You might need to move a land weapon to your inventory to move the spear from water to land but it is possible

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

On another note I have an update on your question involving being able to use the same spear for water and land...answer is yes you can. If you want to use your underwater spear on land you can move it to one of your weapon slots for land and it can be used as a land spear and if you wish to move it back to your water set you can. Only possible out of combat but I found out recently on my guardian when the Kodan asked me to wield a spear against target dummies for them. I moved the one from my under water set to my land one and it worked just fine then when i was done I put it back on the water set. You might need to move a land weapon to your inventory to move the spear from water to land but it is possible

If I understand it right, the spear can't be equipped on BOTH the land and underwater slot ? So you have to manually equip the thing when out of combat ? If so, that might be rather inconvenient, having to have two spears, one for land and one for underwater, or ready your one spear before getting into the fight.

Aye well, I'm still just waiting until Janthir is fully completed, anyway.

Probably gonna give myself the challenge of "complete all story missions on all characters from Living World season 1 all the way to Secret of the Obscure while waiting for Janthir Wilds to be on sales", because I hate myself (lol).

 

[Icepaw]

Honestly I look at it as always having your spear on hand and since some fights give you a window of freedom before a fight if you feel your current weapons won't work or lack in some merit you can put one away and draw your spear from the water slot only to put it away when you're done. Kind of like being sneaky having a foe that might think you'll fight one way but then you pull the spear seemingly from thin air and surprise them but sadly you do need to be out of combat to swap weapons. I might try having land spear out and seeing if it stays in my hands upon entering water just to be truly sure.... still annoyed I've heard no word on female charr voice lines being added in spots they're missing so far in janthir but it's a good thing I got my male charr.

Also thinking of adding a superior sigil of blood to a longbow my guardian's using currently, leech upon crit sounds amazing and if need be I can later give the bow to my ranger as I had the resources to make a ascended bow, you can beat all the story stuff with exotic weaponry easily enough... ascended stuff is only a boon if you do fractals and PvP supposedly but I like how they're not tied down like Exotic would be. In a sense if I need it on another character and the current user doesn't need it I can freely hand it to a different character of mine, upgrades and stats stay the same unlike legendary items, legendary stuff you can freely swap out the upgrades and stats as often as you please without needing an extractor or the like and they got the same power as ascended just cosmetic effects and the like

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

I found a vendor that sells ascended accessories, rings and amulets in the fractal lobby, so that's pretty nice. Also, a lot of the accessories are only account-bound and not soul-bound when used (such as Enchanted Key), so that's cool too. I just haven't found a use for them yet, they don't work with my builds, so right now they're just in the bank.

I realized that, regarding voices, they've added a few more to older elite specializations too ; yesterday when my Berserker went nuts, she yelled "I'LL DESTROY YOU ALL !" or "YOU CAN'T STOP ME !!", pretty hype. I wonder what else is there for other classes...

 

[Icepaw]

Ascended items have infusion slots which means you can infuse them with agony resistance which is needed to high level fractals, and they are account bound upon picking them up even the crafted ones. The rings, trinkets, and accessories all can be enhanced and such to gain more infusion slots too apparently but I think that requires things from fractals to do. Then some story content rewards you ascended gear as well which is nice, there's a vendor in Lion's Arch that lets you buy more of them if they were rewarded by achievement

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

I'm getting a better hang of hammer for Elementalist, and it's pretty damn solid across all 4 elements, to my surprise. My previous experience was each element only worked well with certain weapons (fire for scepter and dagger off-hand ; water, lightning and earth for dagger both hands, staff is a bit too slow), but hammer is pretty decent. Catalyst's jade sphere is basically an extra AOE as far as I've played, which is a great addition when you're playing the most squishy class in the game... and, combined with hammer AOE attacks, actually helps me clutch better than I expected.

However, my biggest issue with Catalyst in particular, as well as some other classes in general, is that the profession mechanic is NOT usable underwater. Seriously, what's the big idea with so many of these mechanics unusable underwater ? You have super advanced jade technology and your damn jade mech can't go underwater with you. You have this almighty all-powerful elemental jade sphere and it's not usable underwater because... reasons.

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

I tried to solo fractal and I actually won. So far the 'battleground' one (where you play as one of the Flame legion) is the most straightforward, if super annoying with the ballista having unblockable knock-back arrows...

First attempt was with my Reaper ; just barely able to survive the final boss' fire damage, and I was actually downed when he only had about 1% health left ; most other Flame legion soldiers with me were dead, saved for one. It was a clutch.

Second attempt, my Guardian (Almorra lol) ; much better this time, with me popping up heals and protection to keep all the Flame legion soldiers with me alive as long as possible, as we gank up on the boss. Unfortunately in the end I was the last one standing cuz his fire damage was too much even for Flame legion (wow). But, I didn't have to clutch as hard this time, with a load of healing at my disposal.

I don't think I can solo this with any other class though ; they'd probably die from the damn retaliation damage first. But hey, just goes to show that Guardian is one hell of a tank despite so little health.

And just for my personal experience, I play this during the fights :

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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UWI18_wDLg


And THIS for the final boss...

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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49T-3xzXAcY


Was pretty damn good~

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

More solo attempts in fractals, this time the Uncategorized and Cliffside, though with my Necromancer.

Uncategorized : Easily doable solo, overall.

• First room with 3 champions might seem too much, which makes the Shroud essential to the fight, since it's basically your 2nd health bar (there's also a trait where you recover health WHILE in shroud too). To top it off, Reaper has excellent health-siphon damage and heal, and the shouts can be used even when you're disabled, so you can get some health when in emergency. Combine all of these with some crowd-control effects (and Reaper is PACKED with crowd-control), and you can reliably break the champions' defiance bar to give you some breathing room.
• Second room, the champion golem's defiance bar recovers quite quickly, making 'soft' crowd-control (such as chill, slow, cripple, immobilize, fear) more effective than 'hard' crowd-control, and Reaper proves once again that the class is up to the task. Alternate between breaking its defiance bar and turning on the ventilation in the room to blow off the poison gas, and you should be good to go.
• Final room, four champion golems. One at a time, just a breeze. Four at the same time, same procedure as with first room : "Chill to the Bones !" and "Suffer !" for AOE damage, then sword skill 5 for AOE fear, then switch to Reaper Shroud and use skill 5 again, and you can break their defiance very well.

Cliffside : Doable solo, but can be hard.
The main ordeal is that you have to carry the Cultist's Hammer (which constantly corrupts you until 40 stacks, upon which you are downed), to the seals to break them ; you have to kill an enemy while wielding the hammer to activate skill 4 (break the seal of the statue). You don't have to land the actual killing blow with the hammer (its damage is pretty damn low), you can do it with other skills too.

• Knee seal : No issues on my end.
• Chest seal : Kind of annoying with the constant fire dropped from above, but wasn't too bad.
• Arm seals : I almost thought I'd fail at this part, due to the seals regenerating health, while I had to wait for the corruption stack to decrease. It was a pretty tight clutch, but I managed it.
• Neck seal : Not as hard as the arm seals, I had no issues with the final boss because Reaper has lots of health-siphon damage and heal options for me to keep the DPS while keeping myself safe.

Once again, Reaper proves to be top-tier in soloing things in GW2...

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

However, my biggest issue with Catalyst in particular, as well as some other classes in general, is that the profession mechanic is NOT usable underwater.

I stand corrected. The Jade Sphere CAN be used underwater. I guess there was a bug when I got underwater that made the skill not usable. Either way, still not a fan of Elementalist's attacks underwater, they are very underwhelming.

I managed to get the GOLD rank in the Skyscale Target Practice and Supply Run adventures in Amnytas, which is huge. Though, the events in SOTO are pretty brutal. I'll see if there're achievements that don't require events so I can get enough mastery points ; just need 3 more. It's mostly for the Convergence, which I don't even play to begin with, I guess I just don't wanna leave 3 points remaining there...

I'm also really considering focusing on gearing up my Necromancer.

 

[Empress Mother Jin]

Got the trait 'Infinite Forge' for my Virtuoso (Mesmer), and my life got a LOT easier. Before that, stocking a blade was tedious as hell, but now I just get blade every 3 seconds (and if I use all 5 blades, I get 2 back). I'm already able to solo a good number of champions with just this trait alone, and I haven't even unlocked Virtuoso-specific healing and utility skills yet... right now I'm only keeping Clone-summon utility skills to break-stun in case I get in trouble. maybe when I get the Virtuoso-specific skills, I can be more aggressive.

For me, greatsword is best for clearing mobs, with good damage burst, while dagger/pistol is better for bosses. I haven't tried shield yet, but it looks promising, with some solid defensive skills for me to keep myself alive longer.

Personally, I think End of Dragon specializations are just generally better than the previous ones, with one exception : base Guardian and Dragonhunter are still my favorite over Willbender.