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Mailer posted:The caveat to this (at least in my case) is I want to be useful to any given group. I'm never going to beat the playing-for-a-decade guy on whatever meters but if I can do a reasonable amount of damage, or keep alacrity up, or heal, or tank (are there tanks in fractals?) sufficiently then I'm happy. Ditto for soloing all the content that is viable solo. I care what I'm playing because I don't want to screw up the game for other people, but I don't care what they're playing because I'm not an rear end in a top hat. That's a great attitude  No group in open world is going to care, at all. Not sure about fractals, I'd like to say the percentage of arseholes is really low in GW2 compared to other games, but I haven't played a whole lot of fractals, and no PUG ones. I can say there are no tanks in GW2, aside from (as far as I understand) some very specific boss fight mechanics in some raids, and even then it's more of a "the boss will target this person and they need to know the appropriate action to take in response" rather than "the boss will punch them in the face and they need to be able to tank the blow". But I've never done any raids either. I'd check out metabattle's fractals section, to pick up some ideas. In general Engineer is pretty heavy on the "keyboard piano", though I don't know about mech specialisation. Probably the least button-pressing would be minions Necromancer with all power/precision/ferocity gear, though I don't know how that fares in fractal PUGs. I keep meaning to get into fractals myself, though I'm inclined to find a guild and do it with the some regular buddies who aren't going to care about being efficient. And, to be fair, I've done barely any fractals in all my time playing the game, so maybe PUG fractals people are actually impatient arseholes who expect you to be playing meta 
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Jan 4, 2023 01:25
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Hyperlynx posted:And, to be fair, I've done barely any fractals in all my time playing the game, so maybe PUG fractals people are actually impatient arseholes who expect you to be playing meta T3 fractals are the worst time I've had in this game. PUG groups with at least two people who aren't good enough to ever make t4 and blame it on you. If you decide to do fractals, just grind t2 until you have enough agony to jump directly t4. Also join the goon guild for chill fractal groups.
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Jan 4, 2023 01:41
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2 classes with decent damage with few buttons. 1) DPS mechanist. press 1, sometimes press 2. press 3 and 4 if there is a breakbar (you dont have to, no one will know if you dont) ((((((If you want to be even lazier, and who doesnt. have flamethrower kit, swap to the juggernaut skill, you now have almost permament stabiliy and with a bit of sustain can go make a cup of tea even in DragonStorm while still doing more than some other people actually playing))))))) 2) Power reaper axe/whatever + greatsword (signet variant/maybe throw in well of suffering if you want to press more buttons) press 2 on cooldown (axe) when you feel like doing some big damage/ someone has pulled in a group press F1, then 5, then 4 (i usually get to half shroud health and press F1 again, as 2 axe is usually ready) This is known as 'spin to win' big boss thingy with lots of hp. when it gets to 50% hp, swap to greatsword hold down 2 3) Minion power reaper or even core necro. Same as above, but you press 7,8,9,10 each time you enter a new map, if you are core necro, just press 1. These are fun to play. I 'main' a reaper and my 2nd go to is mechanist. I do scourge in wvw 4) There is a power? theif? of some sort, where you press 5 and then 2..... details kinda hazy. you stealth and then attack from stealth. Im trying to do world completion on it, and its no mechanist :/
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Jan 4, 2023 02:34
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5 and then 1, with double dagger
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Jan 4, 2023 02:40
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that build is both kinda bad despite its disgusting bench and extremely deceptively hard, I do not recommend dagger dagger Deadeye to any but the most broken brained thief lovers
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Jan 4, 2023 03:18
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Double pistol thief 3333333333333333333333
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Jan 4, 2023 03:37
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Heh, there's actually a Teapot competition video (which may be wildly irrelevant - I don't know about patches) for builds with the lowest possible APM with highest DPS/support output. I don't quite run mech that lazy, but if I had the gear to I totally would.
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Jan 4, 2023 04:08
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I have a rifle deadeye with dagger/dagger on weapon switch, that I really enjoy playing. My stats show she has died FAR more times than my other characters.
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Jan 4, 2023 04:17
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Mailer posted:I'm never going to beat the playing-for-a-decade guy on whatever meters As that guy, you absolutely can, with a little effort. I constantly rotate characters and specs and forget what buttons do and don't have meters installed and focus on high intensity achievements like annual festivals and roller beetle races. I am an objectively terrible GW2 player and still have a good time with this dead game.
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Jan 4, 2023 04:58
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Late Unpleasantness posted:As that guy, you absolutely can, with a little effort. agreed, most people who play this game are terrible and most people who have been playing for a long time are terrible and complacent, it doesn't stop them from having fun though, you just have to find the way you want to have fun
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Jan 4, 2023 08:10
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Regarding low intensity builds, Hardstuck.gg has a specific "LI" marker for builds that don't require remembering and executing elaborate keyboard chains. Regarding runes, this very recent video covers the best rune choices for thrifty players. The difference in performance is mostly non-noticeable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGRRc9-P1K4
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Jan 4, 2023 08:26
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Mailer posted:I don't ever see myself as the guy with all the legendaries because A) no raiding due to timeslot and B) I left my tryhard endgame raider status in TBC-era WoW, so I'm happy just completing things and playing lots of classes/roles and stopping at pink gear. Once I have a handle on all of the mechanics I'll probably roll a second character for a more dedicated support using whatever is the FotM at the time. Legendaries are very long term projects, generally, but I would say raids are probably a lot more accessible than you're expecting. I'm on EU and can pug a successful raid pretty easily, without needing kill proof. I understand in NA you need to use a discord instead though, because no-one uses raid LFG there. Someone who plays there can probably tell you what it is. If you've done wow raiding and understand the guild wars 2 basics, you should be able to just look up a guide then jump straight in. Hardstuck has great written guides: https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/guides/raids/ Mukluk has done a series of (very short) videos: https://mukluklabs.com/gw2-raid-guides. Definitely don't sleep on strikes though, assuming you have access - they're probably never going to make another raid in favour of strike missions, which are essentially a raid boss but without any trash. Also great money - you can do the daily EoD strike and the fast 5 IBS strikes each day to maximise rewards. They can even drop ascended gear, and give tokens so you can buy it. Demon_Corsair posted:T3 fractals are the worst time I've had in this game. PUG groups with at least two people who aren't good enough to ever make t4 and blame it on you. I've heard this from a lot of different sources, but it wasn't my experience at all. T3 was smooth all the way through for me, just doing the dailies and recs every day in random pugs. Sometimes the group would wipe, but generally people just ran back, gave it another go and did better. I've seen more rage quitters and toxicity in T4, though this is "some" as opposed to "none". People are mostly pretty chill in this game.
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Jan 4, 2023 12:21
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It was a big mistake calling the endgame group content 'raids' back in 2014. That term just carries too much baggage.
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Jan 4, 2023 12:35
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How is catalyst these days after the last big patch?
Ra Ra Rasputin fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Jan 4, 2023 |
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Jan 4, 2023 14:50
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I play pistol/pistol mechanist and quite enjoy it. Its not as common as rifle mech but you still get the easy and powerful gameplay that mech gives you. I haven’t played in a few months though so i don’t know how the mech changes has affected it.
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Jan 4, 2023 15:54
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Ineptitude posted:I play pistol/pistol mechanist and quite enjoy it. Its not as common as rifle mech but you still get the easy and powerful gameplay that mech gives you. It works as a very strong (but intense) condi build. The "best" version cycles through grenade kit and bomb kit, but you can probably do just fine with grenades and the condi signet
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Jan 4, 2023 15:57
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Mailer posted:I'm never going to beat the playing-for-a-decade guy on whatever meters The playing-for-a-decade guy you won't be able to compete with is most likely going to be the support not the dps. Good supports carry everything in GW2 and a veteran player with legendary gear and alts to cover every role has a way easier time doing the job than someone with budget exotics who has watched a couple youtube videos. Meanwhile, the playing-for-a-decade dps guy is probably using an outdated snowcrows build they've never understood the mechanics of and sabotaging the group by hitting the wrong target while slowly walking backwards into a death zone. You can easily become like a top 3% guild wars 2 dps player by copying a mrmystic build (https://www.youtube.com/@MrMystic1/videos), following someone else who looks like they know what they're doing, and maybe asking a question when you can't quite figure something out. If playing support seems more fun to you, then definitely still go for it. Flexibility and being able to swap roles is really useful when pugging as support, so it's good to still have a dps setup on hand. For open world groups any type of boon sharing is amazing and if that's your focus then you can never touch a piece of berserker's gear in your life and do fine. Also, speaking from experience I wouldn't focus too hard on being able to solo hard open world stuff starting out. I wasted a bunch of time building metabattle open world builds when I started playing a couple years ago, still struggled to solo anything beyond a few easy champion bounties, and eventually trashed all of the gear and builds. Nowadays I just throw a full dps ranged build at open world stuff and if it doesn't work, I look for a group. Even during off hours there are people in map chat that either want to do the same events/bounties/whatever that I want or are willing to help. Keeping an eye on group finder also helps, both for spontaneous groups and event trains that some guilds regularly run during late night US times.
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Jan 4, 2023 16:03
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Ra Ra Rasputin posted:How is catalyst these days after the last big patch? I play it a lot for open world and WvW roaming. I think it's a lot of fun. It's supposed to be one of the top dueling classes in WvW, but I suck so Open world wise, it feels really good. Plenty of AoE with hammer and hits hard even in celestial. Lots of things you can tweak to provide more support or do more damage. Endgame PvE, it's still one of the top dog power DPS if you can do the rotation. I haven't looked much at simplified variants because I usually just jump to something simpler for group content.
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Jan 4, 2023 16:09
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gnoma posted:If playing support seems more fun to you, then definitely still go for it. Flexibility and being able to swap roles is really useful when pugging as support, so it's good to still have a dps setup on hand. For open world groups any type of boon sharing is amazing and if that's your focus then you can never touch a piece of berserker's gear in your life and do fine. I made an alac support build based on the one on hardstuck (but ignoring grenades because APM can blow me) and... I kinda just didn't switch back all night. Bot autocasting barrier instead of rushing in was a bit annoying, but I changed my keybinds for a bit more ergonomic convenience and everything worked well group or solo. I'm the weird guy who doesn't care - I'll play dps/healer/tank/whatever as long as it's helpful. Doesn't matter to me as long as I'm killing internet dragons and getting shiny loot. Internet says "offensive and defensive support is the most important" and I roll with whatever spec is appropriate. The part that does matter (for a first character) is being able to actually do something outside of a group, so a class I had to double-gear to play healer/solo or whatever was never in the cards. Maybe once I hit the GW2 lottery and have infinite gold I'll roll specific classes for specific roles, but mech seemed like it could kindasorta fill in everywhere and also let me cruise through overworld stuff. It's a lot of fun rocking with a train or whatever but AU timeframes don't permit that often so you have to be able to hang solo. Plus, at least in PoF, I kinda dig the storyline.
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Jan 4, 2023 19:33
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gnoma posted:The playing-for-a-decade guy you won't be able to compete with is most likely going to be the support not the dps. Good supports carry everything in GW2 and a veteran player with legendary gear and alts to cover every role has a way easier time doing the job than someone with budget exotics who has watched a couple youtube videos. This has been my experience with strikes and fractals. If someone joins with 25,000+ AP, they usually come with a support build. From personal experience playing healer in tons of group content, it's a lot more involved than most DPS builds. Healing + Boons often requires watching your party health in addition to doing everything else a player normally does. It makes content more interesting, which is definitely needed if youve run Super Bear Bros 100+ times. I could top arcdps charts by going on my condi scourge, but that's almost always just F1->9->F5, then literally just mashing every key I feel like mashing.
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Jan 4, 2023 20:07
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I got to 35 or so and used my boost on my Engineer. I asked in guild about getting the Hero points for Mechanist and I didn't really understand their answer, it sounded like grouping up and farming them somehow. I had to step afk so I couldn't ask more about it. I'd rather avoid having to do anything inorganic if possible. Will I earn a decent amount of hero points just doing the story missions? I'd like to switch to Mechanist asap so I can start getting used to the buttons.
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Jan 5, 2023 00:04
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On each of the expansion maps, there will be hero point challenges scattered around (little yellow arrow icon). Each one is worth 10 points, you need 250 to fully unlock an elite spec. You'll uncover them organically as you explore the maps. For Path of Fire and End of Dragons, the challenges are fairly easy (commune, or fight a guy that's not too difficult solo). Heart of Thorns hero points are much, much harder generally speaking, and are tuned for small groups, not solo players. People frequently post HP trains in LFG, where a large group runs through the expansion maps and clears all the challenges. It's significantly easier in a big group, which is probably what they were talking about in guild chat. If you're not doing expansion maps yet, you might be able to unlock a spec just by clearing core game hero challenges, though those are worth 1 point instead of 10, so it's... not recommended.
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Jan 5, 2023 00:13
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big cummers ONLY posted:I'd rather avoid having to do anything inorganic if possible. Will I earn a decent amount of hero points just doing the story missions? I'd like to switch to Mechanist asap so I can start getting used to the buttons. There's no hero points for the story specifically, just for levelling 1-80 and the challenges around the world. 1-80 will only get you 400, of which you'll spend 300 unlocking your core specs, and mechanist will cost you 250. You could get the remaining 150 from the challenges around the world during the core story, but you're doing it one by one and it's like 75% of the total so it's going to be really slow and really inorganic. Your options are to keep playing regular engi until you get through the core game and into the expansion content (which is more or less how the game is designed to be played) or skip to the expansion maps and join a group doing a hero point train, which will probably unlock the last 150 you need in like half an hour.
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Jan 5, 2023 01:14
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The hero points just from going 1-80 is only enough for unlocking the core specializations and the core utility skills, so plan on needing to get 250 hero points for your first (and every subsequent) elite specialization.
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Jan 5, 2023 01:20
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big cummers ONLY posted:I got to 35 or so and used my boost on my Engineer. I asked in guild about getting the Hero points for Mechanist and I didn't really understand their answer, it sounded like grouping up and farming them somehow. I had to step afk so I couldn't ask more about it. Your free hero points from leveling up are reflected in being maxed out by the boost. Elite specs need to come from hero point communes/challenges out in the open world. The problem is you need 250 points (I think?) to unlock an elite profession entirely, which is when you'd want to switch. You'd get there eventually but it'd be a very long time as "old" world hero point locations provide a single point. Expansion ones provide ten points, but sometimes involve group-oriented difficult encounters and often require a lot of movement/mount skills you may/may not have. To combat this the community will run "Hero Point trains" (HP trains) where someone with a staggering amount of locational knowledge will lead a massive squad through all the points in one or multiple areas. In my case it was the HoT expansion areas and resulted in like 400-ish hero points for around 90 minutes of running around. All that was required was a glider and a raptor. In places where movement would require mastery levels (gliders getting lift from updrafts, bouncing on mushrooms, etc) they'd portal players to the next location. It was glorious chaos and ended with all of mech and half of scrapper unlocked. It is not organic, but it's the only way you're going to see an elite spec any time soon. You can get the glider fast and skip the initial farm for that by looking for people in LFG doing something in one of the End of Dragons zones and then burning a Teleport to Friend token to port there and bailing once you port over. As soon as you enter an EoD zone the glider automatically unlocks. Bonus points for getting into New Kaineng City, which will get you a free Springer mount from one of the hearts. Again - not organic - but a glider and a springer for a couple of minutes' effort will allow you to reach a lot of hero/mastery points.
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Jan 5, 2023 01:25
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You also get lots of a Hero Point currency for doing either of the PvP modes. I find that more fun than HP trains, but either way gets the same result
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Jan 5, 2023 02:16
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Ooh yeah, PvP and WvW both throw items you can redeem for hero points at you in spades. Before End of Dragons launched I was able to stockpile 250 points on every character so I could unlock the new specs on day one of the expansion.
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Jan 5, 2023 02:21
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It's not really my cup of tea, but I used to do my dumb pvp requirement every week in Destiny 2 so I'm not above doing it for loot. How much of a participation trophy can I walk away with from PvP/WvW in random matchmaking?
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Jan 5, 2023 04:29
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Not sure, but you can expect a fair bit of salt. PvP seems to be a big exception to GW2's generally chill playerbase.
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Jan 5, 2023 04:45
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Mailer posted:It's not really my cup of tea, but I used to do my dumb pvp requirement every week in Destiny 2 so I'm not above doing it for loot. How much of a participation trophy can I walk away with from PvP/WvW in random matchmaking? If you WvW'd for about 4-5 hours a week, it would probably take less than 4 weeks to get the currency (Testimonies of Jade Heroics) needed for enough hero points to complete an elite spec on a character. It would take a bit more net WvWing time if you tried to do it all in 1 week; the early tiers of the weekly skirmish reward track take less time to complete.
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Jan 5, 2023 05:53
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There are pvp reward tracks which you earn progress on by participating in matches, doing dailies etc. Don't need to be particularly good to knock a few of these out. I'm not good, or care to get good at pvp but did quite well with the strategy of "stay out of the pointless free for all melee in the middle of the map, cap uncontested points, if no points are uncontested turtle up". The secret of pvp to me seems to be that kills are pointless and it's all about good rotation and map awareness.
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Jan 5, 2023 06:50
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Avalerion posted:There are pvp reward tracks which you earn progress on by participating in matches, doing dailies etc. Don't need to be particularly good to knock a few of these out. Yeah that's what I was looking for. Like if you only get points for being the bestest at PvP there's literally no point in joining, but if sometimes we win and sometimes we don't and either way points happen at a good clip that's more my speed. I'm not afk... just not good. Edit: Oh, and on dailies - Since I realized you get other races' starting points and there hasn't been an EoD map for me yet, I've been doing them. They show up when I log in, are on the quest tracker, and when I do them they poof out of existence and I can't figure out how to recall the list. Are PvP dailies and whatever the third category is a separate thing and I need to figure out where the hell the daily menu is, or is it just three things of any tab and you're done? Mailer fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Jan 5, 2023 |
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Jan 5, 2023 07:25
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It's three dailies in any combination of pvp, wvw, or pve to get the daily 2g bonus, though the individual dailies give different rewards (pvp and wvw give reward track bonuses, for example). PVP on a whole is painful (mostly because of other people) but the devs know its painful so it rewards you handsomely for your time and suffering.
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Jan 5, 2023 07:54
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A trick with PvP dailies I do is save the "potions of pvp rewards" and chug a couple on "pvp reward dailies" for free loot.
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Jan 5, 2023 08:48
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Ra Ra Rasputin posted:A trick with PvP dailies I do is save the "potions of pvp rewards" and chug a couple on "pvp reward dailies" for free loot. if you're not laser focused on a particular goal it's nice to save 80/160/240 bc 80 is how many you need to instantly complete a track
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Jan 5, 2023 08:55
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Going to add The HoT HP trains are actually pretty fun, but not the first time you do it. Youll be super confused with the 49 skyscales blasting every colour you can think of, and youll miss turns and get lost, and youll get the HP last and its already done..... BUT ALWAYS SAY THAT. Hey i missed that because i jumped when i wasnt meant to and im dead at the bottom of the HoT map, dont worry, people have done dumber things, the commander has seen it all. Just tell them, they will come back for you. And restart the HP (If they dont, there are some non chill Hp trains), dont worry, there will be another one.. And dont worry about gear. 2/3rd of the party have just hit their lvl 80 boost and have their lvl 1 gear on. I typically tip 1 g per map, and feel cheap doing so, im sure some people dont tip at all, or only 1g total
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Jan 5, 2023 11:09
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Also don't worry too much if you do miss some, there's significantly more points available than there are specs to spend them on so it doesn't matter too much if you join late, leave early, get lost, don't have the right mastery, etc etc.
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Jan 5, 2023 11:21
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Mailer posted:
If you are asking what I think you are asking, hit "H" to bring up the achievements tab. Dailies are at the top of that list on the left. You can look at the ones you completed for the day, as well as the other ones. This will also let you look at other achievement categories, there are a lot! You can track an achievement by clicking the little eyeball thing, and clicking it again will untrack it. If you aren't tracking anything else I believe the pve dailies pop in your tracker. Once you start tracking other things the dailies don't populate your tracker and you need to add them manually. If you haven't already, make sure you have joined both goon guilds. GOON guild hall specifically is good for knocking out the desert gathering cheevs.
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Jan 5, 2023 12:38
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Man getting things more ergonomic with Ctrl as a modifier has really made the game more fun. I'm popping everything and teleporting all over like it ain't no thing. Makes me feel like a real badass until a jump-over-the-waves ability happens and I am thrown back to the reality that I'm probably playing with like 400ms of latency. Is there a site somewhere that currently tracks what metas are up? My current process is "oh poo poo a commander tag go follow that" but I'd imagine those with that tag probably have that information ahead of time. Meskhenet posted:(If they dont, there are some non chill Hp trains), dont worry, there will be another one.. This person's name was literally something like "Com for HP Trains" so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they're pretty common. I really need to try to find that name again because I'm still tradelocked until tomorrow and I felt like a jerk not tipping. I'm honestly kind of surprised at the positional awareness for all of it from the strict paths to the portaling at exact locations. Also biiiig pro strat and the reason I wasted multiple TP to friends: when the commander drops all the symbols at the bottom of a cliff and everyone piles into a clipping mess and you start hearing tinkly sounds, that's a portal. Stack in with everyone else and mash F like your life depends on it because portals are player-limited and the prompt on your screen lasts microseconds. Also with that single train, and a TP into notjapan, I'm currently on my way unlocking my third elite spec. I've only got like four HP locations out of EoD. Definitely do not sweat it if you miss a location or whatever because getting like 390 instead of 410 is not an issue. Also also I was wondering who was doing the portals and then I read about Mesmers and now I really want to roll one.
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Jan 5, 2023 14:36
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Mailer posted:Is there a site somewhere that currently tracks what metas are up? My current process is "oh poo poo a commander tag go follow that" but I'd imagine those with that tag probably have that information ahead of time. You can do /wiki et in game to get the event timer page. If you haven't dug into the wiki, you can /wiki basically anything in game and the wiki is generally quite thorough. Mailer posted:This person's name was literally something like "Com for HP Trains" so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they're pretty common. I really need to try to find that name again because I'm still tradelocked until tomorrow and I felt like a jerk not tipping. I'm honestly kind of surprised at the positional awareness for all of it from the strict paths to the portaling at exact locations. Squad for HP Train, but he has some spaces in there, I believe. He runs them regularly. MajorBonnet fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Jan 5, 2023 |
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Jan 5, 2023 14:47
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