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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:Time to make a positive post! Chronomancer is hella fun and Chronophantasma/alacrity brings back shatter burst in a big way. That is great news for me because I loving love shatter mesmer. Yeah, Chronomancer is fantastic. It's just so stupid fun and good.
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Oct 24, 2015 19:08
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Reddit is interesting today. On the one hand, the topics getting upvoted the most are about "uh guys did you expect to beat HoT in a day? Stop complaining about grinding  ," which is not surprising. On the other hand, all the top-rated comments in those threads are people actually explaining that, no, they didn't want to finish HoT in one day, they just want to play their drat elite spec. Usually if something gets upvoted into the sky, only comments agreeing with it are getting upvoted, too.I dunno. I'm feeling really unmotivated to play, which is a shame. I just want to play Chronomancer and I'm sure I could just put my head down and grind it out and have it in a week of my usual playing but... I don't want to do that. Hunting down hero points isn't fun. But also, I better do it soon, before everyone else moves on and I have to beg goons to help me kill the champs. 
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Oct 25, 2015 05:30
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mind the walrus posted:Can we take a second to acknowledge the irony that gating the hero points behind huge maps and challenges to mitigate binge-gaming is actually getting many people to say "gently caress better do this fast before the crowds disappear and I have to beg people who already completed it to help me"? I think I feel this way for two reasons: 1. The thing they gated behind those hero points is, no joke, like 50% of the reason I got the expansion pack. I was hoping I'd have Chronomancer fully unlocked and be able to use it for most of Heart of Thorns's story stuff, but that probably won't happen unless I binge the hero points. 2. Most hero point challenges are incredibly punishing to solo. If that wasn't the case, I think I'd probably just shut up and go do it and it would be fine. Make them veterans, not champions, and you solve most of the problem. As it is, I think it's going to be a nightmare to unlock elite specs a few months from now. It adds to the pressure to do it right now because it's going to be much more of a pain to do it later.
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Oct 25, 2015 05:39
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Eltoasto posted:The biggest issue I had was just the scarcity of players. Tons of people are doing the xpac content, yet I am running around only occasionally seeing someone. If there were tons of people, then that champ wouldn't be so bad. I wonder if they lowered the number of players on maps to avoid issues, or maybe the whole dang thing is counting as one zone for number purposes. My guess is the second one: each big zone probably counts as one zone for player population purposes, so even though they're letting in a number of players that would be fine in any other zone, it feels like there aren't nearly enough. It's why you end up feeling like you have to actively party up with people to do events, because you can't rely on just running across enough people. If they fixed that somehow, that would go a long way towards improving the open world experience.
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Oct 25, 2015 05:52
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:The last two nights we have had goontrains running as many hero points as possible (thank you so much Monorang, Hlatun and Schpyder) and I can safely say that without a mass of helpful guildmates unlocking hero points loving sucks. They're going to have to either tone down the champions or lower the hero point requirements for elite specs, ideally both, within a couple of months or it's going to be awful.
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Oct 25, 2015 05:59
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malhavok posted:It's been two days, how is that even considered grinding? Hell most of the time I just wander around with no clue what's going on. I've managed to knock out 180 point without any maps, guides, walkthroughs or beta experience. In a day or two all this poo poo is going to be on dulfy and the only obstacle to getting your elite spec in a few hours is going to be finding a group for the champs. That part is exactly the problem though. The maps are already empty enough (just due to their size without an increased player cap) that it takes real effort to find people to do hero challenges with. What happens in a couple of months? What if I'm a new player who starts in January? GW2 has never been a game that forced you into going out of your way to actively party with people for the general open-world stuff, and yet here we are. I also don't think it's too absurd to want to do Heart of Thorns as your elite spec, not for your elite spec. Let masteries be the long-term "horizontal" progression.
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Oct 25, 2015 14:37
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They really did succeed at making the new areas feel really hostile and dangerous. That would be fun and cool if they also increased the player numbers in them so that I wasn't running around alone almost all the time. It makes getting XP to unlock masteries a lot less fun, given that the main source of that seems to be events that nobody else is doing. 
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Oct 25, 2015 15:37
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Nektu posted:I'm kinda wondering if the people that die all the time are still in full zerker. Because moving away from that ... helps? I'm actually finding that I live longer if I go zerker than otherwise, if only because a lot of the enemy types (especially things like Smokescales) really incentivize you to kill them before they kill you. And in events, it really pays to be able to kill enemies quickly so you don't get overwhelmed by numbers. Marauder's might be good, though, once that's commonly available.
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Oct 25, 2015 18:51
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Chronomancer is definitely the best elite spec. It's just so complete and it fits into Mesmer so nicely. I wish I felt motivated to finish unlocking it now though 
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Oct 26, 2015 01:08
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Mercurius posted:I'll be honest though, as efficient as the hero point trains were I actually think I preferred running around with 2-3 other people exploring stuff and doing challenges as we found them. That's what I'd much prefer to do, but I really want Chronomancer fully unlocked as soon as possible. At least I had world completion to give me a head start and I have it in an almost usable condition right now, but I still only have the first column of major traits. I think that's why I'm so upset about how many hero points elite specs require. I'd love to just run around and explore and have fun, but I feel this pressure to unlock Chronomancer ASAP because I'm so excited about it. It's a tension I don't find fun, but I'm sure I'll get over it eventually. Gliding is really fun, though. I love that I can basically fall from any height I like as long as I tap the space bar before I land.
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Oct 26, 2015 01:46
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How much do the special guild hall weapons cost? I really want the Shimmering Sword skin.
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Oct 26, 2015 02:13
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Apparently, ArenaNet are looking into the population issues in HoT maps. Hopefully something comes of this, because the expansion would be a lot more fun with enough people around to do events with.
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Oct 26, 2015 15:13
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Totbot posted:I maxed out two Elite specs in two days. Well gently caress, maybe I'll do that. WvW is more fun than hero point hunting at the moment--then I can just explore the HoT areas at my own pace secure in the knowledge that I've got my elite spec unlocked and everything is fine. WvW wins again!
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Oct 26, 2015 15:22
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Lyer posted:So my method of continuum split: let all cooldowns come up > pop 3 clones/illusions > CS > drop timewarp, wells, some sort of dps skill sword 2 for me usually, (0or heals depending on the situation) > repeat once CS stops. Well of Eternity is a particularly good heal to use with Continuum Split if you can time it right. Drop the well towards the end of your CS duration, then when you hop back to the normal timeline, you can catch the ending heal and then still have your healing skill available. Turns out I really like the wells. Well of Calamity basically has a permanent place on my bar right now.
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Oct 26, 2015 16:21
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ItBurns posted:You still have the issue that the story is (was) gated by the masteries which nobody intended to level which required doing events in the zone that nobody intended to explore which is coincidentally how you would find the mastery and hero points that nobody wants. You're conveniently ignoring that there are real problems with those zones that even ArenaNet have acknowledged, like how the player caps for them are far too low and they end up feeling empty. Really dangerous zones are cool, and these particular zones are very well-made, but they only work when there are plenty of players around to do the events with. That ties back into the mastery issue, which is that they require a lot of XP to level, and the best way to get that XP is to do events, but those events are a huge pain in the rear end because there aren't enough people around to do them with. Goon guilds can sidestep this a bit because there's a ton of us so we can all just group up and do them together, but "just join a huge guild" isn't a good answer for the majority of players and runs counter to GW2's intended open-world design. Hopefully, it'll be fixed sooner than later, though. I also don't think it's too crazy to want to do most of Heart of Thorns as your elite spec, rather than doing most of Heart of Thorns to unlock your elite spec. ItBurns posted:Without going too far into ~balance~, I'll just say that phantasm builds are absolutely absurd right now. I've soloed most of the champion hero points that people are complaining about using a signet build with phantasms (Dom, dueling, illusions). The damage reduction on minions might actually be too much, but I'm not complaining. Phantasm builds are nuts in PvE now, which is a nice change from "phantasms get blown up all the goddamn time."
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Oct 26, 2015 16:36
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khy posted:I tried the trial over the weekend. It was interesting enough to pay for the full game. Now I'm a little overwhelmed by it all. I hit level 10 and went into the main human city and it's about seven or eight times bigger than I had thought it'd be. Having so many weapon choices and skill choices as well makes me wonder on more than one occasion whether or not I'm making the right choice by dropping this scepter in exchange for that dagger or vice versa. Don't worry much about weapon choice or skill choice. The game is very super forgiving when it comes to what you use in most content, and you can change at a moment's notice. Use what feels fun and what helps you kill things and not get killed in return and you'll do just fine. I'd also like a mount system, honestly, though some people prefer the lack of it. The Swiftness boon is really helpful. What class are you playing? Most classes have ways to move more quickly in/out of combat, either by granting themselves Swiftness regularly or through passive signet skills or traits that boost base movement speed.
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Oct 26, 2015 17:17
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Ciaphas posted:Thanks, sounds interesting. I guess legends aren't really far from engineer kits, then. Building for conditions means stacking the Condition Damage stat (and probably Expertise, which is condition duration) and using skills that inflict Poison, Bleed, Burning, Torment, and/or Confusion. It's damage-over-time stuff. It's better now than it's ever been, though Power direct-damage builds are still more popular. Necromancers, Revenants, and Engineers have very strong condition damage builds, though.
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Oct 26, 2015 18:24
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Ciaphas posted:Thank you both. I guess deciding on builds and gearing and such is something you don't really do until 80, right? I'm still just kind of picking whatever gear seems to have bigger numbers, whatever those numbers actually are Yeah, don't worry too much until you're 80, and even then, switching builds isn't a huge deal. Exotic gear is pretty accessible, so having a power set and a condition set isn't too tall of an order once you're 80. As for Mesmer being boring to watch? In PvE, probably. Most PvE Mesmers summon phantasms and let them do most of the work. Some people are experimenting with shatter-based Chronomancer PvE builds, though, which are hilarious to watch when someone's doing it right. In this video, watch the Mesmer who isn't the one recording as she turns into a pink blur of death.
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Oct 26, 2015 19:13
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khy posted:Been playing elementalist, since I got bored with wow but still miss my fire mage from time to time, and also Necromancer because I was hoping for pets but haven't got any yet. Both classes have some solid passive mobility. For Elementalist, the Air Magic trait line has a passive that lets you move 20% faster while attuned to air, and there are plenty of air spells that grant Swiftness (Windborne Speed on the staff, Updraft on the offhand dagger are a couple of examples). Necromancer has a signet that grants you 25% extra movement speed passively (Signet of the Locust). Signets are utility skills that have a passive effect when they're not on cooldown, and can be activated for another effect, but you lose the passive until the cooldown is up. Every class except Engineer and Revenant have signets. MooCowlian posted:What was mesmer PvE like before the minions change? All my mesmer pve was played mostly like my pvp build with a few adjustments for more damage, which meant shattering them more or less as soon as they appeared anyway. "Optimal" Mesmer PvE for group DPS played about the same as it does now, it was just shittier because your phantasms died too easily. The "ideal" DPS rotation was to summon two phantasms, use Signet of the Ether, and summon a third to get three up right away, and then resummon them when you get a chance, shatter rarely if ever, and do sword attacks. Now, you can do basically the same thing, only you won't have to resummon your phantasms nearly as often and, if you use Chronomancer, you can actually shatter without destroying your DPS, so it's a straight upgrade. And in that video I posted, people are experimenting with full-on shatter-crazy PvE builds with extremely high Alacrity and Quickness uptime. It's really fun if you're into the "press all the buttons all the time" style.
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Oct 26, 2015 20:06
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All this talk of doing WvW for hero points is giving me some hope that maybe I'll unlock Chronomancer fully this week. I think I need like 180ish Hero Points now (I used my world completion ones plus a couple of challenges in Verdant Brink so far). How long do you all think that'd take to get in WvW? I think once I get Chronomancer unlocked and ArenaNet figures out whatever's going on with low player numbers in the HoT maps I'll finally start having fun with this expansion.
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Oct 26, 2015 20:32
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^ From what I can tell, the most important Maguuma masteries are gliding, updraft usage, and bouncing mushrooms. After that I've been told to go for the first rank of exalted lore, then just level whichever ones you want after that.malhavok posted:I did like an hour unboosted earlier and got 26. I've got boosters coming out my nose, so that's promising.
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Oct 26, 2015 20:44
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Sprite141 posted:Right. I got glider usage and just started bouncing mushrooms. I'll go after updraft and then exalted afterwards. Once that's done I'll be pushing glider to max for the nice stamina buffs amd whatever. I don't know if there's any indicator. It would be nice if the glider stamina meter stayed visible until it refilled.
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Oct 26, 2015 20:52
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I gotta say, the combination of Chronomancer, the minion damage reduction change, and the danger level of the HoT zones is making Chaos a much more attractive PvE trait line for Mesmers. Specifically, Illusionary Defense is much nicer than it once was. You take 3% less damage for each illusion you have in the world, and it's much easier to keep three illusions up at all times when you're getting them back for shattering and when they don't get instantly blown up by AoEs. Pretty much always taking 9% less damage in combat is very, very nice. I'm even tempted to take staff instead of greatsword and slap on Chaotic Dampening for easy access to Protection and good ol' Chaos Storm fun. Phantasmal Berserker has been very nice, though, now that it doesn't die unless an enemy specifically targets it, so greatsword probably still wins out. EDIT: Other Chronomancer building talk: are other Chronomancers finding Well of Eternity useful in open-world PvE? I like being able to heal others and I like the idea of being able to time it with Continuum Split to be able to heal myself with the ending heal and then still have my heal skill available. And I can trait it to give me alacrity. The downside, of course, is that I lack the instant heal of Ether Feast and I have to stay inside the well to get healed. Harrow fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 21:13
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GI_Clutch posted:I can see it now. Anet reduces the number of hero points required to fully unlock elite specialization (or something similar). The first few responses are "THANK YOU!!!!!" They are soon followed by "I already put X hours into your kitten gating mechanics and finding other players to complete these ridiculous jungle hero challenges. What do I get for already having done this?" That's about as safe a bet as "humans will continue to need oxygen to survive tomorrow." The one thing you can always be sure of with MMO players is that any quality-of-life change will be immediately followed up by demands that players be rewarded for putting up with not having that quality-of-life change because it makes them better than all players who will come after.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:15
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Holy gently caress I want these glittering weapons so bad: http://dulfy.net/2015/10/25/gw2-upcoming-gemstore-items-from-hot-patch/ (Greatsword, pistol, and shield in particular) Guessing those'll be the next round of Black Lion Claim Ticket weapons.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:49
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MooCowlian posted:Holy poo poo those glittering weapons are going to make me poor. Right? This is the first set of (probably) BLCT weapons that I want more than one of. I want the pistol, shield, and greatsword in that order, and I wouldn't mind having the sword, either. They're just so wonderfully Mesmer-y. The Lyssa outfit looks pretty nice, too--the mask changing depending on the race of the wearer is a nice touch.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:17
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Gwyrgyn Blood posted:It's pretty great and makes the game 100% less annoying on your hands. It can be kind of tricky if you use a class with a ton of manual ground target skills though (like Grenade Engineer) but there are some lock-on hotkeys that help. I really want to make it work with Chronomancer. The only problem I have with it is that it's tough to target the healing well under myself without swinging the camera wildly. But it's better than I expected on that front, especially when coupled with some of the other ground-targeting features (cast on button release, lock targeting to the max range).
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Oct 26, 2015 22:46
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Hefty posted:There's no way to bind the "aoes follow target" option to a key, right? It's great unless you're fighting a big group of enemies or until you want to drop a helpful aoe at your feet or on a friend. How cool would it be if we could modify AoE targeting on a skill-by-skill basis? Like, for Chronomancer wells, I'd make Well of Calamity snap to my target usually, but Well of Eternity or Precognition snap to my own feet.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:53
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^ I guess I'm just not sure what the point of it is if it isn't meaningfully cheaper than just buying one off the trading post. Being doable in small increments is nice, I guess, but in the end, you could have put in pretty much the same amount of effort/gold and just bought it off the trading post, which is also "guaranteed."Smith Comma John posted:Turns out that the precursor collection quest ends up costing you almost as much money as buying it off the TP directly Well, it's clear that ArenaNet like precursor prices just how they are, I guess. It was probably stupid of me to hope that this expansion would introduce ways to earn really cool rewards via means other than "get a bunch of gold" or "buy gems," but I did hope that. It's probably semantic. It's not necessarily the amount of effort that precursor crafting requires is something I wouldn't be willing to do--it's just that, when you notice at the end that you could've just bought the loving thing for a handful more gold, it really takes all the magic out of it. I'm starting to wonder if the only winning move really is not to play. Harrow fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 13:58
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orcane posted:Also you're still running into the problem that if your increments are too small, by the time you get enough gold for the precursor, its price has increased by 100g again. Except this time, the price of "mats you need a trillion of" has risen by 100g total. Considering how many more steps you need beyond the precursors that can also be broken down to "farm a million mats or the gold for them", I'm not sure we really needed that many more increments that are pure mat/gold sinks TBH. I think I'm just disappointed that, once I'm done with the (admittedly pretty cool) HoT story and once I do the (also pretty cool) new world bosses a few times, I'm just going to be back to doing what I did before HoT: doing dumb stuff over and over to accumulate gold. Again, I don't know what I was expecting, so laughing at me is probably warranted, but I'm bummed anyway. At least I'd be doing it with cool Chronomancer skills and with a few new world bosses to do instead of just Tequila the Sunrise over and over.
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Oct 27, 2015 15:23
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Schpyder posted:If you join my nightly HP train, you'll get around 150 HP in about an hour and a half with nothing more than basic gliding. And more after that if you have exalted marks, bouncing mushrooms, or updraft usage. About what time do you usually run the HP train? I should probably get it on that. Itching for those high-tier Chronomancer skills.
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Oct 27, 2015 16:47
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CLAM DOWN posted:What about the new weapon skins I saw on zone vendors, like the Auric? Aural? set, or whatever it's called, I don't remember Yeah, there are Auric weapons. Also the Guild Hall weapon skins, Shimmering and Tenebrous. Shab posted:Sorry to dredge this up from a few pages ago. Don't know what controller you're working with, but I experimented with setting up a config profile for the Steam controller last night and it works... amazingly well. I'm tempted to set up a Dark Souls-ish control scheme on a 360 controller. B for dodge, RB for mouse 1, RT for skill 2, that kind of thing.
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Oct 27, 2015 18:15
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Maybe a 360 controller set up like: Weapon 1 (Mouse 1) - RB Weapon 2 - RT Weapon 3 - LT + A Weapon 4 - LT + X Weapon 5 - LT + Y Healing - Y Utilities - Left, Down, and Right on d-pad Elite - Up on d-pad Dodge - B Interact - X Jump - A Is there a way to map the mouse cursor to the right stick so it can work as camera controls when in action camera? It'd even let me use the right stick plus RB to interact with menus, maybe map LB to mouse 2 so I can right click stuff.
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Oct 27, 2015 18:23
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The Chronomancer shoulders make me sad because they look really cool, but they're absurdly massive on male sylvari.
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Oct 27, 2015 18:51
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Schpyder posted:30 min after server reset. Is server reset still 8 EST/5 PST? I remember hearing that it changed but I don't remember details. EDIT: Yes. It is. I googled it. Harrow fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 19:54
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Ciaphas posted:Thanks. What do you mean by old-fashioned way, what's the "new-fashioned" way? What are tomes? You can get Tomes of Knowledge from a variety of sources (daily login rewards and PvP reward tracks in particular). Using one immediately gives you enough XP to gain one level. It's really easy to stockpile Tomes of Knowledge if you do a lot of PvP, so a lot of people are able to powerlevel characters all the way to 80 just using them. The "old-fashioned way" would be leveling by actually going out and doing events and hearts and stuff.
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Oct 27, 2015 20:34
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Yes, this is amazing. Hell yes. I wonder how far along the 230 points I've already put into it will put me.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:39
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treizebee posted:The recap is fewer required hero points, refined adventure minigames, and fixed a setting that caused low player population in the new zones I missed that bolded part! I'm officially excited for Heart of Thorns again. I mean, still not stoked about the legendary precursor collection prices, but whatever, at least the open-world stuff will be fun and unlocking elite specs won't be painful. I wonder when the patch is coming.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:44
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I'm just happy that I only need like 10-20 more hero points to finish unlocking Chronomancer now. I had 200 right from the start as world completion surplus and I've done three or four (can't remember) of the easy, just-glide-there-and-interact hero points in Verdant Brink.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:47
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 06:38 |
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As you all probably already know, the official forums is now wonderfully divided between "yes, this is an amazing change!" and "ugh, I am disgusted that Anet gave into the whiners." Your Computer posted:Wow, that solves a lot of problems in one fell swoop. Now if only they tuned the mobs too so it would be I think the intention is for the mobs to stay really difficult, but the increased player numbers to mean that even if you're just running around without a party, you're never actually alone. If that's how it works out, then I'm happy. GW2 open world is the most fun for me when I can just casually run into an event with a group of people and kick some rear end, and the difficult HoT enemies will make more sense when you're rarely tackling them alone. Harrow fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 21:51
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