Glacial.9516

I don't think they need to be removed, even if they don't count for the collection, but I agree that they are pretty senseless. I regret the few recipes I purchased (and I only purchased them under the assumption that they could be used for the specialization collections). They could kill 2 birds with1 stone by making the sunspear recipes craft the named weapons (the 2 birds being no way to target farm named weapons, and no use for the recipes).

I thought The Departing was one of the best story instances I've done in a game ... on the first playthrough. Subsequent times it's more frustrating than fun with how long every portion takes. I too enjoyed wandering aimlessly but I hoped more NPCs would have flavour text. And If I recall correctly the only time you actually wander aimlessly is looking for your equipment (which should probably have some indication of the area to search).

> @Ashantara.8731 said:

> > @"Blockhead Magee.3092" said:

> > Bought 10K gems the last week or so because of the much better exchange rate.

>

> Errr... either I am or you are a noob at math. How is spending 1,700 Gems for 250g better than spending only 1,400 Gems for the same amount of gold? Am I missing something?? :o

I assumed he meant that he bought gems with gold because the exchange rate was so low.

>

> > @ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

> > So? That means it's a nice time for less financially secure players to get some gems.

>

> Again: What?! :s (see previous paragraph)

Same thing, I presume it implies that less financially secure players are more likely to use gold than dollars to buy gems so it's a good time to buy.

These four are account bound:

Lost Ring of the Order (Firebrand) (Ring)

Djinn Ceremonial Ring (Weaver) (Ring)

Glowstone Amulet (Weaver) (Amulet)

Awakened Soul (Scourge) (Accessory)

It's strange and it would be nice if they were all account bound (or at the very least, one more accessory to make it a full set of trinkets).

I don't know. Does the guild team working elsewhere really change anything? I hardly see it as the condemnation or the death of guilds. One could argue that adding new content in the forms of open world maps, ~~dungeons~~, raids, fractals, etc. IS creating more content for guilds. It just so happens to also create content for non-guild players as well. I strongly believe that guilds should 'create their own fun' so to speak, whether in the form of motivating your members to play together, organizing map metas, or just starting an HP or bounty run.

It might be nice to have some incentive to do worldly things with guild members, but we already can. And more. Do we need guild commendations (or another reward) for dragging two friends along on a PoF race? Or for 10 guild members participating in a HoT adventure each week? If guild dailies required 2 or 3 additional guild members present it may (and would for me) be more troublesome than not to request attendance while you gather or do an event or kill things. I wouldn't want to ask guildmates to tag along for activities I could easily do solo just for the sake of a guild mission. That feels unfair to them and to me. We should play together because we want to, not because we have to.

I'd certainly like to see more guild missions and some administrative changes (more permissions and split permissions particularly) but I can't shake the feeling that most content which enhances guild group play will be better off not restricted solely to guilds.

> @Kichwas.7152 said:

> > @Zaltys.7649 said:

> > So a new player buys the expansion (note that the base game is no longer sold), and finds out that he can't actually access the content that was advertised.

> >

> > I can't imagine that turning out well.

>

>

> Well... for contrast... this is exactly what FFXIV does. Not only do you have to level all the way through, you have to complete the 'main story quest' for all past content. Roughly 300-500 quests... each of which is a chain process (quests there are not just, go here and do this... each quest is about the length of an entire chapter of a GW2 'story'... you can be sitting at top level for a couple of months before you are even allowed into the next stage of the zones because you still have a few hundred 'chapters' to finish...)

>

> FFXIV still manages to get new people to put up with that, and is still growing. I think they overdo this in the opposite extreme from GW2... but they get away with it.

>

This is very true, and it's one of the main reasons I utterly despise the FF14 story. It's in complete contrast to the way (I believe) it should work. Rush through a story with more fetch quests than content just so that you can unlock new classes and areas only to find even more quests barring you from the next map. I much prefer to meander and explore a map, unlocking things as I go (and turning back if I discover mobs are too strong).

Anyway. I think GW2 has it right. Let the players decide for themselves. If they trip and fall so be it, it's a learning experience. That said we could use more tutorials (as was said earlier in the thread) esp. on Break bars and Combo fields, perhaps with projectiles and reflects as well.

When I read the title to this thread my first thought was...

**In a female Asura voice:** *"I'm bad. I'll die, and I'll leave a bad corpse!"*

I can relate though. Elementalist is my main, with a minor in Thief and Mesmer. While I have a general feel for most of the classes, I often find myself panicking to find CC skills to swap to just before a boss, or forgetting which skills are on which buttons (esp. with Engi kits, or remembering what the tool belt skills are). I like that each class feels different, at least to some extent.

So would this costume randomly grant you stealth and then horrendously murder a nearby player by pouncing on them? That's what Canids are to me~ Scary!

> @"Aurelian Omenkind.2470" said:

> Oh, the spiders. I HATED those. Loved the quest tho. I agree, it was one of the best designed areas of the whole expansion.

> @RoseofGilead.8907 said:

> I, too, loved doing this. Although, I never, ever want to go near that evil spider room again. Cursed spider webs!

Those spiderwebs are one of the few places I've made good use of Portal when solo. I set a portal before moving into them, got to the runestone asap and then took the portal back out.

> @MachineManXX.9746 said:

> Wish I had any clue what you are all talking about.

It's a puzzle in the Dwarven Mines in Desert Highlands.

I agree, this was perhaps the most enjoyable thing I've experienced so far in PoF. Some of it was mildly frustrating at the time (those accursed spiders!!) but I quite liked running through it alone just desperately trying to collect the weapons and runes and trying not to die.

> @Orpheal.8263 said:

> Just as a du.m.b question from someone, who has killed so far by accident coincidentally just such a coffee skritt once and doesn#t knew, what he was doing, because it looked just like the usual skritt event where a skritt with loot bag runs away from you ...

>

> What exactly is so special about this Caffinated Skritt?

>

> Do you get some kind of unique special reward or so from killign this poor skritt 9 times? Like a Title or an Item with a Skin that you can earn only this way?

>

> Or what is to interesting about this Skritt, that people care about it to hunt it down 9 times???

The PoF specialization collections require an item from the Skritt, which means you have to loot the coffee 9 times, once with each class, to complete them all. You do need the collections unlocked however to obtain the items.

> @Daddicus.6128 said:

> I agree, but there is another cost: the gem value. While they can be purchased for real money, they also can be bought with in-game gold. Gems are (very roughly) 180g each for the salvagers. So, it takes about **350 salvages to pay for the copper-fed**. It takes a lot longer for the silver-fed, because the savings are almost nil.

Just a (not so) minor correction here. Copper fed saves 0.52 **copper** per salvage. This means that 350 salvages will be a gain of 182 copper (not gold), and would take 10000x that to reach 182 gold.

When I tip it's usually 1g, but sometimes I'll send a rare if I get one from the JP chest.

Whether I tip or not greatly depends on the jumping puzzle in question and how nice the Mesmer is about it. I'm more inclined to tip if I've been in a map for a while and see the Mesmer helping people for an extended period of time, even if I don't need the JP myself. I'm also more inclined to tip if I find the JP difficult/tedious. And like was said above, if they specifically ask for a tip I'm most likely to just not use their portal at all.

I'm inclined to think this isn't a bug but is intended and as others have said it's the default dye that the armor has. The same thing happens with the Revenant collection items, one of the default colours is Midnight Blue or Midnight Ice or something to that effect and I had to check again because I was sure I didn't have the dye unlocked - and sure enough, I didn't.

> @Batelle.1680 said:

> Also, if you are working towards multiple specialization weapons, when you get your Chest of the First Spear, choose a weapon that will work for more than one spec (axe, sword, or dagger). If you end up having to shell out for all of them, it will save you a little in the long run.

That's a good point. Personally I'm saving mine until I have the other 5 done, that way I'm sure not to get a repeat of it. Though with my rate of progress I'm starting to think it'd be better to open it, sell it, and then buy all 6 of them in 4-6 months when the prices drop (presuming the prices drop).

I think she means the named weapons? As those are the only ones that can be purchased. I feel similarly I've been trying to get them and have seen absolutely nothing, not even non-spec collection drops. I've received 12-15 exotics from unidentified gear, but always an old exotic. It's a bit disheartening knowing that there's no way (that I know of) to target farm them like there was for Machined weapons. If the Skritts do drop them more often that would be interesting though.

The Wiki says there are 3 ways to get them:

1. Chest of the First Spear (one-time achievement)

2. Rare Unidentified Gear (I wonder if it's only from rare)

3. Lost Saddlebag from story steps (I'm 0/3 on these, which isn't saying much at all.)

I know it's probably too late now... But I still think Scribe should be balanced as an individual craft (like every other craft) and not a guild craft that supposes you will have 20+ players supporting you (and in this instance, that's not even possible!) Anyway +1. Hopefully they'll be donatable soon.

Elite Spec should be just as easy to obtain as it is now, imo. I much prefer to start the Expansion with your spec than unlocking it near the end.

Masteries were pretty easy. I think I finished all of mine in 3 or 4 days (save for the Griffon because I haven't spent 250g on it yet, but I had plenty of spare points). Were they too easy? I don't know. I think Mastery levels 1-3 should be easy because they are integral parts of traversing PoF. HoT didn't take that long either to reach the needed mastery levels for basic travel (Jumping mushrooms, Updrafts, Nuhoch wallows) but masteries extended well beyond that point ranging from very useful to mostly useless.

I think Anet opted not to include unnecessary masteries this time around, for better or worse, and instead enable them by default.

They could have had a Desert Mastery track that unlocked Races, and then unlocked Bounties, followed by the Gathering of rare resources for certain collections, a quicksand mastery to lose HP slower in quicksand, and one so that Elisa or certain vendors will speak with you. They could have had another 40+ mastery points with this type of track and nearly matched HoT's mastery amounts (64 to 112, for reference). But why? Just to give us something to grind? A use for the superfluous points? I'd probably still have worked on them and might still be eagerly hunting down more mastery points for it, but would it have benefited the game? I'm not so sure.

Outside PoF I harvest the same. In PoF I only harvest very specific nodes because mob range means that I'll likely spend five times longer getting back on my mount than I do harvesting (unless I'm on a class with access to stealth or invulnerability, or in some cases projectile destruction).

Anet doesn't need to babysit its players and decide for them when they are ready to use the boost. Each player can make their own decision for this. Just like they can choose to go to a higher level map early on if they so desire, or to engage a champion solo. I can't understand for the life of me why someone new to the game would expect to jump into end-game content and excel at it, especially if they've only been playing the character for a whole 20 minutes. While I would advise new players to play through to 80 without the boost to learn the game and their class, I don't think it's an absolute necessity especially if you have friends to help and you want to jump in and play with them.

Also, the boost lets you try the class out in Silverwastes, and this is something that **should** be available for new players because it gives them the chance to experience their class in a Lv80 zone (and let's be honest, the Lv80 gameplay is very different from the Lv10, they can't even mix trait lines until 45, and won't have three until 71). I like to advise new players to go to the PvP lobby and try out classes and skills very early on because this is what I found most helpful in picking classes myself. I suspect the Lv80 boost trial would do an even better job than that.

> @sgeisi.5981 said:

> Are a handful of abilities really going to break the game? Would they really alter your decision on which race you chose?

If they are good, yes I think they will. Not every class has comparable utilities or elites. Some are considerably better than others. You would need to balance these racial skills not only with each other, but also with every other utility skill available. If your build's best utility skills are racial, then yes I absolutely think they will determine which race many people choose.

> Even if they did, is that a bad thing?

Yes I think it would be a bad thing. Races should not determine what kind of build we should play. Races are cosmetic only. This is a good thing in my opinion.

> Why even have them in the game if they are completely unused?

What castlemanic said. For fun. For flavour. Why not? There is plenty of content that is easy enough to use any build you want. You could run around Core tyria using only Racial skills if you so desired. It might even set you apart from others and make someone smile when they see you riding in a Golem or fighting as a Norn Spirit.

Core Tyria masteries should be available for Core Tyrian accounts. Whether they want to extend this to F2P accounts is up to them (but I'd suspect not). I don't see any reason to lock them behind the expansions though, they have nothing to do with the expansion.

> @Azel.4786 said:

> I like the idea of Barrier working offensively for the Weaver - would be an interesting and unique thing for the class.

If barrier were going to be offensive, I'd like it to be related to the depletion of the barrier. "Deal x damage for every y points of barrier that decays naturally." (Or inflict a condition, or both.) The reason for this is that the enemy has some counterplay in the ability to deplete your barrier (or most of it) before it ends to negate that damage while at the same time you're not required to stand there and facetank attacks to increase dps. If it were a static value instead of a % of the barrier, that would also put some offensive emphasis on Healing power by increasing the numerical value of the barrier, though I can't imagine the damage would be significant enough to be build defining. Especially because there would be a lot of unintended side effects with others giving you barrier (and with Jackal's large barrier for burst damage in open world).

I guess a simple way might be to emulate Evasive Arcana, but instead of dodging have it activate when gaining or depleting a barrier on an icd, effect depending on attunement.

It was a bit frustrating. I found the chefs speech to be the most annoying part of all since he says it every time you restart (and if you fall too far behind early on, you may as well just start over).

Take a few tries and learn where ingredients are. Don't expect to do it on your first try (but still, try to!). It can be incredibly frustrating so don't give up (or do if you find it -too- frustrating, there are plenty of mastery points available elsewhere). The bar above your head is your 'health' bar. You recover a bit when you successfully deliver a material. So it's not the end of the world if you miss one or two ingredients, just try not to miss them consecutively or hope to get a couple quick ones to make up for it. I found it considerably easier to do alone. When there were other players in the area I found it confusing and sometimes I even mistook them for the chef when I was throwing in a hurry.

The Caffeinated skritts can be quite hard to stop if you're not prepared for it. You need a fair bit of CC and/or ranged attacks and movement abilities. If you go in with melee and no movement skills, there's a good chance you'll get stuck in combat and then never catch up again, especially if there's other mobs nearby. Of course afterward you'll be better prepared for future attempts so it's not all bad!

Like was said above, wait for others and open it together when all are prepared. It's worth noting that you can still get the collection items from the loot chest, even if it dies before you get there but the chest will disappear after a short while. I'm not precisely certain how long, I'd guesstimate 2 or 3 minutes. I've also been told the mini loot bags that drop can have the collection items but have not personally witnessed it myself.