任是无情也动人

Terra Volt
80 Asura Engineer
Created 4 years 7 months ago
Played for 306 hours
1,921 deaths (XD)

Milestones achieved:
- Got the SAB kitty
- Finished unlocking all blue skins, including backpack
- Unlocked orange rifle skin (for engi)
- Unlocked red pistol & shield skin (for engi)
- Unlocked green pistol (for thief)
- Banked 10/10/8 W1 tribulation tokens (5/5/7 + 30g left to complete collection)
- Banked 1x 8-day reward box (here's hoping for purple skins next year!)
- Donated ~165 furniture coins to [CAT] (mah fingers! T_T)
- RNG granted 2 blue SAB boxes (dumped in [Yaoi] guild bank for cashew)

First of all, disclaimer: I'm really casual where it comes to STO, playing only a single character and not having paid much attention to the meta discussions on reddit, so I can't claim to be all that authoritative on it. With GW2 I think I can speak better toward it, since I've played all classes pretty far and I've read a lot on the high tiers of play (raids/high fractals) so I am familiar with what goes on there.

( Read more... )

I actually had the resources to finish making Flameseeker Prophecies earlier, but I procrastinated a lot. Finally got it finished though. Also managed to use up a few stacks of T5 mats in the guild bank. The pretty pretty shield is going on my revenant, as is lore appropriate.

Also finished the specialization collection for Yggdrasil, the ascended staff for my ranger druid; though I'm actually using the Auric skin for it. Since the collection for Bo, the daredevil staff, is only a few items different from Yggdrasil, that's next on the list.

Will put up pics of the shied and maybe staff later. ( Legendary pics here )

Meanwhile, here's the bump in the overall worth of my characters as calculated by gw2efficiency. (You can tell which guys are holding the legendaries, ne?) XD

Too cheap to pay the 10g each to buy dupes of the ascended sinister rings/earrings, so going to split them between engi and revenant...

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Loaf_of_Tarragon_Bread --> -16% condi duration for reve (and anyone else that needs more condi cleanse)

Herald
--> Redo hammer sigils (force+purity), Runes of Antitoxin or Water

Chronomancer (switch Domination with Inspiration for Teq/Portal) (candied dragon roll)

Daredevil

Tempest -- maurader's staff, swap chest pc... (optional: runes of radiance, sigil of cleansing)

Engineer --> Condi set

Meta builds: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3rn9ry/dnt_updated_pve_build_guides_for_all_nine/

Got inspired by cashew's trials in starting a new elementalist... or maybe nostalgic is more like it. I went back and re-watched my old ele Personal Story recordings. Man, was I embarrassed by my skill back then. Of course, that was also within 2 weeks of the initial launch of the game. So I would certainly hope I'd gotten more skilled at playing the game in general, and ele (my main) in specific, since then.

Still, assumptions aren't proof, so I finally decided to roll a new ele to check out the experience the second time around. Also, to experience the New Player Experience changes to the game, since all of my characters were created before that update.

I had started a sylvari ele, more to experience the NPE and to fiddle around with character creation settings (in eventual preparation of my sylvari revenant). Then today I managed to start a human elementalist with the same Personal Story options as my main, and get her to level 21 within a single day.

Overall, levelling under the NPE feels pretty painless. Yes, utility skills and class mechanics are gated, but those in particular are unlocked pretty fast. Elite skills are still unlocked at lvl 30 like the old system anyway. Traits are a bit more strictly unlocked, so the mid levels might be where things get tougher... I dunno we'll have to see.

As for the human ele no. 2's personal story, I pretty much breezed through it. I remember dying over and over again in the 3rd ep of arc 1 (noble arc). Ditto the last ep of arc 2 (circus arc). Here, ep 1.3 was completed without a hitch. And 2.4 was over in like a minute.

The difference? We'll it's not the build certainly. The original character had access to more skills during 1.3 than my new ele (which didn't have earth attunement and only had 1 utility at lvl ~10). But the main difference I guess is that the first time around, I was just randomly mashing buttons. Whereas now I'm familiar enough with ele skills to know what utility to go for and what rotation of skills to synergize.

Gear might have also played a role, I think. In the original run I didn't have much money, didn't use the TP, and only got my gear through drops and karma vendors, and much of it with vit/toughness speced. In the new run I pretty much buy a new set of blue or green gear every 5 levels, and it's pretty much power power power only. That probably makes a significant difference, what with PvE being very much a zerker's game.

For now I've parked both characters at the end of the Sharkmaw JP to see what results I get in terms of silver doubloons out of the chest. Eventually after they hit level 35 (cap for doubloons) or after I lose patience, I'll probably delete the human and continue a bit further with the sylvari to see how the mid-levels plays out.

Old builds
Optimal Build suggestions


Guardian: (Zerk/Sin legs/rings?)
Lazy BurnDmg
(Forum suggestions: ZerkerDmg)

Engineer: (Rings?)
Rifle PistolShield

Ranger:
Silverwastes Dry Top

Elementalist: (zerk wand, knight focus)
Tequatl General

Mesmer: (Assassin rings, Rampager staff)
GS/General DryTop/SW

Thief:
Ninja

Warrior:
Full Sup Centaur rune set + warhorn trait will still let you maintain perma swiftness from just the horn.

The big thing is the whole trait revamp. Basically they're getting rid of the old system and putting in the new specialization system in prep for the new expansion. In other words, I'm gonna have to revisit each of my PC's and redo their whole build.

Here's some build sites that claim to have the updated traitlines.

Since they're removing all the stats from traits and putting them into the equipment... I may end up needing to replace lots of equipment at the same time. Already sure my ele and guardian are both going to need more +vit gear to make up for what they're losing from traits.

Mesmer changes are looking good. Engineer got shafted at first glance (RIP speedy kits). Ele didn't get icebow nerfed, so anything else is gravy. Haven't had a chance to study the rest.

Also getting some quality of life changes, and most of those are good. Geodes and bandit crests are getting shoved into the wallet, so yay for bag space. Soulbound stuff now shows which PC they're soulbound to, which is another yay.

Only bad QOL change is that there's going to be a extra 5% stat difference between exotic and ascended. Not...as much of an issue for PvE (I hope), but sucks for the people who have multiple alts playing WvW.


As for the info so far about the expansion...still withholding judgment until more info comes out.

When idiots start complaining about not enough major positive male characters in a freaking MMO, you must be doing something right.

Keep up the good work.

Now just excuse me while I recover from the eye strain of rolling my eyes too much from reading the official forum thread. I really should have known better.

Mainly for my own reference, some vids of the defeat of the revamped Tequatl boss on GW2.

Blackgate (first kill, NA)
http://www.twitch.tv/flickky/c/2951634
http://youtu.be/luECR3ELIYU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkKyXHwHMvc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdU-SeIvAKM

Desolation (second kill, EU)
http://www.twitch.tv/qufi/b/463252332
http://www.twitch.tv/theonlynemesis/c/2954458
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzCNYbfHoRU

Vabbi (actually a takeover of the low pop server by a guild organized event):
http://www.twitch.tv/veteran_oakheart/c/2955673

Other stuff:
http://tinyurl.com/teqstrat
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1mpjr8/tequatl_safe_spot_from_waves/