announakis

Well I am relieved to a certain extend...there are a few out there that spend even more time on this game than me...but not that many...does that make me hopelessly attached to GW?

for my defense, I never played any other MMO...I tried Aion but I did not withstand the cheer boredom of grinding very long nor did I play any other games for years while I was playing GW1...well that is true for the first few years...after that, I did play GW like one hour in the evening to get my PvP fix in some radom arenas and played other games...I guess I prefer not to count how many hours per week I spend playing games in the evening....omg...T_T

I completely freaked out when I realized that I played over 3300 hours of GW1...aouch...over the last 6 years, I spent a third of a year playing GW1...and I stopped playing it like 2 years ago...so its about a 10% of my time over 4 year devoted to GW1...should I laugh or cry...I still try to figure out...

so what about you guys ?

PS: please attach proof of addiction lol

• What are your favourite classes right now?

Warrior and ele based on what I have tried

• Why?

they dish out some descent damage (although all together it seems to me it is harder to spike than in GW1)

• What is on the top of your must-play list for this coming beta?

Mesmer and ingenieur. But I am pretty sure it will not change my mind since the mesmer thing is adding chaos to a game that I find already hard to read because too many things / particles happening at tjhe same time so putting tons of clones of my own on top of that...I will probably end up fooling myself with my own clones lol

I am also curious to see what they will do to the long bow of the warrior and to the initiative of the thief

• (and for any this may apply to) Are you planning on playing something completely different come release? Which class?

for the moment I am more inclined to start a warrior to learn the melee gameplay. I hated playing melee in GW1 because I had this sensation that you were running after people all the time. Now, in GW2, the number of gap closers seems a bit more descent so playing should be more enjoyable. And the movement mechanics they did seems to bring some point to maneuver so that makes melee interesting now so lets try it !

• What are your favourite races right now? (and which is your current pick?)

Sylvari, Norn and humans, asura and last the charrs

• Why?

The Background of the Sylvari is just awesome: I love these beings impregnated via the dream of the great tree by the experience of those already walking the world...brilliant! They look interesting too. fits my expectations for casters or ranger thief maybe...

But on the visual side I am more classic: I like human/norn looking weapons and armors...so for a warrior, I would go female Norn (the males look way too bulky...like meat cubes.... It is just ridiculous) or male human.

the biggest let down are the charr for me: I loved them initially, when I was still hoping you could chose their stance so they could look straight and not always hunched forward...but in the end their little legs, huge arms and ridiculously thick neck, their slow running animation make that they appear more cow-like than cat-like to me now...a shame really....great potential these charrs...*sobs*

• What is your favourite racial city / starter area right now?

clearly divinity's reach

• Will you be trying out Sylvari and Asura?

hell yeah!

• Are you saving anything for release? Which race? Will that be your main?

no I try to look at my options before release so I can stick to one main and not grow tired of it in 2 weeks realizing that was the wrong choice for me (that will probably happen anyway but well...you know...)

I have the razer naja and I am really pleased with it...it is a bit hard to find the last 10-12 buttons but it is also because I am not used to reach for them yet.

hmm...I do not know...It seems to me that this would be possible and very enjoyable only if they designed a gamepad with enough buttons to be able to match the

-10 skills

- jump

- activate

- next/previous target (both allies and ennemies)

- switch weapons

- draw/sheath

these are the only ones I can think of right now...as it is, it does not quite fits the present game controller models...but a few more buttons for the thumb and maybe for the freaking annular fingers stuck under the controler just holding it and this would be perfectly possible.

as is, with the limited numbers of buttons, if you want to map the skills (naturally using a switch buttons for alternate functions of other buttons to multiply combinations) it still require to sacrifice some functionalities...not cool.

otherwise, I do not see why this would make it less efficient than mouse keyboard, quite on the contrary...I do not see myself playing a PvP match in Dark souls with a mouse lol

the Sylvari look really fantastic !

you can create some cool looks with the contrasted luminescent markings they have...I love it! I really do not know what I am gonna do now...I guess this beta WE will be a critical time for me to determine some stuff that I am really picky about:

- how well does the animation speed scale up with the size within a given race? I would love to see a faster animation of movement for smaller charrs and norns because as is, the slow paced movement (even though I know they go as fast as others) knida kills it for me. So if there is no scaling (as it seemed to be the case initailly but I did not really test it so far seriously) I will have to pass and focus on human and smaller races like the sylvari

- how good are the animations for the different weapons in the different races...because I was a bit underwelmed by animations in warriors so far in charrs (but I guess this is also due to their discrepancy between the upper and lower body that make it look weird somehow)...

anyway I can't wait for this next beta to guess my shit sorted ^_-

@mosespippy said:

At level 160 you should be able to solo kiln on your second playthrough. I did and I was around 140-145 I think. What gear are you using and what is your build like?

@EverydayOdyssey said:

I have a good build. Forgive the generalities, because even at 120 hours I still do not know the item/equipment names off the top of my head. I got the ring that lets me do those sweet flips. My best weapons are Queelag +5, Great Sword Astoria +5, Dragon Tooth +5. When I roll with Queelag or Great Sword I generally place my humanity at 10 to get the strength bonus. I have all the shields, but prefer the black iron knight shield +5 and the Great Shield of Astoria. For armor I like to use Black Knight Armor +10.

Long story short, I just want to get it done with again and am kind of burned out. Maybe I'll just let it sit as is for now.

Feel free to add me on PS3. Username: ajlangino

ok, that does not tell us what your build is but that certainly gives away one thing: you are spread pretty thin and your build is certainly not as good as you think it is and here is why:

The great sword of Artorias requires something like 20 in intelligence, faith and dext plus 24 in strength to one-hand it....and unfortunately it is still much weaker than any other decently optimized weapon mid-way through the game...you cite Queelags +5...that is a descent weapon for a dexterity based build because it scales so well on dexterity plus the fire damage...but then you cite Dragon tooth...that is a good weapon for Strength based builds...that demonstrates that you spread your char thin on the stats...so in the end you are high level but weak. I will say only this: if you have less than 40 in endurance and 50 in vitality, you distributed your points in a bad way and your char is broken...you need to focus on one characteristic to boost being faith, intelligence, dexterity or strength (if you like slow but big weapons) as a primary source of damage to scale on...the great sword of Artorias scales B or C on 4 different characteristics but it is still not nearly as good as scaling A on one high stat...except if you are SL 300 or above (and even then I am not sure lol) So I would need to know your stats precisely to understand why you struggle but having suboptimal stat distribution is a big problem for being competitive on the PvP scene but for the PvE that should not be a definitive obstacle.

the rings are fine also: you have the dark wood grain ring (aka ninja flip ring) that is the best ring right after the ring of favor and protection (the one from Lautrec)...so that ok here. Your armors do not really matter : the lighter the better for Stamina, but Poise is a big plus...you apparently can move at full speed with the dark knight set and the ninja ring so all clear here.

I think your main problem here would be your approach, your strategy against Gwyn.

You are using great shields and that give away why you struggle: great shields do not allow to open up for a riposte...I guess thats ok but then you miss out a great way of dispatching opponents in one hit...

Gwyn is the boss that is the hardest to dodge: he's fast and his blows are super wide...So dodging him, although being a viable option if timed properly, is not easy. What you should do is standing your ground, waiting for the blow to come and BOOM RIPOSTE! But for that you will need:

1) to die a few times learning perfectly the timing...after that Gwyn is a fat joke like the black knights

2) equip gear that allows you to riposte and hit hard on riposte: that means

a) the bandit knife +15 if you have more than 40 in dexterity or you best weapon otherwise (without knowing your stats I would suspect that a good old Zweihander or a claymore elemental max (fire or electric) would outdamage by far any of the 3 weapons that you mentioned) AND the HORNET RING(the ring that boosts damage on critcals)

b) a medium shield (I guess the grass crest shield is the best medium shield in the game or the blood shield from the painted world...or even the parrying dagger or any weapon in the left hand that allow to riposte.

with this, I swear Gwyn is just sooooooooooooooo easy that you will find it very disappointing. He is just slightly harder to kill than a regular black knight because he has different moves and much more health...but that's it.

Have fun.

I am in Brisbane (you know the part with the retarded daylight savings thing that suck ass ^_^) so this should be OK with Sydney time although we are on the very same longitude but whatever -_-'

for the rest of the world...well....down under....other side of the world usual stuff you know ^_^

@august said:

So I started a new character. Orc lady, heavy armor, 2h weapons, smithing. No companions no magic no alchemy. And holy crap this game is fun again.

Yep, I did the same thing more or less....Until I realized that this game is basically centered on smithing and enchanting to achieve real power and play on master mode...

I agree that magic is not the most powerful weapon in the game if used only with one hand. As someone said, magic is good if you really embrace it because in destruction magic the perk dual casting stagger makes it uber...to circomvent the mana problem, investing in enchanting and desining a gear that soaks up to 100% of the casting cost in destruction (or any other school btw) should simplify the problem. I have a character with the minimum in mana but 100% reduction in destruction....I keep shooting fireballs non stop laughing hard thanks to that. I started leveling up the 2-handed tree to do damage until I had enough in enchantment and smithing to get the daedric armor with 100% destruction reduction and then started to level up destruction magic seriously ^^

Archery gives pretty much the same result as dual casting destruction except much stronger...you dish out some ridiculous damage when perked and geared properly...I one-shot a dragon once from sneaking with deadly aim perk (on the adept difficulty level, not master)