Guild Wars 2 and GWJ: Launch Date And Final Beta Weekend

The Phoenix? Don't know what you mean there.

Looks like I missed the Amulet of the Mists :/

Didn't grab the armour, Didn't have the resources, can I go back if I repeat the mission? I hit on a group build that got through in 1:24, so it won't be too onerous.

*edit*

Oooooh, a Phoenix pet! Bollocks, going to have to do it again tomorrow. It may be tougher with a ranger secondary, I used my Mesmer skills against Shiro.

it used to be fairly quick/cheap to just pay a sin to run the last mission for you to get back into the end zone so you can go tame the phoenix and buy the armour.

haven't been back there since the HoM stuff started though so no idea how feasible that is anymore

I found it kind of interesting doing the Shiro fight so many times (although a bit frustrating). It's just one enemy, and a quick restart time to iterate on your build/tactics so not too bothersome, but without having to worry about a range of enemy types you quickly get to know what's effective and how your class works if you didn't already, as well as group balancing. I think I did a few attempts on my warrior with an axe before thinking "why am I taking the AOE cleaving weapon when there's one opponent, go get a sword". That mission pretty much hits you in the face with 'how to learn GW'.

There can be a fair amount of luck involved too with what skills Shiro fires off as well.

Scratched wrote:
DevilStick wrote:
Scratched wrote:

Did you grab the phoenix and the armour?

Which armor?

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Divin...
The Factions prestige armor

Interesting. I didn't focus on that set when I did my armor sets. Regardless, the price is consistent with the cheaper elite sets I crafted, so I don't think it would have made much difference.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

The Phoenix? Don't know what you mean there.

Looks like I missed the Amulet of the Mists :/

The amulet should be in your inventory - it's automagic. But, you will have to redo the final mission to go to the collectors and trade it in.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Oooooh, a Phoenix pet! Bollocks, going to have to do it again tomorrow. It may be tougher with a ranger secondary, I used my Mesmer skills against Shiro.

To preserve your build, you can have one of your heroes capture it - pets of your heroes can be added to the menagerie as well. I had a healer monk hero capture my phoenix.

The other thing about the final mission is that Kauvannang (whatever the dragon's name is) gives you a skill, so you can have your 7 chosen skills plus charm animal, and at the beginning of the mission put the granted skill in place of charm. When you go through to the end area, the charm skill is restored.

Quick question about leveling the Phoenix - I grabbed him a couple weeks ago and have been basically dragging him along while I do EOTN content. Is this the best way to level him to 20 so I can add him to the HOM?

jdzappa wrote:

Quick question about leveling the Phoenix - I grabbed him a couple weeks ago and have been basically dragging him along while I do EOTN content. Is this the best way to level him to 20 so I can add him to the HOM?

Friend of mine used to level pets and heroes in those Nightfall worm missions. Never tried it myself though.

Apparently death levelling, but I haven't tried it yet.

As an alternative, go charm a Black Moa in Ferndale - it's level 20 and a rare, so you get 2 points in the Hall and can place it right away. Granted, death leveling (which I haven't done either) appears to be relatively simple too.

So is there any other way to get these HOM items without playing GW1? Sorry if mentioned before .

Nope. They're all about showing that you've been there from the old days.

I really wouldn't worry though, they are purely cosmetic.

jdzappa wrote:

Quick question about leveling the Phoenix - I grabbed him a couple weeks ago and have been basically dragging him along while I do EOTN content. Is this the best way to level him to 20 so I can add him to the HOM?

Quickest would be to go to the Zaishen menagerie and add them to your collection, then you can walk around your menagerie with heroes and death level your pet *before* you charm it. The trick is simple, strip yourself of armor, flag a hero with a rez skill away from the pet but in range of you (if it helps, remove it's weapons and other skills) and let the pet kill you over and over while your hero resurrects you.

Death levelling is by far the quickest, but if you find that distateful you can bring a monk hero with a bunch of bonds and have the monk cast them on your pet, then load up your bar with beastmastery pet attacks and go kill the wurms outside vloxx falls.

If you dont plan on levelling several pets though, just drag your phoenix along with you and don't bother with anything more than that. I'll hit 20 soon enough.

I got around to death levelling the phoenix last night (rather than dragging it behind my warrior), twice because I forgot to equip charm. :p I now have 2 more points in my HoM with the hero armor I acquired too.

Scratched wrote:

I got around to death levelling the phoenix last night (rather than dragging it behind my warrior), twice because I forgot to equip charm. :p I now have 2 more points in my HoM with the hero armor I acquired too.

One of the harder pets to get a while ago was the spider from the Underworld, but now with full Hero parties it's trivial to go get one. That should be god for another point.

My next statue on that stand is for 10 companions (just got 5), so I'm looking at weapons next, which links in with doing the War in Kryta and other content I haven't seen yet. Right now I'm trying to put together a ranger spec/hero team that doesn't suck.

I ended up using some builds on http://www.gwpvx.com to put together a hero team to get through some of the tougher missions towards the end of War in Kryta.

The War in Kryta content gives you 5 hero slots to work with, so I ended up using the 3 Hero Balanced Build and adding a Domination Mesmer and Smite Monk from the 7 Hero Player Support Build.

I ran a N/Mo build with Spiteful Spirit and some skills like Protective Spirit for times when the hero AI from reacting too slowly to damage.

Managed to snag the Black Moa, and I'm towing the Phoenix around as I'm doing Prophecies missions. After saying I think 11 points was as far as I'm going I'm on 14 now.

Looks like Ancient Armour is relatively affordable, so I'm chasing that to get to 15 and then I'll see where I end up as I play.

If anyone's interested, I'm thinking about organizing a static EOTN campaign over the next couple months. One night a week get together with GWJers and run the EOTN campaign so everyoune can at least unlock their banners. Any takers?

I would do if not for timezone issues and early mornings, and my main is only 2 missions away from the end. Should be fun though.

Just tweeted that Asura and Sylvari will be playable next BWE; I plan on playing Asura then. I'm saving Sylvari to be fresh for my main.

Outlandish wrote:

Just tweeted that Asura and Sylvari will be playable next BWE; I plan on playing Asura then. I'm saving Sylvari to be fresh for my main.

My first reaction to finding out that these races were available was figures, I am gone most of the weekend and now we can finally play these races. It will work out though since I plan to make Sylvari as a main so I will take the same approach and leave them fresh for release to play. Asura should be fun to play around with though.

I don't think I am going to be able to resist creating a Sylvari. But I don't think it will spoil anything. I have no trouble playing other races and classes. In fact that is a problem is that I play every races and class, thus preventing me from making more than a snail's pace progress with any single character.

I've been restricting myself on what I do. I'm not playing the personal quests now, and I'm not playing beyond L10 or the first zone. I'm trying to 'save it' now for full release, less that 7 weeks away.

Hopefully they reset WvW server match ups for the last BWE, as my friends and I rolled on one of the new low pop servers for BWE 2 and by the time I could log on, the high pop server we were paired with had steam rolled everything. I would really like to try out the dark room and I also plan on spending some time learning the crafting system.

Yes, I was on a overpowered server and the whole pie chart was our colour. It should be better at release, or at least should 'train' itself after a few two week rounds.

I think it'll be very interesting to see how WvW organisation in the final release. They said one of the balancing factors is that you could get temporary alliances between two servers to break a strong server, but I'm wondering if we'll see good server 'generals' appear, coordinating and issuing orders to make the best effect out of the troops available.

I could see them implementing some thresholds that trigger NPC events to balance.

random ex: your faction control 80% of the strongholds for 72 hours -> dredge invasion inside the walls.

There's already dynamic events in WvW that help you. I'd like to think that it's really hard (but not impossible) for a server to lock down the entirety of all 4 maps, but I'd much prefer some form of guiding hand to help people take the steps that can break a deadlock, for example getting supply, building up small outposts, to eventually get siege. I think that coordination will be a winning factor, and it needs people to take charge and for people not to just throw their time away heading into a meat grinder.

Given the 2.5 day BWEs, I imagine that a 2 week WvW is going to feel a whole load different.

Scratched wrote:

There's already dynamic events in WvW that help you. I'd like to think that it's really hard (but not impossible) for a server to lock down the entirety of all 4 maps

The server I was on, had all 4 zones locked down before midnight on Friday. When they reset the zones Saturday night, they had all 4 zones locked down again before the morning.

I think their rotating matchups will definitely help, I'm just worried about it taking a month or two before we get somewhat good matchups.

It's not rotating, but servers are ranked, so (hopefully) as time goes on like-ranked servers will fight each other. It's ambitious and I hope it works, but the phrase "no good plan survives contact with the enemy" exists for a reason.

Hopefully they keep an eye on it, with 96 servers at last count it shouldn't be not too much work for manual tinkering match-to-match if needed. I also hope they don't just throw their hands in the air and say "We tried, but it's too complex to change now" and abandon it with no plan B. There's great potential in WvW I think.