ready... set... get excited

reading some articles about the big press release.

this one included some info that will excite you 2...

Besides these significant changes to the game, Guild Wars 2 will also introduce plenty of smaller ones, like the ability for your characters to do things like jump, swim, even climb trees.

and here they add to it by saying
players will learn less complicated skills that they will be encouraged to test out in any situation they can think of. What happens if you use this skill while jumping, or that one while surrounded by monsters?

more here

We want players to feel like they're living in the world, and the world responds to what they do, and players have a huge degree of control over their characters and can experiment

check out these articles (there's a couple more too), they are pretty cool.

I'm pumped about eye of the north and how it will affect your GW2 toons!

and hey... how's everyone going with factions. post something cool, someone!

more info on eye of the north

can be found here
it confirms that in Guild Wars 2, there will be different races (at least 4)!
I imagine this will act in some ways like a 3rd element to professions.
Also... you do get to carry over any achievements from GW1 into GW2.

a morning of discoveries

woke up this morning and just checked the news feeds on my flock (as i do). This led me to 3 things worth mentioning.

1. Guild Wiki is now offically a GW website - not just a fan site. I will change the link. The front page is different thats all. find it here. I imagine this will lead to a higher acuracy of information! It's still a wiki - anyone can post.

2. PC PowerPlay (the magazine) will have articles on guild wars in its next issue, and the issue after that will come with an exclusive pet. The Asura minature.

3. ArenaNet have anounced a true expansion Guild Wars: Eye of the North. That will be coming out for the American summer holidays (so probably sometime between May and June??). By true expansion, you need to have another GW for it to work. It opens up 18 large multi-level dungeons, 10 new heroes (wow! i guess 1 per class), 15 new skills per class (not sure if they are elite or not), 4 new armor styles per class, and heaps of new weapons etc!
They also announced that they are developing Guild Wars 2. They said Beta testing will be late 2008, so it will probably be released in 2009. I reckon there might be another expansion or 2 for GW1 before that. They didnt expand on it, but said that some of the things you can do in Eye of the North will carry over to GW2. I've pretty much sumarised it, but check out the press release here.

photo shoot march 27

here we are at the beginning of our photoshoot. i particularly like the tree growing out of copland's headwe started the session by attending a black panthers meeting (we even let mick come, whitey!)and for some reason we felt like hanging off some imaginary poles
then we needed to praybefore playing in the band at...
a pentecostal church
followed by a skank at a ska gig
and then we did... this???

long term intentions

I've been thinking a little bit lately about builds and stuff, particularly in relation to Cim Heartcaller. And, well... its a bit wierd, cause Cim HC is going to be me first and only lvl 20 monk, I don't want or need another one, where-as both you guys are using classes that you've been successful with before...
Anyways, where am I going with this. All I wanted to say is that I wanna max out pretty much everything I can with this guy. I want to get some real nice armor, I want to get all the skills I can, I want to have 4 or 5 different builds for different situations (hex removal, bonding, WoL, LoD, heal protect hybrid... to name some choices), and I want some kick ass green weapons.
All I wondering is if you guys are in...?
I want to be able to use this guy when someone wants an awesome monk... and so... to do that, i need to have every outpost, on all 3 maps. I wanna cap everything I can. On the note of 3 maps... I don't mind taking a break between finishing nightfall with our first set of characters and then moving onto faction where i get to play a ritualist!
Its a huge thing to do, but I wanna do it with you guys, I'm loving tuesday nights!


Lastly... the school holidays...
not sure if you can give us a day or 2 copland, but i think i can free up a couple of days... or at least 1. probably Friday April 13 - i havve to leave for work by 3, but that gives us a good 6 hours! I will probably be free on the following Friday too, the 20th - as I go on a training course that afternoon (for a week - so i'll be out that tuesday).
thoughts...

totally non-negotiable

tonight i was trying to do some stuff in sorrows furnace (with Xyla Nu), which is insane, and extremely difficult.
anyways, all that said, i cam accross a boss with an interesting name, and after guild wiki-ing it, it discovered it dropped a unique item...
one i must have, it looks cool, sure, but there are other reasons why i want it
look here to find out why

CRIKEY... Cim Muscle Relaxer with her best Steve Irwin Impression

the skill for posties who insist on working before the sun comes up

Light of Deliverance will be the only skill I'm going to bother capping. 2 reasons - 1 the paragon skill is a spear attack skill, and I'm just not using a spear, and 2 (an anti completist argument) is that I think I'm going to change my secondary to a mesmer, but I'm not sure.

LoD is good anyways, its a group heal that only takes 5 energy, and only heals those who need it (under 80% health). The boss we get this from also is the only one that drops the green wand I really really want. Don't like our chances, but you never know.

this is just attribute

thought this guide would be helpful
basically tells you how many points you can put into different categories once you hit level 20.

Butt Head

Very excited to announce that one of the skills I hope to capture will be...


Headbutt!




I have been waiting for this baby for quite a while, since I did a mission with a bunch of die-hard Warriors in Prophecies and they were discussing their "Holy Grail" when it came to skills.

Not sure if I'll actually use it much (works well with some other skills, mostly Necro)...but I am a bit of a completeist.

Oh, and check this out that I found on Guildwiki...

Trivia
This skill was briefly named Enadiz Headbutt. The name was a tribute to the famous French soccer player Zinedine Zidane (Enadiz, spelled backwards) who was sent off the field for headbutting the Italian player Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final match, the last match of Zidane's career.

The Great Escape!

Is the quest where we get koss back... Its in Arkjok Ward.
skill cap up everyone
check out this page (where is says bosses) to work out how many sigs you should take!
Mick you can get a little skill we like to call barrage.
The other place we can now enter is Marga Coast. Bunch of skills there too.

To make it simple... This is how many skills we can cap each (maybe not during a quest or whatever, but here you go. (it goes arkjok, then marga)
Mick - 1 + 2
Copland - 3 + 2
Me - 1 + 1

new header

hope this one looks better.
tip - hold down shift when taking a screen shot if you only want the screen without party, skills, inventory etc. i was doing it wrong

spells?

with your main Cim characters, do you have any spells you use, regularly or otherwise. pls list (it has to do with a build I'm thinking about)

Game Plan: Tuesday March 20

Trip to Lion's Arch anyone?

If we can get to LA and go up to The Ascalon Settlement, I should be able to get Dwayna's Kiss which will help me heal you better when you have a hex on you. I'm happy to wait a while for this, but it will help...

Other than that, we might be able to get started on PvP. Actually this weekend would have been good for that - with the bonus double points.

Having said all that (Lion's Arch + PvP) I would love to clear our quest logs and do the mission (Consulate Docks) that gets us off the Island - the first mission that takes us into Kourna. I think we can get a quest that gives us signets of capture before that though. There are 4 bosses in the mission - sorry Mick, no caps for you.

Copland, you can cap Magehunter Strike which is a strength attack skill.

I can get a quite useful Paragon skill - Cautery Signet, which is awesome for condition removal, but leads to me being on fire (so I might need to use it followed by purge conditions on myself.

After that we can go into the first explorable area on Kourna (Marga Coast), where there are a number of skills we might want to cap. I will try and put up a post into these down the track... too much for tonight, but let me say there are 2 each for you 2 and 1 for me. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. All I can say here about this one, is that it would be nice for us all to max out our elite skills - in that sense I'm a completist, which is a real word! (and actually probably used more correctly in this context)

live and let dye

I came up with the bucks to buy some dyes for my new armour - hey it cost enough, might as well make it look good. This is a blend of Brown, Orange and Yellow (in that order, cause it matters). I like it anyways, better than the boring grey you'll find in my earlier post. I still have all of my dyes other than the before mentioned colours, if anyone wants them.

what our stance says about our characters

i was just looking at our header and realised that the 3 of us stand in very different ways. For some reason I need to have my legs quite spread. And on the other end of the spectrum, I wonder who's balls, cim ball tearer has indeed torn.

What a Ragtag Bunch

something we're all en-title-d to

here's mick. the first to get sunspear comander under his name. really, i thought the thai-pod would have been better with a title like "sunspear amander"

cape me... cape me, my friend

thoughts on the new header

hope you like it
it took me ages to get it into the right spot, among other things...
anyways, if you wanna get into photoshop (or whatever) and make one some time it needs to be 664 by 171 pixels. If you get it to me, I'll upload it. Alternatively, if we're doing something and you have an idea for one, i will sort it out. It wont take long now I know what I'm doing. But it needs to be the same size!
hope you like it anyways?

My pet bites

I read about where you can get lions... we are not too far depending on when we can get The Great Zehtuka quest. You have to do it just right, but it'll be worth it so I can get rid of the stupid flamingo!

ps hopefully the link works

Runes for PvP Toons

Just throwing out a thought about what runes we all put on our PvP characters.
Cause I want to keep health as high as possible I'm only using minor runes. Also, I'm trying to not blow the budget. I will probably just get Jokanur armor... I could get a ferry to the Docks, but I'm not prepared to pay 15k at this point, for this... yeah?

So... I will have
minor vigor
minor healing
minor divine favour
survivor's insignia
and... one other, which I've forgotten...

Ch-Ching!

I've been doing a little research (as always) about the top level armor (the cheap sort that is).

It is available at Sun Docks, just before we will leave the Island of Istan.

Not too sure about you guys, But mine will cost aprox 10.5k in materials plus 5k gold! Thats alot of cash! But... it needs to be done...

For the basic armor, I have 2 options. Istani or Sunspear. Thoughts...?

Improving my build and how Lion's Arch fits into it

I've been thinking about how to improve my build for Cim Heartcaller. Basically there are 2 skills that would pretty much be perfect for the pure heal build I'm going for at the moment.

Dwayna's Kiss

The beauty of this skill is that if you have a hex on you, it heals for extra (just over 1/2 again), so while i can't strip the hex off quickly, I can compensate by healing you for a whopping 100 health (plus whatever my divine favour gives us extra). To give you an idea, the standard skill I use Orison of Healing will give 73 health. (all these are assuming that i have 12 + 1 + 3 in healing)

Word of Healing (Elite)

Word of healing is the rolls royce of healing skills. If your health is below 50% it will double my heal, this will lead to a humungus 212 health.

With these 2 skills in my arsenal we will be much stronger. (by the way, Dunkoro already has them... lucky bastard).

So... how do we get them. One's an elite only available in Tyria and Cantha and the other is a prophecies skill. Sp... It aint easy.

The first one (DK) will need a trip to the Ascalon Settlement, north of... you guessed it... Lion's Arch. We can get there once we are level 20, and well, you guys might be able to pick up some skills there too. It's not from the skill trainer there, but from a quest.

The second is elite, so will require a skill cap. From what I can see on wiki, the only place we can get it is in the desert on tyria... dar! so... it means a run from LA to Sanctum Cay, then do that mission and cap the skill on one of the Desert missions. A lot of stuffing round! But for the best healing skill in the game... its worth it.

Yes... Thanx for buying me that album on vinyl mick

So, I was trying to tell you both about a build I had thought about, but it was a little complex for while we were charging around.

Firstly, a bizarre sidenote that I didnt yet know about. Hero skill trainers not only teach the skill to your hero, and unlock it for PvP and future heroes, but also teaches it to your current character. The reason I waffleon about this is that the skill the whole build revolves around can only be picked up from the hero skills trainer at sunspear great hall. And what is this skill, i hear you ask... it's

Fragility
This mesmer skill seems a little tricky to use at first, but with both Spleenstalker and Bull Terrier onto it, we would come up with some great damage dealing, methinx.
So what does it do?
For 8...18 seconds, target foe takes 5...17 damage each time that foe suffers or recovers from a new condition. So... where do we start... we have 9 to choose from to inflict on our poor unsuspecting prey.

Bleeding, -3 Health degeneration




Blind, 90% chance to miss




Burning, -7 Health degeneration




Crippled, 50% slower movement




Dazed, twice as long to cast spells, spells are easily interrupted




Deep Wound, 20% less maximum health, 20% less healing on this character




Disease, -4 Health degeneration, contagious to all adjacent of the same species




Poison, -4 Health degeneration




Weakness, 66% less damage dealt in combat, -1 to all attributes


Now, I doubt all 9 of these conditions will be possible for us to inflict. For starters, dazed is almost only in elites - but if you have concussion shot mick, then it'll be fine. Disease is necromancer only and poison only works with a few skills (again mick you might help us out here).

Remember that Spleeny will get the damage both when the condition is inflicted, and when they recover, so if you have minimal points in the area of the skill that you are using, then thats ok, the shorter it lasts the quicker we get those damage points. If you cant work it that way, that's fine.

If you click on the link for the condition, it gives you a list of skills. So... I painstakingly put it together so it would be easy for you guys to have a quick look.

The last thing to remember is that we can use our heroes to supplement our own deficiencies. I have a kick butt necro elite - virulence, which i use with no points in death magic with my mesmer, to shorten the time of the conditions. Another elite I have which we should have access to in the coming weeks is the warrior shout "you're all alone" which only works if they arent near allies.

the last thought, is it would have been good to have grant playing, he'd automatically apply this condition without any special skills

again, props to guild wiki for all the links and images

Warrior again!

Hey. Just continuing on from the PVP discussion. I have gone with a Warrior, but am yet to decide on secondary. Ian if you go Monk, then I will do something else...but if you don't want to, I will probably go Monk secondary, just to cover our bases.

Mick? Your plans??

Later!

shield reminder

just a quick reminder. if anyone comes across a good shield that requires command, please save it for me (probably use it for kijup, but maybe for the hero). preferred specs are armor 16, req 11 command - if you see less awesome, but i doubt you will. alot require 12, which is a bit annoying.
thnx

a blast from the past

some things should stay in the past, and other things are just way to funny to...

so... let me set the scene. Copland had been playing GW for only a matter of hours (level 3) and I decided to give him a hand with some things. That's when I instructed him to apply die to his outfit! I didnt realise that i got a shot of it until today when i was going thru some other ones i had. Unfortunately, the only shot I got was this one, but he also dyed part of it purple.

Its about here that I'm dishing out the dye removers.
enjoy!

I'm gonna diet

which colour do you think?
I'm slowly cranking up a nice collection of dyes. Not sure which ones I'll use, but I'm sure they'll come in handy down the track. I used to have about this many then sold them all, so these are pretty much nightfall, i think...?

also note, that I'm slowly building the bank account up too. 10.5 isnt too bad.

BC Rich would be so proud!

tonight, my paragon/warrior kijup nairobi cranked up the exploration of elona to 60% and therefore became an elonan explorer. although kijup is my 3rd level 20, its the first time i've achieved this title.
yay!

PvP vs PvE

Hey...I've been thinking that since we levelled past 10 we have been missing out on one of the best parts of the game...PVP play!

I would like to see us do a little PVP every now and then. So here is what I propose...

1. We all start a new character (it can be your current fave profession or mix it up if you want) and just push through to level 6 or 7 and use that char for PVP games.

2. We only play PVP after the serious work of PVE is done and over and we have accomplished what we wanted to do with that session. So, on a Tuesday night we might play PVE for 2 or so hours, then jump over to PVP for the last half hour stuffing around. Like at school swimming carnivals. There was the serious racing and heats and all that crap, then just before we get back on the bus its 'free swimming'.

3. We use the Faction points we get (seems to be faster doing PVP) to get better builds for our Heros. Currently the build I have for Koss requires an elite skill called 'Hundred Blades'...which I have need to unlock...and as such I need 3000 faction points (I only have 500 left).

So, what do you guys reckon?

If we all put in some time this weekend (together or on our own) we should be able to get a new char going and be up around lvl 3...then put in the hard years to lvl them next week and we are done...

Copland

Game Plan: Tuesday March 13

Thoughts for next week? If you want to just edit this post and say its you, thats fine, or you can comment.

I would prefer to just get on with the missions, but I'm flexible enough to do whatever you guys want. If you want to take the time to claer out everything and be completists, thats ok. I do agree with you Copland in saying that we probably wont get back to stuff if we dont do it now. Well, we probably wont get back to it until the game is over anyways.

So we have 3 options.
1 - Just focus on main storyline missions
2 - Get to level 20, then just focus on storyline missions
3 - Finish everything off in an area before we move on. So, we start with Istan, then Kourna, Vabbi, the Desolation, then end game (domain of anguish).
The only thing about approach 3 will be the length of time it will take us to get heroes. We only get 2 in Kourna - Zhed (my elementalist) and Margrid the Sly (mick's ranger). It is a fair chunk of game time anyway til you get the last 3 (Norgu, Goren and Morghan).

Also, 2 other key game elements come into it. The first one, when we get to Kourna is skill capping. The 2nd really doesnt come into play till Vabbi (but can be done with alot of time wastingly hard work in Kourna) which is Lightbringer points(which makes it easier to beat some of the baddies - margonites in particular).

So, I guess we have 3 choices for now, and then can decide between the other 2 later.
There is one more possible game priority, which is farming faction, but we'll talk about that later.

Dr Harry, is that you?

Possible Pets to charge around with... (I've only listed the one's available in Nightfall)

Warthog - yeah right...
Flamingo - ok we're all over these poofy pink birds, I know...Crocodile - we can pick up one of these bad boys in the lahtenda bog (western area). Probably be there next week or the week after.Lioness or a Lion - In Kourna. Be a few weeks still before we get there.Jahai Rat - Not til Vabbi (ages yet)Hyena - in the desolation (toward the end of the game)
So, I guess it comes down to what looks cool. I have to say that charging round with a Hyena would be awesome, but it will take ages to get there. They are only level 5, and therefore would take ages to level up. I think pretty much all the pets from croc up have their appeal. The rats are funky!
Up to you guys. I probably wont get any, as my builds for my heros will demand secondaries being utilised, maybe my paragon??? No dramas.

Tallykarahoiey?

OK Mick, how ever you pronounce Tahlkora, heres a link to a cool bonding build to work towards.

Also, it might be an idea to think about a smiter build, there's a nice mo/me one I was checking out. As we already have 2 healers, we might make better use of another damage dealer. If you'd prefer, I could look into making Dunkora a smiter.

Either way a good build (and yours too big fella) will probably need some skills bought. You can check on wiki where to get them from a hero skills person, or alternatively pick them up with faction from a priest of balthazar.

Ranger Hero needs a clean

Would that be Bathtub Jinn?


So, I had a bit of a think about your Jinn build, in relation to the elites you already have.

Here's a general barrage build that apparently kicks. I know you're not a fan, but I've heard lots of good things. There are also several variations listed including a pet build, a fire ele combo and an interest go for the eyes paragon combo. It would be worthwhile reading the article on barrage builds anyways.

All the other builds listed on wiki utilise other eltes. You might want to check out the various interupter builds listed. I have heard that if there is one thing heroes/henchies are ebtter at than real ppl, its interupting, and well, that makes sense. It might be worth the 3,000 faction to go ahead and pick up one of these skills from a priest of balthazar. just check out all the skills required, so you're not trying to create a build that relies on factions skills.

lastly, is the question. to pet or not to pet? I can understand why you want to, its just the question... does it add that much to the party? I like em too, but it is something to think about. It would be cool to charge around with 3 or 4 different ones between us, but for now i need to mesmer secondary for my monks.

The only other thing to think about is that bowstring. you could come up with a nice conjure flame or conjure frost ele build, but there is no earth equivalent that i know of. not sure if there is something melonni can do to make the most out of the earth damage?

I need a Hero...I'm holding on for a hero til the morning light!

So, tonight I get my Ranger, as Ian has said.

From my Prophecies Ranger (Nathaniel the Judge) I already have the following elite skills to choose from.

Escape
Barrage
Melandru's Arrows
Poison Arrow
Spike Trap

I also have done some trading and hooked up the following weapons...
shortbow with an ebon bowstring
sturdy recurve bow

And, with any new Ranger comes a new pet. I want a cool pet and something a little bit dangerous...I will not just settle for any old Flamingo!

Game Plan: Tuesday March 6

Comment here if there is anything particular you want to do tonight.

I would like to, by the end of the night have both jinn and tahlkora in our party. I don't think this is asking too much.

here's the running order from where we are: Bad Tide Rising, Zaishen Elite, Student Jinn (gain Acolyte Jinn), Special Delivery, Big News Small Package (gain Tahlkora).

If we get thru this quick enough we just need to do following the trail, then we can go on and go the next mission - Blacktide Den.

we'll see how we go.

one for copland

one for mick

Life Stealing and Copland's Robah's Axe

I was just going to comment, and then realised i had too much to say to fit into that little box. Just responding to Copland's post anyways.

Firstly is a thought on life stealing, an attribute that comes with any weapons that are vampiric.

life stealing gives you health that is taken off the person you are attacking. So it functions like some necro skills, in particular vampiric gaze, vampiric bite and vampiric touch, but on a much smaller scale (mind you it doesnt cost energy to cast).

The best way to get the most out it would be to be able to hit a number of foes at the same time. There is some discussion going on about using a vampiric bow with barrage for example. So... the solution here, to get some pretty serious health regeneration happening, lies in 2 skills. One of these skills is elite, and can only be found in factions so lets not worry too much about that right now (triple chop), the other can be picked up at kamadan - cyclone axe. So, theoretically, you could gain 12 or even 15 health every time you use CA, with a 4 second recharge that's not too bad, and you could use some inspiration magic skills to help you with energy management (only 5 energy a hit, but that will still go fast as a warrior).

Lastly, it goes without saying that you should have a 2nd axe equipped, to hold onto while not attacking, or you'll slowly die - and to be honest, i dont wanna have to be healing your butt every 7 seconds!

Boys and their toys...

It seems to be mostly a Warrior thing to do...but I can't stop thinking about my weapon (yeh yeh...ha ha ha!). At the moment I am using a gold axe...but when I grow up I plan to use this
gotta try and work out how to use it best cause its vampiric. thoughts? (this is Ian's dodgy addition due to accidentally deleting half the post - sorry big fella).

hero list

Copland
Koss (w) 1
Acolyte Jinn (r) 4
Goren (w) 8 (optional - not required)
Master of Whispers (n) end of game

Mick
Melonni (d) 3
Tahlkora (mo) 5
Margrid the Sly (r) 7
Acolyte Sousuke (e) end of game

Ian
Dunkoro (mo) 2
Zhed Shadowhoof (e) 6
Norgu (me) 9 (optional - not required)
General Morghan (p) 10

anyone got a spare 75k plus materials?

if anyone feels like giving me money for this that would be nice...

team priorities

ok... so maybe we need to discuss what we want to do as a team - the label or category team priorities will handle this...

i agree that general time in town is pretty heavy at the moment.
maybe we need to try to do all that sort of stuff (armor, skills, hero builds, weapons) in our own time. And have the only thing we do in towns be collect rewards and merchant stuff.

thoughts...

if i only had a...

making a new category for posts - wishlist items
if there is anything in particular you are after put it here. if you have a guild wiki (or other) link to info on the item you can do that too.

for example... copland eats these for breakfast
and mick wishes he was going out with one of these

why... hello there

ok... hello people...
if you don't want to do this, then that's fine. if you do that's cool too

any thoughts for out tuesday night empire can be thrown up here, so i can stop calling everyone all the time. its also reasonably easy to throw pictures up here too and links.

let me start with a link that is the source of about 95% of my guild wars info these days
guild wiki

test