Posts by Marty Silverblade

  • I'm back!!

    Welcome back.

    As you've noticed PvP is largely non functional due to botters and other such types. You'll need to look out for community organised events to viably play PvP. See here for details.

    Regarding active players, do you mean for PvP or as a whole? Regardless, I don't think anyone can really give a solid number. As far as PvE is concerned, most people are out doing things with heroes so you're not going to see many people sitting around in outposts looking for groups. Joining a guild to connect you with people is recommended.

  • Looking for advices

    It's important to note that things have fallen out of use due to buffs rather than nerfs. After Anet announced they were moving on to GW2 (probably around when you quit) their profession 'rebalances' just consisted of buffing the hell out of them rather than necessarily addressing the wider issues with them or nerfing the overpowered stuff, presumably because this was easier and wouldn't risk any players getting annoyed and leaving. As such, all the old stuff is still as viable as it was (likely aside from the GW Beyond content which was designed with these updates in mind). If you're interested there are archives for PvX and Guru which might provide some inspiration. Some PvX users also keep off-meta build ideas on their personal pages, though I don't know if there's a good way to search them.

    Regarding your specific suggestions:

    -An example of a physway/meleeway build is here. There's a lot wrong with it (I'm sure there are better examples elsewhere), but you can see the general structure with the multiple melee's getting buffed with orders, smites, etc.

    -I'm also reminded of EFGJack's coordinated ball and spike builds. Unfortunately the images are gone but the videos show off the playstyle sufficiently.

    Aside from that, there's nothing stopping you from putting something together yourself. That's the biggest appeal for a lot of people. As mentioned, the game has been made significantly easier than it was, so even if the concept ends up being lackluster it should still be generally capable. Even inherently gimmicky setups such as teams of all the same primary profession can function.

    Finally, execution matters. The game wasn't meant to be a case of loading the correct skill bars and then coasting through to success. This tends to be forgotten nowadays with overpowered setups devaluing player competence, but things like pulling, aggroing, flagging heroes, preprotting, etc, used to be what made the difference between success and failure. So even supposedly 'bad' builds (by modern standards) can work if you put in a little effort.

  • Mail bug?

    I can't replicate your attachment issue. All the buttons work fine for me. I tried on both my usual white mantle theme and on the dervish one (I presume this is what you're referring to as the dark theme).

    I don't usually have email notifications on for anything, but I just tried it and nothing turned up after 10 mins. I'll poke Kevin.

  • armor vs damage type and cap on armor// damage reduction

    Armor reduces damage by a percentage. For example +5AL cuts incoming damage by ~8%, +16AL cuts incoming damage by ~24%, +40AL cuts incoming damage by 50%. So the number of damage points additional armor will prevent depends on the size of the incoming packet.

    There's no armor cap, either overall or for particular damage types. There is a +25AL limit on bonus armor (see links below), though if a single effect exceeds this it will work in full.

    Armor rating - Guild Wars Wiki (GWW)

    Armor calculation - Guild Wars Wiki (GWW)

    The mechanics are well understood at this point so the wiki should cover anything you need to know if you really want to dig deep into this stuff. If you give some concrete info about where/what/how you're testing and it's not clear from the above links we can walk through the numbers.

  • -20% condition mods

    No. Mr. Clean(-Value) is incorrect. The duration of an effect is always fixed upon it's creation. They are never shortened/lengthened or sped up/slowed down on the fly. Switching to a -20% blind (for example) shield after you've been blinded achieves nothing. Likewise, casting Ether Renewal and then switching to a +20% enchant weapon does nothing, casting Healing Breeze and then Blessed Aura does nothing, moving in or out of Quickening Zephyr does nothing, etc.

    Edit: QZ affects recharge time rather than effect durations, but the principle is the same.

  • Health mod or dmg reduction?

    Quote from shield plz

    I would imagine health only because dmg reduc only applies to physical damage

    While it is true the -2/enchant and similar mods are physical only it's irrelevant here. These mods go in the inscription slot which can never contain +health. The question for that slot is whether the -2 is better than +10 armor vs damage or creature type. The health vs armor slot is the suffix mod, and also the prefix for staves. A +5 armor mod here affects all armor effected sources of damage. https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_weapon_upgrades

    I'm not a chestrunner by any means so I can't speak specifically in that context, but as a general rule +armor is preferred. A few reasons:

    -Armor typically increases the amount of damage the enemies have to throw at you to kill you by more.

    -Armor makes healing more effective.

    -Adding x to your maximum health achieves absolutely nothing until you get below x health whereas armor is always helping.

    There's more to say about it then that, but there you go. I'm sure the relevant build pages on pvx/wherever would detail the preferred equipment anyway.

  • Announcing DSOAL-GW1: 3D Positional Audio and EAX Effects for Everyone!

    Quote from invert control

    I can confirm that this also works on Windows 11. I had some troubles at first where the in-game option was still greyed out after following the instruction, but setting gw.exe to run in compatibility mode with Windows XP fixed that. I'm not sure if that is the best way to do it. I noticed that compatibility mode breaks the skill template manager in the game.

    Don't know what you're referring to by "breaks", but iirc windows xp put the templates in the install directory whereas newer versions put them in documents. If your issue is that your templates seem to be missing then it's probably just a matter of moving/copying them.

  • How do you PM others?

    Don't bump five year old threads to post completely unrelated content.

    Click on the conversation bubble icon on the semi-transparent bar and then click on the plus button. Alternatively, go to your intended recipient's profile, click the user button (to the right of their username) and then Create Conversation.

  • is being 1-off or 2-off max damage significant?

    The difference isn't going to be noticeable. Unless you're doing something legitimately difficult in today's context a couple of points of DPS less won't impact your success. What will be far more important is modding it properly, customising it, and maxing out the weapon attribute (which you should always be doing, not just to compensate for a bad weapon).

  • prophecies pve warrior solo build

    Most builds you find should work fine. The main build repository is GWPvX wiki, which is not perfect but a good resource. Maybe you might have to substitute one skill for another but all the core stuff that forms the foundation of a build will be available.

    Where are you up to? If you're just starting out you're better off learning what makes a good build and putting something together with what you have rather than trying to match a build that might have skills you won't see for a long time or will take a lot of effort to get. Some builds may also not be effective unless you've got all your attribute points or certain bits of gear, which might make them poor choices if you're still levelling. Also, learning how to actually be good at your role, like with pulling, is pivotal to your performance - you're not going to automatically win just because you've got a good set of skills on your bar.

    Assuming you're still in the early stages keep it simple: something like 3-4 attack skills, something to boost your attack speed, some kind of party support (eg Watch Yourself), and a couple of offensive utility skills (eg For Great Justice). It'll be easier to give more solid advice if you give us more info

    Also, for the record, solo means literally solo, even without ai companions.

  • Deldrimor rank max without HM [infinite war project]

    Off the top of my head, Illusion of Pain will result in a net gain of health if removed early enough. You can do this yourself with Drain Delusions.

    Edit: some more thoughts: Grenth's Balance can be used even if not in your favour. If you find enemies who can copy your skills (eg with Inspired Hex) you could send them some healing skills like Soul Leech. Tengu's Mimicry can copy any shout or chant you use. Some nature rituals (other than Predatory Season which you've mentioned) could be helpful. I have no idea whether these are viable without knowing what you're trying to achieve.

  • What level should I be for the Fort Runick mission? Finding it hard.

    Just to be sure, are you filling your team with henchmen? The game is designed to be played with full teams. Also, have you redeemed any bonus items you might have access to by typing /bonus into the chat panel?

    Level 7, while probably a level or two behind, should not be problematic. Your build (and your competence with it) is always the number one factor in determining success. It'll probably be helpful to get Distracting Shot from the Charr Reinforcements quest. I'd also point out that boss spawns in Prophecies are generally random, so if there's one particular boss that's troublesome you might find a different one next time. Also worth knowing that Healing Signet has been buffed significantly since release, so if it's the warrior boss you're talking about I wouldn't use it as an indicator that you're doing anything significantly wrong.

  • Best place to repeatedly max out death penalty?

    There are some places where enemies will sit close enough to a shrine that they'll reaggro immediately after respawning. The Necro boss on level 2 of Vloxen Excavations is notorious for this given it's a tough group. It'll obviously take longer to get there than the options you've mentioned, but if you're looking to get lucky points out of clovers prioritising wipe speed over startup time will be ideal.

  • Noob here. Is a ranger/monk viable?

    It depends on what you want to do with it. There are thousands of skills in this game. A profession combination alone tells you nothing about whether a character will be effective or not. As a general rule though, remember that you're not picking two professions, you're picking a primary and a secondary. Your primary defines what your character is and then you use your secondary to grab a particular skill or two to round out your build. As an example, a Warrior might go /Elementalist for Conjure Flame to boost their weapon damage, while a Monk might go /Elementalist for Glyph of Lesser Energy to reduce the cost of their expensive protection spells. If you were thinking R/Mo so that you can have strong ranged damage and be a competent party healer, you'll just end up being bad at both roles.

    That said, there are builds where the secondary profession plays a starring role, but that's specifically by design rather than trying to be two things at once or forcing a square peg into a round hole.

    Also, note that you'll eventually unlock the ability to change your secondary whenever you're in an outpost, though that'll be most of the way through the campaign in Prophecies.

  • How to get through the game playing solo

    If it's been that long you're probably better off starting again than trying to pick up where you left off (though don't go deleting your old characters). A lot has been added or changed so anything you might remember might not be accurate anymore anyway.

    That said, the wiki has a summary for returning players, but even that doesn't go back as far as 2008. There's also a beginner hero guide, though if you've got a lot more unlocked (idk what/how much you did before you quit) you can look towards the proper meta builds also on that site.

    Regardless of how you decide to go about things, you can finance your build+equipment needs easily via nick gifts, which can be sold for up to 5 ectos each. Some weeks are easier than others.

  • Necro minion limit and game mechanics question

    The minion limit is checked only when you create a minion.

    For the first question, yes, you would then have 11 minions. However, when you create another minion you're probably not going to trigger the mod again and you'll be back to 10. The mod is still a good option though because the minion it does create will be stronger.

    For the second question, nothing will happen immediately upon becoming weakened. However, when you do create a minion, your limit will be nine so two will die off and the horror will be created.

  • Most effective ways to earn gold these days?

    -Gifts are ~3e each. Selling them for plat directly isn't really feasible - it's always either ecto or arms if the quantity is big enough. (You can of course just sell the ectos for plat afterwards if you need.)

    -I haven't calculated the exchange rate, but if zkeys sold for more than gold zcoins people would just trade them in and then sell them. Keeping the coins as silver is likely ideal. You can trade from bronze to silver to gold but not the other way. So if you have silver and someone wants gold that's fine, but if you have gold and someone wants silver that won't work. Looking at trade chat it seems most people want golds now anyway, but unless you're dealing with a huge quantity of coins and storage space becomes an issue there's no reason to lose the flexibility.

    -If all you want money for is for getting your characters set up you really don't need to invest any meaningful amount of time into farming. You get enough to get what you need just by playing through the game. If you want to obsessively min-max yourself and your heroes (which is not even remotely necessary) then you'll want to be grabbing the nick gifts, but that's about it. You don't need to think about getting involved in speed clears for this purpose.

    -You can advertise vanquishing services and the like in the services forum below. Maybe people search for such things on Discord too, but I don't use it so maybe not.

    -Kamadan is the go-to trade town.

  • GW Online Store in German

    The store (store.guildwars.com) is temperamental. It's not uncommon to have issues with it. I typically have the opposite problem, with it being in German or some other language and then setting itself to English after navigating through a few pages. That's not happening to me now, though it is only displaying in basic html. Using different browsers tends to give different results so perhaps try that.

  • Farming as a Rit

    A maximum of five per account per week.

    It varies significantly depending on the item. Sometimes he wants crafting materials that you can just grab from storage and be done in 5 mins, while other times he wants things with a low drop rate or that are difficult to farm without specific builds.

    Also, they typically sell for around ~3e each nowadays rather than 5e but it's still a good earner.

  • My builds

    Not going to nitpick everything (for the most part they either resemble meta bars or fulfil whatever niche you want them to), but the RaO bar is pretty bad. RaO and NRA are redundant. IAS and IMS don't stack past 33%. Considering that pets get free IMS and you have little need for it as a ranged attacker you're burning 25e (!) and your elite slot for not a whole lot. If you want to use something that benefits both you and the pet you should try something with Heal as One. That frees up a few slots and a lot of energy, so you can get more spear attacks in so you benefit more from the adrenaline from spear of fury.

  • Symbol of Wrath broken?

    It's working as intended. Perhaps the description isn't clear - the effect occurs adjacent to where you were when you cast it. It's a point blank AoE, like Lava Font, not a ranged one like Fire Storm. You don't cast it at an enemy, you cast it wherever you are at the time.