Posts by Marty Silverblade

Afaik Morostav Trail works out best for faction, and should work out to almost 1k faction per minute. Super efficient teams are capable of getting sub 25min times. A quick search of the Guru farming forum brought up a map and some builds, though I would think you'd do better with a dagger build + mesmer based hero setup than a bunch of discord spammers.

Reputation is largely irrelevant here. Luxon armor (assuming you mean the standard set rather than the elite one) only requires getting access to Cavalon. You can do that as soon as you complete Boreas Seabed. You'll need to have more current/unspent luxon faction than kurzick faction so that the crafter will let you craft, but that's it. The quest which requires you to obtain 10k luxon faction (Befriending the Luxons) gets you into Gyala Hatchery, which is not something you need to do (unless you did want the elite set).

Aside from that, I can't really say much else. Skipping gates and whatnot in Factions is not my area of expertise.

I don't think a no post editing policy is warranted. Sometimes it's the quickest, cleanest, most efficient way of taking care of what needs to be done. Other times, as cosy mentioned, it is the only option. What's important is that the moderator is transparent in what has been done and why, they're not altering the intended message in any way, they're not hijacking the post with their own conversation, they're not doing it rather than something else which is clearly more appropriate, etc. So long as those boxes are being ticked, I don't see an issue.

Personally I find it's something that should be done only very sparingly. As far as I've observed this tends to be the case. It happens mostly in Xunlai Market, but that's a special case due to the specific rules and such there.

If you've got criticisms about either a specific post edit or the way a moderator uses them overall (or any kind of moderation issue, for that matter), you're certainly welcome to start a private conversation with them.

A new thread for each challenge seems a good idea. With everything in one thread people may be discouraged from attempting older ones due to the perception that everyone has moved on. Also, there's plenty of scope for discussion afterwards (like here, with our talk about what it means for something to be overpowered) so not getting that tangled up with newer stuff will be important.

As for whether these threads belong here or in the contest section, personally I'm inclined to keep them here. With the people participating it's clear the reward here is the challenge itself, not any financial gain. If people want to offer such things then by all means go ahead, but with the tasks being set and the discussion they're prompting I don't think they're out of place here.

If someone wants to PM me to work through challenge proposals before submitting them they're welcome to.

Have you tried getting into contact with the person running it? I suspect you'd have more luck with that than someone putting in who knows how many hours constructing a full GUI overhaul just for you. This seems to be the relevant thread, if that helps. Given he's changed the bag images to his name I doubt he would have made such a thing public, but if you can contact him he may share it.

Alternatively, perhaps what you could do is find the closest GUI mod to what you want and then tweak it as needed. Depends on which elements you actually want.

Why are you running Weaken Armor and Parasitic Bond on an AP bar? Why are you running Parasitic Bond at all? I'm also concerned about how much you're going to get out of MoP with a reduced team size. If you're in an area where the mobs are of a decent size and ball well it'll likely work well enough with just the assassin, but I'm not convinced on mainbarring it.

Anyway, I think the best way to go about this is to start with a four person team and then figure out what's best to add. You could try cutting someone from a six person team too but they're typically already annoying hybrid setups so I don't think that'd work as well. Jeydra swore by SoS Rit + heals, SoGM Rit + Fall Back, and Minion Bomber + prots to go with an AP caller. Adding a mesmer to that is the obvious and almost certainly right thing to do. I'm sure many people would prefer two mesmers, dropping the SoGM Rit to accommodate.

Henchmen aren't available in the area you're currently in. If you need to not be solo you need to group with another player.

Open the chat window (if it isn't already) using the button in the bottom right corner and enter "/bonus" (without quotes).

Skills which aren't op: honestly, most of them. Just because something is effective or frequently features in meta builds doesn't necessarily mean it's overpowered. Of that list, SY, Death Blossom, Splinter Weapon, Wandering Eye, and probably Cry of Frustration are the only ones that stand out as egregious. Probably EBSoH too, though physicals haven't received the love some casters have so that's fairer (especially so in the context of this challenge where physical heroes are generally bad). A lot of the Mesmer skills aren't really that bad; it's Fast Casting jacking them up that's the issue. Similarly, the issue with Shelter is Soul Twisting. People didn't typically run it before ST had it's functionality changed + spirits had their casting times cut. Minion Bombers seem ok to me, though if you want to push people away from them just banning Death Nova would be fine.

Skills I'd ban: without having put too much thought into it, I don't like seeing Assassin's Promise used to spam PvE skills so either ban it or specify that you can bring it but not along with any PvE skills. Soul Twisting as mentioned. I'd prefer to not see Blood is Power either. Ether Renewal.

I know you probably didn't put in a ton of thought when you said this, but I have a strong preference that cons of any kind not be allowed.

Some thoughts:

-Many of these skills aren't overpowered, at least not inherently, and you've not listed some which clearly are. I think a better approach to such a challenge would be broader/less specific restrictions, eg, no more than one mesmer (and no pretend mesmers), no PvE skills, no more than two binding rituals per bar, etc. Some skills you'd need to explicitly rule out such as Soul Twisting, but I suspect it would be better to keep that to a minimum.

-I wouldn't really classify this as a challenge: it's largely just winding back to before the last few skill updates where game breakingly overpowered bars weren't the norm. Most things are as powerful as they used to be, eg Monk backlines, and are fully capable of completing the vast majority of content.

-A challenge with a vague end point (make it effective) doesn't really inspire participation. A "can you achieve this" type thing works better - it has a definitive goal. It also gives people a means to compare results.

I wouldn't recommend playing a profession just because someone told you it was ideal. That's dumb to begin with, but consider that if this is going to be your 'do everything' character you're going to be spending hundreds of hours playing them, so you'd better pick something you actually want to play. Spending that much time doing something you don't enjoy defeats the purpose of playing a game. Having an effective/optimal/whatever character doesn't count for anything if you're not motivated to play them.

Personally I prefer professions with a lot of variety in playstyles. Not just a lot of builds, but types of builds - so a Rit could spirit spam, be a viable weapon user with Spirit's Strength, be a minion bomber, be a party support character in various ways, etc.

No. The contents of your storage are not dependent on your ability to access them.

Quote from Asca Lante

Grand Court of Sebelkah is killing me today, any tips on how to push through this one?

Firstly, it's worth noting that Grand Court of Sebelkeh is the noob trap of Nightfall. It exists to teach you the importance of damage. Without knowing anything about what's going wrong for you, I suspect you're not killing things as efficiently as you ought to be. If you are, this mission is pretty straightforward, if not, it's tough.

As for advice, I can't be specific without details. Post your builds - a screenshot of your interface with hero panels open will suffice. Hopefully you picked Norgu.

Aside from that, pulling back at the start to allow the margonites to get together in the middle makes things easier than rushing straight in and fighting three smaller groups on three sides. Also make sure you've got your Lightbringer title up as previously mentioned.

It looks like some of the forums (specifically, Gladiator's Arena, Explorer's League, Guild Recruitment, PUG's and Grouping, Off Topic, Nolani Academy of Arts, Screenshots, and Site Feedback) aren't linked properly - presumably Kevin rearranged some things but didn't update the links for whatever reason. I also found some pages where the CSS is broken but not in a way that prevents usability. Not sure why that's happening.

Quote from Red Fireball

Maybe a list like this?

That list is solely for items whose stats cannot be replicated, i.e, my third point above. Greens with unique/PvP only skins aren't put in the unreplicable box.

People generally don't consider greens to have much prestige and I am no exception, but there are three things I don't entirely ignore:

-The ones whose model is either unique or only otherwise available as a PvP reward (e.g, Willcrusher). Unfortunately I don't think there's a list of such items.

-The ones from Sorrow's Furnace for nostalgia's sake, though sadly they're usually badly modded.

-The ones which are modded in a way that is inconsistent with what would usually be possible. All of them are junk too, though.

Quote from OS T

Also,what is that samurai dude doing in the site background if its gw2 please replace it.

It's a promotional image for Winds of Change.

Items will provide their effects when equipped regardless of whether they're identified or not which allows them to be tested. For example, if you equip an unidentified sword and your max health goes up by 27 then then sword has a pommel of fortitude granting +27 health. This is a very obvious example; other things take a reasonable amount of effort, and some would likely take far more effort than they're worth. Items which cannot be equipped (eg armor items) cannot be tested. Regardless, do be aware of confirmation bias and such.

That's the official download link, unless they changed it which I don't think they have done. It'll be flagged as dangerous because it modifies the way another program runs which is inherently suspicious behaviour.

Just talk to support and see what happens. Apparently they're extremely generous nowadays - I've heard stories of people freely telling support they were banned for botting and then getting unbanned. If you can somehow give a reasonable indication that the account is yours you should be able to get it back. Do you remember the information you used to make the account, like real name or address or something? That should do it even without the codes.

This is where we moved to after the shut down of Guru. Nobody gave a damn about Guru2. This site has been running for over a year now.

The app could run GW with the log in info passed in via command line switch. The decrypted info would be produced in the code and sent straight through to the Anet authentication server without needing to handle a log in screen.

Regardless, it's a moot point. The creator would still have access to your logged in account. What would stop them from doing things with it while the app is running? Unless they've found a way to get access to the chat functionality without anything else, which I very much doubt.

I certainly wouldn't declare that the motivation for the creator must be to steal people's accounts - this is certainly something a lot of people would want, including the creator - but you'd be a fool to trust them. For me to even consider such a thing I'd want explicit knowledge on how it functions, i.e, the source code. Perhaps the log in information is encrypted between the app and being input into the GW client in a manner that ensures the creator isn't ever able to view it.

Server maintenance. Game should be up again in half an hour.

https://twitter.com/GuildWars/status/928300542157234177

My favourite missions are the classic noob traps: Thunderhead Keep and Grand Court of Sebelkeh (Factions doesn't have one because its timed missions instead teach people to be terrible). As someone whose primary interests are game mechanics and builds something which specifically attempts to teach you why spamming Flare or Conjure Phantasm stops being effective is much appreciated.

As for the quest, I'd also nominate Althea's Ashes. Obviously it's one of the most (probably the most) iconic Prophecies quest, but there's a specific nostalgia element for me too. The first time I did it we had a level 7 monk, a level 9 necro, me as a level 13 mesmer and a henchman. We got right to the end (after starting from Piken Square nonetheless) but we just couldn't fight our way up to the pedestal - the combination of warriors jamming the stairs and the rangers shredding us from their elevated positions was too much. We wiped twice, but then on the third attempt enough went our way such that a clear lane opened up in front of me and I ran for the pedestal. After wiping again, I checked my inventory and sure enough, I had the ashes. I told the other two people to give me their jars and instead of trying to kill the charr, try to block or draw them off so I could get through. We planned out precisely what each of us was going to do and then managed to replicate my pedestal run. Finding a way to succeed after you've all but admitted defeat is about as satisfying as it gets.

My favourite explorable (which presumably is what you mean to ask) would probably be Spearhead Peak. It contains a good mix of enemy types, some challenging geography, the boss with Ferocious Strike (which I wanted for my Warrior), and is on route to The Granite Citadel (where you can craft Dragon Armor, which I also wanted). The random group of dwarves that occasionally spawn from the north is a nice touch too.

Yeah, I'm getting that too. Perhaps it's not downloading properly at all. One thing that stood out though was that the filename has dots in it - that should be reserved for separating the filename from the extension. Renaming it didn't help.

For me it failed the first time but then succeeded on the second. I've uploaded it here if you still have issues: http://www.filedropper.com/7sclearlineuiv4820048200

There have been some technical issues in the last day or so which for the most part seem to have been resolved. It looks like the Like functionality has been renamed to Thank You. I don't know why.

Prophecies is my pick because of the varied environments and enemies, and the medieval fantasy aesthetic is my favourite. It also has a sense of adventure that the others don't due to the relative lack of outposts. If I had to pick a single part of it, I'd say the Shiverpeaks. Only thing I really don't like is how many 6 person areas there are. The desert really should have been 8.

Nightfall is generally pretty good. Riding in the wurms is an entirely unpleasureable experience, but that's the only issue of any significance.

Factions is my least favourite of the campaigns because trying to find my way around the city areas gets tiresome (even Kaineng Center now with its 100 million NPCs) and having the missions be timed was an atrocious decision. Doesn't help that they also featured big mobs, exploding enemies, and npcs you frequently have to protect.

EotN has a similar feel to Prophecies with the environments (Charr Homeland especially), though knowing how GW2 actually ended up makes me much less enthusiastic about it. Reused dungeon levels don't help.

I wasn't having issues logging in or loading areas so I can't comment on that, but rerunning the scan tool gives me the same list of timeouts it did before.

My favourites tend to be those with sentimental value. I suppose it helps that I prefer the traditional medieval fantasy stylings over those used in Factions+NF. As such, I'd say the flamberge is my favourite, though it's not the kind of thing I'd usually go for. I don't recall what made inspired me to pursue one as my first big buy (45k!) - my tastes have changed in the last 12 years. Oddly, the ingame design is nothing alike to the real life flamberge.

For me it's not so much about a specific profession as it is being able to perform in certain roles (namely melee) and build diversity. Generally I prefer to play casters but that isn't the case in GW. Not sure why. If I had to pick one, I'd probably go for Rit, with Ranger in second.

If you're crafting gear from Vasburg Armory you don't need upgrades. That stuff is uninscribable and already has the mods you want. Just craft wands in the same way you crafted the focuses. It's quicker and possibly cheaper.

Two entirely non-essential things that may or may not be on the improvements list:

-Linking to a specific post (via clicking on the post number in the upper right corner) doesn't work.
-Spoiler tags don't open. It's not so much an issue for actual spoilers, but sometimes when people write long posts (often guides) they put certain things in them to avoid derailing their post. The content was saved - it can be seen in the page source - it just that the tags don't open.

I suspect what he means is that if someone sends him a whisper while he's afk then by the time he gets back it'll have disappeared due to the large flow of dialogue. I haven't heard of any tools that do this though, only a few websites like you linked.

http://argos-soft.net/Archive/GwDressUp/

Use at your own risk.

My understanding it's a forum rank, tied to your post count. It's like on Guru except instead of/in addition to your forum title ("Adventurous Submitter" in your case) you get stars as well. Some user groups have fixed amounts, for example supermods (like myself) have six regardless of post count or any other factor.

Plenty of maps here: http://archive.guildwarslegacy.com/15/15%20The%20…Thread.123.html

Linking to a specific post doesn't work so you'll just have to scroll down.

Where are you up to/what are you trying to do? 1v1 situations are very specific events, namely Augury Rock, Tihark Orchard and ~3-4 side quests in EotN. Each is different and as such requires a different approach. Generally speaking skills that punish the enemy for attacking are the way to go for Necros, or just go /Rit and use a spirit spammer build, though again, the details depend on the quest. The wiki often provides build direction for these sorts of quests.