GW2: Further Progress
So, a number of things have been happening on the GW2 front. First, a huge patch was released this week, setting the stage for PoF, and sending out a bunch of balance tweaks to jobs. This included a nerf to Power Reaper, which happens to be the class/build I’ve been scraping by trying to use.
Building Necro
Now, I’m not much of a min-maxer build maker… in fact, I’m pretty bad at figuring these things out. Even in GW1, I just went to the build site, read through the different builds and how they were meant to work, and picked something that fit my play style.
Yeah, I know. MMO folks like to exaggerate things. But even I could see why this nerf was pretty bad, and it really has the Necro community at their wits end. There’s a feeling that things are getting nerfed at this point in order to make way for the new PoF specializations.
I have no interest in the new PoF Necro spec. Overall, Power Reaper does a lot to check off the boxes that make me a happy player. It’s just quite squishy sometimes. I’ve been struggling to find the right gear and make something where I don’t die while still doing sustainable damage.
So I was really distraught when it felt like the build I was working toward had already been nerfed to the ground, and I’d hardly returned to the game for a week yet. I’m not sure why I decided to turn to CuriousCat for help — maybe because they offered some really good advice and seemed knowledgeable about what classes did what in my previous GW2 post.
I have to send my deep thanks to CuriousCat for taking the time to talk about builds, skills and gear, and determine what might work for me best. It turns out that I didn’t need to abandon the work I’d been doing, that I could keep my Power Necro, the gear I’d scrounged up, and still enjoy it. Of course, there were some changes to make, but GW has always been a series about flexibility and adjustment.
I think the build CuriousCat suggested is going to see me through HoT, and I’m very thankful for the help!
Doing Dailies
I think I briefly mentioned dailies in my previous post, but I never really got to talk about them in depth. GW2 dailies are much changed from the dailies that I remember, and in a very good way!
It used to be, the game did this scattershot of suggested daily activities and you had to finish something like 6 things on the list to be rewarded… This system is so much better.
First, you only need to finish 3 items on the list. Every time you finish an item, you get a reward. Then you get a reward (and 2 gold) for being a daily completionist if you finish all 3 objectives on top of it. So, even if you couldn’t finish everything in one day, you still get some reward for what you did do.
The options are usually pretty simple to complete. When there’s a specific jump puzzle, often you have kind Mesmers who open fast-ports to the end for you. Some of them take tips for the service (I have no idea how much is proper to give for that, though).
When it’s daily event completion, there is almost always a group of folks out in that particular zone doing events. Also, mentors and commander tags (or catmander tags) abound, leading people through event chains. I’ve seen a lot of events I never saw before, and I’ve been working on world completion in those zones, as well.
World Completion
Speaking of World Completion, I’m slowly getting there. Last night, I cleared a few more zones, and now I’m sitting at 52% map completion.
Seeing that my most played character is at 78%, I’m slowly gaining ground.
Oh, and speaking of maps, here’s something cool that happened yesterday!
Story Progression
Since I got a good chunk of mapping done last night, I also decided to jump into the next section of the HoT storyline. Finally, I’m finding something interesting that’s not just the writers force-feeding us the obvious. Also, finally, my character is doing something interesting and new, all on his own.
SPOILERS
I don’t know if I should mark this as spoilers seeing it came out years ago. But old habits die hard.
So we finally catch up with Caithe, who stole Glint’s egg at the end of Season 2 for reasons that made no sense to me. Well, she reveals the egg is her Wylde Hunt and it’s her job to protect it. Alright, well, that explains a bit… but why Caithe thought running off by herself into a Mordremoth-infested jungle with the egg was a good idea is beyond me.
Anyhow… Mordre-Faolian appears to snag the egg for her new master! I’ve never liked her character, so while her new form was way over the top, at the same time, it’s just deserts. Except… that she’s chasing me, who now has the egg, and can pretty much one-shot me if she catches me.
This instance was one of action sequences where the egg is empowering your character with abilities, much like those seen in the Zephyrite community. So, it’s a bunch of jumping, teleporting and shooting forward through Mordrem obstacles while avoiding Mordre-Faolian. Some of this was frustrating… especially the annoying glider part at the end where you had to think to super jump and THEN glide to make it across (while under pressure and being nudged by an NPC to GLIDE RIGHT NOW!).
Speaking of NPCs. So we’ve got these creatures in the jungle called the Exalted that reminded me instantly of a shinier version of Mursaat. That was kinda cool, and felt rather GW1-ish.
I’m heading towards their city at this point in the story, and I’m actually very curious about who they are and what’s going to happen. I’ve been spoiled for some major plot points in the game, but I still don’t know all the little details. 😉
I really liked the idea that the hatchling in the egg chose Zznaf, connecting with him and giving him dragon abilities. It’s nice that my character is the important one for a change, rather than this hodge podge of NPCs that keep butting in all the time.
I’ll try to pick the story up again tonight and see where it goes before the weekend preview hits.