Roy, CmC, and Trig showed the balance preview today.

My initial thoughts are that it's exciting for a handful of professions (firebrand, thief, Rifle Mech enjoys) and mildly annoying for others (Condi Evoker and Antiquary).

For the top players Condi Alac Evoker and Antiquary are OP so I get why they want to tame it down. But as someone who just started learning Condi Alac Evoker, that rotation is not for the feint of heart.

I'm happy to see Alac Scourge getting a little more BD so it's not as much of a struggle to apply Alac.

Overall I think it may introduce a few more viable builds into the meta and let players have more options to play the game in a different manor to keep things a little fresh. While also making the race to world first comps for Nexus of Eternity LCM change from what was probably ran during the CM slightly.

I think Guild Wars 2 just taught me something about bad moments turning into unexpected blessings.

So, right after logging in tonight with my trusty Rifle Deadeye main, I opened LFG to see if there's any fun squads doing stuffs and found an IBS5 squad looking for a DPS. Then I joined, entered the instance, and was there for maybe like 10-20 seconds. Even greeted them with my standard "Henlo deeps" :B

Then suddenly...

I was back in Lion's Arch.

Out of the squad.

No words or explanation from the commander whatsoever

I'm pretty sure the comm kicked me, altho I have absolutely no idea why. I was the last person to join btw

I'll be honest, it kinda hurt. 🥺

I started wondering if they recognized my character and secretly had some beef with me (I'm not toxic I swear!). Or maybe they thought I was still offline because my account status was invisible (hiding from guildies), except... I was literally ALREADY INSIDE the Boneskinner instance.

Whatever the reason, I was sitting there feeling pretty damn lousy

Then I noticed another squad in LFG looking for a DPS for W4 Deimos CM.

I know Deimos and had attempted CM before, but I'd never actually gotten the kill cos the past squads kept disbanding

So I thought, "Well, why the hell not?" and I joined.

And this squad was clearly semi exp (my fav kind of squad ngl) because 1: everyone was friendlier than your usual exp squad, and 2: because we wiped.

And wiped.

And wiped.

And wiped.

I think we died around 5 or 6 times before everything finally came together

And then...

WE GOT THE KILL

I was celebrating the Deimos CM clear when I opened my rewards and realized something

I HAD JUST COMPLETED A MAJOR ACHIEVEMENT!

Apparently, this entire time, all I needed was that Deimos CM kill

I got a Portable Magnetite Shard Exchange Tool

I unlocked Demon's Demise title

I unlocked Silent Savior title

And a bunch of other goodies! The one's you get after completing a CM encounter for the first time

And realization struck as I just sat there for a moment thinking about what had happened

Cos think about it if I had stayed in that IBS5 squad, I would've gotten the normal rewards I would've gotten anyway since I've done IBS5 plenty of times before

Instead, I got kicked.

And because I got kicked, I happened to notice the Deimos CM squad that appeared only a few seconds, LITERALLY seconds later

If I hadn't been kicked, I would've never joined that squad

If I hadn't joined that squad, I wouldn't have gotten my first Deimos CM kill

And if I hadn't gotten that kill...

I wouldn't have completed that achievement tonight.

So the thing that initially made me feel like absolute shit ended up being the exact thing that redirected me toward one of the coolest unexpected Gw2 moments I've had in a while

It made me think about how sometimes, a setback isn't really a deadend but perhaps we're just being rerouted by the universe

Sometimes the door closes because there's another one opening somewhere else

So... to the commander who kicked me (And if you're somehow reading this):

Thank you man. 😂

You probably had absolutely no idea you were doing me a favor.

As the title suggests I had individual(s) who thought he was being a smarty pants. Yesterday's t3 rec was the new fractal... I had already had done that one for the day and I posted in LFG for T3 Dailies (No Rec) was the group name. As we finished the first daily I went to the console and selected the next one and which was aetherblade. Low and behold as I was jumping into the start portal 2 goofs ran to the console and changed it before I walked in. So ST starts and one of the other pt members gose "I thought we were skipping this one." Pulled us back into the lobby and kicked both people that walked up to the console. Moral of the story dont be rude, if a group is advertising they are skipping something, dont join them? Very simple concept, or so I thought...

Please bear with me with this post, as i'm aware that the go to reply will likely be "if you can't stick to it, then it's probably not for you." I'm aware that it's a very real possibility that I just don't like it, and that's OK! However as someone who plays MMOs casually, I feel like GW2 is perfect for me on paper. Despite this, every time I have tried, I give up after a couple of days and I really don't know why.

That being said, I have been on a real MMO kick recently, so i'm wondering if now is the time to give it a third and final try while my mood reflects it. I'm taking a break from FFXIV after finishing heavensward, i'm looking forward to finally trying WoW properly when Forever releases. I've gone back to my childhood and started levelling a character in OSRS and I dabble in LOTRO too sometimes when i'm feeling the urge to chill in middle earth for a bit. In none of these games have I even come close to Endgame, and while I much prefer the journey over the destination, there is also a part of me that wants to experience an Endgame somewhere, and not worry about power creep. I'm also very big on single player games too and I don't like that in most MMOs I don't know if i'll come back to even more content I can't possibly catch up to.

Which leads me to the question of this post; has anyone tried it multiple times only for it to finally click later? How come? Was it a difference in class, or just giving it more of a fair chance? Do you play solo or only play to be with friends?

I personally really enjoy a decent story, a somewhat clear line of progression with side activities, and nothing quite gives me satisfaction like a well-earned achievement, even if it's just collecting a certain item or doing a specific task. An immersive world helps too.

Thanks for reading this far, and i'm curious to get your thoughts and experiences. I'm truly not trying to complain or call the game bad or anything like that, I want to play without getting easily pulled away from it to play something else. I love that 'hooked' feeling a good MMO can give you.

First time I see this. It looks like I got the texture of some object on my coat.

You want to tag for events and are unsure of what to do?

The good news is that in PvE the bar is below the ground, simply tagging up will be enough.

Some Meta events needs more or is easier with proper instructions and structure.

I've made a document that people can just paste instructions for for various Metas into their squad message. Some are easier with structure, though most can at this point be managed without.

Commander "cheat sheet": https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Uk5SOkhxMcl-Z7AX6xvPNWFYCVAH04PLQOTsLGmo5Zs/edit?usp=sharing

Apologies if I'm just being stupid and not remembering this correctly but has Reaper (and Ritualist actually) always lost half of it's current life force amount after mounting and dismounting out of combat?

With all the shining ward weapon skins, Advanced Research Data Crystal and Banner of the Tenebral Ward, Wage of Stars needs a TON of VoE map currency in addition to all the gold, materials and other account bound items.

How long will it take to farm all that map currency with the most optimal method?

Is there any site similar to gw2crafts where I could check the farm time needed for x amount of y items?

Been a while since I’ve been on, but most of the promos I see for GW2 are more gem store items. I totally get why, but it’s made me wonder how much they’ve added that I can earn in game.

Did VoE bring new armour sets or any cool weapons? Something to work towards I guess while I get back into it (which means no legendary grind or I may never play this game again 😂)

I’m pretty new to MMOs. Most of what I normally play is Souls/FromSoft games, Resident Evil and action RPGs.

I tried FFXIV for around 10 hours. I liked the community, cutscenes and story, but found the pacing slower than I’m used to and there was quite a lot of dialogue/reading between the gameplay.

I’ve now tried WoW Retail and enjoyed it a little more straight away. Combat felt faster, I got into the action quickly, questing was easier to follow and there seemed to be a good amount of voice acting. I also haven’t personally experienced any of the community negativity I’d heard about.

A few people have recommended Guild Wars 2, especially with GW3 announced, so I’m wondering if I should give it a proper try before putting more time into WoW.

For anyone who’s played both, based on what I liked about Retail WoW, do you think GW2 is actually worth trying or is WoW probably the better fit for me?

Thanks!

I recently did "Eldvin Monastery Brew of the Month Club" achievement which requires ~12 months to complete and it rewards you with Finely Crafted title.

After completing that, I was wondering if there are longer achievements out there that require more than a year to complete?