Back again : Guild Wars 2

So, a new expansion for Guild Wars 2 just launched - End of Dragons! Which means that after a very, very long hiatus I have jumped back into the game.

Truth be told I am nowhere near getting to play the expansion, however. I never finished any content after Path of Fire so I am quite lost on the plot. Not only that, I don't even remember that well what I did play so I decided to create a new character so I can try out a class I hadn't played much - the Engineer! The EoD spec for them seems fun and in general it's good to re-tread old paths with something new, at least that's what I think.

Technician Viri visiting the Pale Tree

Exploring the Crystal Desert : GW2

I picked up GW2 again recently and have been thoroughly exploring the Crystal Desert maps and doing collections and bounties. I finished the collection for the Deadeye rifle and the Mirage axe. Mirage is very fun to play and I'm surprised how being melee goes well for me.

I also finished the collections for the Palawa Joko and Sunspear banners, currently I'm working on the banner for Independent Amnoon. I don't have Ascended backpieces at all because they're usually a pain in the ass to get (I never got Mawdrey... does anyone remember Mawdrey? I wanted to but I was like a year too late). The only annoying part is bounty hunting, especially since people do bounty runs in the evening and then you gotta get lucky and get the one you need. Though the more bounties you get the closer you get to an achievement, which is good. That said I recently crossed the 7000 Achievement Points line. I'm not much of an Achievement hunter.

Anyways, let's have some fun pictures.

While waiting for a bounty hunt to start I met Fujoshi chan! :D

To Kill a God : Guild Wars 2 - Path of Fire

So, the other day I booted up GW2 and finished the main story line for Path of Fire. Took me some time, huh?

Really like the design of this marshal.

Story wise Path of Fire was better than Living Story Season 3, though I took a long break so I sort of forgot what was going on. Overall I liked it and I'm interested what Living Story Season 4 will bring (I started it but haven't got far). I'm extra excited to find out what will happen to Kralkatorrik and how balance will be returned to Tyria.

He watches....

What I like most about Path of Fire is that they returned to what Guild Wars 2 is about - exploration. Heart of Thorns was difficult for two reasons:

1) most maps had an overarching meta event and many areas were closed off if you weren't participating (and since they're group events good luck going there alone);

2) the maps were generally "vertical" since the glider was introduced, I personally hate navigating via glider.

The Crystal Desert seems much more welcoming, I mean, I finished Crystal Oasis Map Completion on my own, no stupid Hero Points with Champion movs, no meta events. Good.

Also the mounts are very fun and make exploring easier since you move around faster and it's easier to plan your moves with a mount than mid glide while you're descending. I'm really not good at fast-paced real time strategies, I'm more of a turn based person!

That said I hate timed achievements and just achievement hunting in general. Maybe I'll find someone to aid me with them.

As for new specializations:

I'm a bit sad you can't have two elite specs on at the same time since I enjoy Daredevil's staff for the melee, though Deadeye seems pretty nice too but I need to learn it.

Haven't tried weaver, I'm now doing the story a second time with my elementalist to unlock Crystal Desert maps and the Weaver specialization and such. Will try to get the collections for the specialization weapons. Maybe.

Also need to get the Jackal and Griffon mounts.

Overall I'd give Path of Fire a solid 7/10.

Achievements and Map Completion : GW2

I need Heart of Thorns mastery points to unlock ley line gliding so I decided to do some story quests with achievements that I thought would be on the easier side. Did it with my sylvari necromancer as I needed the "sylvari solidarity" achievement which has your character talk another sylvari out of succumbing to the dragon.

I took the defense path so I got to see the wreck of Mr. Sparkles. Pressing F to pay respects. 

Seeing this made me think - does Zojja know that Eir is dead? I remember that in the canon Anet went with the story that Logan recovered better than Zojja so she was pretty much out of it, right? Considering the fact how hard it is to get Felicia Day to voice any lines Zojja will probably be lost for a long while. I wonder if that's why they chose Zojja to be the one who was hurt more by the blighting pod. Unless I've forgotten what the plot is, I'm too lazy to look it all up as I'm writing.

I was worried I would let the turret break but it survived! You can see it's health bar - almost at zero. I was worried I made a mistake doing the quest alone, especially since I'm not used to necro and I'm not very mobile and good with mixing skills but I persisted.

I earned exactly one (1) mastery point out of this ordeal. I need six more to unlock Ley Line gliding. I also have Itzel and Nuhoch lore at like 4 out of 6 but lord help me if I'll be doing more achievement runs. I might do some mastery insights since it's easier to try and travel the world than actually do the story over and over again.

Visiting the Crystal Desert : GW2

So, the Path of Fire demo weekend has hit Guild Wars 2 and I made a character to check out what's new. This post will contain minor (?) spoilers about the demo, my impressions and some pictures.

I made an elementalist in hopes of being able to test out Weaver - you don't get to do that. You can have the Heart of Thorns specialization but you can't utilize any of the new specs. I think you could in HoT preview?  Maybe you could only make a revenant. At least I remember making a revenant. So have a picture of my placeholder ele on a raptor in a burning city. That's your first mission after meeting the first baddie - rescue villagers and put out fires. 

Rest will be under cut for spoilers and such.

I guess I will buy it after all : GW2

Guild Wars 2 is the sort of game I relapse in and out of regularly - similarly to Granado Espada. I might not be interested for months but then log in and play some. Especially with Living Story or seasonal events (but truth be told this year I managed to skip Wintersday...).

The new expansion pack, Path of Fire, actually reignited my interest in the game. I knew I'd buy it anyways as I would not want to "fall behind" other players but the previews looked genuinely fun. Real talk - I love how Elona looks, I love the aesthetic and design. I'm a sucker for deserts and oases (is that the plural for oasis? spell check says so), Guild Wars 1 wiki says Elona is based on Africa but it's giving me Egyptian/Middle Eastern vibes (I know Egypt is in Africa but it's not the same as Central Africa, you feel?)

I'm probably putting too much thought in that aspect, however.

Really excited for the mounts, especially the manta ray, I just love its design and colors. Since the premium pre-purchases have nothing related to mounts and the mounts themselves are game mechanics I suppose we won't get much diversity. Would be cool if mounts had cosmetic accessories or like "skins" - alternative skin/fur patterns. That'd be cute.

I even warmed up to the concept of a human god returning - though they better explain why Balthazar and where are the others. I guess we're having a shift from dragons to gods as the trailer implied - killing the dragons destroys the natural balance of the world so we can't do that but, oops, a god now wants to kill all dragons! Time to stop him. Time to punch a god in the face.

As a way to "prepare" for the new expansion pack I'm thinking of doing 100% with more characters. So far I only had Qayin for all the exploration but I feel like Kwin and Tobi also deserve some love since I actually like playing Mesmer and Thief. Ironically I'm most excited for the elementalist's elite specialization but I'll unlock most of them anyways. I haven't mastered some of current elite specs because I just don't play the class - guardians, warriors, rangers and engineers just aren't my cup of tea. Necromancer is fun but I'm trying to be realistic here - I can try to manage 3 characters, but 4? A little bit too tough.

Besides my necromancer, Rafflesius, is more of a "craft slave" - she's my tailor and makes armors and has her inventory loaded with crap. Same for my ranger who's a Huntsman/Leatherworker.

Speaking of crafting - only Qaying has an (almost) full set of ascended armor. Should work for Tobias first because leather might be easier than silk. I know everything needs silk but maybe the amount changes? I'm just not much of a grinder it seems. I mean, I don't have a single legendary weapon. My attention span is too short for that. Maybe I'll get a bifrost one day. Aiming low for gen-1 legendaries.

To sum this all up - I'll get the expansion pack, won't pay extra for it, will attempt filling out world map with other characters, might craft some stuff. 

Until September 22, I guess!

GW2: Botanist Klekks

To celebrate the resurrection of my blog, I am going to do a little character post! There was a character slot sale on Guild Wars 2 and I made a new character - an elementalist asura called Botanist Klekks.

It's hard to come up with good names - a gw2 themed name generator gave me the suggestion 'Piss' for a male asura name. Technically it adheres to canon, but really, Piss? Funny.

Anyways, first idea was Kex or Kekks because it sounds like the Latvian word for cupcake - kēkss. Then I went for Klekks since that sounds like 'kleksis' - a colloquialism in Latvian to refer to a dirty spot.

Considering the fact Klekks works with plants he can get his claws dirty quite often, so that name seemed most fitting.

Here is a height comparison between Klekks and Zojja. I made him a bit chubby and also max height - he does a lot of hard work! Must stay in shape. A buff ele is a bit odd, a buff asura even moreso. He looks surprisingly good in some types of light armor - usually a big headache for male characters in gw2.



Not to mention that he has a cute face. Klekks is a pleasant asura - a bit sharp tongued like most but not arrogant or outright malicious to other races, maybe a bit insensitive to sylvari since they're plant-people, Klekks finds them most intriguing.
Klekks hails from the college of Synergetics, so he's all about the Eternal Alchemy and the mathematics and philosophy behind it, I suppose that's why his hobby is gardening. After a long hard day in the lab picking weeds is the right kind of activity to relax.

In other news - I need to find a better way to take prettier gw2 screenshots. I cannot run the game on max settings but I need to find a format that doesn't create grainy pictures. Perhaps through fraps. Apparently there's a way to make the game output the screenshots as .bmp or anything else but that takes some messing around I'm too lazy to do. God forbid I mess up the game.