Guild Wars Reporter

With Celeste under the weather and there still a lot to talk about on the PvP front, Ultra joins Allona this week for the whole show to give his impressions and advice for your listening enjoyment! Audio Version What We Did This Week   Ultra PvP x Fiddy 1 hour of raiding some fractals with…

Celeste and Allona discuss this week’s PvP Pro League patch notes! They really do! Even though most of it is still a mystery to them … they discuss it … for you! They ,# all you guys! Audio Version What We Did This Week   Allona Fractals on Saturday Guild missions with MoCK on Sunday…

Ultra’s back! Ultra’s back! Ultra’s back! Ultra’s back! Ultra’s back! Oh … and raids are in game now. That’s also something that happened. Audio Version What We Did This Week   Allona Fungeons! We had enough people on that we ran two groups. TWO! Guild missions! (Maven and MoCK) The Guild puzzle was a challenge…

Hunter joins Celeste and Allona to go over the week’s news, and have a spoiler-filled discussion about the story for Heart of Thorns … OH YEAH! So you’ve been warned, all of the Tales of Tyria segment near the end of the show is spoiler-rific! Audio Version What We Did This Week   Hunter I…

Celeste and Allona recap this week's news and are joined by Special Guest, Clouded Chimera, for Surviving the Mists. We're all about the Special Guests! Audio Version What We Did This Week   Allona Plants v Zombies with Relics of Orr in the Labyrinth on Friday Streamed the Clocktower for 1.5 hours early on Saturday … had audio issues … didn’t complete the puzzle … these were unrelated Helped Boottspur claim his guild’s Guild Hall before jetting off to participate in Fungeons and Fractal with MoCK on Saturday. I may be the Guild Claim-iest person I know. Guild mission with MoCK on Sunday night! MoCK!!! We did all three PvE missions! Got my 17.5k AP chest (thank you expansion and holiday event) Completed every achievement for Halloween (the JP wasn’t actually part of the achievements thank Mordy!) Up to the first Tangled Depths story instance for HoT. Gotta say I’m loving the story, dialogue and variety of challenges so far! Chomping at the bit to see where it goes! Celeste SO MANY THINGS. Gave up on my Ranger for some reason and have gone full on Ele/Tempest. I’m into Tangled Depths and I’m hating how much this map reminds me of trying to get around in Kanieng. One more depth layer is one too many for my liking. On the other side of things, the story is really good. I want to go back to unlock the various mushrooms but I’m too involved with trying to advance the storyline to deviate from the masteries it requires Took my Necro into silverwastes and started on the story with her as well to help level up Nuhoch mastery. Some of the achievements are really time consuming but easy enough so I guess that’s a good balance? Guild Missions with MoCK on Sunday :D   Livestreaming Wednesday’s at 9:30pm EST/6:30pm PST at twitch.tv/mmoreporter. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and to the audio version of the podcast on iTunes! Feel free to comment, 'like', and review Guild Wars Reporter!   Report from Lion’s Arch   Heart of Thorns One Week In with Colin Johanson http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/10256/Guild-Wars-2-Heart-of-Thorns-One-Week-In-with-Colin-Johanson.html When Colin was asked if there was areas of HoT that he felt needed more iteration on after the first week: “One of the current places we’re discussing iterating on is fractal dungeons. The reaction to the core changes to make fractals more approachable by playing one at a time has been really positive – but there is some work to be done still in the smaller details like balance, XP, and reward rates. We’ll continue to evaluate all the areas to look for other things we might need to make some tweaks to, but in general we’re just really happy right now with the reception and stability of the launch.” Colin: “On top of everything the expansion has already provided, we’ve still got more features of the expansion activating here soon as well! Raids, new legendary weapons, our enhanced squad UI, PvP leagues and our professional PvP league are all coming shortly. So we’ll keep an eye on those as they activate and look to what kind of iteration might be required early on based on the feedback we see on those features as well.” MMORPG: There’s a long thread on the forums right now about the way Fractals are now set up, and how players believe that they’ll be abandoned once folks hit level 100 in Fractal progression. Are there further plans to adjust fractals to keep them as the game’s primary source of small group “dungeon” content? Colin: “Fractal dungeons will absolutely not be abandoned, no! We’re just getting started with the work we want to do with Fractal of the Mists as our end-game five-player dungeon experience. … In the short term, we need to take a look at iterating on some of the issues with ...

The new expansion's here! The new expansion's here! (Note: No story spoilers because 1) we haven't finished it, and 2) we wouldn't do that to you guys, because … we love you.) Audio Version What We Did This Week   Allona WHERE TO START!? I know I said I was going to mostly do Halloween stuff … but no, that has happened almost not at all Labyrinth’ed once … I was convinced to turn on my commander tag because there wasn’t one on the map. I sucked and got everyone killed at the Lich … I’M SO SORRY! Made pretty great progress on the Clocktower, but no completion yet! Participated in Maven’s guild expedition for Lost Precipice MoCK did a Fractal … one … ‘cuz we COULD! MoCK made a couple PvP teams … that’s how we unlocked the Guild Expedition Had a crazy good time on Sunday with MoCK rampaging across Verdant Brink. I wish I had recorded it actually. Guild missions with Maven. They were fairly chaotic because the new system was throwing everyone off. MoCK completed the Guild Expedition and has a Gilded Hollow Guild Hall! We managed it with 14 people and it was challenging but not nut-punchingly hard. Got up to chapter 6 in the new story … and that’s all I’m going to say about that. FOUND OUT THERE’S AN ‘ENEMY’ NAMED CELLONA IN AURIC BASIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Celeste All the gliding Did a lot of exploring since I went for Updrafts before mushrooms. I’ve spent a lot of time just wandering around the canopy and dying. a fractal I’m still pretty new to the story missions and I have done almost nothing for halloween, which is okay I guess but I think I am going to buy a mini moa with a pumpkin head Guild Expedition for Gilded Hollow   Livestreaming Wednesday’s at 9:30pm EDT/6:30pm PDT at twitch.tv/mmoreporter. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and to the audio version of the podcast on iTunes! Feel free to comment, 'like', and review Guild Wars Reporter!   Report from Lion’s Arch   Heart of Thorns is here! https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-October-23-2015 https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/heads-up-iteration-incoming/ Defiance Bars! “The defiance effect has been replaced with the defiance bar [or breakbar]. Creatures that previously used the defiance effect will now have the defiance bar. Control-type attacks will now decrease the defiance bar and stun the enemy once the bar is depleted.” A: I cannot believe how much of a difference this has made … I GET it now! Revenant Profession! A: I made one, and used my lvl 30 scroll on him to get over the hump … I plan on getting the rest of the way organically Elite Specializations! At launch 400 to unlock fully… EXCEPT that number has been lowered to 250 after a fair amount of folks complained about it. Colin Johanson - “We’d also always said you’d need to unlock your elite specialization, but we were never explicit on the details of how characters do this and the hero-point costs associated. We always viewed the elite specialization as one of the major rewards in expansion—but between the betas and lack of unlock info, we didn’t do a great job properly aligning expectations on how your elite specialization is earned. This left some players in a position where they expected to have their elite specialization very early on (or immediately!) in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns.” C: 400 points is a lot and there really wasn’t a lot of notice ahead of time that you would really need to stockpile that many points in order to be effective in the Elite Spec. People were expecting to have the elite spec to play through the new content not to play the expansion to *unlock* their elite specialization.

Griebach, Spirit and Evee from Relics of Orr spent a LOVELY evening chatting (and laughing!) with Celeste and Allona about GW2 HoT (which will have launched by the time you read this!). Audio Version     Relics of Orr's website has a ton of content! Check it out!   Request for community events of the week/bi-week. Send us an email! If you’ve got a burning question for our Ask an Asura segment, please let us know!   Contact Info email: gwreporter-at-mmoreporter-dot-com twitter: @gwreporter site: guildwarsreporter.com voicemail: 616-666-6778 youtube: mmoreporternetwork (remember to ‘like’ our videos and subscribe to the GW Reporter playlist) facebook: gwreporter tumblr: gwreporter.tumblr.com patreon: http://www.patreon.com/mmoreporter.   Visit us on Twitter! Celeste: @celeookie Allona: @onebigpear   Say 'HI' to us in-game! Allona: OneBigPear.1249 Celeste: CeleOOKIE.5046  

Celeste and Allona recap all of GW2's Guild Week, discuss the recent PvP Reward Track news, and touch briefly on the final beta weekend! That's … about it. Audio Version What We Did This Week   Allona Beta’ed! Tried Tempest, Druid, and Berserker. Enjoyed them all for their different playstyles. Loved the Druid. A lot. And I was surprised how much I liked Tempest! Missed Fungeons again this week … curse friends and their birthday celebrations! Streamed just on Saturday morning this week with Celeste and (an unruly) M. (Confession: Sunday turned into pyjama day and no one needs to see that, so there was no stream) Had some INSANE luck with black lion chests! In 10 chests I got two finishers, a ghost pepper node (I already had one so …. yay, money!), and -- ahem -- a shadow abyss dye! WOOOOOO! Guild Missions with Maven! Ran quite a few dungeons with Spirit, Hunter, and a few other Relics folks (and also Haash Tag!). Almost got the the last two achievements to complete Twilight Arbour Aetherpath … almost. Celeste Joined Allona (and M) on Allona’s Saturday stream. It was lots of fun and we were all super delightful. druid’d a lot   Livestreaming Wednesday’s at 9:30pm EDT/6:30pm PDT at twitch.tv/mmoreporter. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and to the audio version of the podcast on iTunes! Feel free to comment, 'like', and review Guild Wars Reporter!   Report from Lion’s Arch   Guild Week https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/catch-up-on-guild-week/ The set for Guild Chat reminds me a little bit of what Geek & Sundry has been trying to do. I think it’s really cute! A: I like the set a lot, I think it will make the people on GC feel more comfortable. McKenna Berdrow (Game Designer), Dara Potocska (QA Embed, Punmaster), Darren Mason (Gameplay Programmer), Jesse Christensen (Environment Artist), Seth Chadwick (Gameplay Programmer), Colin Johanson (Game Director). Guild Initiative Headquarters Need to be repping a guild to enter it, it’s at Postern Ward in Lion’s Arch in case you missed it since the revamp of LA (paraphrased from Dara) “Many of the upgrades for guild halls can be obtained here from the NPCs. Guild Armorsmith, Guild Weaponsmiths, Guild Anvils, Guild Commendation vendors etc are all inside.” Something that they shared was that upgrades for the GHI cost gold and favor Your home away from home before you claim your guild hall This hall only holds 5 people per instance Guild Hall Claiming - to claim your halls, there are 2 npcs that offer you opportunity to fund an expedition (in the initiative) There’s a cinematic that you can see to help preview the GH beforehand The NPC takes your money (100 Gold) and then runs off to buy supplies and provisions for you to be able to take the area back from the mordrem. Should you fail to claim the objectives, you won’t be out of 100G you’ll be able to try it again without paying the fee A: Oh thank Dwayna! After you begin an expedition you have to make your way through the jungle maps to find your guild hall location. Then an event will kick off for you to kill all the mordrem in your hall. This event scales from 5-200 people at the moment. After claimed, you’ll start with a tavern, moving on to the mine that will generate materials for the other buildings/upgrades. Then the workshop is up after that which brings in the opportunity to start Scribing. Guild Treasury Donates into a shared, locked off pool, that will automatically pull for guild hall upgrades Only stores materials that are used for ACTIVE CURRENT upgrades/buildings One thing to note is that this does NOT hold gold. Your Donations won’t let you pop in more materials than are needed, so there’s no way for you to lose stuff to the system Guild Panel g1, g2, g3, g4,

Celeste and Allona (like everyone else in the community) can NOT believe how much news came out of TwitchCon! So much that they eschewed talking about any Guild news, saving that for next week (promise!). Clouded very kindly stepped up to join them for Surviving the Mists this week. Audio Version What We Did This Week   Allona 17k chest! Some PvP Tequatl Some EoTM Celeste Every single time I sat down at my computer within 5 minutes there was an “emergency” to deal with this week. Did a keyfarm Made a new Ranger Tried to finish Mount Maelstrom but, gugh… those hearts take a REALLY long time, man. Played with Kiddo for a little bit, he let me know that the Caledon Wurm was up so we took care of that and gallivanted about :3   Livestreaming Wednesday’s at 9:30pm EDT/6:30pm PDT at twitch.tv/mmoreporter. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and to the audio version of the podcast on iTunes! Feel free to comment, 'like', and review Guild Wars Reporter!   Report from Lion’s Arch   All Snacker, All The Time (Points of Interest episode 34) https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-scrapper-on-points-of-interest-a-summary/ Rubi explained that PoI is being retired in advance of twitchcon (this friday is the beginning) where they’ll be showing off the druid. Irenio Calmon-Huang! Game Designer! Scrapper name origin - it was a low class warband in charr society, Rubi called them “the outcasts, the misfits” Irenio - (paraphrased a little) “They were downtrodden, they took their punishment and turned it into a badge of honor.” “When you’re working with a bunch of junk you can make some pretty cool stuff so the scrapper is a master of improvisation. Not just the mechanical but also on the battlefield.” “kind of a melee bruiser, he’s also got a lot of good lockdown ability and in preparations for raids, he’s also pretty capable of breaking breakbars” Then Jebro was on PvP 101 with a few options for the scrapper as far as builds, combos and other ideas   Twitchstravaganza! All the streams! https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/twitchcon-2015-recap/ Final Beta will be during the weekend of Oct 2 (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-final-beta-weekend-event-begins-october-2/) Emphasis will be on impressions on the feel of event zones, transitioning from Jungle to Canopy areas as well as one of the raid bosses PSA: Remember to put your armor and bags into the bank so it will refresh since the original beta characters you had are no longer available New streaming show called Guild Chat C: I love the shattered sword logo! A: I adored that Rubi defaulted to “GuildCast” It made me gleeful. Adventures! The Floor is Lava? Inspired by speed runs you kick fruit which make platforms on the floor that are safe for you to land on if you hit the floor you lose 10% of your health everyone is normalized before entering (aside from your masteries) and all previous buffs are removed before you begin the adventure Fallen Masks Telling masks to chill a lot is apparently the focus of this one according to Byron There’s mushrooms and decoy-style mushrooms and situations where you’ll need your glider if you really want to be high up on the leaderboards You drive around a charr motorcyle ramping over explosions. You transform into a robot to see how many bugs you can punch in a time limit. Jumping puzzles with transform that give you new skills. Several fun subsections like Quaggan Deep Thoughts, Live At The Crow’s Nest, Community Showcase Live and A Chat with Kit The Traveler

Celeste, Allona and Hunter talk about the schedule for TwitchCon and what we're expecting to see during the streams of ArenaNet Television. Audio Version

Celeste and Allona fulfill a long-time wish to include interviews in Guild Wars Reporter! Our inaugural interviewee is the fantabulous Kit the Traveller! They are discuss the Mordrem weekend event, the Mordrem Guard, PoI, this past week's patch, and – of course – Scrapper news! Also, gyros are totally delicious and everyone (who chooses to eat meat) should partake this week in honour of The Snacker... umm... Scrapper! Audio Version What We Did This Week   Allona Mordrem events … I only started them Saturday morning so I missed all the really headachey parts Fractals and Fungeons. Started a bit early and ran Arah so Celeste could be there for Fraggles Streamed a bit … mostly PvP Hunter guided me through the Guild Rush course for my nemesis, Spider Scurry, on Sunday night! Guild missions were super fun and we got Spider Scurry! More … I know there’s more Celeste Fractal’d! Sans Pear :( ((I was there … how was this sans me?)) I DON’T KNOW. ((this is staying in the show notes!)) Mordrem Events Worked on Treasure Hunter a bit. Someday I’ll get that freaking chalice from Rhendak but today is not that day…   Livestreaming Wednesday’s at 9:30pm EDT/6:30pm PDT at twitch.tv/mmoreporter. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and to the audio version of the podcast on iTunes! Feel free to comment, 'like', and review Guild Wars Reporter!   Report from Lion’s Arch   patch notes https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-September-15-2015 Added Vertical Position Near slider to camera options. The existing Vertical Position slider has been renamed Vertical Position Far. Added greater precision to camera position sliders. Adjusted some default camera positions when using the Adjust Camera to Character Height camera option. C: It’s funny because I remember us talking about how it wasn’t really clear what sliders were doing what recently. A: Are you pondering what I’m pondering, Pinky? Achievements for the previous beta weekend have been disabled from the Achievements tab. Personal Story Black Lion Chest Keys from the early personal story rewards have been limited to one per week account-wide. C: RIP Keyfarming Cookies Items Increased the drop rate of Black Lion Chests and Black Lion Chest Keys throughout the world. C: I dont think the drop rate on chests was really an issue but okay… time and the drop rate wiki tables will tell… Laurel vendors now sell 1 hour of the new Item Booster, replacing the Laureate Magic Find Booster. Laurel vendors now sell 1 hour of the new Experience Booster, replacing the Laureate Experience Booster. C: Here’s to hoping they let me consolidate my (useless)boosters even more. Profession Skills - Engineer Fixed a bug in which the Grenadier trait made grenade throws less accurate. World vs. World Altered arrow cart line-of-sight checks to be more restrictive. Black Lion Trading Company Gem Store For the next six days, the complete Living World Season 2 pack is 40% off in the Upgrades category of the Gem Store. Complete your playthrough of all eight episodes leading up to Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™. Inks Response to black lion chest options https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw4xGkKMe1s C: I think a lot of the suggestions are good but GW2 is out to make money, if you don’t believe that you’re naive, and the majority of his ideas encourage them to reduce prizes, consolidate or negate items that they (presumably) sell. I say presumably because I’ve never bought a booster from the gem store without it being in a black lion chest. A: Yeah, I would be okay with removing or making boosters drop way less frequently.

Celeste and Allona discover they can talk for a signficant amount of time about music in GW2. They also touch on the beta weekend and enjoy some wonderful community creations! Something something beta weekend. Audio Version What We Did This Week   Allona Forgot to mention a bit ago that I was given a head’s up about a bunch of TC people rampaging across the Eternal Battlegrounds as Dolyaks! It was a hoot … some of the players from the other worlds joined in. Beta just a bit. Mostly to try out Daredevil to wrap my head around it. I loved the dodge mechanics AND the additional dodge on my bar. Big plusses for me there. (Although I am super bad at Thief and, by extension, Daredevil) Stream tests and some PvP. Got a great tip for my Ranger that I totally took! F,F&F! The extra F is for … friends! I mentioned before that a few of my friends have started playing again, and M and I took three of them through Ascalon Catacombs story mode. Thank goodness M’s Raid Mom kicked in because I couldn’t remember what to do. Peachy Party and Inks. I’m not often able to catch twitch streams but I was able to make a couple this weekend and they were fun! World boss train for fun and profit. Celeste I did fractals (with my mesmer) and fungeons (with my necro!) Sidenote: Reaper and a Necro in a party was SUPER EFFECTIVE. (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-super-effective) I did world boss train I did a little bit of pve with Steak N Potatoes Man I did some beta things, I now know I’m pretty bad at Reaper but I might be good at it with a lot of work. I also know I’m really bad at Berserker :/   Livestreaming Wednesday’s at 9:30pm EDT/6:30pm PDT at twitch.tv/mmoreporter. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and to the audio version of the podcast on iTunes! Feel free to comment, 'like', and review Guild Wars Reporter!   Report from Lion’s Arch   Raids? https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/designing-challenging-content/ http://massivelyop.com/2015/08/31/pax-prime-2015-guild-wars-2-is-never-getting-a-raid-finder/ “Johanson assured me that gamers, even in the most difficult Guild Wars 2 content, were barely touching the surface of what players could do in a group. He reiterated to me that although there is no hard trinity, GW2 does have a kind of trinity of its own that players were not always taking advantage of in the current PvE game. He divided the roles into control, support, and damage, and beyond that, groups will have to consider class combos when taking on a raid boss. He said that the only place in the game where all the class abilities are being used to their fullest was in high-level PvP, and he wants to change that so that it takes the same level of skill to raid.” “Because of the large diversity of encounters, I was prompted to ask whether players will be able to swap out abilities between boss fights. Johanson said that currently players are in combat the whole time they are in an encounter, so swapping out abilities isn’t possible. But he did say that ANet is still “playing around with what [it] will let you change.” However, he was quick to point out that weapon swapping can easily change a character’s role in the group, and that can be done on the fly. The development team’s “playing around” also extended to group boons another group support abilities. Currently, Johanson said that it’s still in flux and there will be parts where the groups will be split. But as of right now, boons affect only the five people who are in your group.“ “Being a raider myself and sometimes enjoying the ability to group up with other random people, I asked about a group-finder system for raids — whether there is one in HoT or will be in the future....

Celeste and Allona managed to talk for an excessive amount of time about a ton of GW2 news and somehow never even mention the Thief elite teaser image (AKA the Daredevil)! Audio Version What We Did This Week   Allona Forgot to mention on last show, I picked up a couple Dwayna weapons - the greatsword and pistol … still seriously eyeing two more from the set, more news as events warrant Missed Fungeons and Fraggles this week Also missed Relics of Orr’s Plants vs Zombie event. :( Didn’t lose guild missions with Maven … even with my 10 second penalty! Anet took a healthy chunk of my paycheck this week: nabbed the Account Jump Start AND the Wedding Attire … which is now on every character on my account. Allona got her 3rd birthday present! FINALLY decided on Glint’s Isolation dye. Finished the Godskull weapons JUST TONIGHT! I had a few large skulls donated by guildie, Romo … and after several bare farming runs I just bought the last 8 I needed through buy orders on the Trading Post Celeste Finished Bandit and Krait weapon collections World Boss train 3rd Birthday on Ostara, I got the Rosewood dye because it looks pretty good on leather. Ran around on my warrior for a while still haven’t found the fun of it yet but I’m trying! A: We should get an all warrior party together for funsies!   Livestreaming Wednesday’s at 9:30pm EDT/6:30pm PDT at twitch.tv/mmoreporter. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and to the audio version of the podcast on iTunes! Feel free to comment, 'like', and review Guild Wars Reporter!   Report from Lion’s Arch   Patch Notes https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-August-25-2015 Ogre Wars Meta fixes in Fields of Ruin Fixed a bug that prevented minions from quickly targeting your attack target. You’ve got to wonder if this was found out by someone attending PvZ Various Profession bug fixes Practice Button has been removed from the UI in PvP Ranked arena now requires you to be Rank 20 before you can enter New players will no longer need to complete a tutorial before entering the HotM A: I think this is a good move … it was scary and daunting, although the intention was the opposite WvW “Fixed a bug that allowed Superior Arrow Cart and Guild Arrow Cart skills to ignore line-of-sight checks.” “Edge of the Mists: Fixed a bug that allowed players to delay the Mechanical Siege Devourer transform by using items like tonics and instruments.” “Service NPCs have been switched to a noncombatant team to prevent them from being killed through various exploits.” “Players will now be killed if they travel too far outside of the playable space on the maps.” Fixed a bug that allowed players to rally off mesmer clones. Fixed a client crash that occurred when players stopped spectating rangers in PvP. C: LULZ. You MUST watch only the rangers :P Fixed a bug that allowed players in stealth to be finishable by enemies.   The Anniversary Sale Continues https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/anniversary-sale/ 21 days of sales! Though a lot of them are expiring on the 29th Account Bump Package - (800 gems) 20 Account-Bound Unidentified Dyes, 15 Transmutation Charges, 10 Experience Boosters, and 5 Black Lion Chest Keys! Account Jump Start Package - (2000 gems) 30 Account-Bound Unidentified Dyes, 15 Transmutation Charges, 2 Bag Slot Expansions, 2 Bank Tab Expansions, and 10 Black Lion Chest Keys! Wedding Attire (1000 Gems) A: A seriously amazing outfit set. Before this the only outfit that was different culturally was the Cook’s outfit (which is the main reason I love it). BUT the wedding attire is different for each race AND gender! So good.

Celeste and Allona discuss the Revenant's underwater skills, teaser news from Anet for PAX Prime, some other stuff, and go berserk for the Berserker (That warrior is on FIRE)! Ultra's teacher-mode is engaged with the return of Surviving the Mists ... happy day! Audio Version What We Did This Week   Allona Got my 16.5K achievement chest … it’s one of the ‘meh’ ones but still … CHEEVOS! Five away from finishing the Godskull weapon cheevo! Did Teq on the weekend and mentioned I still needed Tail Flail. Decided to run to the back to see if I could get it. GOT IT FIRST TRY! Fractals and fungeons on Saturday with MoCK And a few more fractal and Arah runs with Relics and Spirit the Sherpa. Related #1: Came in towards the middle of the swamp fractal and lucked into the ‘fancy footwork’ achievement! (You have to not hit any traps, which are all at the start of that fractal) Related #2: Now at lvl 19 in Fractals! Took some time to gear up thief, noticed her aqua breather was level 40 or something. Ran her down to Cursed Shore to pick up the level 80 breather. Hunter joined me along the way. And then we ended up doing Cursed Shore zone completion. Discovered that my thief is the one with the RNG luck. Out of 6 keys, I got both the omnomberry AND ghost pepper home instance nodes! Celeste I don’t remember anything, no wait… I went into Allona’s instance last night to get some materials. I found a cave in Straits of Devastation and had to look up a youtube guide on how to get to the vista… Surprisingly difficult. Yep, that’s it. Yes seriously. Yes, I know I should be in game more often but I’ve been busy. Mostly with videos…. Story Instance Comparisons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld4PCnUO1mg Elite Specializations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDB7JiTY690   Livestreaming Wednesday’s at 9:30pm EDT/6:30pm PDT at twitch.tv/mmoreporter. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and to the audio version of the podcast on iTunes! Feel free to comment, 'like', and review Guild Wars Reporter!   Report from Lion’s Arch   Points of Interest 29 https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-herald-on-points-of-interest-a-summary/ http://dulfy.net/2015/08/14/gw2-revenant-herald-elite-specialization-livestream-notes/ Beta testing feedback has led to big changes for the revenant profession. Skills that cause a character to enter into the Mists have been updated to provide evasion so that characters don’t get killed while locked into the animations, and sword damage will be boosted. Some skills have been tweaked to better fit the legend they correspond to. Revenant underwater weapon skills are: Skills 1 AND 2 autoattack: Spear of Anguish/Rapid Assault. First is a ranged projectile that applies more torment the further the target is from you. The second is a physical flurry that is longer ranged than typical melee and applies vulnerability. Skill 3: Venomous Sphere/Frigid Discharge. Venomous Sphere sends out a poisonous orb to attack enemies along a path while applying AOE poison. Flip over to Frigid Discharge to detonate the sphere and deal burst damage and inflict chill. Skill 4: Igniting Brand/Devour Brand. Throw and embed your spear in the enemy where it will pulsate burning damage. Flip to Devour Brand to teleport to your enemy for a burst AoE. Skill 5: Rift Containment. Create two rifts above and below to trap your enemy and pulsate damage. Mallyx/Shiro will work underwater in BWE2, other Legends will be come later. The herald specializes in support through boons and enhancements and is designed to comp...

Celeste and Allona beta'ed their faces off and talk ALL about it for a very, very long time. They also discuss the recently announced PvP Leagues, the World Tournament Series ... oh what else? Umm ... THE HERALD! Audio Version What We Did This Week   Allona I CHRONOMANCED! ~cue maniacal laughter~ (Also Reaper play! ~laughter slightly less maniacal but still fairly frenetic~) For the Chronomancer, I already miss being able to use a shield. That said, mesmers only have two main hand options and a ton of off-hand already ... I still kind of wish for another main hand rather than shield. Although, more Elites will be coming, so … My first night on the Chronomancer was a little underwhelming. I liked it okay. The next day I moved on to Reaper and I liked it immediately. It felt powerful and organic to pick up. Shroud is super fun! I’ve heard some grumblings about the GS, but I loved it. I liked the speed as it is … slow but purposeful. By Sunday, Chronomancer CLICKED though. I worked out some decent synergy and flow and it just felt like a dance. Loved it! Got up at 4 in the morning on Saturday to watch nearly all of the World Tournament Series (might have napped a wee bit in the middle … but can you blame me!?) Fractals! Increased to lvl 16! No fungeon after. Most of us went back to Verdant Brink Ran Arah path 4 on my Chronomancer with some of the Guild Mag crew. You can see the run on YouTube from where I joined up midway here: https://youtu.be/oNytEe0G_Q8?t=2h1m55s and check out their other footage from the weekend! Did Sorrow’s Embrace with Spirit from Relics of Orr … since she’s everyone’s Dungeon Sherpa Made HUGE headway towards collecting the Mordrem parts for the lumi armour … just one bladder to go! Broke 600 gold! Wooooo! Celeste All the Tempest Beta… some dragonhunter and (painfully bad) chronomancer too I played the majority of my time on Tempest, using a scepter and warhorn. I tried the dagger but I still feel really weird having to spend that much time in the enemies’ face. I prefer the mid-range scepter for my style of play. I found that I spent a lot of time in water which is something I did when I started to really focus on the support aspects available to the core profession. With the Tempest, support is FINALLY really a viable way to spec yourself. I was able to still heal as needed while dealing out a decent amount of damage and not HAVING to use the water specialization in order to get decent heals. The warhorn skills are a mixed bag, they’re most support based with a few things to help direct enemies or players into the paths of other aoe/attacks. Not a lot of true damage there but that’s not what the core of the Tempest is… that’s where Overloads come in to play. Overloads carry you into a either a protective water bubble or allow you to spew burning tornadoes all over an enemy, along with others depending on your attunement. The recharge as it stands means that once you reach an Overload you can pretty much spam it if you’re traited to do so. This probably needs to be tuned down and I never saw any of the “high risk” that was supposed to be associated with overloading. Fractals on Saturday, I’m now level 10! Still haven’t done a thing with my necro because…. beta... reasons…   Livestreaming Wednesday’s at 9:30pm EDT/6:30pm PDT at twitch.tv/mmoreporter. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and to the audio version of the podcast on iTunes! Feel free to comment, 'like', and review Guild Wars Reporter!   Report from Lion’s Arch   Points of Interest 28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIavOkobjPU Core Tyria Masteries Account wide, applies to all characters and are accessible for lvl 80 HoT players Pact Commander Mastery