Our Message To Those Who Would Go To Shocking Extremes To Close Our Doors.

Our message to those who would go to shocking extremes to close our doors.

These doors stay open.

Signed, 

Planned Parenthood Action

Groot #6 (2015)

written by Jeff Loveness art by Brian Kesinger

A surly gentletoad.

Take a moment to shut up and dance!

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Guide to Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

I’m an admin in the Facebook group “Guild Wars 2 Girls” and have been seeing a number of posts lately about people who are confused/unfamiliar with some of the new mechanics. As well I’ve encountered a number of other players in-game who are overwhelmed. So I figured I’d write up a little something that hopefully will be a useful resource. It should also be noted that The gw2 wiki is a wonderful resource. If you are confused. Google it or search it in the wiki. It will most likely have all you need. I will be linking the wiki and prettymuch copying it verbatim throughout this post.

Let’s start with something that seems to be the most confusing:

Defiance Bar/Blue Bar/Break Bar [wiki link]

“Defiance Bar, also known as break bar, is a mechanic used by some enemies that restrict the use of control effects against them. Throughout Central Tyria, it is most often (though not exclusively) found on champion or higher ranked enemies, but is commonly found on creatures of all ranks throughout Magus Falls.

“The defiance bars appears directly below the enemy’s health bar when targeted. The appearance of the defiance bar corresponds to its behavior:

“A gray, segmented bar indicates that the enemy is immune to any crowd control at that time. When some bosses are about to launch a strong attack or perform an action that highly empowers them this segmented bar will turn to blue for a short time (commonly known as “window time”), becoming segmented again once the attack is finished.

“A teal bar indicates that the enemy is immune to any crowd control, but any control effect depletes part of the bar. The amount depleted depends on the effect applied to the enemy. The defiance bar slowly regenerates, but if the whole bar is depleted, a strong special effect, most commonly 5 seconds of stun and 50% increased damage, will occur; hovering over the defiance bar with your mouse will display the effect that happens when the bar is depleted. However, if the defiance bar is not broken through by the end of the time  for which it is blue, the enemy can subsequently use a powerful attack or ability.

“A brown bar indicates that the enemy was recently broken; they are immune to any crowd control and the defiance bar is recharging.” See the teal bar section as to what happens when the bar is broken (ex: added damage or stun).

Crowd Control/CC [wiki link 1][wiki link 2]

There are “soft” and “hard” CCs. The soft ones will slowly degenerate the bar, which, depending on the strength of the enemy’s break bar/defiance bar regeneration, may not have much of an effect. For example, cripple is a pretty weak soft CC and often doesn’t do much because the enemy’s defiance bar regen is too strong for it. Hard CCs

Soft CCs

There is some discrepancy on whether or not fear and taunt are hard CCs or not. Either way, they still have an affect on the bar. Here is a good reddit thread on CCs.

Masteries

What: These are a new feature as of the expansion, which allow for level 80 characters to gain additional features. Masteries are account-wide so if you unlock them on one toon, you unlock them on all toons associated with your account. There are two different categories of masteries: Central Tyria and HoT (Heart of Maguuma in the panel). When you are in the HoT maps, your experience will go towards the HoT mastery you have selected. When you’re not, then it’ll go towards the Central Tyria mastery you have selected.

How: You must go to the masteries panel and select one to train. What used to be your level bar before you hit level 80, is now your mastery training bar. Once you fill it, you can unlock a mastery if you have enough points for it (which can be seen to the right of the mastery in the panel. You can get mastery points from achievements and from communing with mastery points in HoT. As seen in the panel, red points can be spent on Central Tyria masteries, and green points can be spent on HoT masteries.

Which masteries should I get?

As far as Central Tyria goes, that’s up to you. If you do Fractals, train that. If you want to craft legendaries, train that. If you don’t care about either of those, train the Pact Commander.

For Heart of Maguuma, there are a few that are required for the story and it will guide you to what those are. If I remember correctly, the priority for the story is:

Gliding I

Gliding II (Updraft)

Itzel Lore I (Bouncing Mushrooms)

Exalted Lore I (Exalted Markings)

Exalted Lore II (Exalted Acceptance) <- not sure if this one is required

Nuhoch Lore II (Nohoch Wallows)

Here are some details about certain masteries that I’ve found to be important:

Gliding - I maxed this out as soon as I could. It’s very useful not only to have lean techniques, but to have the Gliding IV where you don’t ever run out of gliding endurance. Ley Line Gliding is necessary for reaching some locations/mastery points in Auric Basin, Tangled Depths, and Dragon’s Stand.

Nuhoch Wallows and Stealth Detection - Wallows is absolutely necessary for getting around Tangled Depths. There’s no way in hell you can get around that map without it. Stealth detection is great for Axemaster in Verdant Brink.

_____ Acceptance/Language - This allows you to talk to vendors of the given race. It’s the only way to purchase map-specific items. Sometimes you can buy the keys (discussed in a moment) without this from Pact vendors, but they’ll be more expensive.

Map-Specific Keys, Chests, and Currency

For each of the HoT maps, there are keys and chests specific to them. The chests will give random loot and also will give a map-specific ascended-level material. Map-specific currencies allow you to buy special items from vendors on that map, including recipes for the new stat sets, new armor sets, and items for elite specialization collections:

Verdant Brink

Currency - Airship parts

Keys - Pact crowbars (you’ll have these out the wazoo because you loot them from events rather than having to buy the majority of them like on other maps)

Chests - Airship cargo

Ascended Material - Airship oil

Armor/Weapon Set - Bladed armor (from vendor, can get chest as reward for T4 day and night)

Auric Basin

Currency - Aurilium

Keys - Exalted Key

Chests - Exalted Chest (under Tarir after the “Defend Tarir” meta event)

Ascended Material - Exalted Dust

Armor/Weapon Set - Auric Weapons (recipes bought from Exalted vendor)

Tangled Depths

Currency - Ley Line Crystals

Keys - Chak Acid

Chests - Crystalized Supply Cache

Ascended Material - Ley Line Spark

Armor/Weapon Set - Chak Weapons (recipes bought from Nuhoch vendor with eggs from Chak Gerent meta event)

Dragon’s Stand

Currency - Crystalline Ore (obtained from Noxious Pods)

Keys - Machete

Chests - Noxious Pods (excessive amounts of them are in the areas the red arrows point to after a successful meta event)

Ascended Material - Crystalline Ore

Armor/Weapon Set - Ley Line Armor (loot drop) and Machined Weapons (bought from vendor with a combination of the other maps’ currencies and special salvaged material from Reclaimed Weapons)

Summary/Conclusion

That’s some of the basics. Let me know if there are other things you’d like addressed!