User:Fraught/Miscellaneous

Inconsequential things that don't need their own page.

Firsts

 * Character: it was a ranger. I named her Amadei, a name I stole from someone's fantasy story posted online. She had a Mesmer secondary and had Backfire on her bar for the longest time. I don't really remember much of her, except complaining about not having enough energy to cast Backfire on a DDF run. Those poor PuG members :x


 * Set of 15k Armor: 15k Kurz for my monk. This was after playing for a long time, and maintaining for just as long that 15k armor wasn't worth the price, since 1.5k armor did the job as well. Which it does, but buying that set got the ball rolling and now my characters don't feel quite complete without an elite set (though I do have two characters that only have cheap armor).


 * Preview Event: for Factions. I remember being so excited and staying up way too late to play it. I also remember spending most of the PvE event playing ABs :P. I still love Factions more than Nightfall and Eye of the North. Such gorgeous design and the cinematic for it was so awesome.


 * Alliance Battle: this was during the Factions Preview Event. You could enter matches for either side on your own, the party window showed all twelve players, making party-wide healing and protection spells (like Heal Party and Aegis) horribly overpowered and there was no minion cap yet. Ah, man. I miss that :P, though ABs in their current incarnation are still very fun.


 * Set of FoW armor: was for my monk. Sold pretty much everything even remotely of value, stood around in ToA a lot, and got a whole bunch of ecto from friends <3. It was totally worth it :D.

Favorites and not-so-favorites

 * Favorite NPC: Cynn. What can I say? I like 'em snarky. I'm somewhat of a shipper, so I was happy to see her and Mhenlo officially be together at the end of EotN. I like that little group of friends a lot, actually, except for Eve because I'm not a fan of retconning characters into an established group :P
 * Runners-up: Palawa Joko for being awesome and having great lines. Gwen for being ruthless and broken, and for surviving what many others would not have. Vael for being epic, a mystery, and for having some of the most fun quests in the whole of the game.


 * Favorite mission: Vizunah Square. I like the sheer chaos of it and the adrenaline rush it gives me. I've solo-monked this (well, with Mhenlo, but how useful is he, really?) and it was a lot of fun to do. I also enjoy doing Thunderhead Keep, though it's a shame it's so easy now these days, and the desert missions.


 * Favorite builds to play: a Burning Arrow ranger, a Zealous Benediction or Word of Healing monk, a BSurge ele, an Avatar of Lyssa Dervish backed up by a Splinter Weapon/Ancestor's Rage Ritualist, a "There's Nothing to Fear!" Paragon, a Weapon of Remedy Necromancer/Ritualist (unlimited energy whee), an Eviscerate Warrior and oh, so many more builds :D


 * Least favorite quests: An Unwelcome Guest because it's a giant PITA. I don't know what's the most annoying about this quest: is it the inability of the henchies to not stand around in the Miasma? Is it the fact the healer for the quest has a wand, no offhand, and two 10e spells (Healing Breeze and Heal Other), leaving her even exceedingly incapable of handling the degen? Is het the fact the Incredible Tanking And Then Dying Zunraa makes make want to punt puppies?
 * The other quest I hate is Horde of Darkness because it's long and boring and tedious. The fact I dislike Wurms doesn't help (they're the ultimate in mindless c-space-go "fighting". No challenge whatsoever because getting wiped is pretty much impossible and they're two-hit killers. Zzz).
 * The third quest I hate... well, I don't hate the whole thing. Just one particular bit. I'm talking about The Elusive Golemancer; specifically the bit where you have to stay in the protective circle thing. That bit fills me with RAGE as it is damn near impossible to do it with henchies without wiping at least once. Henchies can't stay in the circle. They don't realize that stepping out of the cirlce = pain and death. Bodyblocking is sort of doable, except the golem will try very hard to walk around you. It makes me cry red angry tears, especially since I think the rest of the quest/dungeon is pretty fun -- only that bit sucks epic ass. I suspect the same guy/girl who did the above-mentioned two quests worked on this part of the dungeon as well. The other alternative, that there is more than one person coming up with idiotic things like that, is too bleak to contemplate.


 * Favorite skills: Reversal of Fortune because it does so much for the casting time and energy cost. Never leaves my Monk's bar. Burning Arrow because it's pretty godly. Avatar of Lyssa because PvE rolls over and dies at my feet. Ineptitude because killing Frenzy Warriors with it is funny. "There's Nothing to Fear!" and "Save Yourselves!" because being invincible is fun. Blinding Surge because I like pissing people off in ABs. Bull's Strike because knocking people down is fun, too. Gale for its versatility, though it needs its 3s KD back.


 * Favorite class: hard to choose one, so I'm not going to: at the moment, it's a tie between Dervish and Monk. I'm really into both right now for different reasons; Dervish for the heavy damage dealing and Monk because she just got FoW armor and looks preeeeetty ^_^


 * Least favorite class: I never really got into Assassin, though I have one at level 20. She's stuck somewhere on early mainlaind Cantha and I have no real desire to push her farther through.


 * Favorite armor sets: Monk Elite Kurzick armor, Elementalist Elite Canthan armor, Dervish Vabbian armor, Monk Obsidian armor, Ranger Monument armor, Warrior Elite Gladiator armor, Necromancer Elite Profane armor, Mesmer Vabbian armor, Mesmer Elite Kurzick armor and many, many more :P. I'm a total armor whore >_>

Things that are cool

 * Imperial Commendations, Battle Commendations, Equipment Requisitions and all the other quest rewards that can get me free stuff I need, like salvage/ID kits, bags, Runes of Holding, etc. One of the many good things Factions gave us ^_^.


 * Alliance Battles. Organized or unorganized fun.


 * M.O.X.. Plain awesome.


 * Single Ugly Grawl Seeks Same for Mindless Destruction in Ascalon. Best quest name ever, also a very fun quest to do.


 * Vael.


 * Cynn.


 * The view at the Harvest Temple from the Unwaking Waters, either side. So beautiful.


 * A lot of quest acceptance/deny dialogue is very funny. Hell, a lot of quest descriptions are very funny, and people should spend more time reading them.


 * The general lack of grind, unless one chooses to do the same boring shit over and over again. Which I don't. :D


 * Observer Mode. Fun way to spend half an hour.


 * Gorgeous weapon skins.


 * Pretty armor.

Opinions, I have them

 * Getting to Legendary Survivor by way of HFFing, Dwarven Boxing or any other mostly risk-free form of farming XP is cheap, lame and nothing to be proud of. Any button-pressing monkey could do it that way.


 * Titles are bad for the game, as well as a poor substitute for actual content. The original idea for GW was that if you got bored, you could just put it down and pick it back up when a new campaign was released. For some reason, Anet wanted to keep people playing despite already having taken their money, and introducing massive grindfests was the way they went. Titles have brought rank discrimination to PvE and have spawned a large group of people who think that C-spacing bad AI (in a wurm or not) makes them good at the game. Skill over time spent? LOL SUCKERS.


 * The dual-class mobs with half-way decent skillbars in Eye of the North are a hell of a lot better than the idiot, gimmicky cast-faster, attack-faster, walk-faster mobs in Hard Mode.


 * The points grind just to get some fucking armor in EotN is moronic and needs to be abolished yesterday. After I killed the damn Great Destroyer, who won't this uppity Norn sell me armor? What's HE done to save the world, other than sit on his ass? I like buying armor; it's my personal goldsink. Handing in a book to get enough points isn't bad, but what if I want armor from a different faction as well? I loathe repetition and I don't think Vanquishing is fun.

Overrated/Underrated

 * Over: Monk Obsidian armor... dyed black. Wtb creativity.


 * Under: Factions. Such prettiness. Alliance Battles. The beautiful alive maze that is Kaineng City. The view of the Harvest Temple from the Unwaking Waters. Coming out into Pongmei Valley for the first time. I love.


 * Over: Chaos Gloves. Ugly.


 * Under: Mesmers in PvE. You're probably doing it wrong.


 * Over: PvE rank discrimination. Having spent 10 hours c-spacing mindless AI in a wurm does not make you good at DoA.


 * Under: Mhenlo. He's a good person ok :(.


 * Over: Livia. Trying too hard, Anet.


 * Under: Asuran weapon skins. So shiny.

Thoughts on The Movement of the World
Bleak, but interesting. Yeah, that's all I have for now.

Prophecies
Because it was the first I played, it will always hold a special place in my heart. It did take me quite some time to completely understand what was going on and why we went from Ascalon to Kryta, to the Desert, to the Southern Shiverpeaks and finally wound up on the Fire Islands.

The pace is this campaign is very slow, but probably ideal for players entirely new to the franchise. For experienced players, it crawls after you've done it a few times and my newer characters created in Prophecies always wound up getting runs to LA and Sanctum Cay. I dislike the jungle and I'm glad I can skip it :P.

It is nice to get skills as quest rewards, something that I really miss in the other campaigns. The nostalgia factor is very high for this campaign; I'm one of many people with a perma-pre-Sear character, though she's not going for LDoA.

Factions
I really love Factions. The designs for it are stunning -- from the maze-like Kaineng City (one of my favorite in-game locations ever) to the gorgeous Jade Sea to the gothic beauty of the Echovald Forest -- the artists have done an amazing job here.

The storyline is solid and easy to follow and doesn't have many plot-twists like Prophecies did.

I have a few quibbles with the campaign, ranging from the voice-acting (bad. Very, very bad. Shiro is terrible. Danika could rupture eardrums. The Fortune Teller is horrid. I'm not sure if it's the acting or directing, or in Danika's case, utter miscasting, but Factions' cutscenes always get skipped. Always.) to the lack of enemy variety to the fact Mhenlo is the hero and you're basically just following him around (and I say this as someone who likes Mhenlo). Oh, and enemies that explode upon death + fragile new melee-range class? THAT'S GENIUS.

-.-

It did offer, however, some great new things. I'm a big fan of Fort Aspenwood and ABs and introducing things like Imperial Commendations that you can trade for things like Identification Kits was a stroke of genius, imo. I haven't bought an ID or Salvage Kit since the introduction of the campaign :D

The Vizunah Square mission is extremely fun as well and I can't really think of a mission I truly dislike, except maybe Gyala Hatchery if you do it the normal way. The fact they are timed is annoying, though, as it promotes mad Leeroying over a more strategic approach to the mission.

Factions also has what I would consider the best-looking armor sets out of all campaigns/EotN.

Nightfall
This is probably the campaign I would recommend to people new to Guild Wars. It has the best pacing, a very solid tutorial island (that drives me absolutely insane, for the record. I don't even know why, but it gets on my nerves so badly. I think it's the (minor) grind for the Sunspear title track. I hate titles and grinding, and I especially hate having to have a certain amount of points to be able to continue on in the storyline. At least with the Kurzick/Luxon grind in Factions, you can AB for the faction or do quests on another character as the title track is account-wide. End derail.), two great new professions, and a beautiful and unique look.

The missions are fun, for the most part (Kodonur Crossroads drags on too long, Venta Cemetery is boring (here, have twelve (!) NPC monks) and I already ranted about the Horde of Darkness quest above) and the storyline is understandable while still having a lot of side-quests to poke at. There's plenty to do.

NF also introduced Heroes and oh, my God, I wouldn't know what to do if Anet decided to take them away again :P. Finally I get to run around with AI with half-decent skillbars! The downside is that they did make PvE a lot easier, but the plus side is that I never have to deal with the idiocy of PuGs ever again.

Eye of the North
This expansion has PvE I actually find somewhat challenging -- I adore the duel-class mobs, like the Charr and their E/Mo Fire eles with Extinguish and their Me/Mos with Resurrection Chant. Most of the Asuralands enemies can bite me, though ._.. Twisting Jaws is horribly imba and I demand a nerf ASAP >_>

Storyline wise, it's pretty fun to play, since you can pick and choose which you want to do first. I tend to save the Charrlands for last because I enjoy them so much; I loved seeing their homelands and dealing with them again, and I like learning more about what made them tick. Plus, the Charr areas have my favorite EotN-only NPC wandering around in them, Vael. He rules.

The dungeons are pretty fun to roll through as well, though their endchests need fewer gold req 13 Inspiration Magic wands with crappy non-max mods in them :P.

Also liked seeing Gwen again and especially loved how the Bonus Mission Pack showed us why she's as angry as she is. Poor girl is messed up, but one can hardly blame her. Speaking of!

The Bonus Mission Pack
All four mini-missions were a hell of a lot of fun to do, even though I kinda wanted them to be co-op as well as solo. The cinematics for them were amazing, such an improvement over the old days of Prophecies cinematics. Terrific bodylanguage and facial expressions in all them; that little moment where the Mursaat surround Saul actually gave me a shiver, and I may or may not have "awwww"'d a little at Gwen meeting up with Captain Langmar.

I love knowing how key historical events actually played out as I'm a Lore fan.

The skins given as a reward for completing the missions are exceedingly awesome as well. I especially love all the Undead weapons and the Tengu stuff has a very sleek and elegant beauty I love as well.

This was well worth getting EotN in the Online Store for :D.