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@firey, if you find yourself endurance-starved then most likely you're dodging things you shouldn't dodge or you don't have enough defensive skills. Don't forget that you can completely avoid mob special attacks using knock-downs, blinds, blocks, etc. I personally play a melee warrior and I found that I could easily solo 2-3 mobs my level if I simply used all my arsenal to avoid being hit. Think about surviving (avoiding damage) before thinking about killing.

Killing 2-3 mobs of your level is easy. I play a Necromancer and i have enough heal and cc to handle multiple mobs of my level without too much trouble.

But when the mobs are 2 levels higher it start to get a little bit more difficult. I did an instanced zone where the mobs were 2 level higher than me and came in batch of 2 or 3. I died 2 or 3 times doing it and had some troubles. The mobs were killing my minions in a hearthbeat and then i had to kite them and sometimes even reset them and restart with fresh minions.

Killing 2-3 mobs of your level is easy. I play a Necromancer and i have enough heal and cc to handle multiple mobs of my level without too much trouble.

But when the mobs are 2 levels higher it start to get a little bit more difficult. I did an instanced zone where the mobs were 2 level higher than me and came in batch of 2 or 3. I died 2 or 3 times doing it and had some troubles. The mobs were killing my minions in a hearthbeat and then i had to kite them and sometimes even reset them and restart with fresh minions.

You're right but I don't think firey would say he felt week if he couldn't simultaneously solo 2 mobs 2 levels higher than him :p I assumed he was having trouble with mobs at his level.

Still don't see the great difficulty some have with living on a thief. 18 and only a few only have had a few deaths thus far.

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Level 46 thief here and I die atleast once per level, but I have it coming, i try to do some big mobs sometimes lol. I dont mind dying, just means im pushing my limits and I'm ok with that.

I'm really enjoying getting to some of the vista points. Some of the jumping puzzles to get to them are pretty sneaky. Camera controls sometimes hamper it a bit, esp. with bigger characters.

EDIT: Any one know of any good sig line generators for GW2?

How is the in-game store? Do you get lots for competitive advantages/faster xp/something else if you use real money, or is the game enjoyable without that too?

YOu dont NEED anything from the gem store, its mostly things you can get in game, but nothing that really gives you an advantage over everyone else. I bought gems for bank slots really, thats all I've used em for.

How is the in-game store? Do you get lots for competitive advantages/faster xp/something else if you use real money, or is the game enjoyable without that too?

You can get some of these advantages, but like XP boosts are just for monster kills which don't make up your total XP so much as doing events and quests. Also, all the boosts you can get in the store, along with keys and various other items can be found in game by either completing exploration of a map, playing through your main story, or finding them in the locked chests (which need the keys to open, but as I said, they give you some as you play through).

First time I got a key, I opened all 3 boxes with one key because the other chests had more keys inside. Last night, I had collected up to 2 keys, opened 5 chests, and still have my 2 keys! :D

Also, last but certainly not least, you can buy gems with in game gold. This means you'd never have to shell out real life cash for the items in the shop, but rather just work for them is all. This is why I find it annoying when people who don't know anything about the game call it "pay to win" without a clue of what they're talking about.

Edit: Also, i wish WvW servers were more balanced. What you see in the pic below has been pretty much exactly the same all week and makes even considering to do WvW pointless.

I think they switch the servers you're put against every week or two. Something like that, I haven't put much time into WvW to be honest. It's just these try-hard guilds working at it though.

Alright, to make it easier to see player's names and who wants to be in the guild, I created this thread: https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1102475-guild-wars-2-guild-names-thread/

It's been too hard to find the info on who wants in since there's 123 pages as of this post.

How is the in-game store? Do you get lots for competitive advantages/faster xp/something else if you use real money, or is the game enjoyable without that too?

I did not play for the last 2 days but last time i played the in-game store was not working. Anyway for me it was not.

@firey, if you find yourself endurance-starved then most likely you're dodging things you shouldn't dodge or you don't have enough defensive skills. Don't forget that you can completely avoid mob special attacks using knock-downs, blinds, blocks, etc. I personally play a melee warrior and I found that I could easily solo 2-3 mobs my level if I simply used all my arsenal to avoid being hit. Think about surviving (avoiding damage) before thinking about killing.

In normal world I can do 2-3 of my level, however in Story-Mode not a chance. I am going to respec tonight (if I can figure out how), and go a bit more defensive than I am now. I have been focussing on the offense as opposed to the defense, and as such I don't use much in the way of controlling skills (stuns, vanish, etc). I find I do more leaps, and jumps that deal damage (which leaves me with less initiative, which means no special attacks) than the controls (blinds, poisons, etc).

I think I am too used to wow's: 1--1--2--1--1--2--1--1--3--2 Repeat style of play, and am not spending as much time learning my character.

Edit: Also, i wish WvW servers were more balanced. What you see in the pic below has been pretty much exactly the same all week and makes even considering to do WvW pointless.

agreed, i like WvWvW but i dont even bother to queue if there is a gross difference in score, as it just proves the people in there on my server are more off doing their own thing instead of actually coordinating

I'm loving my thief. I've finally learned how not to die! Lol.

Just unlocked the monthly achievement for gaining 100k exp without dying. Definitely got the hang of it, now.

I run a straight Power/Crit build. Sword/pistol as main weapons, dual-pistols offhand.

I mostly just spam Pistol Whip until I run out of initiative, auto attack, and continue Pistol Whip. Stuff dies fast.

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My girl is a badass. Lol

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decided to start doing other starter zones. Am 50% through the asura starting area. I've been using Pistol/Dagger and Dagger/Pistol sets one is more gun oriented with some quick dodge if enemy gets close, the other is more dagger oriented with the gun used as a way to incapacitate. Haven't found a good sword to put with the pistol, but I'm looking. Was hoping I could avoid guns and do straight up hack-n-slash but doesn't seem that's very viable.

I'm loving my thief. I've finally learned how not to die! Lol.

Just unlocked the monthly achievement for gaining 100k exp without dying. Definitely got the hang of it, now.

I run a straight Power/Crit build. Sword/pistol as main weapons, dual-pistols offhand.

I mostly just spam Pistol Whip until I run out of initiative, auto attack, and continue Pistol Whip. Stuff dies fast.

What do your traits look like (and how to you plan on spending them as you level)? My thief easily has twice as many deaths as my warrior, and my warrior is level 42 while my thief is only in the 30s. Plus my warrior just did the first dungeon with only 2 deaths (first time doing the dungeon).

I have fun with my thief, but it dies so often I end up raging and going back to my warrior.

What do your traits look like (and how to you plan on spending them as you level)? My thief easily has twice as many deaths as my warrior, and my warrior is level 42 while my thief is only in the 30s. Plus my warrior just did the first dungeon with only 2 deaths (first time doing the dungeon).

I have fun with my thief, but it dies so often I end up raging and going back to my warrior.

Here is a screenshot of how they look now. I am thinking 30/30/0/0/10 at 80. I can't be sure yet though. I may go 30/30/10/0/0. I'm playing a build I came up with myself. No cookie-cutter leaping death blossom double dagger build.

So I am learning along the way myself, but it is working out really well so far. I do have really good +power/+precision gear though, so that might make a difference. I put $100 into the gem store and got plenty of gold to support myself upon release. The Power trait tree really gives me limited benefit considering I don't use poisons or venoms. But I am going for straight damage so that is why I took the tree. I pump out big numbers. I may re-evaluate later on.

To mention: I have 75 deaths with my thief. Getting the 100k exp monthly was very difficult and I had to be very careful. I made it to 66k on combat alone, and got the remaining 34k from crafting. Although my strategy for attack is shallow it takes a ton of paying attention, and dodging, and sometimes fleeing when necessary. I cannot take more than 3 mobs, 2 mobs is pretty tough alone. But I can do it without dying now, if I am careful.

My slot skills: Haste, Assassin's signet, Signet of Shadows.

I pop Haste and Assassin's Signet on tough 1v3 mob fights, or veterans. I never pop the blind from Signet of Shadow. I mainly use it for the run speed, nothing else. My elite skill is Thieves Guild. It is pretty awesome, but a long cooldown. I use it on 3+mobs and veterans, along with my Haste and Assassin's signet.

I am getting ready to either buy the 30 skill point Dagger Storm, or the Druid. I am wondering if either would be better than Thieves Guild. I am probably going to do research before I drop 30 points into a skill, but I have a gut feeling Dagger Storm is going to be awesome, simply because of it's short cooldown.

uzDxf.jpg

Here is a screenshot of how they look now. I am thinking 30/30/0/0/10 at 80. I can't be sure yet though. I may go 30/30/10/0/0. I'm playing a build I came up with myself. No cookie-cutter leaping death blossom double dagger build.

So I am learning along the way myself, but it is working out really well so far. I do have really good +power/+precision gear though, so that might make a difference. I put $100 into the gem store and got plenty of gold to support myself upon release. The Power trait tree really gives me limited benefit considering I don't use poisons or venoms. But I am going for straight damage so that is why I took the tree. I pump out big numbers. I may re-evaluate later on.

To mention: I have 75 deaths with my thief. Getting the 100k exp monthly was very difficult and I had to be very careful. I made it to 66k on combat alone, and got the remaining 34k from crafting. Although my strategy for attack is shallow it takes a ton of paying attention, and dodging, and sometimes fleeing when necessary. I cannot take more than 3 mobs, 2 mobs is pretty tough alone. But I can do it without dying now, if I am careful.

My slot skills: Haste, Assassin's signet, Signet of Shadows.

I pop Haste and Assassin's Signet on tough 1v3 mob fights, or veterans. I never pop the blind from Signet of Shadow. I mainly use it for the run speed, nothing else. My elite skill is Thieves Guild. It is pretty awesome, but a long cooldown. I use it on 3+mobs and veterans, along with my Haste and Assassin's signet.

I am getting ready to either buy the 30 skill point Dagger Storm, or the Druid. I am wondering if either would be better than Thieves Guild. I am probably going to do research before I drop 30 points into a skill, but I have a gut feeling Dagger Storm is going to be awesome, simply because of it's short cooldown.

uzDxf.jpg

Reading all this, I feel like I have no idea how to play the game :laugh:

Reading all this, I feel like I have no idea how to play the game :laugh:

Believe me, you are not alone. It has taken me lots of testing to get to where I am at, and I still feel like I'm not doing enough. But when I used to play WoW, back in 2005 and beyond, I had my own build. (0/0/41 Frost). I had a blast, then years went on and I got serious and went with cookie cutter builds, and the game became unfun. So this time, I refuse to look up generic builds and do like I did back when WoW was new, and make my own and make it work, regardless of if it is the best. It makes me feel more accomplished!

No, you're a slut. Welcome to the club!

Somehow your avatar makes it funny when you say that, lol. I'm fine with it. I've watched my friends do it, and of course my friends wives. If it gets me ahead, then let the nerds fight over my wares and money. :p

But, shhhhhh, don't tell anyone!

Back in the GW1 days I made some of the most intricate farming and run builds. 55hp monk farming, warrior farming, I would do runs from Ascalon City to Droknar's Forge with some of those builds.

Now with GW2 they have changed everything and I'm like a deer in headlights. I still don't quite understand why there seems to be three types of currency, Karma, Gems and Gold/Silver/Copper. In the original game it just had Gold/Silver/Copper and I think that was the right way to do it, this Karma stuff seems very anti-market to me. I don't see why I would want to trade for stuff when I need Karma and not Gold to purchase my armor and stuff, what's the point in having gold? - If anyone knows I'd like an answer as I'm not being rhetorical I really don't know.

Back in the GW1 days I made some of the most intricate farming and run builds. 55hp monk farming, warrior farming, I would do runs from Ascalon City to Droknar's Forge with some of those builds.

Now with GW2 they have changed everything and I'm like a deer in headlights. I still don't quite understand why there seems to be three types of currency, Karma, Gems and Gold/Silver/Copper. In the original game it just had Gold/Silver/Copper and I think that was the right way to do it, this Karma stuff seems very anti-market to me. I don't see why I would want to trade for stuff when I need Karma and not Gold to purchase my armor and stuff, what's the point in having gold? - If anyone knows I'd like an answer as I'm not being rhetorical I really don't know.

Karma items while functional/decent are just basic skinned items. I'm a level 70-80 zone right now and the stuff the karma vendors are selling use the skins you would find in the level 1-15 zones. To get the better looking stuff and exotic tier armor/weapons and legendary stuff you're gonna have to do a profession and run dungeons. Gold has it's purpose and so does karma. I think the system works great.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
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Task Manager now offers improved visibility into NPU usage on PCs with an NPU. New optional NPU and NPU Engine columns are available on the Processes, Users, and Details pages, along with NPU Dedicated Memory and NPU Shared Memory optional columns on the Details page. Neural engines that are part of a GPU now appear on the Performance page, providing a more complete view of AI-related activity. A new optional Isolation column on the Processes and Details pages shows which apps are running in an AppContainer. You can add any of the new columns by right-clicking a column header in Task Manager and selecting them from the menu. This update improves CPU speed display on the Performance page of Task Manager for VMs, so it doesn't show higher than unexpected numbers after resuming from hibernate. [Camera] New! Windows 11's Multi-App Camera feature allows multiple applications to access your camera stream at the same time. Basic Camera mode in Windows 11 enables simplified camera functionality, useful for troubleshooting or improving stability when your camera is not working correctly. Enterprise admin can now set Multi-App Camera mode or Basic Camera mode through Group Policy, under Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Camera > Configure Camera Options. [Windows Setup] New! You can now choose a custom name for your user folder on the Device Name page during Windows setup. The updated experience makes it easier to select a custom name during setup only. If this step is skipped, Windows uses the default folder name and continues setup as usual. User folder names must follow standard Windows naming requirements. [General Performance] This update accelerates app launch and core shell experiences such as Start menu, Search, and Action Center. [Personalization] This update improves: Color selection accuracy when adjusting your accent color to match your wallpaper when the automatic accent color selection is enabled in Personalization settings. Wallpaper persistence reliability across restarts and upgrades, including better support for large-resolution wallpapers and other scenarios to prevent solid color wallpaper fallback. [Windows Hello] This update improves: This update optimizes the Windows Biometric service (WinBio) to help improve performance when your device resumes from Modern Standby. This update reduces unexpected authentication blocks in Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security by resolving missing secure enrollment metadata. This update improves sign-in behavior on the lock screen and sign-in screen. When Windows Hello face or fingerprint is set up and available, it is now the default sign-in method every time you sign in, even if you used a different method previously. If you need to use your Windows PIN instead and use it three times in a row, Windows will stay with PIN until you switch to another sign-in method. [Windows Search Box] Windows Search will now find and prioritize files with as few as two characters. [Storage] The dialog box for creating a Dev Drive now supports specifying the size in gigabytes (GB) instead of only megabytes (MB). This option is also available when resizing volumes in Settings > System > Storage. In Settings > System > Storage, you now see a User Account Control (UAC) prompt only when you choose to view temporary files, instead of immediately when opening the page. [USB] This update improves reliability for displays attached to USB4 docks and hubs. These displays now light up more consistently, particularly when coming out of standby. The USB3 stack is updated to have additional resiliency and recovery measures in place against certain unexpected hardware faults and conditions. Users will experience higher reliability with USB devices. [Sensors] This update improves resiliency against apps that could keep the sensor hub powered on and drain power, impacting battery life. [Human Interface Device (HID)] This update improves battery life related to the HID and Input stack for failed HID devices. Power hygiene is also improved against applications that might initiate HID transfers during standby. [Input] The update improves: Reliability of the touch keyboard on the sign-in screen, including when entering or changing a password. Reliability of explorer.exe when closing the input switcher. Performance when opening or navigating to clipboard history. [Fonts] The Times New Roman font family is updated to improve the rendering of combining diacritical marks across Greek and Cyrillic scripts. This update provides more accurate and visually consistent text by addressing mark positioning issues. These changes improve readability, reduce rendering inconsistencies, and better support global language users working with Greek and Cyrillic content. [Task Scheduler] Task Scheduler now saves column width adjustments in task list view across sessions. [Desktop icons] This update improves reliability of loading desktop app shortcuts. [Microsoft Store] This update includes underlying changes that improve download performance and bandwidth usage. This update improves error reporting when downloads fail due to Windows Update group policy settings being enabled. [Reliability] This update improves Windows reliability on the sign-in and lock screens, in File Explorer, when using touch gestures on touchscreen devices, and when changing themes in Settings. Normal rollout This non-security update includes quality improvements. The following summary outlines key issues addressed by the KB update after you install it. Also, included are available new features. The bold text within the brackets indicates the item or area of the change. [Authentication] This update improves Netlogon secure channel connections between domain controllers, enabling successful connections from member servers to domain controllers set up before 2025. [BitLocker] This update improves BitLocker testing reliability by ensuring the required files are available for the BitLocker Drive Encryption USB BIOS Logo Test. You can find the blog post for builds 26100.8728/26200.8728 here and build 28000.2333 here.
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