The Shadow

I'm working on a 2nd Incinerator. I decided that doing all the skill challenges in the world would be a pretty fast way to get the Bloodstone shard. Done the whole map tonight except for Malchor's leap and beyond.

In doing this I remembered a query I had when I entered Orr for the very first time:

What's the point in having it so densely populated by annoying mobs who enjoy pushing/ pulling/ freezing/ confusing and whatever else, not to mention; ridden with events no one wants to complete? I mean; really, what's the point? No other map is nearly this annoying.

Are they meant to be "challenging"? Or are they just meant to annoy you and waste a bit more time? Is this Anet's solution to "time-sink"? Is this "dynamic"?

I mean if the intention was to make them difficult, why not actually make them difficult? Otherwise why not just make them slightly less annoying, allowing you to get on with your outing in Orr without having to be a perpetual rag-doll?

Orr isn't interesting, Orr isn't fun, Orr isn't challenging. All it does is waste your time and in my case; constantly shout "piss off!".

So I guess I'm just curious ;

What do you think of Orr?
Is it fun? or just a place to waste time/ make gold/ karma?
Why does it have to be as lackluster as it is now?

I did the whole, custom, buy order thing on Rare daggers in the hopes of getting Spark.

So I've spent 250g already, made about 100g back thanks to exotics.

But seriously.. Is this what Anet intended when they said they were keeping their eyes on the situation and wanted to make precursors more attainable?

'Cause I'm certainly not seeing it. Shoulda just saved up an extra 150g more and bought the bloody thing off TP.

But now that seems senseless, since I've spent so much already, perhaps I should restart the whole process? Besides, Spark is at like 450g right now, awesome stuff.

What kind of luck have you guys been having?

Friends of mine have done this method (some of them multiple times) and always gotten their chosen pre-cursor and in fact ended up making a profit. Some other people got x2 precursors at the Karka event. Some of them got their pre-cursor randomly just by saving same-type dungeon drops and forging them. Silly me for believing I'd ever so be lucky, I suppose.

Either way, after having horrible luck with Clovers (spent over 500k Karma and still only have 40) and wasting 250g on the Mystic hole of horror, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do. I know how to make money, I know how to get Karma, I know how to salvage for ectos, the point is this whole ridiculous RNG factor just doesn't seem fair at all.

It's depressing cause I've pretty much got all the mats for 2 of the 3 legendaries I want, I just don't have the Clovers or Spark or Karma for the Gifts of Mastery.

I hope this doesn't come across as a massive whine. I'm curious as to how other people have fared/ failed. What are your views on the system?

I don't know whether I want to be female or male. I have full T3, I like it as male and female.

I'm a male irl so I kinda prefer being a male in-game. Never really got into the "female ass" bandwagon.

The issue I have with T3 on male is the boots, and how it dyes horribly with abyss. What I hate about T3 on female is how common and un-original it is, under-boob is great and all but you see it everywhere. There's no distinction, there used to be, when few people had the gold, sadly that just isn't the case anymore.

I need some help, suggest alternate armor, suggest alternate dye schemes, post screenshots. Idk, just help me make up my mind. Male or Female, T3? Mix? Black? what?!

Too many options and it's driving me insane.

Currently got Svanir Legs, and Duelist boots, Rest of T3. Best combo so far.

I just can't seem to find out how.

I play every class in PvP and WvW except for Mesmer. Of the classes I do play I can play them all well in PvP and WvW except for Necromancer.

I've tried out Crit Dagger builds, Conditionmancer, DS, etc etc etc... No matter what build I try out, I still feel the Necromancer to be exceptionally underwhelming in just about ever plausible situation. Am I just playing it wrong? Doubt this to be the case tbh. Do I just not have the right build? I don't know, please just tell me how to play the god-damn class properly, cause it looks really cool despite it being really quite clunky and my main was a Necro in GW1 so yeah.

Would appreciate it if you guys could post some videos/ builds/ montages/ anything else showing that the necro just isn't a pile of garbage.

This thread isn't a "wah wah necro so weak wah wah UP" it's more of a "Wah wah I can't play necro cause I find it weak, but maybe you don't, so maybe you'd be so kind as to enlighten me such that I can find it more enjoyable."

So yeah, help appreciated.

So lately I've been commanding often in WvW on my Thief.

I love the Thief. I enjoy commanding. I find it very difficult to do both at the same time.

It's not easy charging through a wave of culling opponents and shouting "PUUUUUUSH!" on TS when you find yourself lagging and dying in quite literally 2 seconds. And it's not cause I'm an awful player who can't dodge, it's not because I'm in full berserker gear. It's because to stay alive, for the most part, you have to rely on stealth or blindness or Daggerstorm/ Signet of Malice to stay alive as a thief.. and while that stuff works amazing in small-skirmishes.. it doesn't work very well in large scale situations.

And I'm sure someone will say; "herp derp.. A warrior or guardian can die just as fast in a mindless zerg as a thief" to which I will simply reply; "No."

So what does a Thief-commander do? Never wear the tag? Surely being a commander shouldn't be limited to certain classes?

Honestly, I don't care about damage output in a zerg. As a commander I don't need to deal damage, I need to stay alive, assess the situation and then physically guide my zerg where it needs to go to flank or whatever else. How can I go about achieving this? I don't expect to be the tankiest mofo ever, that would be ludicrous, but I'd certainly like to be able to survive.

Any advice in terms of gear/ utility/ build/ playstyle is welcome. But I wont use venoms cause they're  gimmicky and suck.

Many thanks