Arkham Creed

Can I have some money for crafting?

(That was an April Fool’s joke….moving on…)

Okay, here is the deal. In a recent thread I asked what was the fastest way to level a character, and overwhelmingly the response was “crafting.” Not only that I even got a fantastic link to some crafting guides that can make the process much smoother (I already used it to finally master cooking on my ranger). The problem, as you may have guessed, is that crafting for levels tends to take a ton of gold. And I….really don’t have any. At all. I’m still counting my money in silver.

So today my question is simple; how do you make gold quickly and reliably? Obviously some people must know how, the sheer number of recent legendary weapons prove that, but I haven’t a clue. I have never really had the desire nor patience farm, and because of that back in GW1 and here in GW2 I tend to struggle to make any amount of cash. And before you mention it; I don’t have magic find gear and can’t afford a full set of it. Something of a vicious cycle; I need magic find gear to make money, but I need money for magic find gear.

Such a headache.

Regardless, any helpful tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

So I am raising an alt and it is going much slower than I would like. Does anyone know a build or other such trick that can make leveling a thief faster? It doesn’t need to be particularly fun to play because I am going to actually decide on a build once I have everything unlocked, I just want to get there sooner. Like tomorrow sooner if possible (unlikely since I’m only around level 10).

Preface; the following is born of my own personal opinions, preferences, and principles. It is in no way intended to defame or challenge the views of others, nor to begin an argument or flame war. I simply felt compelled to sit down and express my recent and personal issues with Guild Wars 2 in the hopes that someone among the game’s community –a community I have long held above that of other MMOs due to its openness, helpful demeanor, and courtesy- would lead a sympathetic ear and perhaps offer some opinion or perspective that would help me make up my mind on if I plan to continue playing, or abandon the game at least until the next expansion.

First a bit about who I am as a player. I am, at my core, an avid role player. I get into MMORPGs more for the RPG part than the MMO part, and dislike anything but casual competitive play. I lack the skill to compete in PvP against more experienced and dedicated players, as well as the desire to do so. Likewise one of the largest draws of the Guild Wars series to me was, and continues to be, the lack of raids and what I have always felt raids meant. That is to say repeating content, perhaps dozens or hundreds of times, as the primary form of late game content. Because of this I have zero interest in The Fractals of the Mists dungeon. Indeed I dislike that dungeon on principle and refuse to set foot inside even once. And, of course, this means I have no need nor interest in ascended equipment.

I am writing this up because over the last few months my enjoyment of Guild Wars 2 has suffered what I consider to be a pair of devastating blows. The first came when I finally completed the personal story, and the story mode of each dungeon. My progress was delayed by a few months simply because I grew to hate the class I chose as my main, and deleted it to reroll another one. I did this instead of simply rolling an alt because for me my investment in my main is, beyond any doubt, the number one reason I play games. Arkham Creed is my online identity, the name I have used on countless forums and the character I played in every MMO of my history. It is not at all a stretch to say that if I cannot accomplish something with Arkham, I have little to no desire to even attempt it.

Arkham has long been a rouge character, something difficult in MMOs as I have a, put gently, long standing disagreement with the MMO genre over what exactly defines a stealth class and stealth gameplay. As you may imagine this meant that Arkham began as a thief, however by level sixty I had grown to completely despise everything about the Guild Wars 2 thief, not just the expectedly underwhelming stealth. Rerolling as an engineer was a compromise that still doesn’t fully sit well with me, as it is hard to reconcile who Arkham is as a character and how I envision him with the gameplay I adore from the engineer.

However this isn’t the blow I mentioned. That was merely why it took so long to reach that final instance. Long story short because of a discrepancy between the performance of my computer and that of the party leader of said instance I missed the end of the story. I am not referring to the dungeon that I could simply repeat, but rather the once in a –character’s- lifetime instance afterward. I missed the final speech and cut scene. I missed the celebration. And lacking the ability to replay the instance or even just watch the scene left me disheartened. Yes I could see it with an alt, or I could see it on youtube, but I must reiterate; if I can’t do it as Arkham I have no desire to do it at all. What is my core engagement of the game was utterly and irrevocably destroyed by a single system performance issue. Even moving forward with an expansion will not help, as there is now and likely will always be a gap in Arkham’s story. It was almost enough to have me abandon the game outright when it happened, but I pressed on.

The second and more recent event has to deal with endgame. I have long defended Guild Wars 2 on the topic of endgame, and have felt that, personally, going after a legendary skin was all the endgame I needed to tide me over until an expansion. However I came to realize something only a few days again when my fiancée began her long quest for Twilight; legendary weapons are meaningless to an engineer. With my build I spend the vast, vast majority of my time using a kit, typically either flamethrower or elixir gun, and this would make my efforts for a legendary irrelevant because I’d never actually see it, never use it.

I could just change my build of course, and have sought advice in another thread about that, but have since come to a conclusion on the topic; I’m not going to. The whole reason I am playing as an engineer and not another profession is because of my current play-style and build. I love the engineer because of the kits and the versatility that offers. To play an engineer without a kit, or to downplay my use of kits, would undermine the whole point of having rerolled into that profession in the first place. So my choice boils down to either playing the profession I enjoy, but having next to nothing actually holding me to the game, or renew my efforts for a legendary, thus regaining that goal and that purpose, but loose the gameplay I enjoy and loose the whole reason I play an engineer. It is distressing.

And that is my problem as it stands. So much of the things that held me to this game have been called into question, and I cannot see a way to renew my interest and enjoyment of the game. So far I’ve held on because of my fiancée, and because she and I do enjoy playing together. But for me my time with the game is becoming increasingly strenuous, rather than the relaxing entertainment a game should be. I don’t want to leave because I enjoy the game, in theory, and because I want to be there for my lover (after all I am the one who introduced her to the Guild Wars series years ago), yet at the same time I no longer have a goal to keep my sights set to, nor the anticipation of a story to continue. And I find myself wondering what the community thinks of this, and if you have some new perspective I may find helpful.

[moved to Q&A as TA is for discussion aspects of GW2 and you are looking for advice - Arduin]

So I’ll be brief. My engineer is the first character I’ve leveled to max and completed the personal story and dungeons with, and I absolutely love the profession. However I’ve recently come to see a problem; I’ve got no endgame. I dislike PvP and have no interest in Fractals so ascended gear is meaningless, and already strutting around in full exotic basically means the only thing I have left to do in the game is go for a legendary. The problem of course is that as an engineer the vast majority of my time is spent with a kit, and I am not going to grind for months to get a legendary I’ll hardly ever see, let alone use. As I said, from my perspective I’ve got no endgame. It has less to do with the game itself, and more to do with the profession being….well shafted.

So my question here is simple; does anyone have a build they are willing to share that is a bit more legendary friendly? Ideally something using a rifle (I hate the legendry pistol and the legendary shield doesn’t suit a technology based profession) and suited with Rabid gear. I really don’t want to have to go for another exotic set, not only do I lack the karma for that, I spent a week wiki-ing the various temple sets and bouncing between locations to actually have a full rabid set, so I do not want to change it. Oh, also I dislike immobile pets, so no turrets. I realize that is a lot of restrictions, so anyone that offers an idea gets extra thanks.

TLDR; I need suggestions for a rifle based engineer build suited for rabid (condition damage/precision/toughness) gear and that doesn’t use kits or turrets so that I can justify the grind for a legendary by actually using it. Thank you.

Does anyone know how to craft the alleged permanent version of the Halloween Staff skin? And if so about how long does this take?  I really want it for my necro alt, and I hope to god it can be transmuted so I can actually use the damned thing, but I really hate that Arena Net decided this Halloween should be nothing but a freaking grind to get anything.