Dragon Hunter Rox

Part of my Explorer of Tyria journal - you can find the rest here!

Met up with the charr ranger Rox at Sparkfly Fen recently. She was hunting the reincarnation of the local dragon "Tea Kettle" in the swamps to impress Tribune Brimstone. Stupid cats. Anyway I helped her out, finding numerous tracks of the beast as well as leftovers from the Shatterer and Jormag's little friend. Ironically during all of this I only encountered the last one up at Frostgorge Sound and helped the local army defeat him. Nothing really heroic about it when you have half a legion behind you combined with heavy firepower provided by the nearby stationary guns. The dragons in this land are stupid, they always seem to attack in the firing lanes of the cannons that await them. Not sure what else there was to do since none of the other beasts dared show their face while I was active (the cowards) so I moved on to other things.

I think Rox spotted a dragon.

I've since heard tell of the local militia swarming to Rox's aid, often spending many hours just waiting in anticipation for the arrival of their foe in the sticky, smelly swamp. I guess they find the waiting fun, or are they just waiting to have fun? Reports say the dragon has grown in strength - more often defeating or escaping from the angry mob than not. Commanders have taken it upon themselves to meld the troops into a well fused, fighting machine - posting tactics and requirements on the local forums. I had one look at this and rolled my eyes. I was never really one for filling a "role" like an automaton. I suppose they are keeping the ... swamp... safe? Hmm. It's not like Tea Kettle has made any move to push further North, or has ever attacked Fort Trinity to the South. Whatever - it is there. That's all that Rox needs to know. I think it will be hard for her to prove herself with an army behind her though, especially one she doesn't lead.

Maybe she'll have better luck assisting Caithe with the Scarlet(?) distubance being investigated at Twilight Arbor. Sent her a letter via carrier pigeon wishing her the best of luck while I headed back to the deep woods of Sharandar (in Neverwinter Online) to continue the campaign against Malabog's forces. I still wonder how those fomors got there. Possibly a rift between the shadow realm and the feydark? Maybe I'll yet find out.

Week #14 - Hibernation Elsewhere

Part of my Explorer of Tyria journal - you can find the rest here!

This is probably going to be my last "weekly" blog for GW2 since I'm not playing it enough to warrant it anymore, especially with Christmas coming up I'm expecting to have a few other things to do. Not to worry, I'll still update this journal though, just when I have enough content for it.

Managed to run Honor of the Waves explorable with DL, Yue, Elena and random asura Pompi. Sure felt super safe having 3 guardians on the team and sure enough, we managed to go through it and defeat Wullam the Plunderer in underwater combat suffering only one death (and zero again when we fought the Claw of Jormag once we exited). While it was fun it also means yet another bag slot is not occupied by dungeon tokens that I probably won't use unless I grind for more of them. And here I thought Arenanet didn't want to make a grindy game? They could have at least either made the things tradable, or stack "outside" like coin and gems.

It might be sinking, but it's still awesome.

Speaking of which, in preparation for my Christmas time absence I've spent time this week converting karma into gold via the mystic forge, then stocking up on gems since the value of gold seems to just continously be getting crappier. Hopefully the upward trend of gem prices continues so I'll have some funds when I get back - Still have to finish the main quest afterall.

Turns out I did that just in time too, because as of this posting for some reason I can no longer log into GW2. Everytime I attempt and verify access I get taken to a black screen where the mouse cursor becomes a hand... and then nothing. Breaking out of that and trying again results in the loader sitting at Downloading 0/0 kbs. Not sure what is causing this behaviour but I suspect it's my own compy giving up the ghost. :(

Week #12 - High Forces

Part of my Explorer of Tyria journal - you can find the rest here!

The opening of Southsun Cove and investigation into the new Consortium led to some higher guild member activity this week, but alas due to timezone mismatches I think only Yue and Austea were able to participate in every event, including slaying an ancient karka! I kept myself busy too by pretty much attacking every single jumping puzzle and mini dungeon in the game with my alts (in the low level zones for cheaper respawn fare) and main (everywhere else) and have now completed the vast majority of them, with Yue helping me through the visually impressive Obsidian Sanctum. Stand-outs for me were the also incredibly pretty Hidden Garden (which Faiotan, who I had met in a Fotm PUG last week, helped me access), Sector Zuhl which was quite forboding since the dredge dug too deep (soloed that Giant Destroyer Troll!), and the new Skipping Stones which is incredibly fun (but just short of that Clocktower). 

The Dark Reverie, while not so fun is a painful but necessary lesson in air-kiting apparently and if you are attempting Coddler's Cove make sure your graphics settings are higher than "low" because when I went there there were a ton of orbs missing. Managed to also get into a random team to run the Ascalon Catacombs story mode which was entertaining but what I found even more fun than that -or- the jump puzzles was the dwarven ruin at Dredgehaunt Cliffs. DL and I went in not knowing what to expect and it was FUN! They should make more open-world dungeons like this in my opinion. They can even share the same "darkness" mechanic. Much better than having to get 5 people to run one of the instanced places, making it quicker to organize.

Lastly Yue, DL, Thaldir and I managed to encounter AND defeat the Claw of Jormag (twice) this week. He's certainly the most annoying of the dragons thus far but that also makes him the best "boss" battle having extra abilities of both the Sunless one and the Shatterer. Well, when people aren't just farming his summons that is.

I'm gonna farm that dragon good... eeeheheheh!