Invasion of the Everything

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

Guildwars 2 zones have come under attack by the forces of the seemingly too smart for her own good jester sylvari, Scarlet - who made her grand(er?) entrance during the closing ceremony of the Queen's Jubilee. She's far too interesting to be Trahearne's evil twin, so I'm now guessing she is the "Harley Quinn" to the Mad King's "Joker"... and I'm Batman! Well, no I guess I'm just one of the Gotham PD in that analogy because everyone is a hero and because I'm not rich. :P

Harley is way hotter than Scarlet though.

She's been a busy little plant though as not only does she have the tech and forces of the steam creatures, the sheeply stupid molten alliance and a small country of aetherblade pirates at her disposal - she also has twisted the watchwork knights in Divinity's Reach to her will turning them into... uh... Decepticons? From her barricaded position within the Crown Pavillion she sends them out in huge numbers via steam portals, and joins the forays herself just to remind everyone who is behind the attacks.

Really have to keep an eye on the clock if you want to participate in stopping these though (and to continue the story, you NEED to participate in at least SIX or have a buddy who already did that for you). A window of 10 minutes at the start of every hour is all you have to waypoint to the hot zone and once there expect to be way pointing around more to stop the gazillion foes warping in. Thank the gods Kiel won with her cheaper WP costs!

If you miss the entry window you will be sitting on your hands for 50 minutes, being left out and simply "waiting to have fun". GW2 likes introducing mechanics where you wait to have fun. They really are carefully going through that first manifesto and breaking every point they had. One of the achievements needs you to participate in 13 at the minimum (13 hours on the hour) but likely it will be more since you need to luck out and get 13 unique zones.

Fortunately the rewards are pretty good, better I think than the Crown Pavillion circuit but that may look more appealing after Kiel's WP reduction runs out after the next few weeks. I know I'll be participating as much as I can, that's for sure. Never had as much gold as now, yet I still don't have enough for a commander tag. I'm poor. :(

Treasures of the Crown Pavillion

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

Been playing lots of GW2 lately due to this update mainly because of the amount of gold I'm getting zerging around the Crown Pavillion, and when there is no zerg - upstairs in the arena. I'm not the most efficient farmer but in comparison to my normal income in the game this its like I won the lottery. During my "balloon hunt" I secured Noxious Castrum in Fireheart Rise solo and decided to buy 500 units of deployable mortars as my reward and  have used up half so far in the Pavillion. Their mileage varies, some being destroyed quick or shooting (automatic) in useless directions but when placed properly they sure net me a lot of extra loot!

Other people have been bringing in ember pets or ogre whistles which also help them out (more so in the solo arenas) but the best I've seen is people intentionally TWO manning "solo" arenas. I think they queue up to fight the same guy then one of them runs faaaaar away which then teleports them in together to face one opponent. These two guys fought the Norn and the Dog as a pair and then went in together to face subject 7.

Wonder if they both get rewarded?

Of course it is very bad when two people unintentionally drop into the same arena with different matchups because it seems that both bosses spawn! I'm not talking about the crowd favourite gambit either. I'm talking about Liadri + Dead Eye Dunwell combo. So... just dodge the shadow falls, shades, sniper shot and avoid the mines all at the same time. Goes without saying the two fellas that went in didn't last that long. :P

I also was fortunate enough to get a Royal Pass during a zerg run. This little scroll (which expires over time unfortunately) acts as an instant teleport to the Royal Terrace that really does hold all the handy vendors (except black lion traders) in a tiny area. Crafting stations, bank, guild utilities, a mystic forge and most importantly an asura gate that lets you decide where to go via dialogue prompt. Basically it removes the need for Lion's Arch entirely, and I am still hoping they nuke that city and all its residents into the dirt - sooner rather than later. If you have no royal pass, then just hop to the borderlands -> shop -> drop to character select -> pick same guy to reappear where you last were (prior to borderlands) for a similar experience.

Next update is the Queen's Speech where the "villain" who many assume is Scarlet and whom I believe to be Trahearne's evil gender swapped twin from the steam dimension will no doubt cause a minor disturbance. I'll probably take a look but in the end the path of least resistance to lots of gold will always win out. I also suspect another armor tier will be coming in again due to the current abundance of mithril ore (literally cheaper than carrots at the moment). Lastly I'm still wondering why Liadri didn't just slay Zhaitan on her own and save us all the trouble? They sort of break their own lore by adding ridiculously powerful NPCs in the world like that. Or... she couldn't be bothered doing that but is ok fighting as a spectacle in the arena? Guess she's just an attention whore.

Ellen Kieled it! Time to celebrate with the Queen!

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

Kinda glad now that my previous post with "art" incentives was overlooked as Ellen Kiel has emerged the victor in the voting for the Captain's Council seat - thrashing the hopes and desires of all of Evon Gnashblade's supporters (and hopefully their wallets too). Story-wise, unless you were playing either an evil aligned, human hating, or charr loving (beastiality much?) character then you -should- have voted for Kiel. A surprising amount of people decided to vote for Evon without RP consideration. They just wanted the fractal he offered which now will have close to zero chance of coming to fruition thanks to their collective failure. ANet did a good job getting players involved in the election so it will be interesting to see if they can keep it up in the next arc: the Queen's Jubilee.

From what I've seen so far it looks pretty fun inside the Crown Pavillion - lots of things to fight and lots of loot for the taking. Ofcourse the aetherblade pirates are still being a nuisance but aside from the opening ceremony most of their antics are with content outside the city. Haven't explored those yet mainly due to the shineys dropping inside the new zone. Also the solo arena fights, which you can watch/be watched by other players are pretty interesting. I've beaten the first three rounds so far and am hoping to make it all the way to the end!

Definitely going to be a case of this though.