Learning control with a G600

I came to Guild Wars 2 from Final Fantasy XI and Aion.  If you know FFXI you'll know that the controls are not what you might call modern.  The game was built for the PS2 and they didn't do a very imaginative job with the controller, certainly not compared to the frankly amazing system in FFXIV.  Aion, being a "WoW clone" of epic proportions, was a 4-5 hotbar, button mashing nightmare.  I had to remap the Windows key to Shift to even get enough modifiers in play.  So, I came to GW2 using numpad for movement and 1-5 (+modifiers) for skills.  I didn't use the mouse at all.  Is there a name for that? 

My first character in GW2 was Necromancer and I quickly realised that Staff was just not going to work for me.  While I could ground target (GT) with my mouse and move with WASD OK I wasn't really able to fire off that many skills.  That was OK in a "stand at the back" zerg but not really much fun.  Of course I got pretty adept at swapping my right hand to the mouse for the occasional GT skill and back to the numpad but I didn't have the level of control I wanted.  I had to look down too much to see what I was pressing.  That might be why I gravitated to Clott's Daggermancer build, I just kept my hands in the same place and killed in a green glowing frenzy.  Of course he still suggests the staff for WvW.

When I started my Engineer the grenade kit was completely out. At the time I also believed that the bomb kit used GT skills so I never even unlocked that.  I only unlocked grenades because they were so great underwater (which turned out to be a bug).  I soon realised if I wanted to get the most out of my classes, and if I ever wanted to play a Mesmer, I'd have to buy a multi-button mouse.

Wall of Text break

Never one to rush into a purchase I spent about 3 months deliberating.  Since this coincided with my New Year Living World break it's not as bad as it sounds but when I came back I was determined to be a better Engineer.  And to play more WvW.  That was where I was having my biggest problems: swapping hands meant standing still, only for a second, but that's usually enough.

So, having had the Naga Razar on my Amazon wishlist for 4 months, through Christmas and a my birthday no less (cheapskates), I finally plumped for the G600.  Didn't see that coming did you?  It boiled down to reviews and price.  The Razar didn't seem to offer any more for the extra money.

Even the box is pretty

Shiny

I have had the mouse for about 3-4 weeks now and I am starting to feel quite comfortable with it.  I discovered I couldn't even circle strafe with my left hand when I first started.  It was quite a learning curve.

The main issue I had with the mouse was that I couldn't work out where to put my thumb for a "home" position.  The G13 and G16 keys are marked with tiny ridges (like f and j on a keyboard) which is really useful but I couldn't settle on the front six buttons or the back six.  Ultimately I discovered the sweet spot was right in the middle, resting on both of them.  The other problem I had was what you might call the "live long and prosper" issue or "pat your head/rub your belly".  Basically when I clicked certain buttons with my thumb my index finger just fired off on impulse.  No idea why.  I think my brain was just, like, "we click with the finger, hand! Not the thumb!"

Before I bought it I also wasn't sure about the g-shift key on the G600.  My old mouse was very narrow and I had a claw rather than a palm grip (it's an FPS thing apparently).  That's not been a problem at all and it's actually great to have that modifier there.

How is it for GW2?  Pretty awesome.  I'm not going to do a full rundown of how I mapped everything but to give you an idea G12 to G17 map 1-6.  I have so far resisted the urge to try and use keyboard modifiers with mouse clicks.  My intention is to keep my left hand on WASD at all times.  If I did use keyboard mods I wouldn't need to move my thumb from the "home" position but that kind of defeats the point of the other 6 buttons.

It's a great mouse, I'd recommend it.  My next post will be about my new Engy build and how I fared on my first trip into WvW.

Dragons!

I have had the urge to re-fight the Dragon lieutenants in the pass week.  Managed to do Claw of Jormag today and I think  is one of my favourite events once you know what you are doing.

Since I knew exactly what time to get there I thought it would be cool to try and catch a shot of the Claw as he lands.  The nearby Vista proved most useful!

Blue is a theme

I also got this one

Very angry

The megaserver is jumping

I'm finishing up monthly part the second with jumping puzzles.  I'm not a huge fan but using the guide at dulfy.net to identify the easy ones it's much less of a chore.  Turns out, of the 10 I have done so far, I've done 9 of them before and remembered how to do them surprisingly well!

I've also had a LOT of company! Sure JP are one of those places where you'll often bump into someone, there's only a finite number of them, but this morning I did the Wall Blitz with about 6 other players.

So I guess we'll chalk that up as a megaserver plus point.

As it turns out...

There was!

Oh, the conclusion of the Living Story was a drag.  The Marionette fight was entertaining once.  I just skipped the rest.

Back to work?

I've had a great time playing GW2 over the Christmas break.  I've dabbled doing all sorts of stuff: some crafting, a fair few dungeon stories, a bit of personal story and I've also tinkered with a few alts. I've also run Guild Puzzle/Challenge/Rush etc and had a great time with my Guild.  It's all been really relaxing and enjoyable.

Why is this notable?  Well, I'm slightly concerned that the reason I found it all so enjoyable and relaxing was because I completed all the Living World achivements before Christmas.  So, I basically had a week (of higher than normal) playtime to do what I like.

So, did Anet effectively give us a Christmas holiday too?  Is there a back to work slump looming in the not to distant future...

I hope not.

Nemesis' Necro Hybrid for cheapskates

Following this post by Anatoli Ingram I got in touch with him to find out which builds he referred to as "a traditional dark caster" and "a blood ritualist".  He very kindly replied and linked me to Nemesis' Hybrid Build and Succubus respectively.  These both look like fun builds but the latter is maybe a bit too much like Clott's Daggermancer, which I have been running (with mods) for quite a while, and since I really wanted to try an axe build I decided to investigate the Hybrid build in detail.

Having watched Nemesis' video thoroughly (and hopefully understood it), I started looking at what it would cost to buy the build.  I quickly realised it would take a BIG chunk of my modest wealth to replicate the build exactly.  Those Runes of Divinity are more than "a bit expensive" and since I recently splurged on an alt I don't have the Laurels for the Celestial Ascended trinkets either.  Aside from that I'm a "try before you buy" guy.  I'll happily drop 100g on a build if I think it's worth it but I have to know if I like it first!

A quick search revealed that I could probably avoid the Celestial trinkets, which would let me keep the Berserker stats, and that in turn would help avoid the Divinity runes.  I used the gw2skills.net builder to experiment (intothemists.com has some notable errata) and I present, after a few hours work, The Nemesis' Hybrid for Cheapskates aka "the ghetto version". Let's be absolutely clear: I am in no way saying this is a better build. It is a shit load cheaper, though!  Probably.  The main differences are:

• Rabid instead of Rampager armour (obtainable with Karma and BoH)
• Keep Berserker Ascended trinkets (everyone has those, right?)
• Use random mix of orbs instead of the Runes

Stats-wise this build has a tiny bit more power, a tiny bit less precision, less toughness and  a lot less vitality, healing and condition dmg (-2.5 bleeding dmg by my calculations).  It's a pretty logical outcome of using Berserker over Celestial but even with Celestial trinkets, Divinity runes are the only way to boost Crit Dmg % and Condition Dmg in your armour slots.  So, on balance, it's a nice way to try out the Hybrid build.

If, like me, you are coming from Clott's Daggermancer you can make a significant change by replacing your Cavalier's Rings directly with Celestial and exchanging a few orbs. This makes a better Hybrid than pure Zerker trinkets, boosting your vit, toughness and, most importantly condition damage.  Loses a bit of power, though.  Natch.

Crafting on the cheap in GW2

I heard about http://gw2crafts.com/ from the GW2 Reporter podcast and it's a really well executed idea and a really clever bit of work.  But is it the cheapest way to level a craft?

No.  It's not always and here's why.

Firstly, the clever thing about the site is that it gets you to craft the items that give the smallest loss while preparing to craft items in the next tier.  So, in Tier 1 of each rank you convert raw mats to processed mats and components.  Makes sense, right? No, not always.

I am currently using the site to level Huntsman.  To get me from 225 to 300 it had me set to do the crafts in Figure 1.  Now, what you can't see here is that, today, Hard Longbow Staves sell at a decent profit.  As do Darksteel Rifle Barrels.  Most of the other things that it asks you to make are a net loss.  You can use gw2spidy to check these things, for example.  To level from 225 to 250 in the cheapest way possible you should probably just convert logs to planks, make longbow staves and sell them at a profit.  Yes, that does mean you won't have any components to craft in Tier 2 but it might be cheaper to buy them straight from the TP anyway! It is today and that's the thing about GW2 it pays to research.

Figure 1 - Huntsman 225 - 300

Secondly, to get to level 400 gw2crafts NEVER recommends you make an item using a vendor purchase recipe.  As you should know, in the last "tier" of your current "rank", usually what I would call Tier 3, you can make Rare weapons using recipes bought from the crafting masters with karma.  These recipes are nearly always profitable because they either make unique looking weapons and/or are best in slot for that level.

What that means, again, is that the components you crafted in Tier 1 might not make the most profitable Rare weapons. So what the guide recommends for Tier 1 may not even be useful if you decide to craft Rares instead.

Thirdly, in my case, levelling Huntsman, you would never know from gw2crafts that you can make unique Rare weapons at level 250 using a Sun Beads. If you make 6 of these weapons you'll be at 275 and they sell for a profit.

For my final push to 300 the guide recommends making 8 Sigils.  These will cost me 34.46s a pop to craft.  However, looking at gw2spidy again, I can see at least 7 recipes I can make that will yield a profit instead of a 2.59g loss.

Like I said, it's a great site and a pretty convenient way to level a craft but even the "slow" guides could lose you a small fortune and if money is tight it's a mistake you can ill afford to make.