The last half of April felt different. Something in the air had changed. Maybe it was that Spring was bringing hints of outside time and Summer. Things were different now.
Guild Wars 2 took a backseat to other games, of which were there many. I still have plenty of goals and playtime left in the game, but Guild Wars 2 became part of the rotation instead of owning it. This was ironic because my wife became full blown addicted to Guild Wars 2. Most of my time in Guild Wars 2 was spent with her or my guild doing focused activities like completing the dailies, doing guild missions, and helping Mrs. Ravious with a tricky skill point or vista. The weekend felt nice though since I completed Super Adventure Box and the monthly. I am prepared for tomorrow’s patch, but not frenetic.
I would say the game that did own the rotation was Minecraft. Between the purity of vanilla, the flavorings of mods, and the sheer omnipresence of the Feed the Beast (“FTBâ€) modpack, there is nearly too much entertainment in this smorgasbord. I started a private FTB server with a few friends. I am really pleased with Host Blaze, which I use to host the server. I can easily recommend them for quality, price, and tech support.
ShootMania and Warframe came and went. The former because the community is just too small for such a great game. I need the equivalent of dumb “pubs†to play on, and I do not relish entering ShootMania servers with the few elite that play. The latter because I saw a ton of grind-like progression in a candy wrapper of fun. It’s not the fun I need for me to want to put effort in to working or paying to get other class options (more fun?).
I am looking forward to next month. Mrs. Ravious just hit 80 in Guild Wars 2. We are searching for decent ranger builds that like longbow and greatsword. Right now I think we’re going to mix up Soldier’s and Berserker’s gear. I am hoping to get her in to some group content this month, and a friendly romp in the new dungeon might be the trick. With FTB, who knows what will happen. I’ve started playing around in the Twilight Forest dimension, which is an amazing addition. This past weekend I decided to take down my expensive Forestry farm and replace it with a little Steve’s Carts robot. Plenty to explore and build in FTB.
–Ravious
For Mrs. Ravious, it looks like you’re trying to strike a balance between damage and survivability. This is a build I’ve been running on my ranger and it has worked for me.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJATxiE1RWs2Bgli9CkpwQGdPG1zOLQGG-jQyAYrARZgoCAJvioxWULiGraBT3iqcHis3ADA-e
All of the traits are pretty self-explanatory. I will often switch piercing arrows for Eagle Eye, depending on the situation.
Awesome, thanks! This helps a lot. I look at her ranger, and just scratch my head usually. It’s much different from a necro, and it doesn’t help she doesn’t like short bow, which seems to be the bow of the day.
Yes, the pundits will tell you that short bow is the way to go, however, I feel more comfortable with longbow and if there is another ranger in the dungeon/fractal party running SB, I feel comfortable running with my LB, giving the party a target with 10 stacks of vuln every 8 seconds. In the end, make sure she plays the way she wants and as long as she lives to fight another day, that’s all that counts.
FTB is great! Not sure how big your private server is, and which modpack you are playing, but if you’d like it I’d gladly pay a visit someday :) just to see the creations and maybe leave something behind for fun :)