Luthan.5236

I have decided to to it after all. Surprisingly with doing the race once (so I roughly knew the supposed route) then doing the adventure ... it went pretty well. Could do some training (instead of having to wait for the next race) by resetting when I fell down when making a mistake. This helped with training the last section. And yes: Being without the bee (normal form) is much faster in the first part I guess. Since the bee and gaining/losing altitude is the annoying thing. (And maybe one or another part where you need to be careful to not fall down. Or getting stunned. In the dave with the water.) I still had a hard time telling if I am at the correct altidude. (Having to increase again at the coin which slowed me down.) In the end about 4 mins 31 seconds - far away from the top 1000 lifetime and with still a few small mistakes. So there should be some leeway. I recommend the race first to have a rough idea of the route you are supposed to take. Then adventure for training.

The upgrades are from the last boss (first kill on that char) of each world. I think it would be best to slowly work yourself through the zones first - getting most upgrades for one main you use for the SAB. With the 5 hearts it should be easy even with a small mistake. Of course you should know the route and attack the mushroom thingy so you can go up with the mushroom pad fast - after you got the ooze before the checkpoint. After the checkpoint it is just a matter of moving fast. (Not too hard to avoid the few mobs if you are not tooo bad and quickly run to the ooze farmer if you know the route.) I think most work without potions (or all?) - the only one where I sometimes have trouble (I guess I am a bit too slow to be careful) is in W2Z3. The Z1 in W3 has the food item to restore health befor the section with the logs (after the first half) - if you do it the normal way (not exploration mode).

Didn't know about this lol. Must have missed the patch note in 1 or 2 years ago. (Pretty sure this is something that wasn't there from the start and only got patched in much later.) Since I usually look at the markers on the mini map - for adventures - I did not notice. ( No mini map in the SAB hub.) I guess now I need to look for the NPC with the adventure icon above the head. (Odd that I never noticed earlier when doing the race ... race starters usually are next to the guy starting the adventure - with the time trial icon. At least in normal world stuff.) ... and actually ... with the wiki I found it and the guy does not even have an icon above the head lol. That is why I might have missed it. (+ no permanent achievement to fill so there is no reason to look for it.) Edit: I wonder why they did not just make the normal race into an adventure thing. Coins seems more confusing - when you have all the coin markers pop up everywhere. (Then at least better to do the race once so you have an idea of the route you need to move. 😄 Since the race is better at guiding you to the next point.) But for now I'll ignore it. (Maybe trying at the last day to at least register as silver time since I do not have done it at all - and no lifetime time registered.)

Tricky. And I also try to avoid dodge jumps - can't do them reliably and too lazy to train. You can do it by quicly jumping turning around and jumping back (jumping backwards normally should be too slow - without turning around). This should bait it into jumping so you can quickly move into that direction (until it's cooldown wears off and it starts to jump again).

That zone does not really need health potions if you start at full health and know where to go. (As long as you can avoid getting hit by mobs.) It's one of the easier ones with the oozes.

I ignore this one. Not worth the few bauble bubbles (the only reward from there - nothing unique). It is annoying that you can't really train it at your pace since they forgot to add this as a time trial adventure. You need to wait for the race to be up. Last part is the one where it is easiest to mess up. When you need to get the speed boosts when flying.

It takes time. They obviously are working on ot - adding the disclaimer that this should not be taken as a promise of a full season to avoid disappointment if it takes longer than expected. That they are also fixing certain stuff the speed runners in tribulation (ab)used is also a good sign. (Means they start to care for SAB in general.) The test zone already seems like (one of) the best zone(s) in the SAB to me. So many good additions: The freely usable checkpoints. Vendor machine in the zone - to restore lifes (so I can always use my infinite coin to restore to never be able to go to the game over room again). The mini JPs like with the one chest - where they even added the adventure. (Which has a clever use: Can reset you to the start of the mini JP without having to walk back there. When you still need to go for the chest for the bauble for other achievement. And the players that want hard/competitive stuff can use it to compare their times trying to get better there.) This is how it can work. Seems almost finished in that zone I think we soon can start to get a test 2nd test zone and move this one to a final W3Z1 release. For the festival itself: I like that you easily can get cheap currency to buy stuff from the weekly vendor. The festivals with the non-bound curreny have rare/grindfy ways to obtain it. Making it expensive at the TP. Making the weekly vendor expensive. (Wintersday, Dragon Bash and Halloween.) The other 2 ones with the bound currency are either harder (more stuff to do but still fun and nice and "cheap" sine you can earn enough of the free bound currency for the weekly vendor) or more boring. (Four Winds and the .... slightly boring New Year's.)

There surely are annoying parts in these zones. But once you are finished with tribulation (skin sets and achievements finished) it is easily playable in normal mode with a lot of shortcuts. I usually do only a normal run for all zones - each day. (For the bubbles.) Enough to buy a lot of stuff from the weekly vendor + even have additional currency to buy other stuff. (Not too many new stuff that gets added and for the retroforged one I aleady got a free chest from the daily boxes.) For the tribulation it really would be unfair to people that did the grind. On the other hand: I'm usually in favor of making it easier to catch up for newer players. I would have preferred if completing the tribulatoin achievements unlocked just the option to buy the skins. (Not having to do it 16 times.) But the full zone as it is at the moment - should be required at least once. (For further zones I hope they do not add tribulation. Nice few ideas and changes with the checkpoints that you can enable freely in the test zone + mini JPs like at that one chest where the coin adventure got added. That feels much better. And the overall zone not too lengthy. They should add difficulty that way: By adding small and harder mini JPs like that. And players liking competition can use the adventure to improve and compare their speed.)

I only play during the WvW rush nowadays. For the rewards. 😄 Though I actually prefer defensive gameplay (and the "intended" way = upgrading and defending structures) I probably will just ignore that since cap, the lose to recap ... seems the most efficient thing. (Will give you quickly what you need - except the defensive achievements where you can occasionally to a 3 min defense in between before losing to recap.) With all the changes it seems like they want to enforce this playstyle. Defending probably not really worth with lower supplies (one of the older changes) and other changes that got made now. I mean: When you lose it you can just recap ... and the walls are repaired. 😄 And for the points or "winning" the matchup: Not a single person ever cared cause the game mode doesn't make you care. If you log out and others cap the stuff it is not "your" match to care about. (Caring about a win is more for PvP where you can play for the whole duration of the matches cause it has short matches.) WvW is to optimize rewards. (And maybe having fun if there are still ways to have fun. Not sure about that yet.)

They changed the aura strenght? And here I thought this was a fun thing to level for my 1-man guild. (Though I kept this until last and only have the +5 supply capacity.) There is no way defensive game play will get more interesting - with such changes. Would have been better to buff instead to nerf. But I guess they want to kill WvW or just keep it purely for the die-hard fans instead of trying to get other people into playing it. 😄 Empty map with no structures and a "team deatch match 50 vs 50 vs 50 might be easier I guess. Remove the PvE crap. People like pure combat without other things interferring. 😄

I actually think it is good if they fix such obviously unintended ways to bypass the normal route. While it is okay to not ban for using those glitches/exploits (since it sitill takes a lot of time to train to be able to use them) it is more fair to keep a somewhat intended route (and fix those bypasses so it is not possible to use them) ... that still is hard to learn/train (for most players). I can imagine it would feel only more frustating for new players to hear about this: Large amount of time to be saved only by a handful of selected players that manage to do this. And then again: Once the skin sets from tribulation mode are finished there is no reason to care anymore. Except "doing it once for the annuals and the additional bauble bubbles". Doubt anyone is playing the tribulation more often - especially when you have obtained most other stuff ... doing a normal mode rush each day gives enough bubbles to buy a lot from the weekly vendor (easiest festival for this).

The pot and the ooze from the vendor - no use as far as I know. (At least I have heard nothing about it.) Piranha has a hidden achievement. (See the wiki.) You need to take it back to the start of the zone into the underwater section. No AP but 1 bauble bubble - for the hidden achievement.

If then it will have the remaining stuff: aquabreather, bags - and stuff like that For weapons and armor it is safe to say that we already have enough ways to obtain them. Maybe one or another trinket where not enough pure non-raid PvE options exist yet. (Afaik the rings.)

No problem here. Are you sure you did it in normal mode at least (not the easy mode)? And you waited until you ported to the next zone? (Leaving before the timer runs and it ports you to the next zone ... will not give credit. Common fault that also can be anoying when you want the tokens for the skins in tribulation mode.)

I don't dislike the bomb change. Now I might use it at least a few times - usually I did not want to waste baubles. 😄 Especially for the tree stumps in W2 where the racoon guarding them is annoying to kill ranged bombing seems a nice option. Though I would have preferred to have a way to get 3 on reload + further uses for baubles. (Easiest to implement that might just adding another skill that uses the baubles - without cooldown. Implementing it on top of the 1 skill that now got changed is probably more complicated.) For the bow it at least offers to still use the slingshot (unlimited as long as you have baubles). Does not seem to be more valuable though. The aiming seems about the same? Would prefer if there was a cross-hair without actually having to change settings (action cam) or using external mods - to better aim here. The new coin adventure is - as I mentioned in my post in the other thread - a nice way to reset to the start of the JP (if falling down after respawn you still are in the adventure but ported to the checkpoint; aborting the adventure lets you reset it so you are at the start again). Means less walking back if you fall down while training - to get the chest (for people that also still need that other achievement).