no grind? yeah right

9 hours so far to get SoJ for my monk.

warrior got it on second zone in. boss spawned second time, not too bad.

my monk cant get the boss to spawn. hell, sometimes none of the bosses are there at all. but most times its the mesmer boss mocking me.

9 hours for one skill. no luck yet. thats a grind.

to all those saying "omg there is no grind blahblahblah" ...just stuff it, seriously.

doing the SAME DAMN THING over and over and over and over and over, so far for 9 hours is NOT adventuring. its not an action game. its not fun. its repetition. thats a grind.

I haven't been able to get my elite skill "Shield of Judgement" either, I was pretty pissed off.

Could be that they mix spawns up so it is different. They have definately done this on the ascention missions as the named npc's with aruras change from time to time.
The is at a guess more than one place to get a skill.

yes we are quite aware that the spawns mix and match.

that is the point of my post. the monk boss isnt spawning.

oh, and no, that is *THE* place to get that skill. no where else.

If your spending nine hours doing the same thing, then well your doing something wrong because I'm yet to encounter such a grind.

To be quite honest, I think that's bullshit. I believe the Signet of Capture system is intelligent and good. It's far greater then handing out skills to people.

--Ginko

how many elites have you gotten since anet pulled them all from pre desert?

how many characters have you gotten SoJ for? hundred blades?


edit: well i see you have made 2 edits to your post, yet refuse to answer my question. i must assume the answer is NONE. so of course you havent experienced the grind.

as to the SOC system being good....well it *WAS* good, when multiple mobs of multiple levels had the skills. you could carry around a signet with you and maybe find something cool while you were wandering around. it was a fun added bonus if a mob used an elite.

the NEW system however forces us to all just pool the info, put it on a website, and go grind it out.

Well the consolation with Hundred Blades is that Rurik is always there and he always uses it. Of course, having to go so insanely far takes a very long time.

I just spent an hour trying to get healing hands whose boss I could reach within about 2 minutes. Half the time there was no boss in either location, and most of the other times the bosses were not the right ones. Out of maybe 25 runs into the zone we found the boss three times, he accidentily got killed once, and once he never used it. Absurd.

If the soc system wasn't so completely RANDOM (and limited in the number who have it) you wouldn't see half the people complaining that are. There's a chance the boss will be there. There's a chance it will be the right profession. There's a chance he will use the skill or not. If your in a mission where getting to the boss with henchies is impossible (i,e first 2 ring of fire missions), there is a very high chance your team will kill the boss before he bothers to use it. If the boss is in an area way far away from start of mission/portal, you may not always be able to reach him every time either, especially with bugged henchies.

If the boss was always there in the mission/ea, always was the right profession, and always used his elites very often in battle (or even had quests to make it this way), you would see a lot less people complaining about grind because you could pick up the skill without doing the same thing over and over again. Mindless repetition is grind, and that's exactly what the very random soc system is atm.

update: 10 hours, 20 minutes.

myd spawned. got the skill. now i get to do the exact same thing if i want flourish. (saw the warrior boss only once while there with my monk, this might suck even more.)

I Think all they need to do is spread out the elite skills, make so that all elites have maybe 3-5 areas you could go for, and of course they really need to have elites out in the explorable areas with skills as well. Should make exploring more exciting.

i tried getting hundred blades from the charr boss but the same thing happened to me. its annoying have to walk all the way to the boss location, just to be the wrong one.

I hate how the term "grind" has been used to insult virtually every gameplay element in Guild Wars.

For as long as I've heard the term "grind" the only definition that's suitable is returning to the same places over and over again to gain XP. That's it. What you're doing is farming. Farming applies to both finding rare loot and finding rare skills.

My own definitions for farming and grind go as follows:

FARMING = Repetative actions (ie.. same mision, quest, specific zone) for things you simply WANT to have.

GRIND = Repetative actions for things you NEED to have.

That being said..Infusion Runs are a grind because you NEED to do them 5 times in order to be fully protected.. Anything less is about suicidal.

Looking for runes or elite skills is farming for me at least. Some hardcore PvP person may believe that they just can't do their thing without a specific rune or skill.. so for them it is a grind.

Elites, Runes, and Upgrades are certainly nice things to have, but I get along just fine without them so far. If there happened to be a reliably good place to farm some of these things I MIGHT do it for a little while. But I have yet to see any item or skill in this game that I just couldn't live without. I certainly would never be desperate enough for any single skill or wanna-have item that I'd waste nine hours trying to get it. The game is balanced enough that you are not really in a hole without having every single thing available at your fingertips.

With the excpetion of the infusion thing. any grinding or farming any of us do is completely by choice. None of it is necesary to play effectively.

Personally, I have no 'elite' skills yet, and that is just fine with me. The one I have seen I want, Glyph of Elemental Power, I can live without for the time being until I finally run into that one boss that has it while I continue to do the missions.

Personally, I am tired of hearing everyone complain about the time needed to get skills or runes or what not. Can no one honestly play the game anymore for mere enjoyment or is it all about being 'elite'?

Games were never meant to cause such whining and complaining, frankly, I think it needs to stop. There are enough posts in the forums with people debating the 'grind', and I'm more than certain A-Net and NCsoft have seen more than enough complaints about it. So...

~Adaria

Still debating if reading and replying to these sorts of threads is farming or a grind..hehe

And I think with Elites, they want us to really work for them, hence why they are called Elites?

What would be the point in having such a powerful spell, if everyone could get it so easily?

What would be another way of making them easier to get( a lot less grind / farming ) while still difficult to acquire so the rarity of these skills remains true and they are not everyday occurances in PvP matches?

Inac

If you really think playing the game to get these 'essential' skills is such a bother, find another game to play. It's not that hard.
I don't have any elite skills, but that suits me fine... I'll get them eventually. And they're certainly not 'essential', by any means.

yes, because killing the same 12 groups of the exact same monster for 10 hours is fun.

i play for enjoyment, HOW DARE ME ENJOY something other than being destroyed in pvp because i dont have the elite skills that fill the holes in my build.

by the way, glyph of elemental power was buyable, not elite, last i checked.

please take your MMORPG mentality elsewhere. this game was marketed as play, not work. having elite skills shouldnt be a chore, the entire premise and marketing scheme of this game was no grind, jump in and play. as to the name "elite", who gives a rat's ass what term they use, lets just rename em "YouCanOnlyHaveOneOfTheseAtATime" if that makes it better for you.

you CAN jump in and play and be competative. If you want that little extra bonus, work for it. I'm sure all the other guilds you are fighting did that little extra.

ppl keep saying work. i dont get it. why should i WORK to PLAY a game. hell, i work to pay the bills. i work to keep the wife happy. i work to buy games. i buy games to ESCAPE work, not do MORE work. this was the promise of guildwars. this is why tons of us dont like MMORPGs.


lets point out how many times on their website, the box, the pre order box, etc etc etc it states :

players are rewarded for skill, not hours played!
no camping!

both of these are shot down by your "go to work!" premise.

How so? They ARE awarded for skill. Those other guilds have more skills than you, so obviously they got the skills they wanted to better. What game DONT you have to work in? It's just phrased different. Hell, I WORKED in ninja gaiden and felt pretty accomplished when it was over.