User:130.58/sandbox

Old user page, here to maintain image links:

Me
I am a Computer Science major with an interest in robotics and distributed systems. My current research and thesis topic is network RAM for clusters.

I play Guild Wars sporadically, yet fiercely. Overall, this means I've clocked hundreds of hours on my character, usually in big bursts. While I like PVP and dabble in it, I'm mostly interested in exploring the world and creating the most stylish characters.

My Guild
My original guild was the Seven Seas Socialist Party, a tiny guild created by a group of friends at Swarthmore College. Our other dream was to do piratical things, such as dancing jigs, saying "Yarrr!" a lot, keel hauling Charr, and doing our "Pirates Rock!" musical number in towns. Since most of the players became inactive (and there were like six to begin with), I found myself a new home...

The Elite Danger Society, a wonderful group headed by none other than Gares Redstorm. I absolutely love it. We talk a lot and go on exploratory adventures and do the elite missions and relentlessly mock the game AI.

Amelyssan The Shade / (/) (/) (/)
I originally created Amelyssan because I found that the Necromancer's early-game solo potential was quite limited. I loved the Necromancer class, however, so I made her a Warrior/Necromancer. She originally used Mark of Pain for damage and Parasitic Bond for healing, but I later switched to mostly running a pure warrior with Plague Touch, since so many Tactics skills are just too great to pass up (I was rather infatuated with "Victory is Mine!" for the longest time). I quickly grew to like Mesmers, too, however, and made sure to equip her with a modest selection of Mesmer skills when she gained the ability to change professions. I started with swords, as most people do, and they remain my favorite weapon to this day. I picked up axes when I started trying to farm, though, and later went for hammers to get some more juicy knockdowns in (Bull's Strike alone just wasn't doing it for me).

Since coming to Cantha, Amelyssan has become quite the Assassin, most using the Deadly Arts skill tree. I've toned that down a bit since, but still absolutely love Signet of Malice. I also finally got her some fancy armor and a shiny katana. Playing through Factions gave me a massive appreciation of all the things a warrior could do. After I realize that Amelyssan had acquired vastly more experience points (as a result of me farming amber for my armor) and progressed further in the two campaigns that any of my other PCs, and that I actually liked playing her more than my other characters, I started considering her my primary character. She's the only one of my current toons that I plan on taking through Nightfall.

My combat style leans towards heavy offense, but I do rather like the warrior's defensive abilities as well. Adrenaline-builders like Auspicious Parry and Dragon Slash are generally my favorite elites. In PVE, I usually go for massive damage in the form of conditions; PVP, I try to have interrupts and knockdowns on my skill bar because I like the added flexibility.

My Other Characters
In order of creation...



Akasha The Shadow /
Akasha has had many forms since I first created her for the public alpha preview, where she explored the world a lot and managed to scrape together enough materials to make herself some fancy boots, then spent the last hour of the game PVPing, where Akasha, two Rangers, and a Warrior racked up 37 consecutive victories in the random arena (I played a healer with lots of Soul Reaping). I did the same thing during the beta previews, pretty much. When the game was actually released, I focused on Blood Magic with some secondary healing. I soon got tired of just manipulating hit point totals, however, and, thus, Akasha was reborn as a Necromancer/Mesmer. I tended to use Illusion Magic heavily through most of the game, but really fell in love with Curses and Inspiration as I went through the campaign.

After getting to the Shiverpeaks, a good 90% of my time was spent as a Spiteful Spirit nuker. I always felt just a little bit dirty doing that. I dabbled in other things as well, mostly direct-damage Blood skills, degeneration builds (with stuff like Wither, and Feast of Corruption nuking.

I've beaten Prophecies with Akasha and gotten to Vasburg Armory and the Leviathan Pits with her, but have largely stopped playing.



Aeryss The Serpent /
I primarily use Barrage and Judge's Insight with Aeryss, though I often run trapping builds with her as well. I created Aeryss mainly because I like the feeling of power one gets from having a very long-range bow, wanted a second character who could lay down a perpetual storm of area-effect damage, and wanted to blow 100k on some really fancy armor. One of my favorite things about being an archer is collecting bows for multiple situations. Since she's all about range, all of Aeryss' bows are flatbows. A silver Zealous Ascalon Bow is her primary weapon. There's almost nothing more ego-inflating or gratifying than seeing a ranger Barrage a horde of undead and do over 200 points of damage per arrow.

Aeryss is an inactive character.



Ryoko The Scorpion / (/)
Ryoko is my Assassin character. I dislike the reputation assassins have in PVE, but have played with enough to say that, mostly, it's pretty well-deserved. Since attacking without using attack skills is pretty much equivalent to sitting around twiddling your thumbs, all of my Assassin builds try rather fastidiously to avoid this. As such, I favor skills with low energy costs and recharge times, or skill-recharging skills like Assassin's Promise or (gasp!) Flourish.

A long time ago, Ryoko was also a fairly capable archer, using Critical Strikes to power her attacks. Now she is mostly a teleporting stabby murderer. Which is the only right way to play an assassin, really. I've explored the bulk of Cantha with her and often do PVP as well.

Anneth Arcane /
Lots of time spent as various kinds of secondary mesmer naturally made me want to create a mesmer primary, of course. Anneth fills that role quite excellently. Still working on getting her through Factions and getting her some nice armor, one Wastrel's Worry/Power Spike combo at a time.



Tears of Autumn
Having played a monk a bit in PVP, I found I rather liked it. Tears of Autumn was my PVE monk character. I soon found that I didn't actually like being a healer for more than three minutes at a time, however, and that Smiting Prayers were a bit of a disappointment and too similar to the powers my other characters were throwing around. So I discontinued her. Building a PVE Glyph of Renewal healer just took too long for it to be worth it.