Maia's Memo

I just found this video. I don't know how I missed it before. 

A must watch and listen if you play Druid. The song almost made me fall out of my chair laughing.

Another memorable set of comments from a Reddit thread where people are talking about being able to see Rata Sum from Dragon Stand. (Yes, some people are just noticing that. I assume they are new to the game or have challenged themselves to win the game only playing with their eyes closed.)

Perky_Bellsprout•2h

Don't the asura have any artillery they could've nuked mordy with?

wooperthemad•2h

Most likely, let me go ask.

Krewe Leader Plot says no.

pyrospade•1h

i'm afraid that's not even the largest plot hole in HoT

With the new warrior banner changes, we're learning which warriors really know what all their utilities do and which ones don't. I'm happy for warriors' new found freedom to use utilities other than banners, but please don't kill the rest of us with it. 

Up until very recently I did not do SAB. For 3 years I had decided it was too intimidating and difficult. I'm not very good at jumping puzzles, so I thought would probably be bad at SAB too. However, this year before release I had the same attitude change that I had with raids and fractals several months ago. I decided I was going to do it, and not just a little bit- all of it including tribulation mode and getting an infusion. I'm not sure whether this all or nothing attitude is admirable or pathological, but it's how I work.

From this experience I present:

Tenish things I've learned from SAB
1. Sometimes suicide is your best option.
2. Don't trust anything no matter how pleasant or cute-looking it is.
3. Dodge jump is a powerful tool, but it should be used with care.
4. 16 seems like a small number at first but it gets bigger and bigger the closer you get.
5. Celebrate every checkpoint.
6. There are millions of ways to fail and only a few ways to succeed. Don't get frustrated if you find a new way to fail each run, blame math.
7. It's okay to laugh each time you select the option "Yes, I'm really into that. Don't judge me."
8. You cannot unlearn tribulation mode. Even in normal mode you will avoid flowers even if you know they won't hurt you. Just accept it.

It's going to take a good amount of will power to pull myself away to raid. If anyone is in the same place I was: not ready to try SAB for the first time on their own, contact me in game and we can get a party together. 

YouTube Roundup Week of March 26
This was a sad week YouTube wise. Monday I had technical issues that prevented me from recording. I did get our  Xera and Deimos kills from Boomslang's Wednesday raid. SAB had its claws in me by Friday, so I wasn't in on Pick up Snakes but the squad looked great on Kintari's stream.

As a side note, I learned people like watching other people open Black Lion Chests. My video of opening 14 measly chests is my most watched video.  It's either that or watching mediocre Druid gameplay is boring. I'm hoping it's the former.

I wanted to put this out there as a PSA for those of you who don't know yet. The new guaranteed item in the Black Lion chests is the Zaishen War Paint Kit. This kit contains 2-5 unidentified dyes. It's basically crashing the dye market. However it does mean you can pick up some pricey dies for relatively cheap. 
Here are some examples:
Abyss   Last week (sell/buy): 23.75/19.19  This week: 13.18/10.5
Celestial       Last week 60.92/48.01  This week: 32.96/25.2

I wouldn't be surprised if the prices went down even further because the chests just changed and they usually keep the same contents for 6-8 weeks. 
If you have extra gold sitting around you could fill out your unlocked dyes, which is awesome for those guaranteed wardrobe unlocks (you don't want to end up with a 20 silver dye from one of those if you can avoid it). You could even invest in the dye market. I'd caution you it would be a loooong term investment though because no doubts tons of people are doing exactly that.

Good luck, have fun, and don't spend all your gold!

Hi everyone! Thanks again for your help upgrading the guild hall! We're doing awesome and, because of everyone's generous donations, we are only limited by aetherium.

Guildies have been donating using one of three methods: depositing in the treasury, depositing in the guild bank, and direct mailing me mats/gold. No one has accused me of embezzling yet, but I though I'd clarify how I'm using everything. I like transparency, don't you?

When we finish an upgrade and start working on the next, I post in the MOTD any materials we need that have not been deposited in the treasury or guild bank. I move any materials deposited in the guild bank that are intended for upgrading the hall right away. I then wait until we have enough aetherium for the upgrade. If no one has donated the needed materials into the treasury by that time, I use the gold people have mailed me to buy or make the needed materials. This is common with stuff that doesn't drop (like superior runes of holding) or stuff that only scribes can make (paper mostly). 

I'm not going to name names, but I want the gold donators to know that they shouldn't feel like we will be held up if they don't donate materials too. I like to give other guild members who don't want to donate  gold but have mats they don't mind donating a chance to do so. The gold donations are our "fall back plan." Of course if you want to donate more, I won't stop you

That's pretty much all I have to say. Feel free to leave any questions below. I hope everyone is happy with our progress.

Oh yeah, one more thing! We finally have all of the stat boosting claiming auras unlocked, so feel free to claim stuff in WvW without worrying about other guilds having "better" buffs. The only one we don't have now is magic find which won't make a difference for defense or offense.

See you in the Mists!