I have returned. Mostly.

To all of our Guild Wars 2 players, I would like to apologize for my extended absence from the game.  Starting around the end of September, I started getting major headaches that wouldn't go away, very similar to migraines.  However, doctors said they weren't migraines because no trigger could be found.  Great.  So now I have headaches and they don't know what they're from or how to help.

Eventually they went away, only to have that pain be replaced by some financial woes and family issues.  My wife and I are down to one computer, and we can't afford to get her another one.  As such, we have to share the one computer, limiting my time in-game as it is.

I also bought a Wii U, and thus far have nine games for it.  I love that thing, but I can't wait until next month, when more games come out for it.

Well, that's why I've been gone.  It's not fair to you guys that I had to deal with this stuff, and I'm sorry.

On to positive things, though.  I've been back on for a couple of weeks pretty regularly, and I wanted to tell you what I've accomplished in that time of somewhat casual play.  Aside from some extraneous details i'll go into, I've done almost everything I'm about to tell you just by doing dailies and event chains in the Norn starting area:

- I got all Exotic weapons, armor and most trinkets!  Now, this wasn't done JUST by doing dailies and event chains in the Norn starting area.  I'm kind of stuck when it comes to my crafting for now, so I'm dropping working on it and will come back to it later.  As such, I grabbed all of my crafting materials (except the food - my wife, who will return to levelling Chef when we get another computer, would kill me) and put them up on the Trading Post.  I ended up with about fifteen gold, more than enough to buy a complete set of Zho's Armor, which I'm currently rocking.  Within a couple of days, I had enough money just doing dailies and event chains and selling stuff on the TP whenever prudent to get an exotic Axe, Warhorn and Longbow.  Since then, I've bought a few exotic trinkets (the rings, IIRC, as well as an exotic back item).  I just have a few more trinkets to go, and I'll have full Exotic, and will be happy with my setup for a while.  I do plan, however, to start doing the Twilight Arbor dungeon, because the tokens it gives you are the only way to get Rune of the Nightmare - this particular rune, when applied to every piece of my armor, will fit my trap/condition build on my Ranger perfectly, since it significantly ups Condition Damage and Condition Duration, as well as having a chance of causing Fear whenever someone hits me.

- I've done some of those fancy mini-dungons!  If you haven't done them, they're basically a cross between a jumping puzzle and a really easy dungeon.  I haven't seen any that weren't soloable at my max level with all exotics (with the possible exception of Shaman's Rookery and its harpies that can go invincible for whatever reason, yet they can still hit pretty hard).  Thus far, I've done seven or eight of them, and they're pretty fun, with a nice chest at the end.  Just last night, I did the one that takes you into a Dwarven vault in Dredgehaunt Cliffs - it's pretty cool.  You go to the door, and there's a note saying it's stuck shut.  You go find the guy who wrote the note, and solve a riddle with him.  After that, you gotta protect him as he makes his way through the mini-dungeon (if he dies, just rez him).  Now, here's where it gets interesting - the entire thing is pitch-dark.  You have to take some blue-flame torches just to see where you're going.  The really fun part, though, is that the dark areas are full fo these invincible Skelks that don't like the blue flame.  You'll have to use the torch skills to scare them away (since you can't fight them).  The first room has you following the guide to the first door, then needing to find some pieces to fix said door to the second room.  The second room has you following the guide to the second door, then needing to find some switches to unlock said door to the third room.  This door takes you to the upper ledge of the first room, which now houses a boss fight that can get pretty hairy - the room is lit up by blue flame, keeping the Skelks away, except for this big Uber-Skelk that doesn't mind the blue flame.  Defeat him to get the chest, but it isn't that simple - he has an attack that can douse some of the blue flames, bringing the regular Skelks back.  You'll either have to retreat to a light area to continue the fight, or risk death trying to relight the flames to have the room to maneuver.

- I've done some World versus World!  This was mostly for mapping purposes, but I went into WvW and have been having a blast.  I've helped take fortresses from enemies, helped defend fortresses we've taken, and I even claimed a fortress for our Guild!  What's cool about that last one is that if you do so, the fortress gets adorned with tapestries of our Guild Emblem, and if anyone tries to claim it, the guy you talk to says "This place has already been claimed by The Lion Mercenaries."  Pretty cool, huh?  Now, this was all in support of my quest for 100% World Completion - even if you have everything in the main world, you still need to see all the Waypoints, PoI's, Vistas and Skill Points in WvW to get 100%.  If you don't have this stuff, what I'd suggest is checking the score by pressing "B" and joining a match when we're utterly destroying the opposing teams (the pie graph showing at least half of the map belonging to Fort Aspenwood).  What this means is that we control most of the items you need to get across the four WvW maps.  And yes, you'll have to 100% all four maps.  The nice thing, though, is when you enter a map, all of the Waypoints immediately become unlocked, so that's a quarter of the battle right there.  I would also recommend, though, not doing this before you're level 80 with full 80 gear, if not full exotic, because you will likely end up fighting enemy players while you're alone.  You'll DEFINITELY end up fighting monsters while you're alone, and they're usually of the Level 80 Veteran variety.  While I was here, I also picked up some Guild Armor and Guild Weapon skins, so I have the Guild Armor, Guild Axe and Guild Longbow skins on.  The armor is pretty "meh," IMO, but the weapons are badass, if you ask me.

- I've done some jumping puzzles!  Speaking of WvW, did you know that there are four jumping puzzles in WvW, one for each map?  The three Borderlands maps have the "same" jumping puzzle (the three maps are exactly the same, so they have the same jumping puzzle in the same spot, just on the different map; each one has its own Achievement tied to it) and the Eternal Battlegrounds in the center has its own Uber-Jumping Puzzle.  As long as you don't run into interference from enemy players, they're pretty easy.  The ones on the Borderlands involve jumping through a waterfal, then climbing around on some floating rocks to build a key to open a Vault Door to get a chest.  If there are no enemy players around, the only things you need to worry about are  some Oozes and falling off stuff into the water and having to restart the whole thing.  There are two small chests you need to make your way to in order to get the pieces of the key that opens the vault.  Once you get them, you can open the Vault Door, then open the chest, which gives you a bunch of Marks of Honor, as well as some Seige Blueprints and a few items (I got two greens and a blue, so they all ended up on the TP for some ching).  The big daddy of the jumping puzzles, though, is in the Eternal Battlegrounds.

There are three entrances to the jumping puzzle here, one in each corner's Keep.  Of the three entrances, only one doesn't require actually breaking into the Keep to use if it isn't your Keep.  All three portals lead to the exact same room in the beginning of the Jumping Puzzle.  This puzzle is so long that it's actually broken up into sections - if you fall off at any point, instead of restarting at the very beginning, you just restart at a certain section.  Each SECTION, though, is longer than most of the jumping puzzles in the game, and there are five sections.  The first one starts with jumping on the tops of some ruins to get to a well that you need to jump up from.  The second involves dodging a lot of traps, including a bunch of boulders right at the very beginning (that is, if there's someone else actually controlling the traps) and jumping across the tops of more ruins to eventually get to a platform to the next section.  The entrance to the third section has a bunch of torchest to take.  Take one.  You'll need it.  Here, you're jumping around in the dark, dodging some flame traps that don't need to be activated by another player, to get to the top of the room to get to the next area.  Here, you're jumping along the edge of an Arena to get to the top of it.  This Arena has animals in cages around the edge, and if someone's at the top of it, they can activate a switch opening the cages, releasing the animals on anyone on the floor.  After the Arena, you're just jumping around some more ruins to get to the chest itself.

My first time in, I made it all the way to the Arena, and was half-way to the top, when an enemy player brought me down.  In my weakened state, I had fought him off - even put him in Downed State first (a testement to the power of my build, I suppose), but he managed to get me into a downed state too, and rallied before me, and was able to finish me off.  My SECOND time in, I made it to the second room, fell of a thing, and as I was about to restart the room, I saw an enemy player on the staircase.  I froze.  It was just me and him, and I didn't really want to fight.  I clicked on him to see if I could talk to him and negotiate a truce (which you can't do - you can't chat with enemy players in any way), then I wondered if I COULD take him.  Now, I'm a Ranger, with some decent health, a couple of BA pets, and I can throw four different conditions on anyone in a second, not counting whatever my pets bring, and I'm built to make those conditions last longer and hurt more.

This guy was a Guardian, with native health regen (twice), the ability to shed a condition every ten seconds, a MASSIVE health pool and arguably the most OP way to Rally.  Let's just say a stand-up fight was something I'd rather avoid.  However, some time had passed during all of this, and he never made a move on me.  I took this as a sign - I just slowly walked past him, and went on my way.

Then, I made it back to the Arena.  Now, there were a few other Fort Aspenwood players in here, but we were eventually set upon by an enemy player.  The other FA guys were at the top, and I hadn't even begun my ascent, so I started on the enemy player, and was kicking some ass.  I don't know if the other FA guys knew I was there, because they opened the cages and sent the Veteran mobs against the two of us.  We were victorious, but I was dead.  Luckily, one of the guys was a Mesmer, so he dropped a Teleport pad, jumped down, rezzed me, dropped another Teleport pad, and we just teleported up to the top.  Easy peasey.  Then, I was basically home-free.  I got to the chest, got some more Marks of Honor, some more Seige Blueprints and a few more items to sell on the TP.

I also knocked Dark Reverie out in Caledon Forest, too.  Dark Reverie is a jumping puzzle that you can only access after doing ANOTHER jumping puzzle in Caledon Forest, which can only be done after certain events in the game have occured.  Now, the first jumping puzzle was something I've never had a problem with. Dark Reverie, though, well let's just say it's thus far my least favorite.  After the first jumping puzzle, when you get into Dark Reverie, you start on the ground with a LOT of mobs, then you gotta work your way up and around the room via mushroom platforms.  Eventually, you get up so high that if you fall, you die.  If you die, you either gotta wait for a rez (which means the person rezzing has to fight through a lot of mobs) or you gotta teleport out.  If you teleport out, you gotta do that first jumping puzzle again just to get back here, if the vine that starts it is up, which it may or may not be depending on the most recent active Dynamic Events.  Now, eventually, you come to some mushroom pads where one's up just a bit too high, but it looks like it's cocked at an angle enough to make it.  You'll want to make that jump.

Don't.  It's a trap.  The very trap that led me to hating this puzzle.

What you gotta do is jump on the vine BEHIND it, that's attaching the mushroom platform to the room.  Once there, you can easily make it onto the mushroom platform.  From here on out, it's easy jumps and a Veteran mob separating you from the treasure.

Well, that's pretty much everything I've done since coming back, in ten days of play time (I know it's ten days of play time because that's how many Laurel's I've earned, as of yesterday).  Anyone do anything cool while I was away?