Guild Wars 2

When GW2 first came out I leveled a guardian to level 80 as I loved the concept of tanking. Unfortunately I learned that tanking in the traditional sense does not exist in this game. I decided to go into some PvP and I had a horrible time. I quickly learned that being a melee guardian I felt absolutely useless in this environment. I couldn’t even get near the swarm of other ranged classes picking me off before I could even get near them.

This caused me to shelf the game for quite some time. Basically until now. I got some impulse to play it and I really just don’t know where to pick back up. I logged onto my old guardian and I don’t remember what anything in my inventory is, what any of my stuff does, or what I should be doing with my time in the world. I just remember my bad PvP experience and I’m sitting here with a guardian who basically has items with nothing but defensive stats stacked.

I decided “I should just start fresh and essentially relearn the game”. So I decided I wanted to try out the guild wars 2 equivalent of an Enhancement Shaman from WoW (as that was buckets of fun). I carefully looked through the classes and concluded that if I play an elementalist with melee weapons that should do the trick. I got in the game, joined a new guild so I had people to talk to and they said theres basically no such thing in guild wars 2 as even using two daggers still gives you ranged attacks.

I was semi-ok with settling with it but then I realized the 49% world completion on my old level 80 guardian that I inadvertently kitten isn’t account wide. I then got annoyed and felt like redoing all these zones would be a waste of time because I can just do them on my guardian and get progress towards my world completion.

I dunno, I’m really just kinda annoying, frustrated, and overwhelmed at the situation. What do you guys suggest for players who haven’t touched the game in almost 3 years trying to get back into it?

Yeah, the map completions are per character. If you don’t want to level a character through questing, you can try leveling out in WvW. That can be quick and a lot of fun with a group. Though there’s no real tanking, dungeons are still fun and are profitable.

I guess I’d suggest having a goal or something. Like working towards getting a legendary weapon or ascended gear. PvP has reward tracks now that give you a lot of nice things like leveling tomes that you can read and instantly get a level for your character.

Look at your Personal Story journal.

No, seriously, see what chapter you left off on in your PS or the Living Story. It’s a great place to pick up where you left off. Either that or your “Nearly Completed” achievements section, both will give you a general idea of what you were doing when you quit playing.

As Celtic Lady said, it’s also very important to make yourself a goal when playing. Look up skins, find one you like; maybe you want to explore Fireheart Rise a bit; you want to kill Tequatl for the first time, stuff like that. Make goals, or you’ll find a lack thereof once you’re done with the story.

Alright so I loaded up the game and checked out my story progress. It says I’m on chapter 8 (Victory or Death) and I’ve got to kill the mouth of zhaitan in kitah manse. So I guess I just do that then?

What about my trash gear? This character has basically 100% stacked defense stats. I haven’t the slightest idea on where I would go to reverse this. Am I still capable of doing this personal quest even in this terrible state or will I get crushed?

As for my inventory and bank, they’re jam packed full of all this random stuff. Map fragments, runes, sigils, boxes, crafting materials, etc. I don’t know what I should be keeping and what I should be tossing. Is there anything specific I should be looking to hold onto?

You don’t reverse anything. If you wish to change your armor’s stats you’ll have to purchase or craft a new set. And by crafting materials filling your bank, I do hope you’re referring to the crafting item bank, and not your actual bank.

It seems you’re a little lost on a goal to play, and that’s fine. And it’s also fine that you’re unsure of what to hold on to and what to get rid of. If any of those runes and sigils look good to you, attach them to a weapon or piece of armor to get their desired effects. Otherwise, sell them on the Trading Post or to a merchant NPC.

Map Fragments can be ignored, but the journey to find the treasure is quite fun and rewarding if you’re big on adventuring.

I’m unsure of what boxes you’re referring to, what are they called, and what rarity are they?

Crafting materials sell well on the Trading Post. So, don’t just vendor anything that says it can be used for a craft (weaponsmith, chef, etc.). A lot of sigils and runes are really not worth much. Check the TP for the ones you have.

For gear, I have my 80 guardian set up completely in Berserker stat gear (power, precision, ferocity) for both weapons and armor. She kills and survives well in this gear no matter where she is. Exotic level gear is plenty good for 80s unless you want to do high-level fractals.

Ascended gear (armor and weapons) is only very slightly better and must be crafted or gotten from fractals (type of dungeon) and champion bags from bosses. I don’t know of any other way to get ascended, although ascended jewelry items can be purchased with laurels as well.

I suppose reverse was a poor choice of word. I meant purchasing or crafting like you mentioned although I do remember never touching the professions at all when I used to play. Looking at my actual bank it has a ton of these transmutation stones/crystals, experience and skill point scrolls, crystal/onyx/destroyer/ fragments, a bunch of sigils and marks that I don’t understand, mystic coins, gold doubloon, a couple blueprints and my character inventory looks the same. The boxes are these black lion chests.

I’m scared to equip any of these sigils because I don’t really know what looks good. I am unsure of what my character is supposed to do. I originally though I was going to do the whole tanking thing but thats not the case as I found out.

Guahhh this whole process has got me flustered

Why are you so surprised? It’s been 3 years since this game came out, most people who stick with this game since launch already becomes rather decent in PVP, so it’s natural for people who left for a long time to have trouble fighting people who’re playing GW2 forever.

Also, zerk mediation Guardian is a very good melee-oriented build in PVP.
I suggest you go to Metabattle(just type in google), and try to start practicing with a meta-build first to catch up. You’d have much more success to use these builds than your current ones that lacks any synergy.

Aww. I wish I could be there to jelp you out, but sadly I am at work on coffee break. I cannot even type very well on this phone. If hou are on later, I’d be delighted to hear from you.

Toxsa, I meant I got dumpstered in PvP 3 years ago when I first hit 80, not recently. Sorry if I caused any confusion with my wording.

Garambola, thats super considerate of you. I’m on the east coast so its 1am for me right now but I’m out of a job so depending on how later is later I could stick around for a bit

CaptainBBQ.9045:

I suppose reverse was a poor choice of word. I meant purchasing or crafting like you mentioned although I do remember never touching the professions at all when I used to play. Looking at my actual bank it has a ton of these transmutation stones/crystals, experience and skill point scrolls, crystal/onyx/destroyer/ fragments, a bunch of sigils and marks that I don’t understand, mystic coins, gold doubloon, a couple blueprints and my character inventory looks the same. The boxes are these black lion chests.

I’m scared to equip any of these sigils because I don’t really know what looks good. I am unsure of what my character is supposed to do. I originally though I was going to do the whole tanking thing but thats not the case as I found out.

Guahhh this whole process has got me flustered

First, can I ask, we talking your guardian or your ele you want geared? And we talking JUST pvp? or pve and pvp?

CaptainBBQ.9045:

I suppose reverse was a poor choice of word. I meant purchasing or crafting like you mentioned although I do remember never touching the professions at all when I used to play. Looking at my actual bank it has a ton of these transmutation stones/crystals, experience and skill point scrolls, crystal/onyx/destroyer/ fragments, a bunch of sigils and marks that I don’t understand, mystic coins, gold doubloon, a couple blueprints and my character inventory looks the same. The boxes are these black lion chests.

I’m scared to equip any of these sigils because I don’t really know what looks good. I am unsure of what my character is supposed to do. I originally though I was going to do the whole tanking thing but thats not the case as I found out.

Guahhh this whole process has got me flustered

Transmutation Stones have been since changed into Transmutation Charges, and they are used to apply skins to equipped armor and weapons. You can safely consume these without any repercussion, as they are stored in an account-wide bank.

The Experience and Skill Point scrolls are entirely up to you, though if you plan to main a single character, use them on your main.

The fragments you mentioned can now be stored in the Crafting Vault, so take those out into your bags and Deposit Material on those to save space. The same goes for Mystic Coins.

Gold Doubloons, I would say to sell on the Trading Post, but that’s really up to you if you wish to use them for crafting. Here’s a quick list of what Gold Doubloons are required to craft: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gold_Doubloon

Blueprints are used exclusively in World vs World to create siege weapons to fight against the enemy. If you never or rarely play World vs. World you can sell/discard these, but if you DO play WvW it’s recommended to save these for use.

As for the Black Lion Chests, save these or sell them. They can be opened by a Black Lion Key which can either be bought with Gems, or gotten from a reward chest from various activities: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Black_Lion_Chest_Key

On the whole I suggest starting a new character while keeping your old one(s). This will give you a fresh take on all of the changes and, when you get used to them, you can go back to your old ones and continue as you did before.

Serophous, the guardian. The elementalist I made today when I got overwhelmed with my guardian. The elementalist is only level 7 right now. As for pvp or pve I’m not entirely sure. If the pvp is anything like I remember (trying to get into melee range on 400 rangers and 400 elementalists) then I want to steer well away from that. I haven’t really tried pve I just knew that when I couldn’t tank mobs for other people it kinda lowered the appeal.

MrWubzy, thanks for the brief walkthrough. My bank doesn’t look all that bad now. Its still riddled with sigils/runes/marks but I think I can safely disregard those for now. As for starting a new character. I started an elementalist today (only level 7) and the play style I was going for doesn’t seem to be in that specific class. I made the elementalist with the intention of using melee weapons and being a sort of spell based fighter (like an enhancement shaman if you’ve played wow). My guild members told me that even using two daggers the skills are still ranged. If you’re familiar with the enhancement shaman thing do you know what class I should be looking at?

Honestly Dagger/Dagger necromancer seems more up your alley for that, BBQ. They still have bit of a base in ranged combat but they’re mostly in-your-face with their debuffs and attacks, with lots of evading and positioning. I would also suggest trying Sword/Pistol Mesmer for that type of play, too.

EDIT: Also a Venom Share Thief may work well for you, but you’d have to level a thief up a bit to be able to use the build. http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Thief_-_VenomShare

I know this is just me being overly nit picky but I’m not a huge fan of the whole necromancer/harvesting the dead/soul theme if that makes any sense. I might take another look at Mesmer like you mentioned. I didn’t really understand what they were when I read the description. I’ll give it an attempt.

CaptainBBQ.9045:

I know this is just me being overly nit picky but I’m not a huge fan of the whole necromancer/harvesting the dead/soul theme if that makes any sense. I might take another look at Mesmer like you mentioned. I didn’t really understand what they were when I read the description. I’ll give it an attempt.

Mesmers are pretty tricky to understand, but that’s their gimmick – their tricks. They excel at deception using mirror images of themselves to either distract enemies or attack them directly. They can also make their mirror images explode for massive damage, and can also use portals to help fellow players get to where they need to go. They’re also pretty darn good at reflecting projectiles and boon stripping (getting rid of buffs on enemies).

Hei Cap,

Try to see if I am on after you have slept. I am 7 hours ahead of you and play most of my afternoons and evenings.