Guild Wars 2

First of all, I hope I’m posting this in the right forum section, this is the closes I could find to a New Players forum…

I’m fairly new to the game (43 guardian, 20ish mesmer, a few chars under 10) and I’ve been getting a handle on it fairly well, but I do have a few questions that I’d appreciate some help with. I’m mostly interested in exploration and dungeons, with maybe some large scale PvP on the side.

1. What’s the “accepted” method for finding dungeon groups? Most MMOs I played would have presented some option by this point, either through a LFG channel, a Global chat, a Dungeon Finder or at least a Local chat in some obvious location. I’ve found no such answer in GW2 thus far. I kinda hoped Lion’s Arch would turn out to be such a place, but no luck. I’d like to try running some AC on my Guardian, but I’m not sure how to go about finding a group…

2. I’ve been trying to sort out the class situation at high levels. From what I can gather, Warriors and Mesmers rule high end PvE, Hunters suck in dungeons, Thiefs suck in PvE and Engis and Necros suck everywhere (not my words, just repeating what I heard). My current main, 43 Guardian is OK, but getting kinda boring and I’d like to try another class. Hunter, Necro and Ele look like fun, but I’d hate to put in time to level one only to run into a brick wall at 80. As I said, I’m mostly a solo player. I enjoy exploring, events, and I’d like to run the occasional dungeon or some WvWvW from time to time. I’m not looking to be a PvP god or a high-end raider.

3. Is crafting worth the time? From what I could see, crafting produces gear on par with top level exotic stuff. But that’s just the thing – why spend time and money leveling, say, armorsmithing if I can just buy equivalent gear with karma or gold? Maybe Cooking and Jewelcrafting would be more worthwhile? What’s the overall position of crafting in the game? Does it maybe start to turn a profit at some point?

4. Any advice you think a new player might need is welcome. I’ve read a ton of useful info on this forum and in the wiki, but there’s always more to learn.

Thx in advance for your help

1. Plenty of people look for groups in mapchats of either Lion’s Arch or the area where the dungeon is. In addition there is this: http://gw2lfg.com/
Both methods work either alone or in combination.

2. I haven’t the faintest idea. I play everything but Warrior (currently 44) and Thief (lvl 0) at lvl 80 in PvE and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. To list mine would not be very useful as it varies from build to build too. Just one thing, Rangers get a lot of bad rap for dungeons, but they have an AoE heal, which can these days be very helpful. My daughter does just fine with her lvl 80 Ranger in dungeons, I prefer to take either my Necro or Guardian.

3. I craft because I want to craft. Every character masters one trade. Sometimes I craft things and sell them, but I am not sure I would not have made the same amount selling the raw materials. Rule of thumb: Nothing below Rare makes money. It is also 10 levels for the character.

4. Be open. Look around. Talk to people, both players and non-players.

To add one more question:

To salvage or not to salvage? I understand that people likely use high-end salvage kits to extract upgrades from items when switching to new gear, but I’m talking about vendor trash items, whites and random blues. I’ve been salvaging them with regular merchant-bought kits, but it occurred to me that it might be a waste of money and that I might be better off vendoring it all for cash and using that money (plus the money I saved on kits) to just buy materials.

Is there some sort of consensus on this? Salvage trash (because mats are better value)? Don’t salvage unless it’s something you really need? Only salvage if you can get mats for your crafting skill(s), otherwise vendor?

1) has already been answered
2)ifrom my limited field of vision and experience,i would say warrior is best for pve,mesmer/ele best for pvp
3)i craft for these following reasons
a)for the master crafter title
b)for crafting legendary ingredients
c)fast way to lvl up to 30 for each character using 2 crafts each
d)for making nourishments
e) maxing the crafts now in case future updates extend it to lvl 400+ for better items.That way i don;t have to deal with increasing prices of materials at that point in time when many people suddenly want to lvl up their crafts from lvl 1 to 400. I can just focus on the mats for lvl 400+

for salvaging this is my method
Blue and green-Sell
Yellow-Salvage using mystic/master kits
Orange-Salvage using black lion kits
White-salvage using basics kits

for exotics-i will check the price b4 salvaging, whole item compared to rune+globs price at the point in time

1. Garambola answered that perfectly. Another method is to be in a reasonable sized guild with friends; all my dungeon runs are with people I know. Not that I do a lot of them, I don’t think I’ve done one other than a fractal or two for weeks.

2. As I run with friends, whatever profession they’re playing seems fine to me. My Thief does fine in PvE so long as you don’t define “fine” as “slaughters things left and right.” Every profession has a skill curve where a good player will be jaw dropping awesome. My Necro just hit 80 and I don’t find her to suck at all. My Guardian has the most survivability and support use. There is no one right profession or build to play no matter what some will try to tell you. As long as you can live through fights at a rate equal to others, you’re doing fine.

3. I have never crafted for profit in any game other than a little bit in LotRO making decorative rugs that sold well at auction. It’s fun to make things. I try to pick crafts that make RP sense for the character. I maxed out Cooking on my Thief because he has flashy gourmet chef skills ICly. And I did LW on him so I could make interesting looking armor. The weapon making crafts suffer badly from only giving you basic skins, imo.

4. Just go out exploring and having fun. This game is full of hidden details. Try things you aren’t sure you’ll like (other professions, wvw, etc) because ANet has gone the extra mile to try to make everything as fun as possible. There’s more miles to go in some aspects of the game, true. That doesn’t devalue what they’ve done so far!

On salvage all of the above. It varies from person to person as well as where one is situated. Best to go with what gives the best return.

The highest end Salvaging kits should only be used on the high end items. If you want the rune/sigil Black Lion will give it to you 100% and Master’s has a very high probability. It is not actual for you yet, but personally I use Master’s when trying for ectoplasm otherwise the basic one works well enough.