Guild Wars 2

So, I’m terrible at jumping in games. If I’m in a game that has Jumping I always buff my Jump skill up a lot to have a better chance. But in GW2 I was surprised that with Jumping being such a huge part of the game there is no Jump skill to buff.

Is there any way besides speed boosts to buff yourself to jump better? Are there better speed boosts or are all of them essentially the same?

Thanks in advance for any help.

The best buff to your jumping skills is mesmer portal.

I have to say, when I started this game, I was HORRIBLE at jumping and personally, I find speed boosts more difficult, and absolutely HATE it when someone puts them on me. My bf uses the w key to move, where as I use the two mouse buttons. He says it is harder my way. How do you move? Have you tried the other way? He says you have more control with the wasd buttons… but I am used to using the mouse.

Kiteisa.3189:

I have to say, when I started this game, I was HORRIBLE at jumping and personally, I find speed boosts more difficult, and absolutely HATE it when someone puts them on me. My bf uses the w key to move, where as I use the two mouse buttons. He says it is harder my way. How do you move? Have you tried the other way? He says you have more control with the wasd buttons… but I am used to using the mouse.

It depends. If I need to do a jumping puzzle fast then I use your way since a turn of the point of view with the mouse also changing where the character looks. If I used the keyboard like your bf then I’d have to stop and turn my point of view. This is one reason why people had difficult doing the Halloween and lost shores jumping puzzles.

If there’s no rush then it’s up to personal preference.

One thing that a lot of players overlook is that you can change direction in midair. Specifically, if you hold a movement key while jumping, you’ll move in that direction when in the air- if you release that button, you’ll fall straight down. When I first started using swiftness in jumping puzzles, I often had issues with overshooting my landings until I realized this.

Other than that, practice constantly on tame puzzles (Morgan’s Leap, the Hidden Garden in Mount Maelstrom), and with a friend or friends if at all possible. It does get better as you do it more.

The jumping puzzle in Eternal Battlegrounds is good practice.

I did my practice on the Mad King’s Tower. It really helped me and my jumping has hugely improved.

Some of my friends are also very badly at jumping puzzles. I am average at best. The best advise is to check alternate controls and practise all the time. It doesn’t need to be a jumping puzzle, but when going from A to B try the high road and not the normal path, when talking in town, do some jumping.

Besides that don’t get angry or annoyed. if you can’t make it right away, stop smashing your keyboard, stop, come back later and try again then.

I suck at jumping puzzles, I fall off over and over, but I keep trying. I’ve found the best way to complete them is to just go slowly. We’re always in such a rush to get to the end and that’s usually when you fall or make mistakes.

Awesome.6120:

The best buff to your jumping skills is mesmer portal.

Totally agree, i did skipping stones on the Lost Shore event, did it first time not enough ppl to do the champ, then the second time someone offered a short cut as in portal, still not enough ppl to do the champ, did it again, still as frustrating, but least there were enough ppl to do the champ, if someone had offered a portal again i would of took it.

Thanks for all the comments. I don’t use the mouse to move, I use either arrows or WASD. My biggest issue is simply distance. Sometimes the gap you have to jump is just a bit too big for me and I can never get it. I know its the correct path as I look at how-to videos. That’s why I was looking for some kind of boost.

My character hadn’t got to puzzles where I’m under any form of pressure to complete. They are just basic puzzles but I still have a hard time with some.

deffy.1320:

Awesome.6120:

The best buff to your jumping skills is mesmer portal.

Totally agree, i did skipping stones on the Lost Shore event, did it first time not enough ppl to do the champ, then the second time someone offered a short cut as in portal, still not enough ppl to do the champ, did it again, still as frustrating, but least there were enough ppl to do the champ, if someone had offered a portal again i would of took it.

Technically you don’t even need a mesmer for the lost shores one since you can bypass the entire puzzle.

I hate jumping puzzles, I despised Mario Brothers back in the day, Could be why I can’t stand jumping puzzles.

hey OP! all great advice in here.
you mentioned your biggest problem is distance, and i had a LOT of trouble with that as well. i would always overshoot when it was a short jump. if not, i’d plunge to my sorry death for a jump too short. one thing that really helped me is change the camera angle to a top-down view, or a bird’s POV rather so you can better guage where to launch yourself. often a lot of the jumps require you to jump at the VERY edge of the platform and sometimes if’ll even look like you’re off the edge already, due to clipping / graphical issues / character size.

as someone mentioned, don’t forget you can change directions mid-jump! and this has saved me many times.

so it takes getting used to. but this helped me immensely! and later on, you’ll be able to judge better without having to manually move the angle. but out of habit, i do it anyways just to save meself the trouble of falling and dying, if not, having to run all the way back. hope this helps!!

I agree with akamon – if you’re not sure how far you have to jump, adjust your camera so that you’re looking from the “bird’s eye view.” That always helps me gauge how far the jump really is. Once you’re there, you can let off the W key and allow yourself to fall straight down if you need to.

Keep trying! The controls aren’t always easy in this game, and sometimes the platforms are hard to judge because of the way the graphics are, but you’ll get the feel for it. I’m by no means an expert at jumping puzzles – I don’t even really like them very much – but I feel like I’m figuring it out. Also, sometimes leaving and coming back later is all it takes.

A few tips:
- practice !!! You WILL get better at this
- actually, do not use speed buffs. Most jumping puzzles are designed around standard speed, and you will overjump many smaller platforms.
- same vein, make sure you’re out of combat
- turn off double tap for dodge
- bind toggle walk. Sometimes it’s good to take it slow
- practice, can’t overstate this
- bring a light. Some dungeons feature dark rooms. Mad Memoires has a light, engineer flamethrower can light up a place as can any pistol or rifle shot. AOE templates can help too.
- bring a jump. If there’s a really, really difficult jump, you may want to cheat on it. For engineer I bring a rifle only for this. Other classes have their own cheats.
- practice!!!
- upgrade your graphics card and get stable internet. Unfortunately, internet lag and low fps can completely shut down your ability to do jumping puzzles.
- higher graphics often show a bit more of the environment. This could help with your jumps.

GOOD LUCK, you’ll need it.

Level an engineer (since puzzle achievements are account wide, you can use him/her for the ones that give you trouble). Jump shot on the rifle makes some jumps much, much easier. Can even let you skip some sections of some puzzles, I think. Fair warning, though, it only works when you don’t need to gain any elevation, so there are some key tough ones that it won’t be much good for.

One lame tip:
For long jumps, I hit my forward key before hitting space (jump) (→jumping out of movement), for short jumps, I hit space first (jumping out of standing still) – helps me not to overjump.
Also, for really long jumps: Walk/run just a liiiitttle bit over the edge before jumping off. You can usually still stand in midair right next to an edge Also, swiftness helps in those cases, when your landing plattform is large enough (I hate it for jumping puzzles otherwise, because I always misjump if I’m too fast).

I may add, that all jp could be done without Swiftness. Of course there are some elements where you would have to jump exactly from the tip of platform, so Swiftness help there.

When jumping especially in case of short platforms like bars etc it’s better to jump slightly in angle and not straight. It would widen a little your landing space and often distance between them is a lot of closer then your max jump.

Other tip is what i noticed in Mad Clocktower. Often platform would look like it’s ended when there is a little more of it, but it’s a little lowered so you don’t see it( I don’t mean lack of textures).

Ps. Never use area swiftness if there are other players next to you. I hate that. Few times I get a swiftness when in middle of jump. You can imagine how it “helped” me.

I absolutely hate them. Whats really bad is its required in dungeons like fractals. Mechanical keyboards make me misbounce, so went to the old type of keyboard. but i still hate jp. Literally thinking of quitting just over that point alone. I just got booted from another fractle group because of one.

I actually find speed boosts can make it harder. Especially because a lot of the harder puzzles have quite small platforms, so if you’re going too fast there’s a good chance you’ll overshoot it.

Two things I’ve found make it easier:
1. Using the keyboard to move and the mouse to turn.
When I’m doing a puzzle, or any jumping really, I have one hand on the mouse, one finger of the other hand on the forward button and one finger on jump (if necessary re-map jump to make this possible). Using the mouse to turn gives you much better control because you can do a complete 180 on the spot (including mid-air) but using the mouse to move isn’t as accurate, so I use the keyboard for that. It’s also a good idea to make sure you have left and right strafe buttons and you know where you are because they’re often useful too for adjusting your position.

2. Practice all the time.
Not just on jumping puzzles but anywhere you can jump, or think you might be able to. Even jumping on flat ground can be helpful to get an idea of how high and how far your character can jump. But it’s especially useful to practice it between platforms. Not only to learn the jumping but to learn what is and is not a platform and where on it you’re likely to be able to stand.

It makes the puzzles a lot easier because once you get the hang of it you can see the way through a puzzle just by looking, which eliminates a big part of the challenge and saves you a lot of wrong jumps.

In addition to what other folks have said, pick your jumping puzzle character and stick with them. I had a really hard time switching between races because the visual cues were quite different. Also, there are invisible edges on things that can be helpful (the jump isn’t as far as it looks) or make things harder (you bang your head on them). Practice will help you find them. If you’re getting really stuck try a different path. I’ve made many jumping puzzles way harder than they had to be by not looking around for an easier path or jump than the one I was focused on.

Danikat.8537:

2. Practice all the time.
Not just on jumping puzzles but anywhere you can jump, or think you might be able to. Even jumping on flat ground can be helpful to get an idea of how high and how far your character can jump. But it’s especially useful to practice it between platforms. Not only to learn the jumping but to learn what is and is not a platform and where on it you’re likely to be able to stand.

This helped me quite a bit. I like to make my own vistas by jumping up terrain. I got a lot of practice and some interesting screen shots

Here are things to take account when jumping:

• If you stand still and jump you will jump ever so slightly higher than if you were running and then jumping.
• You cannot jump nearly as far if you aren’t running before hand.
• Swiftness is a double-edged sword. Jumping long gaps is easier while jumps requiring more precise jumping are harder. The extra speed makes it easier to overshoot and harder to stop in mid-air.
• Learn how far off the edge your race can go before falling. They’re all different sized but all have the same collision box.
• If you are a Charr, draw your weapon. A one handed weapon is best. This will allow you to use bipedal movement instead of the awkward quadrupedal run.
• Charr players who are good at JP’s are badkitten. All other races are rubbish compared to them. Feel free to feel smug when you sail past an Asuran as a Charr in a JP.
• If your class has a leap skill; use it. You can take nice shortcuts sometimes with a nicely used leap.
• If you hit the dodge and jump buttons at the same time you’ll jump but with the speed and distance of a dodge. This is useful when you’re in combat as dodges are not affected by the speed penalty.
• Certain classes like the warrior have targetable leaps (Hammer F1 Earthshaker) that you can use to cheat the really tricky jumps.
• Mesmers come with insurance via the portal while warriors have a good access to swiftness, leaps and targetable leaps.
• You can use tonics like the toy princess tonic if you need to be smaller for JP’s like Troll’s End.
• Don’t key turn.