Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone, I have a few questions about “end game” content, pvp, and general things to do once you use the level 80 boost. I’ve seen some guides and read some FAQ’s but am not quite understanding everything.

Q1 – What is the best way to preview a profession and hence choose your starting profession? The level 3 PvP access or the level 80 boost trial? If the answer is the PvP access, then can you give me insight on how to test a profession in that zone? Do I try some skills out on the dummies or should I play a PvP match?

Q2 – Ok, after I’ve picked my profession and used the level 80 boost now what? What should be my #1 priority: grinding gear, getting mastery points or leveling up my elite specialization? Can I do all three at once? What zone or quests should I be doing?

Q3 – I know there’s PvE gear and what not, but is there PvP gear? In PvP does everyone have the same gear and just different skill builds/specializations or is that not correct? What are glyphs and runes, and where do I get them? Also if there is PvP gear, where can I get some?

Q4 – What is the difference between dungeons and raids? Is there specific gear/things to do before I try this content or will the level 80 boost skills/gear be sufficient?

Thanks in advance, and if you need me to clarify a question please ask.

Q1 - Either the dummies or the level 80 boost trial are best. Entering a pvp match without a feel for the class will probably cause some frustration for you. Note that having a dps character is important for clearing dungeons and fractals, so pick a profession that has a dps rotation that feels easy to you.

Also, if you need help with “What gear, weapons, stats, utility skills should I take?” I would recommend metabattle.com which has guides on all professions.

Q2 - The most important thing is to stay calm. Take one thing at a time, as you need them.

Your Elite spec is key for most classes, so that is important to function well with your class. I would also grind gold or dungeon tokens for damage oriented exotic gear (the level 80 boost gives you more defensive gear). Usually the best Damage gear is Berserker’s stats (Power > Precision = Ferocity). Then I would work on masteries and getting ascended gear (the best gear in the game, equivalent to legendaries) at the same time, at your pace.

Ascended Armor and weapons can be acquired from crafting or random drops from certain activities (especially daily fractals). The trinkets are obtained in various ways including from the new Living World Season 3 maps. If you decide to get ascended armor, I would start with trinkets first, as they are usually the easiest. The armor and weapons are mainly acquired through crafting which requires quite a bit of gold, so I would look up ways to farm gold, as the current “best” way to farm gold changes. The Guild Wars Wiki is a fantastic resource to help you find information on acquiring ascended gear.

Also, keep in mind that ascended gear is required to climb fractals (dungeons with tiers), which offer great rewards. But before you get into fractals, you should look up agony resistance in the wiki because after fractal scale 20, agony will start being applied to you and kill you quickly.

Q3 - At the top of the screen in the pvp “lobby”, there is a button that you can click that opens a menu for you to select amulets which act as your “pvp gear”. The gear you are wearing on your character is irrelevant in pvp because the devs want everyone on a level playing field, only the amulet, sigils, and runes you select through this pvp menu count towards your stats. Also, the type of weapon you are holding determines the 1-5 skills you will have.
(Please note… WvW, however, uses the gear you are wearing, not amulets.)

Q4 - Dungeons are dead content unfortunately. And dungeons are instanced 5 man content where you and 4 other people go through a short story and earn some loot at the end. It has it’s own achievement rewards and that give you a boost in gold, but ultimately, dungeons aren’t sought out by many players anymore. Fractals however, are basically the same thing but with scaling difficulty, better rewards (especially at higher tiers), and only for level 80 characters. Some fractal groups choose to use a healer to help them survive at higher tiers, but there is no tank (person who takes mob aggro) because the bosses attack everyone. Raids on the other hand are extremely hard content designed for 10 players. It has complicated mechanics and pretty much requires so much coordination that you must speak to your group over voice chat. Raids give very good rewards like legendary insights which I won’t get into right now, but they are only for people who put a LOT of time into this game. Raid groups also generally have the traditional healer and tank to support the team. Though in some instances one or the other is not required.

I hope this has been helpful to you! Also, if you have any questions or want any clarification, feel free to message or whisper me in game!

You just bought the game and want to focus on endgame content? Are you sure about that? The game is quite huge and the non-endgame stuff is pretty amazing, fascinating and entertaining.

Just pick a class which looks interesting, create a character which looks awesome and travel tyria the old way. Start from level 1 in the tutorial and end up with level 80 after exploring the world and learning the mechanics over time. Once your first character is maxed and your personal story is complete, you should be experienced enough to go deeper into the game and have a look into the endgame. – that is my oldfashioned opinion

But if it is your wish to play the endgame from the start, good luck and enjoy your time in GW2.

Terrowyn.4728:

I hope this has been helpful to you! Also, if you have any questions or want any clarification, feel free to message or whisper me in game!

This actually cleared up a lot of my questions and is beyond helpful, thanks so much!! Expect a few messages from me in the future

HnRkLnXqZ.1870:

You just bought the game and want to focus on endgame content? Are you sure about that? The game is quite huge and the non-endgame stuff is pretty amazing, fascinating and entertaining.

Just pick a class which looks interesting, create a character which looks awesome and travel tyria the old way. Start from level 1 in the tutorial and end up with level 80 after exploring the world and learning the mechanics over time. Once your first character is maxed and your personal story is complete, you should be experienced enough to go deeper into the game and have a look into the endgame. – that is my oldfashioned opinion

But if it is your wish to play the endgame from the start, good luck and enjoy your time in GW2.

I was actually planning on going back through the zones to get achievements, mastery points, and to unlock vendors, etc. But, if I am to do all of that I most definitely want to taste the end game content first to see if the game is even worth while to play. After all, most of the time spent in MMO’s is end-game and many of the guides/FAQ’s I read stated that the end game of GW2 is fantastic and content rich which has made me somewhat bias toward skipping the early game. If I end up liking the end game, I will create a new character and level up from 1 to 80 to get the “traditional experience”

Ghostly Dreamer.4627:

Terrowyn.4728:

I hope this has been helpful to you! Also, if you have any questions or want any clarification, feel free to message or whisper me in game!

This actually cleared up a lot of my questions and is beyond helpful, thanks so much!! Expect a few messages from me in the future

Sweet! Glad I could help!

Ghostly Dreamer.4627:

Q1 – What is the best way to preview a profession and hence choose your starting profession? The level 3 PvP access or the level 80 boost trial? If the answer is the PvP access, then can you give me insight on how to test a profession in that zone? Do I try some skills out on the dummies or should I play a PvP match?

I’d actually recommend using the level 80 boost and running around Silverwastes on a few different characters to try to get a feel for what they can do. The only issue is the boost doesn’t really give you an assortment of weapons to work with. Just one set, which you may or may not like. But to just ‘get an idea’ it should be sufficient.

Pvp is ‘ok’ for previewing classes as well, but hitting a dummy is only going to give you half the picture you’re looking for.

Have you played a MMO before? What types of classes have you enjoyed playing in them? Maybe we can give you some suggestions on classes to try to help you along.

Ghostly Dreamer.4627:

Q2 – Ok, after I’ve picked my profession and used the level 80 boost now what? What should be my #1 priority: grinding gear, getting mastery points or leveling up my elite specialization? Can I do all three at once? What zone or quests should I be doing?

I don’t recommend using the lvl 80 scroll on your very first character honestly. You can, I just don’t recommend it. My opinion on the matter is that you should take your time leveling your first character. Get to know the class. Learn its mechanics and the games mechanics by progressing in a more ‘natural’ fashion. As opposed to just diving in, potentially getting frustrated and overwhelmed, leaving you with a bitter taste for the game.

With the scroll, you’ll get a set of defensive exotic gear, which is fine to start. As you learn to play, you’ll probably want to swap out to a more offensive stat set. Ascended tier is currently Best in Slot, but isn’t completely necessary unless you’re doing hardcore raiding, high level fractals, or just have that completionist itch. The most reliable way to obtain it is to craft it, and it requires max level crafting.

Definitely start unlocking the elite, it adds depth to the class and gives you tools to play with.

Yes, in a sense, you can do all 3 at once.

Ghostly Dreamer.4627:

Q3 – I know there’s PvE gear and what not, but is there PvP gear? In PvP does everyone have the same gear and just different skill builds/specializations or is that not correct? What are glyphs and runes, and where do I get them? Also if there is PvP gear, where can I get some?

As Terrowyn highlighted, PvP uses a different set up. The stats are a bit more ‘normalized’ in pvp and has a limited set of available stats. In theory for easier balancing. The general idea with pvp is that everyone should be on equal footing. You wear your normal pve gear and can use your normal pve weapons, but the stats applied during pvp will come from whichever amulet you choose from the pvp build window.

WvW on the other hand is a whole different animal. ‘Equal’ is not a word that exists there.

Ghostly Dreamer.4627:

Q4 – What is the difference between dungeons and raids? Is there specific gear/things to do before I try this content or will the level 80 boost skills/gear be sufficient?

Dungeons are shorter than raids and are typically considered easier encounters. They only require 5 people, and don’t necessarily require you to be level 80. They also have a story mode and an exploration mode, with the exploration mode having 3 different paths, for a total of 4 different potential experiences for a single dungeon. There are presently 8 dungeons in the game.

There is currently 1 “raid” in the game. It consists of 3 “wings.” Each wing is a single path with 3 (major) bosses along it. These require 10 players and coordination (much more so than dungeons) to complete. You’re going to want to get to know the game first, and then likely find a raiding guild that teaches new members, in order to get in to these.

Use your free lvl 80 boost to help you try out a class, but don’t use it. Nor do I recommend rushing the game. So many people rush and end up in situations where they are unsure on what to do next.

Gw2 is a game of goals. Getting decent gear isn’t difficult. Its min-maxing that usually will cost you a lot of time and gold, but it is not required for you to enjoy the entire experience which is why a lot of people usually call GW2 a causal game.

However funny enough, if your talking about this game from a PVP perspective and in some cases high end PVE; a causal player who doesn’t fully understand the capabilities of his/her chosen class including an understanding of the “meta,” will get left be hide. And I’m not just talking about gear, I’m talking about Skill.

I swear, one of the number one problems I see and hear from PVP players are; “Why do I have these scrub teammates on my team who clearly have no idea what they are doing?” “How can X class lose to Z class? Its such an easy matchup!” “Its a 3v1 and they all lost? How can my team members be so useless?” I like to think the reason why its like this for “the most part” is not totally because the match making may not be the best, but also its people who rush the game and don’t take the time to learn it.

To answer your questions, first try out and pick a class you like. —>Do map completion and try to unlock as much of the map as you can. —>Find and join a guild with people willing to answer your questions and help you out.

Dungeons are not necessarily dead content. Plenty of people want to do them. Its just that a little while ago, the gold gain from doing dungeons was reduced, but its gotten better now. If you find your self on a map with a dungeon I’d suggest putting up a LFG while you map complete the area. Dungeons are good for making some money, achievements, titles, fun, and tokens which can be later exchanged for lvl 80 armor and weapons depending on which dungeon you do. You can also salvage the armor for etcos and other loot you can sell for even more money or keep for yourself for crafting.

I would avoid raids until you’ve spoken with someone who knows it really well and can help guide you on how to properly gear yourself for it. I’d also highly suggest joining a guild that is willing to do training runs/ watching videos on youtube on how to do them. At first, they will push you to react and fight in ways you may not be used too during your time map completing. It will be much more difficult, and too many deaths because you couldn’t play property will leave others with a sore taste in their mouths.

Fractals will be difficult to understand at first. Higher tier fractals will require this item called AR or agony resistance. Without AR, you will die instantly. Have a guild member explain this better to you once you join one. If your not sure on what to do next, just look at your achievements tab. There will be 100s of different things to do.

PVP and WvW are much bigger, especially when it comes to skill. The pvp balance right now is actually pretty good. Some classes can counter others, but its no where near impossible. At the end of the day its all about skill. In WvW, gear matters more, but not so much. A person with decent gear can still wipe the floor with someone who has high end gear, by just simply out playing the other. Your in-game skill will kinda determine how much fun you may have in pvp. Because if you suck, or can’t understand why you died or failed your team, your gonna have a bad time.

Use this link to come up with your own setup as well as get a full read up of each classes abilities, sigils, and runes: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

Use this link to check out what is the current meta with each class. Just remember that, just because these builds are considered meta, it does not mean they are the end all be all. Use it as a guide to help you come up with your own build. Because, if you are unable to perform at the expected level the build is describing, then it is pointless to follow: http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki