Guild Wars 2

Hello GW2!
I have recently got back to playing after basically the first 2 months of launch. They have added so much to the game I am really overwhelmed coming back to it.

I am working on getting my Charr Warrior to level 80 and I just finished the Zaitan (Zombie Dragon) Personal Story mission (which was awesome) and I was hoping I could get some questions answered or some guidance on tackling this new game again.

1. Living Story.
I read up on the Living Story (I think only season 2 is purchaseable) idea which we can buy with actual dollars, I am interested in purchasing but I am not sure what it actually does in game. Is it just more quests with relativley good soulbound items?

2. Dungeons.
I don’t think I ever ran them, is it worth it at level 80 to go back and do the lower level ones? The currency from each dungeon is used to buy weapons/armor, are they worth having at level 80?

3. PvE Gear path.
If I wanted to work towards getting powerful PvE gear, how would I do that? Is crafting the primary way to get them or dungeons? My other MMO experience has had “raid” style progression.

4. PvP
We can start doing ranked pvp at any point, and we can select reward tracks, (which can be dungeon rewards I think, so my PvP could reward me with dungeon currencies?) and purchase pvp oriented gear and gear upgrades. To get more powerful pvp gear do you get currency (like dungeons) or is it associated with rank?

5. Money
I am level 76ish and I have 5 gold to my name lol. Most of the items in the Trading Post are relatively cheap, being silvers per item. If I wanted to get money, are in game methods suffcient or are the Gem conversions the best?

6. Traits, builds and weapon combo’s
I am an alt-aholic! I do like playing my characters to their potential and I was wondering if anyone had some pointers for their respective classes or a good internet source. The ones I have found seem to be dated by over a year

In the end I am glad to be back in this tremendously fun game, and if anyone could help a fellow player out I would be most appreciative!

Thank you all,
Strigoi Tepes

Strig.9107:

1. Living Story.
I read up on the Living Story (I think only season 2 is purchaseable) idea which we can buy with actual dollars, I am interested in purchasing but I am not sure what it actually does in game. Is it just more quests with relativley good soulbound items?

I really like the story and also the mawdrey and carapace skin are nice items.
Also, the LS story attaches with the HoT expansion story, so I recommend getting it if you can.

Strig.9107:

2. Dungeons.
I don’t think I ever ran them, is it worth it at level 80 to go back and do the lower level ones? The currency from each dungeon is used to buy weapons/armor, are they worth having at level 80?

It is very worth.
The gear you can get from the lower level dungeon token is also lvl 80 exotic gear, actually the lvl 30 dungeon is one of the most farmed for gold.

Strig.9107:

3. PvE Gear path.
If I wanted to work towards getting powerful PvE gear, how would I do that? Is crafting the primary way to get them or dungeons? My other MMO experience has had “raid” style progression.

If you want ascended gear then crafting the only path, for exotic (a bit lower than ascended but all that you need for anything) dungeon run is the best way to get tokens and gold, also with gold you can make the crafting process faster if you want to craft the ascended gear later.

Strig.9107:

4. PvP
We can start doing ranked pvp at any point, and we can select reward tracks, (which can be dungeon rewards I think, so my PvP could reward me with dungeon currencies?) and purchase pvp oriented gear and gear upgrades. To get more powerful pvp gear do you get currency (like dungeons) or is it associated with rank?

In PvP all the gear is standard you get no stronger gear at all.
The tokens and chests you get from PvP dungeon reward track are the same as if you actually did the dungeon, currently that is how I’m unlocking the dungeon skins for the collection

Strig.9107:

5. Money
I am level 76ish and I have 5 gold to my name lol. Most of the items in the Trading Post are relatively cheap, being silvers per item. If I wanted to get money, are in game methods suffcient or are the Gem conversions the best?

Again, dungeon run nets a nice amount of gold, also search for “Silverwaste” , you can get good amount of gold there.

Strig.9107:

6. Traits, builds and weapon combo’s
I am an alt-aholic! I do like playing my characters to their potential and I was wondering if anyone had some pointers for their respective classes or a good internet source. The ones I have found seem to be dated by over a year

Start looking here: http://www.reddit.com/r/GuildWars2Builds
Also, have a while since the last trait update so most of the 1 year old build are the current meta builds.

Welcome back to the GW2.

Thank you for the input Bardy!
I really enjoy the GW2 story so I will definitely be getting the Living Story.

One more question if I may?

How does one do the dungeons in this game? Do we just go to the zone the dungeon is in and spam chat? (Which I am fine with, just got used to group finder tools lol)

Thanks again!

Be in the zone of the dungeon enterance you’ll get the pop up screen once one of your party members enter. People don’t spam map chat to get in groups, there is lfg tool now for every dungeon, create your own or join allready posted groups. Just read the description people put, and for now don’t join zerk speedruns just now.

Oh perfect! Thank you!

Umm…What are zerk speedruns? Is this just finishing the fastest exploration track in a dungeon?

So I should do all the story modes first, then when I am more comfortable do the speed runs?

Thanks!

Zerk is shorthand for “berserker”, the power/precision/ferocity stat combo. LFGs marked as “zerk” or “speedrun” are asking for you to be fully equipped in berserker gear, and also generally expect you to be running meta (read: optimized for max damage and utility) builds.

If you’re only starting with dungeons, I would definitely recommend you to stay away from them and stick to LFGs that state something like “all welcome”, which are going to be less stressful and demanding. You can work your way up to speedruns after you get experience and know what to expect, if you are so inclined.

Running story mode is not a bad idea – first it will let you open explorable modes (which is what 90% of people run), and they tend to be less difficult than explorable, so it’s a good way to get used to the difficulty spike from open world.