Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, I started playing about a week ago and so far I’m having lots of fun. But I’m kinda lost, so if you can help me with some random questions that would be nice.

Yeah, I read wiki, google, but I need opinions from people that already play.

1) What’s the importance of the WvW while you still not level 80? I mean, I’m thinking of leveling first than start PvPing.

2) I see you can get gear from several ways. Can I level up all the way to 80 without having to spend my gold? Just getting rewards?

3) Guilds, should I join one now or wait? I’m still learning a lot of stuff, I don’t wanna be useless.

4) Should I buy materials for leveling up my crafting or I can get everything while I run around the map?

5) Are there party exclusive dungeons? Like in WoW for example, they are a good way to level up and get good equipment.

6) Is there any must-do thing while leveling? For now I’m just following the main quest and clearing the areas.

Well, I guess that’s it for now.

1.) It’s more for true level 80 players but you can level there if you want. It’s probably a decent way to get experience, karma, coin, loot (loot seems better than average PvE drops) but with the big caveat that you’ll be weaker than a true 80 so only go if you can insulate yourself in a big group.

2.) I’ve always been fine doing it this way. If you really find you’re hurting or just can’t seem to find a given weapon that suits your level (or want to beef up a particular stat) you can find non-80 gear for cheap on the trading post. But I think just about anyone can get to level 80 living off of drops and quest rewards.

3.) A good guild should be able to give you advice, give you people to play with, help you with quests that are troubling you, etc. Just ask and make sure they’re friendly to lower level players. Worst case scenario is you join, find out there’s nothing there for you, and leave to look for something else. Up to you of course but there’s probably no downside.

4.) You can collect the materials for the most part, but it’ll take time. Probably better to just collect what you can, sell it, then buy what you need (place buy orders and be patient if you can) whenever you want to craft. For me I ended up doing basically all of my crafting at once way after I had reached 80, because crafting isn’t exactly important. Maybe do a bit here and there if you’re looking for some quick experience. Up to you. But getting a craft to 400 is going to end up being expensive no matter what.

5.) All dungeons basically require 5 players. There are 8 normal dungeons, plus fractals of the mists (which has 8 sort of “scenes,” if you will, that are smaller than a real dungeon; you do them 3 at a time to advance an experience level, plus an extra 9th one that comes every even experience level). If you get good at them and have a group to run them with you can farm them for special tokens to buy good max level equipment, and the potential for earning coin is very good as well. There are also open world mini-dungeons that are more just there to be discovered (explorer achievements), those can mostly be soloed but there’s no great rewards or anything.

6.) Nothing is a must do, just whatever’s fun. World exploration (100% each zone) is generally a pretty efficient way to level, and higher level zones reward you with valuable crafting materials and equipment for completing them. Grinding the same thing over and over doesn’t tend to work that well. Try to do the daily and monthly achievements if you can (laurels can be saved up to buy useful equipment, karma can be nice, and achievement rewards now are nothing to sneeze at). Living story is nice to experience and some of the higher levels give out legitimately useful equipment. Big world events tend to be farmed by lots of players at once and are definitely cool to experience (gw2stuff.com has some timers that a lot of people follow), and at higher levels you’re guaranteed good rewards for each one.

2. I levelled most of my classes this way. It would probably be slightly easier to put some crafting in there along the way and it will help you level quicker. The classes I did this with, it was slightly easier, but not much different really.

3. You don’t have to join a guild ever. I haven’t been in one other than for WvW. But there a lot of the game design makes it easier to be in a guild and you get a lot of buffs. Financially your better off with these buffs. Id suggest you find a large guild for now that has 24/7 buffs and then make up your mind what guild your looking for later on down the track.

4. You can actually make money doing things this way. A lot of people have. I didn’t, I hated crafting. There is money in crafting.

6. You should have food buffs and run either sharpening stones or whatever. The XP is great. Either level a chef, or buy them off the TP. There are a lot of good foods that are selling for 1 copper. You get so much more XP from it.

Dont expect to be the hero in WvW if you arent level 80, but there is always a use for you.

I prefer to find my stuff. If you were going to pay for gear, wait till 80 when it will be longer lasting.

You can join up to 5 guild, might as well make use of it. There is no strings attached really, so theres no risk in joining a guild.

Depends. Im finding myself overstocked in alot of stuff. If you pace yourself, you can level your crafting alongside your levels without buying anything/much.

Dungeons are party based, but you dont have to be in one…but you probably wont have fun alone.

Nothing I can think of. Following the story might be fine, though I eventually got distracted, and now my main character who is 80 is still at the story for around level 65 characters.

1) Well, when you’re not yet 80 in WvW, you’ll be taken out quite easily by lvl 80’s, since you won’t have any exotic armor and/or weapons yet. But it’s a good way to get used to the flow of the WvW on your server (it depends from server to server). But best would be to stick to the group (follow a commander or so), since you’ll be easy pickings on your own..

2) You can get to 80 without investing in any gear (although I strongly suggest to take the crafting skill that creates your armor [leatherwork for medium, tailor for light, armorsmith for heavy], like that you can craft your own armor sets while levelling up (and in the meantime levelling up your crafting as well)

3) Lots of guilds welcome new players and gain lots of pleasure by educating these new players into Guild Wars. And after a while you’ll be a true asset to your guild, no worries..
So the quicker you can join a (decent) guild, the better imho..

4) Most of the materials you’ll find (make sure to always have harvesting tools equipped). But of course it can happen that you’ll need to buy some extra totems or so.. Not many people can max a craft without spending some coins on the trading post..

5) Every dungeon (with some exceptions for Living Story dungeons from time to time) have a recommended player amount of 5 (full party). This is indeed because the difficulty of a dungeon is significantly higher then the free roaming in PvE.. Dungeons yield dungeon reward tokens, which can be exchanged in Lion’s Arch for exotic weapons/armor sets

6) Do the story quest when the level is appropriate and focus on map completion (all POI’s, vista’s, hearts, …). You’ll get some nice rewards after completing a map as well (some gear, some experience, a black lion chest key and some coins).

There, my 50 cents.. :-)

rsiloliveira.6429:

1) What’s the importance of the WvW while you still not level 80? I mean, I’m thinking of leveling first than start PvPing.

I find WvW very boring, so I don’t do it.
Personally, I think you are better off leveling in PvE

rsiloliveira.6429:

2) I see you can get gear from several ways. Can I level up all the way to 80 without having to spend my gold? Just getting rewards?

Yes, in fact it is best to do just this.
However, once you reach lvl 62, you can buy very cheap ‘blue’ kit with 3 stats off the trading post and use it for 5-10 levels, then sell it and buy the next appropriate level blues, etc. This way you save gold to then buy exotics once you hit 80.

rsiloliveira.6429:

3) Guilds, should I join one now or wait? I’m still learning a lot of stuff, I don’t wanna be useless.

Up to you. If you like to solo play then no rush to join a guild. You will want to do dungeons at some point, and this is where a guild is handy.

rsiloliveira.6429:

4) Should I buy materials for leveling up my crafting or I can get everything while I run around the map?

Not all mats are available in all maps. As you map explore, collect everything you see on your mini map. You will need to explore and visit a lot of maps to get enough mats to level crafts without resorting to buying mats from the trading post. Harvesting mats also provides you with much needed xp.

rsiloliveira.6429:

5) Are there party exclusive dungeons? Like in WoW for example, they are a good way to level up and get good equipment.

Never played Wow …
Drops in dungeons themselves are poor, sometimes the boss chest can have something decent, but it is mostly blues and greens. The trash mobs drop nothing.

The decent equipment comes from the tokens you earn running the various explore paths. You don’t get tokens for running the story path. The tokens are redeemed at dungeon specific vendors in LA. You use tokens for rare and exotic armour and weapons.

You need almost 1400 tokens for a full armour set, this equates into running 7 explore paths (60-66 tokens / run).

rsiloliveira.6429:

6) Is there any must-do thing while leveling? For now I’m just following the main quest and clearing the areas.

Yes.
Follow a vendor/salvage plan. Set an item value level, say 30 copper. Anything below that you salvage for mats, anything above you vendor. This way you can build up both mats an gold as you level.

Do not waste gold on cosmetic items. You will have plenty of time and gold for that later. Concentrate on saving as much gold as you can. Also, avoid unnecessary WP travel.

Map exploration/completion is good for xp and rewards. Higher level maps give you better rewards. Combine this with following your personal story.

Your personal story will give you some useful unique rewards

Thanks guys, that was really helpful.

It seems I’m doing the right thing then. I’ll just stick to the main story and clear the maps while I’m on it, try to level up the crafting too but since I can’t get all the mats I will level up what I can and when I’m 80 I make a run for craft.

The thing about guilds is exactly what you said, I wanna join one that is welcoming to the newbies because I don’t know all the terms, the places, etc…

Thanks again!

I’d like to give a different perspective. If you’re not saving for a legendary, gold and karma aren’t very important. If you just play casually and follow whatever interests you, pausing to complete a map from time to time, and buying karma armor when you think it looks good, you’ll have more than enough gold and karma to keep yourself decently outfitted (plenty of good, cheap stuff on the Trading Post if you don’t find things to your liking out in the world). DEFINITELY waste gold on cosmetic items. That’s basically what the game’s about. Again, if you don’t have expensive higher goals, why not live in the now?

A couple tips. Selling things on the trading post: it’ll give you an estimated profit, and a fee — the fee is on top of the estimated profit, meaning, subtracted from. So subtract it from the suggested profit and if it’s lower than the vendor price, vendor it (or salvage.) Also, selling things in large stacks reportedly gets you a lower listing fee.

Unidentified dyes fetch a surprising amount of silver. Let’s say 80c for an ordinary dye and 18s for an unidentified ordinary dye. That’s a big difference. So open up all the dyes until you like how your character(s) look(s) and auction off the rest.

But yeah, I wasn’t trying to be particularly frugal and by the time I got two chars to 80 they both had enough karma to fully outfit in temple gear and plenty left over for my alts. So if you want to be a casual player, don’t even worry about money, that’s my advice.

Crafting: if you enjoy crafting, it’s particularly fun with the discovery mechanic. My problem has been that characters level up so quickly, you are usually high above the level you can craft for. If you really focused on crafting (I have a jeweller alt who got to level 400 in crafting before level 40 in game) it would be different — but even there, crafting gets you a ton of XP and you can end up pretty high-level but without accompanying skill points (my level-40 jeweler had no elite skill!) You need to have someone out in the world collecting materials for the various levels (not just ore and wood, but magic-y type things like scales and blood for the insignias etc.) if you don’t want to have to pay on the TP, and again, fast leveling can make that tough.

Guilds: even for a casual player, a guild is quite nice to have if you want to run dungeons. Otherwise, you run the risk of verbal abuse or getting kicked before the end so their guildies can get the rewards or similar annoying things. Luckily, a lot of guilds are very open and it doesn’t seem to be the high-commitment culture I’ve encountered elsewhere.

Oh, and Dulfy has great guides: http://dulfy.net/2012/05/02/3343/ Took me a while to warm up to her since the site froze my older browser, but she really has the goods on basically everything.

also, someone else has a great armor gallery here: http://www.gw2armorgallery.com/