Guild Wars 2

I find playing solo with mobs always possible and constant respawning tedious and frustrating and although I’ve joyed many missions with others which always works out MUCH better there have been several now where I’m too much by myself and end up getting clobbered for it.

Last night I was defeated and and waited for someone to wander in and restore my PC but I ‘smelled the coffee’ to much after he left the scene picking up crystals I really had no need to do and looking for whatever I might have missed in the area. All of a sudden after maybe a minute or so I realized the area had respawned and a half-dozen of the smaller variety of golems had respawned, took a great dislike and mobbed me and I was defeated again.

Other things… Although the PC is an Asuran Thief she seems very much a melee and range fighter. And she isn’t very skilled in the game at all not figuring out yet how to dual weild or, for instance, equip one hand with a short sword or dagger and the off hand with a pistol and figure out how to fire that pistol? So far the solution is to leave the off hand empty and use a short bow as a separate equipment set and switching back and forth between the two sets. She forgets often to focus on what other skills to set for 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8 slots—this could be important but doesn’t seem to care and would rather feel hurt more often then not after a battle.

She has found 1 Mystic Coin with no reason to use it so far and no apparent way to store it elsewhere?

Found a total of 6 (Locked) Black Lion Chests and one key so far so only 1 chest has been opened and disappeared. Looking at the Trading Post is proving a little confusing for her so she ignores the problem hoping the pain will go away… It looks like my option is to store the chests in the bank waiting to find keys or purchase keys with real-world cash? The later won’t happen. Or give up opening the chests and sell them for in-game gold?

I have 1 Energy Crystal, 7 Data Crystals (may be able to give to the researcher or destroy), 1 Strand of Lush Kelp, 1 Hall of Monuments Portal Stone (I visited the place but found nothing to do or see there because after log in registration issues I gave up on trying to recover my GW info, which was probably next to nothing(?)), and 3 Basic Transmutation Stones.

Right clicking on all the above suggests I can destroy them but otherwise gives no clues what to do. I don’t mind storing them somewhere if I knew if that was possible and where. Apparently not the bank or the storage area for making various things.

So the Thief is level 12 now, is about half-way through Metrica Province and 100% through Lion’s Arch—which was a lot of fun to explore and play out—especially the very difficult jump to a secret area and a maddeningly difficult dark area, and not having to be concerned about any battles or respawning.

Have I mentioned how much I dislike respawning? I think there should be a minimum of 5 minutes before anything respawn. The frequency now is unreasonable and not any fun for me at least.

So, I’m looking for ways to play GW 2 much smarter then I have been. So far I don’t see what my advantage is when the PC down-levels. I’ve wondered if I should try the other 5 races starting areas and maybe returning to finish all six of them when I’m a much higher level.

I hope I can find some encouragement and answers from this post. Good luck trying to help—I think it is possible but I know I am not a diehard multiplayer gamer.

So of the questions I found in the OP that look like they should get answers:

1. You can dual wield by dragging the weapon into your offhand, or right clicking the weapon and choosing ‘equip offhand’. Just double clicking will replace your primary hand (unless the item is offhand only). It is more beneficial to dual wield than single as you open up your #4 and #5 skills plus change the #3 to be a combination of the two weapons.

Your 1-5 are determined by your equipped weapons. #6 is your heal, #7-9 your utilities and #0 your elite. At your level you only have access to the weapon, heal and a couple utilities (elite is at 30). If you’re really lost on what utilities to pick, it’s never a bad idea to take signets as they always grant a passive effect (if you forget to use utilities often or don’t want to be bothered with another active skill at the moment).

2. All of the items in your inventory can be stored in your personal bank, which can be accessed by an actual bank npc in a capital city or any crafting station (look for the tabs on the left when you open it). Some of the items you list sound like they are event/heart quest items and if you’re already done with that particular area you can safely delete them (as they cannot be sold). Mystic coins and transmute stones should be saved for later, they’re both useful to you.

You have the right idea on the black lion chests. Because of the rareness of the keys if you never intend to buy them (honestly they’re not worth the money anyway imo) just vendor the chests as you get them.

3. Respawns are fast in this game, and I suspect it’s also contingent on how much population is in a zone. Obviously this means the starter zones will respawn stuff much faster than higher level zones. I don’t have a really good answer for this other than be aware of it and move faster (or follow mobs of people around/get in a group yourself so it isn’t so lethal).

why did you use the Question format for your post? what’s the question?

edit:

you want some advice on how to play? your only level 12. my advice is play more. the game isn’t super hard but it has at least a bit of learning curve

I’ve always hated the short respawn timer in MMOs, its pretty common though. I hate clearing an area to fight a veteran or something only to get adds midway through your fight from respawns. Doubt anybody will do anything about it, if it was to low there wouldn’t ever be anything to fight with all the players runnin around.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say, with all the love in my heart, “quit now and save yourself the frustration of trying to learn an MMO.”

You just don’t get the basics… I mean the VERY basics. Like as in the, “I can’t figure out how to breath.” basics.

I wish you all the best.

I’m gonna add to this, if you really want to, and you install ventrillo (because I refuse to type the amount of information that you will require), I’ll come to your world and walk you through the basics of the game. I’ll get you going on the right foot. Or even better, if you can transfer to Northern Shiverpeaks. I will help you with gear and play tips all the way through 80.

Up to you,

Mark

Musty.3148:

I’m gonna add to this, if you really want to, and you install ventrillo (because I refuse to type the amount of information that you will require), I’ll come to your world and walk you through the basics of the game. I’ll get you going on the right foot. Or even better, if you can transfer to Northern Shiverpeaks. I will help you with gear and play tips all the way through 80.

Up to you,

Mark

I think you have touched on a great idea here for a class type seminar over Vent for noobs who cant seem to get ther class basics and also for those who are looking for some good pro tips as well. I wish i had time for something like this but i would love to get in a question/answer convo over vent with some pros. Video guides are nice but you cant ask those questions

Well, I am not a “pro”, but I’m pretty good. I think you have a great idea for giving people the BASICS. But the community is so split on what is good and what isn’t. For instance, I play a condition damage P/D build and I wreck with it… BUT others swear by D/D HS Spam or S/P, or… etc etc. Then opinions will vary between Spvp W3 and PvE as well.

I’m always willing to give game play tips though, I mean I see so many people that say something like, “repair costs are so high!!??” Or, “Dungeons are to hard!” Or, “I can’t do my story line!” etc, etc, And I think to myself, “why the hell are you even dying?” This game is sooooo easy to play if you know how it works. If you don’t know how it works I can see a lot of frustration in your future.

If there IS anyone that has some game/class questions that they want to discuss with me PM me and I’ll send you my vent information. Once again, I’m not Team Legacy level pro, but I am a good player and can pretty much discuss anything game related with at least some level of intelligence.

@Elowin.9078 I don’t think the monster spawn time is that bad. since if the timer is extended, you will encounter a lot of waiting time when you need to kill the same type of monsters over and over to complete a heart.

and i suggest you switching up your weapons once you hit a stage where you feel like it’s taking forever to kill something. I personally explored the weapons in the order of:
pistol pistol > sword/pistol > dagger dagger.

pistol pistol / short bow seems to be easier at low lvls for story line since u can kite them as much as you want.

i switched to sword/pistol when i hit roughly mid 20s to 30 since pistol pistol just doesn’t give me enough dmg as i meet more of the multiple target situation. and sword/pistol is awesome at killing a few things at once.

and when i hit about 60+, i find the mobs were hitting me just way too hard so i switched to dagger dagger for aoe bleed build. and from then on i was finding it much easier to kill. i can kill 3-4 monsters with ease (not with range monsters though) as i just leap back and forth evading hits while laying my aoe bleed dmg to them. but i would say this build requires a lot of trait points for additional initiative and traits that allows you to recover initiative back when stealth, steal, and use signets.

note i soloed my way through 1-80, i never grouped as i play very casually and play randomly so i don’t bother finding someone to group with.

Swords are mainhand only but the other one handed weapons (dagger, pistol) can be used in either. Sword/pistol is a popular combination because of the pistol whip ability (you’ll see posts here calling it cheap, noob, etc. which usually means it works really well :P). Spears are 2h, yes. Dual pistols do very good single target damage (because of the #3 unload ability which just looks cool too). I’m not sure why you’re seeing a stat issue, unless you’re equipping one on one weapon set and one on another, they should total when used in the same set.

Mystic coins just hold onto, honestly I haven’t spent any myself but will look into them later (you can apparently use them at the mystic forge to do stuff).

Transmute stones I use all the time – when you double click one you can drag two pieces of armor onto it to combine the looks from one with the stats of another. Good for when you find that extremely beautiful piece of armor that you don’t want to let go of just because that thing you just found off a corpse has better stats.

Elowin, I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet.
but with the different combination of weapons, you get different skills to use.
so your #1 and 2 button are determined by your main hand weapon, your # 3 button is determined by the combination of both of your weapons (dual skill), and your # 4 and 5 button is determined by your off hand weapon.

So it means your weapon set determines majority of your play style, dagger main hand means you want to use close range single target attacks, sword main hand means you want to use close range multiple target attacks, pistol main hand means you want to use long range single target attacks, and short bow (two hand weapon) means you want to use long range multiple target attacks.

but with that said, your off hand does change that skill set by a little. also with the right trait points, you can actually switch out of the play style i mentioned. For example, using dagger dagger, # 3 button gives me a area of effect (AOE) bleed attack. And with the right traits, i can boost my initiative so much that i am able to spam that aoe bleed attack to a point where i can kill multiple monsters at a time.

but in most cases, your main hand weapon determines your play style.

so with that information, you should see how I progressed through out lvl 1-80 and see how the monsters affect my play style. i went from long range (both single and multiple target depending on the situation my story line put me in) because i find at lower lvls the dmg of close range and long range doesn’t have that big of a gap that it’s not worth me risking to go close range > i then switched into close range multiple target as i find close range dmg is starting to show a bigger difference and enable me to kill things faster> then i switched to close range multiple target but a bleed build as it enables me to dmg them without standing in one single spot and just run around while still killing things efficiently.

but as for your spawn problem, it indicates that you are either not killing them not fast enough, or you don’t know how to avoid getting surrounded. you need to use your stealth skills here and there when you know there are more than 2-3 monsters hitting you at once (at lower lvls especially). you just need to stealth and run away and i have not seen that many monsters where they can kill you while chasing you. most of them are only able to hit you once or twice more once you stealth and run away. it is more difficult to solo elite monsters as a lower lvl. but once you lvl up, you will have summons that can tank for you.

i would say just simply buy them on the market, don’t wait to find your own weapons.
most likely you won’t be that lucky.

once you buy the weapons, then you can test out the combinations and see what skill set you like the most. it’s all about exploring what play style you like the most.

and about how you can’t dual wield, you just press h, and go to your character info page, and drag weapons to the corresponding slot to use the item. it should allow you to change up your weapon combination as you wish (except sword has to be main hand)

For armour wise, i don’t think it’s needed to buy new sets every other lvl. I just used whatever i found / got from quest. but weapons i find very important to upgrade often as we are a very squishy class. so the faster we kill the less dmg we take.

as for money wise, if you are a very casual gamer. i would just say collect all the materials around you (copper, wood, cooking stuff) and sell on market. that is by far the easiest way to make some cash while you are lvling. don’t lvl the armour or weapon making professions if you are short on money. i personally went with cooking first as it will give you a huge huge huge exp boost. I pretty much gotten like 10-20 lvls just from lvling my cooking to 400. but i won’t really suggest you looking professions until you are at least lvl 40. that is when you have collected a decent amount of materials to start your profession and not waste too much money on lvl your profession.

and later on when you want to make some money off the market, try look at the place order function. it basically allows you to place an order for an item at whatever price you name. and if there are sellers that think your price is reasonable, they will sell it to you for that price. so you can simply do buy and sell. it works quite well with some of the consumables that you can craft with cooking. in the previous week, i got around 10 gold just by placing orders on the raw materials and sell it back out as a finished product (by playing like 5-10 min a day buying and selling). but this will depend solely on the market.

and lastly, yes, i completely agree with you on the exploring part. it’s a really amazing world that areanet has created. and i like how they made exploring something worth while to do as it give exp and bonus items for map completion. so just take it slowly and explore everything around u. if you do get stuck on something, u can look at this site which will give you a map including all the locations of skill points, vista, hearts, etc.

http://gw2cartographers.com/