Guild Wars 2

PREFACE:
I think this is the best place for this topic. If mods believe it would be better suited for another subsection, such as players helping players, feel free to move it there. I also apologize, that this will take up several posts. As there are massive walls of text.

INTRODUCTION:
Hello everyone. As im sure a lot of you know, season 1 started! And with it came a lot of achievements, and a lot of new faces from the PvE’rs looking to obtain them. Because of this, I decided i’d just type up this quick guide, to help you guys get your season keys asap, and maybe get you a little more up to speed on what you can do to help your server out.

The season key requires you to finish 15 achievements. However there are 19 possible achievements that count. This means that you dont actually have to do all of them. Thus I will be listing them in the order of easiest acquisition/completion. Please note, a majority of my experiences are with T1 matchups, having spent my year playing GW2 in a T1 server. Some achievements may seem easier or harder to you based on what league you are in, this is normal and to be expected! I’ll give explanations about why I think each achievement is easier/harder, so if you feel that it doesnt apply to you, that’s ok.

This guide also assumes that you have no idea how anything in WvW works, so first we’re just going to cover a few terms that will be used over the course of the guide. Feel free to skip this section

GLOSSARY:

Commander: Commanders are denoted by the blue pins that you can see on the map. Im sure you’ve seen them before. These players are there to lead your server to victory, and serve as an indicator of where your team usually is. Listen to their advice and follow their instructions!

Zerg: A large clustering of players. Generally speaking, anything over 15 players can be considered a zerg.

Scout: Scouting involves keeping a lookout for something. In most cases, a scout will be assigned a tower or keep. Their job is to stay there and warn the commanders if an enemy zerg shows up. Sometimes scouts are specifically assigned to find and keep tabs on the enemy zerg before they reach objectives. Scouts play a vital role in any WvW matchup

Blob: A blob is basically a zerg. Typically however it refers to a much larger than usual zerg. A map blob for instance, implies that the entire enemy team is in 1 place. Sometimes commanders will use blob to denote a group of players within a zerg. Such as “Hit that blob to our right.”

X up: X’ing up refers to putting an x in map chat, team chat, say chat, etc, when you intend to do the task that has been called for. For example, if a commander says, “I need a scout for south hills, can I get someone to x up in map chat” the person who puts an x in map chat, is then going to go scout hills. It’s a way for commanders to keep track of who is doing what job, and to not cause the zerg to seperate.

Bloodlust: Bloodlust refers to the buff “bloodlust” this buff gives your entire team additional stats, and points for finishing people with a finisher. Bloodlust is obtained by taking and then holding for 2 minutes at least 3 points in the center of a borderlands. After that, you must prevent any other team from holding 3 points for 2 minutes, but do not need to hold onto 3 points yourself.

Towers/Keeps/Camps: Your commanders and allies may refer to towers, keeps and camps by their initials, or by a shortened version of the name. Try to stay familiar with what things are called. Some examples are “Anz” “RQ” “WC” “MG” “QL” all of these are towers on Eternal Battle Grounds, and knowing exactly which tower is being referred too will be crucial to keeping track of the flow of battle.

That’s it for the glossary. Now onto the actual part you all care about.

ACHIEVEMENT OBTAINING:
The achievements are listed in the order that I suggest you attempt to acquire them. Some of them you will obtain while doing the others, and I will try to note this whenever I can.

1. Emerald leaper in the mists
2. Garnet leaper in the mists
3. Sapphire leaper in the mists

Speed: Fastest
Difficulty: Easy
Credit to Team: 0 or even negative

These 3 achievements require you to finish the jump puzzles located on each borderlands. See: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mistwrought_Vault for more information on this.
The achievements can all be done very quickly, and relatively easily depending on how many enemy players you meet. However, there is no reason for you to be in that jump puzzle, and taking up a slot on a borderlands to be so far away from your team is the opposite of helpful. They are however still pretty quick, get in, get out, do the achievement, and make up for it by helping out

4. Obsidian leaper in the mists
Speed: Fast
Difficulty: Varies
Credit to team: 0 or negative

Obsidian leaper requires you to finish the jump puzzle in Eternal Battle Grounds. See: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Obsidian_Sanctum for more information.
This jump puzzle is longer, more likely to be filled with enemies, and slightly more difficult to finish. It’s still quite fast for a skilled player, but a first time through may be frustrating. Again, there is no objectives here for you, so you will not be helping your team.

5. Big spender
Speed: Varies (usually fast)
Difficulty: none (Potentially hard)
Credit to team: Not applicable

Big spender requires you to spend 250 badges of honor. This is literally the fastest achievement, completable in a single click. However, you need 250 badges to do it. If you don’t have 250 badges, well, it might take you a bit longer. If you do have 250 badges, from wvw, achievement chests, or some other source, simply buy anything you want from the badge vendors, until the achievement finishes.

6. Mist invasion defender
7. Advanced mist invasion defender
Speed: Varies
Difficulty: Easy
Credit to team: A lot
Suggested place to be: On top of a commander in a zerg

These achievements require you to kill 10, and 450 enemies in wvw. Depending on your server, and how good at WvW your server is, this can be trivial, completed in a single day, or painstaking, completed over the course of months. However, because of the nature of this achievement, you can and will be helping your team out whenever you try to obtain it. Stick with a commander, follow his instructions during fights, and youll have this before you know it.

8. The keep is the thing
Speed: fast
Difficulty: medium
Credit to team: Tons
Suggested location: Your home borderlands

Im sure this one being so far up the list surprises a few people. However, keeps flip a lot more than people might expect. Especially on the borderlands. Borderland maps are designed to cause a 2v1 situation against the home team. With both enemy teams pushing north to that garrison. On a heated night, the defending teams garrison might change hands 10+ times. As the achievement only requires 10 captures, this can be done very quickly, and on a home borderlands, with relative ease. Keep in mind, this only applies if your team is unable to fully hold your own garrison. If your team is exceptionally good, you may find it easier to be on a different map, capturing enemy garrisons.

9. Castles in the Air
Speed: Fast
Difficulty: medium
Credit to team: Tons
Suggested location: No prizes for guessing EBG

Again, like keep flipping, SMC changes hands quite a bit depending on matchup. Additionally, you only need 5 captures, making this one of the fastest achievements (well, assuming your EBG queues aren’t horrendous)

10. Guard slayer
Speed: Medium
Difficulty: trivial
Credit to Team: Slight
Suggested location: everywhere, but mostly with a commander in a zerg

Guard slayer requires you to kill 500 guards. This is quite a lot! However, given that guards are found practically everywhere, you will easily rack up a large portion of these, simply by fulfilling your other objectives. Its slower than the achievements before it, but the difficulty is practically non-existent, and you will most likely have it long before the season is over.

Just a note:
before we cover the last 9 achievements, understand that these achievements are in my mind the slowest of the bunch. Generally speaking, I would not advise going for any of these first. However, your experiences on your maps may be very different to mine, keep in mind how you obtain them, and whether or not it fits what you can and cannot do easily.

11. Seasonal mists defense restorer
Speed: medium/slow
Difficulty: trivial
Credit to team: Moderate/heavy
Suggested location: While scouting

Defense restorer requires you to use 500 supply on repairs. Repairs are done to gates and walls that have taken damage or are destroyed. The difficulty of these achievement comes from the idea that if a gate or wall is destroyed, the tower or keep may become the enemies before you have a chance to repair it. Depending on how your matchup is progressing, this may be one of the hardest achievements.

My best advice for this is to take a scout position when a commander calls for it. Keep supply on you at all times. If you are lucky, you may find an enemy zerg comes to the place you are scouting, giving you a repair chance. Additionally, if an enemy “taps” a gate, by having a small group (or single player) hit it once, you can repair that for credit as well. Consider putting points into repair mastery. The achievement counts how much supply you use, not how much damage you repair. For example, if a gate is hit once by an enemy thief, someone with no repair mastery will only be able to receive 2 towards the achievement, but someone with maxed repair mastery will be able to receive 10 towards the achievement, despite them repairing the same amount of gate hp.

12. Demolition expert
Speed: medium
Difficulty: medium
Credit to team: high
Suggested location: With a commander in a zerg Or scouting in EBG

Im afraid this is the one achievement I dont know a lot about. You must break 30 gates or walls to obtain it. However I do not know whether or not you must be using siege, or whether you may simply hit a gate a few times with a melee weapon to receive credit. If you must use siege, this achievement becomes much much harder. If you may simply smack a gate to get credit towards its destruction, this achievement becomes trivial, completed by the time you have captured 10 keeps and 5 SMC’s.

Again, consider taking a scout position, and ask a commander to give you a treb facing an enemy tower or keep that is within range. You can scout for your team, destroy walls or gates, and help secure objectives for your team all in one. My suggested spots for this would be WC, QL and Red Garri on EBG, all of these places require scouts, and can hit walls/gates of SMC with trebs.

13. Master of Ruins
Speed: Medium
Difficulty: varies
Credit to team: Moderate
Suggested location: An enemy borderlands

The master of ruins achievement requires you to capture 50 ruins (found in the center of the borderlands maps) This in of itself is quite easy. The difficulty will be from the enemies who are looking to do the same. Generally speaking, this will be done quite quickly and easily. But I would not suggest you specifically seek it out, which is why it is #13 on our list. Simply follow a commander, and go cap the ruins if the commanders asks the zerg to do so. Youll have the achievement easily enough without making a conscious effort. Simply roaming the ruins to constantly flip them without a consistent effort to take them (or without a reason to take them) has a negative impact on your team.

14. World Ranker
Speed: Slow
Difficulty: medium
Credit to team: Not Applicable

World ranker requires you to gain 50 WvW ranks. Ranks are gained from wxp, which is gained from doing a large variety of tasks inside WvW. The difficulty of this achievement comes from the length of time required, rather than the innate difficulty of getting wxp. This task will be mostly done by the time you complete the others. However some specific advice would be:
1. Use birthday or other wvw boosters when you know that they will be effective (as you storm a keep or SMC for example)
2. WvW ranks do not start at 5000wxp required. If you have multiple characters, you can quickly gain more ranks than normal by getting them all up to this 5k required amount (note: please do not use non level 80 characters if you can avoid it. Upscaled characters are quite weak, and you simply help the enemy when you use them)
3. Keep in mind you may buy 1 WvW rank for 2 laurels at laurel vendors. If you have lots of laurels but no ranks, this is an option

(sorry that the 15th one has to be at the start of the next post rather than on this one. 5000 word limits!)

15. No tower too high
Speed: slow
Difficulty: hard
Credit to team: Moderate
Suggested location: Eternal Battle Grounds, with a commander

This achievement requires you to take 30 enemy towers. I list this achievement last on the list of 15 because to me, this is one of the slowest achievements. Towers on borderlands are often very heavily defended. They are close to enemy spawns, close to enemy supply camps, and very hard to take in a lot of cases. You also must take 30 of them, which is not a small number. I personally have seen more keeps flip than towers so far in my league. However, this is for the borderland maps. I have yet to try EBG (those queue times get me down) but EBG has 1. more towers and 2. towers further from enemy spawns, which would lend them to being flipped more often. You will still probably get this achievement over the course of a season, but dont be surprised if it takes you longer than you might expect.

The final achievements are in my opinion the longest and thus worst achievements to be going for. This does not mean you cannot strive for them, or should avoid doing these tasks, however, you are probably better off aiming for the other achievements first.

16. Camp crusher
Speed: Very slow
Difficulty: low
Credit to team: Moderate
Suggested location: Your home borderlands

You must capture 100 camps. Camps are defended by NPC’s, which can easily be solo’d. Enemy players will be your biggest threat. This achievement is not difficult, but it is long. You may find it easier to join up with a roam or havoc group, rather than follow the main zerg if you wish to complete this. While you will also probably get this over the course of a season, you probably should never specifically try for this in a way that would hurt your team (for example, if a commander has asked everyone to come to a garrison to help defend, dont go flip a camp on the farside of the map, your commander needs you!)

17. Sentry capper extraordinaire
Speed: very slow
Difficulty: easy
Credit to team: very little
Suggested location: your home borderlands

Capture 225 sentries. This achievement is going to be a long one. Sentries are few and far between. They’re not difficult to take as long as no enemy players come to bother you, but their location makes this achievement hard to specifically strive for, and the sheer amount required is daunting. If you must get this, go to your home borderlands, there are 4 sentries near your main garrison (1 on either side near the towers, and 1 on either side on the paths to the camps) they’re nearby, and constantly changing hands when enemy zergs go along these paths.

18. Supplies severed
Speed: very slow
Difficulty: medium/hard
Credit to team: moderate/high
Suggested location: A borderlands

This achievement requires you killing 225 dolyaks. Dolyaks leave supply camps and travel to towers and keeps to bring them supply. Because this supply is needed for upgrades, the yaks are considered incredibly vital for the success of a server. This means yaks can be either completely undefended, or under heavy escort. Try to find yaks in camps that are not moving (and thus wont really be defended) or yaks going to towers/keeps that are already fully ugpraded (and thus probably wont be defended)
The 225 requirement is rather steep, expect this to take a a long time. However, killing high priority yaks (those bringing supply to keeps that are upgrading or under siege) is immensely helpful to your team.

19. Mist merc camp vanquisher
Speed: very slow
Difficulty: low
Credit to team: low

The mist merc camp vanquisher requires you to take 50 mercenary camps on EBG. Given that there are 3 of these camps, and you must lose one to be able to retake it this can be quite a slow process. Additionally, enemy players or zergs may frequently try to stop you. Your best bet is to stick with a commander on EBG, and hope that the commander passes through these area’s such that you may tag them. Or create a roaming group dedicated to keeping the ones near your side under your control.
I would not suggest ever specifically seeking out this achievement. There are 18 other achievements that are all much easier and in my opinion either faster, or more helpful to your team than this one.

FINAL NOTES:
If you find any errors in the guide, please do not hesitate to let me know. If you would like to make suggestions about the achievements and their acquisition of, or even just share your own experiences, please feel free. This guide is based on my experiences in T1 gold league, mostly on the borderlands maps. I know other servers, other tiers, and other maps can all be vastly different, and it is nice to have an idea of how hard/easy things are elsewhere

Finally, for the PvE players, and all the other newer WvW players. If you are ever in any concern on what to do, ask your map chat! There are plenty of WvW players out there ready and willing to help new people. If your server has a teamspeak, vent, raidcall, or some other program that they use, find out what it is and hop on it! the WvW environment may seem daunting at first, but it’s probably one of most fun in the game.

So get out there, help your server, get your achievements, and most importantly, have fun doing it!

Demolition expert requires you to be on siege and for that siege to have damaged the gate/wall when it breaks.

Great post! I made a more rudimentary list myself. Hoping people realize it’ll be faster and so much more fun if we started working together to get these done in WvW. These achievements are proving to be the one time where fighting each other isn’t going to be the best course of action

Andrew.4506:

Demolition expert requires you to be on siege and for that siege to have damaged the gate/wall when it breaks.

Aha, I suspected as much when I saw I only had 8 rather than the 25+ I was expecting.
In which case I suppose it is one of the harder achievements to get unless you hog siege with that tier 5 mastery like I do.

Thanks for the confirmation.

Nice guide. The demolition one looks like it might be difficult to take, even for some dedicated WvWers as it depends on what roll you play in your guild. 250 yaks might take a while also. Although for a dedicated havoc player, 1k yaks in a week is achievable (Ill probably be finished this one in the next 24hours because my commander asked me to roam and farm yaks). I also completed the 450 kills on reset which I did by going to EB as the map cap is higher in there so you generally get more kills.

Of all of these I think its a little funny, but I actually look at the jumping puzzles as the hardest ones to complete I mean, everything else I will complete by just playing the game, but the JPs I don’t do at all.

sostronk.8167:

Nice guide. The demolition one looks like it might be difficult to take, even for some dedicated WvWers as it depends on what roll you play in your guild. 250 yaks might take a while also. Although for a dedicated havoc player, 1k yaks in a week is achievable (Ill probably be finished this one in the next 24hours because my commander asked me to roam and farm yaks). I also completed the 450 kills on reset which I did by going to EB as the map cap is higher in there so you generally get more kills.

Of all of these I think its a little funny, but I actually look at the jumping puzzles as the hardest ones to complete I mean, everything else I will complete by just playing the game, but the JPs I don’t do at all.

Yes, demo probably has the largest variance in terms of doability. If you dont have ram mastery, or dont ever get to hold the treb it might as well be impossible. Meanwhile players like myself who always grab them rams will have it done before weeks end. I think Anet might want to consider changing it so that 1. it counts just hitting gates with melee weapons and then 2. upping the number required. Just so it isnt so exclusionary.

Zenyatoo.4059:

Andrew.4506:

Demolition expert requires you to be on siege and for that siege to have damaged the gate/wall when it breaks.

Aha, I suspected as much when I saw I only had 8 rather than the 25+ I was expecting.
In which case I suppose it is one of the harder achievements to get unless you hog siege with that tier 5 mastery like I do.

Thanks for the confirmation.

This does not match what I have experienced. I have demolished several gates and gotten credit in this category, and this is without using siege (not once in this match have I used a ram or other siege on a structure that I was capping) , but rather just dpsing the gate with regular weapon skills.

Winespring Brother.2970:

Zenyatoo.4059:

Andrew.4506:

Demolition expert requires you to be on siege and for that siege to have damaged the gate/wall when it breaks.

Aha, I suspected as much when I saw I only had 8 rather than the 25+ I was expecting.
In which case I suppose it is one of the harder achievements to get unless you hog siege with that tier 5 mastery like I do.

Thanks for the confirmation.

This does not match what I have experienced. I have demolished several gates and gotten credit in this category, and this is without using siege (not once in this match have I used a ram or other siege on a structure that I was capping) , but rather just dpsing the gate with regular weapon skills.

I have to say same experience here. Now, as an engineer I tend to use bombs at the gate as it heals my allies and dps’ the gate as well. I have not used seige (don’t have the upped traits to it at this time so don’t waste the slot there) and still I have gotten 2 gates done.

I can’t say for certain if the bomb kit works though – as it’s possible when I got knocked down I hit with my rifle before actually getting switched back to bombs, so don’t know when exactly I got those two to tick.

It is either that ANet made an adjustment in the requirement allowing the dps after several forum posts were made, or that you need to use special skill sets (of which I have no idea how to begin testing this).