Guild Wars 2

Famine.7915:

Hybrid for pve, and condi or power seem to both work in the other two modes.

What does a hybrid PvE build look like?

Not yet. I really want to use it for a necromancer, but I’m having a hard time picking a race/sex I know I’ll enjoy the voice acting and animations for.

I got my first character to 80, a female charr. The HoT story has been a little…jarring, because it seems like her voice has changed quite a bit. It’s lower and sounds like someone putting on a voice, when before it seemed much more natural.

Did this happen with all the other VOs? Are there some that are just as good (or better) as they originally were, are there others that also seem to have gotten worse? I know it’s not a huge deal since you still have the original voice for most things, but if I make another character to get to 80 with it’d be nice to know what to expect. I tend to take a lot of time making a character and checking out their skill animations and the VO lines for when they get protection/might/etc. to make sure I like how it all fits together, so this was a sad surprise and something I can’t really test myself.

Ah ok, thanks. So getting to 3 illusions isn’t as important as it used to be when the shatters were more important for damage. I’ll have to drop that habit.

And quickness lets you spam sword-2 and just generally attack faster enough to make up for losses in other areas? I guess while leveling I got used to the whole “GS 2-3-4-2 shatter switch sword 3-mirror images-shatter-sword2” and then kind of wing it from there. Clones on dodging and mirror images let me focus on a shatter-heavy build, I think, while now it’s probably more phantasm-heavy?

How do you tend to engage?

Huh, interesting, I’ll have to play around with it. Switching to dom/insp/chrono from dom/illu/duel feels like a downgrade for the moment, but obviously I need to learn how to play it better.

As a fresh 80 mesmer myself, this is very helpful! Does this advice work in open world PvE as well? Or does it just kind of do well enough, and it’s not worth the hassle of changing builds between open world and other content?

I’m not giving up on my mesmer at all. I really love the gameplay, and I like playing support in groups so once I work out the kinks and complete chrono I’m sure I’ll love it! Thanks for the encouragement though, it’s good to know it gets better.

I do think I want to give necromancer a good shot. Being an unkillable agent of death does sound like a ton of fun. I just need to figure out a good race for it now!

Odokuro.5049:

So what I am getting out of your post is you are looking for something that you don’t have to worry about proper skill rotation, is tanky, but, “Fun” too.

Do you want to be Tanky and deal condition damage or is power more your thing?

Both Necro and Warrior can build pretty tanky, and are forgiving as far as not caring to press your buttons in a proper rotation.

I don’t really care about condition versus power for the most part. I think I’m looking for something that’s more forgiving in open world PvE than my mesmer was when leveling up, and continues to be at 80 (chrono isn’t unlocked yet). So yeah, something where I can relax just a bit more and have a buffer before I die, but not something where I literally just sit and auto-attack either.

Warrior is definitely tempting. Necro is as well. I’ve heard I can look at revenant, ranger, and guardian as well but if I start looking at 5 classes that’s practically all of them besides the obvious glass cannons (thief, elementalist) so I’ll have to winnow them down at some point.

From what I had read, obviously inaccurately, it seemed that XP would work towards giving you a point AND/OR you could use mastery points you’d earned through achievements to level up your masteries. So I thought once I did Torn from the Sky, all masteries would be open to me and I could then spend my points where I wanted and work on getting more – like how you open up a specialization and then can spend your hero points. You don’t have to “unlock” each specialization by leveling it with XP before putting points into it, you just need to unlock the slots at 21, 45, 71. So it was surprising that it doesn’t work that way for masteries.

Ok, I understand. Each Mastery “track” has to be leveled up to unlock it, and only then can you use your Mastery points on it? Everything I read previously said that once you finish Torn from the Sky then masteries are open to you, so I didn’t realize each track has to be leveled up itself independently of earning mastery points, that’s surprising.

But don’t you earn mastery points that let you level up the mastery? If not, what is the point of having mastery points at all? Right now I have 1 HoT mastery point that I used on Gliding – great, awesome! I know I need to build more. But I have 9 Tyria mastery points that I can’t seem to use at all. Do I need to unlock something else to be able to use those?

I just hit 80. I stopped the 80 quest to swap to the HoT quest so I could unlock gliding and, therefore, masteries (so when I go back I can use the XP I get for them).

I did Rally to Maguuma and Torn from the Sky, and I unlocked gliding and, I thought, masteries in general. But while I have 9 Central Tyria mastery points, I can’t seem to use any of them. What am I not understanding? Do I have to earn the first part of each mastery through XP before I can use points to then improve them further? Do I need to complete more of the HoT storyline just to work on Tyria masteries or something?

Thanks for any advice about this.

I’m happy that there are no swimsuits. You can always go play BDO or Tera if you want to revel in the T&A.

If you get to Lion’s Arch through the Pvp/Mists portal, the merchant is just to the right of you.

I just finished leveling a mesmer the hard way and I had a lot of fun doing it. I haven’t leveled anything else to 80, though, so maybe I don’t know how difficult it was compared to other professions – but it wasn’t hard at all. You have clones and phantasms to take aggro from you, you have sword-2 to evade big attacks, you have greatsword-5 to interrupt big attacks…I didn’t try to, like, solo champs or anything but is Mesmer really that much worse? What professions are flying through the levels that much easier?

The only reason to buy HoT immediately is if you really want to play a Revenant. Otherwise I would wait until you got a character closer to 80, since you won’t be able to get into the HoT stuff until then anyway. Might as well see if the game sticks and keeps your attention long enough to be worth the $20 first.

My main since coming back has been a Mesmer, and I’ve loved it. About to hit 80 and I won’t be stopping, but I haven’t explored chronomancer just yet with her.

Leveling has been fun, but mesmers aren’t exactly super tanky – we get distortion and lots of fun tricks but we can’t actually take a bunch of hits. So I thought for a second character that I’d ask people which class they’ve had fun with that is also a bit resilient/tanky/can take the hits, and isn’t ~quite~ as involved as Mesmer while still being engaging.

I think I’m looking at warrior, revenant, and necromancer. Does that sound right? All three can take some damage, can do open world PvE easily? Can anyone compare them in terms of fun, or is one more boring than the other, or so on?

Am I stupidly leaving out Guardian or any other class? From what I read guardian has a lot of blocks and blinds and tricks, like the mesmer, but the small health pool means you can get taken down easily if you aren’t on your toes. For warrior, I worry it may be a little boring, and for revenant I hear all sorts of stuff about them but I don’t care about end-game raids, though I do care if they are still “buggy” which I’ve seen tossed around a bit.

I guess I’m looking for something where you don’t have to be quite as “on your toes” as with Mesmer, basically, while still being lots of fun!

I understand this is all subjective of course, I just want your opinion.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

How many gems do you think the “rebirth” option would cost? It’s not going to be much under 800 gems because: (a) it would cost ANet resources to develop the ability to do this and (b) there aren’t any similar services available for any less. (The makeover kit is cosmetics only; it doesn’t require returning a character to ‘start’.)

Accordingly, one might as well create a new character: you get the benefits of the birthday, you can park the mid-tier toon at a JP for some modest amount of mats, and you can store overstock of mats etc, & you get a new toon. All for about the same as what this feature would likely cost.

That’s a good point. I guess 400 would probably be what it’d have to cost to be worth not just making a new character. Not sure if that works compared to the makeover kits, but remember that it’d start you over at level 1, so it’s not quite as attractive to most people as a total makeover.

Mules are a good idea I hadn’t really thought about before, and parking them in spots for daily nodes/vistas/whatever makes sense as well. Then I suppose I could take them out of retirement if I ever got the gumption up.

I have already bought an extra slot or two, but I have 3 characters that are just kind of sitting there. At $10 a pop, they’re not “not that expensive”, they add up pretty kitten quickly. I can wait for a sale, but the useful upgrades like character slots and bank tabs seem to go on sale very rarely. Plus it means I have characters at my log-in page that just kind of sit there unused, which is a shame.

(edit) I mean I guess I can just save up gold to transfer to gems to buy slots piecemeal as I earn it, to avoid paying real cash for each replacement, but that’s also a bit of a bummer. The “can’t change races” thing makes sense though – your personal story and all that would be a pain to fix. That’s why I thought it may work better as a total reset – keep your birthday, but go right back to level 1 and character creation, lose your equipment, your personal story, all of that.

I started playing a couple years ago, enjoyed the game, then life took me away. Now I’m back playing and enjoying myself again and I have this problem where I have a few characters that are kind of mid-leveled, 20s-50s. I don’t want to delete them since birthday presents seem like a big deal, but I’m not really attached to them either.

I could buy makeover kits, but that doesn’t change race. So I was wondering if a “rebirth” option might not be a good idea? I know ArenaNet needs to sell gems, so it could be a gem-store item if necessary to keep demand for character slots and makeover kits and the like.

It could be a race change, or a race change and a level reset to 1, or both of those plus a name change – I don’t really know. I just know that I’d appreciate being able to fully re-tool my old characters into something I want to play without losing their birth dates and the birthday presents that go along with them. I hate the idea of deleting a two year old character.

Is this a dumb idea? Are race changes impossible, is this too similar to full makeover kits? Or would this be something that might be worth asking Anet to put in?

“Updated” is one thing, fixing glaring bugs that everyone knows about is another. That’s not updating, it’s fixing what’s already there. I guess people just don’t do P2 unless they absolutely have to?

Oh hi everyone! This bug still exists. Tried getting her killed, tried getting us all killed, tried leaving the dungeon and coming back. Nothing worked.

I would agree. Pick another profession and level it up. You don’t have to take it all the way to 80 – by the time you hit 20 or 30 you’ll probably remember a lot and get “back in the groove” and can segue to your warrior again.

So if I wanted to insta-80 myself (and get that shared inventory slot as well I guess) to unlock Gliding, it’d be worth it to throw the $30 in. I wish the extra character slot came with the basic HoT, it’d make it a much easier decision. So I guess I’ll just wait for the last episode or getting to 80, whichever comes first, and see where things are then. Good to know they won’t be lowering the price anymore, I thought they’d lower it to $15 or something once the new expansion was out to try to get more people to pay beforehand.

So the plan is for pre-purchasing the new expansion to unlock all HoT content? Interesting.

I won’t buy from…“disreputable” vendors, I got burned before on that.

I’ve got a similar question, not worth its own thread. I bought the base game a few years ago, so I’m not F2P. No characters to 80 yet – highest is in the 50s, just came back, slowly exploring and getting up to 80. Should I just take my time and enjoy the game and wait to buy HoT, see if it drops below $30 on the way to the new expansion? It seems obvious that once you’re at 80 HoT is worth it, but is it worth it beforehand?

bearshaman.3421:

BrunoPuntzJones.5348:

Everlost.8741:

BrunoPuntzJones.5348:

I’m really picky in strange ways as well. I love Charr, and love the necro as a profession, but Charr necro just hasn’t jived for me. Maybe I need to try again? Or maybe there’s another race that fits better.

I love my female Norn elementalist, and I love my Charr mesmer and warrior. Still trying to find something that seems to fit well with Sylvari, but nothing has so far.

Have you tried a Sylvari necro?

I have not! Would you recommend that? Why or why not? I like male Sylvari but their voices are a bit…so so for me. I tried a female Sylvari mesmer and hated it, but loved a Charr mesmer. Maybe if I couldn’t enjoy a Charr necro, that means a Sylvari necro might work?

I have a norn male necro and a human female necro. They both work great for me, the norn is the reaper and the human is my condi minion backwoods priestess of Grenth. Think witch but not the stereotypical ugly wart covered ones lol

Oddly, I tried a norn and an asura mesmer, and the one that finally did it for me was a charr. Was not expecting that. Gotta be willing to experiment. (love charr btw, just didn’t think a light armor class would work. Using the tier 2 cultural armor. Loving it.)

My ele is sylvari, which works well, considering a second ele as an asura. not sure yet. I don’t have an asura, I want one, but I keep hitting a mental wall with the ones I’ve tried. The mesmer lasted a while but I got tired of it, started a thief, but that was a little too bouncy lol.

Do the voices and animations mesh between norn and necro for you?

Everlost.8741:

BrunoPuntzJones.5348:

I’m really picky in strange ways as well. I love Charr, and love the necro as a profession, but Charr necro just hasn’t jived for me. Maybe I need to try again? Or maybe there’s another race that fits better.

I love my female Norn elementalist, and I love my Charr mesmer and warrior. Still trying to find something that seems to fit well with Sylvari, but nothing has so far.

Have you tried a Sylvari necro?

I have not! Would you recommend that? Why or why not? I like male Sylvari but their voices are a bit…so so for me. I tried a female Sylvari mesmer and hated it, but loved a Charr mesmer. Maybe if I couldn’t enjoy a Charr necro, that means a Sylvari necro might work?

I’m really picky in strange ways as well. I love Charr, and love the necro as a profession, but Charr necro just hasn’t jived for me. Maybe I need to try again? Or maybe there’s another race that fits better.

I love my female Norn elementalist, and I love my Charr mesmer and warrior. Still trying to find something that seems to fit well with Sylvari, but nothing has so far.

I’d love another character slot to fund my horrible alt-itis (some day one of them will actually reach 80, I swear) but I don’t think those are giftable. Instead I’d love some dyes! I don’t need the expensive ones everyone goes crazy for. I’m just trying to expand my color palette a bit as a novice player. Unidentified would be great, or maybe someone just identified a bunch and ended up with lots of colors they already have?

(edit) A lovely player named Mort sent me 10 unidentified dyes! I got a lot of blues and greens (color-wise) and 3-4 greens (rarity-wise) so I’m very happy. Thanks again!

Some of us won’t get to 80 soon, not for a lack of trying, we just don’t have the time to put in for it. Getting to 80 in a week seems crazy to me, you’d have to not try to enjoy the atmosphere at all, not really explore, play what 3-4 hours every night? That is a kitten-ton. That is- all- my free time.

Most of you are fine with it because it doesn’t affect you, that’s great. Stop trying to invalidate those of us who are being inconvenienced with this change. We’re right that it hurts us. I’m right that I’m going to have entire branches of unused skills/traits sitting on my characters for the next few months because ArenaNet decided against letting me choose.

It wasn’t a horrible decision overall but it does suck for some of us, so please stop telling us it doesn’t.

The comparison is hyperbole of course, but I just meant saying “eventually it won’t be a problem” isn’t a proper solution to the fact that it is a bit of a problem now. It is a first-world-MMORPG problem for sure, but still a bit of a bummer to me. I am just a minority since most people who are casual aren’t going to care, and most people who care aren’t casual.

I mean, eventually works for anything. If ascended recipes or whatever you level 80s want dropped 1000x less, you would still “eventually” get them so why would you be upset if they changed the drop rates?

I will eventually hit 80 but it won’t happen soon. I will eventually get enough points but the way the trees work, more points are required to unlock an entire tree than to have a few in each, but I am limited to 1 tree until 45, 2 until whatever, etc. And I have one largely useless tree completely unlocked for me, sitting there soaking up all the points I had made.

I will definitely unlock things before 80, but the point is this change actively increased the amount of time I have to put in to get to that point, by taking away my choice in the matter.

I am not actively avoiding leveling, and I am not 80, so I don’t know what to tell you. And I can tell you from my own experience that no, I do not get enough hero points after a couple levels to unlock what I want, because I currently cannot unlock what I want even after a couple levels.

I get it, they made a choice, but don’t act like it doesn’t affect people. I am in the minority and I get that, but it sucks (just a little bit) for those of us who are there. Stating that players would have been too confused if they were offered their points back seems a bit silly to me.

This isn’t like a huge deal or anything, but everyone saying “oh you unlock it anyway by 80 it is no big deal” is wrong.

1)I am not getting to 80 anytime soon. GW2 is supposed to be casual friendly, I thought, and I enjoy the game. I am new. I have 3-4 alts, from 15-45 that I alternate through to enjoy different professions and see different parts of the game. I play casually, an hour here and there on some weeknights, maybe a good few hours on one weekend day. 80 is far away for me, and even further away if I play “my way.” If I wanted to only focus on one character it would come sooner but that’s not as enjoyable, and would still take a while for me.

2) ANet changed the way skill points, traits, and all of that worked. They were already putting work in to changing it and took time to change over your “points” into what they thought you would have picked. They chose poorly. If they were changing everything and resetting everyone’s points, seems pretty easy to throw a one-time reset option in there as well since it isn’t like the system was already locked-in for all our characters – they rewrote the system!

Is it a huge problem, am I frothing at the mouth? No. Can I not advance because the spec I want isn’t possible and I can’t kill anything? Nope! But does it hurt my enjoyment of the game because the points I earned got shunted into choices I wouldn’t have made, and I am stuck with those for quite a long time due to my casual playstyle. Now I’ve got a Necro with a fully unlocked Death trait that never bought a minion skill and no interest in buying them still. And so on. I’m playing a little kitten. It’s not a huge problem but it does kind of suck.

Yeah, my highest is 45. For a lot of you, re-rolling a low level like that wouldn’t be a big deal – tomes and/or some dedicated leveling time means you would be 45 again, or 80, or whatever, in no time flat. But those of us who play more casually are the ones being hurt by this and we’re the ones who can’t fix it. I also would love to keep seeing the rest of the world instead of re-treading the beginner zones, so re-rolling doesn’t really seem like fun to me!

Once again leveling 3-4 characters at once bites me in the kitten

The point is that they changed how the whole system works, then tried to wrench us in based on what we had chosen in the earlier system. But that isn’t the same system and the traits/skills aren’t the same ones we would pick in the new one, most likely. Plus now if you had one higher level skill that is in a long chain, they unlocked everything to get to that skill including all the skills you previously didn’t want.

It isn’t a huge deal, but it is definitely a negative instead of a positive. Giving us a pre-used build plus giving us the option to re-spec just once doesn’t seem like that tough of a thing to do.

I was pretty disappointed to see where I was pigeonholed too. Necro with no minion skills gets Death, etc. It will be fine in a while, but as a new player with a few alts who’s leveling slowly it does hurt that I can’t use the points the way I decide I want to use them to unlock the playstyle that I enjoy. Saying it would take that much more effort to allow both seems completely false, too – one NPC that resets Hero Points is too much work? They could just have them around for a month, or until HoT drops, or whatever, something to let us actually choose what to do with our points. The idea that the system is too complicated for casual/returning players to choose their own, but yet we’re basically stuck with a spec that we don’t understand or want anyway, makes no sense.

I’m not getting to 80 anytime soon with any character, so it’s going to be a long time until I get to play with the traits I want to play with. It’s not a huge deal, but it is kind of a buzzkill.