Guild Wars 2

My endgame content is leveling alts….

But I imagine most normal folks do a combination of the following:

WvW or PvP – these menu buttons are across the top left of the screen. I won’t try to pretend to have any idea how to help you get started with PvP content.

Farm dynamic events and world bosses for gold/mats for Ascended/Legendary gear – Silverwastes or the new HoT zones are good places to find groups running these. Once you’ve been running for a while you’ll become familiar with the timing and locations for various events.

Fractals and Dungeons – Usually you’ll need exotic lvl 80 gear and a group of 5 people for the Fractals. Dungeons gear requirements are less strict. You’ll have to run each dungeon once in Story Mode to be able to do Explorable modes afterwards. Dungeon entrances are located all around Tyria and the Fractal portal is in Lion’s arch.

Raids – Never raided myself, but I hear that typically you will need to have acquired ascended gear but some groups may start with exotic level gear. You can get ascended by crafting or getting drops from world bosses and in Fractals. The raid entrance is in Verdant Brink and I think they’ve added a link in the Lion’s Arch Aerodrome.

World Completion – completing all zone hearts, vistas and points of interest in every zone. No prerequisites required.

Endgame goals folks typically chase are:
- to get better at their chosen game content (WvW, PvP, Fractals, Raids, JPs, etc)
- to acquire rare equipment and items like Legendary weapons
- to unlock the perfect wardrobe options to get the look the want for their character’s armor (aka Fashion Wars)
- to Role-Play and advance their character’s own background and story
- to make as much gold as possible (often via trade post speculation)
- a bunch of others I haven’t thought of because I only level alts.

Can you also have Arcane Wave equipped in a utility slot to get an extra blast down on the fire field before it dissipates?

PVT Tempest with Zerker jewelry.
PVT because that’s what armor I made back when I leveled up to 500 Tailoring. If I ever get around to making ascended, I’ll aim for Zerker.

They have daily Event completion achieves to help get people back out into lower level zones each day. It doesn’t fill every zone every day but it does provide content and a reason to play the older zones again. That’s mostly good enough.

All level-based MMOs have this characteristic of progression to higher zones, leaving the old ones behind for lower-level characters. Its normal and it’s not really a problem. The downranking system even allows players to go back and play that zone as if they were that level if they want to experience it again.

Your suggestion about needing to replace items would be restricted to consumables that already need replacing by definition – nourish/utility buffs etc that have a time limit.

Just picked up my Krytan and Profane armor sets at discount prices yesterday: 450 gems each. Good deal!
Monk and Lich outfits, as well as some others, were also available.

Gryffenne.8639:

When I first had someone shout about CC’s, I immediately started looking for something for Crowd Control. (It fit since there were littler mobs/adds running around in the fight) Not seeing anything on my bar that would lock down a mob, I brushed it off as a skill I did not have on that particular character. Why? Because Crowd Control is what CC stood for, for me, since 1999 when I first started playing MMORPGs. After the fight, I asked someone what profs had CC abilities and was told “everyone has at least one”. Hmm… that told me to go looking at the wiki for my characters. Even my husband was confused, because also coming from over a decade in other MMORPGs, he started looking for an ability that sleeps/locks down adds as well.

Does CC not stand for Crowd Control anymore, or has the term just expanded to include any type of condition that interrupts an enemy, not just sleep/roots/polymorphs them?

Also, for a lot of casual players in big boss events, so long as the boss is losing health, and they are winning, they are probably not aware of doing anything wrong by not CCing. “Was the event successful? Then I must’ve been doing it right.” That also furthrs the “I don’t care about CC” attitude b/c they didn’t need it last time. They end up getting carried by everyone else and don’t realize there’s more to learn. Only by repeated failure will they finally stop to figure out what’s going wrong.

cursE.1794:

Thought it’s time for a healer-like outfit

Now that is an epic screencap.

Tapioca.9062:

I enjoy running around in the starter zones but I don’t enjoy leveling in due the butchery that the NPE did to low level characters. Having to level up to use different attacks or unlock basic profession mechanics is just tedious and awful on every level.

Oh I’m with you there. It’s a pain having to wait so long for every little thing to be unlocked. They should’ve really sped up the rate at which you open class features, skills, abilities.

Werdx.2059:

So,point of this is?…

Point is to make a funny joke about the ease of leveling now days (lvl80 boosts, long-lasting XP buffs, etc).

I still love running around all the old starter zones.

If the desire for waypoints is to more easily go play with your friends, would a better gemstore option be to purchase the Teleport To Friend stones? That way you can grab any waypoints closeby where your friend is at when you teleport. I don’t know if they are currently available in the gem store but they seem like a reasonable addition if not.

I hope they rotate soon. I finally maxed out my ranger and wanted to buy the Viper’s or Krytan gear for transmutation, only to find that they had been removed from the store while I was leveling.

Ah yes, not quite as “short order” as I had mentioned.

Cheers!

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Dav.9152:

Sounds like that market will even itself out in short order.

People have been posting this idea for a while. The prices haven’t matched up …yet.

I’m guessing that it’s because most players, like me, don’t come to the forums very often so even though it’s been posted it hasn’t caught on with the greater player population.

Additionally I expect most players don’t want to bother themselves with flipping items on the TP even if it’s easy, low-risk gold. Even knowing now about the salvage trick, I still won’t bother buying dyes to salvage.

Vukorep.3081:

except druids in gw lore isnt the same as druids from wow..

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Druid

Nothing to do here with shapeshifting, unless you count shedding your mortal physical body to become one with nature permanently shapeshifting.

Yes, you’re right. GW druids are different from most other fantasy worlds. But I play druid in many settings, not just WoW (Pathfinder, DnD, etc), and most of them include shapeshifting as a druid feature, so personally, my GW druid also includes shapeshifting.

Sounds like that market will even itself out in short order.

I played a sylvari ranger back in beta and didn’t like it. I’ve never rolled a sylvari anything since then. I made a human ranger and used tomes to blast him to 80 before realizing that if I wanted to make him a Druid, Norns were the way to go because of shapeshifting lore/flavor (not necessarily the best elites to use). So I rerolled to Norn and leveled the slow way. So if you’re making a female character, I recommend Norn. If it’s a male character, Human.

I’ve got a lvl80 guard and warrior and find the warrior more boring. I do like the guardian since it uses a mix of melee and magic. I kept wanting to make a human rev b/c I don’t have a human heavy armor wearer yet, but just couldn’t find any face that I liked, so I kept deleting it. It looks like it has a good mix of melee and spell-like abilities too.

In regards to the forums complaints – yes, the forums are generally full of doom and gloom because people will voice their complaints more readily and loudly than they will post praise.

Wait, where’s my silver platter?

Nike.2631:

With the vast preponderance of it going to the casuals who only log on for 30-40 minutes a day.

Personally I think it’s going to give a lot of those casuals hope. It lets them chase some of the games fixed prices like 100 ice runestones in a length of time that’s tolerable to them and good for ANet’s log in numbers.

Yep, this describes me right here. I chip away a little bit each day and have a few ascended pieces, but legendaries are way out of reach. A little more coin will help continue that feeling of progress on equipping my characters without being so dismally slow.

Lets presume they make all the easiest dailies available every day so you don’t have to work hard to get your little treasure chest. To compensate, they drop the money bonus to 1 silver for your 5 minutes of investment. Is it still worth it to run around the map gathering stuff and clicking vistas just to get that satisfying clicky box and 1 silver? Is the idea of doing something just to get a reward at the end so strong that pains you to spend more than 5 minutes doing something more difficult to earn it?

I’ve hardly ever done dailies because they rarely matched what I wanted to be doing that day. I’ve never felt such compulsion to go out of my way doing mundane things like clicking vistas and gathering just to get some karma, an XP scroll and some money.

If you need any of those particular rewards, there are far more efficient ways of getting them than chasing dailies. I imagine that’s why you don’t like spending more than a few minutes compelled to do “what the game tells you to do” instead of playing however you wish. You seem to be supporting the idea that simply “playing however you wish” should automatically align and award a wide variety of daily achievements. This seems silly – the game already rewards you for playing with loot drops, xp, karma, etc. Pining for a tangible daily box on top of that is redundant.

I view the dailies as a carrot for players who would otherwise leave the game because “they have nothing to do” in game, or don’t feel like doing anything in game. With the dailies at least they have a reason to log in every day and putz around in the world for a few minutes. Enticing them to do some of the more involved dailies like world bosses, dynamic events, dungeons/fractals helps them interact with the game more and if they’re lucky might get more involved with the game, maybe from meeting other players, or finding there’s another achievement to go after.

I have very limited playtime and I like to spend what time in-game that I do have actually playing the game, instead of grinding/farming mats & gold. I typically do zone completion on alts because that is what I enjoy and it takes zero commitment to pick up and put down as needed.

Legendaries are nice long-term goals but I’ve found ascended to be a more achievable and practical goal. I’ve crafted Zojja’s Razor and am close to making a chest piece just from the mats I’ve picked up playing casually.

Whenever I manage to save up a chunk of gold (~100g) I usually blow it on bumping a crafting profession from 400-500. I’ve just got artificing and huntsman left to go. Maybe after that I’ll be able to save up for a precursor since I know one will never drop for me.

I didn’t want to pre-order HoT but I did because I’d get a free (for ‘veterans’) character slot out of it, which is valuable to me. I definitely believe purchasing an expansion should come with an extra character slot. If they give me a free incentive like that again, I will probably feel compelled to pre-order, otherwise I’ll just wait for regular release. With HoT, I fully expected to buy the expansion so missing out on the pre-order incentive would have been a missed opportunity for a free character slot.

This game has many facets that are broken down in very separate camps, like those who only WvW, only PvP, only PvE. Those who primarily run dungeons/fractals, those who primarily run open-world content. Solo players and group players. Raiders and non-Raiders. In each category there’s going to be something that you only get by doing that particular content, and usually it’s just achievements or exclusive skins.

In this case they’re now attaching “Legendary” to what would otherwise be a raiding-exclusive skin, but “Legendary” is something desirable by all categories of players. So everyone wants this available to his or her own category of playing.

The only way to quiet the non-raiding masses is to either remove the legendary status from the raiding skin so it’s just another skin (and likely upset your hardcore players), or to add a second set of Legendary armor that is available outside of raids so non-raiders can “have theirs too.” This lets the raiders keep their exclusive skin but non-raiders also get their fancy “Legendary” status.

For those without time to commit to group content or lengthy instances, expectations for obtaining legendary armor is equal to current options for obtaining legendary weapons – given enough time and gold it can be pieced together.

Finally finished leveling my ranger and got the armor I wanted.

KestrelGirl.9267:

Regarding the Viper and Krytan sets: Krytan JUST phased out of the gemstore this month so probably not coming back. Viper (along with Trickster and Phalanx) came back not too long ago, but I wouldn’t be surprised (and I’d be super happy!!) if it comes back at the end of the month.

So I missed Krytan by less than a month? Just my luck! Does there appear to be an average cycle time before items tend to come back again, like 3mos, 6mos, 12mos? I’d prefer not to have to wait a year to get the look I want

I finally maxed out my first medium armor wearer and went to the wardrobe to figure out what armor set would look awesome. Liked the Krytan Jerkin and the Viper’s Leggings. /Wiki told me they were gemstore items so I went to go buy and…. alas they are not there. So to complete my medium armor sets I’d like to see a return of:
1. Krytan medium armor skin
2. Viper’s medium armor skin

Lucky Strike.2674:

- Drastically reduce the amount of Waypoints available in each zone
- Greatly increase the price of using said Waypoints
- Add mounts, or some kind of alternate form of transportation that doesn’t ruin immersion
- Remove loading screens when changing zones (except when using a Waypoint)

-The fact that waypoints can become contested during dymanic events already drastically reduces the waypoints available in each zone, especially when you need them most (like when trying to get to those very events that have blocked them).
-The waypoint system is supposed to aid the player, not be a punishment. I strongly disagree with increasing costs here.
-I don’t know about you but if I’m running through a zone I’m usually getting hit by mobs here and there. If the mount allows you to just run through mobs, I think that goes against the design Anet wants. However if you still get hit/slowed/stunned while mounted, I see little point in using a mount in the first place.
-While removing the zone portals and accompanying loading screens would help immersion I don’t think that’s something they can implement at this point due to coding restraints. It’s a design decision that’s embedded in the structure of the game and you’d have to rework the entire world from the ground up to change it.

Players still have the option to run from point A to B and find all the events and content along the way if they want, but in an MMO a fast traveling system is mandatory so it doesn’t take forever for everyone to travel to meet up for group content. Immediate travel is a necessity to increase playability and smooth out player logistics. To facilitate player interaction, especially among pick-up-groups, fast travel has to be an option, not a barrier.

When they revealed that Ranger elite spec would be Druid I made a human ranger and tome-leveled him straight to 80 in anticipation. After getting started in HoT I realized that if I really wanted a druid, it needed to be Norn so I would have access to shapeshifting. So I deleted and started over again, this time as a Norn, but I had burned all my tomes so I had to do it the long way. Still took less than 2 weeks so not a big loss of time.

I don’t do fractals or raids so my pursuit of ascended gear is very casual. So far I’ve made Zojja’s Razor and then got another ascended dagger from Teqatl the following night. I’m saving up silk and making damask when I can in order to make an ascended chest eventually. It works for me as an achievable long term goal to keep me interested without being a brick wall that I have to pass in order to play the game how I want.

The best MMO for me is the one where my friends are at, and we get to defeat challenging end-game content together. The camaraderie and accomplishment were the most rewarding parts, not the loot or achivement points.

Unfortunately with a new baby and real life responsibilities, the best MMO for me only existed during the period of about 5-10 years ago, and that was World of WarCraft: TBC/WotLK.

These days I don’t have time to raid or get top-end gear. At the end of the day I just need a game where I can run around and fight some NPCs to make incremental progress towards some lofty unachievable goal. GW2 provides that for me. I’m more of an alt-oholic so doing hearts and storyline here and there are relaxing ways to spend my time. Long gone are the hardcore days of farming/grinding/reading up on strats/practicing rotations/memorizing priority lists. I still try to keep in touch with my old friends at least.

I also checked the game out. I haven’t leveled very far but the gameplay and story is not too gripping for me. If you ever wanted to “play” an anime, this game will let you do so. The characters all look very cartoony and the character creation system really lets you make some weird characters. I made one so tall my chest was off the top of my screen on the character select screen. As with other K-MMOs, the UI was very flashy and shiny, and hard to use. It also looked very cluttered even after moving stuff around. Aside from the UI and character models, the game world and music were very pretty. It was nice to just run around and explore a little. Combat looks like it can get quite fun once more skills and combos open up. It was fast and responsive, if repetitive at low-levels. Questing was mind-numbingly boring, and as previously mentioned, you have to compete with other players for quest targets/resources. Oh yea, and chat is just spammed with gold sellers so player interaction is stifled. Overall, its nice just to play something different, but not worth much time investment.

Congrats!
I also met my wife back in GW1 (Riverside Province) in 2006, though it’d be another 8 years before we finally got married. It’s always interesting answering the question “So how’d you two meet?” I relish the story every time I tell it. Now we’re looking forward to our daughter starting her first GW2 character in a few years.

Griffin.5379:

Hm, I always thought the Paladin, I mean Guardian would be better off with a heal/support focused elite specialization and the ranger would get a bow and traps focused one, but well, everybody his/her own logic.

You and your logic have NO place here! We can’t go handing out elite specs that MAKE SENSE!

I’ve got 9 pts and I’m mastery lvl3. What really kills it for me is when I complete a portion of the story line and then it tells me I have to go grind X mastery level to continue. I don’t really want to go grind out xp so I just log off instead till I feel like playing again. While some folks might view it as motivation to go get the XP to keep progressing the story, for me is a big dis-incentive.

I believe playing along the HOT storyline rewards you with the Bladed set of exotic gear that you can choose the stats for so you don’t even need to buy upgraded gear if you play though the PvE story. I"m only partway through so I don’t know if it gives you the whole set.

If you enjoy playing Ele, then by all means stick with it. You don’t have to play Tempest at 80 if you don’t enjoy it. If the naysayers are truthful and Tempest is no good, then you’re not missing anything by eschewing the elite spec.

BlackBeard.2873:

roelvanesch.2817:

You van cheaply switch ascended stats once you have it

Just beware that you will lose the rune if you do this. Therefore, don’t put your expensive runes (like strength) into your gear until you know what stats you want.

Also good to know. Thanks again.

1. Human Ele – 80 (main)
2. Norn Guard – 80
3. Human Ranger -80
4. Human Thief – 80
5. Asura Necro – 80
6. Norn Warrior – 40
7. Norn Mesmer – 30

Eventually I’ll get an engi (probably a norn) and rev (maybe a charr), but that’s far in the future. I tend to focus on my characters one at a time so once I feel like I’ve “completed” what I want on the Ele (zone exploration and story) then I’ll move on to one of the others and “complete” that one.

I don’t mind the bags because they save on inventory space. If they just put items into your inventory directly we’d be complaining instead about how increased bagspace is stuck behind a gemwall. And I’m still thankful for the “Deposit collectibles” button every day.
That being said, they can still condense the different types of bags (especially in HoT) into just 1 or 2. Having four stacks of 2-3 different types of bags doesn’t do much to help the space issue. I also dislike that we get rare- or exotic- colored bags that have greens and blues in them. What’s rare or exotic about that?

roelvanesch.2817:

You van cheaply switch ascended stats once you have it

Did not realize this. Excellent, thanks for the reply.

I’m getting close to crafting my first ascended piece. As far as insignias go does it look so far like HoT is going to have the same “zerker or kick” mentality in raids? Or is it still too early to tell for raid gearing? I might just hold mats till raids are released before deciding on which insignia to use.

When you join a guild, your account is joined to the guild, and whichever character you are currently logged into will show up in the guild list. But all your characters are not automatically representing to begin with. If you’re not repping, the guild list will show the otherplayers that you logged in but with a “Not Representing” indicator. All the guilds will show up on the guild list of all your characters, and you’ll be able to rep with any of them from any character. In this way it is possible to rep 8 different guilds with 8 different characters, but you’ll always show as “Not Representing” to the other guilds that your other characters rep with.

As for more stringent guild requirements: ANet specifically wanted to make guilds and social interaction easier, which is why they went with the multiple guild option. This method appeals to more players than the more “hardcore” concept of guilds as an achievement. Since many guilds were porting over from GW1 they wanted the players to be able to form right back up without hassle.

If you wanted to put money down on it, gift them one of the worst looking outfits from the gem store, then change all their characters to the new outfit. It won’t cost them any transmute stones to change back. Bonus points if they don’t recognize it as an outfit and wonder why their armor looks different from the wardrobe page. When they figure it out, they’ll have an ugly outfit unlocked to remember you by.

Dahkeus’ low-level armor/weapon + transmute swap idea could be amusing.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

To cheer you up here is some advice:

Due to halloween dropping large bones, and ancient bones like candy these items are now much cheaper than any other time in the year.

Spend 20% of your current gold to buy these items. Sell them in 4 months when their price doubles and you will have doubled your investment.

As long as you keep a portion of your gold in short term and long term investments you will always be making money just by playing the game, no grinding required.

Almost sounds too good to be true. Too easy! Suspicious! Instead I shall bury my gold in the ground where it shall be safe!

On a more serious note I should probably do that anyways just to see if it proves true. I don’t have much so losing even 20% isn’t a huge loss in the grand scheme of things. If successful I’ll be more likely to invest more in the future and probably be a little better off.

Telemin.7380:

Dav.9152:

I was going to answer the OP, but this has silenced me

You should not let it silence you. Remember this is a game and the way people measure fun is different to each individual.

Another thing to keep in mind, even if you use your liquid wealth as you get it, your overall Networth still goes up.

You’re right. While I don’t play enough to have much cash flow, I have managed to max all crafting professions except huntsman and artificer, which I’m pretty happy about. That being said, I’d probably spend my 1000 gold working on crafting ascended gear, since why else would I max my crafting skills.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

If your answer is anything other than “use it to make more money” then you now know why you are poor and other players are rich.

I was going to answer the OP, but this has silenced me

Healix.5819:

Too many people really shouldn’t be an issue, especially considering the cap is 500. If you don’t know everyone in your guild, you’re not a real guild, you’re a group of randoms.

My large guild is at cap and I don’t know the folks in it very well. But we chatter all the time about whatever, and there are organized guild events weekly in which everyone is encouraged to participate. We may only get 20-30 folks out of our 500 but it’s still run by the leadership and they take great pains to show new people the ropes and make sure no one is left behind. There are typically 60-70 folks online at normal playtime hours and they are always asking for folks to join them in dungeons/fractals/PvP/etc so I would say it is a real guild, just a very impersonal one. It’s active, inclusive, friendly and they do boot inactive (those that haven’t logged in for a while) characters that were not repping when they need to invite new folks in. If the new folks turn out to be inactive, they eventually get booted as well.

That’s certainly an opinion that you and probably many others have.

Personally I like the option of different guilds so that I can play with different groups of people. I have a small guild of close family and friends who aren’t very active and would get booted from other guilds. I also have a large guild that is very active and impersonal. The current system allows for me to play with my inactive friends when they do have time to log on as well as participate in the benefits of a large guild.
I’m also considering making my own guild just for my wife and I to have some extra storage space.

The harm, as you see it, is in players taking up a member slot without representing/contributing. I only see this as an issue if the guild is large enough to hit the max cap, which happens often enough. In those cases I can certainly see the argument for having repping requirements – the guild is large enough to be able to pick and choose the more loyal members. I see no problem with that. If your guild is short on member space and you can’t be bothered to rep with them, then you aren’t committed enough to that guild to stay in it. Same goes for alts in different guilds: if one guild is at capacity and your alt is collecting dust because you haven’t played it in a while, it should probably be booted.

But if not at capacity, I see nothing wrong with leaving an inactive character there to sit for long periods of time; it’s not hurting anything. The new chat system showing all guild chats should help bring about some activity from those characters that were previously disconnected from the guilds it was not actively repping.

Using the higher-end salvage kits has a greater chance of getting the rune off armor. I believe Black Lion kits have 100% upgrade recovery rates.

I can’t answer your question about what stats are best to get. I don’t have enough experience with the new changes yet. But healing, supporting and tanking would need different gearsets to be most effective.

You can always change the way your character is built; none of the decisions regarding skill or trait choice is permanent. In fact these choices will change as you level up anyways. The best advice I have is that dynamic events and personal story quests grant the most XP while doing PvE content. If you like PvP, I hear the XP gain from that is also generous so you can choose which way you’d like to progress. As you level you’ll open up more choices, skills, traits, etc. If you try out many different weapons and skills, you’ll have a fair idea of what you want by the time you’re 80.