Guild Wars 2

It depends on the guild. I’m a casual player, and would leave a guild that mandated a set schedule like that within 10 seconds of the joining them. If the one you’re in doesn’t work for you, look around and you’ll find one. There are plenty of guilds that schedule events, dungeons, etc.

haviz.1340:

Where does it say it’s a beginner dungeon? It gives lvl 80 exotics.

When you receive mail at level 30 indicating you can now participate in this dungeon, it’s a fair indicator that dungeon is beginning level. It was poorly designed, and should either have a hard mode or have never given level 80 exotics in the first place.

Savant.5276:

The simple reason they upped the difficulty of this dungeon – and inevitably will update the difficulty of all the others in a similar fashion – was to keep them from being farmed for such easy gold.

After all – they want people to buy their gold via gem exchange from the Trading Post. Too many people were getting too much gold far too easily to just make the exchange back to gems and get the goodies without paying the Piper.

What someone else said earlier in this thread is true: everyone who wants to make gold quick now had better hurry up and knock the stuffing out of CoF runs, because the axe will come down there (and with the other dungeons) just as it did with regard to AC.

Follow the money, folks.
Follow the money.

The problem with this is that they also made it nigh impossible to run as a beginning dungeon. The implementation of a “hard mode” and elimination of being able to farm the exploration mode for gold and tokens would have been so much smarter. Now it’s a level 60+ dungeon by most people’s reckoning. I’m 35 levels in and bored to tears with “dynamic events.” They’re better than quest chains, but not by much. So now, looking at content I was looking forward to completing and it looks suspiciously like I will not be able to do for at least 25 more levels, the only aspect of this game I enjoy is WvWvW. That sure as hell won’t be enough to keep me playing when newer, more interesting games come out, and judging by the number of complaints I’m seeing on the forums I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Mantra, refer your friend to Lazy Kai’s PVE leveling guide. It’s a good set up and the loot will start to roll in.

Horrorscope.7632:

It’s the biggest no-brainer in the mmo biz right now.

You would think so. I have no desire to play a “hard mode” option, personally. The dungeons and raids are fun a few times, then they’re just dull. This is why I like WvWvW. I want to run the dungeon a few times, obtain some gear appropriate to the level of the dungeon without it being the almighty best PvE gear obtainable, gain a few levels, and then go back to WvWvW. Others want the the insanely difficult, takes hours to play and beat, and grants the almighty best gear PvE gear in the game experience. Why you wouldn’t set up a hard mode option is a total mystery. Hell, even SWTOR, the penultimate expression of MMO failure, got this right.

Teleniel.1809:

Honestly … if you’re a brand new player and you want to push to do “end game” (scaled dungeon story/explorer) as soon as you can, I would expect you to make a point to not only learn how to use your skills, but also look online to figure out how to participate in the content. And I would also expect you to invest in having the proper equipment for the situation.

I’ve got nothing against people wanting to do things as soon as possible, I just don’t expect content should be “walk up and face roll it without needing to study, prepare or come properly equipped”.

Join a guild, level up, get some equipment, read about what you want to do before you just jump in.

I shouldn’t have to level up more than 35 levels to do the first dungeon, and I should be able to learn as I go on the designated “beginner” dungeon. Now those options are gone, and I’m seeing very little reason to even bother. All I ever do right now is WvWvW and the personal story, and this is because I have a limited amount of time to play. Why, when I’m supposed to learn the “how-to” on this dungeon and no longer can, should I waste that limited time on dungeons at all? Especially when other games that will hopefully not have such incredibly short-sighted and poor design decisions regarding their dungeon content are coming?

It seems to me that “hard mode” option would be a better fix for this. As someone who just hit level 30, I have been looking forward to finally getting a chance at the first dungeon in 5 levels. Now I’m reading it’s much, much more difficult to the point that people are questioning its viability for level 35 characters. I’m sorry, but there’s no other way to describe this decision but incredibly stupid. Creating a “hard mode” for level 80 farming makes much more sense.

Sivi.2437:

Im also lvling my mesmer, after playing warrior. Recently i found Lazy Kai`s Guide to PvE Leveling Guide and its working nice for me.

This x1000. I put a thread up requesting a build for a new mesmer because I was having problems with the class even though I loved it. Lazy Kai’s guide really ought to be stickied. The build and the strategy both work and they make a huge difference while leveling. I went from being frustrated at being dead weight in WvWvW to being able to contribute to the groups I was in.

This is genius. It’s been a huge help for me leveling as a new Mesmer. They ought to stick this thread for others to use.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

You may want to give my leveling guide a try (signature). It might been written for PvE, but it works perfectly fine in group Wv3. You will hit hard enough with nearly every attack to tag a mob or a player for the kill.

Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks

Esplen.3940:

What level are you? It sounds like you’re pre-40 and running into the generic pre-40 problems even though you already know that they occur pre-40. If you’re 80, you simply need to practice your class. Heart of the Mists is a great place to learn simple strategies. If you’re looking for a guild, look for threads with the words “Guide” or “Build” in them in this section instead of posting.

I am low level, and every guide or build is for level 80, which is why I posted (would have thought this was somewhat obvious). I see lots of random comments about not shining until 40, but does the class positively suck until 40? Nothing that I’m reading indicates that, hence the request for beginning guides/builds. There doesn’t seem to be any actual useful information about playing a mesmer through their beginning levels on the forums, just random comments about “not shining” until 40.

Are there any? I like my Mesmer but I feel like I’m worthless with him, especially in WvWvW. I don’t expect to be great, level bump or not, in the beginning but I almost never receive XP and I’m thinking I’ve got to be doing things incorrectly. I’ve seen on the forums that Mesmer doesn’t really begin to shine until 40, but right now it seems like it’s utterly insignificant in terms of what the class can accomplish.

Because dungeons and structured PvP are boring. Yes numbers matter, but that’s not all that matters by a long way (as others have pointed out). Once you get the hang of large scale PvP, nothing else in MMOs is anywhere near as much fun.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Hammerguard.9834:

I main a necromancer and I just finished leveling a mesmer to 80 a couple days ago. In my opinion, mesmers are garbage compared to necromancers and I feel it’s because of their weapons. I just can’t find a weapon on mesmers that I’m happy with. They’re all bad… They at least have room for improvement.

For people who have only played mesmers, it wouldn’t be so easy to see an issue.

Funny thing is i think the same about necromancer. Focus is clunky (most of time the chilling doesnt work, nor the other skill). condition damage is focused on bleeding, with is so easely removed. Traits are bugged. Dagger 4 works 50% of time. Apart from dagger auto attack, melee damage kinda sucks (thief beats it hands down, even GS warrior/guardian do imo damage wise). Healing skills to long cd. (they are strong, but cd is long.) Minions don’t respond (bad AI). Etc etc. Not saying necro sucks. But it’s quite buggy atm, and the weapon sets feel limited. I also hate the incredible limited about of escape skills necro has. Low amount of stunbreakers etc. Long cd on signets (should be shorter).

Tbh at some point i shared your feelings about mesmer. However now after so many hours i don’t share it anymore this opinion. Mesmer has more viable builds, and all weapons have good purposes. But you got dig deep to understand all purposes of mesmer. OP says temporal curtain sucks in pve. This is so single minded. It has loads of uses. Swiftness on allies, cripple on mobs, light combo field (retaliation on leap sword 3 skill, works twice even), and on top of all aoe interrupt. Hell if you trait it, i can even reflect projectiles. See where i’m going? On ‘lousy’ skill, but in the end one with tons of purposes. That is the nature of mesmer. Never look at a skill with a single mind.

This. A thousand times over, this. I’m still learning the ins and outs, and the one thing as a new mesmer player I’m learning is that there are always more ins and outs to learn.

Is there anything a lowbie player can do to help in WvWvW, or should we just level up and stay out of the way?

27 seconds isn’t permanent, and this sounds more like a team of thieves very carefully coordinating their abilities, which is a completely different animal. That is not the same thing as stealth in a lot of other games where it does not fade and is unlikely to break until the individual thief or assassin strikes.

importune.7120:

Broken.

Now, between not being able to farm, and the Zhaitan fight being boring, I see no reason to play.

Guild Wars 2 appealed to the masses for the ability to progress in the game doing whatever it is you would like. I really need to understand this, why are you now requiring that we do EVERYTHING, instead of doing the one thing we want? What is the reason behind preventing farming? It isn’t like CoF’s Magg runs netted you a ton of gold or gear, people farm Magg for the tokens. You get more gold doing the event in front of CoF (20+ bags each time) than you do inside CoF itself.

I haven’t run the dungeons yet but this seems like a valid question, especially in light of the number of players who are upset over the changes. The primary idea expressed in your “manifesto” was that things would be different from other MMOs, that progression is not a straight line path, and you can have fun and progress doing what you want to do. Now you’ve made a change that gets in the way of that. Why?

Ugh the lightning, acid, and ice arrow weapons from NWN and Baldur’s Gate looked better lol.

@Colin:
I’m new, mostly just cruising around the forums to do a little research before logging in, but I’ve got a question: if consumables make such a huge difference, why did you make cooking such an expensive profession? You get a warning about it being more costly and difficult to do the second you select it. If your dungeons borderline require it, making it the most difficult profession to learn (and easiest to profit off of by selling ingredients on the market for whatever it will bear) seems, well, less than bright tbh.

OP thief in this game is honestly not for you. You’re looking for a stealth and assassinate build, and GW 2 doesn’t offer one. The thief is more of a light skirmisher, and the brief stealth options seem to be meant to be gap closers only (I haven’t progressed very far, so I could be wrong about that, but this is how thief feels to me so far).

To Ryan D :

So far “a” has happened with every pet I’ve got. It’s essentially all of them. Some may be worse than others, but at best there’s a delay in ability use, assuming the ability triggers at all. Right now I don’t even bother with the F2 key, I just let the pet go its own way and match what I’m doing to what it chooses to do so I can get something out of having a pet.

I’m not sure about how much shipping would be, or how long it would take to get to you, but Amazon and GoHastings both have box copies available. Currently the game is selling so well that the devs are playing catch-up, which is why they aren’t selling digital downloads atm. You might have an easier time purchasing box copies right now.