Guild Wars 2

SaraGreen.2345

So why are they not listed under jumping puzzles in achievments?

This is likely because they don’t want to confuse players who do not have access to Heart of Thorns or associated Living World chapters.

SaraGreen.2345

And do you guys think devs will put jumping puzzles in pof with the zones being large?? I hope they have 2 or more in each zone.

I don’t see why a large zone would discount the inclusion of jumping puzzles. Jumping puzzles can serve as either hidden gems for players to explore, or “weenies” in the landscape to help players navigate the maps.

And I’m glad to find another kindred spirit who enjoys jumping puzzles in Guild Wars 2!

Larathia.5284:

I didn’t forget LS3, but you CAN go from the Zhaitan arc straight into HoT. I kind of figured that this would also be true of PoF; that if you’ve beaten HoT, you can go straight into PoF, whether or not you’ve unlocked all of LS3.

That’s not true. The Zhaitan story arc was followed by Living World Season 1 concerning Scarlet Briar, where some of the combat mechanics have been altered and are now part of the Fractals of the Mist. Following that, there were further development, both in story and mechanics in Living World Season 2, which would further lead to the main story of Heart of Thorns.

Rauderi.8706:

Ojimaru.8970:

I disagree. Soft CC, is as the nomination implies, soft. If the group needs to break a specific Defiance Bar, then players should be equipping hard CC, e.g. stuns, launches, etc. Furthermore, in encounters like Vinetooth Prime and Wyvern Matriarchs, the Defiance Bar window is far too short to rely on defiance-over-time effects, which again prompts the use of faster, harder CC.

. . Which is exactly the point I’m making. It doesn’t do anything to a Defiance bar, and the more players, the more worthless Soft CC becomes. Thus, soft CC needs scaling to keep up.

To spitball the number for Vinetooth/Matriarch, assume a 3-second window where soft CC can affect Defiance. A full stack of soft in a 5-man group does 1089 Defiance damage, out of 600. Not a single hard CC is necessary in that small group.

For the typical 25(ish) cluster, in that same 3-second window, that 1089 Defiance doesn’t even do 25% of the damage. That leaves every player responsible for 124 damage each. Pretty much everyone has to hard CC at that point, unless there’s a very prepared Mesmer, and even then, one Humiliation isn’t going to clear the buffer.

Even if Soft CC scaled with Defiance (30% per player above 5), Defiance scales at 900 per 5, where Soft CC scales at 544 per 5 players. A gap would exist that must be filled by Hard CC in larger groups.

However, I argue that the current soft CC damage to a scaling Defiance bar is fine. An encounter scaled towards 5 players should inherently be easier than one scaled for 25. When approaching these encounters, it should be up to the players to make the meaningful choice between more damage, survivability, or hard crowd control effects when deciding their skill and weapon loadout. This is also in consideration towards the accessibility of soft CC in most traits or weapon skills.

On the flip side, increasing soft CC damage in scaling situations would be detrimental for players during other encounters, such as the Mouth of Modremoth and the Chak Gerents. It would be much, much harder to control—no pun intended—the timing of Defiance Bar breaks should soft CC scale up.

Furthermore, 124 Defiance bar damage per player isn’t a lot to ask for. The Ranger’s ever favorite Point Blank Shot does 150, Warrior’s Bull’s Charge is 300, Dragon Hunters’ Hunter’s Verdict is 150, etc. It is therefore up to the players to have some manner of coordination for those fights, and more knowledgeable players to speak up to help newer players understand the encounter they are about to face.

Would like to make an important note that the numbers associated with Mirage (and other PoF Elite specializations) are not final and will have changed on launch day.

The golem in the Special Forces Training Area requires somebody with a Commander Tag to access, and requires the Heart of Thorns expansion.

Alternatively you can enter the Mistlock Observatory (Fractal of the Mist Lobby) and summon indestructible training golems. Slash-commands like /gg will also reset your cooldowns if you’re practicing rotations. Talk to the Fractal Instability Trainer on the South island to set up the golems, as well as reposition the player respawn point.

Gudy.3607

Also, reclaiming wraiths only works on living ones but not their corpses in my experience (in contrast to the Melandru heart and in spite of the description text for the Grenth heart).

In regards to Wraiths at the Grenth Reliquary, you can reclaim

• Live, hostile Unchained Wraiths
• Live, friendly Reclaimed Wraiths
• Corpses of Unchained Wraiths

However, the enemy corpses in the area despawn very quickly (approximately 5-6 seconds, compared to the 4-second cast of Reclaim).

maddoctor.2738:

Outside achievements, you need 21 Xunlai Electrum Ingots, and all of them require Lump of Mithrillium which can only be crafted once per day (or bought on the TP) so if you don’t want to wait 21 days to craft it be sure to be craft one Xunlai Electrum Ingot (or at least Lump of Mithrillium) per day while you are finishing the achievements so you are ready for part II.

You can buy Xunlai Electrum Ingots from the TP, in case you aren’t one for waiting for the timegates, or do not have a Jeweler with the required skill level.

I disagree. Soft CC, is as the nomination implies, soft. If the group needs to break a specific Defiance Bar, then players should be equipping hard CC, e.g. stuns, launches, etc. Furthermore, in encounters like Vinetooth Prime and Wyvern Matriarchs, the Defiance Bar window is far too short to rely on defiance-over-time effects, which again prompts the use of faster, harder CC.

draxynnic.3719:

Losing most if not all of your offensive capability when carrying an organ makes it a PITA to get the kill and manage to reclaim it before the body disappears, and the story step requires you to reclaim bodies (where at most other reliquaries, I mostly complete the heart by channeling ley energy.

Using Skill #1 (Ley Line Blast) will temporarily unequip the Ley Organ bundle, thereby returning full weapon functionality. The bundle will be re-equipped shortly after leaving combat state.

Hope that helps!

I think you’re ignoring the Living World Season 3 encounters when you’re writing this post. While there are still poorly-placed checkpoints and still too many unskippable dialogue and cutscenes, recent Story Instances have had checkpoints implemented, especially during the “final boss fight” of each episode.

In regards to visibility of updrafts and the like, I agree ANet has been lacking in that regard. The game has had accessibility issues for the last five years, whether it’s the unnecessarily thin red circles (not even going to touch on the inconsistent implementation of the new AOE indicators, or even the timings), or the lack of support for colorblind players.

You’ve still got – what, two weeks? At least give it a thought?

I think you’re a little too optimistic here. Consider that the teams at ANet are all busy rushing out the final polishes (hopefully they got all their content done) before launch, and various troubleshooting and bugfixes for the weeks or months following launch. This means that changes to fundamental design consideration won’t be for several months to come, in all likelihood.

Mutant Poodle.6253:

“Where’s Balthazar” mission in story line. Don’t try it, don’t waste your time; here’s why,

1. Once in mission you cannot get out until completion?
2. Tried no less than three times to get through it and . . . wait for it . . . even used you tube video to try and nope not even close.
3. That’s 45 minutes each time of my life I cant get back for complete frustration. Not allowed to start over just in case something got missed.
4. Easy up until last barrier, destroyed all the nodes quickly but no, that wont work either.
5. No wonder people have stopped playing this game with such dis functionality.
6. I look forward to the “oh, we had no issues, I got through OK”. Good for you

I’m sorry you’re finding the encounter difficult. The “switch puzzle” for the last barrier is identical to the very first one you had to rescue the Shining Blade Exemplar from, so hopefully that helps.

Otherwise, try asking your guild, map chat in Brisban Wildlands, or even put an LFG. Alternatively, you could elaborate on what you’re finding specifically difficult and we could offer advice to match.

Good luck!

Einlanzer.1627:

No. Bar breaks are only a thing in some fights, and in those cases they replace the normal control effect, they do not supplement it, so this, IMO, is not a strong counter-argument. The thing is – you can increase the duration of control effects in PvE without interfering with how they impact bar breaks, and you’d have a skill that was generally useful and not one that was highly specialized to work only in specific contexts.

This argument doesn’t change anything.

What’s wrong with having skills that work amazingly in specific context and less so in others? In your example, Basilisk Venom is inaccurately assessed because you only consider a single application from your player character. However, when shared with other players, it is an extremely potent skill to break Defiance Bars. And when the context requires something different, for example the Wyvern Patriarch in Verdant Brink, which has no breakable Defiance Bar, then you switch to another Elite skill. All in all, this gives players a meaningful choice to consider prior to approaching an encounter in PVE, which I would argue is a good thing.

Einlanzer.1627

There is one area, though, that needs splitting and never gets split – and that’s the duration of certain effects like stun, petrify, and stealth. While they’re useful for defiance bars in PvE, the fact that they are mostly balanced around PvP makes them garbage for general use in PvE.

Crowd control skills and their interactions with Defiance Bars are generally balanced around groups, rather than individuals. Hence, it is extremely rare to have a skill that can single-handedly break a Champion or Legendary Defiance Bar. Further, since most non-Champion or higher encounters don’t last very long, the control duration on the existing skills as is are more than adequate. In other words, I disagree with your opinion that crowd control skills, in PVE, are not properly balanced.

Perhaps you could name another example scenario? Especially one that inspired this thread in the first place?

While playing as a group, most open-world content will become a breeze. What Guild Wars 2 does differently than some other MMOs is that Dynamic Events are always scaled according to the number of players in the vicinity, including spawning higher-tier mobs (Veterans, Elites, and even Champions). As you progress through the lower-level zones, there are always harder Group Event scattered throughout the maps, which should provide your group with some decent challenge.

However, ultimately, you’ll have to also adjust your expectations. GW2 isn’t “hardcore, balls to the wall, Demons’ Souls” game, especially throughout most of the content prior to end-game and the expansions. The only real spikes in difficulty can be found in Dungeon instances, especially for pre-80s, and more so for newer players that may be unfamiliar with some dungeon mechanics. Then again, speaking from experience from my early days braving dungeons early into the original launch, it was exciting to explore each dungeon and puzzle out their mechanics with a group of friends.

Otherwise, once you and your group hit Level 80, there are Fractals, and even Raids to experience. If you need a break from PVE, you could always hop into WvW as a group and experience a whole different aspect of GW2.

ArenaNet already does a great job at showcasing their content creators every week, including hosting said channels on their official Twitch. Further, it isn’t up to ANet to define what accounts as “good at the game,” as that is usually something that individual communities within the game decides. This means “good enough” could mean anywhere between “having fun” to “QuantifyEU level of DPS,” depending on who the player decides to play with. So instead on relying on somebody else to help players reach a level you deem “acceptable,” why not positively contribute to their learning yourself?

I run mostly Berserkers with a few pieces of Commanders (Chest, Leggings, main hand weapon, and amulet). For Chronomancers (note: not Power or Condi Mesmer), the goal is to get 100% bonus Boon Duration while factoring Superior Sigil of Concentration, food and/or utility buffs, and the bonus Concentration from Fractal Mobility Potion.

If you don’t like the support build, you can go full Berserker Mesmer or Viper Mesmer for more personal DPS.

Exciton.8942:

It has nothing to do with boon sharing range.

If full ranged builds can do competitive dps, then you simply have a ranged group stacked close to each other and share boons.

It is simply that you need to be in melee to do max dps. You don’t always have to be in melee for many classes but being in range all the time will make you suboptimal.

Except it is everything to do with boon sharing range. If you are more than 600 units away from the melee stack, you won’t get the Might stacks from the PS Warrior, Alacrity and Quickness from the Chronomancer, etc. On top of that, no ranged builds can provide those same boons to a similar degree (for now), hence their much lower DPS.

The ring won’t count towards your collection achievement until you bind it to your account, thereby not allowing you to sell it on the Trading Post.

Chadramar.8156:

I like the map and the idea behind cleaning up Orr, but agree that this could have been implemented better in the spirit of cooperation— especially considering that using the ley organ gives much more progression that just killing things. It’s all a bit inconsistent, too: those fountains at Lyssa’s have a universal “cleased/corrupted” state, but the pollution clouds at Dwayna’s do not.

Inconsistent is the word, right! At Melandru’s the enemy corpses despawn at a much slower rate than usual, whereas enemies at corpses at Grenth despawn very quickly. At Lyssa, I’m competing with other players to cleanse the fountains, but my completion of Reliquary nodes do not affect other players.

Serenity.6135:

Grab organ
Get aggro from a few risen
Pull them to champs that will one shot them
Use 3 skill on multiple risen bodies at once
Heart done in seconds

Seriously this map has the easiest hearts in the game and can all be completed very quickly. Blaming other people is ridiculous in all honesty.

However your workaround (specifically for the Grenth Reliquary) is still, first and foremost, a workaround. Secondly, it only works within a limited area of the Renown Quest area, meaning the same issue still holds true for the other two-thirds of the Renown Quest area. Thirdly, other nearby players can still displace your gathered mobs.

And I absolutely agree that this zone has the easiest Renown Quests in the game, but that’s besides the point. The fact of the matter is that these mechanics are still terribly flawed.

First things first: load up on as much EXP Boosts as possible, which include the following stacking buffs:

• Experience Booster/Communal Boost Bonfire (+50%)
• Killstreak Experience Booster (up to +100%)
• Celebration Bonus (+100%)
• Food nourishment (+15%)
• Utility nourishment (+15%)
• Guild Experience/Hero Banner (+10%)
• Guild XP Gain (+10%)

Then venture around level-appropriate areas (in your case Fields of Ruin or Harathi Hinterlands) and kill every killable creature in sight, especially creatures that are not part of a Renown Quest and/or are neutral mobs. This is because the longer a mob, hostile or neutral, remains after spawning, the more bonus experience it will accumulate, up to about +200%, and most players don’t bother killing mobs that don’t progress events or Renown Quests.

Besides that, try to get as many Waypoints on your way.

In my five years of playing Guild Wars 2, I would have to say Siren’s Landing is a truly unique experience where I absolutely despise the sight of another player. This feeling is specific to areas around the Grenth and Lyssa Reliquaries. Let me explain.

At the Grenth Reliquary, one of the core mechanics for the Renown (Heart) Quest is to use the “Reclaim” skill from the Ley Organ bundle on Unchained Wraiths (alive or dead) and Reclaimed Wraiths; successfully reclaiming Wraiths awards approximately 20% completion of the Renown track. However, more often than I would care to count, during the course of the 4-second cast time of Reclaim, other players would displace the Wraiths around me either by drawing aggro and running away, or using knockbacks/pulls. To add insult to injury, the Ley Organ would be consumed the moment I used it. So not only would my Renown progression be “stolen,” I would have to go hunt down another Scavenger and another Wraith, and pray I don’t get trolled, again.

Similarly, at the Lyssa Reliquary, a core mechanic involves using Reclaim on one of the Corrupted Fountains. Successfully Reclaiming a fountain also awards 20% towards the completion of the Renown Quest. However, since some of the Horrid Illusions have stuns or dazes that will interrupt the 4-second cast time of Reclaim, and thereby wasting it, the “safer” strategy would be to quickly dispatch any nearby Illusions first. The problem is, while I’m fighting, not only do I have to contend with the enemies, I do not have access to the Ley Organ abilities, which then allows for some other player to waltz right by me and Reclaim the Corrupted Fountain I was fighting for. The kicker to this? Once Reclaimed, nobody else can get credit by using Reclaim on the same fountain.

These flawed mechanics run absolutely counter to the Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto. Not only am I incentivized to solo these areas, but I would go out of my way to avoid other players, lest they “steal my kill,” so to speak. Considering the proximity of the launch of Path of Fire, I can only hope ArenaNet will consider fixing these two Renown quests, or at least take a second look at future mechanics.

Cheers.

I’m not sure if you have claimed them or if they are still available to you if you haven’t, but there were two free Season 1 Memory Boxes in the Gem Store, whereby each will give varying numbers of Black Lion Commemorative Sprockets. The Sprockets can be used to buy key components of the Spinal Backpiece, like the Gift of Blades, and Blade Shards.

First of all, it’s impossible to tell what will be the new meta after the release of PoF at this point in time. Let’s just get that out of the way.

With that in mind, here are my opinions on the three professions (and Elite Specializations).

I’ll start with Revenant. The biggest disappointment with Revenants right now is the state of its energy system, especially when four of the five weapon skills consume the same resource needed for your heals, utility skills, and elite, and there are no other methods of generating energy besides waiting. The new elite, Renegade, not only does nothing to alleviate this problem, but make it worse by adding three more resource-heavy skills.

Baseline Warriors aren’t a thing anymore, as far as I can tell. Berserkers on the other hand are the de facto Might-bots. Their tremendous Condition Damage potential does pigeonhole them into a single damage type, but that’s fine as the Spellbreaker will likely fulfill the Power role.

Guardians are still great sources of support buffs, and the recent changes have made them and Dragonhunters amazing Power-based DPS professions. I suppose if you want to dig for a con, it would be their weaker crowd control (and thus Defiance Bar damage) potential. Firebrands look to be the Condition Damage counterpart with access to even more boons.

Okay, I think the first step is for you to describe what “pve” means to you. Open world explorations, including meta events, rarely require a pure support; worst yet, if you are running solo, you’ll feel the lack of damage rather tremendously. If anything, I’d suggest you keep a set of exotic Berserker gear handy for those occasions.

As for the build itself, in the context of Fractals, I would swap the chestpiece, leggings, and amulet to Minstrel (and backpiece to Cleric), and utility consumable to Master Maintenance Oil in order to ensure 100% bonus Boon Duration while in Fractals. I don’t see the usefulness of a staff, so I’d recommend switching that to an off-hand Sword or Focus.

Conceptually, I don’t see your build’s synergy with Healing Power, since your only sources are through Regeneration and Well of Eternity. The latter isn’t ideal because it requires party members to converge on a smallish area at a specific time, which may land them in hotter water especially when considering enemy area of effects and Social Awkwardness. I would, instead, recommend using Mantra of Recovery, which would then give you easier access to Healing Prism, and even more healing with Restorative Mantras.

Hi there. If you don’t mind, I’ll approach your question in few parts.

First off, congratulations on having a goal in this game. Unlike “gear treadmills” like Wildstar, the “progression” in Guild Wars 2 is a little more freeform in that you have to decide on a personal goal (e.g. getting full ascended gear, crafting a legendary weapon, collecting every cat, getting the Dungeoneer achievement, etc.), each with its own steps for progression. However, due to the variety of materials and currencies involved in crafting ascended equipment, and especially for legendary weapons, it can be easy to lose track of where you are, and eventually feel lost. I personally found GW2Efficiency to be an amazing tool to track my progression through major crafting projects. The site not only lists the full material requirements needed, but also keeps track of the materials I still need for completion, presenting it very neatly as a (giant) gold value. So at the end of every play session, I would just load the site up and watch with satisfaction as the “gold required to craft” get chipped, and chipped, and chipped away.

In your case, the site can also track the overall progress for multiple items, too. This example link shows the combined cost and materials required for a six-piece armor set of ascended Sinister light armor. While this may seem like a terrifying overview of the entire project, it also allows you to pick and choose at individual components to work on at a given time.

Next, I’d like to address one of your worries, i.e.

I have a set of Rabid armor (same defense as my dungeon armor) but if i’m going to be grinding ascendeds or maybe a legendary i’ll need to choose.

Well, you needn’t, really. First and foremost, all Legendary equipment allows the player to change their attribute combination at any time, without cost. As for ascended equipment, you can swap attribute combinations rather cheaply using the Anthology of Heroes.

Then, in regards to a Condition Damage-based Mesmer, here is a modified build from the one I use, having to forego Viper for Sinister attributes. There is a blank Utility Skill slot, and Elite Skill slot that can be swapped as needed.

When fighting multiple enemies,

1. I’d approach them,
2. summon a Phantasmal Mage,
3. go invisible with The Prestige,
4. activate Signet of the Ether to reset the cooldown of Phantasmal Mage, as well as
5. cast a Lesser Chaos Storm through the Descent into Madness trait,
6. summon another Phantasmal Mage, and
7. weapon swap to proc my Superior Sigil of Geomancy.

This results in 10 stacks of Burning, 2 stacks of Confusion, 3 stacks of Bleeding, Blindness, and some extra conditions from the Lesser Chaos Storm.

And since you have a preference for the Staff, feel free to swap out the Scepter/Pistol combination for that. The idea, however, is to maintain as many Phantasms as possible to augment your damage.

Alright, that was a lengthy post, so I’ll stop here. Hope it was of some help and have fun on your journey!

You gain the most Crafting EXP through “Discoveries.” Discoveries can be accessed by the “anvil” icon (first tab of the Crafting menu) and it is used to Discovery new recipes by combining the correct combination of components. For weaponsmithing, Discoveries in general require the following components:

1 x Inscription
1 x Weapon component A
1 x Weapon component B

So for example, to Discover the Vital Bronze Axe, you need to first craft 1 Vital Green Inscription, 1 Bronze Axe Blade, and 1 Small Green Haft. Then, after switching to the Discovery tab, combine these components together to discover the recipe, while also gaining a large sum of Crafting EXP.

Hope this helps.

There are multiple ways of playing support in GW2.

For example, way back in year 1 and 2 of GW2, I made my Guardian lean towards “support.” His role was still do DPS in his Berserker gear, yes, but more importantly I was to use weapon and slot skill synergies to stack Might for the Dungeon (and later Fractal) teams. At the same time, he also had the versatility of a Guardian’s tool kit to adapt to specific scenarios (e.g. Wall of Reflection, Shield of Justice, etc.)

Similarly, my Engineer (way back then) would use a series of skills to give the group Might stacks, as well as Fury with Rune of Altruism. He only got more useful after ANet removed all costs to trait switching.

Since coming back, I’ve switch my Mesmer to a Support/Utility Chronomancer. While my Guardian is focused on Might stacking, condition cleansing, Protection, etc., my Chronomancer supports the team by maintaining Alacrity and Quickness buffs to boost the overall effectiveness of the group. She also provides a ton of boon sharing the Illusionary Inspiration trait. Beyond that, you can’t overlook the utility available to a Mesmer, such the Portal, and group Stealth.

I’ve said it back then, and I’ll still say it now: don’t think of “support” in GW2 as merely Healing Power. That’s one way to support, true, but not the ONLY way. Thief have Venomshare, Warriors have Banners, Heralds have Glint and Ventari stances, Tempests have Water and Earth Overloads, Druids have lots of burst heals from Water combos, etc.

“Everything” is, as you might expect, rather broad. Current meta aside, all classes can do “everything.” However to do so requires that you learn and understand all the slot skills and traits builds of the profession, as well as having access to all possible weapon combinations available to the profession. Then, depending on your comfort level and role in a specific content, you may need different sets of stats to suit. For example, my Necromancer/Reaper had a Berserker set for Fractals, Soldier set for WvW, and a Condition Damage set for playstyle flexibility.

As for you existing Elementalist, I’m very surprised to hear that you think it’s a low-survivability profession. Even in full Berserker set, they have a full gamut of tools to disengage, regroup, and fight from different ranges even with a single weapon combination. Remember that the “rotation” is only applicable for specific situations, and a large part of PVE in Guild Wars 2, especially with the newer content, challenges the player to be able to react to a range of scenarios appropriately.

Mystic Forge recipe to change Ascended Weapon stats are…

• 1x Ascended Weapon
• 1x Anthology of Heroes (purchased from Miyani and other Attendants)
• 1x Orichalcum Imbued Inscription of the stats you want
• 5x Globs of Ectoplasm

1. Axe is used in the off-hand for Power-based builds, main-hand for Condition-based builds.

2. Pet aggro should be a non-factor to your decision making process.

3. Best DPS pets are still the big cats, although many Rangers are slotting in Electric Wyverns for CC

Yes, it’s the aftercast delay. It’s not mentioned in any tooltips and only ever mentioned in the rare balance patch notes.

Thief weapon skills have 0 cooldown and you can opt for a 99% no-cooldown build using a Signet build.

Engineers are fine in dungeons; there’s a learning curve and high skill ceiling.

Crafting doesn’t affect PvP and you can PvP the moment you exit the tutorial.

For WvW/dungeons/Fractals of the Mist, if you want to min-max with Ascended tier (i.e. highest tier) gear you will need the following crafts:

Tailoring
Artificier
Huntsman
Weaponsmith

You can technically have 4 crafting disciplines per character with the Additional Crafting Licence item from the Gem Store, which are 800 gems each, or 112 gold as of time of writing. Alternatively, you can make an alt and spend about 60g to level the extra two crafting disciplines from 1-400.

If you want to buy equipment, I’d recommend the Black Lion Trading Post over NPC vendors. That way you can guarantee that your character is fitted with the correct stat prioritisation, i.e. a Power build won’t have worthless Condition Damage equipment, etc.

As far as what to do for leveling, even with the Level 20 token, here are my suggestions:

1) The slow and steady
Make sure the Personal Tracker (Options > Gameplay) is set to All and complete (100%) each new map. Switch to the Personal Story quests when available (every 10 levels) since those give pretty good rewards.

2) The I-wanna-be-80-yesterday
Hope into Eye of the Mist and follow any groups you happen upon, eventually merging into the massive zerg.

So let me get this straight…

Your character’s level 20 with all the gear from level up rewards and you’re having trouble with a level 8 creature (one?). This, then, has nothing to do with equipment or stats.

Mind revealing your character’s class and what were you fighting where?

Personal Story (Zhaitan) chapters are only unlocked every 10 levels and the experience gained from these stories aren’t enough to push you to the next threshold.

So the answer to your question is level 70 or thereabouts.

Charm, Dignity and Ferocity were gameplay elements that were included in the early days of the game but was later quietly removed from the Hero panel. Even before the removal, these 3 “character personality traits” had significance within the game: it didn’t affect NPC interactions, had no gameplay significance, no way of examining the personality of another player, and many of the responses tied to these traits were necessarily appropriate.

What you’re seeing in character creation and some NPCs (namely the Speed boost NPCs in cities) are remnants of the bygone era and evidence of ANet’s sloppiness.

This post does not make sense.

It begins with this:

Back story on myself:
I have played over 20+ MMOs in the past 15 years, blahblahblah

and asks this:

Is this “Normal” for a GLeader in GW2?

with the following clarification:

Being that this is my first guild in the GW2,

So I’m wondering what bloody use is all that “experience” in games and game communities when you’d go mentally stereotyping the GW2 community based on ONE person.

It works the same way as the Necromancer’s Deathly Swarm and Mesmer’s Arcane Thievery. Example:

• My Necro (1600 Condition Damage, 50% Condition Duration) receives a 328 dps Burn from a Guardian (0 Condition Damage; 0% Condition Duration) with a 10s duration.
• I transfer the Burn to another target, which is applied to the target after 1s (i.e. 9s duration remaining).
• The new target would then suffer a 728 dps (328 base + 0.25 * 1600) Burn for 13.5s (9 * 1.5)

Depends on what is helpful to you.

Unlocking all the previous chapters and completing all the achievements gets you…

Lots of Achievement Points
Lots of Geodes (for Dry Top merchants) and Bandit Crests (for Silverwastes merchants)
Some keys for aforementioned areas
Nomad’s and Sinister ascended trinkets
Mysterious Seed needed to craft the ascended back piece, Mawdrey
Armour pieces needed to complete the Luminescent armour collections, which in turn contributes to the Bioluminescence rare collection achievement
Context to Heart of Thorns and subsequent stories

If you really want to gear for “survivability”, then I’d always recommend prioritising Toughness over Vitality any day. Higher Toughness increases the efficiency of your heals (active and passive), whereas Vitality only increases your health pool marginally.

Also, if you’re still unsure about armour sets, remember that you can always give each stat combination a try by buying Masterwork or Rare qualities before investing into Exotics.

Benefits of crafting pre-80:
Lots of EXP (i.e. you gain EXP for each crafting skill level you earn)

That’s it.

Even if you’re thinking about crafting gear for levelling, consider that it’s usually cheaper just to buy the desired items off the Trading Post.

In the end, whether or not it’s profitable to craft pre-80 is a balance between time (opportunity costs) and gold.

Do either of these look like a good starting point for learning? Also, I understand that Warriors have a larger base health pool. I assume the tradeoff is that it is harder to defend the larger health pool on a Warrior than it is to protect the smaller health pool on a Guardian?

Both look fine, although I personally prefer using Signet of Resolve (bigger heal, occasional condition cleanse) and Runes of Strengths (even solo, it’s very easy for Guardians to have at least one stack of Might running).

Keep in mind that both builds maximise their potential through weapon swapping on a rotation. It’s great for learning slightly more advanced gameplay mechanics that applies to most classes, i.e. understanding the purpose of each weapon skill and be active with swapping to the appropriate weapon at the appropriate time.

While there are many tradeoffs between a Warrior and Guardian, if the question is solely about their health pools, then yes, it is indeed more difficult to maintain a Warrior’s health pool.

What would be the best class if i want to use one oder both of these weapon types? I would like to see making a legendary as a far goal, thats why i want a class that can make good use of greatswords or staves.

As of now, the only other profession that can use both greatswords and staves is the Guardian.

Besides that, the last profession that uses Greatswords, and do so profusely, are Warriors.

On the other hand, both Necromancers and Elementalists have appropriate uses of staves.

Mobs seem to blow through the protection as if it were nothing and i feel like im being hit way too hard even with the permanent protection on.

Important to note that all the Protection, Regeneration and Virtue of Resolve in the game won’t let you face tank a 25-stack Abomination, or fighting one other Risen after a Plague Carrier blows up in your face, or embracing Kol’s stomp. Besides Aegis, please remember that you can do the following to improve your game:

1. Turn with your mouse and not your keyboard
2. Move while using most abilities
3. Dodge

Gilosean.3805:

You do realize you can do any level content on any level character?

While it is technically possible to fully explore Orr with a sub-level 10 character, I… wouldn’t recommend it.

MrWubzy.3587:

@ Ojimaru: That was one of the biggest issues I ran into, yeah, was condis. I’ve learned how to cleanse properly, but without a decent healing skill my health pool seems more like a health puddle. As for food, I’m struggling to afford the food off of the TP, and leveling my cooking skill is getting harder and harder. Could you suggest some foods that are either cheap, or bought with karma?

Also, yeah, I learned that Guardians suck at chasing fairly early on. If my target ever ran I just stood my ground until they either came back, or ran away entirely.

Unless you’re hit with Poison, the Signet heal usually heals over 75% of of total base HP. On the other hand, Shelter is used mainly to block specific attacks, e.g. Hundred Blades, Back Stab, etc., while also topping you up.

As for food in WvW, Lemongrass Poultry Soup (-40% Condition Duration, +70 Vit) is probably the gold standard, with a price to match (~40s each), making it the best candidate for the Food Primer boosters (you can get 2 from 2 very easy Collection Achievements, Brewmaster and Fine Wining). You can, of course, op for the lower tier versions, i.e. Poultry and Leek Soup (-36% Condition Duration, +60 Vit; TP 13.41s) or Chickpea and Poultry Soup (-28% Condition Duration, +50 Vit; TP 6s).

First 80 – Guardian – I like the profession, but I got a lot of negative feedback from pugs as I died a lot in dungeons.

Dying in dungeons is unrelated to how strong a profession is, rather it is about your knowledge of dungeon and its encounters. Guardians are pretty amazing in most of the game, from world exploration to mini dungeons to WvW zerg frontline (disclaimer: please don’t bring your PVE Zerker armour to WvW).

As training wheels, please do the following:
Traits: 5 points into Virtues and trait into Absolute Resolution. This gives Virtue of Resolve an active large heal and condition cleanse and should train you into recognising how, when and why you should activate your Virtues.

Utility: Whatever your build, whatever dungeon you’re running, have Wall of Reflection. As a beginner, you have no excuse to zone out during fights, so pay attention to what you’re fighting. If you see something shooting anything, drop Wall of Reflection. Nine times out of ten, you’ll be a hero for your group.

Second 80 – Necro – I found the class to much more survivable (maybe because I started to appreciate the game’s mechanics!), but pugs are rather “racist” to the class, and I got insta-kicked several times before I could even say hello.

Instead of joining a “All paths 80s zerk speedrun” group, make your own. The discriminating sort will see your Necromancer icon and wander off, the rest will just join up on their own.

Third 80 – Condition Warrior – I liked the sword/sword approach, but pugs would kick me for my weapon and signet selection.

Condition damage is just one of the worst things about GW2 PVE. But if you’re intent on playing one – as above – make your own LFG.

Third 80 part 2 – Power Warrior – I went through the expense to replace all my condi warrior stuff with berserker gear and an axe/mace – axe/sword build. Then the might nerf in the latest patch happened and several “pros” have done nothing but bad-mouth warriors since. I feel like I wasted my time on him.

Haven’t kept up with the QQ on official forums, but they are still viable and wasn’t much affected by the Might nerf. Banners of Discipline and Strength aren’t even affected and those are the major reasons why Warriors are “meta”.

Above all, it’s not “just play what you like”. Instead it’s about understanding why something is good or mediocre before jumping to your own conclusions. A little bit of critical thinking goes a long way.

Piloting your character with left and right mouse buttons held down, as well as pressing Move Forwards keybind will override About Face.

If your character is on auto run but the camera angle (altered by left mouse) is changed, About Face also won’t work.

While it looks instant, there is still a small turning animation to About Face. This means that rapidly tapping About Face, or mis-timing your movement skill, will result in your character turning less than 180 degrees.

How I use About Face for movement skills:
Autorun (fingers off left and right mouse)
About Face
Skill

Without the T2 Major Trait, Axe Training, staves are your best weapon to maximise the damage from Wells and Deathshroud skills, so your instincts are partially correct. However outside of those skills, the DPS is abysmal. However, a major part of GW2 combat is the ability to swap to a second weapon set mid combat. This means you can swap to a Dagger/anything to auto attack the survivors.