Guild Wars 2

I know this thread is quite old by now, but I’d like to add my twopence for anyone reading this later on:

OP asks if Cleric’s gear is good for WvW and high-level fractals.

These are two completely different beasts, and even WvW can be a completely different game depending on whether you run with large groups, small ones, or roam solo (not a great idea in any build of Guardian).

Most of the answers have to do with the fractals. The fractals were added to the game as a concession to the more hardcore GW2 players who came from other MMOs. Their whole point is to go against the game’s altruistic and laid back philosophy, to make these players feel more at home in a game where they really don’t belong.

If you want to do high-level fractals you have to join this crowd, and you do what they tell you. Only one build accepted, fun is not an option, raging is to be expected. It’s like a small World of Warcraft experience, embedded in Guild Wars 2.

The rest of the game, including WvW, is meant to be played with other people, played they way you like, and is meant to be enjoyed all the way through. In any kind of group, support-y builds are appreciated and useful as much as anything.

Ofcourse you will always meet some people who demand full Berserker build for dungeons, or something or another, but I consider it better to just ignore them and play with more laid back folks. I’m in it for the fun of the process, not getting it over with like some kind of chore. You do have options: “Hardcore” gamers are just a minority in this game, although a very vocal (and perpetually angry) one.

Some of the most obscure things I have found so far are mini dungeons. All of them give achievements though, so I guess they aren’t completely secret in the way you mean. But I’m horrible at thinking outside the box in this kind of game (i.e. do more than kill stuff, or pull the glowing lever at most), so they torture me for ages:

1) In Caledon, mini-dungeon full of Veteran Hyleks, with a Champion in the end. It starts behind a door that needs you to do something special to open, and also has a puzzle that had me banging my head against the wall before the final chest. Made me feel awesome when I finally finished it though, after half a dozen attempts.

2) In Gendaran Fields, mini-dungeon with traps, a champion spider, and a lot of mobs with pretty fast respawn rate. You need to look around the place to open the door that leads to the chest.

3) In Queensdale, locked door that leads to a tiny Ettin cave with a veteran, a chest and an achievement. My first secret, and one that took me ages of experimentation to find because I didn’t realize the game was fun enough to have this kind of solutions.

Underworld Invader Thief from [ACAB] seems to have almost perma-stealth and does insane damage with both burst and sustain.

Either his KungFu is much stronger than mine, he has reached a level previously thought impossible, or is hacking.

In the first case: “thumbs up man, you are awesome!”
in the second: “wut???”
in the third: “boooo!”

To the RoF guy who “helped” me kill that pesky UW Warrior outside Bluebriar: I let you get away with just a warning, if you didn’t realize by my /wave. I can always Bola and Blaidtrail you next time, but this time you earned your 30 second truce from me, especially since you didn’t seem to care to fight. I wish you safe travels.*

*Only applies to PvE, in WvW if I find you again I’ll do my best to hack you until you are dead.

I think the ire at the new daily achievement is misplaced. I don’t believe this achievement was ever meant to be easy to do through PvP or WvW, the tasks have always been PvE ones.

I find it perfectly reasonable that you won’t be able to do it if you are not willing to get into PvE even a little bit, the same way it is perfectly reasonable that PvE players fail all the PvP dailies / monthlies if they are unwilling to PvP.

What really is missing, and I’m with you on that, is a WvW daily/monthly. Since at the moment the three major game types of GW2 are PvE, PvP and WvW, it would really be nice to have WvW oriented repeatables too. I am rather hoping that the February big WvW patch will address that.

Attackers from Ring of Fire and the defenders from Ruins of Surmia who participated in the epic of the siege of Bluelake, I salute you. That was a battle the skalds of Hoelbrak won’t soon forget!

It’s nice to see real combat after a few weeks of steamrolling T9 half-asleep.

Also, grats to all the people who meet enemy combatants in the jumping puzzles, wave and get on with the puzzle. Good form.

~Ulf the Bear (RoS)