Guild Wars 2

Jumping Puzzles and Vistas are rarely intertwined. The jumping you need to reach most Vistas is such that I would hardly call it a ‘puzzle’. The path is always laid out pretty clearly.

I actually can’t think of any actual Jumping Puzzle I’ve done (stuff like Morgan’s Spiral or Sharkmaw Cavern) that ended in a Vista.

Completely agree. Would love to have a customizable home instance in The Grove (for my Sylvari character). Home upgrades would be a tempting thing to spend Karma points or some other currency on.

The way I feel powerful as a Mesmer is by using my illusions and condition abilities to control foes and set up burst damage.

My usual solo PvE setup is a Staff / Sword+Pistol combo. I start off placing a Chaos Storm around myself and the mob(s), Phase Retreat within the Combo Field for an automatic Chaos Armor around myself and the new clone, and Phantasmal Warlock as I circle-strafe. At this point, I’ve got 3 steady streams of random conditions being placed on the mob (myself and my clone using Winds of Chaos, plus the Chaos Storm), and a Phantasm up who’s dealing heavy damage proportional to the number of conditions. You’re also briefly cloaked in Chaos Armor, granting 33% defense increase and random boons.

So, that’s triple condition placement on your enemy, triple random buffs on yourself (Winds of Chaos x 2 + Chaos Storm, more if he/she dares hitting you while Chaos Armor is up), plus heavy damage from your Phantasm.

Depending on the area you’re in and what the level scaling is like, I may or may not swap weapon sets at this point to Cripple the foe with Illusionary Leap, Magic Bullet to stun, then Swap to pop in close for a Blurred Frenzy before dodging backwards and creating separation again. Sometimes I’ll shatter, sometimes I’ll bring in Illusionary Duelist while I wait for the weapon swap cooldown – by controlling my enemy with dazes, stuns, and the like, I give myself a lot of breathing room for experimentation and mistakes. The Bleeding, Vulnerability, and more applied through conditions can do a lot to bring mob health down quickly.

Level 29, Mesmer, Happiness 9/10

It’s hard for me to give a perfect score for anything, so I’ll just say that Guild Wars 2 is a total blast so far. Easily the best MMO I’ve ever played, and it’s amazing how alive and compelling this world is. It actually feels like an RPG, a story-driven experience I can get lost in, and for an MMO, that’s saying something.

Minor point deducted because the tutorials are OK, but not great. A little more hand-holding, especially with regards to Crafting, would be nice in the earlier levels. Some things aren’t immediately apparent or intuitive.

I play Guild Wars 2 with a controller, so maybe I’ve got a fresh/unique perspective on this.

More specifically, I play with a DualShock 3 (PS3 controller) wired to my laptop with a 10-foot USB cable. Laptop is hooked up to 40-inch living room TV.

It works really well. Movement and camera control feel natural on the left and right analog sticks, while all of my weapon skills and slot skills are accessed with a face button (X, O, Triangle, Square). Pressing L1 or R1 (left bumper, right bumper) swaps the function of the face buttons to open up more skills. Holding L1 and R1 do the same thing for the D-pad, which contains everything from switching enemy targets to bringing up the Hero panel to turning 180 degrees.

It’s insanely comfortable. Only tradeoffs are no chatting (I have to get up and go to my laptop if its really necessary), and navigating menus/crafting is a bit slower. Totally worth it though, imho.

Thank you, ArenaNet, for restoring my faith in the MMO genre. 2.5 years of WoW burned me out on the whole IDEA of MMOs, and I never thought I would one day play one that actually felt like an RPG – one with a rich, detailed, rewarding world to explore; one that prioritized FUN and the journey over everything else.

You won me over in a big way. Thank you for everything you fine guys and girls do to offer us players an amazing experience.

My current main character (Level 29 Mesmer) is on Sanctum of Rall.

I enjoy guilds for the social interaction and camaraderie, but I hope to one day become good enough and have enough time to really excel in endgame PvE and PvP content. For now, I love the journey that I’m on – hours each week spent exploring Tyria, questing, and making a name for my Sylvari – Checercaurora.

Excellent guide, but the hand-holding stuff isn’t really my style. I totally appreciate the hard work, but there are some things I just like figuring out on my own, in the context of my own abilities.

Erasculio.2914:

You are not going to have materials for Tailoring from gathering or harvesting. You get cloth from salvaging items, so you need a Salvaging Kit and then salvage cloth items you get from monsters.

Good point – I’ll start keeping the basic cloth items I get from monsters instead of destroying or offloading at merchants to save bag space.

Allow me to explain. I understand how Crafting works – the basics of gathering materials, combining random mats in the hopes of discovering new recipes, following the recipes that are already given to you – but everything else about the system seems slow and unintuitive.

I chose to roll with Artificer and Tailoring (I play a Mesmer). I gather or harvest at pretty much every node I come across, and keep the vast majority of fine crafting mats that drop randomly. I head to the crafting station whenever I stop by a city or settlement that has one and – lo and behold! – I never have the requisite materials to make even the most basic items.

I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it just seems that the only reliable way to get crafting materials is through the Trading Post, and even then you’re dealing with the arduous process of planning out exactly WHAT materials you need to buy to raise your level exactly THIS much. It’s expensive, daunting, and frankly I don’t see the use.

Is there some easy, efficient means of getting past those first 30-40 crafting levels and actually unlocking interesting stuff? A better way to get your hands on large quantities of basic materials? I just feel like there’s an unintuitive wall preventing me from having any fun with it.

Having finished Part 1, I must say – excellent work on this. Your enthusiasm for the class really shows, and it’s cool for the rest of us Mesmers to have a “mentor” to look to

I’m about to watch the videos – based purely on what everyone is saying, I’m quite excited. Kudos, OP – people like you are why I love the human race

Lorati.7361:

Marxo.3829:

I agree, this skill tends to miss a lot. If a target isn’t moving in the first place, why would we want to root it? If it’s moving, we can’t root it…

To keep it from beginning to move.

That’s what I use it for. It’s a great solo opener for a Mesmer to set up Illusions and pelt the mob with conditions, but also helps in certain boss fights for a few precious second of immobility against a baddie that likes to move, stop, move, stop, etc.

I’ve found that the few Sylvari skills I have are useful in different situations. (I’m a Lvl 20 Mesmer, as of writing)

In a group DE with a boss fight (the faulty mech in Brisban Wildlands comes to mind), I’ll swap out my usual Ether Feast for Healing Seed to help out the group.

Honestly, it’s hard to choose my 6-9 skills sometimes, which is the beauty of this game. In a boss situation like this, there’s certainly value in Engrasping Vines to keep him rooted and Feedback to reflect his projectiles. In other DEs, like defending a camp from waves of Risen or Nightmare Court, I see the value in Seed Turret instead of Vines simply because there’s so much going on that ensnaring one rather meaningless mob is counterproductive versus automatically targeting any nearby mobs with the turret.

The game completely changes when I’m running solo. Engrasping Vines is usually in my go-to for opening a solo attack, granting a few precious seconds to quickly pop Mirror Images and Staff skill 2 for 3 Illusions to Mind Wrack (alternatively, I’ll use the few seconds of rooting to pop a Chaos Storm perimeter and Illusionary Warlock for max condition damage).

I could go on, but I’d be deviating from your question, OP. Basically, I find the Sylvari-specific skills generally more useful in group situations (except for Vines, which is great everywhere). My view on the matter is limited, however – as I said, I’m only Lvl 20.

To me, the Sylvari first appeared as the more "Elven’’ race of GW2, and that’s an idea that I’ve always been attracted to in other MMOs. For some reason, though, I never actually played one.

Then, I started reading more about Sylvari lore and their backstory. To me, the idea of one universal Dream shared like a hive state among newborn Sylvari is utterly fascinating. So too is the way this Dream determines the personality, traits, and life ambitions that will later define your character.

The art direction of The Grove and early Sylvari zones have turned out to be just gorgeous, which I suppose is just icing on the cake for this incredibly interesting race. They’re just so different, and I’ve never seen anything like them in any other game.

omgwtfbbq.5374:

I used to do this with some of my FPS games. Never would’ve thought to try it with this game, I might just have to try it out

It works remarkably well for GW2, thanks to the limited number of skills compared to other MMOs. I wouldn’t dare try with something as draconian as WoW.

It plays like a dream, with some time getting used to it.

Allow me to preface by saying, this is my first post in these forums. Before GW2, WoW was my only MMO experience and I played for about 2 1/2 years. I’m loving GW2 so far.

I have absolutely no problems with keyboard and mouse control – it’s not uncomfortable for me, and it’s obviously the most versatile input out there. However, my desire to play GW2 with a controller was borne from my desire to play on the couch with my big screen HDTV, not huddled over my laptop screen. Various factors in my new apartment contribute to not having a great laptop play space, so here I am.

What I’ve managed to do is create a very comfortable, very playable control setup with my PS3’s DualShock 3. I plug it into my computer, boot up a couple programs, and start Guild Wars 2. I have access to all skills, movement, mouse cursor, camera, dodge, various menu panels, etc.

So, my purpose of posting here for the first time: I’d like to share this information with anyone curious enough to give it a try. It works wonders for my current gaming setup, and combined with a wireless keyboard for chatting, I don’t see why I’d ever have to go back to mouse and keyboard.

Check out the document I’ve linked; it’s a makeshift tutorial designed to set you up with the same configuration I use. Feel free to change it to suit your needs.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/106056435

Then, let me know what you think in this thread

Thanks for reading – I hope that some of you players out there will find this useful. If so, I’m all too happy to share!