Guild Wars 2

Yes, kiting is an important skill.
After a while it becomes second nature so you don’t think about it.

Simply put, you run away while still shooting. The easiest way to do that is to strafe sideways. You’ll find that if you just keep a finger on the sideways button and steer with your mouse, you will be able to keep the mob at a distance and burn it down with your Greatsword #1.

Practice that on easy mobs somewhere. Don’t go for high level mobs for no good reason – you don’t gain a great deal XP wise.

I’m not sure about all this. It’s speculation and I can’t make it fit what I know about the game mechanics.

If you alt_F4, afaik the server loses the connection. It has no idea why or even when to any degree of accuracy. As far as the server is concerned it’s a simple disconnect.

That’s why you can find yourself dead in LA despite being perfectly healthy when you logged out of a bg – you just didn’t notice the mob sneaking up behind you that killed you seconds later.

On a couple of occasions I’ve seen someone vanish as I was about to kill them. Maybe they stealthed – maybe their transfer to another bl popped?
But if they just DCd themselves, why don’t they just continue running? – that’s what usually happens when the connection drops at my end.

Somebody needs to experiment with this to see what actually happens. I’d do it myself but well, I can’t be fondled.

I agree that the points system is pretty well kitten – but at the end of the day it’s just about improving your own skill.

It’s just a game. and in a few months or a couple of years at most you’ll probably delete the whole thing anyway. (I’ve got huge quantities of gold, titles and fancy gear stashed away in my WoW account – won’t ever bother with it again though)

Devon.9061:

Wait…….. there is map completion in WvW?

Yeah, I think you get a chest full of bloodstone dust or something.

L2p.

You could at least TRY to get those pois, skill points and vistas by cunning and skill rather than sitting on your fanny waiting for the colours to change.

Most of the time the places are deserted anyway, though you’ll probably have to fight a few skrit and centaurs – think you can manage that?

Guardian.
Meet almost anyone 1v1 and unless he’s very bad, you’re dead.

(Sure you can spec to survive better – but only at the expense of being able to do your job in the zerg)

OTOH – with only a couple of mates – you suddenly become God!

If the worst comes to the worst – remember that you can put soulbound stuff in the Magic Toilet.
It’s often a better way to recover a bit of the value (when your only other option is to vendor it for peanuts)

In this game, DoTs are called Conditions.
They are generally weaker than you’ve been used to in other games. In this game, the ability to kill fast is more desirable. Conditions are useful for hampering your opponent rather than outright killing.
A fight generally evolves along burst-and-recover lines with the ability to husband your cooldowns being the final decider.

The Greatsword’s big advantage is range. You can hit most things while you are out of their reach.

It also has one of the Mesmer’s most powerful Phantasms.
Here’s a simple way to use it:-
Pick your target from a looong way away. Move forward until the red bar under your #4 skill lights up – you are now in range. Press 4. Now move back and watch (not too far – the phantasm will de-spawn if you go too far).
The phantasm will attack then pause for a few seconds then attack again. It will keep doing that until it or the enemy is dead.
As soon as the cooldown on #4 clears, press it again – you now have 2 phantasms. Rinse and repeat.
If the enemy attacks you instead of the phantasm, hit #5 and run away.

I deal with the inventory problem by simply selling everything at the highest price I can haggle on the TP.
I know I can always buy the same item (probably cheaper) if I really need it later.

The ascended materials are a new trick by Anet to get you to buy more slots.
Think about it – the stuff drops so frequently – if you ever decide you need it, how long will it take to get some more?
I’ve stored one stack of each in the crafting slots – the rest gets deleted.
(Of course they will suddenly make it desirable and difficult to get – that’s the game )

It’s never going to happen. (A year on is evidence enough)

It’s a gold sink. if you want another Commander badge – that’s another 100g thank you very much.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
GW2 is no place for hoarders.

Almost everyone struggles to keep up because everyone is striving to go as fast as possible.
Base speed doesn’t come into it at all. It’s a matter of which utilities/skill you have to squeeze a little bit more speed and trying not to miss any of the speed buffs that some classes drop for you.

For me, this game is all about WvW (I am Mesmer too).

If you’ve had experience of PvP in WoW for example, this game is utterly different socially. It’s far more co-operative and friendly.
It’s also complex – there’s a LOT to learn.

Most important advice I can offer you in WvW is to look for the Commander (blue icon on the map and over his head.) Wait for him to come close to you, then follow him.
When a fight starts, hang back at the rear and make sure there are always other players between you and the enemy.

As a point of interest only, I run Greatsword with sword/pistol – both have long-range and powerful ‘illusions’. I let them do the fighting and if they die, I run away

Putting aside morality:
To my astonishment I think we’ve reached an important conclusion in this thread.

It’s one that really needs to be more widely known and understood. I would hope Anet are aware of what’s been said here.
An official clarification of the matter as a sticky would help to clear the air generally.

Define fair.

I think most people will agree that if it’s possible to do something using the client software as provided to everyone by Anet then it’s fair.

Well, I stand corrected. At extreme window aspect ratios you can see inside. As CreativeAnarchy says, it’s a pain to do it – but it’s possible.

That kinda puts the lid on the argument – if it’s available to all players as part of the normal function of the program, it’s not an exploit.

callemec.8576:

… this is my first time looking at content outside pve….

By that. I suspect you are thinking of WvW? Because that’s a whole new ball game as far as gear.
You’ll generally need PVT gear (aka Soldier’s, Invader’s) , which can be bought for karma from the WvW vendors in your Citadel.

Dunno why people keep going on about ‘mains’ and ‘alts’.

I’ve levelled 4 to 80 so far Ele. Mes. Guard and Thief. I enjoyed each one at the time – don’t ask me pick one.

Just put a call out in map chat – probably half-a-dozen players will come running or suggest where to go to join an event.

Mesmer eh? Good choice, one of my favourites.

You don’t say if you are more interested in the PvP (WvW) or PvE aspects of the game?
They are pretty well chalk and cheese as far as advice goes but one general suggestion is to get hold of one of each possible type of weapon (as cheaply as possible) and try them all out until you unlock all the skills on them and can begin to get a feel for which you prefer.

Either way, you won’t get bored in a hurry. It’s a big world out there. Probably much bigger than you realise at the moment.

I rolled a thief just to learn how it works. I took it to lvl 80 and practised perma-stealthing, ganking and general being-a-pain-in-the-kitten.

Now, when I meet a thief, I know exactly what to do. If he’s good, he’ll probably get away but that’s the best he can hope for.

TLDR : L2P

It’s so simple and obvious. We can all see these glaring problems and think of half-a-dozen fixes. It beats me why Anet are so unwilling to listen.

Long, pointless player names.
Beast names nearly indistinguishable from players.
Dead bodies names ditto

Blinding particle effects that hide the mouse cursor and sometimes everything else.

That’s just the visual stuff – don’t get me started on the combat system and command structure.

It’s not carved in stone. I’ve lost to a Warrior on a couple of occasions recently.
Once through sheer over-confidence and again because Mesmer’s couldn’t catch a cold. Even with Traveler(sic) runes, once a Warrior starts to run away the fight’s over.

Furry Fury.9036:

Thanks very much Contiguous, this confirms my suspicions.

So if I understand correctly, Eyefinity & friends do not give the ability to bypass walls for targetting. Anyone able to do so must be hacking (ie. zoomhacking). This is important so I can report players on my server with confidence.

In my experience that’s true. I use Eyefinity because it looks fantastic and improves game-immersion terrifically but it gives me no ability to see the top of walls etc. (There’s one spot at Briar where you can see inside because of the topology – but anyone who knows can do that)

That said, you have to be careful. It’s easy to mistake a perfectly OK piece of cunning for a hack.
I got very upset over someone destroying our siege inside garrison – targeting stuff I thought couldn’t possibly be reached. But then the person responsible boasted about it and gave me enough information to work out where they must have been standing. When I checked, it was one of those spots where you can see through the gap above the gate and sure enough, the carefully-placed siege was perfectly accessible to an AC.

Furry Fury.9036:

Contiguous.1345:

Furry Fury.9036:

Sharpoon.8197:

Windowed Mode and Eyefinity are not hacks.

But their use is an exploit.

Don’t bother posting that it’s not an exploit unless you’re from ANet, in which case I’d really like to hear what you have to say about this.

Eyefinity is not only accepted, it gets technical support. It’s part of Anet’s ongoing development.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Eyefinity/first

That said, there are third-party ‘zoom hacks’ in use that are exploits. Please stop confusing these to different things.

Okay thanks for that info.

Is it categorical that the use of Eyefinity/Windowed mode is acceptable for WvW, specifically targetting around/over walls, which are obviously designed to prevent precisely that?

I really would like an ANet source to confirm this.

I’m more than happy for those with the hardware to have a greater field of vision. Even the ability to see beyond walls is an advantage, but to be able to destroy defensive siege, surely it’s too much. This is too much of an advantage to too small a segment of the population to be considered fair in my opinion.

Hacks are not exploits. Please stop confusing these to [sic] different things.

Eyefinity doesn’t allow the user to see any more than normal. All that changes is the aspect ratio of the screen combined with high resolution. Not only that, the projection model used creates an inverse fish-eye distortion that actually reduces the field of view by about 30%. Result is you get to see maybe a 50% wider view.
You can simulate the view on a normal monitor by selecting window mode and setting your window to a roughly 4:1 letterbox.
You will find that you cannot see over walls or into towers or any of the places that a normal monitor won’t display by simply panning the camera.

The genuine exploit concerns the use of a third-party zoom-release where the game client is persuaded to allow extreme zoom distance. The user is then able to get a bird’s eye view of the locality from several times the normal height. This makes it easy to target the top of walls and the open centre of most structures.

Afik Anet are unable to ‘fix’ this because it’s built into the Havok 3D engine that’s in common use for many MMOs. The ‘hack’ is into a part of the system they have no control over. So all of this complaining and blaming is a bit pointless

Sun Tzu never mentioned jumping off a cliff to avoid repair costs.

I guess he’s a bit behind the times.

Furry Fury.9036:

Sharpoon.8197:

Windowed Mode and Eyefinity are not hacks.

But their use is an exploit.

Don’t bother posting that it’s not an exploit unless you’re from ANet, in which case I’d really like to hear what you have to say about this.

Eyefinity is not only accepted, it gets technical support. It’s part of Anet’s ongoing development.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Eyefinity/first

That said, there are third-party ‘zoom hacks’ in use that are exploits. Please stop confusing these two different things.

mjharrison.3209:

The problem with Ele is that all the weapons are really pidgeonholed:

• staff has 19/20 AOE skills, and the only single-target skill (earth #1) is really weak
• sceptre has no CC
• M/H dagger has no range
• focus has no heals or mobility

This is why I stopped playing Ele and rolled a Mesmer. You are stuck with slow & clumsy ground cast AoE on the staff or you have to duke it out at close range in melee without any armour (d/d).

That said, all classes have their downsides (except Warrior) so I guess it’s just a matter of picking the least worst.

Preachin’ to the choir.

I had the same problem. Found myself on a low tier WvW server because I didn’t realise that high population didn’t mean high WvW population.

I tried to stick with it because it costs real money to transfer and I felt a bit of ‘loyalty’ to the complete strangers in the server. Eventually the sheer incompetence of the players and the back-biting that went on drove me to change.

I moved to a server ranked mid-high (6 ish) in the WvW ratings and my world changed. They knew how to play.
Unfortunately, we got better and now are in the top tier. Queues are long – sometimes an hour or more but It’s worth it. When I do get in I have a lot of fun. Much more than before.

Why does it take 70+ posts to say ‘no’?

It’s magic!

.

As far as I’m concerned, 15 minutes in PvE is 15 minutes when I could have been in WvW. I’m not interested in loot except insofar as I need it for WvW purposes.

Clearly, the WvW model gave the designers a problem as DrWhom pointed out, with PvE loot trains in WvW.
Instead of the obvious solution of removing the PvE content and giving reasonable loot for killing players, they decided to simply downgrade the loot tables overall. I’m curious as to why.

Sadly, boring Warrior.

However, if you want fun, not loot, I’ve found Mesmer to be the most entertaining.
It works as a solo class and is effective in a big fight if you stay around the edges.

Ele is also fun, especially the d/d version but it’s a bit short on range and that spoils it. The staff ele is too slow & clumsy by half.

Both Mesmer and Ele are looked on as ‘utility tools’ by most commanders. Mesmer for veil/portal, Ele for healing/buffing fields.
But that only happens if you LET them. I usually just ignore demands for this or that unless it suits me (or it’s a REALLY good Commander)

Sorry to raise this again…but.

Today my dailies didn’t include enough WvW related tasks so I was forced to go PvE.
I decided to to the 5 dynamic events one and joined the Karma Train in Queensdale.
5 events later, which took about 10-15 minutes I was staggered to find I had about 3 gold’s worth of loot, including rare items and high value crafting materials.
This from just 5 ‘Champions’ that presented as much difficulty as scratching my own kitten.

Earlier today, I had to help kill Seigerazer 3 times and each time I got a pile of valueless account bound rubbish and a couple of blues. I’ve killed countless Keep Lords and the Stonemist Lord hundreds of times in the last year – I think I might have seen half-a-dozen rares in all that time. Mobs and players drop junk and basic items, blue at best.

So Here’s the Question.
Why is the loot so bad, even from PvE content in WvW that is at least as difficult? None of these 5 Champions came even close to killing that infernal Grub or the Spirit. They seem to take at least 20+ players a good 15 minutes each and again, the loot is kitten.

mercury ranique.2170:

I disagree with Contigious, they do sell a lot of usefull stuff IF you are doing the hearts at the appropiate level. I find that every other renown heart NPC has something I can use as a levelling alt.

Well, this is my opinion of course, but for what it’s worth:-

If you do the hearts at ‘appropriate level’ you struggle to stay alive. It’s expensive, difficult and not worth the effort. Far better to just work a few levels above and breeze through the content. The miniscule difference in XP gain is not worth the heartache.

Given that, the karma vendors are near useless, especially since most offer only one or two items, and you’re lucky if it suits your class.

Same applies to the ‘Personal story’. Some sections are well-nigh impossible at level and childishly easy only three or four above. Again the rewards are not worth it.

IMO the best levelling gear is obtained through the WvW karma vendors – who will sell you complete sets of everything you need for your level except trinkets.

^^ That’s what I mean.

Transmutation. Any other questions?

It doesn’t matter.

You have the most OP class combined with the most OP racial elite. (I roll Norn on all my characters now).

Just get out there and kill stuff.

Ethics.4519:

Too many times I’ll see a mesmer pop stealth, pop a clone, then dodge immediately out of stealth. That mesmer wasted a dodge and a stealth, and I automatically know which is the real mesmer now.

lol! that’s my biggest problem. I can’t help dodging. It’s usually the fastest way of moving and tbh, standing still or even running directly at your enemy (like the clones do) seems to be suicidally stupid. Nevertheless, it’s good advice.

Fortunately, it’s rare to meet anyone who is good at spotting the real mesmer. All you really have to do usually is keep gaining distance and LoS.

Let your phantasms do the work (if you’re playing a phantasm build ofc). Don’t be in too much of a hurry to get the kill, just stay out of the way while your phantasms and clone duke it out with the guy then move in to loot or spawn a fresh illusion depending on the outcome. I often turn off autoattack to avoid drawing attention.

This is why I don’t PvE. My experience of dungeons and the people who inhabit them is exactly that.

I guess it was a couple of months before I realised the quest-givers became merchants after the quest They don’t sell a lot of useful stuff though.

What are you doing with all the loot you get (I assume you’ve figured out you can loot the bodies?). I hope you’re not selling it to the ‘merchants’? those guys are rip-off artists, they only give you a fraction of what the stuff is worth.
Sell it on the Trading Post, use the money gained to buy what you need (from the Trading Post of course).

Oh, and get out of Queensdale. Visit the city, find the Asura gate and travel the world. It’s far bigger than you might imagine.

The biggest social factor on our server is probably Teamspeak, which is amusing because it’s not actually part of GW2.

Because we are able to communicate vital information fast, give each other encouragement and even have a joke or two, we have a really pleasant social atmosphere in WvW.

Points? What points? Who the kitten cares about points?

Who cares about points enough to Alt-4 and relog/requeue?

Probably just some noob player who panics at being stomped and shuts down the game to go and hide under the bed.

Lord Kuru.3685:

We’ve been asking for this since the game launched. Probably will never happen.

This.

It’s really funny how often somebody raises one of the same obvious fixes to the same obvious problems that have just been ignored since day #1.

Anet see sPvP as a potential money-spinner. They’re fixated on it.

edit : Can I say that? – it makes no grammatical sense. Oh well.

lol! Guardian. .

I don’t agree. It isn’t anybodies fault. It’s just the natural limit of the system.
No matter what Anet does, more and more people will want to play in bigger and bigger battles.
That’s what WvW is about – it’s the big attraction. Lots of people moving fast and throwing lots of skills. Of course there’s a limit on both speed and numbers. There has to be.

Don’t blame the players – don’t blame Anet. Just let us rich geezers have priority – that’s the American way!

Meglobob.8620:

You know what, I like to zerg…yep I do, even if everyone on this forum hates me…its great fun…also I know I am not on my own because I seem to be surrounded by 10-100+ others who like zerging too…

I have seen a few posts that point to Anet bringing in changes that will effectively destroy zergs fullstop…

Trust me if they bring those in, it will destroy WvW…it involves nerfing loot to the extent you don’t get any if your group is in a bigger size then 10…it won’t be popular at all…

WvW is about LARGE scale combat, not 1v1 or 5v5, that’s what PvP is for, I wish some players would get that and stop trying to change WvW.

No, you’re not alone. I like to zerg too. The whole point of the game is to form huge armies and do battle. That’s how it’s designed to play. For me, it’s the big selling-point of GW2 over any other MMO.
I’m not interested in playing a duelling build – that just involves skulking around looking for people to gank. Small team play places demands on time and commitment I’m not willing to give.
I like my PvP to be huge, glorious and above all casual.