Guild Wars 2

Into the Mists is mostly up to date. It doesn’t have the effective power, damage reduction, and effective HP calculations like Buildcraft but it’s still pretty good:

http://intothemists.com/calc/

The popular warrior meta is going full berserkers (power/precision/crit dmg) gear for maximum DPS, but I always recommend building to suit your playstyle and ability to actively mitigate damage via dodges and good positioning.

If you can stay alive in full berserkers and want that playstyle, go for it! Otherwise, look into knights (toughness/power/precision) helm, chest, and pants, and berserkers shoulders, gloves, and legs, then a mix of emerald and ruby trinkets with a Soldier’s backpiece. For upgrades for your armor, popular choices are Ruby Orbs, Runes of the Scholar (more offensive) or Runes of the Soldier (more supporty). Note that I’m just giving you a gear list for a small set of builds that tend to revolve around axe/mace and greatsword and may not fit your playstyle at all – I hope others can give suggestions for other playstyles.

For weapons and armor, grab exotics. Legendary weapons (right now) are just pretty exotic weapons – no stat boosts. You can purchase them with gold via the Black Lion Trading Company, run dungeons for tokens, or craft them. You can also purchase some armor with karma. There is no cultural exotic armor – only rares – and are only worth purchasing if you want the look (which usually involves the use of Transmutation Crystals).

There are not legendary trinkets. There are ascended trinkets with names that are colored pink. Ascended gear (asc for short) is going to be the highest tier in the game short of legendaries for a while. While I get a lot of my trinkets from doing fractals, you can use laurels, laurels+WvW badges of honor, or guild commendations (earned by doing guild missions with your guild) to purchase the trinkets. If you can afford a single ascended piece, get an amulet. I think it is the best return on investment. The choice of amulet is dependent upon your playstyle, but if you are going for a berserker or knights/berserker set, get a berserker amulet. It’s no big deal if you don’t have all ascended trinkets – many people are still running around in mostly exotics or lower tier.

Defiance just means that the tactics for every boss revolve around bashing it in the face faster, not trying to melt down 5 stacks of defiance using less powerful cc just so you can get that one good cc in.

The annoying thing about Mai Trin is that shawdowstep ignores immobilize, so the normal way of getting something to stay still just doesn’t work unless your party clumps up near melee so that Mai doesn’t go bouncing all over the place (and gl on that if you’re trying to rez someone).

That attack is totally a beefed-up version of the thief’s Pistol Whip (sword/pistol 3) attack.

If you’re an ele, activating mist form, arcane shield, or obsidian shield before you’re hit by the pistol attack will nullify the attack, so she won’t even shadowstep to you. I’m guessing swirling winds would work as well, but you’d have to cast it pretty early to cause her to not shadowstep Magnetic wave and magnetic aura, on the other hand, will cause you to teleport right to her.

On a mes, I would try using blurred frenzy (or dodging) as you see her shoot, not after.

If you happen to have a good guard in your party, an aegis before the pistol shot will also cause her to not shadowstep. Or a well-timed blind might do wonders, as well.

Theoretically it should, but since the upgrade my guild is building right now is the Guild Puzzle Unlock I’m not exactly keen to try cancelling it.

There’s already a mod out there that essentially automatically holds down your RMB when in combat. I don’t use it, so I don’t know the specifics or all the other fancy stuff that it does, but since I know people who use it and haven’t been banned yet, I think you’d be fine with that keybinding.

Switched to 30/0/0/10/30 for the patch, and I usually run zerk for almost everything… but since the DPS you need for the last boss fight in the new dungeon is around “hit it with a wet noodle and you’ll kill it”, and the AoEs are kind of hard to see, I threw on my “OMG the dredge horde is going to eat me” PVT set – with zerk trinkets. Stayed up for the most part.

I’ll have to try this out, as well I love how much this patch increased ele build diversity.

I wonder how well two eles running this build (or this + something like a 30/15/0/25/0 lightning hammer build) with scholar’s runes would synergize…

Yeah, I’ve been too busy working on fractal capacitors for my alts to invest any in bags. Probably a bad choice, too, considering how often I run out of bag space in dungeons just before the final chest of a dungeon.

I thought leveling my ele was orders of magnitudes worse than the other classes… until I started leveling a mesmer. Solo open world PvE exploration is very slow because your kill times are pretty high (just like an ele).

With a warrior, though, you should be fine. 1-15 will be a breeze, 15-40 is when your warr friend will carry you and you’ll just worry about tagging stuff, then 40+ you’ll start getting the traits and skill variety to actually dish out some damage. If a mes is what you like playing, then play a mes – balancing comes and goes depending on the PvP flavor of the month.

I think you can use multiple boxes of the same kind (in this case, the uncommon equipment boxes). I would double check by looking for a “Unique” in the item description. I do know that farming fractal tokens just for the boxes is a very popular activity.

New dungeon? Sounds like a place to test out my newly buffed ele.

Depending on the number of gated events and the placements of mobs in relation to walls and corners, I would think around 30 minutes once people figure out what to do, probably around 15 minutes if people discover some big exploit (that will be patched when they cut out that 1g reward).

I have several ranger friends that love their SB/GS or some other SB/melee setup and refuse to follow the three-step program that Dub suggested.

Upping your toughness as an LB/SB ranger is a bad idea – a lot of mobs will aggro on the character with the most toughness, so as you mentioned you end up “in the thick of the fight” stuck with two ranged weapons. If you still WANT to be the tanky ranger, o you can, but you should adjust your weapon choice so that you can take advantage of the DPS and party support (fields via healing spring and traps, the occasional clutch SaR when it doesn’t bug) you can do in melee. If you’re okay with sacrificing armor, yes, slowly sub some of your pieces out with zerker gear – but don’t be afraid to keep them in your bag in case you can’t stay up in a fight. Remember, dead zerker = 0 DPS.

Another alternative is possibly going soldiers instead – you’ll keep the survivability of knights but won’t be as likely to pull aggro. You may also be putting out a bit more damage.

Unfortunately, starting with anything ranger is relatively inefficient compared to warr or guard.

Kali, Matt, and DarkDiva, I look forward to meeting you!

The weekend is fast approaching! Here’s what the Legion has planned. Everyone is invited!

Sat 8:00 PDT (15:00 UTC): Arah P3 Tutorial Run (NA)
Sat 12:00 PDT (19:00 UTC): Guild Rush (NA, TC)
Sat 18:00 PDT (Sun 01:00 UTC): Guild Challenge (NA, TC)
Sun 10:00 PDT (17:00 UTC): Roleplaying Event (NA, TC)
Sun 13:00 PDT (20:00 UTC): Guild Bounty (NA, TC)
Sun 14:00 PDT (21:00 UTC): Jumping Puzzles: Ascalon (Plains of Ashford and Diessa Plateau, TC)

More information is available on the guild website, http://operationunion.enjin.com. If you’d like to join us for any event, please post here or catch me in game (mail or pm is fine).

Also, I’d like to give a shout out to Rill who will be leading yet another map exploration event this Sunday evening. More details at https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Map-Completion-Tour-Frostgorge-6-23-5pm-PDT

@ Reinhard, hedix – invites sent!

Sorry I haven’t been around for a few days, I was taking a break at the beach. In addition to our normal RP event on Sunday at 17:00 UTC/10:00 PDT on TC, we’ll be setting up groups to dungeon all weekend long. If you’re looking for a relaxed group to go through a particular dungeon with, please let me know and I’ll put you in touch with the right people!

There are lots of female gamers in my guild – and I’m one of them. I tend to play during NA primetime, but I have friends that are on EU time but NA servers. Ping me in-game if you’d like to hang out.

Welcome Hedix!

It is easier to get in contact with you in-game if you accept an invitation to the LoH. But that does not mean you have to leave your current guild at all! In GW2, you can be a member of up to 5 guilds with the ability to represent only 1. So what you could do is accept an invite to LoH but not rep it – that way, Noppy, Snowhound, and other EU LoH members could see your online status and invite you to play with them via tells.

Hi End! The Legion of Honour is a multi-server guild and would love to have you and Astixiya. Sent you a PM with more info

Higgles and Feraloxide, invites sent!

While you both are a little too young (low-level) to be running around with us in Orr tonight, we are having a Story Dungeon weekend this coming weekend! You only need to be level 30 to participate in the first available dungeon (Ascalonian Catacombs), and many of us are happy to explain the dungeon along the way.

We will also have a number of Guild Missions going on this weekend – the full schedule is in the guild’s Message of the Day in-game. Quickly look at it – we often can get members involved starting at level 40!

We will also have our weekly roleplaying event on Tarnished Coast on Sunday at 17:00 UTC/10:00PDT.

Anyone interested (regardless of if you’ve signed up for O:U or just happened to stumble in), give a shout in the Legion’s guild chat and we’ll make a note or just contact me, Lexy (Lexy.3912), Hele (Helequin.2608), or any other active O:U leader directly here, in-game, or on the guild’s website. Hope to see many of you!

Even on the high population servers here in NA, I don’t feel crowded (except in particular spots of Lion’s Arch, but that’s because it is a central location). Maybe try guesting to some of the servers with Very High population in your region to see what they’re like?

You can get a guest pass to up to two other servers in your region. The guest pass lasts for 24 hours – then you can guest to another server or re-guest to that server. Yes, you’ll be able to do everything PvE on that server and join guilds, then when you’re able to transfer you can take part in that world’s WvW.

If you want to stay on an EU server, then you want to head to Piken Square. If you want to move to an NA server, then Tarnished Coast is the unofficial RP server (which doesn’t mean everyone RPs – just that it’s much more common).

Laurels are one of the many forms of currency in this game. Gold is the most commonly used currency, which comes in copper, silver, and gold coins. There’s also Karma (purple triangle), which is gained by completing quests. It can be used to purchase things from Karma Vendors and Heart Vendors (those guys who have heart quests turn into vendors when you finish the quest). Laurels are gained by completing daily achievements and monthly achievements and are great to save for high-level gear. Then there are also tokens you get from dungeons that you can also spend at particular vendors in Lion’s Arch for high-level gear.

DEKeyzToChaos.7381
Main professions (all exotic/ascended gear):

• Elementalist: 0/10/0/30/30, has staff, scepter, focus, daggers, zerker or PTV gear
• Warr: 20/30/0/0/20, has GS, axe, mace, shield, rifle, zerker gear
• Guard: 0/0/30/30/10, has GS, hammer, staff, scepter, shield, focus, knight/zerker gear
• Thief: been playing around with her build, has sword, pistols, daggers, SB, zerker gear

Experience: All paths
Time: 14:00 – 22:00 Pacific time, if I’m not doing anything else I’m in.
Other: I’d like to learn paths 1 and 2 better – I’ve done them a couple times, but I feel rusty on them. Also rusty on a couple of the trash runs in path 3, otherwise solid enough to lead there. Can (and have) lead groups through path 4. I’d also like to learn how to melee Lupi – have always done it ranged. Also up for other dungeons, fractals, etc.

denniedarko.7123:

First, are there a lot of people playing? I am on the server Seaferers Rest.

You might be playing during an off-time for your server. Peak times are usually during the evening for the local area (15:00 – 02:00 UTC for EU servers and 21:00 – 07:00 UTC for NA servers), so if you are playing at an off time for your local servers, you may want to switch regions. For EU servers, I’ve heard Gunnar’s Hold is popular (though I know some people on FS), and for NA servers, I love Tarnished Coast – but Ehmry Bay and Ferguson’s Crossing are also great (and not the only ones that are good).

If you decide to change servers, you may want to think about moving any extra stuff you have to your bank and deleting all your characters to move for free. Your character’s names will remain yours for 24 hours once you delete that character, so you can remake the characters on your new home server.

denniedarko.7123:

I really like the Charr, but was wondering if you can run on two legs with the weapon put away or only on all four?

No. I always do jumps on my Charr with her weapons out – I miss otherwise.

denniedarko.7123:

I don’t seem to be able to collect quests, they just pop up when I am near something. I think that is kind of neat, more of an observation than a question.

Yep! You get credit for doing quests if you do the objectives listed by the quest in the area that the quest is active. For “heart quests” (called Reknown Hearts) you have to do enough stuff in the area to fill the bar. For other quests, you typically have to do something like collect items, kill enemies, kill a tough enemy, escort someone, etc. You don’t have to be there for the whole duration of these other quests – you can rush to help as soon as you see it, and you don’t have to stay for the whole event. You’ll get credit for helping as long as you stay on that map – but if you help more, you get better rewards.

denniedarko.7123:

Having trouble deciding on a class, but leaning toward a warrior. I usually play rogue type classes and want to go different this go round. Plus, I like the idea of a heavily armored Charr. Any advice for this class?

Each class plays differently, and since you start with 5 character slots you can play around with some options. I would say PvE is easiest to learn on a Warrior, Guardian, or Ranger.

denniedarko.7123:

Are there mounts in game?

No. You can use Waypoints to teleport for a small fee, or you can go to PvP or WvW to get a free teleport back to Lion’s Arch, the main city in this game.

denniedarko.7123:

How is the crafting? I see that I can buy and equip all the gathering tools, but how is the actual crafting?

Crafting is a fast way to gain levels at the expense of your gold – and once you master a crafting discipline, it is a nice way to make some things and potentially save a little bit of money. It’s very formulaic, and once you learn your first craft, the rest are pretty intuitive. There are lots of crafting leveling guides – following one of those may be the best walkthrough you can get right now.

Even if you don’t craft buy the gathering tools and use them. Start with copper tools for the starting areas, grab some iron tools for the level 20-35 areas, and so on. Gathering gives you experience and you can sell what you gather on the Black Lion Trading Company (in-game TP) for some decent money.

denniedarko.7123:

How hard/easy is it to make money?

I have never been in need of money in this game – but I have not pursued any Legendary (highest tier) weapons. Read the “If You Only Knew This” thread at the top of this forum for some tips.

denniedarko.7123:

How hard is it to find a guild? I have seen zero recruitment posts in the chat window. Am I just in the wrong place?

Likely. You’ll find more guilds recruiting in Lion’s Arch. You can also check out the Guilds forum here on the GW2.com website.

denniedarko.7123:

What is WvW? Is that like PvP? I am mostly interested in PvE, but wanting to try PvP later on.

WvW is open-world PvP where you’ll encounter skirmishes of varying sizes. I’m on a high population server, so a lot of the battles I fight are anywhere between less than10 vs. 10 to more than 50 vs. 50 vs. 50. I would highly encourage you to try it out – hop in to the Eternal Battleground or your home world’s Borderlands, find a commander (a player marked on the map with a blue v-looking chip), and if there’s a large group of people following the commander, join in! It’s also a good way to gain levels.

Enjoy your time in Tyria! If you happen to make your way to a server in the NA region, look me up!

I’m not a new player, and I’m not on Northern Shiverpeaks, but I still have characters that need map exploration or levels, and I’d be happy to guest over to your server! I’m on around 6 PM – 1 AM Eastern time.

Had him yesterday for our bounty. We started with a mes, thief, necro, ele, and ranger, then called in for a few more thieves and mesmers (for the old strategy of boon removal). He put up his fire shield right away, so needless to say we failed – though we did get him down to about 10% health without pure DPS builds.

Having fought him before the patch, I noticed that Komali no longer stacks might or has stability (yay!), but indeed does apply vulnerability to his attackers while the fire shield is up. Yesterday, we tried (to no avail) to steal/strip his fire shield and use knockbacks and pulls to move him around in case he was in a fire field granting the shield. With about a minute left in the fight we started seeing those lava elementals, but at that point people were frustrated anyway. I will keep a better eye out for them next time (or just go with warrs and condi removers)!

Mistaken and Lochmann, invites sent! See you in Tyria!

Thank you to everyone who helped out with one of the many Guild Missions this weekend! I had a lot of fun – especially at our first guild challenge!

I will be leading a group through Cursed Shore on Tarnished Coast to farm some events this week on Wednesday at 19:00 PDT/ Thursday at 02:00 UTC. Please let me know if you’d like to join up with us!

You’ll likely want to look in the Guilds subforum here on the GW2 forum – you’ll find a bunch of different guilds there with different levels of intensity (casual vs hardcore), different focuses (PvE/WvW/PvP), and different attitudes – and of course located on different servers (so look for a guild on your server or be prepared to switch servers).

You’re also welcome to check out (and add yourself to) this list of friendly people: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/OPERATION-UNION-Bringing-Players-Together/first – which does have a casual, multi-server in-game guild that serves as a hub for players to connect that you can join – just post a little info about yourself in that thread!

Welcome Mystic! One of the great things about guilds in GW2 is that you can maintain membership in up to 5 guilds while only choosing to represent (participate in guild chat) one of them. So if friends from your original guild aren’t on, you are welcome to represent the Legion and take part in our guild chat and see what everyone’s up to. If your friends are on, you can hop back to that guild without completely leaving the Legion. And then you can have your own personal storage guild banks that you don’t share with anyone.

The Legion will be hosting a Personal Story Weekend this weekend (May 24-26). Join us while we live/relive some of our favorite moments in the personal story chapters and pound through our least favorite moments. Whispter or mail me in-game or here for details, or leave a post!

This is an excellent idea, Rill. Mind if I add it to the O: U thread and post it on my guild’s website?

My multi-server guild has done bounties and rushes (and attempted treks) with members guesting from different servers. Here’s what we’ve found:

• Guests cannot participate at all in Guild Treks – they cannot see the list of objectives, and even if a native leads them to where a Trek Circle is, the guest will not see and cannot activate the Trek Circle.
• Guests can’t see the objectives for any guild mission in the guild panel – have a native call them out in guild chat.
• I’m not sure if a guest can cause bounty targets to turn hostile – shouldn’t be an issue since you want at least a couple people to engage a target. I would think so, given my guild’s recent “luck” with pulling Sotzz or Yanonka.
• I think guests can help scout for Sotzz, Mayana, and Yanonka – not entirely sure about that.
• Guests will receive full rewards – including commendations – for successfully participating in a Guild Bounty and successfully completing a Guild Rush course.

Hope this helps!

We at the Legion of Honour [XIII] love working with you for events, dungeons, and missions! Vanquish is a great group of laid-back guys and gals (who are serious about having fun) – if you’re looking for a smaller guild where people will know your name, definitely check Vanquish out!

Edit: apologies for the URL shortener – the guild url gets kittened (literally) so that was the best workaround I could find.

My favorites for endurance regen are the Bowl of Meat and Winter Vegetable Stew and the Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew. A full list is available on the wiki.

Thanks for hosting the RP event yesterday Hele! I had a lot of fun.

While I haven’t planned much in-game this week (out-of-game plans take priority), and my buggy gaming mouse will probably reduce the number of dungeons I run, I would love some company while wandering around Tyria. Send me a whisper if you’re on an NA side and want someone to hang with!

Running between the AoE circles works pretty well, but I noticed that he will shoot out his normal projectile attack (a bouncy green ball) soon after that AoE attack that while it hurts like the AoE and looks like the AoE, it doesn’t get the AoE circle so it’s much harder to avoid without dodging. Also remember that your character’s size != hitbox size so make sure you leave some space between your feet and the AoE rings.

What I tend to do is keep my camera focused on Lupi – push it down to walk around/dodge the AoEs, then push it up to see if that last attack is coming my way. I also tend to use stews that increase endurance regen for the fight, letting me eke out that extra dodge every so often.

If you’re into useless, awesome items such as minis and the cat tonic, then totally save for it. Since you are still learning what classes you like and dislike, there’s no reason to dump a bunch of laurels on an item that will be soulbound as soon as you equip it. I bought Chauncey with my first 75 laurels and he is my favorite mini – and I can move him to whatever character I feel like playing.

If not, grab an ascended amulet with a Utility infusion slot for your favorite character so far. If you’re not into fractals, save up and get a magic find or gold find infusion to slot into that amulet. You’ll get more laurels from doing dailies and monthlies, so by the time you’re ready to invest in a semi-permanent build for another level 80, you’ll likely have the resources to buy another ascended amulet.

If you’re really hurting for cash, you could buy dyes and then sell them… but on the other hand, you could also just go run CoF instead.

I’ve noticed on my server (TC) the WvW superzergs start rolling around 7 PM eastern and go past my bedtime. It’s still pretty active in the hours leading up to that, though, with zergs on the home BL and EB starting earlier. I would imagine it’s similar on DB and FA, as TooBz mentioned.

At level 45, AC and CM can possibly be more trouble than they’re worth for leveling if you’re not lucky enough to have a group of decently skilled higher leveled friends. PUGs are hit or miss but are likely to expect you to be level 80.

If your server has an active WvW community while you are online, hook up with a zerg and follow the event train there -events give very good experience.

If not, going to Southsun, as Lil Puppy suggests, and joining a zerg there could get you good experience – you’ll have better luck getting hits in on stuff and also get a decent number of events.

I tend to stick to PvE map exploration for leveling. At level 45, consider exploring Harathi Hinterlands, the southern portion of Lornar’s Pass, Bloodtide Coast, or Blazeridge Steppes. If you don’t care about map completion, ignore the hearts – just do Dynamic Events as you come across them (and you can just do a bit and then move on – you’ll still get credit). I also use food to help increase the exp gained from kills.

And always, always, do your PvE dailies and monthlies. Each objective completed gives you some decent exp.

Having a few characters at level 80 myself, here’s what I spend my time doing:

• Farming Orr/Southsun for stuff to make money off
• Idling in LA or other safe locations while chatting to guildies (either in /g or /s and meeting strangers)
• Camping dragon generals and other world events that are guaranteed to drop a rare or better while doing housework
• Dungeons, especially the Fractals of the Mist dungeon that was released in January(?)
• Map completion, often in the company of a guildmate or two

As Vayne mentioned, the type of guild you join will greatly affect your end-game experience. You are welcome to check out the Operation: Union thread for a list of friendly players mostly organized in-game using a guild and out of game using that thread and the guild website.

I noticed the spoiler as well and am a little disappointed.

Unlike the OP, I noticed the flavor text when I was looking at the new achievements – I hovered over the reward chest at the end of one of the achievements and read the reward item’s stats and flavor text. So yes, you can see the spoiler even without interacting with other players

I’m sure my method is overkill, but I like hoarding what little money I get:

• Use a Basic Salvage Kit on whites that will give mithril/elder wood
• Vendor (in some cases, BLTC) all other whites, blues, and greens
• Sell on BLTC rares that are worth substantially more than an ecto (remember, BLTC fees eat profits and major runes/sigils go for 3+ silver)
• Salvage all other rares using a Master/Mystic kit
• Vendor exotics that have a good price (worth more than 2 ectos + sigil/rune + BLTC fees)
• Use a Black Lion Salvage Kit exotics with runes/sigils I want, use Master/Mystic Kit on others (or save for mystic forge)

Go get ‘em, Glitch! Hope you’re doing great, as well.

There was another person looking for more for a HotW run this weekend, as well – what awful luck that you two missed each other. I think a lot of us were trying to squeeze in that last MF run or were enjoying the beautiful weather, but things should settle into a summer pace pretty soon here!

Thanks to everyone who joined me for some quality time in Orr last night – I’ll set aside another night soon (after the Southsun craze dies down a bit). And I think we are going to start group Personal Story nights to run through some chapters together soon!

Hi Hokkina! You are welcome to check out the list of players at https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/OPERATION-UNION-Bringing-Players-Together/first – and even add yourself! We also have a guild associated with this effort that you would be welcome to join (but is optional) – more information is available in that thread.

Also, to help other players who may look at this thread to see if they can play with you, what server are you on?

@Tika: It was great to see you in game last night (though I think I was busy running away from Risen or trying to take a temple while you were logged on). I hope all your connectivity issues were resolved!

@cat: Invite sent yesterday! I was having problems logging onto the forums after I sent the invite though. Strange!

Also, for anyone on the NA servers looking for things to do before the Southsun events happen, the Legion has a few planned activities:

• Saturday, 10:00 AM PDT: Grab your coffee and join us for a low-key, friendly, PvE-combat centric roleplaying event on TC where there are no expectations other than that you’ll try!
• Saturday, 12:00 noon PDT: TC Legion Guild Rush
• Sunday, 1:00 PM PDT: TC Legion Guild Bounty (followed by an allied guild’s Guild Challenge)
• Monday, 7:00 PM PDT: Is your supply of Omnomberries running low? Join us for a quick run through Malchor’s Leap on TC important gathering nodes (maybe plus a temple or two) and then into Cursed Shore for some events.

I’ll be on Vent for the Rush and Orr run, as well – info is on the first page. We use our ally’s Vent server for the Bounty and Challenge, please visit the Legion guild website at http://operationunion.enjin.com for that server’s information.

If you can put up to 10 points in a trait line, then you have already used the Adept manual.

At level 40 you can use the Master Manual which costs 1G. This will enable you to put up to 20 points in a trait line. Until you are able to use it, you’re expected to put traits in other trait lines – no worries, if you mess up or get tired of your traits, you can ask the vendor who sells you those manuals to reset your traits for a few silver, and your traits are automatically reset when you use a new manual.

At level 60 you’ll be able to use the Grandmaster Manual (price 2G). This will enable you to put 30 trait points in a line.

It’s supposed to be a pretty small patch – took me just a couple minutes to download, so maybe 100-300MB?

For solo PvE, young necros and eles are both going to have a hard time, but then again, young mezzies aren’t that easy either – so you may not notice much of a difference in PvE difficulty. Most of the beauty, synergy, and survivability in their builds comes when you finally get those grandmaster traits.

Necro has a ton of viable builds out there (check out iamoneandiamlegion’s Youtube channel, or of course the builds tossed around on the necro forums here or on gw2guru), and can bring moderate DPS with some good offensive party support through the use of wells and boon/condition control. With your large HP pool and condition control you’ll not die much in open world PvE. I actually found open world pretty boring and slow on my necro, but that’s because I leveled to about 65 then crafted the rest of the way (lacking the traits and skills to really test out a build). Life for a conditionmancer mainly is collecting a group of mobs while stacking conditions on one, using a combo of [Blood is Power] [Epidemic] to spread the conditions to other mobs, and running in circles until they all die, repeating said combo when it’s off cooldown. Sometimes your ally (or a friendly passerby) will whack the mob you’re building conditions on and take the wind out of your sails, though. I don’t have experience with petmancers because the pets kinda creep me out.

Eles, unfortunately, are prone to dying with their low HP and light armor – it will be up to your active defenses (positioning, dodging) to keep yourself alive. If you’re bored when playing this class, you’re probably playing it wrong – each weapon set has 20 skills available. They have a few popular PvE builds, and all focus on both DPS and party support. Each weapon set plays very differently, as well, and while you may hate one set, you might fall in love with another. Open world PvE will involve kiting an enemy or two or three and throwing skills at it until it dies, changing to different attunements as you focus on attacking, healing, or controlling.

I know I haven’t told you which one to go for, but that’s because I main an ele and know the class isn’t for everyone I hope my short descriptions help you make an informed decision though! I highly recommend grabbing a Sigil of Bloodlust for an ele or direct damage necro or a Sigil of Corruption for a condi necro – they’ll help you tear through enemies faster (and speed up leveling). And never, ever, go out without eating some cheap food and a sharpening stone (for ele or direct damage necro) or attuning crystal (for condi necro) – it’s an easy way to get even more experience from those kills!

@Jason: Invite sent, see you in game!

@knives: Glitch still pops in every once in a while – RL commitments are keeping him busy though!

Grats to everyone who joined us for a guild rush this past weekend. I certainly had fun expressing my inner quaggan

Looking forward to another rush next weekend!

I have a guard at level 72, ranger at 40, mesmer at 26, and everything else at 80.

If you want something that will be amazing in WvW zerg vs zerg battles, roll a Necro or an Engi. For necros: the Epidemic skill, which spreads conditions from your target to all nearby enemies, isn’t capped at 5 like most AoE’s. Problem is, then you’re focusing on condition damage, so your ability to take out doors and siege will be lower.

The engi is kind of similar to the ele: both classes are very flexible and provide a lot of different types of utility to a party, but their DPS is mediocre and they require more thinking and more button pressing. But an engi is also very interesting in WvW: for example, grenades (when traited) can hit 15 people at once from a range of 1500, and the enemies won’t see the bombs you’re planting at their feet.

If you’re into dungeoning, roll a guard. I love having a good guard in my party. Granted, a bad guard is worse that a bad warrior, so if you don’t want to put effort into learning the class, then maybe skip this one. I haven’t played around with my guard enough in WvW to know what their strengths are there – especially with all the nerfs to anti-projectile skills now.

Agreed with Wiser with Age that you’re going to also attract all sorts of opinions here. From what I’ve played (all classes to at least level 26, most to 80), the best classes for learning combat mechanics would be:

• Guardian: Probably with a Greatsword and a scepter/focus. Greatsword has great offensive capabilities to tear through mobs, and the scepter/focus is a solid defensive ranged set. I’m using shout skills while I level, which allows me to stand in melee for quite a while. As you get better at moving around, your ability to position and dodge will make you even more unstoppable!
• Warrior: Again, greatsword (or if not GS, axe/mace or axe/axe) and either rifle or longbow for your second weapon. Using signets for all of your skills (especially since they’ve been buffed) means you can focus on learning how to move instead of worrying that your 6-0 skills are doing nothing if you’re not actively using them.
• Ranger: While I personally find this a boring way to play, you can use a shortbow and a longbow, grab a couple of tanky pets such as bears, and shoot your way to level 80 with very little concern about positioning since your pet will be holding aggro. I’m not sure what skills you’d use if you went this route.

Yeah, the elitist culture is pretty annoying – in fact, I wouldn’t join those groups because of their attitude. Someone who can’t take 15 seconds every so often to explain something isn’t someone I want to hang out with.

@ Bloke: Noppy is on the EU servers and I’m sure would love to go through AC with you (sorry Noppy for volunteering you).

@ Willow: As long as people are in the same region (NA/EU) as you, you are able to do the dungeon with them. Just join the party, get to the map with the entrance (so Frostgorge Sound for HotW, for example), and if someone has already started the instance, then you will get an invite box to join the instance no matter where you are on the map. There’s sometimes the problems of groups filling up too fast, or if I’m copying/pasting from that website I sometimes get some extra spaces in there that also mess up whispering or joining the party.

Mephisto, Willow, and Brambarov, I wll send you guild invites in just a few minutes. Next time you log on, open up your guild panel, accept the invite, and if you wish, represent and say hi in guild chat. See you around Tyria!

EDIT: Invites sent!