Guild Wars 2

A number of people I know recently transferred to TC, and I tranferred about a month ago. Some of the best times to transfer (in EST) are Sundays before noon and weekdays around 9 AM.

When you are looking to transfer, remember that you have to refresh the character selection client. That means loading a character and then going back to character select OR logging out completely and then logging back in. Simply opening and closing the world selection window does not update the totals.

The in-game day-night cycle is 120 minutes, with 80 minutes day and 40 minutes night. It’s not necessarily synched to server time, as different overflows have different local times – I’ll be running around LA and it will be day while my guildmate will be running around a different LA and it will be night. At night, the sky will be darker and show stars, day has a lighter sky. I also think underground is considered night (but I’m not sure about that).

Instances (such as dungeons) are set to perma-day or perma-night.

Wow, let’s see if I can add anything to Gil’s walls o’ text! They’re already very thorough.

• Grab a minor sigil of bloodlust from the Black Lion Trading Co. (BLTC), which is the in-game auction house, as soon as you can, and keep it on your favorite weapon as you change out your weapons. You can use Basic Transmutation Stones (that you get for completing the maps of all the cities) to move the sigil over.
• Buy new equipment (blues or cheap greens) from BLTC every 5-10 levels. While crafting is a good source of XP, it is a goldsink for new players.
• Ele specific: Staff is my favorite, but is lacking when soloing areas. D/D is a lot of fun, but requires a lot of situational awareness. S/D is in between. When leveling, it will be expensive (and a waste of space in your small bags) to keep all the weapons on you, so find a set (or two) that you prefer and stick to those.
• Ele specific: Get the Glyph of Lesser Elementals as soon as you can. Having something to draw aggro away from you is very useful while you’re still leveling and learning your class. It’s available for 3 skill points.
• Scrap white gear, vendor blues, and vendor or BLTC greens while you are still new (under level 60). Only use crude or basic salvage kits – the fine and better kits are useful once you start getting level 72-80 stuff
• If you do not like crafting, still gather crafting materials! Gathers are easy XP and crafting materials have their own space in your bank that you can deposit into while on the road. Then when you get back to town, sell the materials on BLTC for quick and easy gold.
• Dynamic Events are a great way to gain XP and gold. As you explore, don’t hesitate to take a few steps out of the way to participate in them (unless it’s a group event and you’re the only one there – that usually ends poorly).

Welcome Opti and Bacon! Invites have been sent.

Being in a guild with representation on both NA and EU servers, this will put a damper on our plans to run dungeons and explore together.

I have a few other concerns, some of which have been touched on already.
1. How will gathering node access be controlled? What if I party with people from two other servers, and then we run all of our characters up to the Rich Ori Vein? Or, dare I say it, bots take advantage of this (since we all know they’re in guilds too) for +200% materials. While some of the raw mats are bottoming out near vendor prices right now, I’d like to see some of them still have some value!
2. In this thread it was said that a guest will gain influence for a guild. Will that guest also get any guild bonuses from active upgrades?
3. De-partying: If I accidentally hit “leave party” while guesting, will it kick me back to my home server immediately? I am a clutz sometimes…

I don’t know of any actual caps on attributes, but it’s hard to get any single primary stat to 2500+ simply because of how gear is designed and how many attribute points exotic and ascended gear give you. I feel like I’m building in the right direction if I can get the two primary attributes I care about most to 1700-2000 at level 80 in exotic gear.

Healing power is probably one of the hardest attributes to understand because it doesn’t affect all healing skills, and it doesn’t even scale across healing skills in a predictable manner when it does affect a healing skill.

This may overwhelm you with information, but this wiki page is very helpful at figuring what attribute combinations you can reliably find on gear and how much of an attribute you can expect.

While the “holy trinity” is gone, the terms DPS/support/tank are still used to describe builds. It’s just harder to make a pure-DPS, pure-support, or pure-tank viable for solo exploration in PvE. For example, my elementalist is support/DPS, my warrior is tank/support, and my thief is on Ori gathering duty until I figure out what I want to do with her.

The wiki has good descriptions of all the attributes (link).

I can’t tell you positively about a necro’s best attributes because I just started one myself. From what I hear, stack enough toughness to keep yourself alive and put the rest in power and condition damage.

While leveling a warrior, unless you want to go crazy theorycrafting, you probably just want to stack power, toughness (armor), and vitality (health pool). If you want something more offensive stack power, precision (crit %), and crit damage. For something balanced, go with power, precision, and toughness. Only after level 60 do you want to even want to think about healing power, and that’s only if you’re going for a support/tank-type build.

Feel free to PM me or catch me in-game if you’d like to chat more about getting your first character or two off the ground.

Barring any bugs, any food should stack with any sigils or runes you’re using.

All characters have the same base speed, and all characters (except thieves in certain situations) have the same maximum speed (33%, which you get with swiftness).

Warriors can get perma-swiftness using Signet of Rage and a Warhorn or banners. Elementalists can get perma-swiftness by using attunement bonuses, Glyph of Elemental Harmony, and certain Air attunement skills. I’ve also seen some pretty speedy rangers.

I’ve also heard that DR will kick in if you run a dungeon too fast. According to the wiki, completing a single dungeon in 30 minutes may cause DR to kick in.

Wow, I got sidetracked by the new website Vlawde made for us and now it’s a month since I checked this forum. Welcome to all the new members!

A guildmate of mine just rolled a Ranger and has had a great amount of fun with the shortbow. I don’t know much about builds for them, though.

You can also check the map image on the wiki page for Hoelbrak.

EDIT: Direct link to the image

I’m not part of any large single-server guilds, but you may want to check out the Operation:Union thread here in the forums to find other socially-minded people that are on GoM. You could also join the related guild, The Legion of Honour [XIII], which has membership across many servers (both NA and EU). As far as single-server guilds go, while ET is small, I see [Mend] members helping players and taking leadership in WvW.

Hah! Wow, you really do look like Shredder. Great job on the armor!

Seconding Glitch’s suggestion to join Operation: Union and possibly even the guild (The Legion of Honour [XIII]) that goes along with it. We’re a friendly bunch and your first post will be greeted by several other forum frequenters. I guarantee it! We won’t make you read all 1100 posts.

While I’m not on Anvil Rock, I love running dungeons. Hit me up if you need a 5th.

Wow, what a backlog from the weekend. I had about two pages to catch up on.

@jjc: Scepter/Focus is fine, though you may want to try Scepter/Dagger as well. Focus allows you a few more mid-range spells and I feel is a bit more defensive, but that offhand dagger gives you Ride The Lightning and more offensive. You may want to try an aura build (I’ve heard Scepter is good for that), but I don’t quite have the time right now to make the build and post it. Catch me in game when I can look at my traits. I use Knight’s gear for the precision and toughness and have sigils that proc off crits.

@Kit: I guess I ward of the TA bugs you and G seem to be prone to, eh?

@All those people running dungeons: Me too! Me too!

@Aeleniel: When you get to level 40 my hubby and I can take you to WvW for some supply camp capping and dolyak slapping fun. He loves playing WvW.

@Lexy: Wow! Before my ele’s hair makeover and new shoulders, we could have been twins!

Would anyone be interested in a LoH Wintersday party for the 22nd or 23rd? Anyone want to help me plan it or (if your server usually has a LA overflow) be responsible for trafficking people to the overflow server?

D/D is so much fun! My ele mained staff for most of her life but now is learning the art of short-ranged combat. Not very good yet, but here’s two good opening combos that I’ve learned so far that are pretty devastating at taking out melee mobs:

• Earth 3 (kinda buggy right now), Earth 4, Earth 2, Fire 3, roll back toward enemy, Fire 4, Fire 5, Fire 2 and circle strafe.
• Air 4, Air 5, Air 3 if needed for defense, Fire 3, Fire 4, Fire 5, Earth 4

One of the “love it or hate it” points about the elementalist is attunement dancing. Using all four attunements gives you access to a lot of things you need in battle: pure damage, heals, cc, defense.

Now even when an ele learns his or her skills better, they will still be super-squishy. I had trouble taking veterans on for a good long time, and I pretty much just went splat at the early levels in those situations.

It’s not just you. Many young elementalists have this problem. In fact, there are many threads about this in the Players Helping Players and especially the Elementalist forums. Try searching those for terms like “early elementalist”, “baby elementalist”, and “low level elementalist” for even more tips!

The first problem is that all elementalist weapon sets play very differently. D/D and D/F are very much melee, while S/D and S/F allow you to keep some space between you and your enemy. Staff allows you the most space, but then there’s the problem of keeping your enemy in your AoE and not in your face.

Elementalists require very active defenses to keep alive. Learn which moves you can combo together to give yourself buffs and heals or to give your enemy conditions. The wiki is good for that. Additionally, learn what moves will allow you to control the mob outright. Using those to interrupt incoming damage is smart, as is immobilizing your enemy while you wait for Dragon’s Tooth or Meteor Shower to hit.

You also have to equip and choose skills with survivability in mind. The best utility for an elementalist at a low level is Glyph of Lesser Elementals. It summons something to facetank for you, so then you can focus more on attacking and less on evading. Mist Form is super great and even is a staple for some level 80 builds, and Arcane Shield can help you survive while you’re still learning what an elementalist does. Other good early utilities include Arcane Wave (for the combo finishers) as well as Glyph of Storms (fire storm is good damage).

Ping me in-game if you have any more questions. Elementalists are a “love ’em or hate ’em” kind of class, though, so maybe it’s just not for you. Necros and Mesmsers play very differently, though, so don’t discount them because the Ele doesn’t work for you.

@azureai – Welcome! There’s many of us who enjoy low-key dungeon runs, and I haven’t done CoF yet either. Maybe we can get a run together this weekend?

@Deb – My main mistake was taking my undergeared level 70 thief (that I haven’t played in about a month) in Frostgorge and expecting the same results that my somewhat-exotic’d level 80 ele (who was the reason why my thief hasn’t been touched) achieves. I think I’ll stick to Bloodtide Coast or Sparkfly Fen for a few levels, then finish up Leatherworking to get to 80. And happy Friday to you, too!

First, bookmark www.gw2spidy.com to do the watching for you.

Second, chocolate and many items that might be used for Winter Event recipes are being controlled by power traders right now (really, just go to the BLTC forum). They started a few weeks ago. Some of them are just really good at it (just like trading stocks).

Farming dragon champions, vets, and champs isn’t quite viable right now. There was supposedly a bugfix in mid-November to increase loot drops, but many players complain they see worse loot now than they did before.

If you want to try trading, try to find your own market you can follow. While some traders focus on commodities, others actually craft for profit. It takes a lot of research and more time than simple flipping, but might be more viable for someone with only a normal amount of gold.

Now, go to the BLTC forum and start reading on the wisdom of the masters. And start studying economics

I think the wiki has all the answers you need, you just have to be creative enough to find the right terms to search.

1. Power and weapon stats determine your base damage.
2. Expected damage uses base damage, critical chance, and critical damage modifier. As Elronor stated, even at 0 critical damage, any critical hit you get will cause 150% of your base attack damage. Unfortunately, at level 80, your base critical chance is something pretty sad like 4% according to the wiki, and you need 21 additional points in precision to raise it 1%
3. There are some professions that stack critical chance for not only the increased damage, but also the effects that you get from traits that only occur on critical hits or from sigils.

@Glitch – While I don’t work specifically in fluid dynamics, I work with differential equations all day long. If your brother needs any help on the mathy front, I would be happy to try to help!

@Hexxim – Yay! A guide that doesn’t require oodles of rare spices. A warning to anyone who’s going to use the guide this month: chocolate and eggs are being speculated on by the power traders, so be wary about buying those. Farm raptors for eggs, and chocolate…. I don’t know where I get it (probably bags), but watch the price before you buy.

@Helequin – Save leveling your crafting for when you hit 70 and all you want to do is get to 80. Plus by level 70 you should have a little more gold, or at least be in a better position to farm gold to recoup what you lose from leveling crafting and making yourself level 80 gear.

You won’t be able to use the Discover window productively until you make some components.

Take tailoring for example. Here’s what you do to make your first piece:

1. First, talk to the Tailor vendor and buy 1 set of 10x Spool of Jute Thread
2. Then open the crafting menu
3. Go to the second tab in your crafting menu (the one under Discovery)
4. Just right of those tabs, scroll down to Refinement
5. Refine all of your jute scraps into bolts of jute
6. Refine all of your leather scraps into leather squares
7. Now make 1 Jute Wristguard Padding,1 Jute Wristguard Strap, and 1 (Mighty, Malign, or Vital) Jute Insignia. If you don’t have enough fine crafting materials, either buy them from BLTC or buy the finished insignia from BLTC.
8. NOW go to Discovery and click on the Jute Wristguard Padding, Jute Wristguard Strap, and () Jute Insignia.

… Pretty much everything in Artificing and Tailoring is made this way (other than potions). Also, the vendors at crafting stations sell crafting materials you need such as thread, special ore chunks, and water (for potions), so if it looks like you can’t make anything, you might need more vendor supplies.

Hope this helps get you off the ground. After this, refer to a guide for the most efficient way to make things for EXP.

Wow, what a disappointing night. Kept getting swarmed in Frostgorge (Mr. Grawl, how did you see me taking down your buddy from across the river and well out of your normal aggro range!?), then the servers decided they didn’t like me any more.

@Helequin: I owe you a dungeon run. I won’t be on until late tonight (if at all), but I should be on quite a bit over the weekend

@jjc: I usually run Staff or D/D, and I’ll probably keep a Scepter in my inventory as soon as I make one, but I can try to whip up a PvE S/F build. Do you prefer to stack precision or condition damage? Any particular strategies you like to use in combat?

@Elowin: I know other people covered that there are different modes to the dungeon, but there are also different ways to run the dungeon. I prefer to mostly clear out a dungeon so that when I die it’s not hard to get back to the group. Other groups do speed runs where they skip pretty much anything that’s hard or doesn’t drop a chest. Then there are also fun groups and business groups. Most PUGs are more businessy, but so far the runs I’ve done with other LoH peeps are a lot more fun – I think you’ll get that with most guilds. So don’t totally write-off dungeons because of one bad group – plus, you can get good rewards.

@Hexxim – Oooo! Cooking guide! Please share! When I’m left to myself, I just experiment and fill up all my open space with food. There’s gotta be a more efficient way to get to Omnomberry time.

Welcome Spider!

@ Elowin – The story modes make more sense if you go in order, but it’s not like finishing one dungeon “unlocks” the next or anything. Arah might be a little different, but I haven’t started trying that one. I’ve done AC, CM, and TA, and I would love to start tackling pretty much every dungeon except the Dredge one (because I don’t like dredge) and Arah (because I know it’ll be super tough).

Short answer: I don’t know – check the wiki.

Long answer: I haven’t experimented with the straight % sigils myself, but based on what the wiki doesn’t say, I would think that straight % sigils would stack. If you can, throw on a couple in the Mists and see what happens before you invest?

I know sigils that build stacks (i.e. bloodlust, corruption) do not work together. Also, sigils with cooldowns share cooldowns. See the wiki for more information.

Welcome to GW2!

Races impact a few skills you get, the first 1/3 of your personal story, and of course your appearance. Choose whatever you think looks cool, or if you think you will do a lot of PvP right from the get-go (completely optional), choose an asura because other people tend to not notice them as quickly.

Each class(profession) plays differently. I would say the easiest one to play for someone who is not experienced is probably a warrior, but you may find that a warrior is boring for you. Other classes that don’t have a ridiculous learning curve are guardian, thief, and ranger. Casters and engineers tend to need more micromanaging, but you are welcome to give any of them a shot, too – you may find that the effort in learning the profession is well worth the reward! Once you get through your introductory quest, you can head to the Heart of the Mists to play around with what your character will be like at level 80 – but then when you get back to PvE you’ll be level 1-2 again, and it’s a somewhat long journey to work your way up to level 80 in PvE/ WvW.

Don’t worrying about choosing your crafting jobs until you hit level 10-15 or so. You will need time to gather crafting materials and money, and I noticed that I had enough materials right around level 10. Even then, crafting is optional – you can buy whatever you need or pick it up as loot. You’ll want to pick crafting jobs related to your discipline, namely:

• Armorsmith: For Warriors and Guardians
• Leatherworker: For Engineers, Rangers, and Thieves
• Tailor: For Elementalists, Mesmers, and Necromancers
• Weaponsmith: Most useful for Warriors, Guardians, Rangers, Thieves
• Huntsman: Most useful for Warriors, Rangers, Engineers, Thieves
• Artificer: Most useful for Elementalists, Mesmers, and Necromancers
• Jeweler: Useful for anyone
• Cook: Also useful for anyone, but harder to level than other crafts.

Hope this helps, and have fun!

Sounds like your armor piece has a major rune. Each rune of the same type that you have applied to your total armor set gives you a different bonus as indicated by those numbers.

So (1) Rune gives you +15 power. If you find or buy a second major rune of the same type and apply it to a different piece of armor that you equip, you will get the second bonus, that is, +10% bleed duration. The 3rd identical rune would give you bla bla, and so on.

To apply a rune (if you decide to buy more), press H to open up your hero window and double click on the rune, then click on the armor piece that you want to which you want to apply the rune. A new rune will replace an old rune on the same piece of armor.

Also, if you decide to scrap that piece of armor you just got, you have a chance of getting that rune back based on the quality of the salvage kit that you use.

@cowgrrrl – Yes, trying a profession does take some time. But try them all out now! It’s better to know which profession you like now than to get a character to level 65, go “Meh, this isn’t for me” and have to start over when you’re so close to 80.

There are different levels of “I don’t like this class,” but I would say getting a character to level 20-25 gives you a good idea of how it will play. You can even throw some crafting in for a quick level boost. Level 40+ is when things start really coming together, but that is quite the time investment. You should save that for when you narrow your choice down to 2 (or 3 if you’re really indecisive).

I will say that if you start not being able to have fun for an extended period of time (like 2-3 DEs), try another class. I died tons on my ele, and while that part was frustrating and not so fun, I still enjoyed attunement dancing and having to use a little bit more strategy when facing enemies. My hubby on the other hand didn’t like dying so much.

Yeah, young ele’s are expensive. I do not miss those days of my ele, but I would be happy to give you suggestions if you PM me or ping me in-game.

Whenever you see a dynamic event, try to kill even one enemy or get a few hits in on the boss. This will give you participation in the event and thus a few coppers. The more you participate, the more money you get – but as an ele, don’t expect to be able to easily solo events. Also, when you complete a renown heart for an area, the “thank you” mail the NPC sends you has a little money attached – sure, it starts at 50c, but you’ll soon be earning 1s + from those.

Buy crude (using karma) or basic (using c) salvage kits to salvage stuff for crafting materials. Unless you’re really hurting for money, salvage all whites and cheaper (under 60c) blues, and sell your more expensive blues to vendors. Sell any greens you don’t use on the BLTC or to the vendors, as well.

And gather, gather, gather! Those crafting mats may be useful if you get into it, or you can sell them on BLTC for some decent money.

Make a big pile of them and jump in them.

… Seriously, you get like 3 per map you complete, so you’ll never run out. I have a stack of about 100 basic transmutation stones because I don’t really care about my armor appearance until I hit level 80. If you have a set of armor that you really like the look of early on, use the transmutation stones to carry that look up to your level 79 gear. Then you can decide if it’s worth the investment to get some Fine Transmutation Stones for your level 80 gear.

@Elowin – is there a particular dungeon you’d like to run?

@Vlawde – Welcome! See you in guild chat!

JP chests scale to your level, though there is a chance of you getting some zone-appropriate level loot too. It’s to give higher level players a better incentive to go to the low level areas than just simple map completion (thanks Anet!)

Evidence: my level 80 does a JP with a friend’s level 10 character. I get some level 80 drops, he gets some level 10 drops. The JP is in a level 5-ish zone.

Dungeon? Where?

It looks like I missed out on a good conversation yesterday – hubby and I were running WvW to farm some IP for his guild.

Right now, dungeoning plans are pretty much “It’s you!” “It’s you!” “Wanna dungeon?” “Okay, need more people” – or some general plans to run a particular dungeon on a particular day. I’m sure we can organize dungeoning groups better when when have a website.

@OP – Lion’s Arch always seems to be hopping when I’m on (around the same time you are, I think). And the sub-level 25 zones also have quite a bit of conversation. Above that, yeah, it’s sparse. But at least there’s never a queue for WvW – in fact we often get outmanned bonuses.

If you do stay on ET, look me up! I’m running map completion on my elementalist (almost at 80% now) and have other characters I can explore with.

@Helequin – Elementalist Scepter/Dagger is alright for now since they debugged (what!?!) a few skills. You get mobility from the offhand dagger and some midrange AoE from the Scepter. Give it a shot if you ever feel like picking one up again.

Thief can be very efficient in PvE if you stack Initiative building traits. Pistol/Pistol is mighty boring though, I agree.

Rangers seem interesting – like the lighter version of a warrior but with fun stuff like traps instead of banners. And necros also seem like they have so many possible builds that if you get bored of playing one way you just grab another set of weapons, retrait, and have a completely different character.

Well….

Sylvari Female = Leah from D3 = Lady Commander Shepard

… So what nationalities are Leah and Shepard?

Most of the maps on my server have at least a little conversation (boss is up, etc) going on when I am logged in. It may not be the server you’re on, but what time you’re on as well.

LA on ET is usually pretty lively, and it’s not all LFG. We talk about aspects of the game, random video game stuff, … pretty much whatever. Lower level areas are also usually chatty – I think the higher level characters running it for exploration just get bored and lonely, and lower level characters tend to have lots of questions about what to do and how to start building. Now in the mid and higher level maps, there isn’t as much chat, but I think that’s more because you have to keep fighting – which means carrying on a lengthy conversation is a bit hard.

Having been enrolled in colleges and universities for nearly a decade, I can confidently say that it’s a lot easier for gamer types to be social than it used to be. Here are some places to check out to try to find like-minded folks.

• As SanctumSyte already said, clubs! My current institution has some official anime and video game clubs – even a parkour club (sanctioned by the school) . Besides that, we have a LoL team or two that have posted fliers for tryouts and some other more general organizations have other video game tournaments
• The library if your school’s library is up to date. Some school libraries have more social areas where you can play video games on their systems with their TV’s – you can even borrow video games to play on those systems from the Circulation desk.
• Student Unions, Student Centers, and other student areas – same as above: likely locations of video game systems.
• Events held by the Resident’s Life office or your RA (whatever body takes care of your dorm’s activities and governing). You get to met your neighbors, and who knows, someone else might have brought an XBox or Playstation of some sort to college.
• Classes – Yes, I know this seems very weird, but go to classes, at least for the first week (I would suggest going all semester, but I know not everyone enjoys school as much as I do). While I do not like profiling people, sit near someone who dresses/acts like you. Look for potential study buddies who play video games.

As far as things to do/not do

• Do not interrupt people when they are trying to say something or tell a story – I know something they just said reminded you of something really awesome, but wait until they’re finished.
• Hygiene is super important to those around you in a large lecture hall. Bathe and shave frequently, wear deoderant, do your laundry, and get hair cuts occasionally. While your manly (or womanly) scent may be awesome to you, those around you may have other opinions – and respecting other people’s opinions is important.
• Do not try to turn random comments into debates. Yes, you may feel strongly about something, and you may think it’s awesome to debate things, but don’t jump into debating things until you have an idea that the other person also enjoys such discourse.
• Similarly, reserve comments about how awesome you are about something until a few meetings in. Saying you are the world champion of Brawl or something similar just scares people away or makes them think you’re conceited and unfriendly. Instead, use phrases like “I play Brawl a lot” or “I like to rock climb on weekends”.
• If you see people playing a video game you like, go up and say, “Hey, is that (video game name)? Man, I love that game!” If the group is chatty, join in on topic. If not, but they seem like cool peeps, wait a round or two in and see if you can jump in.
• If you have some free time and there’s an open video game console in a common area, grab a game and at least two controllers and start it up. There’s a chance that someone else walking by would want to jump in.

And congrats on getting into college! All the other freshmen around you are in the same boat and looking for friends too. Stick with it, get a degree in a field that you enjoy that has some sort of job prospect, and enjoy!

Welcome all the new peoples! (especially Hexxim because you’re on ET! The few of us on ET are a friendly bunch and always happy to help).

@Helequin – I know what you mean about the heavy armor classes – I really want to like them, but they’re just so boring compared to other classes. I’m trying to level a warrior, and I’m so used to running through my skill set on my ele so quickly that I use all W1 skills, switch to W2, use all those, eventually switch back, and find that most of my skills are still on cooldown.

So I’d rather play my elementalist or something equally interesting. By my thief’s inventory is full of jewelry, and my engineer’s inventory is full of food. And my elementalist is sitting on like 120 skill points with nothing to spend them on. I wonder what the maximum number of skill points a character can have.

@ Glitch: We all understand about the website. No worries! They take forever to program – that’s why I gave up on them a while ago. Keep up the great work, fearless leadery dude (as much as you can lead a mob of Asura). And I think we’ll need a photo reel for the guild’s main page that leaders can add to…

@Helequin: As you can see we have plenty of engineers around here. My hubby started a necro the other day (focusing on conditions, not pets) and is having a blast. Roll one and see how it works for you!

@beezer: Server transfers are free for now, so just watch TC. You can move your current character over or start a new one. I believe the button to move servers (or “Move Worlds” as it’s called in GW2) is in the lower left corner of the character select screen, but I’m not looking at that screen right now so I could be wrong. I would hope that Anet will implement paid transfers only after they implement guesting.

sarcasmosaur.8720:

I’m just gonna leave this here.

You win the thread, good saur.

So while Sylvari may not have invented their own curse words, they can wield puns with deadly accuracy.

I just used a kit last night to add glow to my sylvari (since I accidentally set the glow slider to 0 during initial creation and now she’s level 80!)

Some say that if it’s night where you are standing when you use the kit, you can see the glow when you turn the lights off. Others say that the glow intensity slider graphic looks to be at 100% (or whatever you previously set it to) but the setting is at 0% until you mess with the slider and sync them up. Even others say the glow won’t work until you move to a different map.

I didn’t see a glow at all while using the kit (lights OFF) but I added one anyway. I figured out what color I wanted by going through the new character creator (but not finishing the character), then going back to my sylvari and replicating the settings. Chose my color and then set the slider at about 75% just to be safe (in case there’s a 100=0 type error in the code). I get a pretty bright glow that I’m very happy with.

Hope this helps until there’s a bugfix!

Currently Anet does not have any mechanism in place to replace items/gold/etc lost due to errant purchases or hacking (that I know of), so you’re out of luck. Start saving those karma jugs and hope for a guild (or daily random drop) karma booster!

Nope, and no information on ETA. The Union is eagerly awaiting it too!

Until then, you can still do non-fractal dungeons with friends.

I agree, it is really annoying, but WvW performance really does play a big role in server population. Servers rotate as “flavor of the month,” and TC has seemed pretty hot recently.

I encourage you to join a server now to start playing GW2, keep an eye on those servers that you want to get on, and be patient. Once you hit level 30 you can start doing dungeons. Dungeons other than FotM can be played with people on different servers in the same region, so as long as you and your friends are all on NA servers you’ll be able to play with them eventually (even if you don’t get a server transfer).

I leveled my elementalist with the Staff. Here are some tips from what I remember about my experience

• A staff probably won’t drop in your lap immediately, so be patient or just buy one from BLTC
• While you’re at the BLTC, grab a minor sigil of bloodlust
• Kite enemies, and learn which spells can be cast while you’re still moving (fire 5 and water 5 are NOT ones)
• Open battle with water 2 or earth 2, since they won’t cause the enemy to aggro until the end of the animation.
• The utility skills you will want to rush for are Glyph of Lesser Elementals, Arcane Blast, and Arcane Wave, and the elite you will want first is Glyph of Elementals.
• When you get to level 11, head for Water 5 first to get regen and better survivability, then Arcane 10.
• Learn your combos.

Yes, you’ve been caught by the spam filter.

I’ve never had that problem, but I think if you log out and back in or maybe even switch characters (and then switch back) you can get around it now that you’ve been caught.

In the future, slightly change up what you say each time you post. The spam filter seems to ignore you if you alter your message each time.

I guess my advice will run parallel to the other posters. My current build is 10/10/0/30/20, though I may go back to 0/10/0/30/30 because of the last patch. I mainly stack Knight’s gear, and I’m going to throw in some Berserker’s or Valkyrie’s for my last couple exotics when I can afford it.

1. Blasting Staff is awesome. Plus reduced attunement cooldown from 20 in Arcane will let you cycle through attunements faster and let you resort to your base attack less.
2. Grab some cheap Karma armor/weapons from the WvW vendors to replace anything that’s level 75 or below. They are all Power/Toughness/Vitality, but the improved stats and armor will make a positive difference.
3. Focus on building towards more better criticals or more better condition damage. Otherwise you spread yourself too thin.
4. Grab a major/superior sigil of either battle, bloodlust, or strength (if you stack precision) – whatever you can afford and looks like will fit your playstyle. Stacks of might are your friend, so learn to attunement dance and make fire field combos to give yourself as many as possible. Similarly, invest in 2 superior runes of the water and run AC to earn tokens to buy 2 superior runes of the monk for increased boon duration, making that might stay longer.
5. Both Staff and D/D are viable for solo PvE. As you have noticed, D/D is sorely lacking in ranged ability, but is capable of downing a single enemy in just a few seconds. I carry both a staff and two daggers on me at all times and I switch out when necessary.
6. Balancing additions to toughness and vitality will increase your overall survivability most efficiently.