Guild Wars 2

Beserker equipment is for what’s commonly known as glass cannon builds. Which is exactly what it sounds like – you’ll hit like a cannon but shatter like glass if you get hit.

(Well, not exactly what it sounds like because a real glass cannon would quite likely explode on being fired, destroying itself and doing at least as much damage around itself as at the point of impact.)

It can be an extremely effective high DPS playstyle but its much more difficult to play because it relies entirely on active defense – not getting hit rather than surviving a hit. In HoT that’s even harder to do because many enemies hit harder and faster and are more difficult to avoid (like pocket raptors, who are themselves tiny clouds of infuriating glass cannons) or have skills which will knock down, root or otherwise disable you.

So equipment that adds some toughness (armour) or vitality (health) would be helpful. You’ll do slightly less damage but it also allows more room for error because you can survive more which gives you more time to recover, learn to handle that enemy and deal damage.

Another thing which will help a lot is to take your time – don’t pull too many mobs at once, ideally plan ahead – if you can see some mordrem coming or an arrowhead in front of you or whatever stop and fight whatever is chasing you where you are, then move on so you’re not overwhelmed.

And get to know each kind of enemy – a lot of them have specific mechanics which require them to be fought in a particular way. For example pocket raptors are individually weak but they’re tiny and hard to target and always come in groups and hit very hard so trying to take them out one at a time is a bad idea – you’re better off using AoE attacks to hit them all together, and if possible stunning or rooting them in the process. Whereas Smokescales are almost immune to direct damage because they’re so hard to hit so it’s better to focus on applying conditions.

The mordrem guard often use trinity mechanics – they’ll have a healer who is weak but can keep the others alive an annoyingly long time, 1 or more DPS units like snipers or stalkers and tanks like punishers who don’t do as much damage but get into melee range to draw your attention and use knockdowns, AoE that forces you to move and other ‘control’ effects. Which means you probably want to take out the healer first, then the DPS while avoiding the tank.

1) Is the product given to each one of your characters per mail or only one?

You only get 1 of each item, but many things are account wide. For example if you buy a bank tab you will only receive 1 tab in total but all your characters can use it. If you buy anything which goes into the wardrobe like armour and weapon skins, mini pets, outfits, glider skins, finishers etc. then you will be able to use the Hero panel to equip it on all your characters.

So it’s only things like the non-wardrobe toys (riding broom, bobble head lab, harp etc.), infinite gathering tools and bag slots which are really character-specific. And you can always put the items into shared inventory slots to easily share them between characters.

(With the bag slots be aware that it only upgrades the one character if you delete them and make a new one in the same slot they will not have the extra bag spaces, so it’s best not to get them until you know you’re going to keep the character.)

2) What are some of the best products on the store (must-buys)?

Everyone has different answers to this. There’s nothing you absolutely need but many things which can be useful.

For me the most important things would be a few extra characters slots, a couple of bank tabs, 1 of each of the infinite tools, shared inventory slots and if you don’t already have it Season 2 & 3 of the Living Story.

I also buy a lot of cosmetic stuff – outfits, gliders, finishers, mail carriers, mini pets (especially mini pets) etc. There is absolutely no need for those, all they do is change how various things look, but I really like having them.

But I’d strongly recommend not buying anything just yet. It’s August which means the anniversary sale is on and over the next few weeks many things will be discounted and new items will be introduced. Think about what you want to get and then check the gem store daily to see what’s been added to the sale, you might well be able to get stuff you want cheaper or better items might be offered.

3) Does anyone know how many ‘Gems’ path of fire will cost on the store?

The expansion itself will never be sold on the gem store. The Deluxe upgrade (which just gives you some extra items) is 2,400 gems.

I’m happy with it. I like that the NPCs aren’t too spread out and that it’s a fairly open space inside, which means even if it is busy it should be easy to move around.

My one concern at the moment is that I like to keep the camera zoomed out above and behind my character and I’m not sure that will be possible with the ceiling so low. But it’s hard to tell from outside, sometimes it’s fine in buildings, sometimes it’s not.

But if I want a change I can always go into Amnoon and use the bank, TP etc. there instead.

Anet have already said they’re never going to do this.

I agree that it’s not that hard to find names that are available, even lore appropriate names that don’t look silly. Or silly names. In some cases even names that are pulled from books/movies/other games – my most recent character was called Missandei of Narth. (Yes it should be Naarth but I didn’t know that at the time.) When I loaded into the tutorial there were 2 other people with names referencing the same character standing there. (This was of course just after they added the new human hairstyles.)

BTW I deleted Missandei of Narth a few days ago and I just checked and was able to get Missandei of Naarth too, then immediately deleted the character so that will be free in 24 hours.

Usually I do go for something a bit more original. It’s usually words that describe the character in some way – for example my asuran necromancer is called Ambage which is an archaic word for a long-winded explanation. My sylvari mesmer is Bethe Arian which means silver birch, which fits her white, black and pale green colour scheme. (I know sylvari don’t have last names, it’s a double-barrelled first name, like Sarah Jane or Mary Beth.)

I agree, a second dye channel would be very nice.

Being able to dye them at all is great, but a 2nd dye channel would open up a lot more possibilities, especially since the base colour would be lighter. With the area we can dye I found I had to go for the lightest and most vivid colours to get any more than a slight change.

If anyone’s curious I found the Lily of the Elon (the new Royal Terrace style area).

You can’t actually get in yet, even with the pass, because it’s not possible to complete the first chapter of the story. But you can see in through the windows and get an idea of what the area is like.

In brief it’s a pair of reed barges in the mouth of the Elon river. Services I could see inside are:
1st barge

• Bank
• TP
• Teleport NPC (presumably same locations as other passes)
• Activity NPC
• Armor repair
• Black Lion Weapons Merchant
• Laurel vendor
• 2x Merchants (presumably standard inventory)

2nd Barge

• Crafting stations & NPCs
• Mystic Forge
• Guild Bank
• Guild Commendation Trader

Overall it seems like a good layout. 2 oval rooms with the NPCs arranged around the outside. Hopefully there’s enough room for the camera to move around easily, it looks ok but it’s hard to tell from outside.

Importantly for some people if you ask the guy on the door how to get a pass he says the Black Lion Trading Company sells them, so it sounds like this is not exclusive to people who buy the Deluxe edition of PoF.

So I was exploring Amnoon Oasis when I came across this shark. Firstly it seems a bit weird to have a shark in a tank this small, but more importantly it appears to be thinking about the piranhas from Super Adventure Box.

Any idea why?

Not that I’m opposed to utterly and completely random things, especially in games, but usually there is some kind of explanation.

Be aware however that changes to items in your bank and shared slots are shared between demo characters.

I made one character, used several bank access expresses and a total makeover kit (hey, why not, it doesn’t matter right?) then deleted her and made a new one and was surprised to find the kit and expresses gone.

They are still there for all my permanent characters, just not for my new demo character.

So if you do give one ascended armour, infinite gathering tools or anything else you might want to use again during the demo make sure you put it back in the bank before deleting them.

I just checked exactly this – I had 128 transmutation charges, used 8 changing my beta characters equipment, logged into a different character and I still had 128.

I assume exactly the same applies to everything else on your account. That’s certainly the way it worked during the HoT beta – you could spend all your gold, delete everything out your bank, switch characters and it was all back. (Just make sure you’re on the beta character when you use stuff you want to save!)

On the other hand if you get a precursor on your beta character there is no way to give it to anyone else.

You won’t be able to keep anything – mounts, masteries, XP, gold, items etc. that you get during the beta. It will all be wiped at the end of the weekend.

The purpose isn’t to give people a headstart on completing PoF but to test it (hence, beta test). So the point of unlocking mounts is to make sure unlocking them works and you like how it’s done. If you’re not happy about anything now is the time to let Anet know because it’s much easier for them to change things before release.

(That’s also why everything is wiped – so they can make changes without either giving people who played the beta an unfair advantage because it was easier or putting them at a disadvantage because it’s more complicated or bugged. In the worst case scenario it’s possible we’ll uncover something which completely breaks part of the game – would you really want your character to be forever unable to complete the story because they started on an unfinished version that was being tested?)

In light of this new clarification I’ve edited my post to suit your requirements. (Note, when I say ‘you’ I don’t mean you personally, it’s just that the alternative is to write ‘one feels’, ‘one can’ etc. and that sounds pretentious.)

I feel like being a casual player actually gives you an advantage in HoT, particularly regarding navigating the maps.

You’re not going in with a checklist of goals you have to complete as efficiently as possible so you can move on to the next set of goals. You’re just going to have a wander around and see what happens. You might have an end-point in mind, whether that’s reaching a particular vista or POI or the next story step or whatever, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t get there.

In the process you will get to know your way around, not by looking at the map and knowing which ‘level’ each thing is on but by remembering how you got there.

Draconis Mons is a prime example. ‘Hardcore’ players will rush through the story, getting to each point as quickly as possible without taking it in then try to start on achievements and struggle to complete them because they don’t know where anything is. Whereas casual players are more likely to take their time to look around and learn thatr the map is a spiral and if you keep going up and left you’ll get to each area eventually.

If you want to do Dragons Stand:

1) Check what time the meta-event starts.
2) Enter the map about 10 minutes before that.
3) Open the LFG tool and look for squads on the map, specifically event taxis.
4) Join one and when the map resets either you’ll be put into the correct map automatically or you can right-click the commander and pick ‘Join in Dragon’s Stand’ to join their map.

You might then need to switch squads as sometimes there are separate ones for getting people in and actually leading the lanes, but you can sort that out with the people in the map once you’re in.

As other people have said organised maps tend to fill up quickly, at least to the point where the game won’t drop random extra people into them, so it’s highly unlikely you’ll go straight into a busy, organised map.

(Also don’t forget to give yourself plenty of time to do the whole meta-event and to explore afterwards. There’s many things that can only be done after the meta event has been completed but people rarely advertise maps at that point because they want people to help with the meta.)

The same thing happened when they first made different coloured commander tags. And then again when the mentor tag was added. It’s just because it’s new. (And in between it happens on a smaller scale when individuals first get the tag and want to try it out because it’s new to them.)

If your concern is travelling to a tag and then finding out it’s not an event the solution is simple – ask before you go there what they’re doing.

I wish people would do this regardless of what kind/colour of tag it is because it’d save problems with people showing up expecting a public event when actually we’re trying to do guild bounties. (Contrary to popular belief not all EU guilds do them on Sunday evening.)

Edit: Not that extra people at a guild bounty is a problem for the guild. But the commander being yelled at because someone assumed it was something special and came rushing over and is now annoyed that for them it’s just a normal dynamic event (since you can’t get the extra rewards without being in the guild) isn’t great for morale or persuading people to lead guild events.

Shvetsov.6012:

Thank you for your answer And what would happen with hero-points earned by this character before?

They’ll keep them.

Leveling up to 80 awards exactly enough hero points to unlock all the core skills and specializations. Using the boost will give you all those points and automatically use them to unlock the core skills and specs.

Any extra hero points you’ve gotten from challenges will be available to use towards the elite spec, and you’ll be able to get more from hero challenges, either in core maps or in HoT (and presumably PoF once it’s released).

moonstarmac.4603:

If you use the insta 80 boost on a lvl 80 character you receive the following:
5 Teleport to Friend, 2 Gold, Celebratory Dye Pack, Dye Pack, Celebration Booster, 4 15 slot leather bags, 25 Mango Pies, 25 Superior Sharpening Stones, Mystic Salvage Kit, Orichalcum Sickle/Axe/Pick.

You also unlock waypoints in Drytop, Strait of Devestation, and Frostgorge Sound. I believe you also get the lvl 80 Equipment Package, which includes weapons and armor that are lvl 80 exotic. Usually Soldiers stats. Wiki shows Necros get Rabid, Thieves Valkyrie.

That’s correct.

If you have more than 1 level 80 it’s worth thinking about which one you want to use it on. The equipment you get is soulbound, and it cannot be sold (either on the TP or to a merchant), salvaged or put in the Mystic Forge, so if your character can’t use it you’ll have to delete it.

It has the same skins as the highest tier of crafted equipment, so it might be worth checking whether you’re missing any of those skins.

Since I already have enough level 80’s (and enough Tomes and Scrolls to level more characters easily) I used the boost on my engineer and got a bunch of skins unlocked and some new weapons for her (I normally use pistols but a rifle is nice to have just in case, and the underwater weapons were good as I hadn’t gotten around to getting exotic ones yet).

The other stuff is account bound, so you can pass it around as-needed.

You know what I find interesting about this topic?

Lots of posts contradict each other (e.g. we’ve got “focus on map completion” immediately above “Don’t do hearts!”) but none of them is wrong.

Almost everything in this game gives you XP. Some things don’t give it directly – in particular WvW and PvP – but they give Tomes of Knowledge which each give you 1 level, but you’d have a hard time finding activities to focus on which won’t help you level at all. I think the only time that’s possible is if you only ever logged in for Wintersday and only did the mini-games that are part of the festival.

So you can actually do whatever you want, and skip whatever you don’t want to do. (With a few exceptions, for example you can’t level exclusively by doing dungeons because you have to be level 30 to start the first one, but from then on you could.)

I never even entered WvW until my first character was level 80. Another character I leveled exclusively in WvW. Another I got to level 80 just using Tomes of Knowledge (that was an exception for me, but I needed a new level 80 at short notice). Normally I do a mix of map completion, events, story and crafting because that’s the mix I enjoy.

So maybe the best approach is to try everything and find out which parts of the game you enjoy most, then focus on that.

dusanyu.4057:

Danikat.8537:

but then according to her grandfather her ancestors single-handedly defeated Abaddon while Kormir just stood there so you can’t necessarily believe that.

Abadonn’s Gate? Kormir dident do anything other than randomly use “Incoming!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxmkAoLC6_4

That’s the joke.

The lore version is that Kormir lead a group of Sunspears and Whispers agents (your character was both by that point in the story) against Abaddon and she is credited with defeating him.

The reason she didn’t actually do anything was that in both Prophecies and Factions players complained about the stupid AI getting important characters killed so in Nightfall they compromised by making any non-hero NPCs in your party just follow you around.

So my compromise is that the lore version is what “really” happened and the in-game version is how my characters perceived it (after all they were focused on fighting and staying alive themselves, not watching what Kormir did) and the version they told to their descendants.

A bit like how my grandfather maintains that Plymouth suffered far more than London in the Blitz because London only got what the Germans could drop before the RAF chased them off and Plymouth got all the rest of the bombs. Of course news reports at the time, historians and people who were in London say differently, but what do they know? He was there.

In about 4 hours and 20 minutes.

Edit: I was told 5pm UK time, and it’s 12:40pm here now. But I’ve just realised I’m not sure if the person saying that factored in that we’re currently on BST and not GMT.

MinhT.9876:

This is going to be a pretty boring beta weekend if we don’t even get to take a look at the elite specs in PvE. Mediocre story telling is just not as compelling as new combat mechanics and build crafting. Seems like a huge mistake making the first preview weekend be such a let down.

Better luck next weekend I suppose.

I was thinking the exact opposite.

New elite specs are 1 trait line and a handful of skills on each character. Not bad but not enough to keep me occupied for an entire weekend. Whereas this beta is new story, a new map, new masteries which are basically new ways of moving around the maps. That opens up a lot of possibilities.

I admit I’ll likely spend a lot of my time trying to break out of the map (and if we can take mounts out of Elona all of the maps), but I feel that’s a valid form of beta testing – if it works Anet will probably want to fix it before the release goes live.

But either way I’m far more excited about this beta than the elite spec one.

Story-wise all human characters are from Divinity’s Reach. That question just establishes what your sister will look like when you find her.

Other than that you’re free to make up whatever family history you like. My human character’s family is from all over the place because she’s descended from all my GW1 characters and some extras I made up because I didn’t have enough for a full family tree.

According to her grandfather there’s even some Orrians in their line (merchants who were away from home when it was destroyed)…but then according to her grandfather her ancestors single-handedly defeated Abaddon while Kormir just stood there so you can’t necessarily believe that.

bigchunk.5190:

There being no way to walk to Elonia explains the different style and culture i’m sure we will experience in the new area.

Well for a long time the reason we couldn’t walk (or sail, or fly) to Elona was because there were 2 dragons and their hordes of minions in the way.

But now Zhaitan is dead and Kralkatorrik has moved further south the way is open again.

It looks like we won’t be walking to Elona at first, which does make sense from a story perspective – if we want to get there quickly and the Pact have all these airships it would be a bit silly to trek across the Crystal Desert from Ebonhawke. But I hope we do get a walking route eventually. Either in the PoF release or shortly after when Season 4 starts.

I feel like being a casual player actually gave me an advantage in HoT, particularly regarding navigating the maps.

I wasn’t going in with a checklist of goals I had to complete as efficiently as possible so I could move on to my next set of goals. I was just going to have a wander around and see what happened. I might have an end-point in mind, whether that’s reached a particular vista or POI or the next story step or whatever, but it didn’t bother me if I didn’t get there.

In the process I got to know my way around, not by looking at the map and knowing which ‘level’ each thing was on (I struggle to read maps of all kinds, GW2s is better than many but I’m still inclined to ignore it) but by remembering how I got there.

Draconis Mons is a prime example. When people in my guild were “complaining”/bragging that they’d already finished the story in the first few hours and only had achievements to do but that was going to be really difficult because of the impossible map I’d barely started the story but was able to tell them the map was a spiral and if you just kept going up and left you’d get there because I’d gone in ignoring the mini map and the markers and just wandered around to see what I could find.

Admittedly I haven’t finished all of my masteries yet and a big part of the reason for that is I don’t have enough points, but I still like the system. (And I’m confident that if I got on with it I could get enough points without having to do stuff I don’t like/can’t complete, I just keep getting distracted with other content.)

But overall I like the system, especially because so many of the masteries are situational. It means if you don’t have them it’s not a big problem. No one’s going to tell you that you can’t raid because you haven’t got all the mastery points or whatever.

I think it’s a nice way to add progression without forcing everyone to keep chasing the new goal. You can take your time with it without being locked out of any content, apart from the bottom few tiers which are easy to get and occasional special examples like adventures which need specific masteries.

Flatley.1620:

As an aside, I wonder how many people got the MP in VB that was way up inside that airship thing?

I tried a few times and couldn’t see how it could possibly attainable. It went against the grain for me and I succumbed to watching a video. As it played, my bottom jaw got slacker and slacker until it was dragging on the desk.

I promptly decided not to bother.

I really enjoyed that one. I can’t remember what I was actually trying to do but I was just trying to get as high as possible so I could glide over to something or other and I found myself on the start of the path up there. Then I realised it looked like a jumping puzzle so I kept going to see where it lead, and by the time I realised it was going to the mastery point I’d already done most of it.

That’s my favourite kind of jumping puzzles – the ones I find by accident and I’m not even sure if it is a puzzle (or if I’m even supposed to be able to get there) until I’m part way through.

As Berelious said we’ve only been told what’s in the first week so far. The anniversary sale typically runs at least until the end of August (I think the 25th is the anniversary of the 1st day of head-start).

If I remember correctly in previous years they’ve saved the “best” items (discounts on popular items like bank tabs and character slots, new skins etc.) for the end, presumably because then the gold to gem rate will have gone up and people will have spent any gems they had already so they’re more likely to spend real money for those “must have” items.

Having said that nothing is guaranteed to be included. I remember one year I decided in late July I’d buy a bank tab in the August sale and ended up waiting until January for them to go on sale.

I’ve always had trouble telling the difference between completed and uncompleted Hero Points (skill points were easy, but hero points look too similar to me). This is going to make it harder.

Sure you can look for the symbol, but if you’re scanning across the map looking for things you need for map completion it’s even harder to tell if you need that hero point than it used to be.

They added a character slot if you pre-purchased HoT because existing players complained that they were having to buy the whole base game again since it was included in the purchase price.

After much debate on the forum a few people suggesting an extra character slot as a compromise (since the base game had previously been sold for $10, the same price as a slot, and because people were separately complaining about having to buy a slot to play a revenant).

With PoF they reduced the price and gave you the option to buy HoT as well instead of simply including it.

So there’s nothing for existing players to complain about (or at least they aren’t complaining about that) and no need for Anet to offer a compensation prize.

I’m happy to see this too.

I keep my sound quiet enough that nothing in the game really bothers me. But now hopefully the people who hate The Dreamer have a suitable alternative to sending their…feedback shall we say, directly to the player in question.

Or at least I have a response if they still choose to go that route.

I think it depends on why you’re bored.

If it’s the game as a whole – if hearts and events are boring to you then yeah, it could be that this isn’t the right game (because it’s not that different at level 80).

But if it’s because you’re focusing on the XP and see everything you do simply as a means to an end, you’re ignoring the dialogue and the scene and what you’re actually doing and instead seeing it as simply so much XP per minute, then a change of perspective could be good.

If you’ve been looking at the same snow and rocks (or grass and rocks, or swamp or whatever) and killing the same enemies for slightly different reasons for what feels like ages then going to another map could help.

If you’re bored with using the same 5 weapon skills and the same utility and elite skills then mixing them up a bit of changing character could help.

There’s also the option of taking a break from the game to play something else, or do something totally different and coming back to it later.

Giving up on the game completely just because it’s boring at the moment seems very drastic to me.

People (maybe the same ones, maybe different ones) have also been asking for the level 80 boost item to be sold in the gem store since it was released.

I wouldn’t ever use it myself. It only takes a few minutes at most to sort and clear all the stuff you get from the 80 level up rewards (and some things I find quite useful, like karma boosters) and I can’t imagine any amount of money being worthwhile to me to bypass that (especially since I often level my characters manually). But I think it’s nice that the option is there for people who do want it.

And don’t forget, you always have the option of converting gold to gems to pay either the full cost, or part of it. It’s still expensive that way, but some people are apparently sitting on enough gold that they can spend 150-300g on a novelty commander tag they say they’ll never use, so maybe for some people it’s not a big deal.

Didn’t the PoF trailer mention something about refugees fleeing Elona?

With Zhaitan gone (it was apparently his minions that blocked ships going between Tyria and Elona) Lions Arch does seem like an obvious place for them to go to.

So I’d guess that’s definitely a build up to the expansion.

Faaris.8013:

Danikat.8537:

New players already get a level 80 boost for free when they purchase the game. 2 if they buy HoT and PoF together.

Wait, how can they get it for free when they purchased it? Do you get 4000 gems for free when you buy the ultimate version?

Since this item doesn’t provide an advantage over other players, it’s fine for me. It saves time, just like other convenience items. You could collect tomes of knowledge and buy equipment on the market, it just takes longer. A new player already gets a L80 boost, so even if you just started, you have the means to collect tomes of knowledge and gold (or buy gems and exchange for gold).

No game breaker

Ok yes, I should have said it is included in the purchase price.

My point is new players already get a level 80 boost so any damage it’s going to do is already being done and I don’t see any reason to place restrictions on it to prevent new players buying it.

I think this is unlikely to get a definitive answer, because the only way to find out for sure would be for someone with 1-2 unused level 80 boosts to buy another one. And it’s unlikely anyone would buy something they’ve already got and don’t want to use.

But I would assume the new boost does not come with a shared inventory slot. The reason the boosts that come with HoT and PoF are in a shared slot and cannot be removed is to stop new players losing or deleting them. That was a very common problem with the Deluxe and Heroic edition items – players either assumed they’d get 1 set per character or simply forgot about them and deleted the character holding them.

Since the new boost is unlikely to be bought by new players Anet don’t need to worry about that happening, so there’s no need to put it in a shared slot.

New players already get a level 80 boost for free when they purchase the game. 2 if they buy HoT and PoF together.

And yes it does already lead to people not having a clue what to do – it’s quite common to see topics in the Players Helping Players section of this forum where people have bought the game, boosted to 80 and now have no idea what to do or how to do it. I’m sure there’s more who don’t come to the forum. But most of them seem to figure it out sooner or later, and to be honest we had similar problems before – look at the ‘lack of structure turns me off’ topic.

I do think this item is fairly pointless, there’s already plenty of ways to level quickly, and people are forever complaining they have too many Tomes of Knowledge. But by the same logic I don’t think it will do any harm, so it’s good that the options there if anyone does want it.

So does buying the new tag unlock the old one as well, if you don’t already have it?

Because otherwise it’s 450g for existing commanders to have all the tag options and 600g for new commanders to have all the options.

For me its a combination of 2 things:

1) Not focusing on just 1 character. I made 4 characters on day 1, and another a few months later (I’m now up to 9 permanents and frequently make temporary characters too). When I logged in I’d play whichever I felt like playing that day and the different professions and the fact that they were all at different points made it varied enough that it didn’t get boring.

2) Don’t think about levelling. When I was below level 80 I rarely thought about what level I was or how long I had to go until the next one. I just focused on playing the game and then every so often I’d find I’d gained a level. (Before the level rewards I’d sometimes not even notice until I went to equip new drops and found I’d gone up 2-3 levels.)

Another thing that might help is to remember that you don’t need to stay in 1 map. Because of level scaling you can play in any map at or below your level and get good XP (and above your level if you can survive) and you start with 1 waypoint in each 1-15 map unlocked and will have discovered several more by level 40. So you can always switch to a different map for a change of scenery if you feel like it.

If you do the Dragon’s Stand meta-event you get a chest at the end which gives an Amalgamated Gemstone, and if you salvage/sell all the drops you’ll get a fair bit of gold to put towards others as well.

I think account worth is definitely a better measure than simply gold. It’d be a bit silly if things like making a legendary weapon or ascended armour reduced the ‘value’ of your account.

I’m not sure how you’d determine who is rich and who is not though. Especially since this game doesn’t really have a proper economy. You don’t have a pre-determined income like most people in real-life who get most their money from their job, but you also don’t have regular costs.

Given enough time anyone can afford anything simply by not buying anything else, which isn’t really an option in real life. I’d love to say I’m just gonna stop paying rent and buying food for a few months while I save up but that wouldn’t work so well. In GW2 I stopped buying everything except salvage kits for about 9 months to buy a precursor and the only consequence was I didn’t get any other new toys in that time.

Wait until the beta test at the weekend and we’ll find out.

The beta is open to everyone who has GW2, so even if you haven’t pre-purchased PoF you’ll get to try it.

When HoT was released this forum (and Reddit and Facebook and 3rd party sites) was full of people saying “But I already have the base game, where can I get just HoT on it’s own instead of buying both together?” and then being angry when they were told they couldn’t.

So they fixed it. If you already have HoT you just buy PoF, if you don’t you get the base game + HoT + PoF for the same price as a new game.

It’s unfortunate that there doesn’t seem to be a way for them to explain that which ensures every single person feels like they’re the one getting the best deal, but that’s life.

I was just saying the other day more games should have vistas. I know some do have similar features (like Assassin’s Creed or Horizon Zero Dawn) but it’s a great idea. So many games have these really beautiful landscapes (especially GW2) but it’s not always easy to appreciate it when you’re right down in it, especially if you’re always under attack or looking out for specific things. So it’s nice to get that moment to just appreciate the scenery, especially with the birds eye view.

I agree it would be nice to have a caption or something to tell you what you’re looking at. Obviously with the ones that show jumping puzzles, mini dungeons and other hidden things it shouldn’t be too explicit, but with some of them, like the ones showing Ascalon’s Great Wall it’d be helpful to have something to let you know the significance.

If I remember correctly (and I may not so please do correct me if I’m wrong) HoT Ultimate Edition was available after release. It’s been removed now, but that’s because HoT is now being sold bundled with PoF.

It’s not included as one of the pre-purchase bonuses (that’s just the Sunspear weapon, mini Balthazar and the title) which to me suggests it will be available later.

Wolfeng.3784:

So wait, if the reset is always Monday, does that mean I can get a key on Sunday and another on Tuesday?

Well, even if it’s not the case, this helps a lot. So I can better plan for Tuesdays now.

I was under the impression the cooldown was per account, but knowing this I can better prepare for tuesdays to run those low level characters.

That’s exactly how it works. It doesn’t actually matter what day of the week you get the key on, the reset is always Monday.

If you looked up the exact reset time and factored in your time zone you could even do two runs on a Monday* but I think most people find it easier and/or more enjoyable to spread it out.

*Unless the reset is midnight your time, so technically it’s impossible to do 2 in one day. But you could do two in an evening if you go to bed after midnight.

Even if someone is using the elite spec they’re also using 2 core specs. So they’re hardly forgotten or abandoned. Even if 100% of people were using elite specs they’d also be using the core specs alongside them.

And it will be the same when PoF is released because Anet have already said the new elite specs will only be able to go in the 3rd slot, so it will be one or the other, you can’t have both elite specs together.

I’m actually less worried simply because there’s been a lot of people on this forum and in game saying the same thing. Which tells me there’s a lot of people who aren’t done with HoT yet and probably won’t be by the time PoF comes out. Hopefully there’s enough of us that we can keep doing it together.

And yeah, lots of people have only just gotten HoT so they’ll be doing it too.

I’d expect a big drop-off at first because as well as PoF there’s Halloween in October and then Wintersday in December. So it might be the new year before things settle down and we can get an accurate idea of how busy the HoT zones will be in future. But I’d be surprised if they were dead after that.

They change what’s in the gem store periodically. Some things like the ghostly outfit are tied to specific festivals – in that case Halloween. Others just come and go periodically throughout the year.

Strange as it sounds it actually increases sales, for 3 reasons:
1) Less stuff to sort through so less risk of players getting bored or overwhelmed trying to find something to buy.
2) Gets people like me who might spend forever thinking we’ll maybe buy it one day to get on and make a decision because it’s going to be gone soon.
3) Gives the and excuse to advertise stuff again – when items are brought back they’re on the promotions page, and often mentioned in the news posts on the main site and on Facebook and Twitter. Which draws attention to them.

Of course they could do 3 anyway, but it has less impact when it’s simply “Hey don’t forget we’re selling this thing”.

Yes it sucks if you want to buy something which isn’t currently available and yes that does mean they might lose sales (e.g. I wanted to buy the Strider’s armour, once it was back I couldn’t remember why I wanted it and didn’t get it), but in spite of that it’s a very common marketing strategy precisely because it works.

Best thing is probably just to post in map chat when you’re in a city and ready to let people in. That way you’re targeting people who are already in the right map and can probably easily drop whatever they’re doing to join you, rather than having to arrange a time to meet up and let them in.

If you want to find people who may not see other people offering the same service maybe go for the less popular cities like The Black Citadel and Hoelbrak.

Oh and let your guild know too.

Chaos.8543:

Sumidian.8629:

I bought on the 1st of August, and now its the 6th of August. So be prepared for a wait! I used Paypal, which after reading this thread, may have contributed to the delay, oh well.

Same with me, bought it and activated the code last Tuesday and I’ve still not got my gems yet. Sent a support ticket on Saturday which i also haven’t heard back from yet, getting kind of annoying now.

Bear in mind there’s a good chance your Support ticket hasn’t even been seen yet. I’m not sure if Support work over the weekends (if they do I imagine it’s a reduced team focusing on emergency issues), and if they’re based in America it’s still the middle of the night for them.

But I’m sure you’ll get a response promptly once they’re awake and at work.

Yes. It will run right up until the game launches on the 22nd.

But I strongly recommend buying before the 21st at the latest. Depending on where you are in the world and when exactly the expansion goes live the pre-purchase window could end early, or late.

If I remember correctly for HoT it was midnight on the release day, but in Pacific Time (since that’s Anet’s time zone) so we had people in Australia complaining that it was a day late and people in the Americas complaining that they’d miss almost the entire first day because they’d be asleep and then at work/school.

The way you described it a ‘default reset’ would be useless to me. If it only moved the sliders back to the middle and kept everything else (body type, face, hair style, skin colour etc.) with what you’ve currently selected then it would be very useful because it would enable me to quickly compare different faces without worrying that it’s the sliders that make them look weird.

But if it reset everything else then all it means is instead of manually moving the sliders then comparing faces I push the button, manually restore all my other choices and then compare faces.

But I’d love the option to save a character design. That would allow me to pick out a new face, play with the sliders and then quickly compare to what I had. Or pick something that looks good, save it and keep experimenting and then go back easily if I can’t find anything better.

I like the idea of a horse model for the raptor just because it’d be the complete opposite of how most games do it. Usually the horse is the starter mount (and usually a plain, brown horse with other colours available later) and something like a raptor would be the super-special “end game” reward/cash shop mount. So I think it’d be funny to get a raptor for free and then have to earn or buy a horse.

But I think you’re right that in general they should stick to the existing models for the mounts and just release different kinds of raptor, bunny etc. But maybe they could do a few variants where it makes sense – for example I’d love to see a griffon skin for the bunny, they already have an animation where they launch themselves upwards so it’d work and be a nice alternative.

Maybe that could be a compromise – different kinds of raptor, bunny, manta ray etc. sold in the gem store and then new models like horses, griffons etc. as in-game rewards.

(I keep wanting to add ‘as long as they don’t make them random rare drops from bosses or something’ and then reminding myself that it’s highly unlikely Anet would do that and at worst it’d cost lots of tokens only obtained in one area. Annoying but still better than being the people on my other MMOs forum talking about how they’re so sick of doing the same dungeon over and over, never knowing if they’ll ever get the drop they want, but as soon as they do they’re never, ever going back there again because the repetition has made them hate what used to be one of their favourite parts of the game.)