Guild Wars 2

Kaii.5149:

Looks like this is still doing rather well, glad to see so many people working together. I would do some AC explores with you fine folks, but I’m in my own little world here in yak’s bend lol.
Happy gaming. :)

You can do dungeons with people from other servers- just be sure to be in the same map when the leader enters. :)

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z373/Falunel/SeraphHQ.png

From the Seraph Headquarters loading screen. Took it off the GW2 wiki and scaled it up. EDIT: Photobucket apparently doesn’t like wallpaper-size pictures, though. Here’s another link: http://oi46.tinypic.com/wi09lh.jpg

Elementalists are a very mobile class, and not just by necessity. Double dagger elementalist has a number of gap-closing and escape skills, and all elementalists have a teleport utility and several stun-breakers.

Built right, eles can stack a lot of boons on themselves. The Arcana line gives you fury and another, element-dependent boon whenever you switch attunements. As D/D, I can easily gain about 7 stacks of might with Fire 4 → Arcane Wave → Earth 4 → Earth 5. Various trait lines will also add boons to your skills, like protection on channeled skills or regeneration/vigor on cantrips. Staff eles can lay down many types of combo fields while supporting with CC (freeze/stun/immobilize/cripple), conditions (bleed/vulnerability/burning), healing, and AoE damage.

Double daggers is a semi-melee set, with your range being about 300 on average, I think. So you have room to move.

And survivability. I’ll venture to say that most of the people who complain that eles are too squishy either have gone glass cannon or haven’t learned to kite/dodge/control. I had issues with surviving early on, but that was because I stayed constantly in fire attunement, ran a staff without knowing the skills on it, and put all of my points in fire. When I respecced into earth/water/arcana and started attunement dancing with daggers, I was able to outsurvive warriors and guardians and solo certain champions. Heck, I’ve been able to sit in front of enemies and durrhurr autoattack them on water attunement without issues. So it all depends on experience and your build.

That’s a gender difference, I’m afraid. Female charr have long-haired tails while male charr have lion-like tails.

EDIT: I just realized you were referring to the pattern, not the actual shape of the tails. Once I log in, I’ll go through the character creator and see if I can dig anything up.

EDIT 2: Yes, you can change the patterns upon their tails. Change their fur pattern.

Karma is soulbound (bound to a certain character). You could try purchasing cooking materials from heart vendors or karma vendors in the city, perhaps. Either way, you get 4500 karma a day from doing daily achievements, so don’t stress.

That’s pretty much the model of the game- the absence of the progression hook is deliberate, given there’s no subscription fee to milk out of players. No gear carrot means you can leave and come back whenever you want without worrying about falling behind- you play because you want to, not because you have to. In that way, I guess you can liken it more to a single-player RPG like Skyrim than to WoW or WoW imitators.

Yes. You’d likely need Fine Transmutation Stones for level 80 gear, though, and make sure you select what you want when you do transmute.

Also, good luck on the legendary!

There’s a “Pact Hornbow of Force” available on the TP. Other than that, I can’t say.

Tarnished Coast is the unofficial roleplay server- I moved to it from Yak’s Bend a while ago and haven’t regretted it. It does have some trolls and kittenhats, but the majority of players here have been friendly and mature; I’ve also had the fortune of coming across a small but active and welcoming guild. From what I know as a pure PvE player, it’s also fairly active in WvW, though it isn’t the server’s defining trait.

If you get the chance, feel free to come by. :)

EDIT: Heh, semi-ninja’ed by Glitch.

I ran AC story mode earlier with a thief, a ranger, and a mesmer from my guild. We cleared everything in under an hour and had only three deaths across the entire group.

Don’t be too hasty to judge a class based off forum posts only- yes, there are issues, but as was stated earlier, a lot of people here like to whine and whine. The only way to know if something suits you for certain is to try it yourself, and keep an open mind. Case in point- not too long ago, the elementalist forums were full of complaints about how we die whenever a mob so much sneezes from ten feet away, or how we have the damage of a declawed kitten. I almost believed them when I first started playing. With some build tweaks, however, I’ve found myself able to outsurvive heavy armor classes while doing a generous amount of damage myself. Take everything with a grain of salt, and don’t let other people dictate what you enjoy.

I also had issues when starting out as an elementalist. What build and weapons do you run? And what utility skills do you have? Those can have a major impact on whether you survive or not. If you haven’t, consider slotting in some cantrips- they will save your life many times. Armor in Earth reduces damage and makes you immune to control effects, which helps greatly against ranged mobs with knockback. Cleansing Flame is vital against condition-inflicting mobs. Lightning Flash can be used to close gaps or escape.

Be warned that the healer/tank/DPS trinity isn’t present in GW2. There is no designated tank or healer. Instead, every class is responsible for avoiding damage and helping others avoid damage- it’s a “soft trinity” of damage/support/control.

Likewise, the traditional notion of tanking doesn’t work here. If you stand still in a dungeon and try to soak up/outheal all the damage, you will die very quickly, regardless of what class you are. Nor is there a way to hold aggro- you’ll likely be trading off with other players. Everyone at some point will have to “tank” by kiting/dodging/blocking, etc, while others help out by piling on blinds/slows/dazes/other types of controls, doing damage, and augmenting damage through the use of combo fields, damage buffs like might and fury, and debuffs like poison and vulnerability.

It all sounds overwhelming, but if you go in with an open mind, you’ll pick it up, and learn to enjoy yourself as well. That being said, happy gaming!

Thief, from what I hear, can be as bad as elementalist in terms of difficulty/reflexes required to stay alive. Try warrior or ranger- both tend to be more forgiving, and though the ranger’s a medium armor class, a good tanking pet like a bear can add a lot of survivability. As for guardian… it seems to be on the fence, from what I hear. Lots of blocks and heavy armor, but a low HP pool. I think the best thing you can do is to try all of those classes and see what suits you best.

Ask your guildmate to delete some of his old mail. Not NPC mail, mail from other players- see if he gets it then. His box may be full.

No harshness intended, but this would probably be best moved to the general discussion board, where it won’t confuse new players.

1. Ebon Vanguard weapons can be bought for karma from the cultural weaponsmiths in Ebonhawke.

2. Yes. I think they come from map completions.

(wall of text ahead)

I’m feel like I’m being preachy, but just in case… the leveling process is the endgame, pretty much. You have access to 95% of your skills by level 30, and grind rewards are cosmetic, not stat-based. If you rush to 80 (and it is possible to reach 80 in a matter of days), you’ll miss a lot of content and burn yourself out. Enjoy the game at your own pace, and don’t be afraid to explore- there’s a lot of interesting detail worked into the world.

That aside, I’m only level 43 right now on my elementalist and pure PvE, but I’ve been playing since launch, so hopefully this will count for something.

I guess I’ll start with the pros. Firstly, versatility. Elementalists have a lot of tools at their disposal. They don’t have weapon switching like other classes, but they have four different elements which they can attune to, each with a different skillset. In other words, they have twenty weapon skills per weapon, and many of these skills have a purpose other than damage.

For instance, as a double dagger ele, I have three skills I can use to quickly close the gap between myself and my enemy- one on fire attunement, one on wind, and one on earth. I also have numerous control skills- freeze on water, cripple/knockdown/immobilize on earth, and knockdown on wind. I can also inflict burning on fire, vulnerability on water, weakness on wind, and bleed on earth. I also have AoEs on fire, water, and earth. In case of an emergency, I can use skills on fire and wind to get away. I’ve become rather spoiled on skills as a result- every other class I play feels sparse next to the options ele has.

Staff eles are also great at support. I can heal and cleanse conditions on water and lay down fire, water, ice, and wind combo fields for everyone else to take advantage of. If I spec far enough into Arcana, changing attunements will buff allies close to me. I can also control from afar with freeze, stun, knockback, cripple, and immobilize. If the enemy’s foolish enough to stand still, I can lay down several AoEs on them to speed up killing.

Oh, and they look awesome. They’re probably one of the flashiest classes in the game. There’s nothing quite like zooming in out of nowhere in a flash of lightning, burning everything down, and then teleporting out afterward in another flash of lightning.

Now, for the cons. You’ve probably heard a lot of people say that elementalists are squishy. They are.

Up until a time ago, I ran staff and put all of my points into fire, the offensive/might trait line. And, well, whenever a mob caught up and sneezed on me, I either died or came close to it. Then I respecced into earth, water, and arcana, the toughness, healing/vitality, and attunement lines. Now, as long as I stay on my toes, I can easily solo most world content, including some of the tamer champion and skillpoint bosses, and outlive other players in group events.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that elementalists are squishy, but not cripplingly so as long as you build defensively, learn your attunements/skills, and stay on your toes. That leads, however, to the fact that you may be more limited on builds as an elementalist than as other classes, as you’ll be punished for playing a pure glass-cannon build. Thus, you will likely not have the DPS that mage classes in other MMOs have. You’ll still do a generous amount of damage, just not MASSIVE DAMAGE IN ONE ATTACK-level damage.

And in case I wasn’t clear… elementalist is hard. Probably one of the hardest classes to master, along with mesmer. You’ll have to change your mindset regarding mage classes in other MMOs; you’ll have to memorize twenty skills (more if you decide to keep another weapon with you), think about how they all chain together, think of backup plans in case the attack/attunement you want to use is on cooldown. You’ll have to stay moving constantly in battle, dodge, and swap attunements often. It takes a lot of practice, and often a lot of deaths. At one point, I gave up and started maining necro/ranger instead.

There’s also a number of annoying bugs on some skills, like Ride the Lightning, which has a tendency to freeze. Hopefully, they’ll be able to fix them.

tl;dr Elementalist is a difficult and sometimes discouraging class, and can be limiting sometimes when it comes to necessary traits. However, it is also very rewarding once you get it down. I do feel that I have to work harder than other classes, but I find it thrilling as well. I’m rarely bored in combat, and I feel that I can contribute better than I can as any other class.

As was said before, give every class that catches your fancy a whirl. Race here is pretty much cosmetic; every race does have different racial skills, but they’re deliberately unimportant next to class skills.

Also, yeah, GW2’s dungeons are very difficult- Ascalonian Catacombs (first dungeon, available at level 30) has been described as a three-hour-long wake-up call. The mobs have a lot of health and hit very hard, far more than you can hope to outheal. You’ll have to make full use of dodges, blinds, stuns, blocks, environmental shields, etc in order to survive- the traditional concept of tanking just doesn’t hold here. Rush in, stand still, and you will die no matter what class you are or how much vitality/toughness you have on your gear. It can be a jarring transition, but don’t give up- you will get it down if you’re open to learning.

The pipe organ also lacks accidentals (sharps, flats, naturals), so your notes might end up being off in the end.

You can find sheet music for “To Zanarkand” here: http://www.ffshrine.org/ffx/ffx_sheet.php

I’m not musically inclined, so that’s all I can offer.

It’s bugged, unfortunately.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Rubric_armor

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Falunel.7645:

A bit late, but here’s a listing of all the armors you asked for:
-Asura Necromancer: Light Inquest armor, received by trading tokens from the Crucible of Eternity dungeon. Can be worn by all races.
-Charr Guardian: Heavy Tier 3 Charr cultural armor.
-Norn Ranger: Medium Tier 2 Norn cultural armor.
-Human Engineer: Medium divinity/exotic armor. There are several types with different stats, but the same appearance. Any race can wear them.
-Sylvari Mesmer: Looks like the light armor from Twilight Arbor, though I think they used different shoulder pieces. Can be worn by all races.

I don’t remember the gear like bits on the Asura necro glove. Though I don’t have a spare character slot, so I can’t easily check what it looks like.

Here’s a shot. It should be the same for both genders.

The keys can be purchased through the in-game cash shop for real world money. Nothing really gamebreaking comes from the chests, though.

A bit late, but here’s a listing of all the armors you asked for:
-Asura Necromancer: Light Inquest armor, received by trading tokens from the Crucible of Eternity dungeon. Can be worn by all races.
-Charr Guardian: Heavy Tier 3 Charr cultural armor.
-Norn Ranger: Medium Tier 2 Norn cultural armor.
-Human Engineer: Medium divinity/exotic armor. There are several types with different stats, but the same appearance. Any race can wear them.
-Sylvari Mesmer: Looks like the light armor from Twilight Arbor, though I think they used different shoulder pieces. Can be worn by all races.

Are you making use of the pet swap mechanic? You can have two pets equipped and only one active, but you can change between them anytime. Doing so restores both pets’ health to full, so if one pet goes down in battle, change to the other.

Also, I feel obliged to mention that elementalists are only extremely squishy in PvE if you build a glass cannon and neglect to dodge or switch attunements. I started off as a staff elementalist with all my points in fire, and yeah, I died every time a mob got in melee range of me. I respecced recently to 10/12/10 in earth/water/arcana and started using dual daggers, however, and now I’m capable of soloing most world PvE content. For instance, just a few days ago, I soloed a champion to 40% health before another player, a warrior, came in. He ran in headfirst and died. Came back, died again. It’s all about knowing the class- granted, you still have to be quick on your feet and think/plan a lot to survive as ele, but that’s part of what makes the class enjoyable, I feel.

Hmm, right now, the server time is 7:24 PM. Seeing that it’s also full right now, though, I’d say there are a good number of people playing from, or into, Central time.

I’ll echo Dead. I’m not that experienced or high-leveled myself (level 42, completed AC and CM SM), but I’m always up to lend a hand when I’m free.

Overall, yeah, it takes a lot of patience. AC was described somewhere as “an hours-long wake-up call,” and it is a huge transition from general PvE. As Kozai said, practice soloing or near-soloing Veterans, then Champions (yes, it’s doable). You’ll get beaten up, but you’ll also learn a lot about how to time dodges/control skills.

I recently transferred to Tarnished Coast, the unofficial RP server. I don’t RP and I’m also on Central time, but so far I’ve found the community to be extremely mature and pleasant. Queensdale (the human beginner area) in particular is very active, and though the higher maps tend to be quieter, I’ve still run across a good number of players while just wandering around.

The problem with Tarnished Coast is landing a spot on it- it’s often full. However, this status doesn’t reflect the number of accounts made on that world, but the number of people currently playing. If you can log in during the quieter hours, there’s a chance the server will just be high instead of full, and you’ll be able to join.

I don’t know if there is a way, but according to this post, the file size is somewhere around 600 (or 700) MB. Round it up if you feel nervous.

I’m not an expert on the heavier classes, but from what I’ve seen, people tend to take turns at holding aggro. Tanking here also consists of kiting and dodging, and making effective use of stuns/slows/blinds etc to avoid/reduce damage rather than healing it. Unfortunately, I’ve run with a number of melee players who were still stuck in the old mindset, and would run headfirst into enemies over and over again, and die over and over again.

I’ve also heard that pure-DPS, glass-cannon groups go down extremely quickly in dungeons, so no, I don’t think people look for DPS alone. Any support done properly would be valuable.

Hopefully this can help. It’s a compilation of various armor sets in GW2, including cultural sets. http://dulfy.net/2012/07/21/gw2-armor-previews/

If you can take screenshots of the ones you’re interested in, that would help greatly.

You can still buy crude and fine salvage kits for karma from Cultural Weaponsmith NPCs. Scroll to the bottom of their lists.

Firstly, GW2 can be unforgiving. The battle system requires you to constantly stay in motion, plan your skills, and anticipate enemy attacks. If you don’t, you die.

It sounds scary, but don’t worry- with practice and patience, you get it down to the point that it becomes second nature. Just have to be willing to learn and adapt. That being said, I’d recommend that you try every class that catches your fancy, but if you’re having trouble surviving, play a warrior or ranger. Both are fairly hardy classes and should give you more room to learn the basics of the combat system. From there, you can try some of the more difficult classes, such as elementalist (which is probably the closest you can come to a mage class).

As for general MMO advice, this is the most important bit I can give- be nice to people. Don’t beg. Don’t do anything that would get you punched in the face in real life, no matter how tempting it may seem. Patience is key.

Since you’re new to MMOs, you probably don’t have the mindset that many veteran MMOers have, of needing to rush to the end. That is a good thing in GW2. Take your time- there’s a lot of detail in every corner. Feel free to explore.

Overall… have fun. :)

(If you ever have any specific questions, feel free to PM me here or in-game and I’ll answer with what I can.)

I believe it would be “verbal abuse,” yeah. I can’t see what else it’d fit under, except perhaps spamming.

People tend to be uncomfortable about answering these questions, to be honest. Though I’m not too fond of drugs/innuendo in chat myself, it’d be difficult and impractical to ban every single person every single time it comes up, especially if the mention in question was relatively mild. The Internet will be the Internet, and MMO players will be MMO players no matter what you do.

EDIT: Huh… looks like his posts were deleted.

Heh, and I was just about to give the whole “don’t stress about levels” lecture.

I’m behind on levels, myself, but some of the things I’ve seen that give nice experience-
-Daily achievements. Always do these, not just for the exp, but also for the goodies (Mystic Coins, Bank Access Keys, Transmutation Stones). The nice thing about them is that you can usually finish them just by doing what you normally do in the game- I usually don’t have to go too far out of the way.
-Dungeons give a nice amount of experience for their range. AC may be more trouble than it’s worth, but I was able to clear CM story mode at level 36 with my guildmates’ help in about forty minutes. So that may be an option if you can find a group.
-Always do stuff in a zone that matches your level range. Experience rewards from events in zones below you do scale down somewhat, unfortunately.
-I heard that WvWvW gives a lot of experience. I haven’t had too much experience (no pun intended) in this field, though, so you might want to listen to someone else regarding this matter.
-Crafting. Again, not an expert here, but I’ve heard that cooking’s one of the better crafts when it comes to leveling quickly.

Try to balance leveling with resource gathering/selling and the like, though. Gear may not make as large of a difference here as it does with other games, but you’ll likely want to start on rares/exotics after hitting 80. Coupled with the fact that waypoint prices scale to level, leveling without building up funds can cripple you in the long-term.

Again, I’m no expert, but I hope that helped somewhat.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/mike-obrien-on-account-security/

In the coming weeks we’ll ramp up this call for players to change their passwords, and may require a password change for those users who haven’t already voluntarily changed their passwords.

EDIT: Oops, ninja’ed.

Not poor game design, just bad luck. You can still group with them for dungeons, join their guild, and talk to them across servers.

Anyway, yes, server transfers are free right now, until populations stabilize. After that, a feature called “guesting” will be enabled, which will allow players to play on their friends’ servers, apparently. If their server is full, try waiting until a time of day when most players aren’t on- there’s a possibility that room may open up. Otherwise, keep checking back- people are still moving around, so it’s very possible someone will transfer off and leave some spots.

I like this thread. :)

Name: Falunel (but just call me Fal)
Main Character: Falkra (40 Elementalist)
Current Server: Yak’s Bend
Interested Activities: Socializing, PvE, exploration, fooling around, dungeons when I have the time.
Active: Irregular due to college. Usually late afternoon or very early morning, US Central time.
Additional Comments: I tend not to be good with small talk when it comes to people I don’t know well, but once I get to know you, I can be pretty chatty. I enjoy helping people and answering questions. If I’m on and free, I’ll always be glad to lend a hand with whatever’s going on.

Are you willing to participate in Operation: UNION’S project, Y/N?: Very yes. Though it seems there aren’t that many Yak’s players in this thread. I’ve been thinking of transferring (back) to Tarnished Coast once room clears up.

My primary alt is a scepter/dagger and staff necromancer. I’m not that far along in levels and still working with my traits, but I can say that those weapons tend toward DoT with bleeds, poison, etc. You’d probably want to stack condition damage primarily, and if you’re having trouble surviving, toughness and/or vitality,

Overall, though, remember that there’s no one correct build. It doesn’t cost much to refund traits, and nothing at all to change major traits (which can be done any time). Don’t be afraid to experiment.

Specifically against ranged mobs. I’m fine against them on land since I have cantrips, enough damage to take them down quickly, and interrupts (dual daggers), and I’m also fine with melee underwater mobs. However, against multiple ranged mobs, I’m usually killed very quickly.

I do use my dodges and change attunements often. Most of my control skills don’t seem to be much use against them, though- only 5 on wind, which has a long CD.

Are there any tips I’m missing?

Screenshot: http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z373/Falunel/gw071.jpg

This bug took place at Morgan’s Spiral, in Caledon Forest/the Sylvari starting area, where the jumping puzzle and the orchid skill point are located. During the quest in which you must protect the sylvari tower from the Risen, one enemy in the third or fourth wave somehow became invulnerable as it attacked the tower. As I was the only player doing this event, I wasn’t able to kill the other mobs before this lone mob took down the tower.

I didn’t think to take a screenshot of it at the time, but when I checked that mob’s boons/conditions, it didn’t have anything that gave invulnerability (that star-shaped boon is Berserk, a +damage boon). So I don’t think this was an intentional part of the event. Also, after the event, the mob moved away from the tower and became vulnerable again.

Additional info:
-Character: Falchoir, level 25 human necromancer
-Server: Yak’s Bend
-Time this bug occurred: About 8:45 AM Central Time

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Keep up the good work.