Guild Wars 2

astrocanis.3195:

I just feel like I’m running around fairly aimlessly killing x numbers of this and y numbers of that. Nobody talks in chat. The quests seem to peter out. I have no idea how crafting works because I have no idea how to gain a craft.

My warrior seems pretty fragile at the moment. I expect to have issues with a new game. I don’t expect to be turned off so quickly, so I’m trying to figure out what I’m missing. The manual being so complete.

All video games require you to click buttons and/or click on things in the environment. The difference is in how these interactions look and feel. Regardless, your character might get more interesting as you unlock more skills on more weapons, and now that you have hit level 5, you can start buying and equipping utility skills. Perhaps more complexity will help you.

Starter zones can seem fairly empty. Still, I’ve been surprised at how many people crawl out of the woodwork when an event happens. hint you can sometimes start an event by “talking” to NPC’s. Sometimes they will approach you and “speak.” other times, you can approach them and if the dialogue option is Talk rather than Greet, you might be able to generate an event. Events and personal story go a long way in supplementing hearts.

Crafting can be learned from crafting NPC’s. There are some in every starter zone, usually in places where the mobs are levels 8-10. Or, you can find the crafting area in your capital city, the Black Citadel. If you enter from Plains of Ashford, go up the ramp, then bear right and back down. You will see icons for crafting (e.g., a shield for armorsmithing) on your map (M) once you enter the city.

Now that you are level 5, use your first skill point(s) (iirc it’s only 1, but might be 3) and buy Healing Signet, and equip it in your healing slot. It provides regeneration, and can go a long way toward making a warrior less squishy. Unlike other games, you might have to engage in a more mobile style of combat, using circle kiting and ranged options for some fights. Once you get to level 7 you will be able to equip a 2nd weapon or pair of weapons, and switch between them. If you switch in combat there is a short cooldown before you can switch again.

GW2 is set up to reward exploring, so wandering around to see what’s around the next bend can lead to things to do. For more conversation, join a guild. You might have to go to Lion’s Arch (LA), as most of the capital cities are under-utilized. To get to LA, click the PvP tab in the upper left of your screen, pick Go to the Heart of the Mists. Once there, exit through the big pink portal you’ll see. This puts you in LA. To get back to the Charr area, look on the LA map for the Asura Gates (you’ll see several small pink circles on the LA map) and enter the one with Charr guarding it. This puts you back in the Black Citadel.

I hope the game picks up for you.

It should. Flipping conditions sure affect you, so boons and heals should, too.

If this is the Kapelleburg one, I got this tonight, by running across the door from left to right. I got the PoI when I reached the extreme right side of the door, right up against it.

GW1 had been out for a long time before DoA was added. Feather farming became lucrative because of hard mode and consumables, which were added post Nightfall and in EotN. I’ve no idea if anything will be added to GW2 that would be comparable, but at least you own the game and can come back if anything is added.

I think the RNG hates you today, that’s all. I got 5 rares today in about 3.5 hours play with little to no magic find. My gripe is that every level 74+ rare weapon I’ve ever gotten is a Traveler’s … of Air. Is there nothing else in the drop tables, or does the RNG hate me, too? Not that it is a big deal, though, since the primary use for rares is a) salvage for Ectoes; or grist for the MF.

Algreg.3629:

again??? while you are running across any PVE map, you will have hard time EVADING 5 DEs. Do not mistake that as a personal attack, but are we actually playing different games? I am really flabbergasted.

I’ve encountered both phenomena. Factors include: server, zone and level. The starter zones seem to have lots of events, as does Cursed Shore. Some of the mid-level zones will have a bunch, some not so much. Running around Snowden Drifts, for instance, can yield very few events. For a time in Lornar’s about the only events I could find were protecting the cook’s assistant collecting eggs and the one with the Grawl who kidnapped one of the Norn for a sacrifice. However, the last time I was there, I ran into a lot more events.

@ the OP. Anytime you encounter an NPC in the open world with whom you can Talk (rather than Greet), do so. You might proc an event.

The real issues with regard to dungeon difficulty, or lack thereof, are: the practice effect; and down-scaling seemingly not working as well as advertised. Case in point, when my warrior was 35 my adrenal skill, and the number 3 maintained rifle shot were capping out around 800-900. At 80, down-leveled to 35, I am doing nearly 2K. That’s a lot of difference.

While I’d like to see mob drops and chest drops buffed, so that I might stand a chance of actual getting something beyond vendor items, I do not agree that dungeon token items are too “expensive.” 5-6 runs for a chest-piece seems about right.

Dungeons are (part of) the PvE endgame in GW2. Getting a full set of tier gear in the typical MMO might take more than a month of dedicated raiding, a much more time-consuming activity than GW2 dungeon runs.

The one thing that surprised me about the Scavengers is that the after-KD munching is AoE. I found this out by trying to revive someone who was in it. That part is not obvious.

I would also like to see more uses for Karma. Unfortunately, all of the “god” armor sets seem to have the same skin, so that shot my first thought all to kitten and gone.

Rannulf.9417:

Bleeds.4029:

You asking for this from the perspective of an ex-Rift player? Just curious since they kind of did this.

I got the idea from BnS which a NcSoft game that’s suppose to release in the west later, they have solo dungeon from what i’ve read, i didn’t particular like the game cause i tried it on a private server and didn’t like the gameplay and wonder why doesn’t gw2 have more solo content .

While I appreciate your interest in more solo content, I would prefer that developer resources be applied to other aspects of the game. Most of the PvE game is solo-able now. So, adding more content in the open world, fixing problems and making dungeon rewards more worthwhile are all higher priorities in my book. Unfortunately, no game has unlimited developer time to throw at everything and anything.

My engineer is only level 18, and I feel the same way Jen does. Even grenades don’t seem as effective as other classes’ abilities. I’ve leveled several classes and all of them seemed to gain a lot in effectiveness at ~ level 62 when you can equip gear with 3 stats. Objectively, that is not that long to wait, but subjectively, it can feel like a long time to go with feeling you are behind the curve.

LithePanther.5027:

Saxon.1908:

Keep it so your always activating a power (not including you’re weapn’s primary #1 attack), if your weapon’s 2-5 attacks are on Cool Down, switch weapons and/or use your #7-10 powers.
And yes movement is vital.

Be careful with that advice, because it’s not always true.

On my warrior, I would never use any attack other then auto-attack, except on bosses. My auto attack does so much damage it’s not worth it to use anything else.

Other classes have weapons like this too.

Exactly. Ranger shortbow for instance. The 2-5 skills are mostly situational: AoE poison, shoot and lunge away, daze and cripple. 3-5 should be saved for when you need them, not just spammed. Same with longbow ranger’s #3, the knock-away. So many people use this skill whenever it is up, whether the mob is actually threatening them or not. It’s their prerogative of course, but it is not efficient to knock mobs away from fields dropped by others, away from traps, etc.

Spamming an attack because it is up is not the best way to play unless that attack’s only purpose is to do damage.

I like the ambiance and the look of the zone. It looks like land that was once a city, sank and rose up from the sea, with only the ruins of the largest buildings still around. The art, as with most of the game, is A1.

Some of the events can be quite enjoyable (Arah, Melandru). Although, I have yet to see the Risen Wizard boss in the Arah event as anything other than a vague shape surrounded by enough flashing lights to trigger a migraine.

The water areas are very nice (art, again), if you go to one with sane mob density.

Node density seems good to me. A reasonable amount of time spent farming can net a good amount of items.

It isn’t the knocks, pulls, stuns, cripples, etc. It’s that about 70% of the Orr mobs have one or more of them, they can occasionally use them more than once in a fight. Dodging such is all well and good, but most characters only get 2 dodges before their end bar is too low for a third. CC removal is good, but the mobs can re-apply these a lot faster than you can take them off. I’ve had the Risen Farmer, who has a stun and a knock, use them consecutively. I dodged both. It then proceeded to wind up for a second stun. I moved away (I had no dodge left) and was thirty feet from him when the attack hit anyway (which I believe is a latency issue between the client and server).

The kitten of it is that in most fights, these abilities in no way allow them to win. Yes, if you fight twelve of them and they chain CC you, you can die, but that is hardly the norm.

Kushkah.2935:

If you look on the TP for lower level pants, the Embroidered ones are actual pants, kinda baggy but I like em, had the same issue with everything being a skirt lol.. Just look for Mighty/Vital/watever Embroidered Pants.

These are the only light non-skirts I’ve seen for human, Norn or Sylvari females. They are the first tier of items crafted by tailors.

Dogblaster.6713:

You already have pelnty of armor choices, from dungeon to cultural armor sets.

While there are many sets, diversity is lacking. I have seen only one light armor legs that on a female is not a long skirt. I have seen two medium armor tops for females that are not a trench coat (on a female, though one is on a male — go figure). I don’t care if the options come by broadening the ability to transmute or by adding more options to the game.

And while other games may only have one set of top-of-the-line armor, that set is wanted for its stats, not necessarily its appearance. Since GW2 max stats can be had on many appearances, GW2’s primary enticement with regard to armor is appearance.

The straight answer is: apparently, destroying the structural integrity of the ship renders it unusable. It’s sort of like shooting zombies in the head. They don’t have brains, but it seems to work anyway.

The real answer: they aren’t worth karma, silver or exp afloat.

One other thing about the downed state is that so many attacks have condition damage attached to them that getting downed without having a damaging condition on one is not likely. This means that even if the boss leaves you alone, you can do little to help yourself. Other players healing you can usually out-heal the condition, but you cannot heal yourself using the 4 skill since it cancels on any damage. Since the middle 2 skills are often on CD when you go down, this leaves you with number 1. Not actually very engaging or fun.

There always seems to be a dichotomy in MMO’s between the “too hard” and “too easy” crowds. GW1 solved this by introducing Hard Mode, and then taking player-used builds and giving them to mobs. This provided options for both crews.

The catch in a hard mode is that a lot of the “too easy” crowd won’t be happy to do them without “better” rewards for doing them. This flies in the face of GW2’s reward egalitarianism. The only requirement for the rewards that exist are actually having to do the content.

We don’t yet know what the ANet Dungeon design team is going to do about dungeon rewards, other than that they are “looking at them.” I very much doubt they would increase token amounts by much if at all in hard modes, and the game as a whole seems designed around the idea that the chances to get something worthwhile from a mob drop or chest are pretty small.

If a “hard mode” existed without substantially better rewards, would it be utilized by the “too easy” folks? You tell me. If an “easier mode” existed with lowered rewards for the “too hard” folks, would it be utilized, or would it be kittened by the speed runners?

I’d hate to be a dungeon designer in MMO’s, I really would.

In GW1, some of the dungeon chests had weapon skins that were very desirable, and could not be gotten anywhere else. Even if you got items that that would be ID’d and then sold to a merchant, you at least got “gold” items that counted towards a title. The blues and greens that drop from dungeon chests are just minor cash. I’ve only gotten about 1500 dungeon tokens all told, but no drop in a dungeon has actually been worth more than the npc merchant would pay for it.

I like this, though I’ve yet to complete it in 5 runs, as younger people with better reflexes and without arthritis in their fingers finish it and I get to be one of the 2 at the beginning consoles.

I prefer to mostly play PvE. When I do go into WvW, I expect to fight. If I go there for map completion or to do a jumping puzzle, I expect the enemy players to try to kill me. That is kind of the point of WvWvW.

While I would prefer if there were separate PvE and PvP achievements, and that world completion did not include PvP zones, that is not what we have. Until and unless it changes, I will either not choose to do these things, or accept that I can be killed while doing them, or outright prevented from doing them.

We are entitled to play the game as the designers designed it. We are not entitled to get everything we want whenever we want it. However, that is what I am hearing in some of these posts.

I had two thoughts to fix this. 1) A person’s influence earned goes to all the guilds s/he is in. This means that a person who is in multiple guilds is getting more bang for their buck, but so what. However, the guild bonuses would not stack, they would just get the best of each type. 2) Return to the system used in GW1, with multiple guilds being able to join together in an alliance.

DreamDrop.1596:

Eh I think what he meant by Visible Drop was that…after you kill an enemy the items drop around his corpse, i.e. you can visually SEE them.

From the OP:

“I would like to instantly after I killed something/someone see what I just got. Lying on the ground. Next to the corpse. Not even the item itself, just the title of the items.”

Since this is what I read, this is what I reacted to.

My current guild rarely has more than 10 people online. 2 to 3 are usually not representing and are on other servers. The others mostly either group in 2’s and 3’s or solo. Other than a few hellos, nothing is said. This guild originally had a solid core of people who would PvP and do dungeons together. Then, the guild leader went to the LoL tournament, and this revived interest in LoL among the core. Other than the Saturday before Halloween, they’ve been absent.

However, these people are friends from our GW1 alliance. I’d like to remain loyal and game with them if they return. However, I am getting zilch for benefits. I still represent, and influence is being accumulated, but the officers are not logging on even long enough to queue up bonuses.

The multi-guild system seems ideal for this situation. I have been thinking about joining another guild to be able to enjoy guild privileges, and participate with others in game-play. I would, of course, represent the new guild when playing with them, and the old one if/when playing with them.

However, I can see how a guild would not want to have people on the roster who are not representing. Iirc guild size has to be purchased, and having someone take up roster space if they are not participating would be a downer.

As a result of this thread I am thinking I will leave my old guild and join an active one. I could still play with old friends if the occasion arises, but I would not want to be seen as a drag to new friends.

Focksbot.6798:

Is Dredgehaunt Cliffs the area where you try to foment a dredge revolution and have to go up spiral ramps?

Nope, that is Frostgorge Sound. DC has no revolt (i.e., no green-colored Dredge) and the ramps are around rectangular towers.

I’m with those who would prefer challenge rather than the ubiquitous CC. As it is, I either dodge the CC or I don’t. If I do, the mob will sometimes just re-use the skill immediately. Once it has managed to connect a CC, it returns to just smacking me with whatever attack it uses. The only ones that actually do a decent amount of damage are the Ravagers (kittening mesmers :o), Eagles, and Grubs if en masse.

The icon for the item you pick up appears on the left of the screen, above the mini map, and remains there for a few seconds. One can easily look to see what has been picked up there.

We’ve been comparing Logan to Rurik — just as useful, just as annoying.

I just did this for the first time. Overall, most of the pre-Zhaitan encounters were fun. The on-zeppelin stuff was a combination of boring and annoying, between only some of the party being on cannons while the rest were on trash duty and the parts where you are the ball in the game of ping pong between mobs pulling you from behind into the AoE knock areas. Yes, this stuff is dodge-able but not when 7-8 knocks/pulls happen in a row.

As far as it goes, I’d give the overall story a B-, which puts it worse than EotN, Prophecies and Nightfall, but above Factions.

Reevac.1748:

I see you painted in a mustache and eye patch as well.

That “eyepatch” is an engineer’s headpiece from character creation. It is possible to transmute it over better head armor all the way to 80 exotic.

Try going 0/20/14/30/0 and take shouts heal/shouts recharge 20% faster as vitality trait points. Take it to 0/25/15/30/0 at 80. You will be a lot tougher. Equip Healing Signet as your heal, the passive regen is very helpful. I run around Orr solo with this build, and very little fazes me. At 80 in exotics the shouts are healing me for 1300, I have 254K health and rarely go below 18K unless I am fighting 4+ mobs.

If Orr is not your cup of tea, there is always the 7-80 zone Frostgorge Sound. You can get into it from Wayfarer Hills (the Norn Starter Zone), the portal is in the northeast corner (above the one to Diessa Plateau). I believe there is also a portal from Fireheart Rise (on the west side). There are no undead there but there are hearts.

Fire Legion, because fighting Charr is in my blood from GW1. Same goes for Grawl.

My opinion? Anything wider than the Fellblade legacy HoM skin is too wide.

They need to lose the DR system until they work the bugs out of it. While they try to find the problems, people are getting more and more annoyed.

GW2 needs an LFG Dungeon tool, with a check box for “speed run/skip mobs.” Those who check the box would be paired with people of like mind, as would those who want the scenic route. If I were ANet, I’d then look at ways to make not skipping the mobs desirable and monitor the checked versus unchecked numbers to make sure my adjustments were actually enticing people. There have been many suggestions, but improved drop tables, random occasional token drops and increased virtual cash drops seem good.

GW2 was supposed to be about not having to wait to have fun. Unfortunately, many mechanics (dungeon mobs being worthless and time consuming, mobs in Orr being unchallenging but annoying) seem oriented more around making things take time rather than being fun. If I were ANet, I’d be taking a hard look at my plan, and factoring in that people DO want rewards, that long =/= hard and that something needs to change.

Most mobs in GW2 have too much health. The only exception is the normal mobs that proc in events being zerged, the ones that melt in a couple of seconds due to the massive AoE being dropped on them. Why does it take several spells or sword swings to take out a spider that just hatched, for instance. Champions and dungeons bosses are more noticeable because they take so long to down.

LithePanther.5027:

There are no comments because of your woeful lack of information.

What level are you? profession? build/spec? weapon set? utilities? gear level and color?

Straits is easy. With careful movement you can kill 1 mob at a time, at most 2, pretty easy. Just watch out for purifiers – they’re the ones that pull you.

Are they called “purifiers” in Straits? It’s been long enough since I went there I don;t remember. In Cursed and Malchors’ they are called Putrifiers. Still, same thing. I tend to call them Pulltrifiers. >.>

I did Arah story for the first time today. At the first chest, I got a rare L80 armor piece. I didn’t need it, but it would be good for salvage for ectos or the forge. So, I started to wonder whether drop tables had been upgraded. No such luck. All of the remaining drops were blues.

I remember dungeon chests from GW1. Yes, there was only one, but it usually rewarded 2-3 items, including rare armor crafting mats, a green item, or gold items. All of these had some intrinsic value. In GW2 we get blues and if lucky, greens. These are just vendor trash.

For the love of kitten, let’s get chest rewards so they are the GW2 equivalents of GW1 chest drops.

Xenesis.6389:

IndigoSundown.5419:

At least twice in this thread, posters have offered that it takes an hour or less to get 50 WvWvW kills. This is not true across the board. Last month it took me 8 to 9 times that long, because my server had 3K points and one of our opponents had 400k points. There were a few fights that were even for a short time, then their reinforcements would arrive and the numbers were heavily in their favor. Add to that people logging out when downed and getting those kills was a constant dance on the edge of the invulnerable zone. Cheesy, but wasn’t going to happen otherwise.

So, getting WvWvW kills is not always going to be easy. 5 dungeons in 8 to 9 hours? Sounds like it could be done in much shorter than that.

Why did you go at the end of the match? I walked into wvw tonight for two hours and more than got the achievement done. You know you don’t have to kill the person 100-0% right? you basically need to tag them for a certain amount of damage. Even faster when you’re in a group, not hard to follow the zerg and tag stuff with aoe. The pvp achieve does not even come close to even with the pve one.

I went as soon as the ??? achievement was revealed. I had no desire to do the WvWvW one without knowing whether I was going to want to do the 4th requirement. On my WvWvW challenged server, since the PvP guilds all hopped elsewhere, there IS no zerg, since we’re lucky to have 6 people on a map. We (HoD) were behind the curve two hours after the new matches last week. Yes, I could hop servers and might in future, but my point was that the WvWvW kills are not always going to be less time-consuming than 5 dungeon runs.

Orr has a number of problems, starting with most mobs having some form of CC, segueing to the Melandru statue effect of constant cripple + 8 stacks of bleed, moving on to one of ANet’s favorites — can’t get there from here, and ending with having to teleport in half the zone from where you want to be due to contested waypoints.

There was a call for more people at the Grenth event in cursed shore two nights ago. The closest way point was on the mainland, leaving one with the need to run from there to the coast, cross the strait, run through the mob density on shore while avoiding annoying artillery. Then I had to fight into the temple through the poison and more mob density, only to find people had given up and no one was there.

Orr looks amazing. The feel of the zone is great, it really does evoke a war zone. However, imo this would be better implemented if done only in smaller areas and at less regular times. It is annoying (there’s that word again) to win a temple event and then have the statues active again an hour later. That might be fine if everyone was flocking to these events whenever they appear, but in reality people avoid them more than they do them.

Of the two PoI, I was able to face rub the one in the Dredge bore but not the one in the Skritt cave. I realize it’s too late for the OP, but if anyone else gets only 1 key, I’d say use it on the one in the Skritt cave.

Once another character is in your party, they will then get a choice to enter with you. They need only be in the zone with you when you activate the entrance to your story mission, not at the entrance.

I buy new gear every six levels, starting with 14. I usually go with greens. Coincidentally, that is when the new tier of greens becomes available. Once I get to 39 (when rare drops begin to be available) I look at the TP as Eisuma suggested. If I find a rare that is affordable I buy it and keep it for 8-10 levels. The crafted rares (the ones that are usually without runes/sigils, at levels 35, 50, 65) are more expensive right now so I rarely spend on them.

At least twice in this thread, posters have offered that it takes an hour or less to get 50 WvWvW kills. This is not true across the board. Last month it took me 8 to 9 times that long, because my server had 3K points and one of our opponents had 400k points. There were a few fights that were even for a short time, then their reinforcements would arrive and the numbers were heavily in their favor. Add to that people logging out when downed and getting those kills was a constant dance on the edge of the invulnerable zone. Cheesy, but wasn’t going to happen otherwise.

So, getting WvWvW kills is not always going to be easy. 5 dungeons in 8 to 9 hours? Sounds like it could be done in much shorter than that.

The revive banner elite’s CD is indeed 240 seconds. It can be reduced to 192 seconds with a trait that requires 10 points in Tactics. This trait also increases the area. I’ve yet to see the smaller, un-traited area be large enough to get more than one person up from the downed state unless the group is stacking.

My main use for scepter is in TA, on the Volatile Blossoms, since staff 1 attacks are too slow and getting into close range with the Blossoms is contra-indicated due to extreme chance of face-plant. The only thing Scepter has going for it is range.

Focus lacks something for me. In Water, it lacks the second heal. In Air, Comet is never going to hit anything moving. In Fire, really, I get an aura skill on a 40 second CD that inflicts burning — wow, guess I can’t have enough of that. Only earth offers two worthwhile skills with reflection and invulnerability --- but since ele is reliant on switching attunement to be more effective, Focus for the loss as far as I am concerned.

My moneys on Mursaat. More interesting than Margonites, and the White Mantle is still around. ^^

H ave you tried 0/30/20/20/0? gear for power/precision/toughness and vitality. This would give you more health, better healing from water. If I run into trouble after running through Lightning and Fire, I drop water and heal with each spell I cast. It has made my D/D ele very survivable. I know I have a ’learn to play this class" issue with the guardian, but I take my ele to places my guardian fails at.