Guild Wars 2

edgarallanpwn.8739:

segman.3560:

I could understand your argument if the grind was indeed connected to the power level of your gear. However we’re talking about cosmetics. So it is only your choice to aim for cosmetics. Whether it comes from achievements or cash shop it’ll always be some kind of grind.

Now you have a choice:
more time grind – less or no cash spend for a skin
less or no grind – more cash spend for a skin

Looks fair to me. It is only up to you if you go for cosmetics and how are you going to pay for them – with your time/gold or with your cash. You don’t need those skins, you want them. When I want something, I go to work, I get paid and I buy what I want.

The argument is that if i pay 140$ for something, i want to use it when i want, not gated by xmog stones. It doesn’t matter that you can earn them, or buy more of them, if i drop real $ into the skin, i don’t want to have to earn something else to effectively use it more than once. I want to use it, how i want, when i want, NSA.

Unfortunately there are strings, whether people are ok with those or not is an irrelevant point

Well sorry but that’s not how this game works, outside of outfits. That being said, transmutation charges are easy to earn for free.

edgarallanpwn.8739:

nGumball.1283:

I will explain it for you, cosmetic changes can be done in two different ways:

1. Using skins
2. Using outfits

Skins: Skins are simliar to ’’colors’’. If you want to color a wall, you need a brush. That brush is represented by transmutation charges. You can get these charges through exploration, dailies and events. In general, they are easy to get and you won’t find a huge issue collecting them. When you have a transmutation charge and a skin, there is nothing preventing you from using it on stuff that you already own. Unless, you are using a weapon skin on an armor, then you are a bit… clueless. Also, skins can only be used on armor with the same weight. Many of them at least. Example: heavy armor skin = used on heavy armor. The system is there to make people with different armor-types look different.

Outfits: These work in the exact same way as other MMORPGs. You buy an outfit and you use it whenever you want.

Conclusion: Outfits are cosmetics that you use to wear on your armor while skins are used to change the look of your armor keeping the stats.

This is good info, thanks. So outfits, don’t offer stats at all? I am looking for stuff i can wear while leveling, so if it forces me to be naked or statless, i don’t think that will work for me. Maybe i understood that wrong? Not sure.

Outfits work like outfits/costumes you could buy in the cash shop in most other MMO’s. If you wear them to go into their own special slot (outfit slot) and it replaces the look of your armor, but you will still be wearing your armor stats (you can see it in the equipment tab). You can freely swap armor, the outfit is not tied to any armor. When you take for example the chest piece of your armor off, you will still see your character wearing the outfit chest piece.

Skins are placed on the equipment itself, replacing the old skin of the armor piece. When you take the chest piece (for example) off, you will end up without shirt/in a bra.

Don’t like the stuff you have to do to gt Ascended? Then don’t do it. “Oh but I NEED it, my character is not finished without it even if I don’t do the only thing Ascended armor is needed for (Fractals)! So Anet is forcing me to do it” you say? Well if you’re stressing that much over some pixels in a videogame I don’t know what to say to you.

Do you have a Charr Vert? The tail clips through the armor in 90% of the cases. The horns/ears/face clips through a lot of helmets.

Yes.

This is Nijnn, my Engineer.

Her first look:
Head piece: Panscopic Monocle
Shoulder piece: Radiant
Gloves: Radiant
Chest piece: T2 Asura
Pants: T1 Asura
Shoes: T1 Asura
Pistol: Wintersday
Shield: Lovestruck
Backpiece: Red rose

Second look
Head piece: Leather mask
Shoulder piece: Whisperers
Gloves: Whisperers
Chest piece: CoE
Pants: Aetherblade
Shoes: Aetherblade
Riffle: Spectral Wave Modulator
Backpiece: Windcatcher

Oh! I always forget the Avatar is not the actual Pale Tree, haha. :P I’ll go and browse some dyes.

Edit: I think Rose Ice (light pink) and Blurple (purple) are closest.

Your Sylvari is actually purple/pink rather than yellow/green.

I messed around in the Preview screen and I think Pastel Lemon (light yellow) and Nectar (a bit darker light yellow) are the closest yellows (because the Pale Tree has some darker and lighter yellows). The green seems close to Olive Ice (light green). That being said, I only have a light colored Sylvari so I can’t compare the colors on that armor outside of the preview screen, nor stand next to the Pale Tree to compare.

Yeah me. Don’t worry about not understanding what people who played that otger game are saying. It’s the same as people bringing up examples from WoW. Noone besides the people who played those games know what the hell they’re talking about, but it’s not very important for GW2, because you know…Different games. “In GW/WoW you had x mechanic”. Okay that’s nice, in this game we don’t.

Azrael.4960:

Or better yet. Play with patience and collect all the mats yourself then level up the way the devs mosrly intended.

Apart from the required purchases from the masters, crafting from 0-400 for all 7 disciplines cost me virtually nothing. 95% of things that I crafted came out of stores I collected myself. Any time I see people burn vast amounts of gold to quickly get up to 500 I smh amd laugh

Are you implying that buying materials from the tp is “not intended”?

I’d love a healer specialisation.

Genesis.8572:

It turns out that you receive less content when you don’t buy the expansion.

This. You’re not losing anything, you’re just not getting what people who paid get.

Peter.9236:

So yep, I’ve gone with a sylvari elementalist, it’s awesome but very squishy, is it a bad idea to just go for items proving power/precision/ferocity? It does decent damage but I tend to die fast if i try a dungeon and get shot at. If it is a bad idea, what mix should I aim for of other attributes?

Power, precision, ferocity (called Berzerker) is the best option for DPS for ele, but yes if someone sneezes at you you’re dead. If you find yourself laying on the floor a lot try Knight/Valkerie (thoughness, power, precision or power, ferocity, vitality respectively) or even Soldier (power, thoughness, vitality) so you’re less squishy.

Peter.9236:

I’m using arcane brilliance as healing, but the cooldown is a little long, are any others better and more widely used?

I use that skill myself too ever since it became available. Imo it’s the best healing skill ever., because it is not only a heal but also a blast finisher. If you cast staff water 3 or 5 (a water field) and then cast Arcana Brilliance inside it, you get an AoE heal from the blast (Area Healing). If you find yourself needing more heals cast staff water 3 or 5 (whichever you have left, or use the same field if you’re fast enough) and cast Arcane Field inside it (also a blast finisher). Bam, another AoE heal. Still need more? Get the trait Evasive arcana. It gives a blast finisher when you dodge in earth. So cast staff water 3 or 5 (or again, to be efficient make sure to use everything in 1 field), swap to earth and dodge in the field. Another AoE heal.

Those blast finishers are used for offensive things too (building might), by doing the exact same thing but with a fire field (staff fire 2|).

Peter.9236:

I’ve also had arcane wave equipped since a low level, it seems ok but I’m not sure if it’s useful for later levels (with it only being 1 skill point and all), so should I keep it or switch to mist form or something? The other three are glyph of storms, frost bow (or signet of air if I’m running somewhere) and fire sword, they seem useful for dealing a lot of damage on bosses.

Arcane Wave is amazing to use as blast finisher. Glyph of storms is good DPS when used in air, Mist Form may save your kitten when things get though and Frost Bow is downright OP to DPS down big objects (like burrows or bosses). Firy Greatsword and Signet of Air are good for the mobility. But once you learn to use blast finishers and fields, you will probably have enough swiftness to drop the signet (hint: Air 5 is a field that gives swiftness when blasted). So yes, good choices.

[quote=4767963;Peter.9236:I’ve noticed the season 2 has ‘buy now’ for all the old episodes. I actually got my dad into GW when I was a lot younger so he’d buy the game for us, and he still plays now. He’s got them unlocked, so can I kinda piggyback off his account if he hosts, or won’t it work?[/quote]

You can piggyback yes but you won’t get any rewards from it. But if you’re only interested in the story you’re fine.

Peter.9236:

One last thing too, do items you’ve listed/buy orders ever disappear from the trading post if you’ve listed too much? There seems to be a limit on your history, so I’m just checking trying to sell too many things won’t result in losing out on money :p

Nothing you have listed but has not sold/ yet/is not bought yet will be deleted. Only listings that you bought/sold in the past are deleted.

Imp.5621:

Thanks.

I thought Divinity Reach was only the Human race home town?
Why do I see norns etc there?

Also I am looking to make a high Human character stand out more
But when I set my height to the highest I am not tall? I have seen a few tall human races at the divinity reach if I am correct I have no clue how they get that tall?

Thanks.

Divinity’s Reach is indeed the captial city of the humans. But that doesn’t mean other races are locked out. All races can freely enter each others home cities. So you can check out Rata Sum some time (the Asura Home city) if you like.

The tall humans were probably Norn.

Edit: Yea, now I’ve seen the pic, pretty sure that’s a Norn.

You should say if you play on an European or American server, because the regions cannot play with each other.

It seems like you’re joining the wrong parties. Avoid the “zerk/meta/experienced/rush/x class only/x AP/no noobs” parties and only go with those that just say “px” or even “all welcome/newbies welcome”. Those kinds of parties couldn’t possibly care less what you bring. I often do dungeons with my necro and longbow/greatsword Ranger (and equip the feared brown bear when I need extra condition removal) and I have never been kicked. I play with minion master necro’s/signet Warriors/staff and scepter Guardians who say they’re the tank/water Elementalists/ in my parties all the time, I never see them kicked. You shouldn’t pay too much attention to what the meta is if you like your class as it is, as long as you’re not looking to join the “meta zerker” parties.

That beng said, Guardian is actually much more durable than Necro. Maybe you could try other builds with Guardian to see if there’s something that fits you better.

I always look at the rune. If the rune is worth more than the exotic, I salvage with a black lion kit and sell the rune. If not, I sell the exotic. Seeing as your stuff is probably crafted and has no rune, I’d just sell it. Unless you still need dark matter for ascended stuff, then you should salvage it. Dark matter comes from salvaging exotics.

I hope so! I want new fur options and skin choices for my Charr, Asura and Sylvari. Way too many shades still missing. New horns, tails and ears would be great too.

You only get armor damage from being killed by anything other than falling to your death. Meaning if you get splatted from a high mountain it will not damage your armor. It’s no problem if you get armor damage by the way, just find a NPC who will fix your armor (it’s free). They have a red shield icon above their head.

For karma armor, you may be interested in this list. It shows all items available and at which karma merchant. You can also opt for buying armor with gold at the trading post (the lion icon at the top of your screen), or wait until you get some nice drops or level up reward armor.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_karma_merchant_items

Oh you’ll get the hang of the bosses in no-time. I always like making sure I’m at the back of the boss when I’m on my guardian and meleeing, because usually the boss attacks/hits what’s in front of him. Try equipping scepter or even staff as secondary weapon so you can get some breathing room if things get too cozy every now and then.

Ele has a lot of support in the form of boons and fields. They can stack to 25 might (fire), offer protection (earth), provide healing and condition removal (water) and give swiftness (air). They also have a plethora of useful fields to put down for others to use (fire, air, water) and blast finishers to use on other people’s fields (want some extra stealth? Use your blast finishers in Thief’s or Engi’s smoke field and voila).

Ofcourse! GW2 is by far the best game I ever played. I don’t really care about the price because I have the money. C:

To make Bloodstone Bricks, Dragonite Ingots and Emperyal Stars you don’t need any recipe. It’s at the tab “Obsidian Refinement”, not the general refinement tab.

jokke.6239:

In case you haven’t seen.
Lovestruck is 2 tickets at the moment, so now might be a good idea to get that riffle

Yes I saw, so I’m franctically saving up my gold at the moment. XD Thanks for the reminder.

I actually like how they run on all four legs. I’d be miffed if they’d delete it. I even deleted a level 40 Charr Engineer because with Speedy Kits he’d be running on 2 legs permanently. The thing I don’t like about Charrs is that they’re hunched over, not standing straight. That being said, I do have a Charr myself.

These should keep me busy for the next decade. :P

- Get full ascended gear on my main, an Elementalist. So far I have all accessoires, 2 staves and the chest piece. Still need the rest of the armor and a scepter and a dagger at the least, maybe even a focus even though I never play focus.

- Get full ascended gear on my other characters. My Engineer has 2 rings and an amulet, the rest nothing.

- Get world completion on all my (currently) 7 characters. I have my main done, next up is my Necromancer at 70-80%ish. Guardian and Engineer are at 45%ish, the rest is all below 30%.

- Buy one more Lovestruck weapon because they’re my favourite set. I’ll probably go for a riffle for my Engineer.

- Finish all dungeon paths once for the title. I have Arah left and 1 HotW path I think.

- Finish the personal story on all characters. I have 1 out of 7 finished, 2 others have an order and the rest I never really started.

- Save enough gold for a character slot and wait until it’s on sale to buy it.

- Buy the Trickster set off the gem shop for my Mesmer, aka saving enough gold for that.

- Finish all jumping puzzles.

- Getting to 10k AP. I’m like 30 points shy of 9000 at the moment.

- Get all area explorer achievements.

- Buy proper underwater headgear for my alts (this is a goal because not all have been even close to Orr).

- Buy proper runes and sigils for underwater gear. I actually went out and got all my alts exotic underwater weapons, after having greens and blues for ages.

Fill out a support ticket. Pretty sure Arenanet has helped new players accidentally deleting their Deluxe items before.

SlingDash.2350:

Thanks very much guys (and girls?). I’m on 96% ‘normal’ map at the mo, so just need to get the last few maps in WvW.

I’m in the UK and on Arborstone (FR) server – whatever that means! I honestly haven’t a clue!

I don’t know what a “commander tag” is, or how to follow it, or change my traits (to what?), but I’m playing a level 80 Hunter. Advice on changes/upgrades more than welcome.

There must be somebody who needs to do the same as me here, surely? Please send me a message in-game (if you can? Do I need to provide any contact info for that?), and I’d like to join a guild who’d be happy for a clueless WvW ‘noob’ to tag along with them.

Thanks again for taking the time to help – very much appreciated.

FR means that you’re on a French speaking server, I hope you’re bilangual or you’re going to have a hard time and may want to switch.

As a hunter (thief I assume?) you have a lot of access to stealth, so make sure to use it wisely. It can save your butt. There are probably even traits to increase your stealth time, those may come in handy. Do you know what traits are? Press H, then go to the second tab and click Traits. There you’ll see rows where you can put points into to unlock traits. Traits are basically effects that are added to skills. I don’t have a thief but for example, elementalist has a trait that gives you a heal when you dodge. Or a trait that gives you might when you use Cantrip utility skill. Furthermore, you may want skills that give you a lot of mobility so you can get through the map fast and flee when needed.

A commander is someone who has bought a commander tag and has “tagged up”, aka visibily showing the commander tag. You can see the tag (it is red, yellow, purple, red or blue and has the shape of a dorito/triangle) above the player’s head and on the map. Usually a commander is followed by a group of players who follow the commander’s instructions to work together and reach a certain goal. In WvW they’re usually after concuering a tower or castle or something like that.

You can only WvW with people on the same server as you, meaning you can only play with the Frenchies.

Healer specialization, a viable full-support role. I don’t care what the name it; Ringmaster, Priest, Cleric, Bischop, Saint, as long as it heals.

One can dream.

If you don’t like weapon skills being on your keyboard you can also put them on your mouse, provided that you have enough buttons on the mouse.

bolam.6294:

I feel that the game needs to be more informative with “the point of no return” type of situations, like buying two ascended rings or when story instances are free for a limited time only. Yes you’ll learn after the fact, but you still have to pick up the pieces; it’s going to cost me about 30gp to unlock the missing story instance.

30 gold is farmed within a week, and you can also opt for spending 2,5 euros on unlocking it if you’re feeling lazy. I also seem to remember reading somewhere that you can opt in for newsletters sent by Anet for updates like these?

bolam.6294:

Some of the story achievements are just too unrealistic. With every new episode, you’re guaranteed to get them. Out of all the episodes in season two, there were at least three where I had to get through bugs/glitches; most likely they’ve been “fixed” by now, but not the challenges themselves. Seriously the developers need to understand that not all players have legendary gear and a guild full of helpful players who are willing to go out of their way just to help you when you ask. Yes they’re optional, but that’s not an excuse to make them like this, like survive a 30 minute boss fight without getting hit once or something, like did they even try it for themselves at least? I want to look forward to every new episode, but I get stressed when they come out because I know there’s going to be achievements like this, and I’m very OCD about uncompleted things.

Those challanges are for people seeking a challenge, ofcourse they’re not going to be hard. That being said, I don’t even think about doing them because I know I’d fail miserably, so kudos for you even trying it.

If I remember right it’s 7 or 8 levels from 1 to 400. 10 levels from 1 to 500.

To add, when you see a LFG saying “p1” (or another number) or “full run” or “all paths” they mean Explorable. I recommend you start with doing story mode first (in LFG you’ll see people asking for “story” or “story mode”). Story is very easy, Explorable mode is a tad harder, especially if you’re a low level with bad gear. It’s still doable though, just make sure to tell people you’re new beforehand so they can explain the mechanics to you, rather than you going in blind and messing everything up. Not everyone assumes you’re now just because you have low AP and are a lowbie. I met a lot of people with low AP and low levels who played like veterans, they probably had a second account. So I always assume you know what to do unless people say otherwise.

It used to be in Lion’s Arch, ever since it’s destroyed it’s mainly The Grove (usually when I’m gonna craft), Rata Sum (TP, (guild) bank, crafting and my home instance) or Divinity’s Reach (just TP or (guild) bank). Or when I’m feeling lazy/cheap or need just to grab something really quick from the TP/Bank it’s my server’s borderlands.

And they’re not eggsactly gold coins, they’re Mystic coins.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Coin

Edit: Ah, I was too slow.

Sylvari because I want a second Sylvari and the only other class I still lack, Thief, will be a human. P:

Dungeons are group content by default. You’re trying to solo content that’s meant for a party. Ofcourse it’s going to be hard. :P Just get a group and you’ll breeze through it like it’s nothing. Have you ever played a game with solo dungeons? I have yet to see one (not that I played a lot of games, but they’re at the very least rare).

Do you like PvP? You can also level doing sPvP (click the sword icon at the top of your screen) or WvW (in one of the borderlands, following a comander or in EotM, press B for both).

Do you like dungeons? Every explorable dungeon gives you 70% of a level and a minimum of 1 gold (some give 1.5, some 3). This is actually my favorite way to level (and get rich doing so :P) when I get bored of exploring the world. Keep in mind the dungeons have minimum level requirements: the first dungeon is Ascelonian Catacombs and story starts at level 30, explorable starts at level 35.

Fast, high DPS classes are Theif and Elementalist. Elementalist is the squishiest class in the game, but also does the most damage out of all classes in the game. If you pick scepter/dagger, scepter/focus (both close ranged but not melee) or dagger/dagger (pretty much melee I think, I haven’t played much with this weapon setup) you’re like a thief mage flying all over the place doing epic combo’s. It’s fast paced, flashy and fun and when a mob sneezes at you you’re dead, so to speak. They also are the best choice if you like ranged, as staff does very high AoE DPS, but is more classic mage-ish than fast paced. I can’t tell you much about Theif, I have yet to make one myself, but they’re probably like your classic Assassin arch-type: Squishy, stealthy and fast.

Engineer also does well ranged, considering the only weapons they can use are ranged (riffle, pistol and offhand shield) and the few options for melee they have are usually better for PvP. They’re also pretty fast paced, being able to do pretty much everything with neat combo’s: stealth, might, heals, bleeds, vulnerability, AoE..You name it and the Engi can do it.

If you like Ranger, just stick with it. Ranger is actually a pretty forgiving class because the pet will save your kitten a lot and takes aggro, giving you room to breath. They probably have the best ranged options after Engineer and Elementalist.

You can change the keyboard lay-out if you have issues reaching the F skills.

What I want to do before HoT is saving enough gold for a character slot and hoarding Tomes. I will either level a Thief or a Revenant, as Thief is the only class I don’t have yet. I will see how interesting the Revenant looks. Once I have enough gold for a character slot I will save even more gold to have some ready just in case I need it. Probably in practice I will end up spending that gold one other stuff before the expansion happens, but hey. x]

I hope for a staff that’s a bit more spectacular looking than Bifrost. The effects of Bifrost are nice but the staff itself is fairly plain looking. I hope the new Legendary staff will have something to do with all elements combined. It’d especially be awesome if the staff changes element based on the attunement the Elementalist is in, but that will probably never happen.

Armor you find while leveling is usually so-so and the same looking. It gets much better when you reach level 80 and have access to all skins. That being said, cultural sets are usually very pretty and come in the levels 35, 60 and 80. Some karma pieces from heart vendors look pretty snazzy too (heck, one of my level 80’s still uses some of it). Furthermore, you may want to look into outfits, that you can wear regardless of level or type of armor. It really helps when leveling.

Mini Star, because she’s an Asura and tiny.

You’re bashing something before even trying it. The NPE is actually pretty awesome. Before you’d level and you’d go “oh, yay I guess”. Now you get pretty neat rewards when you gain a level. It made me go “hoo boy, only a few more events and then I level!”, curious what I’d get this time. And you’re not restricted in anything. You can gather all you want, no need to wait. Yes, skills unlock at a certain level instead of opening them manually. I agree the latter was more interesting but it’s only a minor thing, you’d have your skills unlocked within an hour either way.

The only thing that I can totally agree with is annoying is not the NPE, but the trait change.

Anything below €75,00 is insta buy for me. Then again, I don’t know what is normal for an expansion. I never played a game with expansions, nor ever bought one.

Bhigbee.9324:

I was looking into a Asura Warrior with dual axes, anyone tested their animations?

Adorable. They’re like mini ninja’s. My Asura warrior wields double axes for that reason alone.

I will main my Asura Elementalist, who has been my main ever since I started out. c:

What BarnabeJonez said. Also, be sure to watch the mob movement. If they’re about to smack you you can dodge out of the way in time, dodging gives 3 seconds of invulnerability.

If you like Minion Master, go for it! The build is perfectly fine, except in dungeons. Bosses tend to one shot the minions and they won’t move out of red circles either. But you can easily swap traits and skills for that.

Actually, every class is best in melee. So don’t ignore Ranger just because you’d need to play them melee. And the melee thing is mostly only for dungeons anyway, so again you just keep a sword in your bag for those situations and you’re fine.

Edit: Oh and yes, Elementalist elementals are only out for x seconds (was it 60? 120? I forgot) before they auto-die. On the other hand you get to pick between 4 different types: water, earth, fire and air, which is pretty cool.

Any type of cloth, as my main is a clothie. Not only do you need 100 silk bolts for 1 bolt of damask whereas you only need 50 for the leather/metal counterpart, 1 bolt also takes 3 scraps whereas the leather/metal counterpart takes 2. It’s so unfair.

My sis was like “hey let’s buy this game”, and she showed me a picture of concept art of Zojja. I was like “aww” and bought it with her, not knowing anything about the game besides it having Asuras. I bought it because I don’t do subscription models and have had only played F2P games before, so I hoped this system would be better. Now I’m spoiled and have issues playing F2P anymore.