Guild Wars 2

Superior rune of the Hylek (or Itzel)
1) +25 condition dmg
2) +5% condition duration
3) +50 condition dmg
4) +10% healing effectiveness, 25% chance to proc poison (4s) on crit 10s CD
5) +100 condition dmg
6) +125 healing, +15% condition duration

Please combine with
Toxic stats:
(+CONDI DMG, +HEALING, +precision, +expertise)

Condi will still need some ramp up… even with high burst condi , you cannot do without it…

Cleaning condi’s is easy… light field and blast, or whirl or projectlie?
Or utilty condi cleanses? Condi mitigation food. Mitigation through trinkets, or runes or sigils?

Conditions do make META more difficult… cause META is not about clansing and negating, it’s about the timed dodge and the fast DPS and it cannot stay afloat in heavy conditions..

It is however a good way to break both max dps and MAX condi builds… and get a usage for a large part of the game, passed by by the Meta, not seen worthy of attention.

Condi’s are fine. DPS is fine, but the other side exists…

Ashen.2907:

Ten year old Susie Susie is unlikely to be accepted onto a team planning on participating in the Tour de France.

True but Susie may be a above average intelligent kid , or even a genius making Taimi look like a skritt, and she might get a grandmaster blindfold chess title at 10 as well… Luckily she does not have to cycle to get through raids, just think and push a few buttons in the right order, preferably while reacting on a visual stimulus…

Monkeys and dogs have been trained to do sequential tasks, reacting on triggers… even in outer space… maybe not in record time at first glance , but they’ll get it after decent reward and some practice. We will likely never go to space, but the other thing should be achievable…

Just another perspective…

DPS meters are bad if they are not used other then on yourself.

It makes the person with the dps meter a judge jury and often executioner… I was kicked for ressing ppl in a vg run, no problem with aggro, but I had a low DPS on my condi ranger cause I was pickup up for scrubs… And who get’s kicked? Me… Cause the dmg was low…

I do not need to be in idiot parties with ppl who drop like flies and nobody to res downed cause they fear for kicks… I got a whisper 40 minutes later, they disbanded cause noone was prepared to res… Cause the only person who did was kicked… well GG!

If you use DPS meters, use ’m as a tool. To improve. Low DPS mean nothing if you cannot explain where it comes from, if you know, you might be able to change it.
If someone only autoattacks yes you can ask to change or leave, but if someone has spikes of good DPS with down times allways check why.

Oh and whats good DPS? Good DPS gets the job done -together-. It’s not standing robotically typing your rotation and leaving the group to fend for themselves, that’s leeching.

Meta is a guide… not a mandatory thing

If you are on ele and you notice the healing is scarce, you could drop from fire/lightning/tempest to fire/water?tempest and correct this. Most groups will only notice their sustain increased, not the loss of a bit of DPS.

In dungeons I sometimes revert my PS Berserker to the classic PS warrior, cause I can bring the +25% speed while carrying a melee weapon… and dual banner of course as you only have 1 warrior most of the times. this doesn’t need to be done with skill 3 of banner in mind, but tends to be usefull ingroups with all their own 25% boosts

Some dungeons have a stronger preference for power builds. because some objects still do not get affected by Condition dmg. Static bosses have been reworked however ( which was not the case for quite some time)

However in most cases DPS Meta builds will allow your party to facetank most bosses in all dungeons..,

In fractals this will be less interesting t4 generally has a semi fixed comp 4-5 necro’s (and a druid) or the 1×5 of the raid group comp..
It can be done without problems with other comps when using potions and food.. as long as you do not get a minstrel druid, an minstrel ele, a minstrel chrono and a (d)PS warrior and a trailblazer necro… unless you have 1 hour/ fractal

Raids tend to focus a lot on Meta comps, but as long as vulnerability, might, fury and quickness have been secured with preferably alacrity and GotL stacks you should be good.

This also means chrono, warior and druid are very popular, but guardians can provide fury and quickness, although not to 10 ppl.
Tempests can stack fury and might, some classes can be self sufficient.
Healing can be done with rev or auramancer…

Probelm is you’ll lose 320 power 170 condition dmg, 180 ferocity, 180 precision, 4-8% dmg from GotL, alacrity for the better part all because the syenergy of the 5 comp used presently in builds is so incredible.

Remember Highest DPS is only Highest DPS if you can stay alive to use it… else it’s 0

And you can only talk about DPS after you killed something…. If you died and needed to start over the time lost should be added to the calculation… cause 1 shotting something is better then 2 shotting somthing….and a double as high damage per time… cause you killed the healthpool only 1 time in the end.

I used yolomouse to get my cairn achievement, I failed often cause I had no clue where my cursor was… Yolomouse fixed it.

I’m glad we do not have gear progression....

This has several reasons:
* It allows the downscaling of characters....
* It allows the whole world to stay relevant.
* It allows my horde of alts to stay relevant.
* It allows for continuation for people who went away for a while when they return.
* It allows for no needless grinding after you geared up your charcters and frees your finances for QoL , dyes and skins, including legendaries.
* It allows to choose your content you like
* It doesn’t create powershifts between gamemodes.

It keeps the game simple withing it defined parameters and allows me to play the game and to explore and wander instead of being forced to grind and grind for nothing but another destabilizing upgrade completely removing the previous content from relevance...

The powercreep inherent to the HoT elite specialisations was a pretty being destabilizing thing in this game... all specs became 10% stronger in a flash, with gear progression this would have been more... I doubt we would need more... if any gear grind would be added I’d suggest +6 or +7 stat infusions, OR craftable aura’s....

For quadruple the price for + 6 stat / + 9 AR or 16 times the price for + 7stat /+ 9AR s of course... lets see ppl shed another 9000 gold for 18 additional stat points.

Yes it is timegated… So what, I’ve been playing this game for 4.5 years now thats roughly 1100 days…. And I should be worried it takes 1 or 2 weeks to make an item?

I need to do dailies anyways, now I have a use for the tokens the map gives me and I get a nice ascended backpiece nearly free…. The only major cost is the unbound magic which is fixed easily by a tour of bitterfrost frontier.

If you do not want to spend time on a game, then maybe this is a basic problem… but it’s certainly not the fault of the developers… A game IS a timesink.
If you want a ascneded backpiece instantly I’d suggest you forge one.

Else do the collection, it might take one or 2 months, maybe, but no probelms, you’ll finish it eventually

Fastest would be crafting
you’ll need crafting lvl 500 in the relevant proffesion

suggestion 1 would be to use a crafted inscription stat for base to craft you armor on if you need vanilla stats (so you need the relevant stat combination unlocked from teh vendor, both the armor pieces as the inscription), downside is the need to buy added recipe’s if you need other stats (mostly preferred for 1st zerk armor, remember zerk is relatively expensive 1 insignia costs ~12-14gold)
suggestion1 avoids the need to restat the whole armor, but you will need to get into the second methos to make something else then zerker armor or acceept you will make each added CRAFTED set be 72-90 gold more expensive…

suggestion 2 would be to use a salvaged inscription stat for base to craft you armor on if you need HoT stats (so you need for example rabid/dire/shamans/cavalier (all ~ 1-1.5 gold stats unlocked and you’ll craft the relevant exotic inscriptions to stat change the armor)lowering the cost somewhat by making sure the ascneded armor piece is crafted cheaper and you could use this method universally on all crafts as you can also give it vanilla stats, at the added cost of 6 inscriptions and the cost of changing the stats (30 ecto, 6 bought insignia’s and the books from miyani)
suggestion 2 avoids:
- the unneccesary need for the exotic AND the ascneded stat recipe’s to be unlocked,

Cheapest would be buying it with raid tokens, but you likely do not have those…

other options
- buy armor from fractals
- buy armor from PvP
- get your envoy I armor in raids
- hope for drops from fractals
- hope for drops from WvW
- hope for drops from PvP
- hope for drops from PvE

cost for berserker insignia (ascneded) (50 gold)
https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/calculator/46719-Zojja's-Berserker-Insignia
cost for shaman insignia (ascneded) (39 gold)
https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/calculator/46724-Zintl-Shaman-Insignia

TL;DR a.k.a. Short: Make shaman armor and restat it to what you need; flexible and easy.

Warrior is pretty much meta in PvE , dungeons, fractals and raids as a buffer...
As a pure PvE DPS class condi warrior is still a bit viable
They can perform this role as DPS or Condi Build. In WvW they had a role as shout heal cleansers and CC frontliners, but it has diminished a lot.
Condi Warrior is based around burns and bleeds, cripples and immobilizes, and has acces to stuns and dazes and other control meachnisms...

PVE ++ Okay survivability and good dps
Dungeons +++ 1 DPS mandatory in each comp
Fractals +++ 1 Condi mandatory in each comp
RAIDS +++ 2 DPS or Condi depedning on boss mandatory in each comp
WvW +/- Niche as far as I understood GS&hammer still sees use

Necromancer is a niche class in RAIDS has a set of followers for fractals and is generally shunned in dungeons, even though the DPS reaper is a valid class there
In WvW necro before reaper had a long tradition, but tends to be outclassed by other
classes...
Necro has acces to several conditions (including bleeds, poison, torment, chill, criple, fear(terror) and burns) and can be very usefull as a condi spreader using epidemic. (transfers 25 stacks of any conditions to the enemy, this can be returned by epidemic on a secondary spawn resulting into 25 stacks being returned for every effective Epidemic (4 necro’s can stack 75 of all condi’s fast if needed in an effective group... pretty much destroying everything in the field of effect)

PVE +++ premium survivability and good dps, good solo capability
Dungeons 0 most ppl shun(ned) necro’s , DPS can work perfectly
Fractals +++ 3/4 condi + 1 druid (and 1 C-berserker)
RAIDS 0/++ Condi is Niche seing action rarely, though power for certain comps w-/could be viable
WvW + +

Guardian has been a jack of all trades, though the small healthpool compared to warrior and necro takes some getting used to...
DPS dragonhunter is a vary good option for DPS fillers in raids, fractals and other content. It brings control, reflects, if needed AoE heals , boons in a versatile package.
Guardian/DH also has acces to almost all buffs ingame, making it a class which can be a good booner and protector...
Guardian is both powerfull and weak at conditions. It only has acces to Burning...

PvE + squishy if you do not know what to do
Dungeons +++ excellent support
Fractals +++ Good filler with mitigation and reflects
Raids +++ Nice DPS filler
WvW +++ Guardian has been the basic warrior of WvW since headstart

You might get mounts…
Some ppl have specuslated we would go into the desert… Close to or into The Sulfurous Wastes… whcih are highly toxic

In that part of the desert there used to be Junundu wurms.,.. If they still exist you will have mounts even if they only are able to live in the (sulfurous) sand…

You cannot take ’m with you though, and the war to travel with junundu, is being eaten, and being regurgitated on arrival… so from then on we will all be little pukes….

link: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Junundu

Regarding the rest of the idea’s of mounts, well they make me a bit nauseus…

purpleskies.3274:

Condi ele really does needs better ultimates to be viable compared to the t1 dps specs.

My ideal would be to give our glyph elemental a condition on their auto attack, rather than just on their activated ability (either a bleed on earth elemental or burn on fire depending on how the dps would work out). Either that or make it so fire elemental’s active put a lot more burns or longer duration burns.

As for what to pick out of the current elites:
Right now FGS can do well, but you need to time it to take advantage of the boost to condi damage it provides as a passive, and to use it place of the earth auto which is not great dps. So this means going to earth, using your active skills (rock barrier/hurl and dust storm), then picking up FGS doing eruption, firestorm, then overloading earth without dropping the sword, after overload hit eruption again and any signets that are up. After this attack drop the sword and if you have the rotation right you should be switching back to fire at that point.

Take root does really high burst damage on a condi build, but the dps decreases a lot over a long fight since the cool down is so long. It is still good damage but the burst means some people think the dps is way higher than it actually is.

Overall the damage is close if you are doing a fight against: a stationary target, with a larger hitbox, and over a longer fight (approximately 2 minutes). However since this only really happens on a few fights take root will generally be the better pick.

Thank you for a detailed and clear answer!

To all who reacted:

Yes rework of some elite skills is REALLY needed. But… the rune choice doesn’t really matter on condi ele, chaos armor could be nice as an aura, and it would provide a nice angle for posiible condi builds. Still I think chaos things should be more confined to Mesmer, and I guess I’d prefer a decent alternative and have a powerfull Arcane solution. But who knows the next hypetarin could provide us with something overwhelming

I have a sylvari condi ele, geared with viper’s gear, malice & earth sigils on sc/wh, I even have a mainhand dagger

My problem is simple: I can choose FGS or Take Root. Take Root seems to win from other elites in many cases in condi builds .

I just do not know if this holds true for FGS, being a viper build DPS can be significant, but when looking at conditions I think FGS is inferior, even when it can be taken 2 times and be used at 2 times….

• As I have the option to take either one which one would be better?
• And how will this hold up when I’d be in need for pure condi dmg?

For me this would matter in PvE (think when I’d want to go something alternative when doing raids or join a necro t4 group or something)

Fluffball.8307:

I bought a 10th slot a few years ago to play from scratch with my wife, but she hasn’t logged in in like 3 years, and I figure it’s time to use this thing for something interesting.

I figure key farming is probably the “optimal” use for it. The idea does not particularly interest me, but maybe if I do it once every other month or so it could be fun.

Other thoughts, none of which appeal to me….

• Permanent alternate build for an existing profession
• Some sort of joke/cosplay
• Mid level character for champ bags — this might be appealing; is it really worth the annoying effort?
• Simply a storage container

Anyone do anything super fun or rewarding with extra slots?

Maybe not appealing:

1. mid level openers. using a lvl ~48-53 to open (champ) bags will give you acces to t3 and t4 mats. also a ~33-38 does the same for t2 and t3 mats.
2. key farm slot use some tomes to speed levela chaarcter and run it through story until you finish the lvl 10 staory parts, each week you can earn a black lion key.
3. use it for a cosplay character, I used to have Naruto for a while, I deleted it when I stopped playing PvP again, and now I use the slot again for key farms.
4. use it for mules if you need space, but if you do NOT need space forget about this one

Tends to be worth a thought:

1. Use it for a 2nd build of your favorite class.
   I have 22 lvl 80’s. 3 warriors 3 guards, 1 rev, 2 rangers, 2 thieves 1 engineer, 4 ele’s 4 necro’s and 2 mesmers. Most of tem use completely different build or have completely different ingame modes, I have ~5 WvW characters. the need siege and different food and traps and such fitting 2 armors and PvE food and WvW food and siege and stuff on 1 character tends to be a bit much. For the others I often split up DPS and DOT builds. if needed I split up niche builds as well, My Minstrel ele and my magi set are on 1 character I ONLY use for healing,

Easy classes:
Warrior, Ranger and Necromancer, Necromancer is in a difficult spot in certain content atm though. Warrior and Ranger have decent end game options at this time. BUT future updates will likely change this, though not radically is my best guess…

Other sugegstions:
you could use your birthday boosters, use instant leveling scorlls from birthdays, use food. use utility consumables, use boosters, use the guild boon if you do own HoT. Use guild banners. Well… and have fun.

Simply said core for groups is:

5 MAN FRACTALS: (and dungeons?)
Core

• Warrior: 2 banner Zerk PS GS Berserker(or warrior) or Condi PS Berserker
• Ranger: Zealot Spotter Druid
• Mesmer: Any Dmg dealing Chronomancer variant.

Fillers

• 2 DPS classes: Dragonhunter, Tempest, Daredevil, Condi Ranger
  Optional
• Stealth carriers (Chornomancer/Thief) or reflectors (Chornomancer or Dragonhunters)

10 MAN (RAIDS)
Core

• 2 Warrior: 1 banner Zerk PS GS Berserker(or warrior) or Viper Condi PS Berserker
• 2 Healer: 1-2 Magi Healer Druid or (Zealot/Magi/minstrel) Auramancer ele’s
• 2 Mesmer: (Commander/Minstrel) 1 Chronotank variant, and 1 DPS Chronomancer

Optional (if they are already in the party they could shift their functions of course)

• Control Class (Necro/Reaper/(Condi) warrior/(Condi) rangers/druid or other classes with sustain, and -enough- control options)
• Boonstrips (Scepter Condi Reaper or Sword Chronomancer)

Fillers:

• DPS/DOT classes: Dragonhunter, Tempest, Daredevil, Condi Rangers

I’ll suggest alot:

You could(/should) use some utility consumable and foods for the added 2×10% exp they give, thus shortening your levelling by quite some time. the quality doesn’t matter, you can use lvl 0 food/utility and it will STILL provide you with the full 10% buffs!

You should have received a lvl 30 or lvl 40 booster for your character allowing instant levelling to lvl 30/40 respectively. (character leveling scrolls)

You could use boosters if you havee some lying around, old XP boosters work nicely and on a 3 yr account you should have 4 24-hour (actual playtime) boosters giving +100% experience. ((birthday) boosters)

As far as buffs,

• some foods give 15% experience even , but tend to be more expensive,
• guilds could provide banners (5/10/15% experience depending on type), I used to check silverwastes if there was a CF map, cause ppl tend to drop a heroes banner at start of the run (top entrance for the staging area, no real danger for enemies) on alts…
• the list of buffs form gem store boosters is long: old laureate boosters, old XP boosters, newer celebration boosters, birthday boosters, new XP boosters or hero boosters and kill streak boosters( least convienient IMHO)….
• A lot of boosters tended to provide bonusses on kill only I do not regularly use them anymore so…. You should check on their options

XP is found EVERYWHERE!

• if you run around unlocking parts of the map you get XP. So yes, you can run around headless and still get lvl 80.
• if you unlock waypoints, points of interest, vista’s you get XP
• if you harvest/mine whatever you get xp, it is worthwhile brining along mining tools, even underleveled mining equipment will give XP, only the mats will come out destroyed
• if you do hearts you’ll get xp
• if you do events you’ll get xp
• if you completely map maps (towns or otherwise) you’ll get XP (and more)
• if you ressurect allies and players you’ll get xp
• if you do instanced content you’ll get xp… (even for story mode dungeons)
• if you play your personal story (lvl 10+), you’ll gain XP

Due to downlevelling you can stay in an area and still gain good xp even if your level is higher then the area…..

Oh and most(, though not all,) boost(er)s are stackable…
food +10%, utility +10%, birthday booster +100%, banner +10% = +130% of your XP

The longer an enemy has been alive in map tthe MORE bonus XP they’ll provide.
you have allies/players in map (green & unkillable), enemies (red), and there are yellow spawns, these yellow spawns are not aggressive, but you can fight them, The yellow spawns will generally have been in the map instances for quite some times so they tend to provide more bonus XP and therefore level gain/ time!! Kill ‘m all on sight, but check for veteran treemonsters and avoid those as they die slower due to thier huge toughness! you’ll fins a lot of underwater spawns in lower maps being yellow spawns, and some professions tend to be of more power underwater (but bring a decent underwater weapon)

So you could have (XP + bonus XP (up to 1.5 times the normal XP))*100%+130% boosters without real problems this tends to allow for extremely large XP gains in very short times, if your only focus is maxing the level….

When you level and log in more often you’ll get tomes of knowwledge for the dailylog in bonusses which provide 1 level each on consumption (or a spirit shard when above lvl 80).

Do not go to a high level area (read more then 7 levels above your own level) to kill enemies expecting huge amounts of XP… It will backfire hard!

Now for what to do….

Set your own goals:

• do you want a character? a couple? all classes? alt-o-holic?
• do you want to play casual, mainstream, fanatic, hardcore or 1337?
• do you want to play META or your own builds?
• do you want to play with a guild, make guild, play mostly solo or never alone?
• do you want to do PvE, WvW or PvP? or RP?
• do you want to do world bosses, events and exploration?
• do you want to play Story, personal, living story and small events?
• do you want to play meta maps?
• do you want to farm or grind? or do you want it to flow naturally?
• do you want to do instanced content? (dungeons, fractals, raids?)
• do you want to play PvP? structured? Or world vs world? Solo or with groups?
• do you want titles, full ascended, or a legendary?
• do you want certain other skins?

Think it through, make decisions, have fun while doing it, and if it’s not your thin find something else to acoomplish in this game you might like…., or if all fails maybe outside. But trust me, after 11k hours and 9 times map completion, I can say I STILL find new things and occasional new combo’s or synergies…

The Sandbox is reay to play in. some p[pl want to scult, some want to dig kitten, others want to build a fortrees, some like to make drawings. You just go and see what you like

I have 22 characters atm. All characters have their elite specs unlocked.

In heavies I have 3 warriors , 3 guardians, (1 revenant)

• Zerk and viper (PS) berserker, (Bunker) DPS Hammer CC berserker, add. gear for Shout Heal
• Zerk DPS dragonhunter, Commander/? support Dragonhunter, Sinister Burnguardian
• Zerk DPS Herald (being mule, I have not found any click with the revenant proffession)

In medium I have 2 thieves, 2 rangers (and 1 engineer)

• Zerk and Viper Daredevil
• Zerk DPS Ranger/Druid, Zealot Druid, Viper Condi ranger
• Zerk DPS Scrapper (being mule, I have not found any click with the engineer proffession)

In light I have 4 ele’s 4 necro’s and 2 mesmers.

• Zerk, Celestial, Zealot, Minstrel, Magi, Viper tempest
• Zerk, Viper, Trailblazer reaper, Zealot/? support necro
• Zerk/sin, Commanders, Minstrel chronomancer , Viper condi mesmer

What could I try next?

• I play mostly PvE and a little WvW…
• I’m into both gimmick builds and alternate builds with either a specific goal or general usability….
• I have tried condi engineer and some variants of Herald, and I have given up on the proffessions for now.

But what builds could be nice for the 7 remaining classes? Do you have any suggestions?

Vayne.8563:

@Pax

Stuff you listed as promised content, wasn’t actually promised. We were told before the launch there would be 4 maps. We were told there would be no new race.

Nor did Anet promise a branching story line for HoT.

Not sure where you got that from.

Arenanet developer’s have said multiple things in developing both GW2 and HoT

These remarks have included more info then just the short ramp up to HoT. Developer talks on livestream have hinted to more then was ever delivered, but we were watching with anticipating and extrapolating vision, and the hype made a bit of dough blow up like puff pastry. Unfortunately with way to much air… luckily our light crust has been suplemented by decent filling in the period after the Launch and teh LS S3 has been a great addition.

• It was known only 4 maps would be included with HoT, they would be multilayered, which was achieved in a different way then most expected cause in some views ppl expected the leayers to be separate maps.. Even though the maps are extermely nice IMHO it was to few for a lot of people, but since we had 4 more, bringing the total to 8 and there are decent indications there will be more maps. Thise doesn’t include the map area’s for the 4 raid segments.
• a new race might happen (during Gw2 vanilla), but a specific time was not given. Later on it was said no new races would be included with HoT.
• a new proffesion would happen with HoT. Revenant was a major selling point
• a new WvW map was available and would be implemented. The map was playtested and rejected by the majority of the WvW community, and still included as a complete replacement for the frost maps, whcih was changed after heavy protest and the near collapse of WvW, of which it didn’t recover fully (being political here)
• Developers hinted they were working on new legendaries while the hype train was on the fast track so this was interpreted as new legendaries included with HoT, these legendaries were put on hold after a few were realease, and the developpment has since been restarted. Legendary arrmor was noit hinted towards but the envoy and the collections proved it to be included in HoT, but it was not ready.

Still I am happy how it turned out, though some things might have gone smoother with more communication, and less hype, player expectation might (….might? it was) have been a bit overhyped.

I corrected some things in my former post. And am duly aware most things were my own expecatons based upon several years of developer talks and the sunbsequent “hypetrain to nowhere.”

I did buiy HoT

I’d like to say, for what it’s worth

• yes HoT failed to deliver the promised expected content:
  - It only featured 4 maps
  - it delivered a -SHORT- mostly non branching story line
  - it delivered content most people found to challenging for Open world
  - it didn’t deliver the legendaries , legendary armors, or new races.
  - it didn’t deliver a revitalisation of WVW, actually it pretty much fatally injured the mode by introducing a map, which was rejected by the community, but was implemented still.
  - it didn’t give exciting new class balance, it was mostly madatoiry HoT specialisation builds, in present meta most builds still have no vanilla options anymore worth competing the newer elite specialisations
  - The new stats also destroyed condi builds with vanilla only gear. The inaccesibility of the newer stat trinkets, being locked behind Raids almost 100% made making decent builds hard, if not impossible, for non raiders
  - Newer foods appeared, mandatory for some gamemodes (-> WvW), requiring WVW players to do PvE to unlock them, same for runes and stat combinations.
  - A lot of content was behind forced regrinds of the new meta maps, wwhich were ok for the better part, but 1 wasn’t easily accepted by the community (Tangled Depths).

BUT in my opinion some if not all of these things have been addressed partially or whole except maybe te dependance of meta builds depending on HoT content.

• There have been 4 new maps since HoT in the Living world. bringing the total to 8 with more incoming,
• Legendaries are trinkling in, albeit slowly. some are pretty nice, and they are legendary now. No longer can you buy ’m at the BLTP.
• Legendary Armor is being worked upon, albeit slowly. Maybe there will be legendary armor in PvE, but as is I’m glad it is starting to solidify and we have seen a preview,
• content and creatures have been reassest, no more zerker slaughter in HoT maps…
• the power of builds has/have been balanced more or less.
• WvW got acces to a new vendor, autoloot and the stats, while the map was partially removed. this however only partially reviatalized WvW..
• Gw2 finally decided to let go the idiot dream of becoming an ESL game and can now finally focus on being a high end MMO again.
  In the end HoT almost 2 years after the release is at a point where all the complainers wanted it to be, maybe without a new race, but with decenty content and a reason to play.

And if you didnt try and are convinced your own opinion is right who am I to tell you otherwise?

But the final word form me would be: When at 50% off Heart of Thorns will be worthwhile to buy and to play. Especially when you didn’t give up on this game you will get your LS parts as well.

And if you turned your back on the game you could wait untill expansion 2.
And if you would buy Expansion 2 you should decide to reenter, I think you’ll still be amazed by the content associated with HoT. But It’s just my opinion.

Mesmer is a class with many roles including:

DPS
Damage (sword main/ off)
Control (focus) utility : mantra of distraction
Stealthing utility: veil, mass invisibility (torch)
CC (pistol/ GS)
Cooldown manipulation and quickness utility wells, Timewarp(shield)
reflects utility: feedback (focus)
ranged DPS (Greatsword)

and of course:

Conditions (scepter/staff/torch)

The precise role could include boonsharing, and heals, but it all depends on the needs of the composition.

The precise needs will suggest or dictate an armor type for DPS generally zerrker/assassin, for condi generally viper/sinister and for control/support often commander’s and occasionally minstrel.
Runes can vary according to persoanl wishes but tend to be focussed on boon druation OR dmg output (pure DPS food or condi food)

There is not a real right or wrong, except maybe a condi build for tanking. but even then I can see uses. Meta however tends to be requested for high end content (t3/4 or raids, with bunkers and DPS builds in higher demand then condi builds which are niche in PvE)

10 is very interesting indeed… then again loading times tends to be limited by the disk speed and -not- the load speed of ram, which should not be lower then HDD or SSD output anyways…. even when using a weird setup, unless the timings are completely incompatable.

This said the fact things like your DIMMS can work or do work doesn’t mean the best part of these Gb’s of Ram are used to maximum capabilty or performance… You might see a performance gain when removing some RAM from your system… (likely the 2 Gb module OR the 2 1 Gb modules,)

As with all stuff in PC when coupled: RAM will defaut to the lowest grade DIMM speed in groups…

A cheap HDD on 4500 rpm on a a low power drive should have 25-45MB/s write and 55-75 MB/s read I guess, with some newer 7200 -10k rpm drives get 100MB+/s and 170MB+/s respectively…

My 5 yr old SSD gets 350MB/s and 450MB/s… modern SSD’s willbe around 550 Mb for a SATA3 type and 1800-2200MB/sec for a Pci-E x4 variant…

RAM should be about 100 times faster with the old ddr2 reaching transfers between 3 GB/sec to 8 GB/sec provided the types are comparable and do not cause a bottleneck…
DDR 3 and 4 will be faster still (ddr 3 6.4 GB/sec -17GB/sec)(ddr4 12.8GB/sec-19.2gB/sec) when operating as they need to, these numbers are affected by the speed of the RAM which is dependant on your systems motherboard and the proccessor…

If I was you I’d check my ram (my guess is you have 1 time 2 Gb and 1 time 8 Gb or 2 time 1 Gb and 2 times 4gb) and check I would like to invest in a faster medium to load from….

I do know guild wars 2 has a cache file, and my loading times tend to speed up if I remove it… I doubt however it will improve by a huge margin…

Well…

You have Bunkers and Tanky builds
You have Condicleansers both personal and AOE
You have Condibouncers (epidemic)
You have Reflectors (mesmer/guardian)
You have Stealth/Invisibuilds (perma thief, PU ©Mesmer)
You have Bursters/Spikers
You have Stackers…..
You have CC-ers…

All of these can potentially use light field/whirl, AOE cleanses ( & trooper runes) or be assisted by these, some can return by skills, some can return with sigils, some can clean with sigils, some can juts be temporary invulnerable due to resistance, or traits (diamond skin)….

With all of these options 1 thing remains, you still need to ramp up, and even though you could destroy healing by interupting or poison, a condi kill can be way easier or way more difficult depending largely on the class and the mechanics used….

The fact the effects vary so much by class/ traits/gear/skills makes the game more fun. I do not need a basic skill with 1-3 deteriorating things a blind and a immo… I like the present variety of conditions and skils to counter them…

Oh and I almost forgot, you also have condi cleanses…

Well unl;ess you’re fortunate enough to have a perma bank acces…

In whcih case you’ll have all the foods in a bank tab, and a second one for WVW/fractal potions/ raid KP and other “important stuff”

I have ~140 inventory and ~530 shared slots available on most characters…

so.. I have different visions.. and stuffing my second or thier armor in a bag slot or 2 doesn’t matter… I lose out on 18-36 slots/char at most. and am left with 100-120 or so for the game…

And yes it is difficult without a bank contract, but I have no real problems on my secondary account. You do not need 10 types of food, or low and high grade food.. or wvw blueprints on every character… I also do not have 130 slots on my secondary character. just 6 slots with ~110 space… no secondary armors… just use your chaarcter for the thing you want to use it for…

General dmg in content is approximately 25% higher then before… using speedrun food/weapons in dungeons 2 ppl in ascended gear can provide the same dps compared to the pre HoT exotic meta….. easily!

Using an optimal 5 ppl group comp –
(e.g. guardian, (condi-)PS warrior, DPS druid, chronomancer, and any DPS build (thief, guard, ele, condi ranger))
- will provide 25 might , 100% fury uptime, perma quickness, alacrity, empower allies, spotter, banners , and GotL, frost spirit and Symbol modifier for a total of :

• +1070 power, (might, banner, empower allies)
• +30% crit chance, (fury, spotter and banner)
• +170 ferocity, (banner)
• + 920 condition dmg, (might, banner)
• +10% dmg (symbol),
• another +10% dmg (GotL),
• another +10% dmg (frostpirit),
  +50% from broken breakbars….. Maybe even more…
  (and remember
• +10% from food,
• +10% from enemy type sigil
• and +5 % from force sigil or 10% from night sigil…)
  this is still not counting build specific modifiers… or the effecs of ascended armor in content originally meant for exotics…
  When prestacked the burst of wells and traps with symbols will be rediculous…

1.1^6=1.77 times the dmg based on food/sigils and AoE effects….
(If the target is broken this will rise to 2.65 tims the dmg…)
Using the old prestack the full dmg can be unleashed from hit 1….

Yes dmg and build have changed. However, except for GoTL, Alacrity and the perma quickness, most effects existed before HoT… big change is more ppl commiting to Meta, mechanics and rotations. IMHO….

mesmer is more support oriented in general I guess
ele can be support oriented and will be more healer (auramcner) but is generally more directed towards DPS or AOE DPS

Pineapple and Grapfruit pls.

In PvE, fractals gives a good idea of instanced content and the present (instanced) community IMHO, the 1-25 levels are starters, returning ppl 25-50 house the ppl doing casual fractals, 50-100 are the more hardcore players… 75+ will need HoT….

If you want to do high end content such as lvl 75- 100 fractals, raids and maybe later challenge modes you’ll need to experience some higher (25-50(+!)) level fractals 1st. Dungeons are in no way repesentative for this game’s instanced content any more… they still exist…but are so easy a run with 2 lvl 80’s is a guaranteed finish.

As for HoT you’ll find PvE worlds with a lot of teamplay, instanced content in raids/fractals and to a lesser extent in Living World, with the story requiring mastery levelling, and decent builds in general to survive on glass builds, and you’ll need enough dmg in cerain area’s not to be eaten alive. I have however ran the story on both bunkers and DPS or Condi builds… but all except a measily few of my builds are build for DPS 1st..

So in the end to get an idea of HoT levels , I’d check mid level fractals. All HoT content tends to be more difficult then vanilla anyways…

As for builds I use:

Warrior/Berserker

• PS Berserker (HoT PS warrior) (recent) META?
• PS Condi Berserker (HoT condi PS warrior) META
• DPS Hammer Berserker (HoT CC build) WvW

Guardian/Dragonhunter?

• DPS Dragonhunter (HoT DPS guardian) META
• Support Guardian/Dragonhunter (Vanilla support guardian) WvW
• Condi Guardian (Vanilla BurnGuardian)

Revenant/Herald?

• Support Herald (Revenant is HoT only) (a mule)

Ranger/Druid?

• DPS Druid ( HoT-only Ranger Healing specialisation) META
• Condi Ranger (Vanilla CondiRanger) META

Thief/Daredevil:

• P/P S/P Daredevil (HoT specialisation Thief)
• P/D Condi Daredevil (HoT specialisation Thief)

Engineer/Scrapper? (I have no feel for engineer, it’s a good class, I just suck at it)

• DPS Scrapper (HoT specialisation engineer) (a mule)

Elementalist/Tempest

• DPS Tempest (Staff or D/Wh Hot specilisation elementalist) META
• DPS Auramancer Tempest (Staff Hot specialisation elementalis healer) META
• Bunker Auramancer Tempest (Staff Hot specialisation elementalis healer) WvW META
• Condi Tempest (Sc/Wh Hot specialissation condition elementalist) fun build

Necromancer/Reaper:

• Hybridmancer Reaper ( HoT specialissation condition necromancer) META
• Condi Bunker Reaper ( HoT specialissation condition necromancer) WvW
• Support DPS Necromancer/Reaper (D/F & Staff support necromancer vanilla) (pre HoT WvW)

Mesmer/Chronomancer?

• Chrono(tank) Chronomancer (Hot specialisation mesmer support (bunker))META
• CondiMesmer (Vanilla PU Condi build) META

What gear?

Exotics, if you can afford aquiring them Ascnededs. Ascneded trinkets and main weapon(s) tend to be pretty normal requirements in instanced content. But it’s not needed for low level fractals and casual play in PvE…

For group content META builds tend to be used, the meta is not allways right, nor is it flexible, it just is…. and so dictated by the Meta:

• Generally for DPS builds ppl still use Berserker stats (power/precision/ferocity)

But since HoT introduced new stat combo’s.

• condition builds went from the pre HoT Sinister (Condition Dmg/precision/power) to Viper (Condition Dmg/Power/precision/expertise) Expertise being the stat giving condition duration. in cases where there is no need for condition duration (expertise) ppl will default back to sinister (e.g. burnguardian, and to a lesser externt condimesmer)

But if you play casual this really doesn’t need to matter, whan I play leasurely I take WvW builds to PvE…. I have a Mesmer chronotank (zerk/assassin or commanders or minstrel) and an auramancer Elementalist (minstrel) BOTH with 150 AR. My commander/(zerk or clerics) Guardian /dragonhunter support character tends to be in fractals once every now and then as well.

Welcome back.

And tips?
- for non HoT users: go power builds, basically… exotics are normal “basic” gear.
- for HoT users: see qtfy.eu for builds, these will be the most powerfull builds with rotations, you can use any build you want for caual content however…
- if you like what you see get HoT when you have leveled 2 classes to 80 and like fractals.

Condition Dmg:
if you left before the condi rework (changing stack limits from 25 max to 1500) You’ll be in for a shock. problem is the MOST powerfull condition stat combo is locked behind HoT, the second most powerfull is locked behind the Living World Season 2 (it’s mostly (though not fully) obsolete when you have acces to HoT tough)

Masteries & Elite specialisations
New class sepcialisations are nice and will give acces to other builds. somebuilds non viable beefore are now quite powerfull
Masteries (Gliding, Autoloot, Legendary Gliding, Fractal Masteries and much more) can only be unloccked after you played HoT story
So this content is: Locked behind HoT

Raids….
The present endgame, for now the only way to gain essentials for the Legendary Armor(s)
-> Locked behind HoT

The vanilla game itself is still worth while, not dead, and absloutely breathtaking, but has not changed much since HoT dropped.

For casual play anything remotely synergetic will work, even in dungeons, this stops when doing lvl 50+ fractals or raids where Meta still tends to have a lot of blind and stubborn not easily adapting followers… (lvl 50+ fractals and raids tend to hold the old dungeon elite, the old x k AP or kick, has been replaced by the food and potions mandatory and the minimum LI groups), but this is not of importance to casuals anyways….

I’m against changes to present legendaries, even sigil swap/rune swap… I do not think this will be a just move for the economy….
Ppl will:
make all weapons and all 3 armors,
make the skins suit all races,
make gold with no usefull sinks anymore ,
they will NEVER EVER have to do anything in game again for gear, as it will stay the top tier, and will always stay up to date,
eventually stacking infinite amounts of gold
will be in need of alternatives to stack more gold when they are close to 200k gold
destroy the economy for high priced items…

You’ll find buy offers this skin now available for 20 permahair style kits, instead of a finite amount of cash….

Meta is pretty balanced in PvE.
As for PvP… I do not know, for WvW.. I do not know either.

PvE Meta:
Big hitboxes favor ele, but less then before, and dragonhunter….
For the rest of the dps: some condi builds will produce the same amount of DPS as DPS classes.
Support builds like druid, chronomancer and berserker tend to be a litlle (to a lot) less powerfull, with the exception of the condition warrior.

HoT?:
HoT is pretty mandatory by now, provided you want to play high tier fractals, raids, have acces to elite specialistations, the new 8 maps, masteries, and have an idea where the story went and so on.

This said the game can still be played with a vanilla account, but little has changed over the time you were away.

Well IMHO we do not need a tank…

The Guild Wars 2 soft trinity giving 1 or 2 roles at any time from:

• DPS/DOT (power/precision/condidmg/ferocity/expertise)
• Support/Heal (healing/boon duaration)
• Bunker or Control (vitality/toughness(?) )

seems adequate to fullfill most roles…
(note control doesn’t mean CC, mearly placement of the enemy)

As opposed to the hard trinity limited to mostly 1 role from

• DPS
• HEAL
• TANK

Most guild wars 2 builds are single role or dual role classes:

• Pure DPS (thief/ele/guardian)
• DPS/heal (Zealot ranger/ zealot ele
• DPS/support (hammer guard, herald)
• Pure DOT (ranger/mesmer/necro/engineer)
• DOT/support (condidruid)
• Pure Heal ( Magi druid/ Magi ele(/rev))
• support (mesmer, warrior PS builds, guardians)
• support heal Minstrel Ele/Magi Ele
• support bunker ChronoTanks, Minstrelmesmer

for example…

Most bunkers could stay up forever provided the HEALER can heal them… this limits druids with the line attack, but favors ele to some degree with splash heals..
Most dual builds tend to have some DPS loss in order to up the dmg considerably of all group members…

Old trinity had a couple of ppl just standing mashing buttons 1 person tanking all the hits and 1 or 2 ppl healing and buffing the tank

At least you find some encounters with random fixed targets, or static bosses that need kiting for mechanics or both a kiter and a tank…. breaking the neeed for Tanks, or missions where you fight artition and you only focus heals while forgoing a tank…
Providing more depth then just the old trinity which was nice 10-15 yrs ago when it was introduced and it was new….

Well instanced content went from dungeons to fractals, and to new(er) fractals with CM and Raids….

Open world went from Hirathi Hinterlands and Orr meta event’s (temples?) to Silverwastes to VB/AB/DS….

Farming maps now provide Trinkets and Breathers…. The game is progressing…

As for scaling; yes it still exists, some of my characters are still Exotic. Fractals will allow for some freedom in gear… Raids can be finished in exotic gear… the old dungeons were optimized for rare (yellow) gear
Ascneded is very easy to aquire nowadays. The times we thought armors and gear would take 1000-1200 gold are now gone… unless you want specific stats (trailblazer?)

Then again grind was introduced… and it has been a pain (runes of leadership for your 3 mesmer armors???) bloodstone fen feels unrewarding for your time spend there….

All things said about the trinity are false. tanks in this game are not tanks. they can sustain some dmg but really tanky? no…
We have the DPS/DOT group, heal group and support group… most of the time classes fullfill roles in 2 of these groups… Tanks are support classes with a lot of dependency on 3rd party heals… We noticed kiters, tanks, random focussed targets, mechanics do not yet allow for pure tanks

The support/heal/dps has been here since lauch..
The gear grind is negliable
The grind HAS however increased for ALTERNATE ways to aquire gear
The elitism from 1st year dungeons has shifted from dungeons to raids, Fractals is mostly unaffected except lvl 100 CM maybe and highest t4’s
The rewards for raids, CM’s and the like IS however a bit overscaled.

I have some problems with PLAYERS using DPS-meters AND misusing, misinterpreting, focussing on the wrong data and generally being idiots…

SO when running PUGs be intelligent. If you cannot do enough DPS break up the party.
Having a party with 2 minstrel chrono, 2 magi druids, an magi auramancer and ppl with bad rotations…. Move on…. except maybe on Cairn……
If DPS will allow you to kill the Boss within time: WHY BOTHER trying to figure out who pulls his weight and who doesn’t?
If you asked for an experienced party and ppl fail hard, give ’m 1 chance and then remove them, if they (fail to) trigger basic mechanics and kill the group OR troll, Kick ’m.

Do not however be elitist wannabee’s trying to show off your perfect rotations and be mad cause the 1st vg split is at 6:30 instead of 7:00 or be mad gorseval needs slow or no CC instead of ppl breaking it instantly….

I saw ppl talking about kicked magi’s druids or ppl whining about low dps from the tank. WHO cares? Their role focusses on something else!!

If ppl run mechanics and cannot DPS during that time do not be an idiot and criticize on somewhat lower DPS….
If they fullfill their roles and make it a nice 1st or second try be happy, if they need 2-3 tries to come together don’t be the spoilsport running away after 1st try… I’ve seen so many 100+ and 150+ LI parties fall apart cause some idiot needs to satisfy his personal only 1st kill vanity tick. Yes…. idiot. I do not have a different name for it.

This game is about finishing the content, instead of showing who’s the best cheeser… or the one most elitist with the fastest kick button… I have more respect for the ppl now within the 20-100 LI range then I have for the 350+ ppl…. Why? Cause the ppl who know their stuff tend to only care about fast finishes, not about speading the knowledge… when you do not want to run a 100 LI or lower PUG cause you think they’ll be bad you are showing signs of being elitist, nor do you help them improve…. And knowing this… when done ppl start whining they’ll have no content for the rest of the week… Sad ppl….

In the end yes this game can be about the fastest clear. If you want to persue this DO NOT DO SO in a PUG. The PUG will not be able to fully synergise in the 1,2, maybe 5 tries you need to kill the boss…

A guy with 80+ LI… I’ve been in 100+ LI parties for quite some time now….also by invitation. And I take pride in -allways- having spammed my actual LI’s. I can tell ppl spamming 100+ 150+ 250+ LI… and still being fakers…. all without DPS meters…

well…. As long as you buy a mid to high end graphics sulotion you should be good.. 1060/1070 or comparable… (1080 or 1080 ti or Titans are a bit over the top too much…)

Gw2 is notoriously CPU hungry, asking for high CPU clockspeeds not neccesarily GPU prowess..

Other things you could need for Gw2 are an SSD (solid state drive) and a decent amount of (6 Gb min, 8Gb (or above) preferred.)
As for water cooling, I expect your to be OC-ing. Make sure it’s stable and buy decent RAM to go with your OC-able CPU & Mobo. if you are not going to OC your system: just buy a decent air cooler…

I’d advise you an i5 if it would have been 2-3 yrs ago, but an i7 would likely be wiser at this point in time with all new processors appearing and a future in mind. remmeber the hyperthreading doesn’t have to be a blessing with gaming.

kitten is not cursing,

you do not get your car, or house before the bank clears it. AC or no AC.

And there are some niche options, like zealot’s druid or condition druid whcih have more circumstantial uses….

I’ve played the game now for a bity more then 4,5 years…
What is 4 days on such an amount of time?

As for teh restrictions:

• Friends can mail you stuff, if you really need it.
• You can communicate,
• You can craft.
• You can participate, in dungeons, in low level fractals, in anything you want, But it’s good you cannot purchase end level gear and hop in lvl 100 fractals with 1-4 days of experience,
• You can start with a base character without any problems, and in the 4 or 5 days you will not have it at lvl 80, and you’ll not need new gear OR you boost it and get a free set of gear, Meta is not a big point when you’re 4 days in. I hope ppl understand, most people hope to play instanced content with ppl who have a basic understanding of their class and gear…. whcih will take most players a bit more time then just 4 days,
• The best gear you cannot buy in the store anyways. Ascendeds are still a longer term project, (though considerably less then 1-2 years ago.)
• For PvP it doesn’t matter cause you do not need gear… at least not from the store.

I honestly do not see the big problem….

https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/230430967-Wealth-Transfer-Restrictions-Mail-Guild-Bank-

Just read the faq and you’ll be aware. Understand the company probably wants to check if people bought a full edition with gems and then stopped their payment before they distribute the gold from gems to other ppl buying it from the 3rd party who freaudulently got his account. having a 3-5 day waiting period makes sense.

If you bought it and send the gold somewhere else then canceled payment, they will delete your account (ALSO when it is only the upgrade you bought on a 4 yr existing account) AND all ppl’s accounts you send the gold to.

To reduce this a small grace period is in effect. Appreciate it, else this game would be gold seller madness….

you mean 30/30/10 or 6/6/2 as it was changed to…

With or without novice, master and grandmaster leveling tomes?

Or the one needing 150 gold for all traits?

In the end most vanilla builds are still more or less viable doing 10-15% less dmg…

Condiranger, condimesmer, terrormancer and some other builds still work. Provided you have acces to the present stats….. Most builds are still the pre HoT builds just expanded upon… most pre-HoT builds used 2 trailtlines and 1 which seemed to fit better then the other 2.

If you take the vanilla build and compare the HoT builds and tune the vanilla builds with optimum gear you’ll notice some thing might be missing but in a lot of cases this is less then problematic.

Druid, chrono, tempest and berserker rely most on the new traitlines… they were more powerfull, mostly in mechanics. But old builds can do the jobs as well, just losing some modifiers…

trailblazer is pretty OP….. having a bunker character with high condi dmg and max duration is extreme…. I only die if I get focussed in Meta maps orr when under attack by a mob of high level enemies (t4 ascalon fractal and being feared into mobs for example…., or DS when your group wipes…)
I used it on condi mesmer,but I gave it to my necro.., this as the invisibility tend to be enough defence in most cases for mesmer, and the fact all ppl, except maybe condi thieves, run when they figure out you’re on mesmer….
On necro you become really really really tanky ( say 2 health bars with vitality, and a lot of toughness….)

commander is pretty meta

Good luck on MIGRAINE….

I finished it 2 times solo , did it a couple of times (3, 4 or maybe 5 times in a smallgroup 2-3) and did migraine after 9 failed attempts (these attempts were in itself a LOT of tries) and bugged instances casued some serious harm…..

I have finished it on characters with acces to 900 an 1200 range weapons (ele, PS Condi, Necro, Scepter guard, and my gogo pewpew power ranger.) andI have tried on thief, I don’t remember i I made it on thief but I use S/P P/P on thief (much to the dismay of the whole meta loving community) and it would be an option to try it on thief….

I do not play engi (considering mortar kit or rev , guess mandatory hammer) It can be done on DPS melee builds,preferably CC builds, but you will need a couple of players to perma CC your enemies whenever possible (more dmg, bigger windows for attacks)

As for ELE…. Yes Staff single target DPS is down… But Staff ele was never supposed to be 1 target…. It’s all AOE spells…. everything on staff was meant to hit multiple people.

Having this in mind the DPS of Staff Ele vs 3 or -Many- targets is still unmatched.
This being duly noted we should also see why the BUFF to scepter is important. Scepter is the new ranged attack weapon vs 1 target. Still we should take into account scepter has limited use and it’s capability is meh compared to staff in most situations. the beam attack is nice, but hitting more then 1 target requires some more movement…

I like the changes to warrior (being a condi warrior fan, I love the buff to FGJ, 25 stacks are back… )

I also saw distinct changes to condi thief, condi mesmer… and some other classes;

Necro however now has 3 stacks of bleeds for each chill… now that’s awesome… and you can get chill on blind and the CD of well of darkness was lowered, the icefield and the whirl in reapershroud will buff it significantly….. rotations will focus more on chill, well I like it… the chill mechanics are back. UNFORTUNATELY Chilling darkness still has a 3 sec ICD… holding reaper back significantly 2 or 1.5 secs would be an instant buff to reaper…allowing it to shine.

Maxed out on all…

Some proffessions I have multiple times above 400 or at 400 (mostly due to early game speedlevel by crafting…)

When I look at my characters (22 with 3 possible proffesions I find:

Tailor
500,431,433,407,80
Artificer
500,424,423,400,112,29
Leatherworker
500,438,331,122
Huntsman
500,54
Armorsmith
500,420,351,11
Weaponsmith
500,467,429,46,16,10
Cooking
400,161,53,42
Jeweler (was an effective way of levelling in the 1st year, cheap as well)
400,400,400,400,400,400,117,43,6
Scribe
400

No crafting skills whatsoever
7 characters

All the Maxed skills, so my main crafting chars, are on
5 characters.

amount of characters with at least 2 crafting skills above 400:
11 characters

amount of characters with 2 crafting skills at 500:
3, and these are my main crafters.

glad I have condi warrior, necro, tempest, ranger, mesmer, thief and guardian, geared and HAPPY!… Yes I have an engi, but it has found a usefull place as a mule and is guarding my stacksof useless stuff with my rev…

well… very dumb remark but maybe lower your brightness?…. Works perfect especiallyn low light environments haaving the screen produce only half (or mybe eveen less) could be the way to go? will not change colors, just the amount of light produced

I seem to have run out of shards and karma, so My priority lies there… But ou could do fine without any buffs (291% MF)

zengara.8301:

Ashantara.8731:

zengara.8301:

kitten this convo got deep.
I think everyone is just trying to tell you that the main game does provide you with enough knowledge about your main story

Not unless you play the content in chronological order (and watch the video for season one):

- original campaign
- Living World season 1 (visit NPC in Lion’s Arch + watch this video)
- Living World season two
- Heart of Thornes
- Living World season three

thats a 4 hour video tho

And you think in 4 years we had nothing happening??? It wil be quite entertaining Guild Wars 2 the Movie!

Roughly said:
The order is like this, small descriptions (really generic and general) are provided under spoilers. Pieces of Info regarding Scarlet and her impact on Tyria can be seen in multiple maps….. More on that at the end of this post

The storyline consists of a lot of storysteps nowadays;
SPANNING THE STORY MODE AND THE LIVING STORY!
It is (pretty) difficult to get any idea of the story when passing on the Living story….

1. The Guild Wars 2 Personal Story (Main Game Story) (approx 35 missions)
   Micronized version of Personal Storyis the introduction to Tyria, The hero's of Destiny's Edge, your struggle and the fights to become a hero and get a function in the pact, then a place as commander, then find the first dragon.
   (Tyria Vanilla(Ascalon(Charr) (,Shiverpeaks(Norn),Maguuma Forest(Sylvari and Asura), Tyria(Humans), Orr…)
2. LS World 1 (not playable/repeatable, only short cinematic to show events) A full season of world changing content, unfortunately not repeatable….
   Micronized version of Living Story 1is both the introduction to the new heroes who'll become a (your) new warband, with allies like the Zephyrites, as well as the fight with Scarlet who rallied forces; The Toxic Alliance, The Aetherblades, The Watchwork Creatures, and fight a huge battle, causing disturbances in the physical flow of magc in Tyria, which in turnshowed te locations of dormant dragons, and awake the second dragon.
   (Southsun Cove, Dominion of Winds(Zephyrite landing area)
3. Living World Season 2 (Replayable, 1600 gems for 8 episodes if not unlocked) 8 episodes with 3-4 story missions each (~30 missions)
   Micronized version of Living Story Season 2Is the search of the warbands group to find out what Scarlet was after. Eventually leading up to the discovery of a second dragon and it's minions... (Maguuma Wastes: Silverwastes/Dry Top
4. Heart Of Thorns (Expansion Story Line) 14 episodes, quite a bit more mission steps…
   Micronized version of The Expansion Main StoryIs the events following the Awakening of Mordremoth and the frantic attempts of the People of tyria to protect themselves.... Leading to the second dragon....(Heart of Maguuma: Verdant Brink/Auric Basin/Tangled Depths/Dragon’s Stand)
5. Living World Season 3 (replayable 200 gems/part if not unlocked) now 4 story steps with ~ 14 or so missions….
   Micronized version of Living Story Season 3Is the present story line and the shattering of stability and the rise of Magic in Tyria, providing hints on the rise of more dragons....(Bloodstone Fen,Ember Bey,Bitterfrost Frontier/Lake Doric)

Apart from this:

• Trahearne has a pivotal role in the Story until the End of HoT story.
• Scarlet was the main antagonist providing the leverage to awake the dragons, but her “achievements” in the story are only partially visible nowadays, and this will be mostly in Fractals where a large part of her exploits and minions are encountered, though somewhat ripped apart… Remember Fractals have no correlation with the present and are instances you intrude in from a different time and location (for Dr. Who fans, The Fractal Hub is Tyria’s TARDIS….)
  Examples where you can meet parts of the Living Story S1 in present content:
  - Aetherblade Faction: (Split up aetherblade story) Aetherblade fractal, Aetherblade Boss, Mai Trin,
  - Scarlet herself : Thaumanova, she still makes a personal appearance in this fractal.
  - Toxic Alliance: while distinctly different the Nightmare Fractal give a good ida,
  - The Molten Alliance: (Split up molten dungeon) Molten Facillity, Molten Boss,
  But also outside Fractals in the World; for example in:
  -the Not so secret Jumping puzzle, in Gendarran Fields
  -Kessex Hills,
  -Southsun Cove,
  -Lornar’s Pass…
  -Dry Top
  -and in lesser form in Lion’s Arch itself, which used to be distinctly different in Pre Living Story 1, as can be seen from the Story instances around lvl 40 and 50…
  You’ll see or encounter evidence of Scarlets War if you look around enough….

• The living world Season 2 will have extensive information hidden in it’s chapters regarding the life of Scarlet. A holovid is placed halfway one of the story parts detailing the life of Scarlet…. And this will be a vital piece of information for people who missed LS S1…..(I think this was LW S2 E1 or 2,) but the whole story will integrate scarlet into Tyria’s past…

• Dungeons provide further depth in story mode and the storymode will add to the depth of the world. Plaing the vanilla storyline with other races and other factions will tell you more as well…

So In order:

1. Play vanilla story with story dungeons.
2. watch the cinematic in LA, Explore the relevant fractals
3. Activate Living Story Season 2 and complete it
4. Play HoT story
5. Activate Living Story Season 3 and complete it
6. Hope for a Flame and Frost Expansion Soon…

Well, I think I consider it like this:

still the amount is limited, I cannot go there with a dozen characters and keep mining…
I’ll be done with 1,5 maybe 2 characters if I’m really sloppy