Guild Wars 2

We must be playing a different game as I find GW2 very casual-friendly:

- Leveling up is super-easy, and there’s none of the XP ramp as in many other games when you get to the higher levels. Getting from 70 to 80 is actually easier than getting from 1 to 10.
- The whole game is very solo-friendly. You can jump on and start playing right away, and log off whenever you want.
- Scaling allows you to participate even in high-level LS stuff. I was fighting the candy corn monstrosity less than a week after I joined.
- The difference between gear that costs a ton of time and money, and gear you can get dirt cheap, is minimal.

Etc.

Some of the OP’s points are rather poorly made as well. How does being on a ‘loser server’ for WvW make things worse for casual players? I’d say it’s the opposite. And do you have to be on a ‘winner server’ to have fun?

Thanks for the info! Kyotee, that looks pretty similar to the leveling build I am actually using right now.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Malediktus.9250:

I think they should nerf champ loot again to not drop champ loot from bosses if you didnt do at least 10-20% damage to it (open world only, dungeon stay as is)

I think they should nerf dungeon loot ‘cuz I don’t do dungeons.

It’s not about you and what you do or don’t do. I know, it’s hard to believe.

Grinding is self-imposed. That’s true in all MMOs and especially true in this one, from what I’ve been able to tell so far. I was actually shocked at how small the difference is in stats between super-expensive and very affordable items.

Except nobody is telling you anything about what you should or shouldn’t find fun. The developers are deciding what item/coin rewards they want to give for different activities, and they have every right do that. It’s their game.

Again, I don’t think this is about fun as much as it is about hoarding wealth and items. On my server there are people who hang around role-playing, sending cute and interesting emotes to each other. Their financial reward for this is nothing, so they really are doing it for fun. There are other people who take time to help newbies with advice and ideas, again, for its own reward rather than what they’ll ‘get’ out of it.

Anyone who really enjoys champ farming will still enjoy it even if they get a few silvers less. Anyone who says it’s less fun now probably wasn’t really doing it to have fun at all. The argument is self defeating.

Funny, I seem to recall having character levels playing D&D back in the early 1980s, when PC gaming consisted of playing tic-tac-toe.

Every game developer has a vision of how they want the game to work. Part of that is balancing activities to encourage behavior they believe helps the game, and discourage behavior they feel is not what they want to see. I have a pretty strong feeling that they never put champions into the game with the idea of them being used in this manner, and so they are (very slightly) discouraging it.

If other areas of the game don’t provide good enough benefits then they should be increased for the same reason.

As a relatively new player, I can assure you that it’s a major turn-off to step into Queensdale and see a huge glob of high-level players obliterating so-called ‘champions’ in 10 seconds and constantly bickering with each other over what order the ‘champions’ should be obliterated. My first thought when I saw it was: ‘Is there any point even playing this game if this is what people do at cap?’ If I ran a game, that’s not the face I’d want to put forward to new players.

Be glad I don’t run this game, because I’d put a fractional multiplier every time the same champion is killed within a 24 hour period. Something like: you get full rewards the first time, then 80%, 60%, 40%, 20% and 0 after that until the next day.

The concept that is hard to get is that it’s somehow ‘fun’ to run in circles killing the same 5 mobs over and over again for hours. I don’t run into many people who actually do consider this ‘fun’, they mostly do it to get ‘stuff’. If there’s any ‘fun’ aspect to it, it’s the goofing around in chat, which people do BECAUSE it’s so boring.

Champions should be difficult fights undertaken occasionally as events, not something people farm hundreds of times a day for easy rewards. The job of game developers is to balance effort and reward to encourage a variety of activities, not make some things so easy and lucrative that large numbers of people see no point doing anything else.

Astralporing.1957:

Yeah, because running the train hour after hour obviously requires zero time investment[/sarcasm]

It basically doesn’t. At least compared to other methods of getting stuff, which require not only the time to do them but also the time to get groups, set things up, travel to specific locations, coordinate event timing, etc.

If I’m working and want to take a 20 minute break, I can log on, hit a champ train, get a pile of stuff and then log off again. It’s quick, easy and effortless.

Why should something that is simple, fast and has no risk provide top-notch rewards?

The fact that the champ trains still seem to be running full tilt suggests that the “nerfing” isn’t nearly as kittenome suggest.

It’s still a ridiculously easy way to get a lot of loot with pretty much zero risk or time investment.

As a new player I agree 100%. I’m thoroughly impressed by the obvious caring and effort put forth by the dev team, and this is what will keep me playing even beyond the attributes of the game itself.

I started playing GW2, sight unseen, and only 3 days later was participating in the Hallowe’en event, including running around the labyrinth fighting nasty bosses at level 80. I wasn’t very good at it, but it was great fun.

Try doing that in any other MMO.

This thread is proof that people will complain about absolutely anything.

Actually, I think the biggest problem with unregulated exchange of gems and gold would be price manipulation on a massive scale leading to complaints that would dwarf whatever problems people currently have with item prices on the TP.

As a new thief these threads are disappointing. And really, even if it’s not the strongest class, does that mean you can’t have fun with it? I really like the initiative mechanic if nothing else, at least so far.

Straegen, care to share any info on your build?

It is, thanks. I always do play with the available weapons on each new class I try and will do so here as well; I appreciate the suggestions.

I’ve gotten up to level 12 and so only barely started with traits. I’m going to I think try for starters a D/D and shortbow build focusing on condition damage as I like the shortbow and the D/D skill #3 quite a bit. I have to play with pistol more, haven’t found much there that’s worked for me too well yet except for the #3 when dual-pistol-wielding which is pretty awesome.

Oh and I did find and fall in love with spear #3 underwater already.

Thanks again!

“Sit on blind field” = ? Thanks.

Thanks! I’ll take a look at that. So far I’ve found I like the shortbow quite a bit more than the other weapons I’ve tried, though there are a lot of combinations to play with.

I’m a pretty new player and haven’t made a thief before. I’m starting a character in large part hoping to aim it towards WvW play, in particular solo/roaming activity, where I understand it is a good choice. (Though maybe not as good after Dec. 10? Not sure.)

Anyway, I probably won’t do much WvW until I get some levels under my belt, and I understand thieves can be tricky (no pun intended) at the lower levels. Any suggestions for a good and fun leveling build for a newbie? I do have a decent amount of coin for buying gear, though nothing fancy. Thanks.

Thanks for the replies and kind words. I’m sure many of these problems can’t be easily solved, but some things would help. For example, no, you don’t want to boot out people if people from the other servers leave, but you could make it so that no new people can enter on a server that already has twice as many people as the others. There are other ideas.

I think if I’m going to have any chance of enjoying WvW I need to make a character tailored towards independent play. I’m just not sure what that should be given my lack of experience and skill. I was thinking maybe a thief for the stealthing ability but I’ve heard they are getting nerfed so I don’t know.

I just want to have fun myself, without insta-dying the second anyone spots me. I’m new and I’ll freely admit not the best player, and probably never will be the best of players, so I’m looking for something that’s somewhat forgiving. Even if all I can do is scout and maybe beat up on some NPCs, that’s fine with me.

Thief has always intrigued me. Are they still going to be a good choice after the December rebalance? I don’t know the class at all yet, but I’ve heard they are making changes that will reduce the ability to stealth or something, which might make thieves worse for WvW roaming/scouting?

What’s the best profession for roaming? I know, they all have pros and cons, but what’s best balanced for such, especially for a new player? Thanks.

I’ve been playing GW2 for about 3 weeks. I wandered into WvW about 2 weeks ago for the first time and have dabbled in it since. Here are my initial impressions, which obviously won’t mean much to most of the experienced players, but maybe Arenanet will want to know how this feature comes across to new players (at least, some of them).

1. The concept is amazing. One of the problems with most games I’ve played before is that no matter how much PvE content they have, you get bored pretty quickly. That leaves PvP, but straight PvP just isn’t for many players, including myself — I don’t have the twitch skills or the time required to get really good at it. WvW is a nice balance between the two and looks long-term to be a lot of fun.

2. WvW is very newbie-unfriendly. I don’t mean that the people are unfriendly, I mean that the feature itself is both highly confusing and heavily tilted against new players in terms of what they can reasonably accomplish and how much fun it is for them to accomplish it. To some extent it’s just the way of things that new players have to get down the learning curve, and I get that, but WvW is far worse than PvE in this regard. I’ve basically had to curtail my involvement until I get more gear and more experience.

3. The server matchups are odd. Maybe it just seems that way because I’m in TC which I understand is a “Tier 1.5” server and doesn’t match up well against others, but it seems like each time I log in we’re not doing so hot. You can’t win ‘em all and I have no problem being an underdog.. I love the fighting spirit of the folks I’ve seen on my server when I’ve gone into WvW. But it must be discouraging to see one’s team so far behind, which I think then discourages people from going into WvW, making things worse.

As I write this one of the three servers in our current assignment has 85% of the assets, and it’s largely due to just having greater numbers. Why not limit the number of players in WvW from each server to avoid the lop-sided population problem?

4. The swarm/zerging thing is silly. In real wars numbers do matter and offensives do often take the form of large armies attacking small ones to wipe them out.. but defense also matters. Seems to me that stronger rewards for holding assets and stronger penalties for taking them and then immediately losing them would discourage this behavior. There should also be more things that individuals or small groups can do that doesn’t require a huge glob of people.

—

Overall I think WvW is a great feature that just needs some adjustment. It gives me something to look forward to later in my GW2 “career”.

skcamow: Is there a “clueless stumbler” option?

Requiem: Thanks, though I’m still unclear on what abilities/traits I need to make an effective shatter build or condition build. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.

Okay, I thought staff was for condition builds and sword/focus for direct damage, so now I’m oh-so-confused.

Yeah, I am getting used to it. At least I don’t die all the time now. I’m actually glad it is not easy to master, that makes it interesting. Last game I tried I got bored of in a week.

But I want to get far enough down the curve to be .. more useful.

Not a member of OMFG, great name, and I’d be grateful for an invite. Sounds like just what I need!

So far what I like most is open world PvE and I really want to get good enough to do WvW, focusing on smaller encounters or solo roaming (I’m useless in the zerg stuff and it seems senseless.) I prefer GS/staff of the weapons I’ve used so far. I know the sword is supposed to provide the best DPS and so forth, but I just don’t seem to like standing in melee with it all that much. (Which is ironic since I just pulled a fairly valuable exotic sword..)

I’ve looked into shatter builds and I understand the general concept, but I’m not sure what abilities, traits and gear I need to make one that works well. Any help there would be appreciated.

Great tip on the runes of the centaur. Does the level 6 swiftness work in combination with the ability that heals when you charge a mantra?

So there’s a lot of great info here but being new I don’t understand some of the lingo.. if someone’s willing to help me out with these…?

“dummy a stomp”?

“stoming behind a clone”?

“condition has a dangerous torment block”?

Someone said mesmers are hard to kill when downed but I haven’t found that I am all that hot when downed, am I missing something important?

Thanks.

Thanks for the replies.

I’m getting very good at dodging and use deceptive evasion a lot.

Overall I’m finding mesmer to have a rather scary learning curve. :/ Even reading threads here in this forum I find myself often rather lost, not even really understanding what people are talking about. I can see it’s going to take a while, and I may end up having to level up a different class to 80 while I get used to this.

If I do want to go GS/staff, which I’m leaning towards now, should I be trying to bolster condition damage using my armor at all? I’m mostly in berserker stuff now (though not very good berserker stuff yet) and so my condition damage modifier is very low. Would I be better off with Rampager’s, to get more condition damage instead of crit damage?

But then that has Power secondary rather than primary. Always tradeoffs.

I’ve been playing for all of three weeks, have 175 skill challenges I haven’t done yet, and I’m swimming in skill points already. You can get 25 skill points in a couple of hours killing champions, from what I can tell.

Does converting them to gold involve making items in the mystic forge or something? Haven’t played with that at all yet…

Thanks for the replies.

I started exploring Orr yesterday. It wasn’t that I was avoiding it but rather that I didn’t feel I was ready for it. Hoping to hit some dungeons too.

I know the profession is tough and I like that it will take some practice to get down right. One thing I find difficult is getting the timing on weapon swaps down. So as you say, sword #2 can be used offensively or defensively, but I have to be able to swap to it, and then it’s only good for a couple of seconds. A lot of things in this game seem to only work for a second or two, which I’m not really used to.

On focus #5.. when you say to “trait it with reflection” can you tell me exactly what that means?

I’m actually finding that I’m leaning towards GS/staff for serious combat now.. it’s a combo I used much earlier when I was leveling. The only thing is that I am then stuck in slow-mesmer mode, which means I need to get ($ for me) superior runes of the traveler. I probably will do that, though.

How do I bolster clones with on-death shatters? This is the thing I’m having trouble with, figuring out which traits I should use, as they all seem to have value in some ways, not in others, and to be somewhat mutually exclusive. Thanks.

Okay, I just hit 80 on my first character, which is of course a mesmer. And, fittingly for the profession, I are confused!

While leveling I tinkered with both a staff-based condition/cripple build and a sword-based direct damage build. I liked the faster speed of the direct DPS build with a greatsword equipped. But I couldn’t really get the hang of the regular sword/focus. I’d summon the 5 phantasm, and that would do okay damage, but then it just stands there even when the mob moves, which seems pointless. The 3+2 trick to leap into battle, immobilize and then do direct damage with sword slashes worked fine, but then I’d stand there hacking away, not doing all that much damage while in direct melee range with my flimsy robes. Usually I’d dodge backwards to get out of melee range and then have nothing to do until I could switch back to my GS.

I also missed the staff abilities. But I’m not sure if it’s practical to go GS+staff because they seem to work in opposite ways, one being for direct damage and the other condition-based.

I’ve read up on shatter builds and don’t really understand how they work. I’ve also read a number of people here saying they don’t work well in a number of situations.

My primary interests are PvE and WvW. I’ve leveled up to 80 entirely through exploring, personal story and living world events, and have yet to touch a dungeon or even really do more than briefly set foot into Orr. I’ve dabbled in WvW but only enough to learn that there was no point being there until I hit 80, had a decent build and somewhat decent gear.

I’ve managed to amass a small warchest of 40 gold but obviously can’t afford to spend a lot of cash regearing multiple times.

Anyway.. can anyone suggest a decent newbie-friendly level 80 build that balances damage with survivability and is reasonably fun to play? Thanks.

Deus Xiphos.7046:

I’ve been doing Champion Farming until I’ve grown bored of it and actually started world completion (note: I’m pretty new, and I only have a level 45 Mesmer.) And I got to finish meta events around the world which are FUN and rewarding if you finish it to the end. (Especially the meta event chain on Harathi Hinterlands, where the final boss is against an epic Modniir boss that gives rares and a bomus chest. He had us fighting summons, and by the end, we were happy.) So I hope this means we get more people spreading about the vast world of Tyria.

As a new player myself, I can advise you to save as many of the bags as possible until you hit level 80. One of the really weird things about this game is that you get items out of bags appropriate to the level you are when you open them, not the level you were when you got them.

And from the moment I saw swarms of level 80s running around slaughtering champions when I myself was just level 15, I thought to myself: “there’s something seriously wrong with this game if this is the best way to get loot”. One of the things I like about GW2 is that Arenanet pays attention to the game and adjusts it as needed.

Yeah I’d really love to hear about that skill point conversion trick myself. Pretty please!

I gotta say, having farmed Frostgorge last night for the first time, that while it was fun, it was also a bit ridiculous.

I was level 75 the day before when I decided to explore to unlock all the waypoints. That was a challenge — I have mediocre gear (at best) and many of the 79/80 mobs were tough for me.

But the train itself? The only challenge was getting to the mobs fast enough so I could get a couple of hits in before they were dead. I’m serious about that — if I got stuck or delayed by 15 seconds, I missed out. They seemed to be able to do 6 champions in under 5 minutes, then wait a minute or two and repeat it.

I get why people want to do it. I also get why Arenanet might want to nerf it.

Flissy.4093:

Qaelyn.7612:

This is my fault, everyone. I started playing two weeks ago and discovered champ farming the other day. That’s why it was nerfed — I’m cursed.

Sorry!

Go run Arah please! Maybe it’ll get them to fix bugs that let you skip everything and its nan ^^

Heh. I’m too new. About to cap my first char and I have yet to even set foot into a dungeon.

I hope to soon, though, so get your rewards from them while you can!

This is my fault, everyone. I started playing two weeks ago and discovered champ farming the other day. That’s why it was nerfed — I’m cursed.

Sorry!

Where is he? I looked around but haven’t found him so far.

As a new player who has struggled but still had fun with the Mad King’s Labyrinth, I thought it was cool to see this new area in a lower-level location. That said, even I think it’s a bit too easy given the sheer numbers of people around.

Champions go down in under a minute, and there seem to be tons and tons of them around, too.

Thanks very much.

Another question. Scattered about are gathering spots that sometimes give you a pristine spore sample and sometimes a “mushed” one. Is the chance of success affected by the gathering tool you have equipped? I ask because I’m chewing through them and don’t want to use the pricey (to me) ones if I don’t have to. Thanks.

Thanks. And bummer.

Ah, there’s an achievement, got it, that must be what the 1/5/10 is about. Thanks. Still getting the hang of how this stuff works.

I’m new so forgive me if these are dumb questions.

1. Can the quest part / story be done by a party together?

2. How/where do you get all the new items and the new skill I’ve seen mentioned? I go to Marjory and if I give her a sample, she then asks me for 1, 5 or 10 more… are the rewards just random? Is the first sample only to allow her to then ask for the others?

Thanks.

I check the TP and anything worth under around 1.5 silver I salvage. Sometimes under 1 silver. I often get materials worth more than the item would have sold for, and have my magic find up to 42%, not bad given that I started 2 weeks ago.

yksdoris.2194:

3) tangent: I’ve noticed myself getting a bit annoyed in QD when people don’t know which WP means which code word (I’ve seen people not knowing where to go for SB). I mean, sure it takes people a while to learn the map, but seriously… Queensdale is THE most over-populated map in the game, if you constantly have to ask where to go people get annoyed, and I’m not the only one. Suggestion 1: Join a guild. Guildies are usually all really helpful towards one another. Suggestion 2: just run the map until you know what’s where. Just… please don’t spam the map chat the entire time.

Conversely, as a new player I have to say that it’s pretty inconsiderate when there are 20 or 30 people running around doing something and none of them will take a minute out of their busy days to explain where the train is going and generally how to get there. Sometimes one kind soul will take the time, which is good. I’ve also seen it where nobody will answer at all.

Running the map is not going to show you where the champions are, especially if a mob slaughters them in 30 seconds every time they spawn.

I’m not saying the complaints are invalid as I have no basis for making such a judgment. It’s more that companies set themselves up for this by making too many promises. Also, it’s easier to enjoy a game if you take it at face value rather than comparing it to what it might have or should have been, though I know too well how hard that is to do.

I may still be in the ‘honeymoon period’ but so far I find GW2 rich, varied and fun. Obviously everyone enjoys different things but I’m surprised that so many people have so many complaints, as I’ve only found a handful of annoyances in the time I’ve played so far.

I realized I was level 60 or so and hadn’t even gone to any of the areas appropriate for my level. So yesterday I meandered from the Bloodtide Coast down to Mount Maelstrom.

One of the funniest thing about this game so far for me is the Risen. They shamble along like you’d expect of the undead zombies they are, until they see you, and then they race towards you at superhuman speed. I’m guessing they did this to make them more difficult, but it’s extremely strange.

They are also rather annoying to fight and it seems the further south I go, the more I find. I realize there will be a lot of them in Orr but I hope it’s not them exclusively…

Knighthonor.4061:

Many people that got GW1 were disappointed. most of the sell numbers came from hype of first time buyers over the media claiming its the first major AAA MMO from the west. Yet it wasnt a MMO at all. Just Online Co-op game.

It’s funny how expectations work. Many of the people here saying they hate GW2 are comparing it to GW1; I never played the old one and am enjoying the new one perhaps because I don’t have anything to compare it to, and no expectations to be disappointed by.

These threads seem common in every MMO forum I visit… actually, less of it here than many other places.

Thanks Kai. Your “Lazy Kai” looks similar to this build I found: http://intothemists.com/guides/46-furbys_multitasking_mesmer_20200300 — main diff is it’s 20/20/0/30/0 instead of 20/20/0/0/30.. more survival maybe? Yours seems better though I might die more.