Guild Wars 2

For starting out, I’d actually recommend a ranger rather than a guardian. They do decent damage both ranged and melee and have a good amount of survival skills that make exploration as well as learning this game’s combat system easy. One of their healing skills drops an AoE healing (and condition removal) field, which comes in handy in many situations.

deSade.9437:

One thing though, what’s the point of specialisations and mastery point if they remove traits and skills from your original profession?

The way they’re presenting specialisations, it sounds like they’re trying for new spins on the existing classes while preventing skill bloat. Basically, they’re giving you more skills, traits and weapon choices, but restrict the combinations possible at any one time. That way, they can add on new stuff continuously without having to worry about eventually ending up with a pool of skills and traits that 99% of the player base don’t know how to sort through, while the remaining 1% combines them for something totally overpowered.

They’re pretty much turning each class into two classes with some overlap and the ability to switch between them at will (assuming you have unlocked all skills, traits and weapons and are out of combat ).

deSade.9437:

Still on the case of gender. If I make another male I might wake up one day to see my revenant gone and my guard with the whole armor broken, but a smug face.

Actually that’s what I was thinking, too … I really can’t see another male character next to your guardian. Plus, I want to see what pretty lady revenant you can come up with .

I actually like the fact that you get a pop-up for each level and heart. It gives me a chance to notice when I’ve completed one and check out the rewards at my leisure. Before the change, level-ups and hearts completed often went by unnoticed in the heat of battle.

I also like the new level rewards, much more than getting just another generic token. If it’s something I can’t use I’ll just drop it in the forge, but more often than not I’ve found my level rewards to actually be stuff I’d use.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

deSade.9437:

Male or female for my revenant? /sigh
Can’t even decide the name and armor…
P.S. Any hints at what guards and ellys are gonna get as weapons? Swords?

I’m doing female Norn because… I think the cultural armor pieces will be nice to mix and match.

I’ll probably go female norn on my main account, too … female asura on this account of course .

For ele weapon a lot of people are saying swords, due to the light armor female with sword and non-mesmer look in the trailer.

Zenith.7301:

I don’t need to be lv80 either to do explorables. It’s fun to get carried isn’kitten

It’s actually even more fun to do explorables on your non-80 and carry a bunch of 80s with super expensive gear that end up not knowing half of their class or encounter mechanics .

I said it before, and I’ll say it again: In this game, stat difference doesn’t have nearly the impact that player skill and encounter knowledge has. I can (and have) carry 80s that have mindlessly farmed gold to buy the gear that somebody proclaimed is the best. Don’t get me wrong, the gear is really the best, but it doesn’t help them much if they don’t know how to play the best, and sadly, a large part of players in this game doesn’t, for a myriad of reasons.

Many of the players that feel they need to grind for ascended equipment to “bring the best I can to the fight” would be much better served if they started on a quest of in-depth encounter knowledge and practiced their personal skill first.

Conncept.7638:

Rasimir.6239:

Excuse me, but if you need ascended gear for the content you listet, then I’m sorry to say but that’s not a problem of power creep but a simple problem of l2p.

No I’m afraid it is a learn to think issue on your part. All of that content has a win condition based on harsh and unforgiving failure timers, if you don’t bring max stats you are contributing to the content failing, if enough people don’t the content is a lost cause before it even begins. Just ask TTS how many people they bring along in exotic gear to their triwurm, tequatl, and vinewraith runs, the answer you will get is absolutely none. Be in BiS gear, or don’t show up.

You do realize that the game down-leveling you for Tequatl and Tripple Trouble also means that your ascended gear is downleveled to stats that are exactly the same as exotic lvl 80 gear of the same stat set?

And yes, I have done TA Aetherpath, Dry Top and Silverwastes with plenty characters in less than full exotics, and with plenty friends that were nowhere near their first piece of ascended equipment. You don’t need ascended anywhere in this game aside from level 20+ fractals (10+ if you don’t know the encounters well).

People requiring BiS (ascended) equipment for simply succeeding in content in this game in a decent timeframe don’t know what they’re doing in the first place.

Fenrina.2954:

Astralporing.1957:

Fenrina.2954:

I’m a bit iffy on the specialization system from what little we have. It seems all or nothing which is kinda boring if a person isn’t interested in a new specialization.

Doesn’t seem so. They said that we’d be able to “revert” back to the base class whenever we wanted, and implied that in some circumstances we might want that.

I’m not sure what that has to do with that. If a person doesn’t like the specialization added and never uses it, they get nothing out of this system. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for that person to get excited about the change. Maybe there will be a new spec in the future that the person would get excited about. Maybe not.

But isn’t that the same as not liking a base class? The way I read what little info we have on specializations, they actually sound like new classes that have a lot of overlap with the old ones, with the added benefit of being able to switch between the two on the fly. You not liking the specialization and sticking to the old class would be no different to me not liking thief class but going into the new specialization full-time instead.

Every class gets the added possibility to play as one of two (supposedly distinct … see mention of new traits and even class mechanics) different specs. Whether you play just one of them, or both, or none at all (because you prefer other classes in this game) is your own choice, but doesn’t detract from the fact that we will have 9 classes with two distinct playstyles each available when the expansion hits.

From what I’ve read, Colin said somewhere (one of the interviews maybe?) that you will be able to switch specializations just like you are able to switch traits and utilities anytime you are out of combat. So technically you’ll be able to play either ranger or druid on just once character.

Personally, I already have double (or even tripple) 80s of several classes, and tend to choose which one to take depending on how they’re currently equipped/traited. E.g. if I took mesmer A into WvW yesterday and still have her traited and equipped for that, I’ll likely take her into WvW again today instead of mesmer B who’s currently equipped for dungeon running.

I do change traits and equipment around fairly often though (and have equipment for different game modes on all of my characters), so I may well end up with taking mesmer B into WvW and mesmer A into dungeons next week .

What I am really hoping to see with specializations is build templates. I already have a hard time keeping track of all the trait and equipment set-ups for my characters, and need to look up builds for my lesser-played classes constantly (or just don’t bother retraiting in the case of my warrior ). Re-speccing to a whole new specialization sounds like even more of a hassle. A couple of template slots that allow you to save trait and utility set-up would go a long way here to make changing between specializations much less painful.

Please Take Care with In-Game Mails

Jerus.4350:

This sounds like i’m going to have to do a ton of map completion on all my characters to get them to where I can play the actual fun content.

Actually no. I don’t quite remember where I read it, but somewhere (probably one of the interviews floating around) Colin Johannson explicitely said that mastery points will be account-wide unlocks, not character unlocks. You will (most likely) have to do map completion of the new zones, but only once, not for each character.

Personally, I really enjoy playing dungeons with friends and pugs alike in this game, and I’m hoping that they’ll have planned some 5-man group content (or even 10- or 15-man, if they include a new party interface to form multi-group parties) to acknowledge all of the people that enjoy that kind of content, but I have to admit that the fact that they’re not committing to any specifics surrounding their “challenging group content” has me a bit worried.

Anyway, being the optimistic person I am, I’m hoping for the best. So far, ANet has a track record of coming up with unexpected but enjoyable ideas more often than not for me. I’ll give them the benefit of doubt for coming up with something that’ll make me and my dungeon-loving friends enjoying the expansion, even if it turns out to not be dungeons in the traditional style.

Arewn.2368:

I actually kind of prefer the whole “no mob loot, rewards are the end/set intervals” thing.
Running around looting everything can frankly get annoying at times.
Not that I would want to see mob looting removed as a whole.

I second this. Plus I really prefer how the no-loot mobs in the SW events make (many ) people concentrate on bringing their best combat-wise to the stage, instead of bringing whatever weapon-/trait-set tags the most mobs for biggest loot chance.

Sure, there’s still a bunch of guardians around mindlessly spamming staff #1 (old habbits die hard ), but I can bring my sword guardian and concentrate on bringing done the most dangerous mobs instead of waving around my staff just because staff auto attack gets by far a superior amount of loot out of the event (while my actual contribution to the event is much smaller at the same time).

Adventures in pug-land: daily fractals edition.

Not having much time for dungeons or fractals lately, I used yesterday’s fractal dailies as an excuse to send my 2nd account into fractals via lfg (to get the much-needed pristine relics for some decent rings).

First try was a total disaster. Three charr (from the same guild) and one human, together with my little asura mesmer. I should’ve known something was off when they were all loitering around LA asking “who can open” in party chat. Inside, the charr proceeded to jump right in, drew ascalon as first fractal (how fitting ), and ran straight ahead in the direction of Dulfy.

And I mean straight, as in a straight line from the starting spot to the gate. Needless to say, they were slaughtered pretty much instantly. The human hugged the wall and proceeded to the gate without taking a look at what the rest of the party was doing, and fell prey to the burning oil above the gate.

I have to admit I was quite speechless. I haven’t encountered anything like that in a while, but before I could even ask in group chat if any of them had done the fractal before, the “back to mistlock observatory” dialog appeared on screen and the first person rage-quit from the group. I bowed out at that point, too.

The second group I found a while later was actually pretty decent. The guardian didn’t talk, unfortunately, which made it a bit uncomfortable to provide group stability by mesmer mantra only, but we got everything done without wipe, and actually had fun chatting all the way. And I’ve got three more pristine relics, which were exactly what I needed for the next ring for my little ranger .

Conncept.7638:

And while at first it didn’t qualify, because ascended was not necessary for anything but fractals, ANet has been and I wager will continue making content clearly geared for BiS gear; Drytop, Silverwastes, Tequatl, Triwurm, and the new TA path are all content scaled to ascended gear, and HoT will be.

Excuse me, but if you need ascended gear for the content you listet, then I’m sorry to say but that’s not a problem of power creep but a simple problem of l2p. You can do all that content just as well with a mix of exotics, rares and even masterwork equipment. I know I do so all the time, since I have neither the time not the interest to equip more than one or two of my characters with ascended gear (and the one that actually is equiped with full ascended by now is equiped specifically for high-level fractals and mostly goes back to exotics originally gotten for WvW when going into places like Dry Top or Silverwastes).

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Make new friends and don’t randomly invite strangers to your guild.

This basically.

It takes a lot of time and effort to (re-) build a guild to the point where you have a critical mass of active members that keeps the guild alive and kicking. You will need to find people who fit into the guild and have similar goals and interests to the active members you already (or still) have.

Try building a friendlist of likeminded players, and eventually one or the other of them will enjoy your company and playstyle enough to become part of your guild. Be active in forums and all over the community to find more like-minded players.

Don’t be discouraged if many of the people you find, that you think would do great in your guild, already have another guild or simply don’t want to join yours for some reason or another. There are a ton of people out there, playing the game, and only a very few of them actually will fit into your guild.

Some people may look like a great fit, will join you, and sooner or later find that it’s not their ideal of a guild after all and leave again. Don’t be discouraged by that, either, it’s just the natural course of things. I have good friends in this game that I used to be in a guild with that eventually moved on to other guilds, because “our” guild just wasn’t exactly what they were looking for, despite finding a bunch of good friends there.

Other people will just play less, or stop playing at all, over time. This is, after all, a game, and all of us spend our free time in here, and it’s just natural that the interest will fluctuate. If you want to keep a guild alive, you’ll have to make new contacts all the time, meet new people, and constantly keep an eye out for who might fit in with you, to have a steady stream of new members that naturally are opposed by a steady stream of people turning less active.

If you are determined to “save” your guild, be prepared to put in a lot of time trying to promote a healthy, active community within your guild. It’s not easy, but it’s totally worth it when you one day find yourself surrounded by the people you most enjoy playing with. But you have to bring a lot of patience to find the people that mesh with each other. Just inviting every random stranger will bring big numbers short-term, but won’t keep the guild together long-term.

GrimmR.3541:

I’m hyped!

TL;DR: I like what they said, it’s waaaay better than getting nothing.

Me too. I already catch myself wondering which of my characters (currently 12 at lvl 80) I’ll send into the jungle first . But there’s still so much to do before that …

Plus, I’m with Spoj here, this looks like the perfect timeframe for a good month of SAB before the expansion hits .

DeceiverX.8361:

Which makes me inclined to believe that there will need to be more than one specialization available to each class, otherwise it’s either just a straight-up upgrade or alternative, which could have also just been defined by adding in new traits and allowing for the existing classes to get new weapon options with no additional layer of complexity.

If you think about it some more, specialization instead of “just adding in new traits” does make perfect sense. By calling it specialization, they get the chance to do something they wouldn’t be able to with just new traits/utilities/weapons: They can (and from the sound of it will) restrict the combinations of traits, utilities and weapon(s) within a class to a subset of all things available to that class, thus giving them more freedom to add new things.

With specializations, they are able to make traits for a class that, if used together, would synergize to something totally imbalanced, but assign each of the traits to a single specialization. This way, players have two (hopefully useful) overlaping trait sets to choose, but won’t be able to combine them at will to create a balancing nightmare. It will be much easier going forward to introduce new weapons, traits and utilities to classes by introducing new specializations that conveniently restrict the class from those already available ones that would combine in unintended ways with the new abilities.

Personally, I see this as a welcome way to expand on the existing classes while at the same time keeping a lid on power creep and class/skill bloat.

Gene Archer.8560:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

As long as raids don’t have agony we will be fine.

You forget the stat boost. 5% is 5%. The moment raids are geared to ascended, that means that exotic gear is 5% less efficient.

5% may be much or little depending on the impact stats have in a game compared to skill. If you look into it, you’ll find that in GW2, skill has amuch larger impact than stats, thus making those 5% fairly meaningless. I dare to say you will never be able to find content in this game that require that 5% stat boost because the difference will always be vastly outdone by differences in player skill levels.

And I’m not talking about “casual” vs. “hardcore”. I know a lot of people who have every right to consider themselves good, are experienced and well-equipped (including ascended) with their characters, know the content, and still would have difficulties low-manning dungeons they run regularly. Others you will find with mostly exotics that do the same dungeons as duo or even solo.

As long as the skill difference between the good and the best has such a huge impact on this game, 5% different in stats won’t be an issue in any kind of content. Those 5% won’t save your behind if you can’t read and react to the combat flawlessly.

As for aquiring ascended, I don’t grind, since my free time is too valuable to me, and I don’t farm, since I find it a boring activity. I am, however, a hoarder, and have stored/processed pretty much all of the materials I find on my numerous alts (I enjoy leveling … currently on characters #13+14 of 23), and advanced crafting/crafted ascended equipment whenever I found I had enough resources in store. As of now, I have a complete, hand-crafted set of light and heavy ascended armour each (although I don’t play the two characters wearing that all that often), plus 5 crafted weapons. I’ve also got three armour boxes (one each from pvp, wvw, and fractals, neither of which I play all that regularly) waiting for whenever I decide to gear one of the medium professions.

Did it take me longer than others to aquire ascended equipment? Yes. Did I have to grind for it? No. Did I have to farm for it? No. Why did I craft it at all, if I don’t find it to have much influence on my gaming (aside from high-level fractals)? Because it was something to do, and I enjoy collecting and filling my wardrobe . I’d rather “waste” my resources that way than sell everything for useless (to me) gold.

I’m on the edge about it. I didn’t get to play much this weekend (fortunately?) because of rl obligations, but I did take my level 25 mesmer into Gendarran Fields yesterday afternoon for some mapping and trait hunting, and came out again on level 35 by the time she had Gendarran on 100%.

While I know that many people enjoy fast leveling, I wasn’t too thrilled about it, seeing as how she’s now already pretty over-leveled for mapping Lornar’s, and even large parts of Fields of Ruin (all of which I’ll have her do eventually for the traits). I kind of enjoy exploring maps on-level or slightly under-level, so I’m kind of glad I didn’t do any more exploration/leveling this weekend.

I did enjoy the extra wxp for the couple of hours I was able to spend in WvW on Saturday night though .

Shockwave.1230:

Turn some of your in game gold into gems to get a character slot for free?

The way I read the OP, they already have 64 filled character slots, which is the limit. No amount of gems will buy you a 65th.

Just view them as another stack of skillpoint scrolls and give them to whichever of your 80s could use a few extra of those .

jeweledleah.2840:

maddoctor.2738:

What’s this high end crafting you are talking about?

mythic forge. craft one mythic forge item. it might not be ascended crafting but its still more than I can currently do.

You don’t need any crafting skills to use the mystic forge . Just take the next four pieces of blue equipment you loot (or four pebbles from your material storage) and drop them in the forge (on any character) and you are done.

Mystic forger really is one of the quickest, easiest and most-inclusive dailies there is once you realize how the forge works .

zengara.8301:

I started in gw2 because its fun, honestly the only game that I lvl capped into, because it was fun capping, from the story to even discovering something new
[…]
while running through each new event because I dont need to watch them and my time would be better spend if I just ran through…

Would you care to explain this a bit more? I don’t really understand what you’re saying.

You say your time would be better spent if you just run through a new event instead of checking it out … better spent with what? What is it that makes you feel your time is well spent?

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but it almost sounds as if the only fun you have (had?) in this game is gaining levels on your characters. What about the other aspects of progression this game offers? Unlocking traits (mostly for characters post April ‘14)? Gaining skill points to unlock additional utilities? Collecting skins for new looks (ambrite weapons, carapace armour, glorious armour, dungeon skins, …)? Completing achievements for new titles? Completing achievements and collections for minis or goodies for your home instance? World completion for that pretty gold star next to your character name? Even pvp- and wvw-ranks if it’s gaining numbers that you enjoy.

What about the (personal and living) story? The different race and order story archs? The story archs contained in event chains all over Tyria? All of the npcs that turn up in different parts of the story, giving faces to characters that evolve as your story advances? Have you followed Kekt from using experimental golems against undead in Kessex Hills, past meetings at the Durmand Priory and near Concordia in Timberline Falls, to looking for his research sqad in Malchor’s Leap? Have you met Tegwen in Caledon Forest, Bloodtide Coast, Straits of Devastation and Malchor’s? Sorry, I’m getting side-tracked, all of the npc stories inside the different personal story archs are still among my favourite content in this game

Anyway, my point is this: There is so much to do, to discover, to progress in this game, I’m having a very hard time to understand that people only find one of the to me most boring parts of the game, amassing levels, the only fun the game gives them. There’s so much to do, all there at your fingertips, you just have to choose for yourself which goal to you want to go after. Level-cap raise isn’t necessary for any of these goals to become more viable. It really doesn’t add anything to this game.

Rasimir.6239:

Rasimir.6239:

Seeing as I’ve got a few days off work coming up, I’ve decided to set myself a new goal: reach Fractal reward level 50 before the end of the year. It might become an interesting experiment: I have rarely pugged fractals before, and never beyond level 9. I only have two characters with enough ar for lvl 40-50, mesmer and guardian, and only have decent experience with one of them (the mesmer). My experience in and knowledge of high-level fractals is ok-ish, but certainly far from perfect.

I’m taking bets on whether or not I’ll make that goal (considering that I did a total of three fractal runs across two accounts last month, one each on reward level 49, 29 and 9, it certainly isn’t going to be done automatically ), and of course invitations to be carried through some 49/50 fractals (never did a 50 before) are always welcome, too .

Looks like I’ll not make it after all. I didn’t do any fractals until the 22nd, then got several done over Christmas thanks to a wonderful guildie who kept bugging me about it and even re-did a lvl 50 one day just so I’d get a group (thanks a lot, I’d never have gotten this far without you!), and I’ve finally reached reward level 49 two days ago, but I guess there’s just no more time for the last one today .

Oh well, 49 is a good place to be at, too, and I guess I’ll get to 50 early next year then. Thanks a lot to everyone who helped me get this far!

Next year’s project: get this account to fractal level 50, too . It’s a lot more long-term than the main account though, seeing as I only have 25 ar, hardly any mist essences and no crafters on the account. Should be an interesting journey.

Two weeks late, but I finally made it. I got my main account to fractal level 50!

Thank you so much to everyone involved! And special thanks and congrats to the friend who made the last part of the journey with me and got to level 50 last night, too!

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

I don’t think the Tree can be taken by Mordremoth unless he exerts huge and close influence on it personally, but the individual sylvari are a totally different thing. Let’s not forget that in the cinematic almost all sylvari in the Pact fleet were instantly taken by Mordremoth and they started attacking their fellow Pact members of other races.

Are you sure those were pact Sylvari? They don’t seem to wear the usual pact uniforms. I would’ve guessed that those were in fact Sylvari from other trees (as we know from the Sylvari personal story that there are other trees further west) who are the dragon’s minions and attack the pact to defend their dragon.

An endless tonics tab in the account wardrobe, accessible by all account characters, sounds like an awesome idea. I love playing with those tonics, but never have the right one on the character that feels like transforming. Quaggan, Skritt burglar, Dolyak calf, Plush Griffon … if I had all of my endless tonics accessible by every character that would be perfect .

Manasa Devi.7958:

The people haven’t changed, the game has. People’s preferences should be well-known to ANet, because they’re reflected in their behaviour and their behaviour can be measured.

There’s a lot of assumptions in your reasoning, but if we go from this sentence: If you assume ANet knows people’s preferences, wouldn’t it be just as safe to assume they implemented these changes because they know what will benefit the majority most?

Lazuli.2098:

Those who only play for the rewards don’t seem to understand those who play for the fun of it. They give advice equivalent to “It’s not so bad, just close your eyes and think of England, it’ll be over quickly.” They don’t understand that some are not willing to prostitute themselves.

So what are you playing for, rewards or fun? And if you are playing for fun, why do you care if you get the rewards for today’s dailies or not? There are always other ways to get those rewards, spend a bit of extra time in whatever gamemode you desire, and you’ll have all the shinies that the dailies give you without going out of your way.

That’s the beauty of the new system: The “real” rewards were moved to just logging in, while the dailies mostly reward you with a little extra chest and the warm feeling you get when it pops up. Anything inside that chest can be aquired just as well by just playing the corresponding content just a few minutes longer (or a lot longer in the case of the exotic crafter ).

Personally, I won’t go out of my way to do daily events or world bosses, since that is not the kind of content I enjoy (even though I’m heavily pve focussed). I like to jump into wvw or pvp occasionally, but not daily either. So I “miss out” on 10 AP some days, but fortunately AP aren’t something I’m going after anyway, so I don’t care. What I care about is spending my playtime in ways I enjoy, and occasionally trying new things. The new dailies are doing a good job there for me, like motivating me to finally research a proper pvp build for my ranger (which to my surprised I’ve really enjoyed playing in pvp).

Asura of course. You can never have enough asura!

Laulajatar.4253:

That’s a new one in CoE.
Not 1-4. Not 1-3-1. No, 3-1-1.

/sob

hands Laula a cookie for comfort

It shouldn’t really be any worse than 1-3-1 I’d guess … how did you manage it? pug?

Why, oh why are there always big-mouths in the general forums that feel the need to inform me that I better not turn up in their sacred dungeon runs as they’ll kick people “like me” with no mercy? None of them even knows the first thing about my ability to play or understand my classes.

Just by saying that I’ve gotten some characters to 80 post trait-revamp and got enough traits during leveling to have a good starting point for a decent build, or mentioning that you can complete all of the dungeons in this game in non-meta setups in a decent timeframe gives people the right to claim that I don’t know anything about dungeons, requirements and builds, or how to play my classes?

I may not be the best dungeon player there is, too old, poor reflexes, not enough time and determination to get the necessary practice to become one of the best, but I know my theory, and if I talk about things, I know what I’m talking about. I’m really getting sick of those stupid kids that can only defend their opinions by attacking and down-talking others.

/rant-mode off

naiasonod.9265:

Don’t ever join my dungeon groups. If you don’t have traits, you’re useless. If you have ‘almost a third’ of your traits unlocked, I really don’t care – if they’re not the right traits to be useful, go away.

See how that works?

I don’t think I’d care to join your groups anyway … but just fyi, both guardian and ranger had a complete dungeon and wvw build each within a few hours of reaching level 80, without buying any of the traits. There was neither rocket science nor excessive grinding involved, just playing naturally and keeping requirements in mind while doing so.

I got several of them last night opening gifts (about 50, maybe a bit more).

Personally, I prefer to spend my time out in the wild, exploring the landscape. I’m glad I don’t have to spend half my play time running around comparing prices and figuring out where to get the “best deal”. That’s just not interesting to me.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

For instance, I am slowly levelling a human ranger. I used some tomes (not many) and some XP from the dailies, but for the most part I’m completing maps for XP. So, I’m level 51 and I have… wait for it… wait for it… ONE trait unlocked (applause here). Seriously. Wow.

How did you manage that? If traits are this important to you, didn’t you even look through the unlocks to see if there’s any near your leveling route?

I’m leveling an asura necromancer at the moment. She got a level 20 scroll to start out, then went into the world by herself (all daily xp scrolls go to another character currently). She’s at level 32 now, so can’t even slot a trait yet, but already has five (from assorted level 15-40 areas) unlocked simply because she passed by the spots to unlock them in her leveling journey.

If you see a champion (or even veteran) up, just shout it out in map chat, and you’ll have a player (or three) join you there in no time. Most of the time though, it’s not even necessary to go to map chat, as there are always people around leveling and keeping an eye out for those events/champions that unlock traits.

The only “work” this new system expects you to do is being mildly aware of what trait unlocks lurk in the area around you. If you are a veteran of the game, you should have a good idea where the events are or what chain you’d have to follow through to get to it. The tooltips for trait unlocks clearly tell you where the event is located, so it’s not like you’d have to hunt for an unknown in a whole map or something.

The necromancer is actually the fourth character I’ve started to level since April. The other three (guardian, ranger, ele) all leveled by exploration (plus a bit of EotM, but no more than a level or two worth of experience), and each had more than 1/3 of their traits unlocked by the time they got to 80 simply by participating in unlock events they came across (plus the occasional dungeon story instance … I really enjoyed doing those on-level instead of with a full 80s group).

Don’t focus on “I don’t have traits, I’m useless”. Just keep your eyes open, and you will find that a surprisingly large number of trait unlocks are right there, just waiting for you to pass by and pick them up.

Personally, I rarely bother with event or boss dailies, since I don’t enjoy that kind of content. Occasionally I’ll take advantage of the event dailies to get group events for traits done (they are much easier to do when people are running around the map like headless chicken starving for events ), but no more.

I never particularly enjoyed world bosses, and I don’t enjoy the event hype in the daily events maps either. If that means it takes 10 minutes longer to level an alt (since they miss out on the “daily rewards” 5% ep to next level scroll), then I’m content, because I spend that time doing something I enjoy instead.

Disclaimer: I don’t care at all about the daily ap (everything else you get through other means just as well). If I did, I’d try to throw in an easy wvw or pvp one before submitting myself to the company of the event hunters.

rapthorne.7345:

Excluding community (guild/friends/etc) what keeps you playing GW2?

Lots and lots of different stuff. I’ve been playing for over two years, with twelve characters at level 80 and (currently) 10 more on the way up. What I really love about this game is that there’s always something fun to do and I’m not forced to play specific content on a specific character or else I’ll get left behind and won’t be able to pull my weight in group content.

Some days I just like to roam around, do a bit of map completion here (6 at 100% so far), some personal story there, or some living story at another time. There’s enough variety of maps (both in appearance and level range), event types, and other stuff (gathering crafting materials, collecting skins and collection stuff, jumping puzzles and mini dungeons, …) to always find something that suits my mood.

Having a wide variety of characters available (all classes except necromancer at 80) allows me to just pick whatever class mechanic I enjoy that day, without restriction. No more taking only the healer into a dungeon day in and day out because she needs the gear that may or may not drop at the boss to get her raid equipment up to date. I can just take whatever class/race I feel like into AC to gather tokens for the soldier’s set one of my characters wants for WvW (or even get the remaining pieces through crafting/karma/badges/tp/whatever if I get tired of AC).

I love how accessible everything in this game is. If I feel like running a couple of dungeons I just fire up the lfg tool and have a good chance of finding a decent party quickly to go into that dungeon and have a good time. If I stumble upon a group event there’s usually somebody around to help out and get the event done. Sometimes there’s just two or three people, making the event a fight worth remembering, other times there’s lots and the event is just a fun breeze. Other days, I hop into my server’s TS to find the public WvW zerg (mostly not more than a good-sized roaming group outside of prime time really ) and spend a couple of hours defending the borderlands.

I enjoy crafting, and how you get useful crafting materials at all levels and pretty much everywhere you play. No need to farm for a certain kind of material above all others, just play whatever part of the game you enjoy, mix it up a bit, and eventually you’ll find your material storage filled with enough stuff to craft something useful out of it. I’ve already crafted two complete sets of ascended armor (light & heavy) as well as a good variety of ascended weapons, and should have enough materials stored by now to craft a medium set of armor, too. Looking through my materials storage the other day, it even looked like I might have enough stuff collected to seriously consider crafting a legendary … although I may just spend the gold on gems for a bobblehead laboratory table and a water balloon tub instead .

With this game, I just log in and find something fun to do. Unlike other MMOs I have played, there is a lot more short-term enjoyable activities here and not nearly as much need to “work” for your character progression in a specific way before you can actually enjoy playing them. You have a good variety of things to do to progress your characters, be it aquiring different kinds of equipment (stat sets & quality), unlocking traits (my three post-April 80s are still fine-tuning their builds by unlocking new traits here and there), or going after specific skins and rare stat combinations (personally, I am still working on completing some of the dungeon collections to replace ascended berserker trinkets with their assassin counterparts), but the characters are just as playable without the perfect trait and equipment set-ups, so it’s up to me to choose how much of my playtime to devote to the fine-tuning.

Bottom line: What keeps me playing is the variety of enjoyable activities in this game and the freedom to play whatever I enjoy at that moment rather have the need for shinies (that in turn gate access to the activities I enjoy) dictate how I spend my time in game.

Apparently I’m the odd one here, as I went from a G500 to the Naga 2014, because the G500 started to act up (buttons not responding) after half a year. I tried both the G600 and the Naga 2014 in a store before deciding, and the Naga fit my hands much better, plus I liked the feel of the thumb button clicks. After playing with a mechanical keyboard for a while, the mechanical buttons suit me much better.

The thumb buttons on the Naga 2014 are angled as well (unlike the older models), making it easy to distinguish which button your thumb is on without looking. So far the Naga has lived as long as the G500 did before, and I’m hoping it’ll stay that way for a while yet, as I don’t want to go back to playing without it even for a few days .

Devildoc.6721:

But man, just, not looking forward to grinding hearts anymore, I HATE hearts. That’s probably the worst thing about them, that and story mode dungeons (which nobody ever does, so you just have to buy those traits, you can’t even get guild members to help you on those because they just say “just buy them”)

I’ve gotten three post-April characters to 80 so far (4th in progress), and I had a completely oposite experience. The story dungeon traits were literally the easiest traits for all three characters to get. There’s always people around looking for groups for those dungeons (mostly for trait unlocking), and in the event nothing showed up on the lfg tool, I just advertised a group myself, and it would fill quickly. Nobody would expect a perfect run (especially since half the group or more would be on low-levels anyway), but people were generally nice and relaxed. I rarely ever try to talk friends and guildies into story dungeon runs any more, since it’s much easier to just pug them.

I’m on my 4th new character since April, and still enjoying myself.

The first one, my 2nd guardian, got to level 80 well before the NPE, with a bit over 20 traits at the time, and got the remaining traits for the two main builds I had in mind for her (one for dungeons and one for WvW) fairly quickly afterwards. By now, she’s got most of her traits unlocked, and I occasionally go out to seek one of the remaining ones whenever I feel like it.

The second one (my second ranger) was in the late 30s by the time the NPE hit, and got to enjoy the NPE changes for the remaining leveling. I only had a dungeon build I wanted to have her right away, and was lucky to get all but one of the traits unlocked organically during leveling, so she was ready to roll quickly. She still has a good amount of traits to unlock, but that’ll happen over time.

The third character (my 3rd ele) was started after the September patch to check out the NPE. I purposely leveled her without any scrolls (tomes I just stack in my bank anyway, I may just use them some day if I ever need more skill points ) to see how leveling feels with the changes. She’s been 80 for a while now, and I really enjoy playing her to the point where I play her (Norn) more than my other eles (Sylvari and Asura), despite the fact that she’s still missing a few traits that I’d like her to have. Still, even with the missing traits she plays just fine in both dungeons and WvW.

My latest character, a necromancer (the only class I haven’t gotten to 80 yet), was just started over the christmas holidays, and is in her 30s now. So far she’s only got a handfull of traits, but since she can’t slot any yet it’s not much of a loss . Overall, I still enjoy leveling new characters (and playing my 9 “old” 80s that were started before the trait changes).

Rasimir.6239:

Seeing as I’ve got a few days off work coming up, I’ve decided to set myself a new goal: reach Fractal reward level 50 before the end of the year. It might become an interesting experiment: I have rarely pugged fractals before, and never beyond level 9. I only have two characters with enough ar for lvl 40-50, mesmer and guardian, and only have decent experience with one of them (the mesmer). My experience in and knowledge of high-level fractals is ok-ish, but certainly far from perfect.

I’m taking bets on whether or not I’ll make that goal (considering that I did a total of three fractal runs across two accounts last month, one each on reward level 49, 29 and 9, it certainly isn’t going to be done automatically ), and of course invitations to be carried through some 49/50 fractals (never did a 50 before) are always welcome, too .

Looks like I’ll not make it after all. I didn’t do any fractals until the 22nd, then got several done over Christmas thanks to a wonderful guildie who kept bugging me about it and even re-did a lvl 50 one day just so I’d get a group (thanks a lot, I’d never have gotten this far without you!), and I’ve finally reached reward level 49 two days ago, but I guess there’s just no more time for the last one today .

Oh well, 49 is a good place to be at, too, and I guess I’ll get to 50 early next year then. Thanks a lot to everyone who helped me get this far!

Next year’s project: get this account to fractal level 50, too . It’s a lot more long-term than the main account though, seeing as I only have 25 ar, hardly any mist essences and no crafters on the account. Should be an interesting journey.

Laulajatar.4253:

My feedbacks will match your timewarp just perfectly.

Oh, I would love to add my friendly gs mesmer to the mix :-p

P.S.: nobody ever asks me to dungeons these days … am I too friendly, or too grumpy, or too casual, or what???

5 mesmers (2 at 80)
4 eles (3 at 80)
3 rangers (2 at 80)
2 guardians (both at 80)
2 warriors (1 at 80)
2 engineers (1 at 80)
2 thieves (1 at 80)
1 necromancer (lvl 31)

The characters feel vastly different to me thanks to the different races, and I enjoy being able to choose whatever class and race I feel like playing at that moment. Aside from humans and necromancers (only have one of each) I enjoy pretty much every class/race combination this game has to offer, so there’s still room for improvement here .

You know it’s Sunday when you try to pug 3 spots for TA and get a flamethrower engi that rage-quits because he can’t make the skip to Leurent (repeatably), and not just one but two true bearbows.

We (a guildie and I) decided to go ahead and duo the wurms right after posting the lfg, so didn’t really look closely who came in. Imagine our surprise, when we got to Malrona’s room, and not just one but two brown bears charged in simultaneously to pull . They even kept their trusted longbows equiped in close-range, I’ve rarely met such prime examples of true bearbows (and yes, we probably are too nice, but we kept both through both paths).

dlonie.6547:

What upcoming features and content interest you?

1. SAB
2. SAB
3. more SAB

deSade.9437:

spoj.9672:

Hobbits.

This.

Annnnd I’ve just wasted 30 tomes of knowledge on a second ranger I don’t need, so I DON’T want new classes just now. I hope Rytlock got eaten by Aatxes.
BAHAHAHAH, who am I kiddin’, that would require an expansion! Ahaha! Ha! Ha…
/sniff

Btw, what’s wrong with the UW thread? It’s giving me a migraine.

The hobbits would sit down with a giant picknick basket, and the asura would stand by and watch them in total confusion .

Btw, there’s no such thing as wasting tomes of knowledge on adorable asura. She deserves every single one of them .

As for the rest, I haven’t played a lot of gw2 the last few days … downloaded Disney Infinity for my kids, and I’ve been playing way too much of that myself (especially considering that I get a bad case of motion sickness if I don’t move the camera in that game extremely careful sigh).

spoj.9672:

I dont know what to think. Ive been suckered into buying some pretty pointless things in the past (purely for collection purposes). But even I wouldnt fall for that one. :P

Neither would I.

Now if they came out with the personal mail golem …

Suuns.9203:

Please don’t be Water GW2

Good thing I vastly prefer water to brandy .

Theftwind.8976:

Mental Paradox.3845:

No one plays the PS for the money.

And that is why it is not really worth doing more then once. The final chapter in the PS is the same for everyone, no matter what path you take to get there so completing that final chapter more then once is a waste of time.

Depends entirely on your definition of “worth”. If to you, the worth of your playtime is measured in the amount of shinies you can collect during that time, then finishing the personal story is probably not high on your list. If to me, finishing my character’s story and enjoying a nice time with friends is what makes my time in game worth it, then suddenly the final story chapter is much higher on my list of things to do. I play to have a good time, not to amass (virtual) shinies.

Actually, I vaguely recall seeing that suggestion some time months ago. It’s probably no more or less resource consuming than creating a new finisher, but does target a different audience, so it might not be as much of a waste after all.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Sins.4782:

Gaile hates us

But, provably, I DON’T! ~grumble!~

Thank you Gaile!

FerrenoNL.7928:

Message Body length must at least be 83.

Exaggerate much?

Midnightrae.2168:

If you are still looking for another person, I’m interested.

(Afaik) there’s still room for new members. Try contacting one of the officers in game (if you haven’t done so already).