Guild Wars 2

Excuse the wall of text!
There’s a lot to explain. The guard forum might have more guard-specific advice for you. You probably want to find a nice guild to help you figure things out. (There’s a subforum for that too! -bottom of the page).
Hope this helps. Welcome to level 80!

Gear:
Get rare (yellow border) at minimum, but for most things, you’ll definitely want exotic. There are a couple ways to get exotic gear: crafting, ordering on the TP, purchasing for karma, bandit crests, or dungeon currencies, or playing PvP matches. I’d recommend the last option (unless you already have bandit crests from WvW).

As for stats, Berserker (power, precision, ferocity) is meta, though some people like to start with Soldiers (power, toughness, vitality) as a tankier option as they learn to play. You can of course, mix and match to get something in between. Condition damage isn’t bad for a guard since you passively burn anyway thanks to your virtues. This is a handy page: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Equipment_acquisition_by_stats
Dungeon gear is available as a PvP as well as a dungeon reward.

PvP (5 v 5):
Click the crossed swords icon at the top of your screen and enter the PvP lobby. Once it loads, click on the new helmet icon that is now at the top of the screen, in the center. Here you set your PvP build (make sure to look at all the tabs!). All skills (including dragonhunter, if you have HoT) and all stats are unlocked for free. I’d recommend trying this build: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Dragonhunter_-_Meditrapper (Metabattle is a good site to find build ideas for everything, and will show you what’s currently meta).

Explore the lobby a little (I think you’ll be offered a tour when you arrive). There are practice npcs to test your build on. Read about the strategy for your build on metabattle, and the PvP maps on the wiki: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Conquest

When you’re ready, go back to the regular PvP panel, and click on the chest tab. Select a reward track – among other loot, dungeon tracks give exotic weapons periodically and an armor chest at the very end; glorious track gives an armor chest at the end. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Reward_Track (These tracks will still advance even if you lose, just not as much)

Then go back to the first page and enter the queue for unranked (Wait to try the league until you know what you’re doing )

I don’t know much about WvW except that it’s limping right now and needs some fixes.

Here are some suggestions. You should check out the wiki for more information. (If you don’t know already, you can type /wiki [something you want to look up] in the chat box, and it will open the wiki in your browser.)

New stuff you can do:
The yellow numbers track your masteries. Begin your HoT story (no need to finish personal story first) to unlock them. Activate it in the story tab of the hero panel. If you can, do this before you do any more PvE, or your xp is going to waste. You’ll want at least rare gear, though (yellow border, or orange for exotic).

Fractals through a gate in Lion’s arch. 5 people is recommended, but early ones can be done with two or three without too much difficulty. Later ones will require some ascended gear, but you don’t need it to start.

Go to the Silverwastes or Drytop (between Brisban Wildlands and HoT maps). HoT isn’t required, and the Silverwastes is still a good place to earn gold. Events here are a bit more challenging, and require some coordination across the map.

Finish your personal story, if you haven’t yet. (Though it’s not essential if you don’t enjoy it).

Defeat world bosses. Tequatl is fun, and has a chance for valuable drops.

Keep exploring the map. Tyria is huge, and there’s plenty you haven’t seen yet.

Check out the guard page on the forum: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian
I don’t WvW, so I can’t really answer this question, but it looks like there are some nice guides there, and you might get an answer faster than here.
Generally, wait until you get to level 80 before you spend too much on gear; otherwise you’ll just keep leveling out of it and have to spend more money. (Though if you’re leveling a craft it’s easy to make yourself gear at little extra cost.)

Gathering wood and ore nodes is usually a solid way to earn gold. Check trading post prices to get an idea of what sells well (some materials are selling for 4-6 silver each).
If you’vet got mastery tracks unlocked (HoT only) or are interested in map completion for making a 1st gen legendary someday, take your level 80 to an area you haven’t been that’s the right level (so you’ll unlock waypoints and gain xp as you go).
If you don’t have HoT and aren’t interested in map completion, take a new character so you can work on leveling them while you earn gold. A lot of the valuable stuff is low-level anyway.

Some general tips:

Do events if you see them; you’ll get decent loot from map rewards and champs or world bosses. Events go faster with more people, and will scale up, giving better loot, so if you find a group doing events, follow them.

Avoid spending money if you’re saving for something. If you want something from the TP, place a buy order and be patient (materials will often sell in < 5 min). Sell to sell orders (sell crafting materials few slots down the list — they’ll sell fast anyway and you’ll get more money).

DON’T INDISCRIMINATELY THROW STUFF IN THE MYSTIC FORGE. I did this way too much when I first hit 80. It’s a gamble, and sometimes people get lucky with a precursor or something, but mostly you lose money. This is the only place to put unsalvageable gear, but probably nothing else.

Salvage all gear that’s blue or green, and most yellows (with a MASTER salvage kit) for the ectos. (It’s best not to salvage rares if they are more expensive on the TP than ectos. However, checking takes time, and if I’m in a hurry I salvage them all without checking.)

If you have HoT, do the first story to unlock masteries and the new maps. Some unique HoT loot is worth selling, and masteries will insure that your post-level 80 xp isn’t going to waste.

Skill points (for your elite spec) are earned by doing hero challenges, not through masteries: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hero_challenge
You will have gained some from leveling, but most of them are earned through mini-events all over the map. Some are as simple as interacting with a ‘place of power,’ others involve challenging an npc to combat and defeating them.
Hero challenges in central Tyria give one point each, and are designed to be soloed.
Hero challenges in the HoT maps give ten points each, but usually require more than one player (unless you can solo champs).

Masteries are a completely different system. They are account bound, not character bound. After you’ve completed the HoT story chapter ‘Torn from the Sky,’ open your hero panel and find the mastery page (tab near the bottom). You’ll see two sections: Maguuma masteries and Central Tyria masteries. Open each and select a mastery to train (for HoT I’d recommend ‘Gliding,’ and for Central Tyria ‘Pact Commander’). This determines where your post-80 xp will go, and you can see your progress in the regular xp bar at the bottom of your screen. When you’re in Maguuma, the Maguuma mastery will be training, and when you’re anywhere else in Tyria, the Central Tyria mastery will train. Once you finish training a mastery (your xp bar is full), go back to the mastery panel and click ‘unlock.’ This will spend mastery points (only one for your first mastery), and unlock a new skill for all level 80 characters on your account. Mastery points are mostly gained through achievements (so you might not have any Central Tyria points yet), but they are also hidden in hard-to-reach spots in the HoT maps. The HoT story gives out a lot, too: you’ll have that first one you need to unlock gliding.

EDIT: Sorry, I guess I read your first post too fast. It seems you do understand the hero (aka skill) point system. The trick to getting them fast for your elite spec is to head to Maguuma and do the ten-point ones there. To really navigate, though, you’re going to need masteries, especially gliding (I’d recommend Itzel bouncing mushrooms after the first level gliding, then the second level gliding)
Oh, and I’m pretty sure you can also earn skill points in WvW, but I don’t know the details or if it’s any faster…

Here’s an idea — add some new, boring, decorations that are super common and drop all over the world. It would give everyone something simple to decorate their hall with, but would keep scribe-crafted items unique and valuable. These new decorations could be salvaged into scribing materials, bumping the prices down a little and making scribing slightly cheaper.

If you want to get to the starting area for a different race, just open your map and zoom out; the first waypoint is automatically unlocked in each. If you’ve just finished a starting area and want to get to an adjacent map, look along the edge of the map you’re in for entrances to another (they are usually close to waypoints).

Generally, the game won’t stop you from entering an area that’s higher than your character level (HoT maps being the only exception I can think of), but there’s often an npc to warn you the way you’re going is dangerous.

I doubt I’d have time to write something for this, but out of curiosity…
How long should an entry be? 500 words? 1000?
I know nothing about reddit. Is it possible to post an entry as a guest?

Okay, just for fun I’ll answer all of them…

1. This sounded like a great idea the first time I heard it, but I think now it would likely cause more problems than it would solve. Once you separated the two they’d likely keep drifting apart, and the contrast would make it difficult to switch between gamemodes. It’s convenient right now to try out builds in PvP to see if I want to buy the gear or level the class to play it in PvE.
2. Interesting idea, but I wonder how many people would queue for it? Most people have HoT and use the elite spec already.
3. If it had to be arranged between guilds, or as a mission, I can’t quite see myself participating (considering my guild and personal skill level). But I’d queue for a PvP match on this scale. When they announced stronghold I thought it would at least be teams of 10, maybe 20.
4. Yes please!
5. Yeah, assuming I can still earn dungeon armor from them. I didn’t have a chance to do a single explorable path before the reward nerf. I’d like to see the stories, but with low rewards it doesn’t seem worth my time…
6. Kind of like before the HoT update? I like doing one fractal at a time (still don’t have time for 4 in a sitting, but now I can make progress), but I think they’re a bit too predictable now.
7. As far as I know, this is already how at lot of legendary time-gating works. You need ascended materials, which require time-gated items to craft but are not account bound. You can craft them yourself over many days, or buy them all at once from the trading post, which will be more expensive.
8. Could be interesting. Would do crazy things to the economy I couldn’t guess.
9. I can see the appeal — my 80’s feel like they’re at a dead end — but I wouldn’t look forward to spending more time on every new character, and it would make it harder for new players to reach end content. It’s frustrating to spend months and only get halfway to the level cap and all the exciting things your veteran friends are doing. No.
10. Hard to imagine with the existing game. I’d be interested to try a leveless game, but GW2 is not that game.
11. If it’s done well and makes sense, I don’t have a problem with major characters dying. I could imagine Caithe’s death happening in a way that would make me love the story, or in a dissatisfying and cheap way. Generally I think her relationship with the PC needs to develop a bit more; we’ve still got some loose threads to explain.
12. No! At least let me earn ascended and enjoy it first!
13. Same answer as removing levels. I’d be interested to see what that would be like in a game, but it doesn’t fit in this one.
14. That would be really nice, and make a jeweler more valuable. Since rings drop so much in fractals, they’d probably want to make the recipes for doing this a rare drop.
15. Haven’t played much WvW, one reason being I am tired of spending so much time running from point A to point B without getting anything from it. Maybe a good idea, but I don’t know enough about WvW to really say.
16. Yes. Not only interesting by itself, but they’d have to add more mastery points to the game, which might make other masteries more obtainable.
19. Why would you remove useful classes many people enjoy?
20. Have some sympathy for the thieves…they only seem OP because they’re very good at what they do. Or did you mean invisibility in Maguuma? Axemaster is annoying without the mastery, but I wouldn’t remove it. It’s an interesting mechanic.
21. What!? Let’s stick to Tyrian lore for this game, shall we?
22. I’d like to see more small events in Maguuma, but not renown hearts.
23. I was just discussing this idea with a friend of mine. The problem is that it could potentially separate veteran and novice players …but then, you could make the later version maguuma-level difficult, and people would go there for different reasons. I’d like to see a post-Mordremoth Grove…
24. I don’t care as much about the loot as the hero points. It would be nice to have an easier version of the hero points that didn’t give all ten. If I couldn’t find help, I could at least get some points.
25. Most people would stop going after mastery points and just spend xp. I would spend all the extra mastery points I’ve got lying around.
26. People would complain about having to do the same things multiple times on each character… but I kind of miss that feeling of first entering maguuma and having absolutely nothing. I can never experience Verdant Brink the way I did at release or in beta a second time. I suppose I could take a level 79 character in through the guild hall.
27. They have a hard enough time making one elder dragon at a time look epic. Two would definitely get silly fast.
28. I would love this. It doesn’t even have to be very long. Give it some skippable dialogue unique for each race, and I’d be very happy. For now, I’ll have to make up my own stories (No, the warrior story’s more epic than that. I blew up a whole airship!)
29. Yeah, it would be nice to have the option of sharing world completion across characters. (But optional, so I could still get xp from exploring if I wanted to.)
30. See answer to #21. But you could have specs inspired by those concepts — an engi more based around a battle suit, for example. A batman-inspired glider skin could be really nice (especially simple, solid color, with the whole thing dyeable).
31. I like it as it is. Was really hard at first. Eventually I will think it is too easy, but they should have new content by then.
32. More than anything else you’ve suggested so far. This would solve the key dilemma, too.
33. Yes, or at least recipes. It would ruin the opportunity to level characters by crafting, but that’s never quite seemed worth the money to me.
34. No. Not because I care more about Braham than Caithe, but because I don’t. He’d need to get more interesting or his death would be cheap and annoying. I wouldn’t mind if he left for some reason, but death would be too dramatic. I haven’t played any of season 2 except for Point of No Return, though, so I haven’t seen much of any of the living world characters before HoT. However, Taimi and Canach were interesting to me right away, while the others weren’t. Maybe I just like sylvari and asura…
35. I’d be more interested in longer speed.
36. Seeing nodes on the map from farther away would save me more time. Someone suggested a central Tyria gathering mastery on another thread. I’d like to see that. Not all of the central Tyria masteries are as immediately useful as the maguuma ones.
37. Can’t quite imagine it. I’m happy with the waypoint system.
38. What kind of tanks? The charr have armored tanks. Pick the vigil plan near the end of the PS (no need to join the vigil earlier), and you’ll lead a bunch into Orr. Tanks as a class role are beginning to appear in raids. I’d like to see more division of roles instead of most people going for as much DPS as possible, and to have all our armor with defensive stats useful for something. Glass tanks used for containment of test subjects may be found at many asura research stations.
39. I don’t know; I’ve never used either of these. I prefer sticking with my regular skills.
40. Yes, they need to fix this.
41. Haven’t done TD meta yet.
42. I hope I like the new bow and greatsword from the second generation! I like Kudzu, but not enough to spend legendary effort on it. Twilight is so huge it’s comedic.
43. Yes. It would be fun to have a tengu. But I don’t think it’s going to happen at this point, and I might prefer Anet spends time on other things.
44. Not a fan of mounts. Sanctum Sprint is really fun though; I wish it was permanently available and less buggy.
45. Oh no, never. I like buying things and having them, not renting. I’d sadly look for another game.
46. Would be lovely, especially if I could save armor combinations, too.
47. Wow, last question! Creative but a bit silly. No, I don’t see the point…

Well that took longer than expected… but it was kind of fun. Why did you ask about Caithe and Braham but no other characters?

I’ve been spending most of my crafting mats lately on leveling my armorsmith and weaponsmith, on my way to outfitting my warrior in ascended gear. However, I’m definitely going to want an ascended bow and possibly torch, and my huntsman never got above 100. Would it be feasible to finish the collection for the dragonhunter bow (and berserker torch) instead of leveling the huntsman?

A collection seems like it would be more interesting than grinding out the money for crafting mats, and I’d like to keep exploring the new maps. (Also hoping for black diamond drops so I can convert that gear to viper’s.) But I’d probably get more achievement points crafting, and I’m looking forward to that next AP chest…

Thoughts?

PS – What about fractal drops? If I get a weapon chest, will I be able to choose a weapon or get stuck with whatever drops? Most discussions of ascended drops seem to be about armor…

Has anyone found Carys or Agent Batanga in the new maps yet? I heard a rumor that Batanga is dead, but haven’t found proof in-game. If you could just tell me where to look I’d like to discover their stories for myself.

Also, the Auric Basin meta event has me a little bit confused (though I haven’t played it from the beginning yet, just seen notifications as I explored the map and helped with the octovine and challenges). It’s called ‘defending Tarir,’ but we break in from the outside, after spending a lot of time standing around getting armor organized. Afterwards, a message pops up saying something about an exalted sacrificing itself to save the city. First I assumed this was what happened by default if the players fail, but I just saw it appear when we succeeded. Where did an exalted sacrifice itself in all that?

Any more clues about Canach and Countess Anise? I’ve finished the HoT story and noticed nothing, but I’m wondering if I missed a detail somewhere. I’ve only been playing for about a year, so I missed most of season 2 and player discussion of it (I have read the wiki). I find Canach an interesting character and wonder what more we know or theorize about him…

Nice ideas. Really helpful, but not too complicated. I suspect the mega-server is way more complicated than most of us imagine, but a new LFG system would make things a bit easier until we get a long-term solution. I wouldn’t have considered changing the daily system, but I really like your ideas. I’d like to see jumping puzzles on the list, and HoT options.

I’m not a serious PvP’er, but it is a bit annoying that things like daily point capture can’t be achieved if you’re playing stronghold. But of course, if you threw stronghold-only options on the list the people who dislike stronghold would complain. Maybe these could be either/or dailies like the class winners. Daily point capture/supply spender, for example.

If you have multiple 80’s, you can take them through the intro story, too: masteries are account bound. All your characters contribute to the same mastery xp bar and will be able to glide when you unlock the mastery.

96
What fun! Any hints of what this raffle prize may be?
Happy New Year!

Well written, Darkis. Sorry you had such a rotten Christmas.
You should post some screenshots. I want to see the frozen fountain, and the asura in his first chair.

PS — I know I’ll want ascended. Working on that (yes, I know about time-gated stuff), but I’d like to find something that works well in exotics so I know what I need.

I’m relatively new to MMO’s, and generally a pretty casual player, but I’d like to work toward improving myself and getting into harder content. I don’t need to worry about LFG to find a party — I’m a member of a friendly and tremendously helpful guild, but I’m trying to figure out how I can be useful to them in groups.

The problem is, I can’t settle on a class. I’ve got everything except engineer available. Lately I’ve been running fractals and general PvE on my newly unlocked dragonhunter, but tempest (celestial staff) is definitely my favorite PvP class right now (still need to unlock her for PvE), and a friend has been making a convincing argument that I’d love the reaper (also not unlocked yet).

I like the idea of being a tank, and I’ve heard people have been using dragonhunter tanks in the raid – what does your build look like? What should I expect the role to involve?

Also, I’ve realized a couple things about my playstyle lately and why I like certain classes.

• I’m not great at keeping track of the effects of a bunch of skills based on their written descriptions. I like to be able to see that I’m doing something, even if it’s just watching boons stack. What I really like about tempest is how very visual and auditory my skills are: I can easily see my AoE’s, my earth shield, and hear a shout when I use rebound. On the other hand, chronomancer wells look too similar; I keep forgetting what they do.
• I have a terrible habit of standing in one spot, only really moving if I’m in an AoE field. I don’t know when to dodge, and once my enemy’s in front of me, I’m not inclined to move. I know, this is a big issue I really need to work on! So far playing tempest and dragonhunter have helped me move around more. I’ve got AoE’s centered on my character, but low health and ranged weapon, so it makes sense to move in and out. Positioning myself to pierce multiple enemies with the longbow has me moving more, too.
• I don’t like having too many skills, or having to use them in quick succession. Thief’s definitely out – I can’t respond quickly, and I barely know what weapon skill 5 (any weapon) does because I don’t know when to save initiative for it. I’ve played Mesmer (inexpertly) for a while, but chronomancer seems focused on speed. Aclarity is not helpful if I can’t keep up already! I keep forgetting to use the pet skills when I play ranger. I really wanted to like Revenant, but I get confused swapping legends, especially when they have such different roles (plus I keep swapping weapons on accident and vice versa). Tempest is easy to keep track of because skills are in similar places across attunements.

And I see I haven’t mentioned what I think of my warrior! She was my main when HoT came out, and still the farthest character into the jungle. I’ve enjoyed phalanx strength and condi longbow, but now she seems lackluster compared to the DH. Maybe I just need to rework my build? (here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQJATRjMdQfHWGC2eAnIGKCqbMWgk3GgHIAygYIeeA-ThREgA5KRKUCuq+DvyLOdBAHBAA-e) I’d heard initially that the berserker elite spec was terrible, but now I see them listed on Dulfy’s raid guides…

Tl;dr: casual player looking for class and build suggestions to start learning harder content (open to anything but engi or thief)

EDIT: making wall o’ text easier to read

Oh hi, you’re on this subforum, too. (I replied to your other post). Looks like they’ve got you pretty well covered here :-)

@Zephyra.4709
So I’m not the only one inclined to immensely long posts! Good details — gave me a few ideas.

Sounds like a fun experiment.
On a much smaller scale, I leveled my guard 70-80 doing hero points and gathering what I found along the way. Really nice to get to 80 well on my way to a dragonhunter (and I made money, too!)

Tumult.2578:

So that’s what it looks like inside the JP.
How did you get in?

If you’re having trouble entering the instance itself (like almost everyone) try logging out and guesting on a low-population server. Also, it’s easier to try multiple times in a row by talking to the npc instead of walking through the gate.

Stubie.5834:

Thanks for your detailed response. Is there anyway to advance your character without doing the new maps? Like if I just wanted to run dungeon/fractals/spvp. I never was really into map completion and those kind of things.

Yes, if you have the expansion you’ve unlocked masteries in central tyria as well; anything that gives xp to a level 80 character will advance those. (Except tomes; they give spirit shards.)

Fractals have been reorganized if you haven’t seen them since the expansion — you can now do just one at a time instead of four, and pick exactly which one you’ll get.

PvP is in the middle of a league season, and there’s a new set of PvP achievements leading to a legendary back item: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-pvp-league-begins-on-december-1/
You can also try the new stronghold PvP if you haven’t already; definitely different than regular conquest. People seem to really like it or not at all.

Yes, don’t rush the snowballs; the timing’s not as tight as the rest of the puzzle. Other people who’ve made it that far generally seem to know what they’re doing, so it’s a good bet to follow them to the safe spots (might be helpful if you’ve got the bug with the invisible snowballs). Be cautious and try not to think about the chill effect at all. Just move when you can.

Exploding presents are definitely the hardest part — often you get lucky and can just jump straight, but that’s not always the case. Be alert. This game rewards lerts. :-)

Also, if you didn’t know it, when you are at the snowballs you are ALMOST DONE!

PS — Sometimes a bug will allow guardians to keep their aegis virtue in the puzzle, so it might be a good idea to use a guard if you’ve got one.

Thank you!
(oh, this is why people write ‘/15 chars’ at the end of messages…)

My asura’s hair is black, but shines silvery-gray on some graphics settings. I think I made it look dark again by turning off shaders (but it might have been something else). Try tweaking your settings and see if you like the look better.

Do we know how long this season will last? I did some looking around and can’t seem to find it.
The announcement for Wings of Glory states it will take more than one season to acquire (I assumed four, since the achievement is divided into four, but I just moved on to the second level). Do we have any information about future league season dates and lengths?

I’m doing it without the dodge-jump or a running start — just stand on the very edge of the peppermint.

Garambola.2461:

I made it to the candy cane sticks. That is my personal best. It is better than last year…but I am still more disappointed in me than proud.

I was stuck on the candy canes (snowman route) and about to give up, but I decided to go for 30 more minutes and see if I could get it. Wore out my thumb and I still don’t have it, but made a lot of progress. After you get the candy canes down you can get to Tixx consistently, and it’s very satisfying. Try skipping the first one and making the longer jump to the second: it’s closer to the distance between snowflakes and a little easier. Good luck!

Twister in a jar sells on the trading post for about 50 silver. I don’t know about the jar of lost souls, however.

I couldn’t get into the JP either, at first, but when I guested on a lower-population server it let me in.

Ascended weapons are crafted at tier 500: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weaponsmith/Grandmaster_recipes

Legendaries are crafted in the mystic forge with a precursor, a gift of fortune, a gift of mastery, and a third gift unique to the weapon. You can find out what these require on this page: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_weapon
To get all this, you’re going to need map completion on one character, and two crafting disciplines levelled to 400.

Legendaries were available long before HoT; the xpac made precursors craftable.
You will need a precursor as an ingredient for your legendary, but they are also available as a (super rare) drop or a (super expensive) trading post purchase. HoT simply gave the option to complete a collection to craft one instead, however I’ve heard plenty of complaints that it’s not actually any cheaper.
As far as I know, ascended item crafting didn’t change during HoT (but I’m basing that off of silence – I know it was obtainable before, and I haven’t heard anything about changes). Ascended gear also drops rarely (I’ve heard Tequatl is a good place to try).

Well, since you asked for more input:
I’ve got a sylvari ele I don’t play much anymore (mostly because dragonhunter is way more interesting to me at the moment). I’ve never played necro past level 20, but that’s mostly because I wasn’t sure if I liked the concept. They look like a really fun class, easier to learn but (I get the impression) shifting into a larger role lately. I know they’ve been killing me on PvP. Next character, as soon as I get another slot!

Sylvari and Asura are my favorite races in the game — they have very distinct, interesting cultures, and lots of unique character creation options. I never get tired of creating them. Keep in mind that you’ll be stuck matching whatever skin colors you choose when you dye armor, however.
I just went and grabbed screenshots of what my characters look like atm. The first two are light armor and actual possibilities, the rest are heavy but might give you some ideas for color combinations. (The gloving gloves are a prize for achievements and the first asura’s pants require choosing the order of whispers story, otherwise everything is pretty easy to get)

…and my cheerful dragonhunter, Parvula, stuck in the PvP lobby in the royal guard outfit because she’s not actually level 80 yet… (but she’s responsible for most of my rank points, so no hard feelings!) :

My very serious mesmer, Tjanja on her way to kill Mordremoth:

There’s a toggle lighting button (looks like a lightbulb) at the top of the character creation menu you can use to see what your character looks like in the dark. Sylvari colors vary a LOT depending on light, but switching the light on and off as you tweak colors should give you a good idea of the range you should expect. (This might be obvious, but I know I missed on my first sylvari. She’s VERY glowy, because I was trying to turn up the glow high enough to see in daylight.)
I’ve heard rumor there’s a hidden time limit if you take too long making a character. Though that’s likely not the case here, making a character quickly and checking to see if you still have the problem might be something to try.

@Aeolus3615

Larvas is the accusative form of Larvae, because it is the object of the statement (ghosts are what is being killed)
If you look on the etymology section of of the wiktionary article, it explains that the English word larva is derived from a Latin word meaning ‘ghostly’
Sadly, there aren’t a lot of good Latin resources on the internet. I can type examples from a textbook into Google translate, and get gibberish in return. Here is a good dictionary that goes English-Latin or vice versa, if anyone’s curious: http://www.archives.nd.edu/words.html

EDIT: I didn’t see the Latin definition at the bottom of that article! That’s cool. As you can see on the declension chart that Larvas is the accusative plural.
I’m just ridiculously pleased someone asked me a Latin question. :-)

Something I didn’t realize when I made my first few characters is that you can use some modified letters (i.e. with acute accents like this: í é á). I had to copy the symbols from Word to put them there — haven’t figured out how to type them with my normal keyboard. So if you have something you like that’s taken, this is a simple way to respell it without changing the look so much. So if Grizzledmuzzle is taken, try Grízzledmuzzle.

Also I like Latin names that mean something cool. Larvas Necavi means ‘I kill ghosts,’ and I’ve long thought it would be a great charr name, were I inclined to make a charr.

This site calculates the cheapest way to level any craft: http://gw2crafts.net/weaponcraft.html

I’m still figuring out how to get gold myself, but while you’re working on map completion, gather all the wood and ore nodes you see (some herb nodes are worth the trouble, but a lot aren’t). It will save you having to buy materials, and you can resell the excess on the trading post for a good amount of gold. Platinum ore and soft or seasoned wood logs are definitely pricey right now — but it’s a great opportunity to sell.

The stats of the actual armor and weapons you are wearing have zero impact on pvp – the weapon type is the only thing that matters.

Yes, the sigils you’re playing with are the ones you selected on the pvp build panel

Actually, it does. Below the weapons, next to the amulet. You just pick one rune, and you get the stats as if you had a full complement of six.

Basically, what you select in that build panel is the only thing that impacts your pvp stats. You can make a brand new character, level 2, go to the pvp lobby and buy cheap weapons from the vendor, set up a pvp build, and immediately have stats on par with everyone else.

(This does NOT apply to WvW, where you are scaled to 80 but have the same relative stats. So if you’re wearing level 60 rares at level 60, you’ll have the equivalent of level 80 rares.)

Outruns a Centaur

Wahaha.7938:

Do two achievements to get free 20 slot bags, buy the other 20 slots bags.

There are achievements that reward 20-slot bags? What do I need to do?

Judging from forum activity, prepare for a barrage of negative feedback…
Dungeon rewards have been nerfed, and everyone’s been complaining ever since.
However, before that happens, I want to jump in and say HoT is great. Rev is a lot of fun, and the necro, guard, and mesmer elite specs are excellent. New maps are tricky to navigate, but I’ve enjoyed them. They’re challenging enough to stay interesting, and there’s a lot to explore (by glider!).
I’ve been playing less than a year myself, so I can’t compare long-term changes. Despite a few vocal naysayers, the players I’ve interacted with have been very friendly.

I don’t have or want a custom arena; is this item at all useful to me? I hate deleting stuff.

Favorite(s)
Caledon Forest — I’ve started so many sylvari, this map just feels like home. I like the variety of events and hearts, from infiltrating the nightmare court to asuran research and quaggan rescuing. I also really like the jumping puzzle for some reason — whenever I see Morgan’s Spiral is up I want to start climbing.

Verdant Brink — I’m waiting to explore other HoT maps until I’m a little further along in the story; however, I’ve enjoyed VB more than any other map in the core game. The events really feel like they’re going somewhere, and there’s more teamwork with other players offering to help with hero points or that elusive bladed coat. Also, I love gliding and the fact that I can accidentally fall off a cliff, start following updrafts, and discover a completely new area. Sometimes I glide halfway across the map before I realize how far I’ve gone.

Least Favorites
Orr maps. I really wanted to finish the personal story, so I had to desperately run from waypoint to waypoint trying to find the route to the beginning of the next instance before I died (and had to start over anyway because the waypoints were contested). The grimy look of things didn’t help (VB is hard, but I can at least appreciate the scenery). I’m sure Orr was probably a lot more fun closer to release, when more people would do play there, but I hardly see anyone, and mostly they’re just mining ore and ignoring dynamic events.

You don’t have to push f5 again, the cooldowns revert automatically (though maybe you can force it sooner? I haven’t tried, but I doubt it…). Also, it won’t just revert cooldowns but your health bar and location, so don’t use a heal skill or get too far from your original position (unless you want to teleport back). You can use f5 with one or two illusions, but the duration will be shorter.

Trying to take a shortcut to the lowest level in the Grove. Like, four times now, same spot.

Sylvari are more interesting if you’re playing the HoT story. If you care about having an explanation as to where your revanent powers came from ‘I-just-woke-up-and-I-could-do-this’ is pretty easy.
Also, some of the blindfold skins have clipping issues in the back, so hair might be a significant consideration. I love asura, but the blindfold-over-the-ears looked funny to me.

From today’s patch notes (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-December-1-2015/first#post5813371):

• Removed rank restriction from Conquest game mode.

So it looks like you should be able to play conquest now.

Nuhoch 1 is needed for the first story step in TD. I was told wallows would be needed later, but I’ve haven’t found anything yet. Still in TD