Guild Wars 2

I made a list of the overall order for the story here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Ideal-order-to-earn-Maguuma-masteries/first#post5759935
(haven’t actually finished the story, but looks like I’m pretty much done mastery-wise)

I’m a long way from having all the resources, but I’d like to at least start a precursor journey, and begin working on what I can. I play warrior, rev, mesmer (working on a dragonhunter).

Bolt seems a good choice since I could use it on all of them, but I’ve never actually seen it in game. I like the concept, but I’d like to have an idea of what it will look like during fight animations (esp rev skill 3 or mes skill 2). And what’s the ‘lightning death animation’ the wiki mentions? Could someone link to a video for me?

I also, like Kudzu (though it wouldn’t be as useful) but I’m wondering how the golden/flowery thing interacts with warrior flames…

Are one-handed legendaries any easier to get than two-handed? How do the new legendaries compare for cost?

I prefer map completion, myself. The personal story can help, too. Everything in the open world gives xp, exploring new zones, gathering, rezzing players… If you see a dynamic event, do it, especially if you haven’t done the nearby hearts – that’ll give you the most xp. Buy cheap food consumables on the trading post and keep their buffs on.

I don’t play necro, but here’s a good site for build recommendations: http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki

For now, there is a sylvari ear option that looks quite elvish…

Wiki’s probably your best bet, then, though simplesimon summarized the basics well. Make an insignia and two components, then combine them in the discovery panel – unless you want a bunch of a specific item or are in a hurry, repeat for best xp. Don’t try chef until you really know what you’re doing….
Also, the crafted backpacks you can keep upgrading to exotic and give decent xp, so I’d start with that. You’ll need to buy a backpack frame from a master [whatever craft].

Hear hear!
I’m a new player; Guild Wars 2 is the second mmo I’ve ever played at all. I see so many people complaining about this game, but I’m just very glad that it’s here. Tyria is beautiful, from the chasms of Verdant Brink to the snowy plains of Frostgorge Sound. I love the details put into this game, the little stories between npc’s you only hear if you stop and listen, the hidden corners I find with my glider, the way my asura’s ears perk up when she’s in combat.

But most of all, Guild Wars 2 has been a game that makes me thankful for other players. They have indeed made a game where I’m happy to see another person run up.

I’m thankful for the many mesmers who have helped me with jumping puzzles and vistas, but especially the guildie who dropped out of hall claiming to make sure I could get in.
I’m thankful for the cheerful personality I was stuck in a PvP match with.
I’m thankful for unexpected rezzing all over the world, but especially Orr.
I’m thankful for the commanders on my server who led that epic storm of Stonemist Castle.
I’m thankful for the complete stranger who showed me how the Silverwastes worked.
I’m thankful for a place where I can connect with distant friends on a Sunday afternoon.

Thank you devs. Thank you players. This is a gorgeous game and a great community.

Teaniel

Wiki’s got a good intro for you: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Crafting
The site above is great, but more for showing you what to craft to level fast, and assumes you basically know what you’re doing already.
Yeah, the search function on the forums doesn’t work. There’s a sticky (here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Searching-the-Forums/first#post4701411) explaining how to write a google search that will bring up mostly forum results.

Hmm. You should be able to do both modes. You might just need to check both boxes, then uncheck stronghold. Haven’t actually played stronghold since beta; interesting observations.

WvW varies a lot depending on what server you are on and if anyone else is logged on. If you see a commander tag, run to it and join the crowd of players. I’m not really a wvw player, but sticking with a group is probably your best bet.

I’m still impressed. Not much variety there, and traits are pretty significant.

Tempest is the only specialization available to you, as an elementalist, for now. They’ve discussed adding more someday, but it’s not the top of the list at the moment. I don’t play ele much anymore, but I know my brother really likes the tempest. You can equip it in the PvP lobby and attack the practice npc’s to get a feel for it.

Masteries are a whole new area and not actually related to elite specializations.
You might not be ready for HoT content yet, but when you are:
As soon as you get exotic gear, I would recommend starting the HoT story and getting just far enough to unlock mastery tracks – then the XP you’re earning at the level cap will be going somewhere. Keep in mind that enemies in HoT are harder than anywhere else in the open world – it might take you several tries with your playing experience (you can take a friend with you to help – if you’re in a party on the same map when you start the instance they’ll get an invite). Select pact commander mastery to earn first if you’re heading back into the rest of Tyria. If you decide to stay in HoT, start earning gliding.

There are two PvP game modes: stronghold and conquest. You can set a preference for one or the other in the main PvP panel. What you’ve been playing is stronghold, which is focused on seiging the enemy fort and killing their lord. Conquest has some variations depending on what map you’re on, but it’s mostly holding capture points and defending them from the other team. Npc’s aren’t as important, and you don’t build anything.

Your PvP gear is totally separate from you regular gear. When you enter the lobby, a new helmet icon will appear on the top of the screen – click on it to set your PvP build. Except for a couple items, everything is free so pick whatever stats you want. You will need to have the weapon type in your inventory, but it’s individual stats don’t matter – everyone’s weapons will be equalized. This site will give you an idea of what meta PvP builds are (select elementalist, then conquest): http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki

I hope this helps. Good luck!
PS – I’m super impressed you got all the way to 80 without switching attunements or equipping any utility skills. I doubt I’d have the patience.

Yep, this decision is mainly cosmetic. Whatever race you help now will show up to help you in Orr later, with the only real difference in the cutscene dialogue. Characters from the Quaggan mission show up again on a HoT map; but they’re mostly an interesting detail.

Sounds like a bug to me

Did you try talking to Gerrvid?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQJATRjMdQfHWGC2eAnIGKCqbMWgk3GgHIAygYIeeA-ThREgA5KRKUCuq+DvyLOdBAHBAA-e
Well, here’s my warrior build, for what it’s worth. Evolved as I tried phalanx strength but missed my condi longbow. I change utilities (except for heal and elite) quite a bit depending on the situation, but I probably use these the most. (Note traits, they’re important!)

I use signet of fury to fill the adrenaline bar, then drop a fire field with combustive shot, and my two blast finishers on top of that. Then I swap weapons and go melee. Using signets stacks precision, and critical hits with the sword stack might, which is copied to nearby allies.

Banner can be picked up and re-planted for another combo if you’re fast enough.

Longbow auto attack does constant burning damage if I need to stay at range, and I can stand in my fire field to increase that.

Fields and skills that damage 3+ targets are good for tagging multiple enemies.

Other utilities I like are Endure Pain, Signet of Stamina (for condi clear), and Banner of Strength (for another blast finisher, usually when I’m with a group).

Well, I had to finish it when I found the mesmer one. Thief makes more sense if you know the character. He does ‘death-blossom’ acrobatics, but I can’t find a picture!

This site will calculate the cheapest way to level any craft based on trading post prices, and give you a buy list and level by level recipe list: http://gw2crafts.net

If you want to get a feel for the personalities of different races, there’s these short stories you can read on the wiki.

Asura: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/That_Old_College_Try
Charr: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Legions_of_the_Charr
Sylvari: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dream_and_Nightmare
Norn: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Spirit_of_Legend
Human: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Line_of_Duty_%E2%80%93_The_Three_Military_Orders_of_Kryta

O MY GOODNESS THIS GOT LONG! I guess I got carried away. I put it in as a spoiler, and there’s a tl;dr at the bottom.

Okay, I’m no expert, but I’ll answer from what I know. I started with a mesmer about ten months ago, but recently switched my main to a warrior when HoT came out. I also have a thief at level cap, but haven’t gotten good enough at the class to try more than exploration with it. I’ve also dabbled quite a bit in guardian and elementalist (but not in HoT yet). Other classes I’d be guessing about so I’ll go ahead and pretend they don’t exist for now…

TL;DR

1. Thief attacks quickly.
2. Warrior is good at range and melee.
3. Elementalist doesn’t have a complex weapon set.
4. Warrior is never a wet noodle.
5. Personality/tone of your character is dependent on race, not class.
6. All classes can solo; ally support varies between classes, but everyone can be helpful.
7. Elementalist and Thief can get permanent speed boost; Thief has teleports.
8. Elementalist has great AoE.
9. You just described my Warrior build.

I’d recommend Warrior. It’s known as a good beginner class, but useful almost everywhere. You might look into Elementalist, if you’d prefer to lean glass cannon over tank.

Doesn’t sound like Thief is for you. Mesmer clones might get on your nerves. I knew less about Guardian than I thought I did.

I’ve seen a couple people asking what they personally should work on earning next, but no attempt at a universal list. I’m 6 (maguuma) masteries in myself, and thought it would be useful for future players to have a recommended order for mastery completion, from the beginning.

For HoT story progression, the order is something like this:
Gliding 1
Itzel 1
Exalted 1
Gliding 2 (or maybe sooner)
Nuloch 1

And that’s where I’m at currently. What’s coming up next that I’ll need for the story?

I’d assume there’s a slightly different list for map completion goals. I can do almost all of VB with what I’ve got, but there’s one mastery point that seems to require poison resistance (and I’ve heard canopy poi’s are much easier to get to with higher gliding mastery). Don’t know about other maps yet, though I’d guess I’ll need a higher exalted rank to do AB.

Yep, I’d agree with the above posters. Make your ele and jump into PvP now. Level and gear doesn’t matter (and not having done story will have almost zero impact) — PvP is a great place to test different classes and see what you like before putting effort into leveling. Also, PvP rewards aren’t soulbound, so you can earn exotic gear for your rev (if you don’t have it already) or tomes to level another character. There is a lot to do in PvE and switching back and forth can keep the game modes fresh.

Look in the achievements sections of the hero panel under ‘collections.’ You should see the kudzu collection unlocked with a list of items to collect and tasks to complete.

Sayeh shows up briefly in another ‘greatest fear’ line (making another suffer). At first she’s unwilling to interfere much in what you’re doing, giving a little information when you’ve ‘proven yourself’ to her but letting you fight on your own. Later she is impressed by your efforts and maybe a little sad about the tragedy, and it flowed nicely into her assisting you in the temple. It seemed more for the pc’s sake and she just happened to know Trahearne.

As for Tonn, I’m surprised no one has pointed out yet that the PC personally sets off the bomb that kills him. I think even if you barely knew them, it would be pretty hard to handle finding out you’d pulled the trigger to kill an ally. And you never know if Tonn signaled knowing he didn’t have time to get out of range, or it was some kind of mistake.

If it’s purely a question of which armor looks better, I’d say human. Tier 2 cultural (falconer’s) is honestly one of my favorite outfits in this game, and I don’t think sylvari look quite right in leather. But my only medium character is a female human, so that could just be what I’m used to looking at.

If it’s a question of race, however, I think the sylvari are far more interesting. I like their personal story, their noble but curious personalities, and their British accents. I’ve got two out of five characters sylvari right now, one of them my main, and I’m considering making another with my extra slot. If you’re planning on doing the HoT story, sylvari have some unique dialogue (and possibly unique chapters – I’m about halfway through right now).

That probably didn’t help much, did it? :-)

Yes, I was rather disappointed with these changes, too. I haven’t had the chance to try things for myself, but I’ve heard that some missions are doable by only two people.

As for guild halls, the amount of gold is definitely frustrating (I’ve not had had much more than 100 g at once, personally — 150 sounds really steep for anything). Claiming with a small group of people might also be an issue, but I think people have done it with 5 (had to be on their toes, though), and you can bring in people from outside the guild to help.

I wish you luck working around the changes. Maybe eventually Anet will alter the system again to help us tiny guilds, but meanwhile we’ll do what we can.
Oh, and good job with a civil, clear complaint. :-)

Yep, if you enter Tangled Depths it should unlock

I had this problem one afternoon. Is your status set to invisible? That’s what I’m blaming my experience on.

Picked this up during Halloween and was planning on selling it after the price rose. The dive from 160 g to 77 g caught me by surprise. What’s the typical pattern for holiday items like this? Should I sell now before the price gets any lower, or maybe wait a few months for it to rise again? I’ve only got about 45 g in my wallet now, so even 77 would be pretty exciting — but 100 would be even more so…

I’ve been playing for less than a year, so I don’t know what mechanics changes there have been. I do know you can do HoT maps/story in exotic gear just fine. Raids (which will be released soon) are said to require ascended.
You will need a lot of hero points to unlock elite specs (not necessary to play expansion, but an unlock most people are working toward). The hero challenges on the new maps give 10 points instead of one, but are harder than those in the rest of Tyria (often champs).
Welcome back!

As far as I know, when new weapons are released, they cost 1 ticket. As later weapons are released, the old ones increase in price until they cost 5 tickets, then they disappear and are only available on the trading post.

Oh, thanks – I’ve got a ticket saved myself and had started looking for the vendor, too!

That’s a black lion weapon skin. They are available from npcs in lions arch for a limited time, and cost black lion tickets, which you can only get from black lion chests (a scrap at a time: 10 ticket scraps = 1 ticket). BL weapon skins can also be bought on the trading post for 100’s or over 1000 gold, depending on how old they are, and whether they are still available to purchase.

Unfortunately, I’ve already bought one, not realizing I could only get 8-10 candy pieces per use. Will it really take more than a year of daily harvesting to pay back my five cobs, or am I missing something?

Chronomancer is fantastic – possibly my favorite elite spec, tied with herald (I’m going off of beta weekend experience – haven’t unlocked a full elite since launch). I haven’t heard any complaints about it, except maybe that it’s too powerful.
Haven’t heard a lot about daredevil, but mostly negative feedback, and I was not impressed, personally. Even more ‘in your face’ than a regular thief, and looks tricky to master.
Also, if you like helping people, mesmer ports to vistas and jumping puzzles are a great way to do that. I enjoy porting anyone who happens to be around as I do a puzzle – even if I can’t make it myself, maybe someone I helped did.

EDIT: just read the the posts above mine – that’s a very good summary, and explains nicely why I like my mesmer. I like having a solid plan of attack that I can rely on, and can’t survive PvP with a thief precisely because my reactions to other players aren’t fast enough.
I start with meta battle builds and tweak them until I find something I like.
Staff/sword-pistol is nice for leveling – I switch staff for gs for jumping puzzles (and usually grab the asura golem elite to distract mobs)

Thanks. I know someone who got a black lion ticket (not a scrap, a ticket!) on the very first chest they ever opened, with the key from the level 10 personal story on their first character. RNG can be pretty surprising in both directions, it seems.

Can’t believe I got one in a black lion chest!
Just want to make sure — I can preview different ideas on more than one character before consuming the kit, right?

Yes, what armor do you need? I can craft heavy or light for you when I get the chance. (Same deal as above; I’ll probably need you to send some of the materials).
Welcome to Guild Wars 2!

Leveling crafting is expensive.
I’d recommend playing PvP matches to get your armor and weapons. Running a dungeon reward track will give you several exotic weapons and a piece of exotic armor from that dungeon, along with tokens you can spend on more dungeon gear at the vendor in Lion’s Arch. I believe Arah, Crucible of Eternity and Citadel of Flame tracks offer zerker gear (check the wiki first to see what stats are available for each dungeon and make sure you’re earning something you want to use – I spent way to much time on the twilight arbor track).
Also, if you’ve played WvW, there are vendors near the wp that sell exotic armor for coin and badges of honor. Still a significant amount of gold for someone with so little, though. I’d highly recommend PvP – it’s free and having masterwork armor won’t put you at any disadvantage.

Yikes! Sounds like you should submit a ticket. First, make sure you’re repping the right guild, and try joining the guild initiative thingy. Don’t remember the name of the ‘organization’ in-game, but there’s a new npc at postern ward who will ask your guild to join. When you do, you can walk inside the building behind the npc’s to find more guild services.
Sorry if I’m repeating info you already know. Just trying to help.

I don’t know what you mean by stored gold in a guild, but to access your guild bank again and get compensated for influence you’ve spent in the past, and exchange influence for favor, talk to an npc near Guild Buff waypoint in Lion’s Arch. (If you had less than 10000 influence there is unfortunately no option to trade for favor)
Earning favor is a lot harder for small guilds now, but I’ve heard some missions are doable with only two people, and some have pulled in friends and even gotten a guild hall with 5 or 6 people.
Good luck, hope you haven’t lost too much in the changes!

Hooray! I’m back on! Thank you devs and everyone who worked to fix this problem. Hope others are returning to the game without issues as well.

Whew! So it’s not just me. I should’ve checked the forums earlier. Thanks for working to fix this Anet. Really enjoying the new content – a little down time is well worth it!

Not really, that I’ve found. I’ve noticed if I don’t have anything selected (or aim down with action camera) it usually snaps to my character.

That might be something to try, but it seems like I heard that partying up doesn’t work on the prologue…

The item is called ‘teleport to friend,’ but now that I check the gem store it doesn’t look like you can buy it :-( It’s only available as a drop from black lion chests.
Looks like you should submit a ticket. Do you have another character that’s close?

I completed ‘Torn from the Sky’ and exited to Silverwastes instead of Verdant Brink. I was then blocked from entering Verdant Brink on that character. No waypoint, and when I tried to enter from Amber Sandfall, a message popped up saying I needed glider mastery to continue the story.
I was able to get in eventually by completing the story on a different character and earning glider mastery on her. Looking back, replaying “torn from the sky” would likely work, too, but it’s still an annoying problem.
I’m not the only one: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Need-help-with-ch-2-of-HoT-story/first#post5652017

EDIT: replaying the story is not an option. The player in the thread above does not have another level 80 character and is locked out of Verdant Brink.

Wait, try going to hero panel and replaying the story – that might give the option to enter Verdant Brink again. Writing up a report now

Have to buy it or get a lucky drop. We should probably bug report this…

Not that I know of. If you have a ‘teleport to friend’ from a bl chest you might try using that. Are you getting the same message about needing glider mastery first?

I had this problem too – I completed ‘Torn from the Sky’ and went back to Silverwastes instead of Verdant brink. There is a portal to verdant brink at the back of Amber Sandfall, but it wouldn’t let me through, giving me a message saying I needed glider mastery to continue the story.
The trick is to run another character, make sure to exit to VERDANT BRINK after Torn from the Sky, then run around until you’ve unlocked glider mastery (masteries are account-wide). Then go back to your main and you should be able to enter Verdant Brink.
Hope this helps!

Woah. The loading screen is green now…

Only some level 80 rares and exotics? All level 80 rares and exotics? Lower level items?