Guild Wars 2

*speaking as a long, active and “old” gw2 player

TLDR: Wish there was more updates and living world stuff

At first it was all new and shiny and exciting ,plenty to be learned, tried, failed, tried again and succeeded.

Living world introduced something fresh, even tho the start of it was kinda clunky.
Living world updates got better and some of them were really interesting. Like the queens jubilee or the nightmare tower in kessex hills.

Combined with “seasonal” festivals such as wintersday the whole thing was just a head full of great memories.

Since the end of the living world s2 there haven’t been and updates besides the lunar update. Besides the quick fun games of dragon balls i primary used it to get lots and lots of money…

All this time ive been playing on and off till i eventually just stopped.
I was playing with various chars,professions, races, lvling alts, pvped,wvwed, got a ascended armor set, “perfected” my main and thats about it.

Unfortunately (tho some might disagree) living world was a big part of gw2. And i miss it. Without it its just a handful things to do from a check list.

Recently i tried to spice it up with some self made up rules and challenges like lvling up a new char in shiverpeek zones only (and all cities) without using the tp and getting to lvl 80 with 0 deaths.

GummiBear.2756:

Vukorep.3081:

am i wrong by saying that i can play a dragon hunter the exact same way as a guardian if i decide to ignore the longbow and trap skills? (besides the f1-f3 active skill changes, tho i do get to keep the same passives there)

Yes and no, you certainly can ignore the traps and the longbow if you so wish, however you the elite specialization (dragon hunter in this case) takes up one of the 3 specialisations (traitlines) you will pick for your build, and that alone will probably change it quite a bit how it should be played

Oh, so as a guardian i can pick any trait line, and as a dh ill be only able to pick 2 as 1 is already fixed for me. Good to know

besides having some new weapon, skills and traits what else is there going to be added to my class?

am i wrong by saying that i can play a dragon hunter the exact same way as a guardian if i decide to ignore the longbow and trap skills? (besides the f1-f3 active skill changes, tho i do get to keep the same passives there)

Or is this a “long term” thing where we will get to pick 1 out of xy different specializations (when they get added) and decide if we will play a guardian with a longbow, or a guardian with a dagger or something?

Thieves are rather “selfish” when it comes to interacting with other players and npcs around them (except for stealth and using some traits to share a few boons)

Thats one of the reasons why you should learn your skills and how to combo them with your self.

They are are also very situational so be sure to swap weapons and utility skills when you see the enviroment changed around you.

Thieves are the only profession in the game that dont have cooldowns on their weapons and because of that you could either play bursty by spaming your most powerfull skills all over the place OR you can use them carefully and balanced.

Initiative is very important as it grants a thief both offensive and defensive abilities.
Keeping a few initiative points for a defensive just in case you dont think you can handle the mobs around you as you could 10 levels ago.

You should also use the most out of your stealth as it gives you a short “invulnerability” (since nobody is attacking you anymore) as well as a few free initiative point you regain in that short period of stealth.

Last but not least Traits are very important to thieves. It allows your stealth to last longer, remove conditions, and even heal. It increases your base initiative pool and gives numerous way to regain initiative (both of which you lack at lvl 28) and much more.

Lowest health, medium armor, relying on initiative… those are the things you must respect and understand before you go and play a thief as it would be a guardian or a melee ranger…

blackpowder makes a smoke field,you leap trough it to become stealthed via heartseeker and then you use steal to shadow step to a enemy.

normally you will remain stealthed and wont become revealed.
However having a trait that makes Steal deal dmg will reveal you (as you made direct damage)

Can anyone explain me the play styles of professions really quick? (besides the “Meta full zerk” and some sort of full power dps builds that are based on using whatever skills that deal tons of dmg)

Im not trying to ask for guides or explanations or for various builds, just things you can do and play with professions.

Can be “viable” and not viable,doesnt matter.

For example: Warrior
-Phalanx strength, the ability to share might
-Shout healing, the ability to heal and remove conditions party wide
-Permanent large aoe regeneration via banners
-Heavy cc war that applies confusion

or Necro:
-vampirism
-minion master
-wellomancer
-condition juggling

Naming the ability to heal,or grant boons to players around you would also count

gw is a very popular game, lots of cool names are already used.

I have a set of words and names that i combine trough the different professions i have on my chars. And if i for some reason cant create a new char with a name with those words in it i try out different GOOD things that i would want to play as till im able to create the character.

I never create characters with dumb names like xOx metaleet xOx and then smack my head 2 minutes later thinking how dumb the name is…

why are those “questionable” decisions ?

all those things didnt have any impact on anything at all. For example there are still some books around the world you can interact with but nobody really cares about them…

its the same if they remove vista animations, a lot of peoplejust press F and exit form the cut scene instantly.

A more noticeable decision anet has made was removing the custom gem→ gold and gold→ gem conversion and replacing them with a fixed amount.
But guess what, after a few weeks of forum outrage they added the custom conversion back

I use outfits when i find my self in a situation that it perfectly fits the theme of my specific character.

for example using a hexed outfit on a necromancer…you wont see me using it on a engineer …..

Otherwise i use specific armor pieces with other pieces to make my own “perfect” armor set design.

i discovered a typo in your title!

on topic; yes ,yes i do.
While i try to do zones and things in some sort of order like doing the lvl 15 zones first i end up knowing those early zones like the back of my hand.

But later after i got to lvl 80 and the gear i wish to explore with its fun all day with discovering mini dungeons, jp, hidden treasures ect

I think this type of gameplay is further enhanced with a thief with his ability to sneek pass mobs to get their treasure and a ranger that always keeps a eye out for a new pet

i dont miss gw1, since im still playing it along side with gw2
i had some breaks in the past but now days its quite easy to do all the nice daily things (not just the achievements) i can do in gw2 and still manage to do stuff in gw1

Hoelbrak

A slightly less expensive rune than strength with a bit of defense

Runes of Privateer

A super cheep rune with the same power stats as might or hoelbrak.

Can shout YARR! to grant 3 stacks of might to self and everyone around (phalanx gives them 6). So its like a 2nd FGJ!

Can also summon a parrot that lasts a pretty long time. On its own its nothing special and plenty of meta people will say rock dog beats everything else.
However phalanx strength gives might to every ally around you.

Ive seen numerous times that my 25might stack parrot hits for over 3-4k crits when im roaming around in pve alone

i havent hear/read that either anywhere…

On another note it makes me think.

at lvl 80 you will gain mastery points instead of skill points when you level up right?

Does that mean the people with 500+ tomes of knowledge (seen lots of those…) can just consume them all when HoT gets out and get 500 instant mastery points!?

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Wanze.8410:

after Ellen Kiel’s tragic failure to protect it

What everyone seems to forget is that Kiel actually called for more defenses and preparations for a possible attack from Scarlet. But she was ignored by the rest of the council. You know, those other guys that also rule LA? Kiel isn’t the sole ruler of LA you know, she is just one voice in a council of nine.

also she did use that aether ship to help people escape…

Meanwhile in LA
: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbqRBLfSGxY&list=LL2SFhsuacdqgpT9DGBxPJLA&index=8

not gonna bother explaining how gw2 combat works so ill go with gw1

In very short: Its all about skills and tactics and team coordination (IN ALL ASPECTS OF THE GAME)

Im gonna tell you the 3 things that made gw1 combat much better than gw2.
1)Dual class system with over 280 skills to pick and attribute points
2)Building your team ,not just your own character
3)The enemies you are facing

First of all every class has about 90-150 skills, with another 90-150 skills available to you from another class which you have as secondary. You couldev been a Warrior/elementalist, or a ranger/necromancer and you couldev switched your 2ndary profession as you pleased.

You didnt increase your skills abilities by increasing stats on your gear…in fact there were no stats to get from gear except some basic +hp, +energy and +33% lengthen bleeding for any type of armor or weapon.

You had to invest attribute points in a specific attribute.(like traits,but without specific effects)
Investing points (that can be refunded for free when you are in a town) increased the potency of all skills inside that attribute, fireballs hit harder, incinerate had longer burning ect.

Example: if you wanted to be a elementalist that uses fire spells as well as being able to attack with a sword combo you can be a E/W and put attribute points into Fire magic and Swordmastery attribute.

And with over 1300 skills across 10 professions you could really make some fun, powerfull or even OP builds.

The 2nd part is that the entire game is played with you and 4-6-8-12 npc/human characters at all time. This means that from all the possible build combination from your elementalist that can have with any secondary profession..theres also 7 other characters around you that can support your build with their own.

Example: In some elite dungeon zones a organised group of 12 players each have their own role and a build that does something important or supports the other player next to you. From basic tank,healer,nuker, single target spiker, to a mesmer interupter,disabler, spirit spammer, minion master… even runners that can only run pass the hordes of monsters in order to go trough the zone exit and take the entire team with him.

The last part is the enemies that you were facing. While some of them attack once per second almost all of them have their own full builds made out of skills that any other player can use with their own class.

Enemies spawn in packs and some more “intelligent” packs have builds that support eachother. A group of canthan gang members have 1 healer, 1 aoe axe tanky warrior, 1 elementalist nuker and a ritualist that supports them all with spirits and spirit weapons.
If you arent prepared with your build along with the builds your other team mates has you have no chance of defeating that group.

i remember assassins having a awesome dagger sound.

slicing on normal hit sound, and when you crit hit you hear your daggers shreding trough a metal armor…just felt so satisfying as heck

leveling and loot drops will never slow. its always at a steady constant if you are exploring the world.

you can even further increase your exp gain by doing all the quests you find, using cheep oils and food for a extra 20% exp from kills as well as killing “off road” monsters that give a ton of extra bonus exp.

when it comes to gear youll never rly have to worry about it in pvE. just make sure they are up to your level and you have weapon and armor npcs all around you.

Eventually you can buy better blue /green ones from the Trading post and enhance them with +10-15 power /precision runes ( 60-90 permannet stat is great).

Karma gear that you can find all over the world form the <3 quests you do also provide semi-free green gear thats just as great. they often even some with runes.

Personally i use crafting when i want to lvl it to lvl 500 for ascended armor.
Or if i want to lvl up from lvl 70-80 quickly by crafting to lvl 500 .

You should also know that crafting can become pretty expensive even when you know what youre doing and using crafting boosters.

as for your 800 gems i suggest buying character inventory bag slots (can buy 2/3 extra nes with 800gems)

You are able to lvl up ALL craftings with 1 character, but only have 2 active craftings at any time. If you have weapon and armor crafting now you must pay a small fee to switch one of your current crafting with another one such as accessory crafting.

NOTE:
- Character inventory bag expansions are character bound. you dont unlock more space for your other characters, only the one you use it on.
-Crafting is also character bound, lvling weaponsmith with a warrior doesnt lvl it for your other characters

mending turned into physical skill? O_o

so my 250 old male ascalonian (prophecies) elementalist with knowledge of over 140 elementalist skills and knowlege of every other professions skills (over 1300 skills known) just casually woke up form the dead…in kryta..as a noble….woman?

with knowledge of only a hand full of revenant skills and now wears heavy armor and uses the power of shiro,the powerfull..monster..that i “killed” twice?

MAKES PERFECT SENSE TO ME!

Oh ima go and push it a step further by creating a new xyz character with Shiro Tagachi for its name so i can make Shiro Tagachi Revenant once hot comes out

i never had any problems with charges…ever.. since they were introduced i always had 90+ of them

And its not that i dont use them….

i use this for my warrior http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJUQNBhODbkpjKP78wvDORDUFIInEQZvipP9KFA-TRCBABdcEA0S5HaKBrU9HJOIAAcBAqa/hU0NwwDAAA-e

accessories seem to give more stats than weapons+armor combined (not counting sigils and runes) and i wanted to hit a certain number in toughness and vitality.

attacks are pretty good, not the full glass cannon kitten kitten zerg…but im able to mob up many mobs and hit them constantly without the fear ill get spiked down.

adenal health+healing signet makes me auto heal for about 1500health every 3 seconds. I have multiple ways of clearing condis from my self and allies around me as well as healing them for 3320 each 20 seconds.

With only a few trait switches im able to be a tanky phalanx warrior, or support banner/mass permanent aoe regen warrior (when staying long in 1 area such as defending keeps) but the link i gave is what fits my playstyle the most

spears are already in game as underwater weapons.
What we would get is halberds (some are in the code already)

Then again you cant give the new shiny weapon to a single class (via specialization)…and giving them to ALL classes at once isnt going to work either..

The only thing that gets close to spear/halberds atm is revenants ability to use staffs in melee (just use a spear/halberd staff skin and there you go. im sure theyll add more of those when hot gets released)

its true what you asy OP but it kinda depends on how many warriors there are in the party.

Banner of str and discipline, empower allies ,phalanx strenght are all good skills but warriors need to simply ask the other warrior which of those skills are they going to use so they dont overlap eachother…. ONLY THEN can the warrior pick signets to buff them selfs

I think its just fine…Same as your health going back to 100% in seconds when you leave combat but you dont see anyone complaining about that now do you?

i dont think we should automatically start with any adrenaline.
The point of adrenaline is that you build it up as you fight during battle, and loose it when you are out of combat.

there are plenty of ways to get more adrenaline but people ignore it completely for other utility that lets them increase their full zerker glass cannon builds…

The basic way of geting adrenaline is to hit stuff. Most if not all skills cleave,some even hit multiple times. Cleaving trough 3 targets with Axe 2 and 1 auto attack chain will grant you 24 adrenaline points..which is almost full addrenaline bar.

Its normal to gain adrenaline slower when fighting 1 mob at a time..but in those scenarios you dont even need burst skills since that 1 target just drops like a fly.

yes, you can buy uni dyes with laurels and sell them… but honestly is it worth buying a 2nd account for that? i dont think so…

I use almost always use sword/warhorn and gs just because of the swiftness and e kinda spamable leaps.

sometimes i switch gs for axe/shield

Unforgiven Azrael.6203:

Azrael.4960:

Give the Searing Cauldron to the Flame Legion. Bam.

well the question is, do they know how to use it without the help of the Titans

Psshh we used a searing cauldron against the u dead in orr once. Obliterated everything that was suposed to be obliterated . Worked better than an asura golem

krixis.9538:

don’t forget the main thing about ascended that it was designed for fractals and u get it for the agony resistance slots. not for its tiny upgrade in stats

you mean the infusion slot?
The lvl 78 crafted exotic back has a offensive/defensive infusion slot as well

Today someone asked about stats of a lvl 80 exotic back piece on map chat.
I had a lvl 78 crafted exotic back piece and when i told him the stats on it we were all surprised.

apparently a normal lvl 80 exotic back piece will grant you 22/16/16 stats with a gem upgrade slot.

My lvl 78 crafted exotic back pack has 32/18/18 stats , a gem slot AS WELL as a infusion slot?!

could anyone explain this?

Eddit: someone just pointed out to me that you cant apply a lvl 80 jewl/orb/crest on the lvl 78 back piece..tho the stats seem to be still higher than normal even with a lvl 65 orb no?

i have 6 lvl 80 characters (without necro and engie…..yet..) While i mostly do play my warrior and guardian im also using others depending on what i wanna do .

use thief for scouting/roaming , mesmer and ele for some dungeons and pvp ect.

That being said im sure ill lvl a revenant as well. While some skills have been leek’d its can all change before the final HoT release and even THEN they could also nerf revenants if it prooves to be op or something

-has both,the highest health and armor in the game
-because of that our “glass cannon” builds arent as glassy as other professions
-has great self regen,and healing shouts increase your survivability even further
-tons of weapons to chose from
-is able to support via regeneration boons, banners,healing shouts as well as massive spread of might boon

*however if the warrior isnt traited,you just have a bunch of weapons that deal damage only…barely any “utility” in the weapon skills,its just damage damage damage.
Unlike for example guardians where its different kinds of symbols ,blocks, blinds, various aoe boons and heals and combo finishers. So some people get bored of the class cause of that

Olba.5376:

Two out of your three complaints aren’t warrior specific.

as this person already mentioned… none of those “nerfs” were specifically effecting warriors only…

Warriors are still the only class that has the highest armor and health as well as insane passive regen, party wide power,might,precision,fury and other stats from banners.
Mass rezzer via elite skill, great leaps and mobility,the ability to self rally, stances that make you immune to damage and conditions. And because of the large health pool and heavy armor our “glass cannon” builds arent as glassy as other professions…

We are also always very welcome to join any dungeon.

actually i said “without healing power GEAR”… cant count vampiric traits without using the healing power you gain by spending points in the trait line…

was using this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQJAoIigbAmMUA-TBBXgAAK/C1D0r+zjSQA-e

also, bloodthirst doesnt modify the numbers on vampiric and vamp precision traits so i manually added the 20% in my calculations.
It does show on life syphon skill corectly tho

And when i calculated the dagger auto attacks i assumed it was used on 2 mobs.

then you get something like this:

Vampiric healing=31 health
bloodthirst = 20% of vampiric trait
= 31 x20 = 620 /100= 6,231= 37healing

Dagger auto atack chain hits 4 times up to 2 targets, thats 8 hits (like i said i assumed a the necro hits 2 targets)

8x 37=296 healing /second (cause the auto attack chain lasts for 1 second no?)

same goes with life syphon. with bloodthirst it says it heals for 374 per hit.
It hits 9 times so 9x 374= 3366
The tooltip doesnt show or include vampiric traits, so thats a additional 37*9=333 health

3366+333=3699 (not sure how i got 3771 last time ..strange?)
3699/3,5=1058 health per second

Eddit: The reason my first calculations was slightly higher was cause i used Vampiric precisions healing instead of the minor trait Vampiric healing, which is slightly higher

while i havent done some in game testing my self i did use a build calculator online.

By using only dagger auto attacks (that can cleave trough 2 oppionents at a time) and by using only the bloodthirst/vampiric traits one can heal for 296 health /second

Life syphon skill heals for 3771 health in 3,5seconds, that would be 1078 health /second

This is without any healing power gear and not counting any critical hits that could trigger vampiric precision .

On top of that one can use Blood fiend and get 309 health/second as well as mark of blood, reapers touch and other traits that can grant regeneration.

Perhaps its not the guardians virtue of resolve, or warriors healing signet+adrenal health… but in combination with some other traits, gear or wells it can in fact grant a necromancer a massive spike in health.

since your race/height/physique doesnt mean you are stronger than the other guy…

-male human
-necromancer
-would spend time playing with my minions since nobody would want me as a friend…
-would scare the hell out of little kids during halloween

-If we do consider racial physique and lore i would be asura…superior intelect ftw
-A asura necromancer ofc

if youre going for HoM rewards youll need to buy eye of the north expansion+any campaign.

all 3 campaigns are a stand alone game, EotN is a expansion WITH HoM.

As for is it worth playing it depends on you, as in depends on if you like that kind of a game or not (its all about being on a journey through the story/world with your 8 skills and the 8 skills form your other party members)

Another thing worth mentioning is that the playerbase isnt populating the whole world since a lot of them left to play gw2 (and a lot of them left gw2 to play gw1 back..)

While you are able to solo 90% of all campaigns and expansion its much better and more fun to do so with other players.

I highly suggest joining a active guild. If youre looking where the majority of the playerbase is (at any given time) check the zones with weekly events, elite zones and daily missions zones.

Because you will be in a party everytime you leave a town (even with NPCs) i highly reccomend buying Nightfall as it has the most heroes.

Generally you can add Henchmans NPC that have their own build or Heroes that you unlock. Heroes are like henchmans but you get to modify their gear as well as skills.

You could also buy Prophecies+EotN. While Proph is the largest campaign among all 3. It doesnt have any heroes but you can go to EotN at lvl 10 from Lions Arch and start unlocking heroes from there

each character has its independant “birthday”

you can see how old your character is by typing /age
Once it says its 365 years old youll get your first birthday present

not sure about other effects but that ghostly appearance lasts for 5 minutes and i believe it ignores your dye selection.

i use shields with swords cause i look cooler with that than sword and some focus

Actually someone did datamined skills from revenants

besides the hammer, mace and axe theres also mention of sword mainhand, dagger offhand ,shield and staff

as we all know a lot of people are “farming” a lot of tomes of knowledge so they can pop a instant lvl 80 revenant when it comes out.

But what about gear? do they know what gear will they use on revenants? or are they just gonna use whatever armor they find?

Will the NPC armor merchant be more useful now or are we expecting a serious shortage of lvl 80 exotic zerker gear…cause zerker meta n stuff?

normal gear is normal gear
Exotic gear is “the best” gear you can afford
Ascended gear has slightly higher stats and the ability to be infused
→ Key feature : Account bound, can share the same armor set with all characters.

Legendary weapons: Has same stats as ascended, can switch stats on demand, also account bound.

I see nothing bad about this. Adding unnecessary runes ,unlocks, gem store privilages ….is unnecessary

OR ..you know… just ignore 1st person mode and continue to immerse your self as youve been doing for the last 2-3 years no?

its a good thing to see the person who kicks you. If youre afraid of kicking someone cause they are a bully than you just keep quiet and take his abuse some more…

otherwise kick, block and ignore. and get your daily dungeon gold

cant anyone see that anet went for special rewards found in special zones that you can get by only participating in those zones in order to gain special currency for the same special zones?

If it was karma or plain gold the zones would have half as much activity…

maddoctor.2738:

Why can’t we use Geodes outside Dry Top? Bandit Crests outside Silverwastes? I doubt we will use those in Heart of Thorns, HoT will use their own new Currencies. Why?

Why cant se use AC tokens outside AC? CM tokens outside CM? Dungeon tokens outside dungeons? Why?

well…like i said. i understand data mined skins,textures and chat links. But i belieave i found a actual place that got updated the same way fort salma got updated with the living world..

And on top of that i got a item

i know the difference between data mined chat codes and actual items and events happening inside the game that one can log in and try out them selfs right now.

i heard some people saying they can see the revenant class inside the create new character window (tho you cant actually create one).

I havent seen this my self as i have no free char slots left.

Another thing i personally found is something that might be related to some part of HoT’s storyline.
I wanted to report this inside the game report thing..but the support is kinda messed up atm.

Am i allowed to discuss such a “find” on the forums?

The reason why i think it might be a part of the HoT’s story is cause:
1) normally the you cant interact with the object
2) Normally there is a npc person inside that room interacting with the object…there isnt one at this moment.
3) The object, the interaction options , as well as the ITEM you receive from the object have ((numbers)) in their titles and description.

this is actually the only bug i have noticed/seen in the entire day… good for me?

Eddited: I believe that the voices DO indeed come from other players, the thing thats bugged might be the range of the voice.

In other words, i might hear some asura shouting “retreat!” from the other side of the zone o_O