Guild Wars 2

The 2 main DPS sigils are Fire and Strength (30% chance on crit to give might).
I run sigils of Strength on all my main-hand weaps and sigils of accuracy on all my off-hand weaps.
I run sigils of Battle on both bows and my grestsword. These stack might on weapon swap and since I swap bows a lot when using them, this keeps near constant might up on both me and the pet. I trait to share my boons with the pet.

On my zerker armour set I use runes of Hoelbrak. This adds power and extends might duration. The 6th rune bonus is a -20% condition duration, which is handy.

On my Knight/Valkyrie armour set I use runes of the Ranger.

I use sword/dagger a lot and I trait for added damage while flanking. I spam sword #3 not just for the evade but to maintain a flanking position as targets shift around. I use dagger #4 if sword #3 is on CD, although the shift is a lot less. I use sword #2 only as an emergency escape.

When approaching targets, I always open with dagger #5. It is a ranged attack that cripples so allows both me and my cat to close in and stay on target.

When using all these evade and movement skills, it is very important to be aware of what environmental elements are around you. Sword #3 can easily place you behind an obstacle or drop you off a ledge if used at the wrong time. Sword #2 is potentially worse as the leap backwards has a longer distance. Try to avoid being too close or having your back to any ledges or cliffs

Gunnar’s Hold is primarily English speaking.

Searban.5984:

But if I had some doubts regarding competences of the balancing team back in July, now I just feel that they leave me no choice but to actually consider them fully incompetent.

Back in July??
You must be a new ranger player because the the so-called ‘balance’ team’s effort on this class stopped last November. This was the reason I leveled a guardian back in January.

The class, will never get changed from the current vision Anet has of it because as long as there are so many playing ranger, and saying it is a fun class to play, why would Anet change anything? Has all the nerfs over the past many months stopped the casuals playing the class?? Not that I can tell …

Sure Anet might throw a bone here and there, but what you have now is what you are going to get for the foreseeable future. Oh, and forget all that ‘collaborative development’ malarkey, because that will end in tears, particularly for rangers.

Besides, the only way Anet could properly fix/balance this class is to massive re-work of traits, pets, weapon and utility skills. Apart from the massive embarrassment this would cause to Anet, the amount of time and resources to do this would be prohibitive at this point.

I have not logged into the game for over a month. Both ranger and guardian received underwhelming changes this patch. There is nothing here to bring me back into the game.

Shiren.9532:

I’m skeptical of what this will accomplish. I have been posting on the forum for over a year now under the impression that what I write (provided it was constructive and respectful, which it isn’t always) had a good chance of being read by someone it was relevant to. I still assume that’s the case – that forums are read just not frequently commented on.

What exactly is the goal of all these threads and polls etc? I don’t see how they would appease people or lead to more satisfaction unless actual actions in game followed (which my understand is that won’t happen for 3-4 months in the best of cases). If a thread is created in the ranger forum asking what issues ranger players are most concerned about, what would happen if 90% of the posts talked about pet AI or pet survivability in challenging content (WvW, dungeons, World Bosses etc)? This is already a known issue and has been well documented since the beta yet it becomes worse and worse with each content patch (most of the dungeons this year kill the pet with certain mechanics – electric fields in Aetherblade Retreat, everything in the Tequatl Encounter etc). Devs talking about it in a forum thread isn’t going to change anything in game. What if rangers raise issue with the main hand sword auto-attack leap chain and the character control issues it causes? What if the thread becomes split between PvP rangers that love the cruise control to stick on their target and PvE players who hate the inability to dodge DoD (dodge or die) attacks because of a useless (to them) leap function?

What happens if players themselves aren’t clear on what they enjoy? The Crown Pavilion and Scarlet’s Invasions were very popular content. Is it because they demonstrate the best gameplay experience in the game or is it because they gave out large and imbalanced amounts of loot compared to the rest of the game? What if you get a lot of praise about the mechanics of Tequatl and Twilight Assault but a month later people only run the other two TA paths because they are easier and faster despite the new path being more “fun”?

What if you get a lot of negative feedback about Ascended tier equipment? What if the company has a hard stance supporting ascended regardless of what the feedback says (as long as the metrics are fine)? What about Scarlet? If there is a lot of negative feedback to her as a character and her central role to the stories being told (and how poorly received they are by many people) we know you can’t just kill her off – the story has been building up to her and stuff down the pipe line will involve her so until that’s resolved she’s here for better or worse regardless of what the feedback says (the Living Story has gone all in on Scarlet at this point). Then we have the issue of forums representing the vocal minority and only a small subset of the community. It’s easy to dismiss or devalue forum criticism on the grounds that it doesn’t represent everyone.

I’m not looking for a specific reply on any of the issues I raised above, they are just examples of the scenarios that will be raised and I can’t see how threads on the forum are going to change these situations or appease the people they are important to. Is the goal simply to raise the visibility of developer consumption of the forums, or is the goal to create a new paradigm which will give player feedback more power to influence the future of the game’s development? I am under the impression the later already happens with the forum and I don’t believe the former is likely to result in any real changes in the game, just player perception of the forums.

TL;DR What does all this hope to accomplish? Is this going to have any real potential to change the direction of the game differently from how the forums currently work? How is a new way of handling forum feedback going to impact on the content releases for GW2?

Quote for truth^

It took reading through almost 17 pages to find the best post in this thread.

I too am skeptical of what this will accomplish, and concerned for what will come. All I see in this thread are expectations being raised again, and when those expectations are not met, the following kitten-storm will make the last few ‘testy’ months a joyful playground of contentment.

Anet is taking a huge gamble with this, and I see it not ending well. Sure the ‘warm-fuzzies’ of dev attention might carry over for 3-4 months, perhaps 6 months.

But once people realise that discussion does not mean everyone’s pet issue, let alone the big, glaring issues around since game launch, do not get fixed or dealt with, what do you think will happen??

Chris, if you are looking for topics to discuss, either internally at Anet or on the forum, I suggest you start with the questions Shiren raised in the quoted post.

Oh, and good luck mate, you will need lots of it …

beelzebuck.3678:

4 fused weapon tickets from 20-25 chests back during flame and frost

I got 3 of those tickets from 20 chests during that event.

During one of the aether events, I got enough scraps from around 25 chests for an aether weapon skin that I sold for an awful lot of gold. Another big gold maker was a pack of 3 quaggan back-pack skins.

colesy.8490:

Might, fury, spotter (150+ precision, basically an extra disc. banner), frost spirit (7%+ damage increase), projectile reflection (OH axe).

This^

Plus, add sigil of strength (stack might on crit) on sword, and trait to share boons with a high DPS pet.

At lvl 65, I would assume gold is more important to you than a pretty skin. The gold you get from selling this now will help to set you up nicely in exotics when you reach lvl 80.

Been such a long time since I started my ranger, but if I recall correctly, your initial pet options are race dependent and from a limited list.

My ranger is human but cannot recall if a bear was an option. Regardless, I selected the jungle stalker as my initial pet, and I still use this cat regularly along with the snow leopard.

When I need ranged pets, I always use devourers. I tried spiders but always found the devourers (carrion and lashtail) more useful.

Note:
The first goal you should set for your new ranger is collecting all the pets. Start with easy ones you can find in the cities first, then work your way through the starter maps, then the next map tiers, etc. Most are in starter to mid-level maps with only a couple in higher level maps. There is one pet (wolf) only found in WvW (Eternal Battlegrounds map).

I main a sword/dagger setup on my ranger for a lot of PvE content.

The sword provides a lot of mobility, both in ‘sticking’ to your target with the auto-attack chain, and evades with sword #2 and #3. With off-hand dagger, you get another evade. and a ranged attack as well, both delivering more condition damage.

The ranger sword is generally considered the highest DPS weapon for the class, and this comes mainly from the sword #1 auto-attack chain. The other 2 skills are mainly condition damage and are more useful for evading and positioning. Traiting for things like damage bonus while flanking helps a lot.

The downside of the ranger sword is leaning how to use it without accidentally flinging yourself off cliffs or positioning yourself behind obstructions.

As for the rooting, this can be avoided somewhat by disengaging the auto-attack function on sword #1 and triggering this skill manually. This way you can try to interrupt the chain before the last part begins.

I have a human ranger but would go Norn if I had to it again.

Sorry, but for me Sylvari just do not cut it as rangers. They are more fitting as the light armour, magic user types.

The map re-setting when empty thing never occurred to me, but makes sense.

I have harvested a lot of ori and ancient since my first lvl 80 back last Oct. I followed the node re-sets and location changes for a long time.

On my server, the ‘odd’ map has always been Malchor’s Leap. I would find the node locations had shifted for no apparent reason, while Frostgorge and Cursed Shore were where they should be.

Baffled me to no end why this was happening, but if map ‘disappearing’ when empty and then re-appearing would explain the nodes shifting around like mad fools.

EDIT: Just to add I noticed the shifting nodes thing in SoD as well …

Morrigan.2809:

bri.2359:

@Morrigan

Has Teq been done on GH yet??
I have not been able to log on since my home internet was disconnected last week.

Not yet as far as I know-
Last night at the fight I was at we got it down to 75% I think it was – but someone mentioned that they got it down to 50% the previous evening.
Not sure if that is true since the first try I was at was probably 95%.
We will get it done eventually- there is another attempt tonight that I am aware of.

Thanks!

By the time I get back in-game, Teq will have been done and then ignored like the Karka Queen ..

@Morrigan

Has Teq been done on GH yet??
I have not been able to log on since my home internet was disconnected last week.

What makes you think guardian is the only class that uses a lot of weapons??

I only PvE, and my main guardian weapons are GS, Staff and scepter/focus. I carry all the others, but they are very situational for me.

Meanwhile on my ranger I am always swapping between a LB & SB setup and sword/dagger with axe/axe or axe/warhorn.

So, 4 regular weapons for my guardian and at least 6 for my ranger means crafting 10 ascended weapons. This a joke, and for that reason I have no interest in ascended weapons for either my guard or ranger.

My guardian uses the Fused Staff skin from the Flame & Frost living story segment.

Chopps, I don’t WvW it bores me to tears ..

I like might because it is a DPS boon I can stack and share with my pet .You cannot do this with bloodlust.

I only PvE, and personally, I would not waste a SoF on a longbow. However, I do have a SoF on my guardian’s staff.

If a ranger is running a longbow, then that ranger should be swapping it out very often with the second weapon, whatever that might be.

Imo, the best sigils for a longbows are ones that process on weapon swap. For me, this is sigil of battle that stacks might on swap. Might adds power and condition damage, so boosts your DPS, something you want in PvE.

I have sigils of battle on my longbow, shortbow and greatsword.

This is what I do

Inventory
You get 1 20-slot backpack for free. If you don’t want to buy character inventory expansion slots you will need the largest capacity bags you can afford. in all your default bag slots.
You will want
1 invisible bag to keep armour, weapons, and any other items you do not want to appear when vending to merchants or the TP. This prevents bad mistakes in selling items you need to keep.
1 oiled bag that stores all the ‘junk’ items you collect. This keeps them out the mix with the better loot items until you can vendor them.
1 bag for harvesting tools
1 bag for your boosters, potions, tonics, etc you regularly use

Note: ultimately you will want all 20-slot bags, but start with the size of bags you can afford.

Bank
This is where you keep all soulbound and account bound items you do not need to carry around with you.
What you choose to keep is up to you, but as you advance in the game, this will quickly fill up if you are a pack-rat.

Personal Guild Bank
This is where you keep all non soulbound and account bound items you do not need to access on a regular basis.
Usually this is used for stacks of mats you harvest or refine, fancy loot items you want to keep for the look or for when your toon reaches a certain level.

I have a human ranger, but if I had to do it again, I would go with a norn.

Well, the big questions is, will the prices return to where they were before the invasions??

@OP
I am sure your case is not unique. In fact, I would be more surprised to discover there was no insider knowledge/trading going on.

Furthermore, I am equally as sure Anet knows very well this has been going on since game launch and does nothing about it, and, either by design or default, encouraging it to continue.

azizul.8469:

next on the rise : Gossamer.. stock them now !

Not just gossamer, but all the mid-level fabrics and leather.

I suspect the ascended armour crafting will follow the same pattern as for the weapons. You will probably need quantities of mid-level mats in the crafting process.

For example, look at the current price jump of some of the mid-level ingots and planks. The same will happen for fabrics and leather, but even more so because they can only be acquired through salvage or loot bags. There are no nodes you can harvest for these mats.

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

Actually no I just checked to make sure.. T1 (green) wood planks still only need 3 logs to craft, as does every other tier in refinement except for soft wood.

Ah,, thanks of the correction!
It has been a long time since I refined green wood, and incorrectly recalled the process

I made a 450g the other evening selling some of my hoarded stacks of ori ingots and ancient planks, All stuff I harvested and salvaged over quite a few months.

I am happy all those harvesting runs have finally paid off, but I suspect prices will go down once the rush to be the ’first’’ to craft ascended items tails off. Someone has already done a greatsword, so this might happen sooner than later.

My advice is to enjoy selling while you can.

The Assassin Crest has only 2 stats.

Seems the transformation from the Crest of the Traveler did not work so well

tolunart.2095:

Nike.2631:

Um… I think you might want to include the time it took to get those mats into your calculation there…

You mean the 30 seconds it took to place buy orders?

Actually all the mats I sold were harvested/salvaged by me over a few months .
I did not place one buy order for any of it.

LordByron.8369:

Who got benefit from this course of events:

- speculators
- lumberjacks

Who got damaged
- Fractal runners
- WWW players

Dear Mr John will you someday consider that normal players who plays the game are paying NOT only all the price of deflation, but also a huge margin that will end in the speculator s pocket.

Fractal players are forced to pay the toll to get back to what they “like to play” (citation).

I think you should find something more fair to keep deflation in check and ecourage less speculators…as its now despite global economy may work, if you look who pays the deflation is a mess

Please, tell me who are the normal players ??

Fractals was introduced to give you gear grinders something to do. Imo, fractal players are far from the normal players in this game.

Not sure who WvW was designed for but the current version is deathly boring. Some seem to enjoy this, however I do not consider these as normal players.

I only play PvE. I have harvested my kitten off since game launch while playing the PvE content with all the crappy nerfed drops, DR, RNG, etc.

Now, finally, my efforts are being rewarded and you are complaining because your game choices are not paying off??

Sorry, but I have no sympathy for you.

tolunart.2095:

Hey, people wanted to farm, so now they can farm… and mine…

Now, queue up Monty Pythons’s song, “I’m a Lumberjack, and that’s ok”
Lol!

^ by being cheap, crafting wisely, buying wisely, lots of harvesting, a bit of farming, a bit of playing the TP, and not wasting gold on silly things.

I made 450g in under an hour last evening selling 6 stacks of ori ingots and 3 stacks of ancient planks and some raw ori ore and ancient logs.

Last evening I sold 6 stacks of ori ingots and 3 stacks of ancient planks for 450g …

This was in less than an hour.

Lol!
I did the JP in Wayfares last evening and got all of 2 frags ..
After this, and since I hate JP’s and haven’t done a dungeon in months, I decided to sell off almost all of my banked stacks of ori ingots and ancient planks. Made 450g ..

Until drops rates and and access for the ascended mats change, no ascended weapons for me …

^
Yes, seems it costs around 600g to get all 3 crafts from 400 to 500.

As for the actual weapon crafting costs, this is going to depend on what you want to craft. Seems bows will probably be the most expensive due to these requiring the largest varity of mats: ingots, planks, and leather.

If I recall correctly, read somewherea greatsword will cost around 120g, to craft, and that uses only ingots.

What I see as being the big cost ascended items will be the armour.. Amour has always been more expensive to craft than weapons. Plus the mats come only from salvaging and loot bags, there are no cotton or wool nodes in-game …

No interest in a legendary and if a precursor dropped (and one has not since game launch), I would sell it immediately.

As for ascended …

Both my level 80’s (ranger and guardian) use a lot of weapons.
My guardian regularly uses: greatsword, staff, scepter, focus. Occasionally uses sword, shield, torch, mace.

My ranger regularly uses: longbow, shortbow, sword, dagger, warhorn, torch and 2 axes. Occasionally uses greatsword

And then there are the underwater weapons: 2 spears, trident and harpoon gun

I will be in my grave long before I have ascended versions of all these …

@OP

I understand your reaction, but all the horses left the barn. There is nothing left, all the possible rangers builds have been systematically nerfed.

All that is left for the class are a bunch of mismatched traits, utilities and weapons skills. Good luck finding anything that is remotely effective in that mess.

Shpongle.6025:

so…any advice?

Yup …
Start leveling a guardian …

Morrigan.2809:

I have been shocked by the chat on my server during this event- i have never in the year of playing seen anything like this.
Ironically it is actually more friendly in overflow.

Unfortunately, now you realise GH is not as nice as you previously thought …
My blocked list has rapidly grown over the past 2 months, but it is more due to LA map chat than the LS stuff.

In fact, I find doing the invasions a relief from the LA nonsense. Yes, now and again there is a ‘disagreement’ over farming or completing the event, but mostly things are ok, people are civil and rez each other. Most everyone has the 13 map invasion achiev done now, so there is not so much pressure to get Scarlet at the end.

I just want to add that I run a ranger and guardian for much the same reasons others have posted.

Also, I am one those odd-ball berserker rangers using sword/dagger and axe/axe in the pavilion and invasion events. I have Spotter up all the time and can trait in the spirit buff if needed. I also run these events with a stalker on passive mode for the F2 AoE might boon.

I can stack a lot of might with sigils of strength in both main-hand weapons (sigils of accuracy on all off-hand weapons) that I share with my cats. Even if both cats go down, I can still do some damage without them.

I have not taken this build into dungeons, as I stopped running dungeons on my ranger back in Feb after leveling a guardian. However, in open world PvE, this seems to work ok and I can provide some support.

Many players do not expect to see a ranger using sword/xxx. I cannot recall seeing any other rangers using this set-up.

Valdemas.4960:

And yes, I have a substantial interest in the sprocket market

Sprockets??
I have over 3000 of those things clogging up my bank …

Before the invasions started, the 2 main champ farming locations were Cursed Shore and Frostgorge Sound. There were zergs doing both of these maps.

Since the invasion up-date, the focus shifted to what IVIUIEI explained.

The high gold return from dong these requires on a lot of waypoint travel. If you have not explored these maps, you will find doing the champs in Cursed Shore and Frostgorge less rewarding until you discover all the waypoints beng used in the rotation. The same applies to the invasion events over the 13 maps where they occur.

My advice is to stay away from stacking sigils while leveling because you loose the stack every time you change maps and when you are downed. Furthermore having stacking sigils on both main-hand and off-hand at the same time is a waste. All this does is slightly increase the stack build-up time. It does not give you any additional bonus.

Not knowing your build, it is difficult to go into specifics, so all I can do is give you my personal set-up.

First, you should be using leveling to try different play-styles and weapon combinations so you have a better understanding of what the class can, or cannot, do. Do not lock yourself into 1 or 2 weapon combos.

Right now, I am using a lot of sword/dagger (sometimes sword/warhorn) and axe/axe in a 20/25/0/25/0 build, full beserker armour and weapons. I also run dual bows LB/SB for some content as well.

You may hear many times in the game: “Might is Right”. Might is both power and condition damage rolled into one. However, the amount you receive for each stack of might is dependent on your level. The higher your level, the more power and condition damage you receive per stack of might.

With 25 stacks of might at level 80, the bonus is +875 Power and Condition Damage. This makes the +125 Power bonus from a fully stacked bloodlust sigil pretty small potatoes, since I can get +140 Power and Condition Damage with only 4 stacks of might. Add on the pain of having to stack the sigil every time you changes maps, to me it is not worth the effort.

I stack a lot of might that I share with my 2 cats (stalker and leopard). When running dual bows, both have sigils of battle, I constantly swap between them to keep stacks of might and fury up on myself and the cats. My greatsword also has a sigil of battle. I use runes of Hoelbrak to sustain the might for a longer period of time.

When running sword/xxx and axe/axe, my main-hand weapons have sigils of strength and my off-hand weapons have sigils of accuracy. Again, this is to generate more stacks of might on crit hits that I share with the cats.

During a short fight, I can easily run up 6-10 stacks of might and sustain 6 over the duration. The longer the fight, the more might I can stack, since the sigil of strength’s internal cooldown is only 1 sec. The sigil of battle has a 10 sec CD, but since the weapon swap CD is longer, this does not factor.

This is longer that I expected, but hope it helps …

RedCobra.7693:

What got you through it? Enjoyment?

Yup, I enjoyed the solo exploration experience on my ranger. The only annoying part for me were the WvW maps.

What got me started was my initial goal, at lvl 20-something, to collect all the ranger pets. This task took me all over Tyria and was a nice starter for world completion.

Oh, I have no interest in legendaries, so this was not for the gift but personal satisfaction. The map rewards and exp were nice as well. The key to the enjoyment for me was taking my time, and not treating it like a job that had to be done.

Having said that, doing 100% world once was enough for me. Would not bother doing it again

Evans.6347:

The greatswords without a doubt. Also, the amount of times you see them just puts me off. I find my Greatsaw more legendary than those (or at least for a little longer).

Twilight gets my personal vote for the ridiculous black sludge dripping off your character when they walk. Kudzu is my follow up because it’s footstep effect look like puddles of vomit from a distance.

Ah, so that is where all the green puke blobs come from in the champ zergs!! Lol!
Gads, I am at a loss as to figure out why anyone would want this …

I agree with you on the greatswords as well. Like others have posted, I find them extremely annoying.

The only legendary where the animations fit the weapon is Frenzy (the speargun). At least the fish make sense for an underwater weapon …

I harvest a lot of T2-4 mats, but only to sell, not to craft. I have all crafts maxed so no need to keep these around, and certain ones provide a very steady income. I do a daily run through 3 particular mid-level maps just for the nodes.

I always keep the T5-6 mats I harvest. With T5, I will either promote to T6 if worthwhile or use to craft rares for the MF. I stock pile all the T6 and use only rarely if I need to respecc a build.

I currently run a 20/25/0/25/0 build using sword/dagger (or sword/warhorn) and axe/axe in general PvE with pretty good effect.

Armour and weapons are all berserker. Trinkets are a mix of Knight and Valkyrie with ruby jewels. Armour has runes of Hoelbrak My 2nd armour set is a mix of Knight and Valkyrie with runes of the ranger.

Main hand weapons have sigils of strength, off-hand weapons have sigils of accuracy.

The focus of this build is to constantly stack might that I share with my cats (snow leopard and jungle stalker).

I hated the ranger sword when I first used it. Once I unlocked all the skills, I salvaged it.

After10 months of ignoring the sword, I recently tried it again. Now I cannot stop using it.

Yes, Hornet Sting is ‘awkward’ and I use it only for emergency escapes, but Vipers is great. The auto takes a bit of getting use to, but has some good leaps. Also I run sword/dagger and dagger #4 is another mobility skill.

I would suggest giving the ranger sword another go.

EDIT: Ranger greatsword has some mobility as well. Running sword/xx and GS gives a lot of mobility as a ranger.

Haven’t done the embers yet, as Anchorage has been uncontested whenever I went to CS. Did do the CS champ rotation on 2 occasions, that was ok.

However, I preferred the champs in Frostgorge. Did the rotation there quite a bit over the weekend in big zergs. Champs were going down in under10 seconds, so if you were slowed down at all in traveling between them, or took 1 or 2 extra secs collecting loot, you would miss out on the next champ.

The main challenge was in keeping up so you got to the next champ in time ..

Strength or Fire

And no, having 2 On Crit sigils is counter productive because when one processes, the internal CD will prevent the other from triggering.

Best to go with a Always On sigil, like 5% Accuracy in the OH weapon

EDIT: Battle is good, but has a long CD that will stop any On Crit sigil on the OH weapons from triggering. Battle is best used when doing a lot of 2H weapon swaps to build up stacks of might.

A rule-of-thumb I follow:

All OH weapons slotted with Always-On (usually 5% Accuracy)
All MH weapons slotted with On Crit (usually Strength)
All 2H weapons slotted with On Swap (usually Battle)

One exception is my guardian staff, it has a Fire sigil.

Here is how I use them on my ranger:
I like stacking might cos I share the boon with my pet. For some PvE content I run dual bows (LB/SB) both with Battle sigils, and continuously swap between them when weapons skills are on CD. By the time weapons swap option is active, the Battle sigil internal CD is done so I can keep stacks of might and fury up on both me and the pet.

When doing general PvE roaming, I run axe/axe and sword/dagger (or warhorn). I do not weapon swap that often, so prefer to keep might up through crit attacks

I generally do not mix longer sigil CD weapons with short CD sigil weapons. For example, I try to avoid running shortbow with sword/dagger.

Ranger was my first 80.
There are 40-something pets available to you, but you need to find and charm them first. They are spread out all over Tyria with a couple in the WvW Eternal Battleground map. Some are in no-combat maps like the main cities and Lions Arch, so go for these first.

Collecting all your pets is a good way to start exploring and to level.

But, before you do anything, first unlock all your various weapon skills, including your 2 underwater weapons. This way you get a feel for the weapon combinations you like and that match your play-style.