Guild Wars 2 Catch All

Alternatively, take some friends! I’m more than happy to add you to the GWJ guild, I just need your handle (name.1234).

Logged in this morning to find an unannounced 2-3 day account rollback that seems to be affecting everyone on the EU servers. Not sure if it's NA as well, but seems not. You may want to be circumspect about playing until Arenanet can announce whether they can revert progress to where it should be.

Instalevelled to 80 and got the raptor mount. Thanks all for the tips/advice. I've almost finished the personal story and am hoovering up some hero points to work on my elite specialization path. It's probably just me, but I think the devs need to learn there's a difference between epic battle and obnoxious encounter. Even still, I'm finding myself enjoying the game. The mouth of Zaitan fight went pretty quickly and I remember hating that last time I played, which was almost five years ago.

Managed to gain access to my old account (and looks like that was already part of the GWJ guild!). Took a bit to relearn my Mesmer, but I had started a new one earlier, so getting the general swing of things was fairly quick. Elite specializations were wholly new to me! And a fun thing to explore.

Managed to get the Raptor mount. Think I'll continue leveling the low-level alts to get a better sense for all the new things, but glad that my level 80 is a tailor who can craft everyone bags when needed (and take out Daily quests to gain those rewards; yesterday's Crystal Desert one meant I jumped in to get the mount and finish that off, but still need to go back to that character's main storyline at some point).

<3 my Mesmer. Juggling illusions is so satisfying, and the chronomancer well skills are tons of fun.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

<3 my Mesmer. Juggling illusions is so satisfying, and the chronomancer well skills are tons of fun.

I'm going to have to do a lot more testing in the chronomancer tree. While I was suddenly given a bunch of hero points out of nowhere, didn't have enough to finish that tree. Guess I'll go map hopping with that character later.

Power chrono is pretty fun. Some traits have changed since this video was made, but it's still a decent guide. Get chronophantasma unlocked asap.

I just swapped my mesmer over to viper mirage (because mirage is a condi spec and I just wanted to be able to play the PoF specialisations for a bit). Power chrono is still more fun though IMO.

There's a free egg for a mini in the store today and the second episode of Icebrood saga is free if you missed it the first time around.

babakotia wrote:

Power chrono is pretty fun. Some traits have changed since this video was made, but it's still a decent guide. Get chronophantasma unlocked asap.

I just swapped my mesmer over to viper mirage (because mirage is a condi spec and I just wanted to be able to play the PoF specialisations for a bit). Power chrono is still more fun though IMO.

Haven't watched the whole thing, but that's basically how I play. I pop 3 illusions with greatsword 2, 4 and a dodge and F2 F3 shatter them constantly while dropping wells for the break bar and it's so fun. I need to get the hang of weapon switching more, I tend to stick with GS.

I got the ascended Axe for the Mirage, so I need to try get to grips with that.

Most people (including me, to be fair) go Sword/X on the swap set but it can feel a bit awkward having to get in and out of melee range if you generally prefer to camp greatsword. Scepter actually has fair power scaling, a useful block, and can be used with pistol or focus offhands if you want to stay ranged.

I didn't find mirage to be very viable with power gear. It's illusion-based, and illusions are ok for condi application but don't do anywhere near as much direct damage as phantasms, which is where chrono excels.

Weirdly enough I don't mind mixing it up when I'm using GS, I like the shatter effect hitting enemies around me so I try stay fairly close, so no reason I can't use a melee weapon. Just never got into the habit.

babakotia wrote:

I didn't find mirage to be very viable with power gear.

burst mirage was a dominant force in WvW/PvP for most of the last year, up until the recent nerf. I eventually gave up playing anything else, only for the nerf to happen within a month of switching to that :/

lately I've been playing power DH and dire FB, slowly chipping away at season 4 achievements.

probably due to start working on a 3rd legendary too, but that would require doing a lot of fractals which i'm not too keen on.

GrandmaFunk wrote:

burst mirage was a dominant force in WvW/PvP for most of the last year, up until the recent nerf. I eventually gave up playing anything else, only for the nerf to happen within a month of switching to that :/

Interesting. I was only speaking from a PvE point of view, aside from getting the War Claw I've barely set foot in WvW since coming back. Stuff like the greatsword ambushes looked really cool but I was disappointed by the sustained damage, and the mirage traitline doesn't seem to have much for power builds. When I switched back to phantasm chrono things got better. Axe Mirage with Viper gear also seems strong and is fun to play. One dodge in PvP/WvW sounds painful.

I used to play mesmer a lot in WvW but preferred power or hybrid stats to condi. Is there much of a roaming scene anymore?

I'm REALLY annoyed with ArenaNet's login/login reset system. I haven't played in over a year and don't remember my character's name. Their website gives you an a way to submit an "anonymous" ticket if you can't remember your character name, but their reCAPTCHA system failed on Edge, IE, Chrome, Firefox, AND Safari when I tried submit my ticket the other day (after about 20 browser reloads, I finally got one to take), and I have yet to receive a response after submitting my ticket on Monday.

I had the same issue with forgetting my character name a couple of years ago, and it took a couple of weeks for them to respond, and then several additional days of back-and-forth emails to verify my identity - all despite the fact, I still have my original disks, license codes, and boxes for the original game and the first expansion.

RRRRRrrrrrrr!!!!

That's a nuisance. I read it takes them about two weeks to respond to tickets at the moment, probably not helped by the EU server problems on Monday where people also had trading post glitches and are making tickets for lost items/progress.

babakotia wrote:

I used to play mesmer a lot in WvW but preferred power or hybrid stats to condi. Is there much of a roaming scene anymore?

yup, it's how I spend most of my time in WvW.

I find the current meta is favouring more defensive builds. Some engi, ele and rev bunkers you just can't put down unless you're 3+

While my Mesmer is 80, and I have gone with Chrono for now, I never did finish the main storyline (am in chapter 8 somewhere in Orr). Still need to gather enough HP to complete that skill tree. So far I've been enjoying the new shatter skills though. The time warping still makes me cackle as if I'm a mad wizard.

From what I've read, the Thorns expansion is not easy solo? But Flames gives me further mounts? Eventually I want to complete all the content, though not entirely sure if I want that to be chronological or not (when I jumped in for the raptor mount, I was introduced to names I didn't recognize at all and was fairly confused on that front).

Thorns does have a lot of group content. I suspect you'd want a guild to help, although I think players are still organizing groups to level alts and late-comers.

Aeazel wrote:

From what I've read, the Thorns expansion is not easy solo? But Flames gives me further mounts? Eventually I want to complete all the content, though not entirely sure if I want that to be chronological or not (when I jumped in for the raptor mount, I was introduced to names I didn't recognize at all and was fairly confused on that front).

Heart of Thorns comes before Path of Fire, but having access to the Raptor and Springer mounts from Path of Fire would make the Heart of Thorns maps considerably easier to traverse. That said, they were intended to be played without mounts and having played them at launch they are more interesting when you can't use a mount to solve every problem. I did enjoy the HoT maps before their difficulty was lowered though, which not everyone did. Even now you will find them more challenging than the base game.

Both expansions have map-wide 'meta' events that can't really be done solo, but it's easy to play with others to get those done. Outside of the metas I play solo mostly, and have never had a major problem doing so. People still organise hero point and champion bountry 'trains' through the Looking for Group tool fairly frequently as well, which will be a help. Look out for mentor and commander tags.

As these expansions are now 2+ years old, you will find some things where it's harder to find a group these days, and some maps are busier than others, but it's fine if you don't mind being a bit patient.

Aeazel wrote:

From what I've read, the Thorns expansion is not easy solo?

There's two ways in which difficulty ramps up considerably for HoT:

Most of the Hero Points are Champions(compared to Veterans in the core game) which are simply not soloable for most players/builds. To help offset that, you'll find people that run "HP Trains" to take a group through all the HPs on a given map.

Regular mob density is much higher, and most of them will spam CC at you in one form or another. Which means that trying to run pass mobs without engaging them, or aggroing several at once, will result in a very quick and brutal death.

Aeazel wrote:

(when I jumped in for the raptor mount, I was introduced to names I didn't recognize at all and was fairly confused on that front).

it's not just HoT, there's also Living World seasons that introduce many of the characters and story elements.

as far as playable content, the story goes: Core -> Season 2 -> HoT -> Season 3 -> PoF -> Season 4 -> Icebrood Saga

Yeah, so far I think I own everything but season 4 (which I'll pick up post PoF).

Thanks for the explanations, all! Once I finish the Core, I'll probably look at the various Discords and such more often to see about HP trains and various things of that nature.

I agree, Thorns is best done with just a glider, as ArenaNet intended. Very fun, very intense, tons of content.

One note is if you're trying to do Elite Specs with Core hero points it will take a very long time. Hero Points in the expansions are 10 points each.

Also, the LFG tool is great for finding people doing specific content.

Any words of wisdom for a returning player? I jumped on my ele and was immediately lost. Debating between starting over and going ranger, necro or thief. Thief in particular looks fun thanks to the deadeye but it sounds like getting an elite is going to take a while even with a boost.

I would start a new character whose mechanics you want to learn, then play through the first 40 or 50 levels at least, to regain your mastery of the systems. At some point in that journey, you'll remember enough to start with your existing chars again, but I find learning the systems is the most important thing in coming back.

Elemental got hard, technical, and very squishy. She used to be my main, but I've switched to ranger. Thief can also be a bit tricky. I'd give ranger a solid go, it's lots of fun, and they feel more durable, especially with the pet. Definitely recommend giving the ranger a go. And avoid the booster, honestly. Leveling is the best way to learn your character. I boosted my revenant, and ended up never playing her...

If you do have a Level 80 boost, Thief is actually one of the better classes to use it on, since the exotic valkyrie armor you get is much better on Thief than the gear you would get on almost every other profession (soldier/PVT). You don't need to boost right away though.

Definitely worth starting a new character, they recently added a bunch of "tutorial" achievements.

last few weeks have been pretty productive for me. I don't like long story instances and boss fights so I've been avoiding finishing story content for a long time .. but I finally got around to killing Zhaitan, Mordremoth and Kralkatorrik.

GrandmaFunk wrote:

Definitely worth starting a new character, they recently added a bunch of "tutorial" achievements.

last few weeks have been pretty productive for me. I don't like long story instances and boss fights so I've been avoiding finishing story content for a long time .. but I finally got around to killing Zhaitan, Mordremoth and Kralkatorrik.

Nice job! I've only bagged one of those.

And thanks to everyone for the feedback. I'm going to mess around with the thief and possibly the ranger. Sad the elementalist is so hard to play now - I loved my asura!

Good afternoon. Well I was hoping for the release of New World in August but that's not going to happen now so I thought I would give gw2 a try. Anything I should really know about starting out? Is there anything you wished you knew when you started the game? Thanks.