Guild Wars 2 Catch All

Rahmen wrote:

Grats on finishing your story mode babakotia.

Question for the group: So I've put enough time in now that I'm feeling I have the basics down. I'm around level 14 or 15 have played through a couple zones and a piece of 'my story'. My question is: What would have helped if you'd known at that point so you can be more efficient?

It depends more efficient at what...

The big one I think is knowing that crafting is a money sink. You will be far more ahead on coin if you just upgrade your gear every 5-8 levels from the trading post.

Other than that, just focus on having fun and exploring. Keeping up with your story and doing lots of events will level you up fast enough.

Edit: Also.. a lot of classes dont really come into their own with semi-complete builds much later on when you have all your trait points and utility skills. So try to fight alt-itis and level up a character that you like. If that doesnt work for you, you can go to the mists and see what a level 80 might look like and do.

Some random thoughts:

Gather. Be aware of the mining, wood and plant nodes on the minimap. Have the best gathering tools you can equip at your level (nothing worse than getting ruined plant fibers when you're trying to pick a strawberry ). Deposit them to your bank, using deposit all collectables at the top of your inventory. Later if you want to craft on this character, or on your second character, you'll be well supplied. And don't start out trying to craft your own stuff. It'll be there later if you want to level a character quickly (getting from 0 to 400 in a crafting skill is equal to about 10 levels).

Be efficient in exploring. Be aware of the Vista, Point of Interest, skillpoint, hearts and waypoint markers, and try to get/complete them as you get near them. Nothing worse than getting near map completion and seeing that you missed a PoI that was just a few steps away from a skillpoint you already got, and needing to go back. You get some good XP for getting 100% of a map. If you're at 80+ percent and thinking of moving on to the next area, you might as well try to find the last map markers you need. Not only do you get XP, but also some zone level appropriate items, some crafting materials, money, and rarely Black Lion Keys or other Trading Post items. And 3 basic transmutation stones.

Those transmutation stones are for keeping an armor look that you like. The armor with the best stats for your character may not always be the best looking, so use those to transmute the armor you do like onto the stats of the one you don't. Also, there's a starter piece you picked out on character creation that is unique in the game. (Guardians get shoulder armor, thieves get masks or a hood, engineers get a backpack or goggles, etc.) If you really like the look of the item you picked, use the stones to keep it current as you level, since you can't ever get another one if you salvage or sell it.

I like your piece of advice, Tscott, that's solid, right there. I'd also add that you should pick two crafts for your character and stick to them. Took me a while to realize that switching back and forth was costing me money, lots of it.
And try to avoid dying as much as possible. It's not that bad when you start out, but repairs get really costly as you level up. So if worst comes to worst, better be a rich coward.

About transmutation stones... I've mostly been using the heritage armor (especially for my sylvari elementalist, I hate the actolyte armor), and having been saving up Transmutation Stones. I now have 66...

Eleima wrote:

About transmutation stones... I've mostly been using the heritage armor (especially for my sylvari elementalist, I hate the actolyte armor), and having been saving up Transmutation Stones. I now have 66... :D

I started out saving mine up, but the transmutation stones you get while leveling up only work on level 79 items and below. If you want to transmute a piece of level 80 equipment, you need a different type of transmutation stone.

Tscott wrote:

Be efficient in exploring. Be aware of the Vista, Point of Interest, skillpoint, hearts and waypoint markers, and try to get/complete them as you get near them. Nothing worse than getting near map completion and seeing that you missed a PoI that was just a few steps away from a skillpoint you already got, and needing to go back. You get some good XP for getting 100% of a map. If you're at 80+ percent and thinking of moving on to the next area, you might as well try to find the last map markers you need. Not only do you get XP, but also some zone level appropriate items, some crafting materials, money, and rarely Black Lion Keys or other Trading Post items. And 3 basic transmutation stones.

To add to this, talk to all the scouts on a map. Talking to them adds map markers for whatever places you haven't found on your own yet so long as they're in the area they cover. There will still be some that you're not sure how to get to (usually they're underground), but they'll at least be on the map.

I believe Scouts will just highlight Hearts that haven't shown up on your map. When you enter a fogged out area of a map, you get an XP bonus for discovering it, and any PoIs, Vistas, etc. will show up on the map in that area.

Tscott wrote:

I believe Scouts will just highlight Hearts that haven't shown up on your map. When you enter a fogged out area of a map, you get an XP bonus for discovering it, and any PoIs, Vistas, etc. will show up on the map in that area.

I think you're right.

I'd suggest spending some time researching the different classes, have a look at the different builds people are using and how each class plays. Prior to my Guardian I also tried Warrior, Thief, Ranger, Elementalist and Engineer - with hindight, I spread my play time far too thinly and persevered with some for too long. Depending on how much time you have, the road to 80 isn't a chore by any means, but it can be a fairly substantial investment in time - so choose carefully.

Exploring is a really good way to level up. Don't be afraid to visit other starter zones, you get some nice bonuses for 100% completing zones, and it isn't hard to do.

I agree about crafting being a money sink. The easiest thing is to visit the trading post every 5-10 levels and get what you need. And avoid spending Karma if you can, as it's more useful come lv 80 where you can trade it in for exotic armour or cultural weapons.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I think I was following them pretty well and will start reserving karma. I'd just spent some for a few upgrades because honestly I had no idea what it was used for.

I picked the ranger as a starting point because from WoW I knew any pet class is a little easier to just start rolling with. I've been impressed by the versatility of weapons changing actions.

I'm also a bit befuddled on making money. It's clearing not the same auction house game that was one of the aspects of WoW that I was very successful in taking advantage of.

babakotia wrote:

And avoid spending Karma if you can, as it's more useful come lv 80 where you can trade it in for exotic armour or cultural weapons.

Or there is people like me who never used the stuff for these and wish I would have been more loose with it to begin with.

Just use karma if you think you could use that shiny amulet from the heart vendor. If it is an upgrade of 3-4 levels it might be worth it, and those 300-400 karma are regained quickly. Just blowing money on upgrades instead of a bit of money and a bit of karma seems a bit silly in my eyes.

What I did on my guardian is I completed each level appropriate zone, heart by heart, vista by vista to get the completion bonus and the items before I would outlevel the zone.
I did like that until level 60ish, then I just used the saved materials to level my cooking and artificer.

I love that there are so many options to move through the game and gain experience and items.

What I do is every 10 levels I'll go and check the TP for green items that are a significant upgrade to catch me up on anything I'm behind in.

I guess it's being in the wrong place at the wrong time (you don't have to level in a certain zone, or even 'the right bit' of the zone) but I've rarely found karma vendors to have a bit that's useful to me at that particular moment. It can be worth checking, but I'm not going to run across the world for it, however many karma vendors have cooking ingredients that aren't (easily) found elsewhere: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ingr...

I used to want to save karma for the lvl 80 stuff, but really haven't found all that much that I wanted aside from a few weapon skins. Plus now if you do the daily/monthly achivements you get jugs of karma that you can save. Use the karma you have earned while exploring if you find something that you think will be useful (or looks cool). Pop a karma booster and drink a bunch of jugs of karma if when you're 80 you find a set of karma armor that you can't live without.

Tscott wrote:

I used to want to save karma for the lvl 80 stuff, but really haven't found all that much that I wanted aside from a few weapon skins. Plus now if you do the daily/monthly achivements you get jugs of karma that you can save. Use the karma you have earned while exploring if you find something that you think will be useful (or looks cool). Pop a karma booster and drink a bunch of jugs of karma if when you're 80 you find a set of karma armor that you can't live without.

Well you can get a full set of exotic armor from the orr karma merchants after the temple evnts, and save quite a bit of coin in the process.

Tyops wrote:
Tscott wrote:

I used to want to save karma for the lvl 80 stuff, but really haven't found all that much that I wanted aside from a few weapon skins. Plus now if you do the daily/monthly achivements you get jugs of karma that you can save. Use the karma you have earned while exploring if you find something that you think will be useful (or looks cool). Pop a karma booster and drink a bunch of jugs of karma if when you're 80 you find a set of karma armor that you can't live without.

Well you can get a full set of exotic armor from the orr karma merchants after the temple evnts, and save quite a bit of coin in the process.

Also, if you have any interest in ever getting a legendary weapon it is best to keep in mind you will need at least 1 million karma for that process.

I can't say I needed the karma merchant stuff at all while levelling up (apart from aquatic helms possibly). But being able to trade it for exotic temple armour was useful. I don't find gold *that* easy to come by in this game.

Edit to add: Also, cost of gear 1-70 didn't seem that bad, but 80 gear is pricier and exotic armour on the BLTC was around 4-5 G per piece. You can of course also grind dungeons for tokens and trade those for armour, but that takes time.

On the karma, I've basically spent a bit on cooking ingredients, but that's it. Maybe a trinket or two, but for the moment, it hasn't been useful to me as a currency. Glad to know I'll be able to spend it in a few levels on cultural armor!!
And yeah, gold isn't really all that easy to come by in the game, I find. That's why I try not to die too much. Last time I had to repair, it cost me 4 silver, yikes!!

One thing I did decide last night was to stop identifying dyes. Unidentified they're worth around 17 silver on the trading post, but when I identify they're typically common, or duplicate, and colours I'm unlikely to use.

I suspect it's more cost-effective to just buy the colours you want to use, unless you get lucky with a white or black.

babakotia wrote:

I can't say I needed the karma merchant stuff at all while levelling up (apart from aquatic helms possibly). But being able to trade it for exotic temple armour was useful. I don't find gold *that* easy to come by in this game.

Edit to add: Also, cost of gear 1-70 didn't seem that bad, but 80 gear is pricier and exotic armour on the BLTC was around 4-5 G per piece. You can of course also grind dungeons for tokens and trade those for armour, but that takes time.

Psst Dungeon armor. You don’t need a zerg to clear the ugliness that is Orr to get them. gw2lfg.com will keep you in groups so you can progress towards your goal any time. You also make money (more money than in Orr I would bet) while doing it which is a plus. Depending on the Dungeon and the group I can get 75 s to 1.5 g in a run of 20-45 min. Drops are gravy on top of this.

Tenebrous wrote:
babakotia wrote:

I can't say I needed the karma merchant stuff at all while levelling up (apart from aquatic helms possibly). But being able to trade it for exotic temple armour was useful. I don't find gold *that* easy to come by in this game.

Edit to add: Also, cost of gear 1-70 didn't seem that bad, but 80 gear is pricier and exotic armour on the BLTC was around 4-5 G per piece. You can of course also grind dungeons for tokens and trade those for armour, but that takes time.

Psst Dungeon armor. You don’t need a zerg to clear the ugliness that is Orr to get them. gw2lfg.com will keep you in groups so you can progress towards your goal any time. You also make money (more money than in Orr I would bet) while doing it which is a plus. Depending on the Dungeon and the group I can get 75 s to 1.5 g in a run of 20-45 min. Drops are gravy on top of this.

I actually like Orr now that I've already got the maps @ 100%. My only issue is that it's impossible to finish the kill variety part of the daily achievement so most of the mobs are Risen. I'm not sure if he's still doing it, but there was a commander leading an Orr Temple zerg every night starting at about 8pm EST. You're unlikely to make as much money though, as getting credit for kills is hard due to the zerg. I image you'd have better luck if you're set up for lots of AoE.

Stengah wrote:
Tenebrous wrote:
babakotia wrote:

I can't say I needed the karma merchant stuff at all while levelling up (apart from aquatic helms possibly). But being able to trade it for exotic temple armour was useful. I don't find gold *that* easy to come by in this game.

Edit to add: Also, cost of gear 1-70 didn't seem that bad, but 80 gear is pricier and exotic armour on the BLTC was around 4-5 G per piece. You can of course also grind dungeons for tokens and trade those for armour, but that takes time.

Psst Dungeon armor. You don’t need a zerg to clear the ugliness that is Orr to get them. gw2lfg.com will keep you in groups so you can progress towards your goal any time. You also make money (more money than in Orr I would bet) while doing it which is a plus. Depending on the Dungeon and the group I can get 75 s to 1.5 g in a run of 20-45 min. Drops are gravy on top of this.

I actually like Orr now that I've already got the maps @ 100%. My only issue is that it's impossible to finish the kill variety part of the daily achievement so most of the mobs are Risen. I'm not sure if he's still doing it, but there was a commander leading an Orr Temple zerg every night starting at about 8pm EST. You're unlikely to make as much money though, as getting credit for kills is hard due to the zerg. I image you'd have better luck if you're set up for lots of AoE.

So that's where our zerg has gone off too.

The economy isn't making any sense to me at this point. While I have enough cash to level even buying the occasional item when I see a comment that what sounds like a high end run nets you so little I'm surprised it doesn't lead to a gold farmer problem. One of the things WoW eventually did was make money so easily plentiful that gold buying became unattractive to the general population. Is that a problem in GW2? I see items I assume that are quite exotic on the trading post for ridiculous sums. That gap between earning and desirable seems problematic to me or am I missing something?

The economy does have some issues even going all the way back to the first week abuse of miss priced cultural weapons. The other factors in play include the gem for gold ability and the potential lottery and or money sink that is the mystic forge.

Rahmen wrote:

The economy isn't making any sense to me at this point. While I have enough cash to level even buying the occasional item when I see a comment that what sounds like a high end run nets you so little I'm surprised it doesn't lead to a gold farmer problem. One of the things WoW eventually did was make money so easily plentiful that gold buying became unattractive to the general population. Is that a problem in GW2? I see items I assume that are quite exotic on the trading post for ridiculous sums. That gap between earning and desirable seems problematic to me or am I missing something?

It sorta helps the Legendary stats are the same as Exotic stats. They are purely cosmetic and only run PTV stats. They are not nessissary at all. Exotic weaponry, for the most part is pretty reasonable, usually under 5 g, almost allways under 10 g, except for the legendary precursors.

As for exotics, there 2-3 ways to get them without having huge sums, so it is not really a problem there.

WoW's problem, atleast when I was playing, was that it was totally dependant on random drops, so the only way to be sure you could get something you wanted was to buy it. GW2 gives you more avenues to get leet lootz.

Rahmen wrote:

That gap between earning and desirable seems problematic to me or am I missing something?

There are people who buy tons of gems and drop them on the market to buy items with gold. It also used to be a lot easier to make gold. Before Diminishing returns was introduced, you could make a couple gold an hour. The system was introduced however to slow down the collection activities of botters and farmers from getting too far ahead of the curve.

In the span between when the game was released, and when the reduction to income limits were applied, there were already several people with hundreds of gold. There have also been a couple of "bugs" with holiday event items allowing them to be transmuted against description.

Now the quickest ways are high level fractals and dungeon speed runs. Trading Post and Mystic Forge are other ways, but they involve risk of loss.

I've made a sizeable amount of gold through crafting and trading post shenanigans. The easiest and laziest way is to look up what items are currently trending that you can easily make, or which have discrepancies between the cost of the item and the cost of the mats.

I am by no means as wealthy as some people, but I tend to have between 60-80 gold at any time which is more than enough for any expense other than a legendary.

Maybe that's part of my confusion with the economy. The game isn't telegraphing to me any of the reasons I would need to spend gold in the longer term so I have less sense of how much I'll 'need'. In WoW for example, the mount was a significant investment that you could see coming early on.

*As an aside, I'm enjoying that this is not WoW and apologize for the repeated references but it's a simple context to use for the questions. In that spirit, I'll mention one of the many things I'm enjoying. I stumbled on the Shadow Behemoth event and that fact that I could participate and be rewarded without organizing a 25 / 40 person group was a fun activity especially at a fairly early stage in my leveling.

Yeah, I like just being able to run into big dynamic events. I like the art style/design of Orr, but I must say I'm also glad I checked out a lot of the starter areas and mid-level zones. Some of them are really pretty, and contrast well with the general devastation and undead-filled austerity of Cursed Shore.

Rahmen wrote:

Maybe that's part of my confusion with the economy. The game isn't telegraphing to me any of the reasons I would need to spend gold in the longer term so I have less sense of how much I'll 'need'. In WoW for example, the mount was a significant investment that you could see coming early on.

This is one thing I really like about the game -- the big ticket items, such as legendary weapons and cultural armor -- are cosmetic options. You can purchase all the actual stats you need with far less gold, karma, or dungeon/fractal tokens.

Javamancer wrote:
Rahmen wrote:

Maybe that's part of my confusion with the economy. The game isn't telegraphing to me any of the reasons I would need to spend gold in the longer term so I have less sense of how much I'll 'need'. In WoW for example, the mount was a significant investment that you could see coming early on.

This is one thing I really like about the game -- the big ticket items, such as legendary weapons and cultural armor -- are cosmetic options. You can purchase all the actual stats you need with far less gold, karma, or dungeon/fractal tokens.

Maybe I'll just not stress about it then

As a gamer with a job and kids and driving responsibilities and homework helper, I'm especially sensitive to time sinks that can be avoided with in game money. (plus auction house arbitrage was a big mini game for me in WoW) Sounds like I can't do play the auction house the same way but it also won't matter nearly as much.

Rahmen wrote:

As a gamer with a job and kids and driving responsibilities and homework helper, I'm especially sensitive to time sinks that can be avoided with in game money. (plus auction house arbitrage was a big mini game for me in WoW) Sounds like I can't do play the auction house the same way but it also won't matter nearly as much.

You definitely can play the trading post like that but there are a few things to keep in mind.

First, the trading post is global for all the servers, meaning that you cant corner the market on a server like I'm told you could do in WoW.

Second, you need to pay attention to the trade cycles and keep an eye on stuff using the tools available (there are a number of web-based trading post sites like http://www.gw2spidy.com/).

Also, you need to know the high/end cosmetic material stuff inside out to know what may/may not be worth getting into.

Also also, save your own coin and play in an economical way to build up starting capital. For instance, dont buy or craft exotics, make them using dungeon tokens.

Also also also, pay attention to game updates, special events, and reddit. They are often drivers of pretty big price fluctuations that someone might be able to cash in on.

That being said... I dont play the TP much at all so there are probably resources out there you could look for.