Guild Wars 2 Catch All

Infyrnos wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Anyone have some tips for making soloing more fun? Could be my main class. I gave up work on my engineer and went back to my guardian, but most fights feel like a slog.

I've pretty much solo'd the whole way through (haven't been around right place right time to get a dungeon yet, but plenty of zerg fests). I finally settled on guardian because it seemed like the least amount of slog. As soon as I got that great sword into my hands, stuff just started to melt in front of me, and going back to play a different class, I realize just how much survivability the guardian has to just jump into difficult groups of stuff that I just can't touch with my other chars. Maybe its the weapon set for you? It was pretty rough when I was trying to be mace/shield guardian, long slow slow slow fights.

Yeah, it's probably a weapon/skill issue. I know that my warrior was starting to lose it's luster until I found a weapon/skill combo that really worked for me (hammer for the interrupts and shouts) and really took a look at the trait trees and figured out a build to work towards (20% cooldown reduction on hammer skills and healing shouts). The right traits can make all the difference in how much fun a class is. I don't have a guardian so I couldn't say what would be fun for them

Being Lv 80 is fun, try it for a bit before diving into another alt

GrandmaFunk wrote:

I need to try and wake up earlier so I can synch up my morning session with your game time!
I love getting a chance to game with our brethren&sisthren in other timezones :)

Sometimes I manage to put a bit of game time when I get home, provided hubby minds the little one, so that's around 5-6pm (GMT+4), so that's 6-7am EST. But typically, I do my gaming once he's in bed and we've had dinner, so not before 8pm my time, so that's 11am EST. Gotta love time zones!

Tyops wrote:

Grats, but dont just rush off in an alt-itis induced frenzy. Take some time and tour with your L80 character, see the events,try the dungeons, earn some coin. That will make it much easier to progress with your other characters later.

Oh, I'm definitely not shelfing her!! She's my main, I've already completed 50% of the world, and I aim to hit 100%!! I've already gotten some snapdragon (Sylvari cultural armor, tier one, that's basically all I could afford, and I transmuted it with gear I already had anyhow) to celebrate, and I sure plan to show that off! And there's still my personal story to complete, I'm only at level 48, but I'm gonna try and do it with another goodjer who's also doing the Priory questline.
It's just that I've utterly neglected my other characters up til now, they're still stuck in the 10-15 level range, so I put two levels on my Asura mesmer today during my lunch break.
So yeah, I'm not gonna stop playing my Elementalist just because she hit 80. She's not dead yet! She feels fine!

Stengah wrote:
Infyrnos wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Anyone have some tips for making soloing more fun? Could be my main class. I gave up work on my engineer and went back to my guardian, but most fights feel like a slog.

I've pretty much solo'd the whole way through (haven't been around right place right time to get a dungeon yet, but plenty of zerg fests). I finally settled on guardian because it seemed like the least amount of slog. As soon as I got that great sword into my hands, stuff just started to melt in front of me, and going back to play a different class, I realize just how much survivability the guardian has to just jump into difficult groups of stuff that I just can't touch with my other chars. Maybe its the weapon set for you? It was pretty rough when I was trying to be mace/shield guardian, long slow slow slow fights.

Yeah, it's probably a weapon/skill issue. I know that my warrior was starting to lose it's luster until I found a weapon/skill combo that really worked for me (hammer for the interrupts and shouts) and really took a look at the trait trees and figured out a build to work towards (20% cooldown reduction on hammer skills and healing shouts). The right traits can make all the difference in how much fun a class is. I don't have a guardian so I couldn't say what would be fun for them

Thirded. I didn't really enjoy my necro until I stepped back and worked out how I wanted to play it, which wasn't really that obvious to me. I thought the game would hold my hand a little bit more, but it's really easy to end up with a set of skills/weapons/traits that don't work well together. It doesn't make the game unplayable, but you feel a lot less powerful.

Eleima wrote:
GrandmaFunk wrote:

I need to try and wake up earlier so I can synch up my morning session with your game time!
I love getting a chance to game with our brethren&sisthren in other timezones :)

Sometimes I manage to put a bit of game time when I get home, provided hubby minds the little one, so that's around 5-6pm (GMT+4), so that's 6-7am EST. But typically, I do my gaming once he's in bed and we've had dinner, so not before 8pm my time, so that's 11am EST. Gotta love time zones!

Tyops wrote:

Grats, but dont just rush off in an alt-itis induced frenzy. Take some time and tour with your L80 character, see the events,try the dungeons, earn some coin. That will make it much easier to progress with your other characters later.

Oh, I'm definitely not shelfing her!! She's my main, I've already completed 50% of the world, and I aim to hit 100%!! I've already gotten some snapdragon (Sylvari cultural armor, tier one, that's basically all I could afford, and I transmuted it with gear I already had anyhow) to celebrate, and I sure plan to show that off! And there's still my personal story to complete, I'm only at level 48, but I'm gonna try and do it with another goodjer who's also doing the Priory questline.
It's just that I've utterly neglected my other characters up til now, they're still stuck in the 10-15 level range, so I put two levels on my Asura mesmer today during my lunch break.
So yeah, I'm not gonna stop playing my Elementalist just because she hit 80. She's not dead yet! She feels fine! ;)

And she does look marvelous

So tonight I spent around an hour in WvW. I'd read a couple of 'beginner's guide' style forum posts so I had a rough idea what was going on. I joined a zerg for a while, defended a keep, smashed some gates down and then went wandering off to get the skill points and vistas (completionist freak). In the course of this I came across several small bands of enemies, and managed to get 4 PvP kills (yay!) and died a few times too.

It was fun, albeit a bit baffling at times, but it made me realise that while I've been merrily going through PvE content I don't have a good idea of how best to tackle other players. On the other hand, I almost have my Guardian fully geared now (need a couple more exotic armour pieces and trinkets) so I may as well start upping my skill. Any pointers? My Guardian is Radiance/Honour/Virtues with high crit chance/damage and reasonable health (>17,000). It's definitely not a tanking build but it's proved versatile so far and has utility and can do decent damage.

I like staff and scepter/focus for PvE and while I can see uses for that vs groups I think Hammer might work better for 1v1 - maybe with Superior Sigil of Hydromancy on weapon swap and hammer '5' to stop them running away ...

Tales of Tyria just (ok - last week) did an episode devoted to the guardian.
Haven't listened yet, but I found the necro one useful.

Cod wrote:

Tales of Tyria just (ok - last week) did an episode devoted to the guardian.
Haven't listened yet, but I found the necro one useful.

The episode was decent but it was a little awkward listening to it. They recorded right before the patch and released it right after. They talked a lot about pure voice not working reliably etc. and a couple of other things. They were pretty high on altruistic healing and support builds over all.

Oldgoat wrote:
Eleima wrote:

So yeah, I'm not gonna stop playing my Elementalist just because she hit 80. She's not dead yet! She feels fine! ;)

And she does look marvelous :)

Yeah, sure, for now she does! But I've just picked up shoulder armor and boots with better stats than what I had... And they're level 80 gear, so no basic transmutation stone will do the trick. And there's no way I'm going out and buying gems for fine transmutation stones, especially since I just know I'm going to find better armor eventually. Kinda makes me wish I'd gotten the tier one cultural armor earlier, I would've gotten more use out of it. Bleh, curse you ArenaNet!! As it is, I'm just going to hang out to my snapdragon armor and swap out the better gear when I'm out and about.

I'd also been toying with the idea of going back to Guild Wars and trying to net some extra points for the Hall of Monuments, but... I've got three missions left in Prophecies, nothing done in Eye of the North, so I'll just scrap that and enjoy GW2. I've got heritage armor, so I guess that's a start.

I really need to stop overthinking this stuff and just enjoy the game!

I'm still intending to go back to GW1 because I still want to finish the campaigns I never did, the HoM points will just be a bonus. My main issue is that GW1 is a rather complicated game to walk back into after a very long absence. I always forget how to play between visits.

Yeah, same here, I forget what half of my skills do. Well, if you ever decide to dive back into it, just give me a sign!

I did have the lv 80 transmutation stones drop - either from a Black Lion Chest or from 100%ing a high level area ... I don't recall which. So don't lose heart! I've bought more since, as I'm using mostly Asura cultural weapon skins and I want my character to look a certain way. I figure buying a few gems cant hurt as so far ive played this $60 game for 400 hours - so by definition its better value than anything ill play all year. I've found between farming Orr events like Plinx and the various world boss chests it's become easier to fund gear.

Oh, I agree! I must've spent 150 hours on GW2, and I didn't even spend 60$ on it, since I only got it in October (the price had already dropped a bit, if I recall correctly). However, as I've already kickstarted Jon Shafer's At the Gates, and Dreamfall Chapters this month, I'm gonna try and slow down on the expenses. Good to hear that they do drop, though, because according to the wiki, they don't drop at all!
I do try to use the trading post to sell stuff I get in chests and extra crafting resources, but making money has been slow going for the most part. I guess it's because I'm not farming, but really focusing on map exploration with my Sylvari now (or doing the story). Which just isn't all that lucrative. (Although I do have over 60 transmutation stones now! )

Eleima wrote:

Oh, I agree! I must've spent 150 hours on GW2, and I didn't even spend 60$ on it, since I only got it in October (the price had already dropped a bit, if I recall correctly). However, as I've already kickstarted Jon Shafer's At the Gates, and Dreamfall Chapters this month, I'm gonna try and slow down on the expenses. Good to hear that they do drop, though, because according to the wiki, they don't drop at all!
I do try to use the trading post to sell stuff I get in chests and extra crafting resources, but making money has been slow going for the most part. I guess it's because I'm not farming, but really focusing on map exploration with my Sylvari now (or doing the story). Which just isn't all that lucrative. (Although I do have over 60 transmutation stones now! )

They don't drop in the traditional sense of mob loot, but you can get them from Black Lion Chests. I think I got a few as either a map completion reward or story mission reward as well, but could be misremembering. I've been using a lot of the basic ones as I level my alts.

Elycion wrote:

I'm still intending to go back to GW1 because I still want to finish the campaigns I never did, the HoM points will just be a bonus. My main issue is that GW1 is a rather complicated game to walk back into after a very long absence. I always forget how to play between visits.

Well one of the big changes in the last year before GW2 is that you can now run full parties of heroes. If you had all the heroes unlocked and load out the right you can sleepwalk though the campaigns in normal mode and most of hard mode as well.

I don't have all the heroes unlocked, but I do have all the Nightfall ones as well as Moxx and a couple of the EotN ones that you can pick up right at the beginning.

It's the full hero party that makes it tougher to go back in one respect because I have to build up not only my own character but also research and set up all the heroes too.

I got 100% of Nightfall done in "hard mode" for the title when I was playing and made it through maybe half of Factions before I was distracted by other shiny things. Half of Factions, all of Prophecies, and most of EotN left to go so it'll probably take me about another four years.

7 Hero Player Support Track down all the skills for this and you'll be golden.

Did another hour or so of WvW, my kill count now stands at 32 (according to the achievement panel). Most of those were with staff. Hammer seems effective in melee, and with hyrdomancy it was a nasty surprise for the staff ele that tried to jump me on my way back to keep. He ended up running the hell away as fast as his legs would carry him. It was hilarious. I just need to practice more, I think. I tend to panic under pressure but I'm getting better. I'll be sticking with zergs for a while until I get a feel for things. It's amazing fun though

I'm in the same boat as Elycion, it would probably take me another couple of years!
As for the fine black lion chests, I always have a couple that are either rewards for map completion or dailies or whatever, it's more a matter about finding the keys to them (usually from story completion). No worries, though, I recently found level 79 gear that was better than the level 80 gear that'd dropped! XD So I'm using up those basic transmutation stones for now.

Also, a big thank you to Tyops, Madlink, SofaCommando and Tscott for putting up with me last night and hand-walking me through the Honor of the Waves dungeons!! Hooray!! I'm no longer a dungeon virgin, and I was downed less than ten times! (Okay, less than fifteen, for sure! ) Thanks guys, you're the best!

Edit: Also, you guys might've started something here, unbeknown to you... Now that those 60 koda totems are in my inventory, staring at me... I kinda want the Honor of the Waves armor now!

Honor of the Waves looks great. I've wanted it on a few of my characters, but I got a recipe for a Ring of Blood where my master jeweler can turn 200 koda totems into a ring that sells for over 4 gold on the trading post. So I never got around to getting any of the armor.

But if I'm ever around when you want to do HotW, be sure to ask. I could always use more totems.

Sounds good to me! It'll probably be slowgoing, though I can never seem to get groups going during the week. Which isn't all surprising, really, time zones being what they are; by the time some of you may be good to go, I'm just about ready to drop of exhaustion!
I think my next step is definitely going to be buying some bank slots, though... I spent about 20 minutes character hopping last to make some space in bank account.
Incidentally, is there any reason I should be holding on to cogs and toy components from the Wintersday event? I sold what I could (bell skin for the focus, princess wand skin for the scepter, rifle skin), but I still have cogs, toy frames and finishers that are account bound. Chuck 'em and spend 'em? Or hoard 'em?...

babakotia wrote:

Did another hour or so of WvW, my kill count now stands at 32 (according to the achievement panel). Most of those were with staff. Hammer seems effective in melee, and with hyrdomancy it was a nasty surprise for the staff ele that tried to jump me on my way back to keep. He ended up running the hell away as fast as his legs would carry him. It was hilarious. I just need to practice more, I think. I tend to panic under pressure but I'm getting better. I'll be sticking with zergs for a while until I get a feel for things. It's amazing fun though :)

I carry as one weapon set a scepter...and focus I think is the off hand. I generally keep the staff equipped in the other slot, but swap it out for greatsword or hammer, and sometimes even shield and mace, depending on the fight. But usually staff for running around cause of the aoe speed buff. (Which is also great in fights).

Pro tip: Inside keeps, use the staff 1 to sweep the keep for enemy mez and rogues. Also, scepter AOE will hit people on walls at keeps.

I got my 1000th WvW kill at some point on Sunday =)

..and I would guess a solid third of those have been from just the last 2-3 weeks of rocking my DD Ele.

I've also been having more luck lately getting 1-2 guildies to join me in WvW for some roaming and camp capping ...and it does seem like guildies in general are getting more interested in WvW.. so by all means if you are curious/interested and see me on(in WvW or not) .. let me know and we'll join up.

i'd love to work towards having a guild party trained in team tactics and battle strategy =)

Thanks for the tips! Kill count at 80 and rising

If you have a high crit build, staff can be very effective against groups I've found. My Guardian packs decent damage (for the class; we don't have much burst) and good support skills and vit, but lacks the toughness to handle 1v1 or 2v1 combat well. Actually, while I enjoy doing WvW on my Guardian, I can't help but feel that the class has a few limitations, particularly so at range. So I'm now starting levelling up my Charr warrior to 80 (she was at 42 when I dropped her, and hasn't started crafting yet so it shouldn't take too long). I'll be gearing her specifically with WvW in mind; while running with the zerg is fun I also like the idea of roaming but my Guardian build isn't right for that.

And there's no harm in a little variety

babakotia wrote:

WvW Stuff

- Food will make a great difference. If you are poor, you go down a few levels. Instead of picking up the L80 version food, pick up the L60 70 75. Something like blackberry pies will still give you an amazing return at something like 3c each. (life gain on crit)
- When you are geared out, I go full food and nourishment. Nourishment will give you a handsome boost in power or prec or condition damage (sharpening stone, maintenance oil, or crystals)
- To top it off, carry an alternate weapon with a sigil stacker - the ones that give +10 power/precision/condition/healing power. You can only choose one, then swap to another weapon when you are maxed out. Beat on wildlife when things are quiet to gain stacks. +250 extra stats is huge
- Any class with a swiftness weapon, I will carry that weapon as backup. I place it same spot in my inventory across all characters. You can switch to it, cast the swiftness, and swap weapons while still casting. Small tip - if you are using warhorn, swap out of it from a 2H weapon (if you normally use one). It's quicker to swap out of 2H, then with 1H. For example, my necro uses dagger offhand. If he swapped from that, I would have to dbl click warhorn, swift, right click on my dagger - equip in offhand.
- Hotkey camera look back key. I use it all the time to see if I'm being followed. Fighting a random veteran guard? Tap the key to check your rear to make sure a huge zerg isn't about to descend on you.
- Don't be too attached to a build's utility skills. Swap them out if you need to, especially for large battle vs solo.

I stack precision on my off-hand (sigil of perception), but I'm considering changing it out for something like Sigil of Force. It definitely makes a difference to my crit rate, but I find it takes a while in regular play to charge up and I lose the benefit if I'm downed or TP to a different zone ... so, a flat but always there 5% increase in damage probably wouldn't be so bad.

Food is something I'm still not using, and I should be. The lifesteal stuff got a nerf recently (1 second cooldown?) but apparently it's still effective.

And I didn't know about the camera. Will absolutely use that! Thanks

for sigils, I highly recommend hydromancy on your secondary set.

a 2-3 second chill as you change gears can make all the difference between a solid rotation and collapsing under the strain.

Speaking of levelling up, I've been away from the game for a few months and am hovering aroudn lvl 28. Is WvW a fast way to level up? I wanna try some dungeons.

El-Producto wrote:

Speaking of levelling up, I've been away from the game for a few months and am hovering aroudn lvl 28. Is WvW a fast way to level up? I wanna try some dungeons.

I can't speak yet to WvW for your specific question (sorry) but have leveled to 66 in a couple of weeks so it seems pretty quick no matter what I do.

I have a totally full inventory and I have no idea what to do with it all. Sell it? Salvage?
My god its tough getting back into an Mmo after a hiatus.