Guild Wars 2 Catch All

Eleima wrote:

I'd stick to that race and class if you're having fun with it. Be sure to ask if anyone is up to leveling an alt with you in guild chat. Other that, you can head to Queensdale (via the gate to Lion's Arch in the Black Citadel then head to Divinity's Reach then south - it's the human stating area and usually packed). Maybe lay off the story and just explore, do hearts, vistas?

I don't know if i'm enjoying it. I just run around hitting stuff until I die. Then I go to the next orange circle and repeat.

IUMogg wrote:
Eleima wrote:

I'd stick to that race and class if you're having fun with it. Be sure to ask if anyone is up to leveling an alt with you in guild chat. Other that, you can head to Queensdale (via the gate to Lion's Arch in the Black Citadel then head to Divinity's Reach then south - it's the human stating area and usually packed). Maybe lay off the story and just explore, do hearts, vistas?

I don't know if i'm enjoying it. I just run around hitting stuff until I die. Then I go to the next orange circle and repeat.

Have you done your personal quests? I remember the personal story for the Charr being decent if not Mass Effect/Skyrim quality. What level are you? If you're in your 30s you can do your first dungeon (which is a lot of fun) and be useful in World v world. Sadly, I experienced the same thing as you early on. If you keep with it there is a lot of fun group content, but the leveling experience was designed for groups. So IMHO it's rather boring if you're just grinding hearts and solo events. If you can stick with it, warrior is an awesome class and one of the most versatile in the game.

IUMogg wrote:

Any tips to help me enjoy this game? I just picked it up a few weeks, but haven't been able to play it much. I've been playing as a Charr warrior. I'm about lv 10. I still don't know what I'm doing. I think I'm the only person in the starting area. It just hasn't clicked at all. Should I try a different race or class?

I was also going to suggest a dungeon, but it's a bit early.

Strongly recommend you use all your char slots to try out more of the classes, not only might there be one that clicks more for you, it'll also give you a better window into how everything else works.

exploring all 6 cities and 5 starting areas keeps it fresh and gives you an easier leveling curve

Definitely experiment with races and classes. Some starting areas are better than others and mechanics change drastically between classes.

combat is dynamic, make sure you move and dodge constantly. Do some research to make sure you're playing the class 'right.'

Try find the balance between story and side quests that suits you. I find if I get side tracked too often in any game I get bored.

some starting areas may have more population too, you don't necessarily need to group, but the content and challenges are best experienced in company.

oh, and level 10 on your first character is very early. You are probably some way from finding your feet.

Find and do a jumping puzzle, the ones in Calendon forest are particularly deadly/fun.

But, if the lack of people in the starting area bothers you, definitely go to Queensdale. The Dynamic Events (orange circles) scale, and can be either more interestnig or more rewarding with folks around to help finish them.

Finally, and this advice for the whole game, if you notice NPCs talking to each other during a Dynamic Event, hang around for a bit after the event ends, sometimes the events are part of a chain with some great little mini stories.

They really need to start taking the limitations of the game into account when they make new content. Attempting to enter the Tower of Nightmares is mostly a nightmare of overflows. I ended up repeatedly in an overflow with far too few people to make any real progress in scaling the tower, and the first Nightmare Chamber held only humdrum clockwork enemies and a chest which gave me two blues and a green. Joys.

IUMogg wrote:

Any tips to help me enjoy this game? I just picked it up a few weeks, but haven't been able to play it much. I've been playing as a Charr warrior. I'm about lv 10. I still don't know what I'm doing. I think I'm the only person in the starting area. It just hasn't clicked at all. Should I try a different race or class?

Part of your issue might be that you picked pretty much the simplest most straightforward class to play in the regular overworld content. Warrior is a solid class and very useful in almost all facets of the game but levelling one is a little bit humdrum.

As others have said, make use of your other character slots to get a sense for the feel of other classes/races. Even go for something you wouldnt normally be attracted to and see how it goes.

Apparently, the game is priced at 29.99$ on the Hunble Sale Site. So if you have any friends still on the fence...

Tyops wrote:
IUMogg wrote:

Any tips to help me enjoy this game? I just picked it up a few weeks, but haven't been able to play it much. I've been playing as a Charr warrior. I'm about lv 10. I still don't know what I'm doing. I think I'm the only person in the starting area. It just hasn't clicked at all. Should I try a different race or class?

Part of your issue might be that you picked pretty much the simplest most straightforward class to play in the regular overworld content. Warrior is a solid class and very useful in almost all facets of the game but levelling one is a little bit humdrum.

As others have said, make use of your other character slots to get a sense for the feel of other classes/races. Even go for something you wouldnt normally be attracted to and see how it goes.

Agreed. An engineer (turrets and kits), or one of the light armour classes (necro - minions, elementalist - elemental magic, mesmer - illusions and copies) might be more exciting. My main is an 80 warrior, and it's a solid class, but it's pretty similar to warriors in other MMOs. The other classes I mentioned have much more distinctive and varied gameplay depending on how you spec.

Tyops wrote:
IUMogg wrote:

As others have said, make use of your other character slots to get a sense for the feel of other classes/races. Even go for something you wouldnt normally be attracted to and see how it goes.

It is REALLY EASY to try out all of the characters at max level.
1. Start a level 1 character/class
2. Go to the Heart of the Mists (Instant teleport from button in top left)
3. ?
4. Get level 80 Character will all skills unlocked, play around with them and read them
5. Kill the NPC sparring partners towards the back of the heart of the mists.
6. Profit

My second night attempting to do the Tower of Nightmares was much like the first, a frustrating and awkward trek through way more mobs and aoe than I could handle. Are you guys having more success?

We went through as a guild group with a larger group last night. It was good, but I know what you are talking about. I think the way AN set this up is wrong. A instance like the aetherblades would have been better.

Yeah, I don't really have a group for this one. I approached it like I would an open world event but I'm always in overflow and people are pretty spread out or otherwise just running for it. Even my tanky guard didn't help all that much. Haven't managed to get to level 3 yet or use my key pieces. If I had an Engi I'd probably be desperate for the gas mask, but as it is I'll probably craft my Necro to 80 and then take a break for a week or two.

I feel they need to work more on scaling events, balancing population in overflows, or allowing larger party sizes and raid instances for this kind of thing. There's too much zerging generally and that seems to play more to the game's current weaknesses than its strengths.

Wow, I'm having the complete opposite experience in the Tower. I rather enjoy being able to run through it as part of a zerg and not needing to take the time to put together a group and slog through at a 5-man pace. I ran the tower from bottom to top somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen times yesterday and I don't think I ever had to wait more than 5-10 minutes tops for a fresh zerg to form up at an event so I could tag along.

There definitely are a lot of folks who choose to run through everything, but that only gets you as far as the next event at which point you need to hook up with a larger force to continue. Overall it works better to just stick with a group as it moves through until you hit the instance you're looking for.

babakotia wrote:

My second night attempting to do the Tower of Nightmares was much like the first, a frustrating and awkward trek through way more mobs and aoe than I could handle. Are you guys having more success? :(

You can always ask in guild chat to see if someone is in a better overflow, in which case you can join their group and the right click on their name to join the same overflow.

Short of that, you can try logging in and out until you see a map with commanders.

Elycion wrote:

Wow, I'm having the complete opposite experience in the Tower. I rather enjoy being able to run through it as part of a zerg and not needing to take the time to put together a group and slog through at a 5-man pace. I ran the tower from bottom to top somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen times yesterday and I don't think I ever had to wait more than 5-10 minutes tops for a fresh zerg to form up at an event so I could tag along.

There definitely are a lot of folks who choose to run through everything, but that only gets you as far as the next event at which point you need to hook up with a larger force to continue. Overall it works better to just stick with a group as it moves through until you hit the instance you're looking for.

The thing is with zergs, there are no strategy, no thinking, and generally boring, by the numbers encounters.

Tenebrous wrote:

The thing is with zergs, there are no strategy, no thinking, and generally boring, by the numbers encounters.

True enough, but there are plenty of more casual players such as myself that aren't looking for everything to be a great challenge. I'd think that even with a zerg the sheer amount of AE and other things to pay attention to during this event keeps it from being boring.

Tenebrous wrote:
Elycion wrote:

Wow, I'm having the complete opposite experience in the Tower. I rather enjoy being able to run through it as part of a zerg and not needing to take the time to put together a group and slog through at a 5-man pace. I ran the tower from bottom to top somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen times yesterday and I don't think I ever had to wait more than 5-10 minutes tops for a fresh zerg to form up at an event so I could tag along.

There definitely are a lot of folks who choose to run through everything, but that only gets you as far as the next event at which point you need to hook up with a larger force to continue. Overall it works better to just stick with a group as it moves through until you hit the instance you're looking for.

The thing is with zergs, there are no strategy, no thinking, and generally boring, by the numbers encounters.

Spent a bit of time in the tower yesterday and my experience seems to also have been different. I did go up from start to finish a couple of times and zergs seemed to be a non factor. Usually I would wait at the entrance of a level for 1-2 people to come by and we would just go. It's fairly easy to make your wait to the next boss/event as small groups and those events serve as decent bottlenecks for others to catch up.

The trickiest part is level 3. With the exploding spore plants all over the place for large sections you pretty much have to run through to the next spot where you can take a breather. I saw many many groups yesterday who were caught and wiped when someone got downed in an awkward spot, those plants respawn really fast and they hit hard (myself included trying to be nice).

Spent about half the time partied up with circle and having two people was nice for that section. We did ask in guild chat if anyone else wanted to come to our party, but there wasnt any interest at the time.

All of the instances are doable solo, and in fact they are probably easier that way.

I had another go tonight, and this time it went a lot better with me finding a decent group and no overflow. Got to the top and completed the instance (which was very well done despite the whole Scarlet story being incredibly poor and just ... ugh). Opened the tricolor chest and got some mediocre loots. All in all, this seems extremely dependent on having the right numbers of players (or the right players, period). Definitely some nice stuff there, maybe not as well implemented as it could have been.

One thing that confused me - I beat the Champion Hybrid in the end instance, but got no achievements from it. I beat it solo and as far as I know, no-one died. I did get the injector achievement, so hmm.

Some of the achievements are locked until you beat the Hybrid once. You have to repeat it to get them all.

I imagine you l33t types could solo the hybrid without dying, but I found it punishingly difficult (full berserker warrior with poor dodging skills). After the first time I didn't get any NPC help any more, and the aetherblade laser bit just ate my dodge meter. With three of us in a PUG it was pretty easy to get the mini krait thingy though.

DudleySmith wrote:

I imagine you l33t types could solo the hybrid without dying, but I found it punishingly difficult (full berserker warrior with poor dodging skills). After the first time I didn't get any NPC help any more, and the aetherblade laser bit just ate my dodge meter. With three of us in a PUG it was pretty easy to get the mini krait thingy though.

I dont know your build but assuming its the meta 30/25/0/0/15 you could consider re-traiting. Going 30 in defence (dogged march, cleansing ire, endure pain) adds a lot of survivability even to a zerker. Dolyak signet will give you 150 toughness or clutch stability. The base vitality should be good enough I would have thought. Maybe 0/10/30/0/30.

babakotia wrote:
DudleySmith wrote:

I imagine you l33t types could solo the hybrid without dying, but I found it punishingly difficult (full berserker warrior with poor dodging skills). After the first time I didn't get any NPC help any more, and the aetherblade laser bit just ate my dodge meter. With three of us in a PUG it was pretty easy to get the mini krait thingy though.

I dont know your build but assuming its the meta 30/25/0/0/15 you could consider re-traiting. Going 30 in defence (dogged march, cleansing ire, endure pain) adds a lot of survivability even to a zerker. Dolyak signet will give you 150 toughness or clutch stability. The base vitality should be good enough I would have thought. Maybe 0/10/30/0/30.

Oh yes, if soloing was a requirement I could do that (you're right about my build, btw), after grouping it was fine. I am persisting with forcing myself to dodge and move better and keeping the glass cannon PVE build, at least for the time being. Most of the time I'm doing dungeons where I find myself with binary health anyway. Either Lupicus / Subject Alpha's AOE misses me and I'm alive, or it hits me and I'm dead.

If you haven't already, bind dodge to a key (I use the default v) and disable double tap to dodge.

DudleySmith wrote:

I imagine you l33t types could solo the hybrid without dying, but I found it punishingly difficult (full berserker warrior with poor dodging skills). After the first time I didn't get any NPC help any more, and the aetherblade laser bit just ate my dodge meter. With three of us in a PUG it was pretty easy to get the mini krait thingy though.

Yeah I havent gone full zerk with my warrior yet. I have knights armor / melandru runes / zerk trinkets. I just breezed through it. I think the extra toughness and reduced condition duration makes a pretty big difference for this instance.

Badferret wrote:

If you haven't already, bind dodge to a key (I use the default v) and disable double tap to dodge.

I've read that before but have never done it. How do you control the direction of the dodge? Or does that matter in situations where doing it in one keystrokes shaves just that bit of time you need shaved to survive?

Tyops wrote:
DudleySmith wrote:

I imagine you l33t types could solo the hybrid without dying, but I found it punishingly difficult (full berserker warrior with poor dodging skills). After the first time I didn't get any NPC help any more, and the aetherblade laser bit just ate my dodge meter. With three of us in a PUG it was pretty easy to get the mini krait thingy though.

Yeah I havent gone full zerk with my warrior yet. I have knights armor / melandru runes / zerk trinkets. I just breezed through it. I think the extra toughness and reduced condition duration makes a pretty big difference for this instance.

I have yet to see or feel the true merit of going full zerk. I know a lot of the folks that post builds on Youtube and whatnot advocate it. For dungeon runs though, I get by just fine with zerk/knight/PVT combo gear. Might not set any speed records, but I get through.

Delmarqo wrote:
Badferret wrote:

If you haven't already, bind dodge to a key (I use the default v) and disable double tap to dodge.

I've read that before but have never done it. How do you control the direction of the dodge? Or does that matter in situations where doing it in one keystrokes shaves just that bit of time you need shaved to survive?

You hold the direction key you want to dodge in when you press the key. I didn't find that it saved any time vs double tapping. It's main benefit is that you'll no longer dodge when you don't want to, and you won't miss a dodge because you didn't double-tap quickly enough. You also won't accidentally use up your dodge energy when you were just trying to move, and you'll be much less likely to dodge off a cliff when doing any precision jumping.