Guild Wars 2 Catch All

Gah, I meant to post a reminder to folks to log in and unlock Chapter 1 of Living World Season 3 before this week.... but I didn't, so if you do come back to the game and you hadn't logged into the game in awhile you will need to purchase Chapter 1 with gems. Opps.

On the positive side, Chapter 2 is now out, and it once again came with a new map, in fact the new map is one of the largest in the whole game. I won't spoil it, but the new map is also in a region of Tyria not seen since GW!. Anet also said they plan on continuing to release new chapters every 2 to 3 months and that each Chapter will probably have its own map.

Finally, as a surprise to many, another new legendary weapon was introduced and the Devs have said they will continue to release new weapons until they have completed the new set.

I logged in and played a little bit of S3C1 a few weeks ago. Either I got really rusty, the new content is just hard, and/or Mesmer/Chrono got nerfed in the meantime. I wasn't really sucked back in though, the first new zone was crazy, really vertical and the monsters hit hard when you're a squishy. I've been having the itch for immersive fantasy escape again, and GW2 just doesn't seem to fit that bill. Been on hiatus for the last 3-4 months, feeling like I need to make a decision at some point about whether to keep playing.

I would at least try the new zone, much more of a core Tyria feel and it even has Hearts.

With my computer out of commission, I guess I won't be unlocking season three. I still haven't finished season two anyhow, so... =/

I've been on a hiatus for about 2 years now. The last time I logged in was to grab the Season 2 free chapter and then..... nothing

Just read through a bunch of comments and glad that mesmer is still as odd as it was. Might pay a visit sometime since I recently upgraded my PC and can finally run it with max details

Couple bits of news.

A Crack in the Ice, the next chapter in the current living world season comes out on Monday. This means you have less than 5 days to log in and unlock Chapter 2 for free if you haven't already. As with the previous two LS chapters this season, this one will be accompanied by another new map. As well as a new Fractal and a new legendary weapon, the second shield.

Also, Heart of Thorns is half off until the 22nd as well.

Question time, because i don't trust wiki-crawling to find a simple answer.

I saw there's a new fractal, and it's getting some good buzz for being a teaching instance as well as having a high skill cap in the end. As somebody who's just recently back in GW2, and only ever did one dungeon (Ascalon something) over two years ago when i first played, what's a fractal? It sounds kind of like an instant, relatively short, non-story dungeon, but there's also something about challenge modes and difficulty levels. My normal approach for questions like this is just to jump in and poke around to figure it out, but i don't want to do that with group content for obvious reasons.

Fractals are a separate 5 man instance mode, with a hub to them in Lion's Arch.

They do indeed start out as a short alternative to dungeons though they scale in difficulty on a current scale of 1 to 100.

When you first start out with them, they are extremely easy to pug and normally take about 10 to 20 minutes each.

By the time you get to the scale 100 fractal, they can be very challenging and as you mentioned, the new fractal even has a challenge mode that is evidently some of the hardest content in the game.

As for Dungeons, while they still offer OKish rewards, they are not currently being supported by Anet with all of their endgame efforts going to Raids and Fractals instead.

As for grouping, you can always PUG using the LFG tool, just look for runs advertised as casual or learning/teaching under the Fractals tab.

Or, you can join the guild that most of the active GWJers are in: Zealots of Shiverpeaks.

Wait -- what? Which game have I been playing then? I run around the map and do the missions and see the sights and hit monsters until they fall down. So that's "Map Completion", I guess. I had the impression that was GW2. The more I learn about the game, the more I realize there are whole swaths of it of which I'm not even aware.

Friendly reminder to log in before next Tuesday the 7th if you want to unlock the most recent Living World chapter. Another one launches on that date.

Anet's patch day was snowed out, but our rag tag group of old fogies finally cleared the first GW2 raid boss, the Vale Guardian, which we have been banging our heads against since the raid came out in the fall of 2015. We redoubled our efforts this past summer with a more or less stable group and finally saw real progress week to week, with several attempts ending in the single digits. Cut to tonight, and we cleared the Vale Guardian on our first attempt (with most of our raid dead, but those are just details.) We were so excited by our progress that we went to another raid wing that starts with an easier boss, but that is gated by needing to have beaten at least one other raid mob first, and we one shot that one as well.

The raiding groups in our guild have long had this on farm and the elite guilds out there can low man all of this content, but for our group, which we have had to encourage each other on gearing, builds, rotations and just practicing the dance, it was quite the fun feeling to finally taste victory.

To quote Syrio Forel;
There is only one god and his name is Death, and there is only one thing we say to Death: "Not today!"

I think this is the first time I have heard of a patch delayed by snowstorm. I kind of like it.

Snow really slows down the storage and network squirrels.

WP has a very long, but very interesting video about a long standing mystery of Guild Wars lore which was just revealed in the latest raid, dealing with:

Spoiler:

Saul D'alessio

Highly recommended for fans of GW1.

So have they made raids easy enough for casual players to at least try them, or have they remained the modern equivalent of Realm of Torment/The Deep? I'm hoping they've become a little more accessible especially if the writing team is using raids to move the story forward or to answer long awaited questions.

How much is the GW2 expansion now? Worth it for casuals?

Natus wrote:

How much is the GW2 expansion now? Worth it for casuals?

I played for well over 100 hours and didn't scratch the surface of free content. I also played completely solo which, to me, screams casual for an MMO. I bought the game towards the end of my play time just as a thanks.

Natus wrote:

How much is the GW2 expansion now? Worth it for casuals?

It's back to full price after being half off last week. They seem to be running sales every time they launch a new living story chapter, so, every 2 to 3 months.

jdzappa wrote:

So have they made raids easy enough for casual players to at least try them, or have they remained the modern equivalent of Realm of Torment/The Deep? I'm hoping they've become a little more accessible especially if the writing team is using raids to move the story forward or to answer long awaited questions.

Haven't tried the new raid, but from early reports the first bosses are easier, with optional challenge modes but I don't think they are super casual friendly.

Natus wrote:

How much is the GW2 expansion now? Worth it for casuals?

Totally worth it.

I play periodically, a few times a year in bursts, and for me it's been totally worth it.

Reminder to log in and unlock Chapter 4 of the the current living season before Tuesday to avoid having to pay for it later.

The penultimate chapter, Flashpoint comes out on the 2nd. Which means the final chapter comes most likely in July, before a rumored fall release for the next expansion.

Also, Heart of Thorns new regular price is $30 US.

I actually updated my client after 2 years of not playing and puttered around for half an hour, i'm pretty lost. going to have to read up on all the changes before diving back in and then maybe pick the expansion.

I still log in every other day to unlock rewards, but the most I've done this past month is create another Sylvari and run around Caledon forest, do a jumping puzzle or two. Even though I bought Heart of Thorns day one, I've barely touched it, can't even use a glider, all my characters capped at 80.
But I kinda don't regret it, because GW2 is kinda "comfort gaming" in a way.

Information on the next expansion appears to have leaked. I haven't linked anything in case you don't want to be spoiled, but the info is readily available through the GW2 Sub-reddit, and is interesting.

Tengu!? Oh say it's the Tengu!!

Maybe it's time to come back:

Spoiler:

looks like they are going back to Crystal Desert and parts of Vabbi which I really enjoyed in Nightfall. Also some cool sounding new elite specs and mounts!

Ooooh, I'd be okay with that!!!!

Has anyone heard if Anet is making a presence at E3? I'd love to get some more preliminary info on the expansion.

Also I just started an ele and am thinking of boosting him to 80. Anyone have advice on whether to do that or not? I've heard conflicting reports that elementalists are too tricky to jump into, while others say tempest is a relatively easy spec so rush to 80 as fast as possible.

I didn't boost my Ele to max, but I did use Tomes of Knowledge to level from 20 to max. I didn't have any problems. By boosting you will get Exotic gear to start, so you should be in a better spot than I was. I say go for it.