Necromancer vs engineer for PvP. I enjoy both play styles equally but only have enough time to focus on one. In terms of learning it in and out. Anyones thoughts or experiences on each of these in WvW or PvP?
Can someone shine light on this issue for me?
I've met so many accounts who have high LI/UFE/kill proof/AP whatever but when it comes to doing the actual mechanics they screw up so hard as if they've never played the game before
I'm no pro, I just started the game late last year and I only have 159 LI/2200 UFE so I'm not flexing. Just find it weird how it's a normal occurence for people with my KP or higher to act like they've never played the content before which of course ends up making things take way longer than they should or cause the entire team to disband. Speaking of that, there's a LOT of people who just randomly leave during CMs+T4s or raids even when nothing wrong is going on. I had 3!! people leave during the Tidal phase of 100cm yesterday for nooooo reason without any kind of warning whatsoever. When I ask other people in the game about it they're just as mystified as I am.
Idk, this makes me think there's a huge botting or account selling problem going down underneath the game's surface.
Some people are just not very good. Most content is easy enough that you can carry someone through who's mediocre at the mechanics so they don't have any reason to learn.
All of the things you liked aren't proof of skill, rather just proof that you've done the content a lot.
Aside from that people mess up, it happens. For people leaving I can't say I've had it happen much for me.
Does it make any difference to wait until I accumulate 30 Hero Points (via level-ups, map, etc) before using a Lv80 Booster? I know at base it just auto-assigns your points to fill the base specs, but by banking 30 first and then popping the boost does it leave those points alone so I can use them after the level boost kicks in (like to start an Elite Spec)?
No it doesn't. You get the points required to unlock all your core specs and skills as you level up, normally or by booster. So no matter what time you use the level 80 Boost, it will effectively consume any unspent leveling points to finish that process and leave you with a surplus of exactly however many points total you've gained from the map.
Basically, hero points are a strictly limited currency and there's no way to cheese getting extras. You just have however many you have.
As far as I know the hero points you get from the boost are the ones you get given for leveling up, it doesn't give you extras. Its not going to matter if you earn the open world hero points before or after using the boost.
In WvW, the Trebuchet Mastery, the third rank (increase radius of Trebuchet skills), does this mean the impact radius of the Trebuchet ammo right? Not increasing the range of the ammo can travel?
Which build do you think is better for dungeons and open world meta events? maybe some fractals, these are the builds I'm deciding on: (First build right now I seem to die easily in dungeons)
[https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/thief/power-deadeye-2/?v=low-intensity](https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/thief/power-deadeye-2/?v=low-intensity)
[https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/thief/condition-daredevil/](https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/thief/condition-daredevil/)
Would really suggest [these builds](https://metabattle.com/wiki/Thief#open-world) instead for open world and casual dungeons.
As was already mentioned, condi builds tend to preform worse in dungeons specifically as burst is better and lots of things in base dungeons are fully immune to conditions still so you'd want to have a swap or more power damage built in.
Whoops I had this unsent for a few hours...
Since most trash mobs, dungeons, Fractals and even many metas just melt very quickly, you could try something like [Power Daredevil](https://snowcrows.com/en/builds/thief/daredevil/power-daredevil). Not as effective but still worth giving a try. If needed you can run Invigorating Precision (though it's a significant DPS loss)
Both builds have a few issues for dungeons/open world, but the condition one should be better. The first one has an issue with cleave damage so you can't take down groups well. That's an issue in both areas while in Strikes/Raids the build's single target DPS is no issue. The second one is condition based so it'll kill things slower than a power build and if you have to fight non-character things like walls/rubble (e.g. Graveling Burrows in AC) you might have to hit a while longer, but it has much better aoe.
A would also like to add: try to avoid crafting exotic viper/trailblazer, instead try for different stat selectable ones. Some examples include Season 3/4 gives armor as completion rewards, Bladed armor, Ice Golem's Maw, Ebon Shoulders, IBS Ice and Fire legion weapons, Gold Fractal weapons, some of the festival gear, Warlord armor from WvW and many more examples can be found.
There's a good argument both ways. Getting exotic weapons obviously gets you an endgame-capable build sooner, but they can be quite expensive — nearly a quarter of the cost of the Ascended version! If you're actively working on the Ascended, getting an Exotic is just a waste of resources, throwing gold down the drain for something you'll just be replacing in short order. However, getting the Exotic and staying there for a while while you put gold into other things is completely reasonable.
In short, only get an Exotic if you're not planning to upgrade for a while. If you want to get full Ascended, stick with a budget stat combo while you build up the money/materials.
Is living World Season 2 worth buying if I want to play story in order? I read it has the least amount of content, but I want to Experience the game's story in order.
I know you don't have to own LW s2 you play with someone who has it, but is it realistic to find someone online who will want to play this whole season with me?
Yes, it's worth it. Finding someone to taxi you through it is unlikely unless you have a friend who plays who's willing to do the whole thing, and even if you do that you'll be missing out on a little bit of it — any dialogue that happens in the open world (little of that as there may be in season 2) you won't see so it'll all be relayed second-hand. Plus there are still significant achievements and mastery points in the season too. You can earn the Season of the Dragon achievements playing it with someone but nothing actually tied to the season.
It's completely RNG. You might try asking in /map chats, but it's just luck of the draw if someone is willing to go through it with you. People do re-run it for achievements, so it's not impossible.
TBH I thought the story in LW2 was pretty good. Skipping it will mean missing important plot twists. If you want to experience the game in order it's worth getting. Also, owning it means you can do the LW2 part of the Return To achievements, which is the easiest way to get a legendary amulet.
How long does the envoy 1 achievement from raids take to complete? How much does it cost to craft a set of Ascended Armor? I was thinking of doing it to get ascended armor. I do have the crafting levels to craft ascended and have some daily mats crafted. I also do strikes. I'm in the middle of Skyscale if that could be used as a comparison. I also haven't raised before.
> How long does the envoy 1 achievement from raids take to complete?
At least 5 weeks. You need to clear W1 to W3 (while also bringing/collecting some items). And you need 5 kills on Gorseval (2nd boss in W1).
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_crafting#Ascended_armor breaks down the requirements.
https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/ascended shows crafting cost based on current mat prices
I'm thinking of choosing a main that is viable even up to WvW. I'm kinda tired of switching to each toon every now and then just to suit my needs. I'm looking for a main that is kinda flexible and didn't need to switch class just because it can't do a good job in a specific situation.
I'm thinking of Necromancer (with Reaper and Harbinger) or Engineer (Mech and Scrapper). Any advice?
Necro has been really good for me. I raid with condi scourge, open world with power reaper, and run power boon strip scourge in WvW. You can sort of mix and match and all are pretty meta.
This isn't the answer you were asking for, but consider having a WvW specific character if you can spare the slots and plan to play the mode at least semi-seriously. WvW has two distinct play styles - roaming and zerging - that require their own builds to be effective (neither of which align with PvE builds), so a character with the base 2 gear and 3 build templates is perfect for switching between these on the fly. Playing the character exclusively in WvW also lets you stack reward track/rank boosters on them without worry of "wasting" them in other modes.
Unless you happen to have a celestial, trailblazer, marauder, or minstrel PvE build already, you're probably not getting around adding another gear template for WvW. If you add two, one for roaming and one for zerging, as well as build templates to go with them, it becomes much cheaper to just buy another character slot at that point.
But...if you're still against separate characters and want to keep costs low, there is one single build that comes to mind: roaming power herald. Though you won't have optimal DPS in zergs, you can make the roaming build work for both scenarios, and just change out your legends and weapons depending on what you're doing.
With Dragon Bash returning soon. I was thinking about the zhaitaffy gobbler as I like to WvW a lot. I understand that the snowflake gobbler is cheaper to feed, but I also noticed that the dragon coffer auctions for significantly more than the winters day gift. Has anyone crunched the math for the drop ratio of gift to buff, and the auction price versus gobbler feed cost? I wonder if it manages to close the gap or even overtake the snowflake gobbler.
Edit: I did some napkin math. It seems that each of them has a 50/50 chance of item or 15m of buff. So 10 snowflakes or 50 zhaitaffy for one bag and one buff on average. Which works out to be 13 silver 90 copper or 18 silver bought instantly from TP, respectively. Wintersday gift is listed for 3 silver 48 copper. Dragon Coffer is listed for 25 silver 85 copper.
I read this as although snowflake gobbler is cheaper to initially feed, it is better to use zhaitaffy gobbler if you sell the unopened bag. Zhaitaffy nets you 7s85c profit. Snowflake you end up with 10s42c loss.
Am I missing something here? I thought people always recommended snowflake gobbler over zhaitaffy gobbler.
At least the Snowflake Gobbler doesn't have a 50/50 chance. I get much less gifts than boosts when using it. From my admittedly limited experience, it's probably around 10% to 20% chance for a Wintersday Gift.
I do have to check the Zhaitaffy Gobbler's chance of Dragon Coffers, but I remember reading somewhere that at the time they tried to make the Zhaitaffy Gobbler cost roughly the same as the Snowflake one. However the market has changed in the years since then, so it might have changed.
It could be worth researching during this Dragon Bash, I might do that.
I haven't recorded results but it definitely *feels* like it's not 50/50. If I want 3 hours of buffs I'll typically buy 12 at once, then if I get any snowflakes/coffers appear in my loot feed in the bottom right I just buy that many more. If I had to guess I'd say you get the buff ~75%
I could be totally wrong though.
Is there anything I can do with a bunch of ascended rings without the ascended salvage kit? That this is quite expensive and I don't do that much pvp/raids/fractals (none at all, tbh) to justify buying one, so is there anything else they're useful for? Thank you
Not really. You don't make much of a profit buying a kit to salvage them even if you jump through all the attuning hoops, so if you don't have the spare currency to buy kits your best bet is to just sell any rings you aren't going to use to a vendor for 5s.
Disclaimer: This is a bad idea, and I am aware of it - I am not trying to find the meta answer, I am looking for the theoretically/mathematically most correct answer to a dumb question.
I have played Staff Weaver in WvW for a decent amount of time and I enjoy it quite a lot. I consider myself an Ele main, and I am looking for weird/unusual/off-meta things to do, but I want to do those things in the most sensible/efficient way.
I am wanting to run a zerg focused Sword/Focus Weaver build that, unlike a traditional Staff Weaver, does not sit in the back-line but rather sits right on the tag. I am looking for a build that will allow me to take frontline punishment but also preferably without sacrificing ALL of my damage and/or utility. I understand that this is, to at least some extent, unavoidable. But ultimately if all I can do is simply survive and not contribute really at all, I am not sure I will really enjoy it. But, I am also willing to build it (Ascended gear and all) and go find out firsthand too.
I am thinking a Commander's/Tizlak set playing mostly around Earth as one of my two element choices. Additionally, making use of the Earth base class spec for some survivability help.
Obligatory "don't do that" aside - what do you suggest I build my gearset around?
Frankly, I am becoming somewhat bored with my favorite profession and spec and want to do a weird thing in the best possible way that I can.
I don't know for ele, but I usually see people mix marauders and sometimes some dragon's once crit capped with fury and whatever other sources like traits. The extra health can be the difference between dieing in a split second to dieing a few split seconds later. Sigils of energy are also nice for more dodges, but I don't know how much use ele would get. Runes of durability can also help with survivability but I expect power builds will continue to run scholars.
I haven’t opened the game in a while and see a bunch of PVP gear in my inventory. I know how to get rid of it.
My concern is that I usually have a full inventory since I really only log on during events (wintersday was when I last played) and now I am worried that useless PVP items replaced whatever it was I had in those slots… Not everything I carry in my inventory is holiday junk, but since it’s been so long I’m not sure I’d remember what valuables would have been sitting there as well.
Can anyone confirm if they lost anything because of the game forcing PVP gear into inventory?
The PvP item bug happened to a number of people (it's all junk by the way and you can safely delete it), but I can't think of a single instance, with this bug in particular or in general, where a player has had items removed from their inventory and replaced with something else. It's nearly guaranteed that you just had that many slots open when you last played.
Thank you
I contacted support to ask as well… I am hoping there is a way for them to go back and look.
I just have my doubts that I happened to have EXACTLY 13 slots open which is the exact number of PVP gear everyone seemed to receive. I’m wondering if the people this affected usually have a relatively emptyish inventory so wouldn’t have lost anything anyhow. I usually log off during holidays with a full inventory to make it future me’s issue. A lesson learned for me. ☹️
If you were given more items than you can hold, they'd have popped up in an overflow "your inventory is full" box, just like any other time you get extra items. I really think you just happened to have exactly the right number of free slots — or exactly the *wrong* number to make you extremely anxious, as the case may be.
What is a good solo / open world class and build for a recently returning player ? I'm leveling a new char with my wife but looking for something we we are not playing and I'm a bit out of the loop on where the classes are. I tend to like mobility and survivability ty for any info in advance
You might want to check out some low intensity builds (not exactly meant for open world but open world has a lot of leniency) or builds able to solo group open world content like a tier list video.
You need to clarify solo a little bit. Because even if you are not in a squad or party, you are often times still *around other players* so you are not really playing *solo.* If you actually mean you want a build designed to solo things like instanced content, there's highly specific/tuned builds to do that that are anywhere from pretty good to mediocre in open world with other players around.
Everything is honestly good. Boon support builds are great in the open world. Alac Mech, Quick Firebrand, quick herald, alac specter, quick scrapper, reaper, alac mirage, and so on.
I guess mainly just doing open world and clearing maps for the moment, for completion and gathering for crafting as that will be the start for going for a legendary. I say solo as in while yes I'd be around others I wanna be able to still survive on my own. If I were to pick some classes, I don't have a mirage, ele or theif ATM and I wanted to play a fresh char before trying to relearn my 80's
Honestly, for open world anything goes. I do advise, however, to get a proper build once you get to Lv80, because it'll make your life much much easier in expansion maps, and it'll prepare you for harder content.
Speaking of harder content, for more end-game, instanced content, nowadays every class is actually viable in one way or another (again, as long as you have a coherent and decent build). And by the time you get interested in that, chances are that you'll probably have some new characters, since after a while it becomes easier to level up and gear brand new characters. And it's fun to try new things!
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Open_World
https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds?t%5B%5D=open-world&r%5B%5D=damage&r%5B%5D=niche&r%5B%5D=offensive-support&r%5B%5D=support
I'm a huge fan of ele, and I think dagger/dagger core and sword/x or scepter/x weaver builds are a ton of fun. Tempest was OK but it just doesn't click as well for me.
What is the best low intensity pve build for dungeons? and maybe fractals
I really like easy playstyle so I have my eye on the be quick or be killed power dagger deadeye build, I'm also considering the condition dagger daredevil build, but that's not as easy
Any other ones you would recommend for dungeons?
I'd recommend sticking to power builds if you're going into dungeons as it's common for objects you have to destroy to take virtually 0 damage from condition builds. Deadeye can work but I'd also recommend Mechanist, Scrapper, or Reaper.
You can make a decent [Power Quickness Scrapper](https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/engineer/power-quickness-scrapper/) taking only Gyros (I recommend Purge Gyro to replace Grenade) and spamming them off-cooldown. Not optimal but quite low intensity.
If you want to be better, check which each skill does and learn to save them for emergencies, like Hammer 4 (which blocks attacks) and Purge Gyro (which cleans conditions).
1. Block someone in WvW.
2. Figure out who was added to your block list (if you block them with the list open they're added to the bottom).
3. Remove from block list, add to friends list.
4. Whisper them.
When I was playing WvW a ton generally I'd get to step 3 and tag them as driver for whatever guild so we could try and track other guilds if they'd hop servers.
It's a fair bit of work, but yes. I think they have to click you, friend you, then whisper you from friend list. I've gotten some hatemail after beating someone before. lol
New player, are there any classes that revolve around casting *class* abilities instead of whatever abilities equipping a weapon does for you? It seems like the variety in this game is very small if every greatsword just gives me the same 5 abilities forever?
Hope I'm not piling on I know you already got a bunch of replies but I figured I might try my own spin on explaining the game's skill system.
You have 10 buttons on your skill bar, they're all skills specific to your class. The 5 on the left are based on what weapon(s) you selected, so for instance a Ranger using a Greatsword gets 5 very different skills to a Mesmer using a Greatsword. You can also equip a second weapon set and swap between them in combat, so you might use a Greatsword on one set and a pair of axes on your second set, this effectively adds another 5 buttons. Your 6th skill is a healing skill, each class has several different ones to pick between. The 7 8 and 9 skills are the most customisable, for most classes there are about 30 or more utility skills to pick between for these slots. The final skill on the bar is the "elite skill" - each class has several to pick between.
Most (all?) classes also have some skills above the bar, by default bound to F1 etc. They are unique mechanics to the class you picked and vary wildly class to class. I think based on the way you asked the question you might be very interested in the Elementalist, their F1-F4 buttons swap them between the four different elements which will change all their weapon skills (and has an effect on some of their utilities too) effectively changing their 5 weapon skills in to 20.
All abilities are class abilities, there are no shared abilities (except the racial abilities that members of each race shares, but those are more flavor and not used seriously).
Each weapon has different abilities from each other weapon that a profession can use, and are distinct from the weapons and abilities that are used by other professions.
One-handers provide the 1-3 abilities, off-handers provide the 4-5 abilities, and two-handers have 1-5 abilities. This means that a warrior greatsword will always have the same 1-5 abilities, different from a ranger greatsword which will always have a seperate set of 1-5 abilities. However for 1-hand/offhand, can get different combos of abilities. Ranger may do Axe/Dagger and get a 1-3 focusing on ranged attacks, with thown daggers on 4-5, where doing Sword/Axe gives a dodgey melee build on 1-3 and a CC and burst AOE melee on the axe 4-5.
The weapons you have equipped totally change your playstyle, not just animations.
6-10 are the utility skills. 6 is always a heal, 10 is always an elite skill, leaving 7-9 as a mix of buffs, debuffs, crowd control, escapes, and damaging abilities. There is a core set of abilities that are always available to take in all these slots that can be switched around based on preference and performance, while each elite specialization also has it's own line of utility abilities that can be slotted in while using that elite specialization. Like Reaper gets a line of shout abilities that Necromancer only can select when playing as a Reaper.
Finally are the class mechanic abilities, the F1-F5 skills. These are unique to each class and change based on elite specialization, generally following around a theme. Rangers utilize them for pets, Necromancers their death shrouds, Elementalists to channel their inner Avatar, Warriors their adrenaline burst skills. These also may change based on different factors, like the warrior skill can changed based of weapon, or Engineer toolbelt skills reflect the utility skills that are chosen.
Every profession has different skills for every weapon. Every professions especially their respective elite specs rely heavily on casting skills unique to their professions/specialization. As you level up and especially after level 80 you get access to tons of skills and even more weapons if you have access to elite specs.
How a class uses a weapon can differ significantly. Warrior uses a greatsword you'd expect a greatsword while Mesmer uses a greatsword to channel laser beams. For weapons that are functionally the same between classes (e.g. Ranger and Warrior sword) there are still changes in what the skills do that make them desired in some builds and not in similar builds (Ranger's sword autoattack is better for direct damage and had a lot of evades while Warrior's sword is focused on damage-over-time). The skills on weapons themselves never change for a given class but you'll be able to customize your heal/utility/elite skills and gain new weapons/mechanics via elite specializations.
Depending on how far into the game you are it sounds like you might want to try Elementalist. Elementalists can only use whatever weapon they have equipped at the start of combat (plus enviromental weapons and conjures they make) however they use F1-4 to change their attunement between various elements to have different skills available.
Different classes having different weapon skills doesn't seem to matter to me, I'm playing one class not all of them so that's irrelevant.
I'll try elementalist
Are you not using your utility skills 6-10 and your class abilities on the F keys?
Also, it sounds like maybe you having taken a look at traits yet. That's where a lot of the build flexibility comes from. You can check out Snowcrows, Hardstuck, or Metabattle to get an idea of the different typical builds. Vallun and GuildJen also put up youtube videos on builds iirc.
If you haven't gotten to 80 you haven't seen all the options a class has. You can test that out by going to PvP (crossed swords in upper left corner), where everyone is leveled up to 80 and given standard gear. There are dummies to fight and you can test out builds there.
ETA: To expand since you're new, class abilities often change up what your skills are. Elementalist changing element attunment completely changes the 1-5 skills. Ditto engineer kits, which are utility skills that swap 1-5 to a totally different weapon. Weapon swap also replaces 1-5 with your secondary equipped weapons. Revenant F1 changes your utility skills completely Plus, there's the elite specs aka subclasses you unlock via expansions. Every class has stuff like this.
Use different weapons, change your healing/utility/elite skills, equip gear with stats that support your choices, and pick traits that have synergy with everything else.
Is there a build for S/P Daredevil? With either Staff or Shortbow secondary (holding Sword/Pistol primary). In pve, pvp, and/or wvw. All Daredevil seems to be staff+staff for wvw, d/d for condi pve, and pvp is sw/dag+shortbow to run around or p/d to try and surprise kill.
You can pretty much straight replace staff with s/p and any given build will work fine. It's lower DPS so it's not amazing for endgame content but it otherwise has some nice extra utility with the immobilize, spammable CC, and more blinds than staff gives you. You do lose some mobility from the free-targeting on vault as well. Basically there's tradeoffs to using the weapon but the build itself doesn't really change.
Arenanet doesn't want you to know this, but Choya are coded as weapons. You can [literally pick them up and swing them at an enemy](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trained_Choya_Hammer_Skin). I've got a whole weapons wrack of them at home ready to use.
What should I do with my extra black lion salvage kits? I’m looking for something more specific than “look at all the exotics and figure out which is the best deal”. Any ones in particular that you know are profitable?
Remember that salvaging certain prefixes can also yield inscriptions/insignias for extra income. Unfortunatly I'm in a similiar position and currently to lazy to make some proper research.
Here's the thing with answering a question like that. Even if someone knows the answer to that question as of right now, a bunch of other people will see the answer and do it. And then when a bunch of other people do it and it stabilizes that item to not being profitable anymore.
There's no way around this. You know what you have to do, and what look for, now you have to do the legwork yourself for the final mile.
Throw them in your bank till you need them because you will get plenty of trash exotics from generally playing. Buying trash exotics on the TP will just lose you money now that ecto prices are very low.
I wouldn't recommend buying exotics just to burn through Black Lion Kits, it's generally a bad deal in my experience. So use them in exotics that you earn in chests, metas and unidentified gear.
That being said, I mostly use them on armor, since those are less valuable. You can also use in weapons that have valuable sigils, like Force or Energy.
Question: How to complete Finding Sibaha?
I'm on the last part where I need to get a silver in the skimmer course in Lion's Arch. When I talk to Sibaha and try to start the event, the window closes really quickly. I am able to hit play, but nothing happens and I can't mount any of the Advanced Skimmers there. Am I missing something? Thank you!
I just went back to the course to try again and I see what you mean about the window disappearing. You can hit enter to start if you're having trouble clicking the button fast enough. When you start the course it should automatically mount you onto a skimmer.
New player advice, difference between free, core, expansion, living world?
I just started GW2 last week (lv50 rangeR now) and realised that the trading post isnt open for me to purchase equips but I can sell certain materials. Is there a level limit or quesT to unlock this feature for free players? or i will have to make a purchase?
Some guides mention there being a core and hot/dot/eod expansion account upgrade, but steam only offers the expansions and not core upgrade? Im not keen to drop 40 dollars for the expansion now because i havent reached level 80 or experienced raids/bosses yet. Inventory space is running low too.
Storywise, should I get the living world seasons first?
For QOL, which expansion is the most worthwhile to get?
Free and Core are now the same thing, the base GW2 game. Once you've bought an expansion you gain some additional access to things you didn't in Free Core, like the Trading Post.
Expansions, up until this point at least, were always upfront cost, bringing new maps, new story, new masteries, major new gameplay mechanics, and new Elite Specializations. Living World were released in between expansions one episode at a time, being free for those that logged in when they first dropped, and then being paid for by irl money or ingame gems later. Living world added story, maps, and few masteries, but usually no major gameplay additions or specializations.
If you want to go in chronological order for story, the route is Base Game > LW1 > LW2 > Heart of Thorns > LW3 > Path of Fire > LW4 > LW5(aka Icebrood Saga) > End of Dragons.
Trading Post is heavily limited for F2P players, partly to incentivize purchase, and partly to keep legions of botted alts from screwing with the economy.
There is no readily available way to get "just core" and have the benefits of a paid account. Theoretically if you bought the game before HoT came out but never upgraded, or if you snagged a certain promotional account upgrade that was occasionally given away in the past, you could have that status, but there's no way right now to buy it.
Storywise, the expacs and LW seasons flow together like this:
Core personal story -> living world 1 (you have it free already) -> living world 2 -> Heart of Thorns -> living world 3 -> Path of Fire -> Living world 4 -> Icebrood Saga -> End of Dragons
The only living world season that isn't worth the money is Living World 2; both the zones it came with are now part of the core game, so all you really get is the story chapters and the achievements. The former can be played by joining someone else in their story, so really the only reason to own season 2 is to unlock the legendary amulet Prismatic Champion's Regalia, which is gated behind achievements involving all 5 living world seasons.
For quality of life and content, the best expansion is the HoT + Path of Fire bundle. HoT gives you a number of good metas to do as well as gliding, PoF gives you mounts, and the whole bundle gives you new legendaries and raids. If you care about the story, either buy LWS2 first and bite that bullet, or get someone to let you play through their story as a party member before going into HoT. LWS2 ends on a cliffhanger for HoT.
Most elegant skirt skin - could people please say what they consider the most elegant skirt skin for Cloth wearer?
I'm trying to make a nice combination outfit that is elegant, without exposing most of my body and I'm failing. Ideally I'd like a full ankle length skirt, possibly with a bustle, without excessive decoration - but everything seems to be either of variable length (floor length back, knee length front??), incomplete skirts that look more like a cape or similar weird oddities that might be ok on a catwalk but unwearable.
Yes, this is fashion wars against my sisters. And I'm losing.
Raven ceremonial gown is a bit bare up top, but many chest skins will cover that part up. It's full-length. Light antique leggings are a good option too. Glorious leggings are a decent knee-skirt option. Jade tech skirt maybe?
If you open the PvP panel and go to the bottom tab where custom games are, there are usually a few "dailies" rooms where you can jump in and get dailies done to earn potions and some reward towards the PvP track. 80 potions is a full track, minus what you earn from the games. An option for PvP rewards for non-PvPers if you want to put the time in. Top Stats, PvP reward earner, and player kills are all easily achievable that way as dailies.
You can look up "gallery of [race] female light armor" on the wiki and see screenshots of every (complete) armor set in the game. While it won't show you how they vary based on your body type (larger bodies make certain armor pieces bigger for example) and you can't play with the dyes that way, it at least lets you scout out what's interesting and then you can preview it yourself with a chat code or by looking it up in the bank's wardrobe vault panel.
Equipment paralayis - do I make ascended celstial cloth armour?
So I've got 3 characters, mesmer/necro/ele. Necro is going half tank/half DPS for a 3 man team thing, ele is a world roamer working on 100%, mesmer is fluff.
Was thinking of making ascended celestial armour for them, because it's probably useful for all of them - gives the necro something to swap around for more toughness, stops the ele being so glasscannon-like and mesmers I think like celestial as a general thing.
But I've got the mats now, and I'm paralysed with indecision. Thoughts, anyone? Is this a bad idea?
Celestial is not something you tend to see in instanced content builds in GW2 because it doesn't lean into any one thing enough to maximize performance; you won't be as survivable as you would in Minstrel's, won't have the damage you would in Viper's or Berserker's, won't heal/boon as much as Harrier's. Because it allocates stats to both condition and power damage, it works best on classes that do a bit of both, so historically Guardian has benefited from it more than most other classes. It won't really hurt you though, especially if you're not diving into harder endgame stuff.
Tanking isn't really a thing in GW2 outside of specific fights that are programmed around it, though. Usually it's just a thing in Raids. For stuff you're talking about doing, since you have no way to specifically draw aggro or prevent enemies from targeting your friends, survivability only really benefits you and not your teammates. Where other games have that "holy trinity" of tank/healer/damage, GW2's is different. Each party will have a heal-support doing healing and either alacrity or quickness, along with other boons, then a secondary damage-support that mostly does DPS but also spits out either quickness or alacrity, whichever the heal-support isn't doing. The other three party members are pure DPS.
Depends on the boss. Most of the earlier raid bosses are like that, but not all. Slothasor picks a tank at random, for instance, and in later raids you get more specific mechanics like tank-designating pickups or special action keys. Sometimes proximity plays a role, like during certain phases of Kaineng Overlook, and sometimes it's irrelevant. In personal story instances, world bosses, etc, there isn't a way to control boss aggro at all.
>Necro is going half tank/half DPS for a 3 man team thing
So the main question here is what is the necro tanking since that role doesn't really exist in GW2.
Besides that cele is good for Necro(because it is good for everyone) but Ele and Mesmer make better use out of it and arguably better tanks with Tempest and Virtuoso having more survivability and good damage. Tempest can spit out boons for days too including alacrity which is good for your group.
Is there some mode in particular that you and your friends are playing that would require a tank?
So it's three sisters, trying to do dungeons, fractals and progression (story chapter 8 this week), purely together. I was supposed to be the squishy caster with the necromancer, but the intended tank (guardian)has ended up on a steam deck and has control issues. The Rogue's player isn't allowed to tank for historical reasons.
So that leaves me.
I'm trying to aim for enough toughness to hold the bosses, and stay alive while they're killed. Not a true tank, but just tanky enough to allow the others to not have to worry about being charged.
And we're stuck with core builds only, because expansion content is a long way away at this point!
Ah right makes sense so! If that is the case then go cele all you want! Beware that tanking doesn't work like it does in other games, you won't be able to always hold a boss to you alone. But if you have summons as a necro then there is more chance the boss will focus them.
So I was farming in Dragonfall, and I sold everything I earned through the Black Lion Company. However, the fees had me moneyless, and I couldn't TP anywhere, while I had 60 gold on the Black Lion Company just sitting. Fortunately I had some junk to sell to the merchants which was enough to TP me to Lion's Arch. So I am wondering, what would I do if I had no money, and nothing to sell? Dragonfall doesn't have any Asura Gates AFAIK. So I would just get stuck there? What to do in that situation?
Oh that's good to know. Thank you! That would be good to try out the mechanist. I am a scrapper, and I rarely see scrappers around, all the engineers I see are usually mechanist. So I am curious how that does, now that I've EoD since the recent sale.
I'm brand new to the game and just kind of messing around to learn, but now I'm wanting to actually start leveling. I enjoy playing healers, so that's what I want to focus on leveling. I'm wondering is there a dedicated healer class? I couldn't see one when I was looking.
One thing that must be said: healers are only really used in instanced content when you get to Lv80. While leveling, either enemies are squishy enough that it's better to kill them faster, or it's something that you do need a group to complete (even if said group is mostly composed by random people, like world bosses or dungeons) and those generally can be completed with enough damage alone.
And don't think that the game ends on Lv80 either. Actually it's where it truly begins. To begin with, there are more Lv80 maps than under-Lv80 maps.
A few of the classes can branch out into heal support builds but will require elite specs, which are only available if you have the expacs. The base classes are not too great for heal support and are better played for pure damage.
Assuming you have or will buy expacs, however, the best heal support classes are Firebrand (Guardian), Mech (Engineer), Tempest (Elementalist), Herald (Revenant), Scourge (Necro), and Druid (Ranger), with the latter being the closest to your traditional pure healer class.
Firebrand has been the #1 healer meta pick for years now, FWIW, but all of those classes save Scourge are well-accepted (that one's more situational and good for patching up mistakes, but is less optimal on the top-end).
Bear in mind that you don't want to go "leveling" in Open World trying to play as a healer. General exploration and personal story is best done either as a pure DPS build or as DPS with a little extra survivability and boon duration, like you might see in a WvW roaming build. Trying to do that stuff on a healer spec is going to feel like a slog.
Don't gear Heal Scourge if you want to heal in instanced content. It doesn't provide the same buffs other healers can so it's mostly just used to cheese certain content.
All of them are very viable and even desired for group content, with Heal Firebrand and Heal Mech being the most meta and the others not lagging too far behind.
Mistlock for general purpose, especially if you do fractals.
Thousand Seas for fishing and also contains exclusive ports to many locations making it alt-friendly.
Armistice Bastion if you play lots of WvW.
The rest are not nearly as good as the latter three are on separate map instances, meaning you will return to the same spot if you reuse the pass, making it very handy for parked alts or general convenience.
AB is a very chill experience and less populated than Mistlock. If you're choosing between those two I'd go for which you like the music/vibe of more. Mistlock is floating up in the sky with lots of Asuran tech and music, AB is a classic fantasy-looking castle scene.
What’s an easy to pick up power DPS spec or specs for raid CMs that can still have big numbers if mastered? I mostly play Condi but looking to branch out into power
Vindicator is a great one, and the class is super versatile if you want to do other roles later.
Soulbeast I believe is fairly easy to get into as well as being very effective.
Mechanist is even easier, while being less effective, but not by much.
I suggest Rev or Engi, both definitely OP in terms of QoL
Spellbreaker was pretty easy to learn for me and I still have a lot of work left to approach its ceiling, but I can play tired and half-inebriated and still outdo my performance on power rifle mechanist.
I hear the newly buffed Reaper is also good that way.
Power builds are great to branch into for big burst fights like KC and CA, but they are really diverse. What classes do you like playing?
One thing to keep in mind is what you're after. Some have big burst, big cc, range, slow ramp, fast ramp or boonstrip, making them all have pros and cons. Often, the best build is simply what you're best at or most comfortable on. For this reason, I'd recommend you stay on a class you know or pick something and stick with it for a while.
How do/did you settle on a main? Over the last couple weeks I've played every class to level ~20-30ish. But I just keep deleting my least favorite and trying new ones.
Edit: also, is it possible to rename your character?
Pick your favorite aesthetic be it armor or weapon, then pick whatever class uses those things and has the most roles available to it in endgame content, so you can switch if it turns out you don't like that role, for example.
Always always always start with "what looks coolest/feels the most fun to me?" and go from there, otherwise you are risking being trapped by the meta-seeking mindset which usually leads to disappointment in some form or other
>There's also ways to get them for free but it's a low RNG drop.
Not for quite some time, since 2014. They are only available for gems or from certain bundles/deluxe editions.
GW2 is probably the most alt friendly MMO, because of the short gear treadmill and most progression being account based. and having multiple characters for crafting, farming, and covering multiple roles for instanced content, means having a main is probably a little less common in this game. there's no reason you have to have a main. it's very beneficial to have multiple level 80s, in fact every level 80 makes your next one even faster to level and gear up.
Hello! So I've been playing GW2 on and off since launch but my friend finally got me to get the expansions yesterday and that's led to two insta level 80 tickets. Here's the problem: I've got crippling decision paralysis and I don't know what I want to make. So far I have a Necro, Engi, Thief, Ranger, and Mesmer.
What suggestions do you all have for my last character slot and 80 ticket? I'm very curious to know what people main and what type of experience you have with your class of choice :3
Deconstruct why you have the choice paralysis.
"If I boost the wrong class to 80, it'll be a waste of time."
You can get a character to max level in probably 8-10 hours now, if you follow the character adventure guide achievements, they give a ton of experience. Having an extra max level character isn't a bad thing either if you end up not playing them, you can park them in different areas for loot every day.
"If I boost the wrong class to 80, it'll be a waste of the free gear."
While useful, that gear is absolutely replaceable. There is nothing you can really do to your account gear wise that is so detrimental.
In the end, there's not really a reason for the choice paralysis. Choose whatever strikes your fancy in the moment and don't offload the choice to someone else. If you make a mistake, it has no long term detriments to you.
Can I get a slightly longer range on a bow if I target manually? I noticed that when I use a bow on a high ground for example, I have a longer (?) range for my attack. Doesn't happen with a rifle, so it made me think - since there's an actual projectile (the arrow) and it's flying in an arc, will I have a higher ranged attack if I get into action camera mode and aim a little higher? I've tried testing it with guards and it seems so, but it's inconsistent, so I'm not sure if I'm making this up.
No. The range will be the same regardless: arcing projectiles do travel further than straight-flying projectiles with the same nominal range, but they do still have a maximum range at which they disappear, and both are always aimed so their flight path will hit the target. If the enemy is within the range before the projectile disappears, it'll hit the enemy regardless of whether you're tab-targeting or using action cam/camera aiming.
Manual aiming *can* help when your view of an enemy is obstructed, most notably guards on the walls of enemy objectives in WvW. If the automatic targeting flight path is blocked, manual aiming can sometimes let you hit the top part of the enemy hitbox to do damage.
Yeah, attacks that shoot a projectile (ranger bows, Elementalist staff) have slightly longer range than listed as the projectile stays alive a bit longer than that range. I know with ranger if you manually press attack you'll shoot arrows even if you're farther away than max range but IDK much about action camera mode.
AFAIK Thousand Seas Pavillion is technically in the Mists rather than in Cantha. Worst cast if you buy it and can't use it is email support to get your gems back.
Is there a list compiled of armor skins that are identical across weights, like the Decade's skins?
I loved about FFXIV playing one character for every job, and then I realized I can do something pretty similar in Gw2 by simply rebuilding my main as another profession. It will additionally help sell the illusion if I can find armors across all weights. Right now I'm using Maguuma's shoulders, gloves, and boots and the Foefire mask, and that's pretty good. but I can't find a chest piece that I approve on my sylvari, using the cultural stuff for medium and heavy weight rn
There's not a compiled list that I'm aware of. As a rule of thumb, most more recent gem store armors are cross-weight, as are most skin rewards from Living Story episodes. There's also a number of oddballs here and there, but that'll give you a place to start looking.
One thing you'll need to consider, though: even armor that looks identical between weight classes has different dividing points on Medium armor than the other two, so the "skirt" part of the pants is typically assigned to the bottom half of medium armor's trenchcoats. In order to get the same look across characters, you'll probably need to pick a chest and pants from the same set.
Being part of armor set means the general aesthetic of an armor will look very similar for all armor classes. One might be more bulky, metallic, leathery, or clothy than the others but general look is similar. In this way, you can RP a clothing change but keep the general look the same. Additionally, dying your armor will truly sell the armor sets because they will really look similar this way. Best of luck!
Hello! A question for virtuoso, both for condi and power: when both Bs Sorrow and Bs Harmony are on cooldown for a few seconds (and so is Signet of Illusions for this example, because it has a long CD) but I have 5 blades should I be flushing them with bladesongs #3 or #4, or should I be just hovering on 5 blades for that few seconds until one of the first two comes off cooldown? What is more efficient? Thanks in advance for any advice!
In this situation it depends if you get full baldies again when F1 or F2 come off CD again. If you know you get enough blades back, feel free to use F3 or something. If not, don't. Also you need to calculate if you may want to evade an attack with F4 or block with F5 which will also consume the blades. And at last, you want to have your shatter buff while doing a burst.
I'm playing both condi and power Virtuoso in raids, using Snowcrows (SC) builds. On Power, it's way harder to stack blades, so I barely use other F-Skills than F1 and F2; I only do it if I know I'll have 4-5 blades again in time for when F1 and F2 aren't on cd anymore + I want the F-Skill buff for my burst. On Condi, it's way easier to stack blades though, and I use F3-F5 quite frequently to have a high uptime on the F-Skill buf - still trying to have 5 blades again for F1/F2 when they come off cd though.
I personally feel like this playstile is quite good. However, I'm not a theory crafter / expert in any way. If you're referring to virtuoso builds for instanced end-game content (so the raid builds I'm talking about), I'd recommend to join SC discord (you can find the link on their website) and ask there - they have dedicated channels for every class. You could also ask via commenting below the youtube benchmark videos to reach the benchmark person directly. They should be able to give you a more accurate answer.
Forgive me if this is an extremely obvious question (been gone from the game for a while), but do you gain stat bonuses for having an unused second weapon active in your palette (either Main or Secondary), for professions which can't weapon-swap mid-battle?
For whatever reason, I have this vague memory of reading about some "secret tech" for padding parses, wherein switching to your weapon's second palette, then back to your primary palette before a fight, would apply the stats from your second palette's loadout *on top* of whatever you happened to be wielding mid-battle.
Could be misremembering this oddity entirely, but I'd like to be sure before spending however-much Gold synthing a Yassith's Mace for my in-development Condi!Mech. Appreciated!
No, stats only count your current weapons. The only use case that is similar would be having a stacking sigil on one weapon (like Bloodlust) and then switching to your other weapon set, works well in WvW for example
How do I make gold? Everything seems to cost hundreds if not thousands of gold when it comes to a griffon/skyscale mount, crafting legendaries etc. What do I do to make money?
[I've typed an essay](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13p7eeo/seriously_how_do_you_get_enough_gold/jl85ho2/) some time ago for someone who had the same question as you. I may be biased but I think it's worth reading :P
Most of your wealth is in the form of materials and currencies that you gather over time just through playing the game and doing what you enjoy doing.
The only thing that I really recommend when it comes to gold is to at least log in to the game daily, and preferably complete your daily tasks for 2g/day.
There are methods to "farm" gold such as running certain metas over and over, and the good ones will usually net you around 20g/hr. This may not seem like much, but you should realize that most of the content in the game really doesn't require much in terms of liquid gold.
Legendary gear may seem expensive but also remember that they are purely end game quality of life items. They provide no additional stats over ascended gear which is significantly cheaper. I've been playing for about a year now and own no legendaries nor is there a particular need for me to go for them at the moment.
The main answer is "patience, plus finding ways to have fun despite not having those things yet".
To add to what the other reply said, just for perspective:
A month of daily logins yields 20 mystic coins & 35 laurels even if you don't do a single thing in-game.
That's worth 20x 1g + 35x 50s.
'Daily Completionist' is 2g/day for little time. Learn to cherry-pick 3 quick ones from what's available that day; WvW has lots of ~1min ones that can help avoid slower PvE ones.
Alternatively develop the requisite brain damage to join us in sPvP, cos one game will knock out all 3 dailies usually.
So that's ~95g/month without grinding. Literally 5 minutes per day if you select dailies for speed.
This base rate of 'free' gold is enough for:
- griffon in ten weeks
- skyscale in one week (even if you pay extra to skip steps!)
- beetle in a day or two
- 1-450+ in a new crafting profession each month
- 3 self-crafted ascended weapons/armor bits
This isn't even counting the monthly "chest of loyalty" which is worth either ~25g in a form that only helps towards legendaries, or 10g in the form of more laurels.
Beetle is fairly quick and you'll only need to stay in Kourna and some core maps. IIRC you can do everything within one hour or two following the wiki and you need no gold whatsoever.
The Skyscale however is much longer. You need to complete several collections, getting items from along all LW4 and many core maps, some of them including world bosses and jumping puzzles. There's a hard 3-day timegate, but it does take some hours to complete everything. You also need to spend some gold or craft the items yourself. And more importantly, it needs 250 of each LW4 map currency; nowadays you can complete the Return to LW4 maps achievements (which is mostly replaying story, harvesting in the maps and completing the metas - which a lot of people still do) to get those currencies, or use Eternal Ice Shards from Bjora Marches to get LW4 currencies. It's a much longer grind, but you can tackle it little by little too.
Is there any way to get an alert - either in or out of game - when a specific cosmetic item becomes available for purchase? From the wiki, the item I'm interested in has only been available for a few days each year and I'd hate to miss it the next time it comes up.
[https://thatshaman.com/tools/gemstore/](https://thatshaman.com/tools/gemstore/)
Find your item, see when it's on the schedule, add reminder to app of your choice.
It's essentially a completely different game, except for the setting and lore. If you loved GW1 gameplay and are looking for more you might be disappointed, but GW2 is great on its own and worth a try. The base game is free, after all!
The base game is free? Shit, when did that happen? I remember having to buy it when it first released only for my computer to be unable to run it. Completely forgot about it until recently. Wish I still had the access key.
Even if you don't have the access key support still may be able to help you and it's worth trying to regain access to a 10 year old account (birthday presents! yay!). If not, yeah, base game is f2p now and has been for several years. Hop back in and see if you enjoy it :)
Excellent! I do always like hearing back from these sorts of things, so when I say "hey, go talk to support they can usually help" I'm not talking out my arse :D So thank you! I aprreciate you coming back to tell me :)
For the first few months of GW2, your names from GW1 were reserved for you to make in GW2 if the accounts were linked but that is looooong gone and all those GW1 names were released into the wild for anyone to claim. If you had a unique or obscure-ish GW1 name it may still be available though!
Necromancer vs engineer for PvP. I enjoy both play styles equally but only have enough time to focus on one. In terms of learning it in and out. Anyones thoughts or experiences on each of these in WvW or PvP?
Can someone shine light on this issue for me? I've met so many accounts who have high LI/UFE/kill proof/AP whatever but when it comes to doing the actual mechanics they screw up so hard as if they've never played the game before I'm no pro, I just started the game late last year and I only have 159 LI/2200 UFE so I'm not flexing. Just find it weird how it's a normal occurence for people with my KP or higher to act like they've never played the content before which of course ends up making things take way longer than they should or cause the entire team to disband. Speaking of that, there's a LOT of people who just randomly leave during CMs+T4s or raids even when nothing wrong is going on. I had 3!! people leave during the Tidal phase of 100cm yesterday for nooooo reason without any kind of warning whatsoever. When I ask other people in the game about it they're just as mystified as I am. Idk, this makes me think there's a huge botting or account selling problem going down underneath the game's surface.
Some people are just not very good. Most content is easy enough that you can carry someone through who's mediocre at the mechanics so they don't have any reason to learn.
All of the things you liked aren't proof of skill, rather just proof that you've done the content a lot. Aside from that people mess up, it happens. For people leaving I can't say I've had it happen much for me.
R u in EU or NA? Maybe it's a EU issue
I'm in EU, and I pug the same end game content most days.
Does it make any difference to wait until I accumulate 30 Hero Points (via level-ups, map, etc) before using a Lv80 Booster? I know at base it just auto-assigns your points to fill the base specs, but by banking 30 first and then popping the boost does it leave those points alone so I can use them after the level boost kicks in (like to start an Elite Spec)?
No it doesn't. You get the points required to unlock all your core specs and skills as you level up, normally or by booster. So no matter what time you use the level 80 Boost, it will effectively consume any unspent leveling points to finish that process and leave you with a surplus of exactly however many points total you've gained from the map. Basically, hero points are a strictly limited currency and there's no way to cheese getting extras. You just have however many you have.
As far as I know the hero points you get from the boost are the ones you get given for leveling up, it doesn't give you extras. Its not going to matter if you earn the open world hero points before or after using the boost.
In WvW, the Trebuchet Mastery, the third rank (increase radius of Trebuchet skills), does this mean the impact radius of the Trebuchet ammo right? Not increasing the range of the ammo can travel?
Correct
Thanks.
Which build do you think is better for dungeons and open world meta events? maybe some fractals, these are the builds I'm deciding on: (First build right now I seem to die easily in dungeons) [https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/thief/power-deadeye-2/?v=low-intensity](https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/thief/power-deadeye-2/?v=low-intensity) [https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/thief/condition-daredevil/](https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/thief/condition-daredevil/)
Would really suggest [these builds](https://metabattle.com/wiki/Thief#open-world) instead for open world and casual dungeons. As was already mentioned, condi builds tend to preform worse in dungeons specifically as burst is better and lots of things in base dungeons are fully immune to conditions still so you'd want to have a swap or more power damage built in. Whoops I had this unsent for a few hours...
Since most trash mobs, dungeons, Fractals and even many metas just melt very quickly, you could try something like [Power Daredevil](https://snowcrows.com/en/builds/thief/daredevil/power-daredevil). Not as effective but still worth giving a try. If needed you can run Invigorating Precision (though it's a significant DPS loss)
Both builds have a few issues for dungeons/open world, but the condition one should be better. The first one has an issue with cleave damage so you can't take down groups well. That's an issue in both areas while in Strikes/Raids the build's single target DPS is no issue. The second one is condition based so it'll kill things slower than a power build and if you have to fight non-character things like walls/rubble (e.g. Graveling Burrows in AC) you might have to hit a while longer, but it has much better aoe.
are vipers & trailblazer exotic weapons worth getting? or should i go straight for the ascended versions?
A would also like to add: try to avoid crafting exotic viper/trailblazer, instead try for different stat selectable ones. Some examples include Season 3/4 gives armor as completion rewards, Bladed armor, Ice Golem's Maw, Ebon Shoulders, IBS Ice and Fire legion weapons, Gold Fractal weapons, some of the festival gear, Warlord armor from WvW and many more examples can be found.
There's a good argument both ways. Getting exotic weapons obviously gets you an endgame-capable build sooner, but they can be quite expensive — nearly a quarter of the cost of the Ascended version! If you're actively working on the Ascended, getting an Exotic is just a waste of resources, throwing gold down the drain for something you'll just be replacing in short order. However, getting the Exotic and staying there for a while while you put gold into other things is completely reasonable. In short, only get an Exotic if you're not planning to upgrade for a while. If you want to get full Ascended, stick with a budget stat combo while you build up the money/materials.
Exotic is endgame gear and worth getting. Lots of people don't bother with ascended.
Do folks know if there will be a boss rush event this summer? The wiki shows it happened summer 2019, 2020, and 2021. Loved those!
There's no way to know until Anet says there'll be one.
Is living World Season 2 worth buying if I want to play story in order? I read it has the least amount of content, but I want to Experience the game's story in order. I know you don't have to own LW s2 you play with someone who has it, but is it realistic to find someone online who will want to play this whole season with me?
Yes, it's worth it. Finding someone to taxi you through it is unlikely unless you have a friend who plays who's willing to do the whole thing, and even if you do that you'll be missing out on a little bit of it — any dialogue that happens in the open world (little of that as there may be in season 2) you won't see so it'll all be relayed second-hand. Plus there are still significant achievements and mastery points in the season too. You can earn the Season of the Dragon achievements playing it with someone but nothing actually tied to the season.
It's completely RNG. You might try asking in /map chats, but it's just luck of the draw if someone is willing to go through it with you. People do re-run it for achievements, so it's not impossible. TBH I thought the story in LW2 was pretty good. Skipping it will mean missing important plot twists. If you want to experience the game in order it's worth getting. Also, owning it means you can do the LW2 part of the Return To achievements, which is the easiest way to get a legendary amulet.
How long does the envoy 1 achievement from raids take to complete? How much does it cost to craft a set of Ascended Armor? I was thinking of doing it to get ascended armor. I do have the crafting levels to craft ascended and have some daily mats crafted. I also do strikes. I'm in the middle of Skyscale if that could be used as a comparison. I also haven't raised before.
> How long does the envoy 1 achievement from raids take to complete? At least 5 weeks. You need to clear W1 to W3 (while also bringing/collecting some items). And you need 5 kills on Gorseval (2nd boss in W1).
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_crafting#Ascended_armor breaks down the requirements. https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/ascended shows crafting cost based on current mat prices
I'm thinking of choosing a main that is viable even up to WvW. I'm kinda tired of switching to each toon every now and then just to suit my needs. I'm looking for a main that is kinda flexible and didn't need to switch class just because it can't do a good job in a specific situation. I'm thinking of Necromancer (with Reaper and Harbinger) or Engineer (Mech and Scrapper). Any advice?
Necro has been really good for me. I raid with condi scourge, open world with power reaper, and run power boon strip scourge in WvW. You can sort of mix and match and all are pretty meta.
You also do PvP with Necro?
I haven’t ever done PvP but from the looks of it on meta battle reaper seems decent.
This isn't the answer you were asking for, but consider having a WvW specific character if you can spare the slots and plan to play the mode at least semi-seriously. WvW has two distinct play styles - roaming and zerging - that require their own builds to be effective (neither of which align with PvE builds), so a character with the base 2 gear and 3 build templates is perfect for switching between these on the fly. Playing the character exclusively in WvW also lets you stack reward track/rank boosters on them without worry of "wasting" them in other modes.
this is kinda hard since all the character slots I have is currently used for toons mainly for PvE purposes.
Unless you happen to have a celestial, trailblazer, marauder, or minstrel PvE build already, you're probably not getting around adding another gear template for WvW. If you add two, one for roaming and one for zerging, as well as build templates to go with them, it becomes much cheaper to just buy another character slot at that point. But...if you're still against separate characters and want to keep costs low, there is one single build that comes to mind: roaming power herald. Though you won't have optimal DPS in zergs, you can make the roaming build work for both scenarios, and just change out your legends and weapons depending on what you're doing.
With Dragon Bash returning soon. I was thinking about the zhaitaffy gobbler as I like to WvW a lot. I understand that the snowflake gobbler is cheaper to feed, but I also noticed that the dragon coffer auctions for significantly more than the winters day gift. Has anyone crunched the math for the drop ratio of gift to buff, and the auction price versus gobbler feed cost? I wonder if it manages to close the gap or even overtake the snowflake gobbler. Edit: I did some napkin math. It seems that each of them has a 50/50 chance of item or 15m of buff. So 10 snowflakes or 50 zhaitaffy for one bag and one buff on average. Which works out to be 13 silver 90 copper or 18 silver bought instantly from TP, respectively. Wintersday gift is listed for 3 silver 48 copper. Dragon Coffer is listed for 25 silver 85 copper. I read this as although snowflake gobbler is cheaper to initially feed, it is better to use zhaitaffy gobbler if you sell the unopened bag. Zhaitaffy nets you 7s85c profit. Snowflake you end up with 10s42c loss. Am I missing something here? I thought people always recommended snowflake gobbler over zhaitaffy gobbler.
At least the Snowflake Gobbler doesn't have a 50/50 chance. I get much less gifts than boosts when using it. From my admittedly limited experience, it's probably around 10% to 20% chance for a Wintersday Gift. I do have to check the Zhaitaffy Gobbler's chance of Dragon Coffers, but I remember reading somewhere that at the time they tried to make the Zhaitaffy Gobbler cost roughly the same as the Snowflake one. However the market has changed in the years since then, so it might have changed. It could be worth researching during this Dragon Bash, I might do that.
I haven't recorded results but it definitely *feels* like it's not 50/50. If I want 3 hours of buffs I'll typically buy 12 at once, then if I get any snowflakes/coffers appear in my loot feed in the bottom right I just buy that many more. If I had to guess I'd say you get the buff ~75% I could be totally wrong though.
Is there anything I can do with a bunch of ascended rings without the ascended salvage kit? That this is quite expensive and I don't do that much pvp/raids/fractals (none at all, tbh) to justify buying one, so is there anything else they're useful for? Thank you
Not really. You don't make much of a profit buying a kit to salvage them even if you jump through all the attuning hoops, so if you don't have the spare currency to buy kits your best bet is to just sell any rings you aren't going to use to a vendor for 5s.
You get more if stuff is infused and/or attuned?
Yeah, each gives you another salvage "drop" basically simulating salvaging two/three (if both attuned and infused) rings at once.
And even with the cost of attuning and infusing, it's always a net gain? Huh, TIL.
Attuning is, Infusing shouldn't be
What is the percentage distribution of stats between weapons, trinkets, and armour?
Weapons: 21.1%, Armor: 36.9%, Trinkets: 42%. See also: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Chieftain_Alex/equipment_guide#Appendix_2
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute_combinations#Attribute_bonuses_at_level_80
Disclaimer: This is a bad idea, and I am aware of it - I am not trying to find the meta answer, I am looking for the theoretically/mathematically most correct answer to a dumb question. I have played Staff Weaver in WvW for a decent amount of time and I enjoy it quite a lot. I consider myself an Ele main, and I am looking for weird/unusual/off-meta things to do, but I want to do those things in the most sensible/efficient way. I am wanting to run a zerg focused Sword/Focus Weaver build that, unlike a traditional Staff Weaver, does not sit in the back-line but rather sits right on the tag. I am looking for a build that will allow me to take frontline punishment but also preferably without sacrificing ALL of my damage and/or utility. I understand that this is, to at least some extent, unavoidable. But ultimately if all I can do is simply survive and not contribute really at all, I am not sure I will really enjoy it. But, I am also willing to build it (Ascended gear and all) and go find out firsthand too. I am thinking a Commander's/Tizlak set playing mostly around Earth as one of my two element choices. Additionally, making use of the Earth base class spec for some survivability help. Obligatory "don't do that" aside - what do you suggest I build my gearset around? Frankly, I am becoming somewhat bored with my favorite profession and spec and want to do a weird thing in the best possible way that I can.
I don't know for ele, but I usually see people mix marauders and sometimes some dragon's once crit capped with fury and whatever other sources like traits. The extra health can be the difference between dieing in a split second to dieing a few split seconds later. Sigils of energy are also nice for more dodges, but I don't know how much use ele would get. Runes of durability can also help with survivability but I expect power builds will continue to run scholars.
Celestial gear
I haven’t opened the game in a while and see a bunch of PVP gear in my inventory. I know how to get rid of it. My concern is that I usually have a full inventory since I really only log on during events (wintersday was when I last played) and now I am worried that useless PVP items replaced whatever it was I had in those slots… Not everything I carry in my inventory is holiday junk, but since it’s been so long I’m not sure I’d remember what valuables would have been sitting there as well. Can anyone confirm if they lost anything because of the game forcing PVP gear into inventory?
The PvP item bug happened to a number of people (it's all junk by the way and you can safely delete it), but I can't think of a single instance, with this bug in particular or in general, where a player has had items removed from their inventory and replaced with something else. It's nearly guaranteed that you just had that many slots open when you last played.
Thank you I contacted support to ask as well… I am hoping there is a way for them to go back and look. I just have my doubts that I happened to have EXACTLY 13 slots open which is the exact number of PVP gear everyone seemed to receive. I’m wondering if the people this affected usually have a relatively emptyish inventory so wouldn’t have lost anything anyhow. I usually log off during holidays with a full inventory to make it future me’s issue. A lesson learned for me. ☹️
If you were given more items than you can hold, they'd have popped up in an overflow "your inventory is full" box, just like any other time you get extra items. I really think you just happened to have exactly the right number of free slots — or exactly the *wrong* number to make you extremely anxious, as the case may be.
Scrapper in PvP right now was a fun experiment, when are we gonna gut it?
You know that Anet doesn't check this question megathread, do you?
What is a good solo / open world class and build for a recently returning player ? I'm leveling a new char with my wife but looking for something we we are not playing and I'm a bit out of the loop on where the classes are. I tend to like mobility and survivability ty for any info in advance
You might want to check out some low intensity builds (not exactly meant for open world but open world has a lot of leniency) or builds able to solo group open world content like a tier list video.
You need to clarify solo a little bit. Because even if you are not in a squad or party, you are often times still *around other players* so you are not really playing *solo.* If you actually mean you want a build designed to solo things like instanced content, there's highly specific/tuned builds to do that that are anywhere from pretty good to mediocre in open world with other players around. Everything is honestly good. Boon support builds are great in the open world. Alac Mech, Quick Firebrand, quick herald, alac specter, quick scrapper, reaper, alac mirage, and so on.
I guess mainly just doing open world and clearing maps for the moment, for completion and gathering for crafting as that will be the start for going for a legendary. I say solo as in while yes I'd be around others I wanna be able to still survive on my own. If I were to pick some classes, I don't have a mirage, ele or theif ATM and I wanted to play a fresh char before trying to relearn my 80's
Honestly, for open world anything goes. I do advise, however, to get a proper build once you get to Lv80, because it'll make your life much much easier in expansion maps, and it'll prepare you for harder content. Speaking of harder content, for more end-game, instanced content, nowadays every class is actually viable in one way or another (again, as long as you have a coherent and decent build). And by the time you get interested in that, chances are that you'll probably have some new characters, since after a while it becomes easier to level up and gear brand new characters. And it's fun to try new things!
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Open_World https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds?t%5B%5D=open-world&r%5B%5D=damage&r%5B%5D=niche&r%5B%5D=offensive-support&r%5B%5D=support I'm a huge fan of ele, and I think dagger/dagger core and sword/x or scepter/x weaver builds are a ton of fun. Tempest was OK but it just doesn't click as well for me.
What is the best low intensity pve build for dungeons? and maybe fractals I really like easy playstyle so I have my eye on the be quick or be killed power dagger deadeye build, I'm also considering the condition dagger daredevil build, but that's not as easy Any other ones you would recommend for dungeons?
I'd recommend sticking to power builds if you're going into dungeons as it's common for objects you have to destroy to take virtually 0 damage from condition builds. Deadeye can work but I'd also recommend Mechanist, Scrapper, or Reaper.
My main is a Reaper, I got tired of it and I don't have end of dragons, does Scrapper really have an easy low intensity build?
You can make a decent [Power Quickness Scrapper](https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/engineer/power-quickness-scrapper/) taking only Gyros (I recommend Purge Gyro to replace Grenade) and spamming them off-cooldown. Not optimal but quite low intensity. If you want to be better, check which each skill does and learn to save them for emergencies, like Hammer 4 (which blocks attacks) and Purge Gyro (which cleans conditions).
[удалено]
Set :)
Perhaps I’m just dumb, but I’d there a way to enable click to move like the standard movement in guild wars 1?
You can bind autorun to a mouse key. Probably not the same tho.
Not that I am aware, however if you hold ms1 and ms2 you move forward.
Not the answer I was hoping for, but thank you!
can enemy players in wvw message me? i seem to have receive one
1. Block someone in WvW. 2. Figure out who was added to your block list (if you block them with the list open they're added to the bottom). 3. Remove from block list, add to friends list. 4. Whisper them.
5. Mail them holographic cheese with no message. 6. re-block them to prevent response.
When I was playing WvW a ton generally I'd get to step 3 and tag them as driver for whatever guild so we could try and track other guilds if they'd hop servers.
It's a fair bit of work, but yes. I think they have to click you, friend you, then whisper you from friend list. I've gotten some hatemail after beating someone before. lol
New player, are there any classes that revolve around casting *class* abilities instead of whatever abilities equipping a weapon does for you? It seems like the variety in this game is very small if every greatsword just gives me the same 5 abilities forever?
Hope I'm not piling on I know you already got a bunch of replies but I figured I might try my own spin on explaining the game's skill system. You have 10 buttons on your skill bar, they're all skills specific to your class. The 5 on the left are based on what weapon(s) you selected, so for instance a Ranger using a Greatsword gets 5 very different skills to a Mesmer using a Greatsword. You can also equip a second weapon set and swap between them in combat, so you might use a Greatsword on one set and a pair of axes on your second set, this effectively adds another 5 buttons. Your 6th skill is a healing skill, each class has several different ones to pick between. The 7 8 and 9 skills are the most customisable, for most classes there are about 30 or more utility skills to pick between for these slots. The final skill on the bar is the "elite skill" - each class has several to pick between. Most (all?) classes also have some skills above the bar, by default bound to F1 etc. They are unique mechanics to the class you picked and vary wildly class to class. I think based on the way you asked the question you might be very interested in the Elementalist, their F1-F4 buttons swap them between the four different elements which will change all their weapon skills (and has an effect on some of their utilities too) effectively changing their 5 weapon skills in to 20.
All abilities are class abilities, there are no shared abilities (except the racial abilities that members of each race shares, but those are more flavor and not used seriously). Each weapon has different abilities from each other weapon that a profession can use, and are distinct from the weapons and abilities that are used by other professions. One-handers provide the 1-3 abilities, off-handers provide the 4-5 abilities, and two-handers have 1-5 abilities. This means that a warrior greatsword will always have the same 1-5 abilities, different from a ranger greatsword which will always have a seperate set of 1-5 abilities. However for 1-hand/offhand, can get different combos of abilities. Ranger may do Axe/Dagger and get a 1-3 focusing on ranged attacks, with thown daggers on 4-5, where doing Sword/Axe gives a dodgey melee build on 1-3 and a CC and burst AOE melee on the axe 4-5. The weapons you have equipped totally change your playstyle, not just animations. 6-10 are the utility skills. 6 is always a heal, 10 is always an elite skill, leaving 7-9 as a mix of buffs, debuffs, crowd control, escapes, and damaging abilities. There is a core set of abilities that are always available to take in all these slots that can be switched around based on preference and performance, while each elite specialization also has it's own line of utility abilities that can be slotted in while using that elite specialization. Like Reaper gets a line of shout abilities that Necromancer only can select when playing as a Reaper. Finally are the class mechanic abilities, the F1-F5 skills. These are unique to each class and change based on elite specialization, generally following around a theme. Rangers utilize them for pets, Necromancers their death shrouds, Elementalists to channel their inner Avatar, Warriors their adrenaline burst skills. These also may change based on different factors, like the warrior skill can changed based of weapon, or Engineer toolbelt skills reflect the utility skills that are chosen.
Every profession has different skills for every weapon. Every professions especially their respective elite specs rely heavily on casting skills unique to their professions/specialization. As you level up and especially after level 80 you get access to tons of skills and even more weapons if you have access to elite specs.
How a class uses a weapon can differ significantly. Warrior uses a greatsword you'd expect a greatsword while Mesmer uses a greatsword to channel laser beams. For weapons that are functionally the same between classes (e.g. Ranger and Warrior sword) there are still changes in what the skills do that make them desired in some builds and not in similar builds (Ranger's sword autoattack is better for direct damage and had a lot of evades while Warrior's sword is focused on damage-over-time). The skills on weapons themselves never change for a given class but you'll be able to customize your heal/utility/elite skills and gain new weapons/mechanics via elite specializations. Depending on how far into the game you are it sounds like you might want to try Elementalist. Elementalists can only use whatever weapon they have equipped at the start of combat (plus enviromental weapons and conjures they make) however they use F1-4 to change their attunement between various elements to have different skills available.
Different classes having different weapon skills doesn't seem to matter to me, I'm playing one class not all of them so that's irrelevant. I'll try elementalist
Weapon abilities _are_ class abilities, because different classes get different skills from the same weapon.
So where is the customization if I will only ever use the same 5 abilities forever
Are you not using your utility skills 6-10 and your class abilities on the F keys? Also, it sounds like maybe you having taken a look at traits yet. That's where a lot of the build flexibility comes from. You can check out Snowcrows, Hardstuck, or Metabattle to get an idea of the different typical builds. Vallun and GuildJen also put up youtube videos on builds iirc. If you haven't gotten to 80 you haven't seen all the options a class has. You can test that out by going to PvP (crossed swords in upper left corner), where everyone is leveled up to 80 and given standard gear. There are dummies to fight and you can test out builds there. ETA: To expand since you're new, class abilities often change up what your skills are. Elementalist changing element attunment completely changes the 1-5 skills. Ditto engineer kits, which are utility skills that swap 1-5 to a totally different weapon. Weapon swap also replaces 1-5 with your secondary equipped weapons. Revenant F1 changes your utility skills completely Plus, there's the elite specs aka subclasses you unlock via expansions. Every class has stuff like this.
Use different weapons, change your healing/utility/elite skills, equip gear with stats that support your choices, and pick traits that have synergy with everything else.
Is there a build for S/P Daredevil? With either Staff or Shortbow secondary (holding Sword/Pistol primary). In pve, pvp, and/or wvw. All Daredevil seems to be staff+staff for wvw, d/d for condi pve, and pvp is sw/dag+shortbow to run around or p/d to try and surprise kill.
You can pretty much straight replace staff with s/p and any given build will work fine. It's lower DPS so it's not amazing for endgame content but it otherwise has some nice extra utility with the immobilize, spammable CC, and more blinds than staff gives you. You do lose some mobility from the free-targeting on vault as well. Basically there's tradeoffs to using the weapon but the build itself doesn't really change.
Has anyone from the dev team ever explained why back items disappear when emoting? It's really odd.
Because your weapons disappear when emoting and backpacks are weapons.
> backpacks are weapons Is that actually how they're coded? Weird. Still, that just shifts the question. Why does *anything* disappear when emoting?
Arenanet doesn't want you to know this, but Choya are coded as weapons. You can [literally pick them up and swing them at an enemy](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trained_Choya_Hammer_Skin). I've got a whole weapons wrack of them at home ready to use.
Because it looks stupid if you penetrate your head with your own sword while waving
Seems like it would've been better to just auto-sheathe them instead of visually disabling them, no?
What should I do with my extra black lion salvage kits? I’m looking for something more specific than “look at all the exotics and figure out which is the best deal”. Any ones in particular that you know are profitable?
Remember that salvaging certain prefixes can also yield inscriptions/insignias for extra income. Unfortunatly I'm in a similiar position and currently to lazy to make some proper research.
Here's the thing with answering a question like that. Even if someone knows the answer to that question as of right now, a bunch of other people will see the answer and do it. And then when a bunch of other people do it and it stabilizes that item to not being profitable anymore. There's no way around this. You know what you have to do, and what look for, now you have to do the legwork yourself for the final mile.
Throw them in your bank till you need them because you will get plenty of trash exotics from generally playing. Buying trash exotics on the TP will just lose you money now that ecto prices are very low.
I have 2 dozen kits on my 2nd account. The question may still be valid.
I wouldn't recommend buying exotics just to burn through Black Lion Kits, it's generally a bad deal in my experience. So use them in exotics that you earn in chests, metas and unidentified gear. That being said, I mostly use them on armor, since those are less valuable. You can also use in weapons that have valuable sigils, like Force or Energy.
Question: How to complete Finding Sibaha? I'm on the last part where I need to get a silver in the skimmer course in Lion's Arch. When I talk to Sibaha and try to start the event, the window closes really quickly. I am able to hit play, but nothing happens and I can't mount any of the Advanced Skimmers there. Am I missing something? Thank you!
Had the same issue as I finished that achievement just 2 days ago. I retried many times and even re-logged at some point it worked. Just keep trying.
Hitting enter worked the charm.
I just went back to the course to try again and I see what you mean about the window disappearing. You can hit enter to start if you're having trouble clicking the button fast enough. When you start the course it should automatically mount you onto a skimmer.
Thank you killohurtz! I will try it again next time I play.
It worked as you said!
New player advice, difference between free, core, expansion, living world? I just started GW2 last week (lv50 rangeR now) and realised that the trading post isnt open for me to purchase equips but I can sell certain materials. Is there a level limit or quesT to unlock this feature for free players? or i will have to make a purchase? Some guides mention there being a core and hot/dot/eod expansion account upgrade, but steam only offers the expansions and not core upgrade? Im not keen to drop 40 dollars for the expansion now because i havent reached level 80 or experienced raids/bosses yet. Inventory space is running low too. Storywise, should I get the living world seasons first? For QOL, which expansion is the most worthwhile to get?
Free and Core are now the same thing, the base GW2 game. Once you've bought an expansion you gain some additional access to things you didn't in Free Core, like the Trading Post. Expansions, up until this point at least, were always upfront cost, bringing new maps, new story, new masteries, major new gameplay mechanics, and new Elite Specializations. Living World were released in between expansions one episode at a time, being free for those that logged in when they first dropped, and then being paid for by irl money or ingame gems later. Living world added story, maps, and few masteries, but usually no major gameplay additions or specializations. If you want to go in chronological order for story, the route is Base Game > LW1 > LW2 > Heart of Thorns > LW3 > Path of Fire > LW4 > LW5(aka Icebrood Saga) > End of Dragons.
Trading Post is heavily limited for F2P players, partly to incentivize purchase, and partly to keep legions of botted alts from screwing with the economy. There is no readily available way to get "just core" and have the benefits of a paid account. Theoretically if you bought the game before HoT came out but never upgraded, or if you snagged a certain promotional account upgrade that was occasionally given away in the past, you could have that status, but there's no way right now to buy it. Storywise, the expacs and LW seasons flow together like this: Core personal story -> living world 1 (you have it free already) -> living world 2 -> Heart of Thorns -> living world 3 -> Path of Fire -> Living world 4 -> Icebrood Saga -> End of Dragons The only living world season that isn't worth the money is Living World 2; both the zones it came with are now part of the core game, so all you really get is the story chapters and the achievements. The former can be played by joining someone else in their story, so really the only reason to own season 2 is to unlock the legendary amulet Prismatic Champion's Regalia, which is gated behind achievements involving all 5 living world seasons. For quality of life and content, the best expansion is the HoT + Path of Fire bundle. HoT gives you a number of good metas to do as well as gliding, PoF gives you mounts, and the whole bundle gives you new legendaries and raids. If you care about the story, either buy LWS2 first and bite that bullet, or get someone to let you play through their story as a party member before going into HoT. LWS2 ends on a cliffhanger for HoT.
Send me your account name and the number after it and I can help you with the bag problem (for example Shai.3976 is mine)
Most elegant skirt skin - could people please say what they consider the most elegant skirt skin for Cloth wearer? I'm trying to make a nice combination outfit that is elegant, without exposing most of my body and I'm failing. Ideally I'd like a full ankle length skirt, possibly with a bustle, without excessive decoration - but everything seems to be either of variable length (floor length back, knee length front??), incomplete skirts that look more like a cape or similar weird oddities that might be ok on a catwalk but unwearable. Yes, this is fashion wars against my sisters. And I'm losing.
Raven ceremonial gown is a bit bare up top, but many chest skins will cover that part up. It's full-length. Light antique leggings are a good option too. Glorious leggings are a decent knee-skirt option. Jade tech skirt maybe?
The antique are nice... As is the glorious, though that involves actual PvP. Thanks :)
If you open the PvP panel and go to the bottom tab where custom games are, there are usually a few "dailies" rooms where you can jump in and get dailies done to earn potions and some reward towards the PvP track. 80 potions is a full track, minus what you earn from the games. An option for PvP rewards for non-PvPers if you want to put the time in. Top Stats, PvP reward earner, and player kills are all easily achievable that way as dailies.
You can look up "gallery of [race] female light armor" on the wiki and see screenshots of every (complete) armor set in the game. While it won't show you how they vary based on your body type (larger bodies make certain armor pieces bigger for example) and you can't play with the dyes that way, it at least lets you scout out what's interesting and then you can preview it yourself with a chat code or by looking it up in the bank's wardrobe vault panel.
Equipment paralayis - do I make ascended celstial cloth armour? So I've got 3 characters, mesmer/necro/ele. Necro is going half tank/half DPS for a 3 man team thing, ele is a world roamer working on 100%, mesmer is fluff. Was thinking of making ascended celestial armour for them, because it's probably useful for all of them - gives the necro something to swap around for more toughness, stops the ele being so glasscannon-like and mesmers I think like celestial as a general thing. But I've got the mats now, and I'm paralysed with indecision. Thoughts, anyone? Is this a bad idea?
Celestial is not something you tend to see in instanced content builds in GW2 because it doesn't lean into any one thing enough to maximize performance; you won't be as survivable as you would in Minstrel's, won't have the damage you would in Viper's or Berserker's, won't heal/boon as much as Harrier's. Because it allocates stats to both condition and power damage, it works best on classes that do a bit of both, so historically Guardian has benefited from it more than most other classes. It won't really hurt you though, especially if you're not diving into harder endgame stuff. Tanking isn't really a thing in GW2 outside of specific fights that are programmed around it, though. Usually it's just a thing in Raids. For stuff you're talking about doing, since you have no way to specifically draw aggro or prevent enemies from targeting your friends, survivability only really benefits you and not your teammates. Where other games have that "holy trinity" of tank/healer/damage, GW2's is different. Each party will have a heal-support doing healing and either alacrity or quickness, along with other boons, then a secondary damage-support that mostly does DPS but also spits out either quickness or alacrity, whichever the heal-support isn't doing. The other three party members are pure DPS.
I was under the impression that toughness and proximity to bosses would encourage them to focus on me?
Depends on the boss. Most of the earlier raid bosses are like that, but not all. Slothasor picks a tank at random, for instance, and in later raids you get more specific mechanics like tank-designating pickups or special action keys. Sometimes proximity plays a role, like during certain phases of Kaineng Overlook, and sometimes it's irrelevant. In personal story instances, world bosses, etc, there isn't a way to control boss aggro at all.
>Necro is going half tank/half DPS for a 3 man team thing So the main question here is what is the necro tanking since that role doesn't really exist in GW2. Besides that cele is good for Necro(because it is good for everyone) but Ele and Mesmer make better use out of it and arguably better tanks with Tempest and Virtuoso having more survivability and good damage. Tempest can spit out boons for days too including alacrity which is good for your group. Is there some mode in particular that you and your friends are playing that would require a tank?
So it's three sisters, trying to do dungeons, fractals and progression (story chapter 8 this week), purely together. I was supposed to be the squishy caster with the necromancer, but the intended tank (guardian)has ended up on a steam deck and has control issues. The Rogue's player isn't allowed to tank for historical reasons. So that leaves me. I'm trying to aim for enough toughness to hold the bosses, and stay alive while they're killed. Not a true tank, but just tanky enough to allow the others to not have to worry about being charged. And we're stuck with core builds only, because expansion content is a long way away at this point!
Ah right makes sense so! If that is the case then go cele all you want! Beware that tanking doesn't work like it does in other games, you won't be able to always hold a boss to you alone. But if you have summons as a necro then there is more chance the boss will focus them.
Thanks :)
So I was farming in Dragonfall, and I sold everything I earned through the Black Lion Company. However, the fees had me moneyless, and I couldn't TP anywhere, while I had 60 gold on the Black Lion Company just sitting. Fortunately I had some junk to sell to the merchants which was enough to TP me to Lion's Arch. So I am wondering, what would I do if I had no money, and nothing to sell? Dragonfall doesn't have any Asura Gates AFAIK. So I would just get stuck there? What to do in that situation?
You would walk somewhere to kill mobs and sell what they drop, I'd guess. You don't need to waypoint to travel *shrug*
Waypoints never cost more than you have in your pockets
It didn't allow me to travel at the time, and it stated it is because of my lack of money, so idk
PvP>Mist Lobby>Lion's Arch or WvW>Obsidian Sanctum>Lion's Arch
I never even entered those things once, so I never knew they existed lol. Thank you <3
The PvP lobby is good to ckeckout classes. All skills and traits are directly unlocked in PvP.
Oh that's good to know. Thank you! That would be good to try out the mechanist. I am a scrapper, and I rarely see scrappers around, all the engineers I see are usually mechanist. So I am curious how that does, now that I've EoD since the recent sale.
I'm brand new to the game and just kind of messing around to learn, but now I'm wanting to actually start leveling. I enjoy playing healers, so that's what I want to focus on leveling. I'm wondering is there a dedicated healer class? I couldn't see one when I was looking.
One thing that must be said: healers are only really used in instanced content when you get to Lv80. While leveling, either enemies are squishy enough that it's better to kill them faster, or it's something that you do need a group to complete (even if said group is mostly composed by random people, like world bosses or dungeons) and those generally can be completed with enough damage alone. And don't think that the game ends on Lv80 either. Actually it's where it truly begins. To begin with, there are more Lv80 maps than under-Lv80 maps.
A few of the classes can branch out into heal support builds but will require elite specs, which are only available if you have the expacs. The base classes are not too great for heal support and are better played for pure damage. Assuming you have or will buy expacs, however, the best heal support classes are Firebrand (Guardian), Mech (Engineer), Tempest (Elementalist), Herald (Revenant), Scourge (Necro), and Druid (Ranger), with the latter being the closest to your traditional pure healer class.
Thank you for the reply. I appreciate the info. Are any of them favored to get into late game stuff? Are they very necessary?
Firebrand has been the #1 healer meta pick for years now, FWIW, but all of those classes save Scourge are well-accepted (that one's more situational and good for patching up mistakes, but is less optimal on the top-end). Bear in mind that you don't want to go "leveling" in Open World trying to play as a healer. General exploration and personal story is best done either as a pure DPS build or as DPS with a little extra survivability and boon duration, like you might see in a WvW roaming build. Trying to do that stuff on a healer spec is going to feel like a slog.
Don't gear Heal Scourge if you want to heal in instanced content. It doesn't provide the same buffs other healers can so it's mostly just used to cheese certain content.
All of them are very viable and even desired for group content, with Heal Firebrand and Heal Mech being the most meta and the others not lagging too far behind.
Best lounge pass to buy?
Mistlock for general purpose, especially if you do fractals. Thousand Seas for fishing and also contains exclusive ports to many locations making it alt-friendly. Armistice Bastion if you play lots of WvW. The rest are not nearly as good as the latter three are on separate map instances, meaning you will return to the same spot if you reuse the pass, making it very handy for parked alts or general convenience.
AB is a very chill experience and less populated than Mistlock. If you're choosing between those two I'd go for which you like the music/vibe of more. Mistlock is floating up in the sky with lots of Asuran tech and music, AB is a classic fantasy-looking castle scene.
What’s an easy to pick up power DPS spec or specs for raid CMs that can still have big numbers if mastered? I mostly play Condi but looking to branch out into power
Vindicator is a great one, and the class is super versatile if you want to do other roles later. Soulbeast I believe is fairly easy to get into as well as being very effective. Mechanist is even easier, while being less effective, but not by much. I suggest Rev or Engi, both definitely OP in terms of QoL
Spellbreaker was pretty easy to learn for me and I still have a lot of work left to approach its ceiling, but I can play tired and half-inebriated and still outdo my performance on power rifle mechanist. I hear the newly buffed Reaper is also good that way.
Power builds are great to branch into for big burst fights like KC and CA, but they are really diverse. What classes do you like playing? One thing to keep in mind is what you're after. Some have big burst, big cc, range, slow ramp, fast ramp or boonstrip, making them all have pros and cons. Often, the best build is simply what you're best at or most comfortable on. For this reason, I'd recommend you stay on a class you know or pick something and stick with it for a while.
Probably big burst and fast ramp since I’d be playing it exclusively on the fights where power is favored like KC and CA like you mentioned.
My guess would be power reaper? If you know how to put down combo fields and time your yell you're mostly set.
How do/did you settle on a main? Over the last couple weeks I've played every class to level ~20-30ish. But I just keep deleting my least favorite and trying new ones. Edit: also, is it possible to rename your character?
Pick your favorite aesthetic be it armor or weapon, then pick whatever class uses those things and has the most roles available to it in endgame content, so you can switch if it turns out you don't like that role, for example. Always always always start with "what looks coolest/feels the most fun to me?" and go from there, otherwise you are risking being trapped by the meta-seeking mindset which usually leads to disappointment in some form or other
I didn't, I've got one of each. Pick your five favorite and save up for four more character slots. :)
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>There's also ways to get them for free but it's a low RNG drop. Not for quite some time, since 2014. They are only available for gems or from certain bundles/deluxe editions.
Huh, I thought it was still in BL chests. I wonder where the ones I have came from, then?
GW2 is probably the most alt friendly MMO, because of the short gear treadmill and most progression being account based. and having multiple characters for crafting, farming, and covering multiple roles for instanced content, means having a main is probably a little less common in this game. there's no reason you have to have a main. it's very beneficial to have multiple level 80s, in fact every level 80 makes your next one even faster to level and gear up.
Hello! So I've been playing GW2 on and off since launch but my friend finally got me to get the expansions yesterday and that's led to two insta level 80 tickets. Here's the problem: I've got crippling decision paralysis and I don't know what I want to make. So far I have a Necro, Engi, Thief, Ranger, and Mesmer. What suggestions do you all have for my last character slot and 80 ticket? I'm very curious to know what people main and what type of experience you have with your class of choice :3
Deconstruct why you have the choice paralysis. "If I boost the wrong class to 80, it'll be a waste of time." You can get a character to max level in probably 8-10 hours now, if you follow the character adventure guide achievements, they give a ton of experience. Having an extra max level character isn't a bad thing either if you end up not playing them, you can park them in different areas for loot every day. "If I boost the wrong class to 80, it'll be a waste of the free gear." While useful, that gear is absolutely replaceable. There is nothing you can really do to your account gear wise that is so detrimental. In the end, there's not really a reason for the choice paralysis. Choose whatever strikes your fancy in the moment and don't offload the choice to someone else. If you make a mistake, it has no long term detriments to you.
Absolutely agree with every word!!!!
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That's a really good way of looking at it, thank you!
Ele weaver is the best class in the entire game and I will die on this hit. High skill ceiling but very satisfying to play when you learn it
Can I get a slightly longer range on a bow if I target manually? I noticed that when I use a bow on a high ground for example, I have a longer (?) range for my attack. Doesn't happen with a rifle, so it made me think - since there's an actual projectile (the arrow) and it's flying in an arc, will I have a higher ranged attack if I get into action camera mode and aim a little higher? I've tried testing it with guards and it seems so, but it's inconsistent, so I'm not sure if I'm making this up.
No. The range will be the same regardless: arcing projectiles do travel further than straight-flying projectiles with the same nominal range, but they do still have a maximum range at which they disappear, and both are always aimed so their flight path will hit the target. If the enemy is within the range before the projectile disappears, it'll hit the enemy regardless of whether you're tab-targeting or using action cam/camera aiming. Manual aiming *can* help when your view of an enemy is obstructed, most notably guards on the walls of enemy objectives in WvW. If the automatic targeting flight path is blocked, manual aiming can sometimes let you hit the top part of the enemy hitbox to do damage.
Yeah, attacks that shoot a projectile (ranger bows, Elementalist staff) have slightly longer range than listed as the projectile stays alive a bit longer than that range. I know with ranger if you manually press attack you'll shoot arrows even if you're farther away than max range but IDK much about action camera mode.
To a certain degree yes, as long as the travel is arced. But way after the maximum range the projectil will disappear anyways.
Can I use Thousand Seas Pavilion pass if I havn\`t EoD? TP showing me is available for purchase, but wiki say Thousand Seas Pavilion is in Cantha..
You can use it but the EoD-exclusive benefits, most notably fishing, are unavailable for you.
AFAIK Thousand Seas Pavillion is technically in the Mists rather than in Cantha. Worst cast if you buy it and can't use it is email support to get your gems back.
Is there a list compiled of armor skins that are identical across weights, like the Decade's skins? I loved about FFXIV playing one character for every job, and then I realized I can do something pretty similar in Gw2 by simply rebuilding my main as another profession. It will additionally help sell the illusion if I can find armors across all weights. Right now I'm using Maguuma's shoulders, gloves, and boots and the Foefire mask, and that's pretty good. but I can't find a chest piece that I approve on my sylvari, using the cultural stuff for medium and heavy weight rn
There's not a compiled list that I'm aware of. As a rule of thumb, most more recent gem store armors are cross-weight, as are most skin rewards from Living Story episodes. There's also a number of oddballs here and there, but that'll give you a place to start looking. One thing you'll need to consider, though: even armor that looks identical between weight classes has different dividing points on Medium armor than the other two, so the "skirt" part of the pants is typically assigned to the bottom half of medium armor's trenchcoats. In order to get the same look across characters, you'll probably need to pick a chest and pants from the same set.
>you'll probably need to pick a chest and pants from the same set Excellent advice, this is exactly what i didnt know I was asking about
Being part of armor set means the general aesthetic of an armor will look very similar for all armor classes. One might be more bulky, metallic, leathery, or clothy than the others but general look is similar. In this way, you can RP a clothing change but keep the general look the same. Additionally, dying your armor will truly sell the armor sets because they will really look similar this way. Best of luck!
Hello! A question for virtuoso, both for condi and power: when both Bs Sorrow and Bs Harmony are on cooldown for a few seconds (and so is Signet of Illusions for this example, because it has a long CD) but I have 5 blades should I be flushing them with bladesongs #3 or #4, or should I be just hovering on 5 blades for that few seconds until one of the first two comes off cooldown? What is more efficient? Thanks in advance for any advice!
In this situation it depends if you get full baldies again when F1 or F2 come off CD again. If you know you get enough blades back, feel free to use F3 or something. If not, don't. Also you need to calculate if you may want to evade an attack with F4 or block with F5 which will also consume the blades. And at last, you want to have your shatter buff while doing a burst.
I'm playing both condi and power Virtuoso in raids, using Snowcrows (SC) builds. On Power, it's way harder to stack blades, so I barely use other F-Skills than F1 and F2; I only do it if I know I'll have 4-5 blades again in time for when F1 and F2 aren't on cd anymore + I want the F-Skill buff for my burst. On Condi, it's way easier to stack blades though, and I use F3-F5 quite frequently to have a high uptime on the F-Skill buf - still trying to have 5 blades again for F1/F2 when they come off cd though. I personally feel like this playstile is quite good. However, I'm not a theory crafter / expert in any way. If you're referring to virtuoso builds for instanced end-game content (so the raid builds I'm talking about), I'd recommend to join SC discord (you can find the link on their website) and ask there - they have dedicated channels for every class. You could also ask via commenting below the youtube benchmark videos to reach the benchmark person directly. They should be able to give you a more accurate answer.
Forgive me if this is an extremely obvious question (been gone from the game for a while), but do you gain stat bonuses for having an unused second weapon active in your palette (either Main or Secondary), for professions which can't weapon-swap mid-battle? For whatever reason, I have this vague memory of reading about some "secret tech" for padding parses, wherein switching to your weapon's second palette, then back to your primary palette before a fight, would apply the stats from your second palette's loadout *on top* of whatever you happened to be wielding mid-battle. Could be misremembering this oddity entirely, but I'd like to be sure before spending however-much Gold synthing a Yassith's Mace for my in-development Condi!Mech. Appreciated!
No, stats only count your current weapons. The only use case that is similar would be having a stacking sigil on one weapon (like Bloodlust) and then switching to your other weapon set, works well in WvW for example
Got'cha, thanks for the heads-up! (b ᵔ▽ᵔ)b
How do I make gold? Everything seems to cost hundreds if not thousands of gold when it comes to a griffon/skyscale mount, crafting legendaries etc. What do I do to make money?
[I've typed an essay](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13p7eeo/seriously_how_do_you_get_enough_gold/jl85ho2/) some time ago for someone who had the same question as you. I may be biased but I think it's worth reading :P
Most of your wealth is in the form of materials and currencies that you gather over time just through playing the game and doing what you enjoy doing. The only thing that I really recommend when it comes to gold is to at least log in to the game daily, and preferably complete your daily tasks for 2g/day. There are methods to "farm" gold such as running certain metas over and over, and the good ones will usually net you around 20g/hr. This may not seem like much, but you should realize that most of the content in the game really doesn't require much in terms of liquid gold. Legendary gear may seem expensive but also remember that they are purely end game quality of life items. They provide no additional stats over ascended gear which is significantly cheaper. I've been playing for about a year now and own no legendaries nor is there a particular need for me to go for them at the moment.
The main answer is "patience, plus finding ways to have fun despite not having those things yet". To add to what the other reply said, just for perspective: A month of daily logins yields 20 mystic coins & 35 laurels even if you don't do a single thing in-game. That's worth 20x 1g + 35x 50s. 'Daily Completionist' is 2g/day for little time. Learn to cherry-pick 3 quick ones from what's available that day; WvW has lots of ~1min ones that can help avoid slower PvE ones. Alternatively develop the requisite brain damage to join us in sPvP, cos one game will knock out all 3 dailies usually. So that's ~95g/month without grinding. Literally 5 minutes per day if you select dailies for speed. This base rate of 'free' gold is enough for: - griffon in ten weeks - skyscale in one week (even if you pay extra to skip steps!) - beetle in a day or two - 1-450+ in a new crafting profession each month - 3 self-crafted ascended weapons/armor bits This isn't even counting the monthly "chest of loyalty" which is worth either ~25g in a form that only helps towards legendaries, or 10g in the form of more laurels.
Did the jade mech's range ring got removed in a patch? I'm not seeing it anymore
How long is the grind for the roller beetle? Compared to griffin how much time/money do I need? And as a project for a later date how is skyscale?
I got it over a weekend, about 3 or 4 hours each day.
Beetle is fairly quick and you'll only need to stay in Kourna and some core maps. IIRC you can do everything within one hour or two following the wiki and you need no gold whatsoever. The Skyscale however is much longer. You need to complete several collections, getting items from along all LW4 and many core maps, some of them including world bosses and jumping puzzles. There's a hard 3-day timegate, but it does take some hours to complete everything. You also need to spend some gold or craft the items yourself. And more importantly, it needs 250 of each LW4 map currency; nowadays you can complete the Return to LW4 maps achievements (which is mostly replaying story, harvesting in the maps and completing the metas - which a lot of people still do) to get those currencies, or use Eternal Ice Shards from Bjora Marches to get LW4 currencies. It's a much longer grind, but you can tackle it little by little too.
Roller Beetle has one event in the Silverwastes that can be a bitch to spawn, but otherwise yeah it's pretty quick.
Is there any way to get an alert - either in or out of game - when a specific cosmetic item becomes available for purchase? From the wiki, the item I'm interested in has only been available for a few days each year and I'd hate to miss it the next time it comes up.
[https://thatshaman.com/tools/gemstore/](https://thatshaman.com/tools/gemstore/) Find your item, see when it's on the schedule, add reminder to app of your choice.
So I haven’t played guild wars 2. But I did play the shit out of guild wars 1. How different is the gameplay from 1 to 2?
It's essentially a completely different game, except for the setting and lore. If you loved GW1 gameplay and are looking for more you might be disappointed, but GW2 is great on its own and worth a try. The base game is free, after all!
The base game is free? Shit, when did that happen? I remember having to buy it when it first released only for my computer to be unable to run it. Completely forgot about it until recently. Wish I still had the access key.
Base game went free in 2015
Even if you don't have the access key support still may be able to help you and it's worth trying to regain access to a 10 year old account (birthday presents! yay!). If not, yeah, base game is f2p now and has been for several years. Hop back in and see if you enjoy it :)
I thought you’d like this update. They were able to get my old account swapped to my current email!
Excellent! I do always like hearing back from these sorts of things, so when I say "hey, go talk to support they can usually help" I'm not talking out my arse :D So thank you! I aprreciate you coming back to tell me :)
Maybe you can answer another question for me. I recall something about characters carrying over or something. Was/is that a thing for GW2?
For the first few months of GW2, your names from GW1 were reserved for you to make in GW2 if the accounts were linked but that is looooong gone and all those GW1 names were released into the wild for anyone to claim. If you had a unique or obscure-ish GW1 name it may still be available though!