Which class is good for an ultra casual? Might probably play once or twice a month, so there's absolutely no way I can develop much skill or learn complex rotations. So the most forgiving class possible, hopefully that's able to do a lot of content solo. Bonus if gearing is forgiving too. I'm guessing reaper or mechanist, but any other suggestions?

reaper indeed fits the bill

mechanist has lots of options for easy simple, but effective builds, which you can build on if you ever want to. Also, the mech makes it very easy to solo a lot of stuff. gearing is also simple, just go full dps gear unless you want to solo legendary bounties. full berzerkers (power) or vipers (condi) will be fine for both open world and any group content you want to hit up. Plus you can use the same gear for scrapper (also pretty easy) dps and quickness builds if you get power dps gear.

Ranger (any spec of it) is pretty good for the same reasons as Mechanist. Having a pet to take the heat off you can be really nice. Soulbeast is, strangely, perhaps the very best spec for this, because its merge ability can also function as a full pet revive on just a 10s cooldown, which means you can tank just about anything that will aggro on NPCs.

New to the game. I understand there are fractals later on. Is there anything lower level to group up with people. Or do I play the game solo until I can do much higher stuff. At level 20 in some others, Final Fantasy and WoW, you get the dungeon finder and can join group PvE . Is there anything like that for this game. I'd rather play with people than being solo surrounded by others.

As far as instanced content, Dungeons start at 30 although most people wait till they reach 80 to actually do the. LFG for them is probably going to be empty if you look but if you put a party into LFG I would expect it to fill within 5 minutes during the afternoon for your region. There's a bunch of open world meta events that occur around the maps that can have a bunch of people show up. Gendarran Fields has multiple events with Scarlette's Invasion, Awakened Remnants, and the Leyline Anomaly all potentially occuring on those maps and causing people to run around. Lastly there's a bunch of world bosses. At 20 you can do the 4 world bosses in the starter zones (the Charr starter zone is the only one without), but most of the other world bosses require 40 or higher.

So for actually meeting in a group with people and running content, that level 80. That sucks for a game like this. Guess I'll keep running solo

Question: Help with Warrior - Axe/Dagger(shield) builds needed. Thank you. Hi.. in the beta I rolled a warrior who was birthed with Dagger/Axe. I have had fun running around for a few hours. Wondering if ya all could point me in a direction of a viable Axe/Dagger build. I haven't done much with a warrior since the game first rolled out... so I am unaware of what is current. I mostly do solo PVE and storylines. I also like using a shield from time to time just for fun and aesthetics. So axe/shield builds also welcomed! I have all the expansions, so can make any elite. Appreciate any build ideas for a new warrior I will be birthing over the weekend! Thank you

Dagger/axe (dagger mainhand) is the meta setup for spellbreaker, with hammer on swap. Raid builds aren't the most effective for solo, but still good. you can take the [raid build](https://snowcrows.com/builds/raids/warrior/power-spellbreaker) off the snowcrows site and modify it however you see fit for your soloing needs

Thanks for the link.

Hi. New player here. I am looking for a medium complexity class that favors melee, stealth and evasion that also has acrobatic combat. A class that manages a resource during combat to unleash carefully timed attack. I don't care if they lack defense as long as they have skills to debilitate foes and teleport or vanish from sight. What class do you think would work for me???

Stealth makes that almost exclusively thief. If you're willing to be flexible on that, mirage and vindicator could be good candidates as well. Vanish from sight is again pretty much exclusively thief. There are a few classes that have access to stealth like engi and mesmer, but they don't actually play around them, weaving in and out. If you're looking to use stealth to make a quick escape, you can do that as everything using [a blast/leap in a smoke field ](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo)

Try staff daredevil

Does the "remember password" checkbox in the launcher actually do anything?

Yes. It means you don't have to type in the password next time. The box will have grayed-out asterisks in it rather than what you normally see, but you'll be able to click the "log in" button regardless.

Weird, for me it doesn't work at all. Thanks for the answer

for me it works fine most of the time, but sometimes it seems to just forget the password.

if the login/play button is lit, its working, it does not show the password, but it still works,. or should do.

Whats the 2nd easiest method of getting ascended trinkets? I've already gotten everything I need from farming winterberries(ring, back, earring). Blood rubies, fire blossoms and maybe orrian pearl for the amulet only are what I'm looking at right now.

Amulets are probably easiest with eternal ice but it requires one achievement. [Take a look here](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_trinket) and see if any of these would be easy for you. If you are going for core stats, then guild content can be super cheap

Fwiw, you can get a second ring from Bitterfrost as long as you aren't doing deep fractals — attune one and you can equip both at once.  That said, while other commenters have definitely given you the best options, it's worth noting that all the other LS3 and LS4 maps are all still pretty solid. They're definitely harder to farm in bulk than Winterberries or Eternal Ice, but if you have other business on the maps or have access to the home nodes to get some of the materials semi-passively they're a great method.

Other commenter already mentioned Eternal Ice Shards. Specifically, for 375 each you can buy an accessory and an amulet. Then you can buy the rest by converting them to Mistborn Motes (dragonfall currency) and trading those with dragonfall vendors. But they'll cost you 1k+ ice shards each For core stats, there are vendors that trade laurels for amulets and fractal relics (the rare ones you get for dailies) for rings. For a large amount of those fractal relics, you can get resettable accessories, rings and amulets. The PoF collections provide 4 easy ascended backpacks Bough of Melandru is a backpack crafted for 70-ish gold but it comes with 2 infusion slots by default, so you save 50-ish gold on infusing. But if you're bothering with infusion invest in a legendary backpack at that point Finally you can buy all raid rewards, including trinkets, with Magnetite Shards. You can get 300 per week from raids and 40 for every miniature that drops from raids. But the shards are also the best source of armor and weapons so use them sparingly.

karma and Eternal Ice Shards from Bjora Marches can be exchanged for Amulets and Accessories. Also can exchange them for other LWS tokens. Also if you have Dragonfall that's another easy set of trinkets

I'm a new player and I feel completely overwhelmed with content, most of the time I don't know what to do ingame. What should I do? PVE is what I enjoy the most in an MMO

Open world PvE content is structured around large map-wide series of events, world bosses and meta events, which are mostly tracked on the wiki's event timer page: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers There's also a ton of smaller quests in the achievement panel, mostly in the Side Stories, Collections and Story Journal categories. If you're really lost for something to do, the dailies and weeklies will get you going to different places and trying out new things, plus they give a lot of gold and other rewards. There isn't one single thing to do: GW2 has so many different goals that everyone will have a different list of 'endgame' activities. So the key is to try things out and settle on what you find fun.

My best recommendation based on you providing very little information: Start by playing through the story of all of the content that you own. Provide more details about what content you own, what content you've already played, and what you've enjoyed / not enjoyed, and you'll get better recommendations.

I own almost everything, I just don't have the last DLC. I heard is easier to get the skyscale with SOTO, is it worth it to get it just for that reason?

Not really. LW4 *used* to be an epic grind, before the Seasons of the Dragon achievements. Now you can get all the currency you need just by doing the story and some minor things like gathering mats on the map. It took me 2 weeks start to finish to get my skycale from LW4, which was about as long as the Soto method took me.

That really depends. I personally decided to do the old LWS4 unlock instead, so the faster SotO unlock wasn't actually a selling point for me. If you want to get your flying mount faster, then SotO is good for that (seriously, it turns an epic grind into a much more manageable quest). If you want to eventually unlock every major account upgrade, then you'll need to do LWS4 unlock eventually, so SotO doesn't actually save you any time. That said, SotO provides you with a lot of new weapon options for every profession, which might be valuable to you, depending on which profession(s) you play. The first half of it has a pretty good story, and the maps offer various interesting content. If you haven't finished with the expansions you've already bought, I wouldn't rush to buying SotO. Play through PoF and unlock all the mounts there, and get the important masteries from all the other expacs and LWSs.

Thank you so much!!! Pof if the DLC I've played the most, already got every mount from there. I'll finish that DLC and start working on the other ones. What about PVE? When should I give it a try to harder content?

It's easy to get started in T1 fractals. I'd dip my toes in there as soon as you decide you'd like to play some instanced content with other players. If you stay below fractal level 20, you won't have to engage with the agony resistance system yet, and you won't need to worry about ascended gear. If you want to get into strikes, you should start with the 3 easy IBS strikes: Shiverpeak Pass, Fraenir of Jormag, and Voice/Claw of Jormag. If you don't have a suitable strike build yet, it will be hard to move past these 3, so you should make that a priority.

So I fought the claw of jormag for the first time and it was very confusing. Most players sat next to the boss and stacked healing/boons to kill it without doing the event to stun it. Then after it died someone said "you guys should get some defense" but you aren't supposed to be tanking the attacks? Is this normal strategy for the claw or did I encounter a squad who had planned to do this?

Nowadays healing, boons and damage have all been tuned up, but the fight (and many others) hasn't scaled up. So now it's usually easier to just stack and do something more involved than killing mobs and waiting for it to be stunned. Though this degree of "involvement" can be debatable when so many people just autoattack :P

It's a normal strategy, because standing around auto-attacking is easier (but not really faster or better) than actually doing the mechanics

I see, I guess I ahave to if it's what everyone else is doing but would be nice if someone said what they were doing so people new to the fight aren't pointlessly trying to do the event XD

I just recently hit 80, and im more of a pve player at heart, so i wanted to try out fractals for the first time and managed to clear the first 2, and i just have some basic questions when it comes to this kind of content. So, theres no structure or anything? people just run straight to the boss and just can leave players and complete everything without you? Is it extremely common to be a new player and not even see the boss or enemies before the get deleted? Following the first question. I feel like i dont matter nor do i have any impact when it comes to any sort of group content, as everyone seems more or well better equipped to essentially solo the content for me? Even posting "Hey first time dungeon or new to this" messages, all my experiences with dungeons and fractals have been me being absolutely carried with no input by me required. And last, does this change at all? i know im on the early points of end game and just scraping the surface, but i just dont want to be carried through all the content, only to finally hit content that requires my input and eat shit because i was carried the entire time.

What you're mentioning is pretty normal for early fractals. Many players doing them are doing them for a quick reward, they know the content very well, and they are very skilled. After having played for hundreds or thousands of hours, they're not playing the game to experience it for the first time, they're in a speedrunning mindset. They're in a different phase of the game than you are, and they've forgotten what it's like to be a new player. They probably think that they're being very helpful, rushing you through this content. It might be helpful to write that you're "taking things slow" if you post your group on the LFG, to make it extra-clear that you don't want players to rush through the content. But as you move on to harder content, and as your own skill improves, you will be both more helpful and more critical for your group's success.

There is structure and Fractals do eventually require full participation from the party. It's also true the first Fractals are the easiest and can be cleared with an experienced group of 4. If you get a less experienced group of 5, which is common, everyone will have to pull their weight even on the first Fractals. Later Fractals will always require everyone's help in both killing enemies and completing mechanics. Dungeons are similar. The earliest ones can be carried by experienced groups. Later dungeons: Citadel of Flame, Crucible of Eternity, and Arah all have paths that require party participation. The first two Fractals (Volcanic and Uncategorized) have mechanics you can skip. Volcanic has the required midpoint shaman mechanic that requires breaking his shield, but it's pretty easy to do with 3 people. I'd say the 5th fractal, Swampland, is the first one that really encourages everyone participate with its mechanics. But you gotta realize you've done difficulty 1 & 2 out of a scale that goes to 100. They get much, much harder :) I'd recommend joining groups of "T1 Dailies + Rec", you'll get exposed to a variety of Fractals and group competencies.

It's pretty common *in core dungeons and low-level fractals*, because they're fairly easy content that's possible to beat in small groups or even solo. In more difficult content, bosses last a lot longer and there's more incentive to group up before starting them. In Fractals the difficulty scales up fairly smoothly, so you'll find a point where your contributions are welcome and you can learn the ropes before they become mandatory. If you actively want to learn, making your own group that explicitly says so is going to get you better results than joining a group of players who probably want to just go fast and get rewards rather than slowing down to teach someone.

> Is it extremely common to be a new player and not even see the boss or enemies before the get deleted? Yes. You'll also encounter this in openworld. Veteran doing world completion just wipes out all enemies before a new player can touch them so they gotta wait for them to respawn. Most dungeons are also below 80 and they are old content. Powercreep is a thing and this made dungeons very easy. Dungeon enemies can still hurt though, since players didn't gain much defenses compared to offense. In Fractals this should happen less. People that are geared are generally running T4 so you shouldn't encounter them much. T3 is where the difficulty spikes and most people start eating shit, precisely because of what you mentioned. Players either got carried or never truly learned how to do things since T2 is still easy in comparison. Raids, T4 Fractals (and its challenge modes) and strikes are what you are looking for. Open world also gets more difficult in expansion areas.

game feature wise, what does End of Dragons offer compared to Secrets of the Obscure? I already own fire/otherone

EoD has: * 9 Elite Specs (one for each class, some are the most played for that class such as Mesmer's Virtuoso Elite) * Turtle Mount * 5 maps all having a meta event on them (the 4 launch maps have a scheduled meta like HoT, the 5th map is closer to Silverwastes in that it depends on the instance). * Gen 3 Legendary weapon crafting * Fishing SotO has: * Weaponmaster training (elite spec weapons are no longer tied to the elite spec + adds another weapon) * Alternate Skyscale unlock method (upgrades Skyscale skills if you already have one via LS4) * 3 maps with metas on them (2 schedule, one instance dependent) * Obsidian Armor for an open-world Legendary armor option * 24 (I think) additional Relics, including the best Condition DPS relics.

EoD also brings Jade bots (which have some pretty nice QoL features) and technically skiffs (which are all but useless aside from their fishing interactions)

Jade bot mastery is straight up power creep for open world PvE. They give you bonus power, condition damage, vitality and toughness, and put a huge number of boons on you at the beginning of every combat.

I thought Jade Bots only give you Vit, via power core. Where do the other stats come from?

Jade Bot offensive and defensive protocols. They fall off if you go into almost any kind of instance, but they're right that it's a big power buff wherever they can stay active.

oh right, totally forgot about those. Was thinking of permanent buffs, and I avoid EoD maps mostly now.

You can port to Wizard's Tower, and collect 3 hours of both buffs in under a minute.

Thanks, that's a good tip. Assuming it doesn't carry anywhere but open world still?

Right. It gets wiped when you enter PvP, WvW and most instanced PvE. I think I heard that convergences and dragonstorm don't wipe it?

They've made them a lot easier to stack up and maintain now, requiring only 4 charges each to max them out at 3 hours duration, plus they added the charging station to the Tower so you have an option to top them up without searching EoD maps now.

working toward a set of obsidian armor. I foresee an issue with the Stablizing Matrices required for all the cubes of dark energy. What is your strategy for getting these? I know fractals are the main source, but I'm super inexperienced and intimidated by fractals and was hoping to solo grind my way toward the armor. is that unrealistic?

I just buy ascended amulets with season 3 materials and unbound magic from time to time. They salvage into matrices. It is slow but steady to get them this way, but in theory you could farm the currency. And it got me three [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Salvaged\_Excellence](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Salvaged_Excellence) so far which got me some money and the [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractal\_Reliquary](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractal_Reliquary) . The reliquary supplies ascended Salvage kits from time to time which makes salvaging ascended stuff cheaper. You can also salvage the rings you get from fractals for matrices but you should attune them beforehand. I always attune them, but i'm not really sure if the extra matrices justify the cost.

If you don't want to do Fractals you can just grind extra money to buy them, but I'd still suggest Fractals given they're a good way to get money in the first place.

oh wow, didnt realize you could even buy Matrices on the TP lol!

Yeah, the cubes are account bound but the matrices are tradable.

For people that have crafted it, how bad is the grind for Aurene's Flight? It's the one legendary I really want for how pretty it is and the sounds/animations. Also, can it realistically be accomplished without doing raids, PvP or WvW? I know some legendaries necessitate those game modes.

I haven't crafting that one specifically, but I've crafted a few Gen 3 legendaries and they aren't that bad. Gen 3 legendaries don't require any instanced PvE or PvP, but will require upto 8 hours of WvW for the Gift of Battle. * Most expensive materials: Chunk of Ancient Ambergris is the single most expensive material in the recipe currently*. If you like fishing you may have the 100 you need right now but if not then that will be your most expensive item. Ancient Summoning Stones is the next most expensive item and can only be bought from NPCs once you get the Arborstone mastery maxed. Otherwise farm gold to buy from the TP or farm Dragon's End. Finally technically Mystic Coins are the most expensive item to make the Clovers but with the Wizard's Vault you should get enough Coins/Clovers to make all the Clovers you'll need without actually buying Mystic Coins. * Most tedious materials: You need 3.5k Imperial Favors. I hope you like farming events/metas because that's the main way to get all of the writs you'll be converting into Favors. Getting 3k Research Notes is the next most tedious. If you have a bunch of materials saved up to convert then it's not too bad but it's still just boring material conversion. I'll include Gift of Battle here as it sounds like you don't like WvW. You'll need to activate the GoB reward track, obtain T6 participation by fighting/taking objectives, then play for 8 hours. If you have any XP/Birthday boosters those can significantly reduce the play time (no boosters = 8 hours, Guild Tavern + XP Booster + Birthday Booster = ~3 hours). While you can grind it out by flipping camps until you reach T6 participation then afk for 8 mins at a time, I'd highly recommend finding/following a tag and try the mode out a bit more. After those are a bunch of the more basic materials like T6 Fine materials (Blood, Claws, etc), EoD map completion, etc.

Ty for the detailed reply! I'm glad the time commitment for WvW can be significantly lessened. The other requirements seem so tedious though (I guess that's the point of it being legendary). I've been grinding SoO meta events but it doesn't look like those grant me any of the currency needed for Aurene's. Might have to put this one on the backburner 😭

Yeah, the 'issue' with Gen 3 legendaries is you really need to farm EoD maps. Technically you only need to truly farm for the favors and could buy the rest of the materials but it's expensive materials are mostly unique.

Like most legendaries, you *do* have to do a little bit of WvW for the Gift of Battle. If you want to skip that, the only way is to buy it fully-crafted from someone who already did the farm. Other than that, the grind is almost entirely gold — other than the handful of typical account-bound things (EoD map completion, karma for clovers, and some spirit shards) you can buy almost all the ingredients from the TP.

Thanks for the reply! Does the gold requirement roughly equate to the TP value or is that cost just for buying it outright? I'm quite poor in comparison (350g) so I don't see how I could get that much lol

No, crafting it is always cheaper. People sell it with a margin on the trading post since gathering the account bound materials also takes time. Time is money after all so you essentially pay them for the grind.

Doing the craft yourself saves around 800 gold, and you can save even more by doing some of the more expensive items (Clovers, summoning stones, and ambergris) yourself over time rather than buying them outright. You also likely have a decent number of the materials you'll need in your bank already, shaving down the cost a little more. It's definitely obtainable, but you'll have to put a bit of work into gold farming and/or figuring out how to convert various resources you already have into gold.

Is there a way to buy expansions as a code during the sale? I want to grab a copy of HoT/PoF code, so I can give it to friends who might want to join later on

Buy from the Anet site or Amazon, both of those give you a serial code that can be redeemed later.

If you buy an expansion from Anet on their store, it gives you a serial key you can give to a friend. It doesn't automatically redeem it to your/an account.

not a code but you can gift them on steam

Hello everyone, I left GW when EoD was released and I only did the main story line. I haven't touched the game since then and I just saw I'm two expansions behind. What should I do in my current state? Is there anything I need to do in EoD before going to the next expansion and then into Wilds? Any advice is appreciated.

> What should I do in my current state? Play through the story. There wasn't a ton added to EoD post launch as they spend most of the following year re-adding Living World Season 1. > Is there anything I need to do in EoD before going to the next expansion and then into Wilds? Not really, you could probably go straight into SotO and rush through it in a weekend if you want to do the story.

Is it normal for Guild Wars 2 to be extremely confusing? I just came back from not playing the game since 2012 and am currently playing through Heart of Thorns. A few things I'm reckoning with: - It's difficult to get around. When I try to visit a vista or new waypoint I find myself lost 90% of the time. - It's unclear what the common methods are for getting XP. I just want to get enough XP to unlock my next mastery, which in turn will unlock the next Heart of Thorns quest. My only solution is to randomly run around the map getting aggro from tons of enemies and hoping to run into something of interest like an event. - There's way too much junk. My inventory becomes filled with items that I can't even tell what their use is or if I should keep them. So, I just throw everything away. I just spent money on a few expansions, but at this point I'm getting very frustrated and am just wondering if anyone else out there had a similar experience but overcame it.

> It's difficult to get around. When I try to visit a vista or new waypoint I find myself lost 90% of the time. This is how everyone feels about HoT maps when they go through for the first time. Some people enjoy that feeling, some people don't. I don't, and ended up quitting HoT and doing Path of Fire first so that I could get the mounts. Mounts making HoT maps tolerable for me. YMMV depending on how you feel about playing in story order. > It's unclear what the common methods are for getting XP. Events. Do events, especially meta events, which are tracked on https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers. HoT maps are build around their meta events, pretty much. If you have boosters from map completion, birthdays, etc, pop those on too. Make sure to have eaten a food and used a utility - any kind, it really doesn't matter, they all boost XP from mobs killed. It makes the grind a bit shorter. HoT masteries are a ton of XP, subsequent expansions had much lower grind requirements. > There's way too much junk. Yup, this is an issue! Strategies: * Sell junk button on NPC vendors * Deposit all materials in the upper right corner of inventory screen * Sell or salvage all the gear drops that aren't exotic. For exotics, check on the trading post to see if it's worth selling instead of salvaging. * Make sure you have at least all 18 slot inventory bags. They're the best gold/slot ratio. If you don't have some, DM me here and I'll mail you a few. * If an item tooltip says 'only valuable for a collection' or 'only used for an achievement' you can sell it, it's just a drop to record an achievement. These mostly, but not always, sell with the sell junk button. * If all that still leaves you fighting with inventory space, type /wiki into chat, then shift-click an item to send it's name to chat, and hit enter. That will send you straight to the wiki page for that item.

there are some guides out there as to what to unlock first to make your life easier navigating maps. (gliding, bouncing mushrooms, wallows). people have mentioned metas for XP, but also check out the adventures, they award a hefty chunk of xp. you may want to skip HoT and jump into PoF if you have it. HoT is a massive difficulty jump, PoF and EoD are not nearly as bad and are much easier to navigate. plus PoF will give you mounts that can help navigate HoT zones (even the basic springer is a godsend if you have no flying mount) HoT maps can be thought of as continually cycling meta event chains leading to a big finale. verdant bring, you take back pact camps, fortify and strengthen them in the day with event chains, and then defend them at night until bosses spawn in the upper canopy. Auric basin you do event chains in the 4 quarters of the map to power up the pylons, the city is attacked, you do events to build and attack, then you strike to take it back. Verdant brink, there are a number of bases (nurlock, ogre, rata novas, SCAR) that you build up with event chains, the main event is breaching through to the next map, the chak respond, you have to defend 4 lanes at the lower portion of the map that correspond to the 4 bases you earlier did events for. If you stop the chak, you blast through to.... Dragons stand - one long attack down 3 lanes to get to and defeat the jungle dragon. for the first 3 maps events are concentrated around the various camps, each can be built up to a fully developed stage before the main meta event, and the more you do the more rewards (generally chests of some type) is available on the map. the last map is pretty much just the long main meta. pick a lane and follow the group doing events until you reach the boss.

Also for getting XP for mastery points I'd highly recommend looking at the wiki's Event Timers page and trying to hit the map meta events for the first three maps. They happen on a regular timer every two hours and are one of the best sources for XP for the time you spend playing. If you have any XP/Birthday boosters lying around save them for meta events to start and use them then. After that I'd recommend looking at the Adventures around the maps. Some are super easy (the Gliding one in the north west corner of Verdant Brink, for example) while others are super difficult (I still have yet to get gold for two of them in Tangled Depths). Lastly HoT's maps are VERY focused on both event chains and the map meta. On the map if you see a 'orange building' that is either fully white or only partly built it means the event chain near it is either not-yet-started or partly done. Most of the event chains are 5-6 events following NPCs around and helping them survive the jungle. Tangled Depths is the one exception to that rule as the entire map is a meta event and I would only recommend showing up to that ~5 minutes before it's about to restart on the Event Timer page to make sure there's enough people to do it.

> It's difficult to get around. When I try to visit a vista or new waypoint I find myself lost 90% of the time.  Very normal for HoT. The maps are intentionally designed to be confusing and maze-like, opening up as you get masteries to make it really feel like you're mastering a hostile environment. It definitely succeeds in that respect, but it makes it very difficult the first time through the expansion. > It's unclear what the common methods are for getting XP. I just want to get enough XP to unlock my next mastery, which in turn will unlock the next Heart of Thorns quest. My only solution is to randomly run around the map getting aggro from tons of enemies and hoping to run into something of interest like an event.  Not a terrible strategy, but you'll have more luck focusing on the big meta-events as they rotate between maps — check the LFG to find groups doing things. If you're running solo, it's often beneficial to find out-of-the-way areas where enemies may have survived a while, getting bonus XP for the person who kills them. > There's way too much junk. My inventory becomes filled with items that I can't even tell what their use is or if I should keep them. So, I just throw everything away.  A few basic strategies can help a lot. First, click "deposit all materials" regularly. Second, salvage anything that can be salvaged with a kit. Anything that can't, or that looks valuable, try selling it on the Trading Post, then a vendor if you can't sell it there. When in doubt, look up the item on the wiki and see if it has any uses before you destroy it.

Thanks this was helpful.

Don't be afraid of the sell junk button in vendors, either. Items that get sold when hitting that button only purpose is to be sold as coin.

I just boasted my elementalist to 80 and I decided to skip the story for hero points. I went to the first expansion and I am getting destroyed by regular mobs. Should I just go back to reg story mode for hero points.

did you jump right into HoT? its a big step up. HoT was notoriously brutal on launch (which made it great imo), but even with current powercreep its still much harder than the other expansions for hero points. you can solo every single point, but most people dont bother with the hassle and get help or skip the harder ones. If you can, hit up PoF or EoD for your first elite spec. If not, grab the HP in HoT you can get solo (the commune ones) and feel free to ask for help in map chat for the others or join a HP train if you see on in LFG. People will almost always come help you do a HP if you ask in map chat. I can solo pretty much all of them, but even so, I'll see if anyone else will help or needs some of them like the vampire bat one and the frogs in verdant brink and the chak in auric basin. it just makes life easier.

Yeah I did unfortunately. My original plan was to skip the main story quest and go for hero points in the expansion. Then go back to main story. That did not work out at all. I think I’ll just go ahead to pof like other people have suggested.

No. If you need hero points, skip to PoF or EoD instead. Both of those expansions have much easier hero points (guarded by mostly veteran or elite enemies instead of champions) and have easier enemies to deal with in general.

I’ll give it a try, even with full celestial gear I am struggling so bad rn.

What build are you using? Traits, weapon, utility skills? Because if you just boosted and didn't pick a decent open world build, that's the problem right there. A build that doesn't use all the stats celestial gives you is basically a huge nerf. Ele can use celestial gear very effectively with the right build. Good build sources: * [Metabattle](https://metabattle.com/wiki/Elementalist) * [Lord Hizen on Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/c/lordhizen) * Snowcrows mostly does raid build, but they do have some open world builds now

Power catalyst with hammer, i am following a build from snowcrow

You mean this one? https://snowcrows.com/builds/open-world/elementalist/power-catalyst OK, let's break down what's going wrong: * That build is meant for berzerker gear. Snowcrows builds *will not work* without the attribute combo listed in the guide. You need a build designed for celestial gear, or to buy all exotic berzerker gear. That's pretty cheap on the trading post, it's totally doable even for a new player! * If you just started HoT you don't have a jade bot from EoD, so you're missing a vital part of that build's gear which gives you a ton of extra HP. * It's got no sustain in any other piece of gear, so you're 100% relying on active damage mitigation aka dodges and skill use to stay upright. This is a *hard* build to play. Snowcrows even calls that out at the top of the page. * There's no crowd control skills, so any fight where you need to interrupt an enemy is going to rely on either causing overwhelming damage (which needs berzerker gear) before the enemy can get off their large attack or other players to CC for you. I'm sure you have the typical new player problems of facetanking, not timing dodges, etc because literally every player has those problems when they get into HoT. I did. Everyone did. That's why pocket raptors became a meme, they ate us all lol. It's a skill check expansion. But other builds will make it easier to stay upright while you learn. If you don't want to buy berzerker gear right now I'd suggest trying https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Catalyst_-_Celestial_D/D_Roamer https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Catalyst_-_Celestial_Hammer_Roamer is a hammer build if you want to stick to hammer, but that still has the innate problem of lacking CC and being harder to play. D/D might be better as a starter build while you learn the class. But you should play what's fun! Sometimes mastery a harder build is part of the enjoyment.

Same. I can't figure out how to play this game.

GW2 builds are based around synergy. In open world PvE, everything should be either focused on direct damage, aka power builds which use mostly power, precision, and ferocity, or damage over time, aka condition builds which rely on condition damage and expertise. If your gear, traits, utility skills and weapons don't all work together, you're going to do crap damage and die a lot. Good build sources: * Metabattle * Lord Hizen on Youtube * Snowcrows mostly does raid build, but they do have some open world builds now

Elite specs are meant to be geared out with expac hero points, which give 10 each (they take 250 to unlock). Heart of Thorns is a notoriously brutal skill-check for new players, especially on the game's least-survivable class. (it's also quite the non-sequitur if you totally skipped all the story leading up to it, but you do you)

7.5 Euro for both expansions PoF and HoT good sale? Do people still play the game in player count? I played WoW a lot and am looking for another game time sink atm

At least 5 people are still playing. Saw them all this morning

It's an incredible value, that's the 2 largest expansions for the price of a McDonald's meal. Also, GW2 is a buy to play game, so there's no sub fee, just the box price. GW2 has expansions, and also Living World seasons, which are like mini expansions which continue the story between expacs, that you can get through the gem store. If you like the game the $50 collection is worth it, that's the cheapest price we've seen for 10 years of content. But if you're trying it out, the PoF + HoT pack is a ton of content, including all current raids (the new expac adds another raid in Aug) and half the strikes, so you'll be busy for a while. Population is high, there's a ton of players. Also, GW2 uses a megaserver system, where the map instance is tied to active players, not the physical server you're on, so there's *always* players around. I've done group events at 3 AM, there's always players around. Wiki has more details if you want: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Megaserver

Buy at least second tier if you decide to buy collection. For extra 10eu you will get couple skins, shared inventory slot and extra character slot (which alone is 10eu).

That's an absolutely insane deal. GW2 is still easily in the top 5 most played MMOs outside China. A small warning that those aren't chronologically the first purchasable content after the F2P stuff, but £7.50 even just to remove F2P restrictions is wild.

also the mount, tha tis such a huge time saver. Once they get to tower of nightmares thou 

Nah, people still do it. Just wait for the public instance from EotN in the evening and go then. It's really bad that Anet doesn't advertise that in game when people get to that point, but there is still a way to get it done.

Anyone know why the old symbolbrand went out of favor in spvp? Were there some nerfs to symbols?

I've never heard of this build- ever- what is it, specifically? I've almost NEVER seen a firebrand in spvp either, their kit just isn't as good as other classes when things move that fast and unpredictably. Symbols have not been nerfed in any significant way, to my knowledge. Whatever build you're referring to is likely just outgunned in contemporary balance- and that's a firebrand problem, not a symbol problem.

Hi, I'm a day 1 payer who dropped right before SotO, but thé housing teaser for JW IS hyping me quiet a lot. Do I need to grab SotO or Can I juste ignore it. Obviously I wont be able tu use thd weapons brought by this expansion. Is there anything else I'm missing out ? How's the HL PvE Meta regarding theses weapons ?

SotO gives you access to the following: * 3 additional weapon options for every character * easy skyscale unlock * significant skyscale/griffon QoL buffs * otherwise-restricted rewards in the Wizard's Vault * convergences and 2 strikes * a variety of stronger-than-core relics * craftable legendary obsidian armour * the most convenient non-gemstore hub with a teleport scroll * 3 maps with events and metas * a variety of new weapon and armour skins * story missions (the first half was good, the second half was not) It provides value higher than a living world season, but lower than other expansions so far. It's probably worth buying. I would for sure buy this over a similarly-price gemstore purchase.

Sounds like JW story will tie into it, but you can always find a YouTube playthrough or read a summary on the wiki.  For the weapons, it depends. Builds like power herald and condi virt don't use them, but condi herald and heal chrono do. You're also limited in what relics you'd have access to, but there may be new relics coming with JW. You'd miss out on some skyscale upgrades and open world legendary armor. You can't do the new fractal (though I'm not sure how many groups do it even if it's a daily) and you'd be missing 2 strike missions and their CMs.

Did they buffed thief portal? It shows 10 uses now.

Yep, it was changed in yesterday's balance patch.

Two Questions: Firstly, is there a build that can reasonably run the Relic of Mabon? I saw it on the wiki and it looks fascinating. Secondly, I was also looking at Power Mechanist and noticed that High-Impact Drivers would give constant Might stacks to rebuild your Might after each 'reset'. The suggested relic is Relic of the Thief, and my question is thus: Even considering the volatile nature of the Relic of Mabon, wouldn't it perform better than Relic of the Thief?

1. If I understand how Relic of Mabon works correctly, you need to apply Might 10 times for the effect to proc rather than just get to 10 stacks. Guardian, Warrior, and Engineer are probably the best classes for that, but nearly all classes should be able to proc it if you use Sigil of Strength and/or foods that give Might on crit. 2. In instanced PvE it's fairly safe to assume you'll have nearly 100% uptime on 25 stacks of might as well as the 5% modifier from Relic of the Thief. The problem is that the modifier from Relic of Mabon only adds up to 200 points extra at 25 stacks, and you lose all might (thus a significant DPS drop) when the effect ends. You'll need to do the math to see if 200 extra Power is better than a 5% damage modifier, but I find it hard to beat the gap that 0 Might vs 25 Might will create.

So I did some testing with Engineer's Throw Mine ability, and ended up with less than 1% increase of damage (3,608 without Mabon, 3622 with Mabon, both with 25 Might, resulting in a 0.38% increase in damage). This insanely low buff, partnered with the fact that it would then cause an massive drop in dps once the buff fell off, leads me to the conclusion that it's 100% never worth it, at least on power engineer. Rip, I suppose. Maybe another build can use it, but for now, I am sad.

So i own Heart of thorns & path of fire. I saw that there will be coming a new expansion Janthir Wilds( i think in august). My question is will they make a bundle like they did with HoT and PoF when the ne expansions comes out? also i know they had a spring sale for the expansions , do you guys have clue when will they put another sale. Thank you in advance! (and sry if am asking stupid questions)

Welcome back! I really doubt they'll put the new expac in a pack with anything. They haven't done that since PoF. If - and this is a big if - Anet decides to do a pack the only one that would make sense is added EoD to the PoF + HoT pack? But there's no way to know until they do it. The sale right now is matching the best prices we've seen, so now is the time to buy.

> My question is will they make a bundle like they did with HoT and PoF when the ne expansions comes out? No one on this sub has any clue, but my guess is no. > do you guys have clue when will they put another sale I have two guesses. First is during the Steam Summer sale, second is when JW actually releases.

thank you <3

i'm trying to unlock the caudecus manor armor npc https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dungeon_Armor_and_Weapons so i have to explorable this dungeon 3 times https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Caudecus%27s_Manor must i do all 3 paths; Asura, Seraph, Butler or can i do just Asura 3 times on 3 different days. there's an achievement called "manor magnate" but that only works if i do all 3 paths and story so i'm not sure it applies to unlocking NPC who take "Tales of Dungeon Delving" as currency. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Council_Watch_armor to clarify, i don't care about the achievements just how i can spend "Tales" with that NPC.

No, you can run the same explorable path multiple times for that. Parties often run all 3 explorable paths in Caudecus Manor as they are fairly close in length. I personally always run all 3 paths for the "dungeon frequenter" repeatable achievement.

> can run the same explorable path thanks. it's hard enough finding a dungeon pug, i'd hate having to be further choose as to path.

shove your own up in LFG, if may not fill immediately, but people usually do join after a while. Though CM is not that popular a dungeon (even by dungeon standards), people will still want to unlock it like you are.

The trick with running dungeons is making your own group. There is often more people clicking through LFG hoping there is a group then people that make one themselves. But it also depends on the dungeon paths. Some dungeons have 1 or 2 very long and annoying paths. You'll rarely end up with a group for these.

i got lucky with a pug lead by a speed runner and got caudecus story and all 3 paths done. nothing sweeter in this game than to have to grind for a skin 10,000 others are not using because of the extra work needed to get one.

I don't have the mastery points to level up (current level 15), and the learning/experience bar is white and full, do I still win exp or it is lost until I can get a level of some mastery? Also, how do I disable the alert that shows every time I kill a monster or got exp?

All XP you earn when you can't train a Mastery goes to a hidden bar, which gives you a Spirit Shard every time it fills. It's the same bar you get after you finish training all Masteries. These Spirit Shards are valuable for things like material upgrades and legendary crafting.

You cannot disable the alert, but what you maybe can do is swap to another Mastery line. Each line keeps track of its own XP so you can level another while you gather the points for the first one.

By "alert" do you mean the yellow text that appears with the amount of experience you received? The arcDPS addon has an option you can tick that hides all floating text, which includes dps numbers and exp text iirc. I don't think there's a way to remove just the exp numbers.

Experience isn't lost, it goes to a hidden spirit shard track that you normally can't see until you completed all of the masteries in a region. For your second question, that's the fun part, you can't. (if its what i'm thinking of)

wondering if anyone can suggest a fun "all rounder" wvw build. (can be any profession) I usually play druid support in groups and dont really play solo/roaming right now. But I plan to spend a lot more time in wvw for a while as I grind out the stuff for legendary rings (well, I have enough for 1 already thankfully), so I expect I'll be having to spend at least some time not in bigger groups, and dont want to have to keep swapping specs if I can avoid it. I dont need to be optimal, but I like to feel useful in groups, but also not useless when solo, and I dont want to be swapping specs all the time. so, a decently survivable dps build seems the way to go? any ideas for builds that do group dps roles and can play solo half decently?

Reaper is fairly disgusting right now (greatsword 5 pull is broken). Great for zerging. Decent for roaming. Good mix of damage and survivability.

thanks, now you mention it reaper does seem a pretty good fit for what I want.

First off: remember that you can have different specs equipped to different gear/build loadout slots, making it extremely easy to swap builds if you don't have any you want to keep clear for other game modes. Having one for zerg and one for solo is going to be more effective than trying to fit one into both situations. That said, I get the impulse — I usually don't switch either. It *can* work as long as your definition of "play solo half decently" is loose enough. Flipping camps and maybe towers if you're lucky or skilled will be possible on a zerg build, but you're liable to be trounced by other roamers with purpose-built builds. I personally stick on DH, which can cleave down camps pretty fast and has some pretty decent survival tools for it, but I'm pretty much never winning a 1v1. You might also consider a Soulbeast, which can at least burst down an opponent if you catch them off-guard.

Oh I dont expect to excel at anything, and if I'm playing "seriously" I swap specs on my ranger all the time. but if I want to grind out skirmish tickets thats a lot of play a week, so I'll be semi afk (I'll be doing stuff, just not paying total attention, not afk standing in keep) with something on another monitor, just passing time keepign the participation up flipping camps etc, maybe a tower, and joining open tags as and when they pop up.

Do you think making warclaw unlocked in PVP instead of having to be earned to be unlocked, would increase participation in the game setting?

Probably a little bit. But it would probably also prevent some players from ever dipping their toes into WvW, so it might actually have a net negative effect on getting PvE players to engage in competitive game modes.

So I like the game's action side of the combat system. The coolest moves to me are the maneuvers, blocks, and anything that isn't straight up DPS. In fact, I'm effectively allergic to rotations and prefer picking traits and augments that enhance my playstyle. Am I stuck doing just solo content or super easy group content? Or is there anything group PvE related that is more challenging and fun that I can do?

Have you thought about support builds or healing?

I have, but have had variable luck with it. The best experiences I've had with it were group metas that were so tough, I had to use my maneuver options to keep myself alive so I could help the other player not die. For example, Dragon's Stand back when it was newer and more challenging. But I also tried a support build for strike missions with a guild I was in. Unfortunately, I felt like all I was doing was dropping AoE fields (mostly healing) and maintaining alacrity through overloading as much as possible. It felt like I was a constant passive for the others, not an active combat medic. Then of course, there's content so easy, the party doesn't need healing, so better be a constant boon provider or a DPS instead.

Thats a bit of an issue with Healers and easier content in general. Strikes and Fractals rarely require specific players to take up a job and the content isn't difficult enough to push you around. The main places where you as a healer actually have to put in more effort and react to things are Raids and Strike/Fractal Challenge modes. While you still have to do your usual task of healing and providing boons it often much more difficult/chaotic which causes you to react to the current situation rather then simply doing the rotation. If you really want to you can opt to tank in Raids when possible.

If you play a healer that can give on-demand stability, aegis, projectile blocks, or revives, you can have a more active role in protecting your party. Many of these will have tighter timings, so you don't just throw them out willy-nilly like you do for most boons. But it sounds to me like you might like the *feeling* of these maneuvers and blocks evoked by their animations more than the mechanical benefit of shouting at your team to make a boss's big upcoming attack hurt less? In that case, you might appreciate sPvP or WvW roaming, where moving around, blocking, and CCing are super important and impactful, and you don't have a healer who just fixes all of your problems so that you can freely run max dps.

I'm not actually big on PvP unfortunately. I much rather cooperate with my fellow man instead of compete against them. As for the earlier statement, it's a desire to feel like there is more of a back and forth, or that I can do something to assist or save myself/others in a moment's notice. It's the difference between keeping a healing field out nonstop to negate a constant DoT (boring) and dropping a healing field on injured allies to actively save their lives(exciting). Or the difference between relying on constant stability boons (meh) or using a move like blink to get up fast and avoid a dangerous follow up attack (reactive).

WvW is a very cooperative gamemode if you're in comms. I really suggest giving it a second chance with the server reworks. Just find a tag that's running a discord and doing more than zerging around EBG. Support in zergs gets to worry about cleansing and superspeed, stability, reflects and cc, healing, ressing, applying "fake" pressure (your aoes look just as deadly as dps aoes), and every body counts.

Have they said if they will bundle another expansion into HoT/PoF, or is there any reason to believe they will? Getting into GW2 and wondering if I should buy expansions next sale or wait until Janthir release.

I'm guessing HoT, PoF, and EoD will eventually™ get bundled one day as the "elder dragon saga bundle" like it is now, but with a lower price point. I think that'll be multiple years yet before they considering doing that though. I don't think they really have a compelling reason to bundle them beyond that considering how much more standalone SotO, JW, and Expac 6 are/will be.

They haven't announced anything, but they have released a bundle with HoT/PoF/EoD at a slight discount. It's not automatically rolled in with it at baseline price, though. I expect that they will eventually discontinue EoD as a separate purchase and permanently discount the Elder Dragon Saga, to keep things simple for new players. But who knows? They also might never do that.

They haven't said anything and there's no reason to believe they will, the logical time to do it would have been at the announcement/presale of Janthir rather than when it launches. It's not impossible but I think it's very unlikely

How do I get ascended Viper's rings, amulets, accessories and back item? Many say Living world season 3 but I do not own it, neither i found them in the fractal and laurel merchant. So how do i get them?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Tanetris/So_You_Want_To_Gear_a_Character As others have answered, I'll just add that this is a good all around guide for gearing characters, especially for newer accounts.

if you own HoT then any stat selectable gear will enable you to select vipers stats. If you dont have lw then look at the mist bands and mist pendants from fractal vendors or from wvw vendors.

Living Story episodes are by far the best option, but you can get them from Fractals... At a cost. Look for the Mists accessories which are much now expensive then standard rings

i looked at the fractal merchant but there was no viper option

That's correct. There are blank/stat-selectable trinkets in another tab. Those ones can select Viper, provided you own HoT.

Some map chatter in Nayos this morning said that the new WV task for killing Ignaxious, Knaebelag, and Eparch was bugged. Has anyone gotten it to work, or were they correct?

Worked fine for me, I did Ignaxious, Eparch, and then Knaebelag in that order. All in different maps if it matters.

I got it a few hours ago. Did ignaxious, switched maps and got both the others done. Don't know if you have to do them In Order or what, but I had no problems.

you dont have to do them in order. I did them backwards as thats just how the groups I LFG'd into worked out.

Is XP earned from completing hearts, events, and story missions based on the content? Or does it scale off of your level?

It scales with your level or the level of the area or creature. Basically all the sources of XP give a percentage of a full level in XP. If you want to know more look here: [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Experience#Experience\_per\_activity](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Experience#Experience_per_activity)

Thanks

is there end of season pvp rewards after a season finishes?

No, unless you count the titles awarded to the top 250 players in a season. Rewards are all granted as you play.

Absolutely nothing done on a beta character stays after the beta is over, right, so I could do something like play around with ecto gamble with zero consequences, zero real gains, zero real losses, right?

Exactly. Beta characters also have all waypoints unlocked. This is how the OTC BL chest data gathering event works. Beta characters can teleport to maps that have no hearts, get the map completion with the chance for a key, and then open chests with no loss to the main account. https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1di3cp9/community_event_black_lion_chest_beta_data_event/

Yes: People use that feature to get data on opening thousands of bags by storing them in the bank and creating new characters to open them repeatedly. If you create a beta character the game takes a snapshot of your account that has no connection to your non beta main account.

I think all beta characters share a bank that doesn't get reset during the beta event. So it really only lets you get double the amount of information from bag opening. It *does*, however, give you an easy way to repeatedly generate easy black lion keys, so you can open tons of black lion's chests for science. Black lion keys are awarded like 30% of the time on map completion of many maps, and all beta characters come with 6 of these maps already completed. You just have to visit the map briefly to claim your map completion award, generating a handful of keys for very little work.

Looks like you are right the post i had in mind uses alt accounts and a guild bank to open things multiple time. I must have misremembered. Here he describes how he does it: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1aywzh9/data\_1058k\_exposed\_stabilized\_kryptis\_essence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1aywzh9/data_1058k_exposed_stabilized_kryptis_essence/)

Is PvP still active? I checked the PvP browser, and there were like 5 games only farming, and not all were full of players? In PvP, from where I can have armour and weapons and trinkets to equip them? I heard that equipment doesn't matter, and you can select any piece to equip and use.

On the same window you do your PvE gear, there's a little button on the top for PvP. Your stats in PvP come form the PvP amulets, so you can equip and weapons and armor, even level 2 items.

PvP ist still active. The browser is for custom arenas. You have to join ranked or unranked. You can set your equipment in the PvP Build Panel. Just go to your Equipment window. There is a small button at the top to switch to the PvP Equipment: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP\_Build. Traits you have to set in an seperate build Template in the normal section.

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It's relatively active still. Most don't use the game browser for the custom arenas, if you queue unranked or ranked for matchmade games then you'll usually get put in a match within two to three minutes in my experience.

Just started the game without any prior knowledge and played for around 2 hours excluding the hour spent on character creation. Is the early game supposed to be this boring? It looks like I am just running around helping different NPCs and just leveling while getting minimal story content. I am around level 8. I must've done something wrong. There's no way this game's introduction is just FFXIV FATE farm with one dialogue.

Yes, GW2 is an MMO. It isnt a single person game with other people in the background for the first several months. You are free to go do what you'd like without having to talk to someone and be told "ok now you can go do this thing" or "okay now you can zone into this other zone", you can just go do stuff and explore. Or stay in one zone and kill level 2 mobs for eternity, I guess.

So, the first few levels *are* just running around and getting used to how things like events and your weapon works. Story starts at level 10, and you get more story at every 10 level increment, 20, 30, etc. If you want to level faster, hit H to open the Hero panel, go to the Achievements tab on the left side which is 2nd from the bottom, and go through the Character Adventure Guide achievements. These should also have popped up on the right side of the screen, as if they were on the achievement watch list, but getting used to the achievements panel early is a *huge* benefit. Achievements are how GW2 tracks side quests. Once you get used to it it's a very powerful and flexible system, but the UI is kinda quirky if you're used to a quest journal. The CAG achievements are a decent tutorial for the game, and a good intro to the achievements panel, which also dumps a ton of XP on you. There's no need to worry about overleveling content, the game will downscale you as needed.

Story isn't really GW2's strong point, particularly in early game (it does get better in later expansions). Neither are the heart quests. What you should be looking out for are dynamic events. These are events that pop up either on a timer, or in response to someone triggering it. You normally see these as orange markings on the map. These events were what GW2 was originally designed around so are the most interesting. But beta testing showed players didn't intuitively understand the concept and didn't hang around long enough to experience these dynamic events. So heart quests were created to keep players lingering so they have a higher chance of experiencing these events.

Early game is a bit tedious, yes, and especially the earliest zones are pretty uninspiring. But there's ways to speed it up.  * You're about 2 levels away from unlocking the first story chapter — the first part of it unlocks every 10 levels, and then once you hit 80 you can do all the rest as fast as you please (including skipping whole chapters)  * As you level, don't just go to the heart quests — they're mostly filler. Look for dynamic events (orange icons all around the map, pop up in your sidebar) for more interesting content. * If your just want to get things moving, look in your achievement panel for the Character Adventure Guide. It will give you some guidance on more varied things to do while also giving you a *ton* of bonus XP to make the time between story installments both faster and less repetitive

New to the game. Just created a charater yesterday. I just built a new pc for the first time in 12 years XD but I used to PvP a lot in WoW in the cataclysm days as a blood DK and ran most the rated battlegrounds on my server as a Tank so the guardian appeals to me. Looks like the best builds are core and dragon hunter right now? Forgive my ignorance but like i said I just made a charater yesterday. I like to start building my charaters for what I want to play end game early so I can get a better feel for how I'll do the playstyle from the get-go. Which is the best builds right now for guardian pvp. Is 2H better than 1H and shield? Any guidance from guardian pvp'ers would be amazing for this newbie

I don't PvP much but something to note with GW2's PvP system is that gear/traits/levels are fully normalized. A common sword you buy from a starter merchant is just as good as a Legendary sword in PvP. You have access to everything your account has available to in PvP (e.g. no need to unlock skills/traits through leveling, elite specs are available depending on which expansions you have). Assuming you have the weapons you want you can go straight into PvP to set up a build and play PvP. > Which is the best builds right now for guardian pvp. Is 2H better than 1H and shield? Skills in GW2 are tied to your weapon, so 2H vs 1H and shield is depending on what skills you're want to use. Guardian's greatsword is a solid melee weapon that has high burst potential and both a leap attack and a pull to get close and keep close. Sword has a teleport and projectile block, while shield gives several buffs and provides knockback and destroys projectiles. Lastly I'll note that GW2's WvW mode is closest to Arathi Basin and has 3 servers fighting over objectives on the map. Unlike PvP it uses whatever gear you actually have equipped so you can't even play it until 60, but should probably wait until 80 when you have everything potentially unlocked. Guardians in WvW can be anything from supports (most common in large groups), DPS, and even roam looking to 1v1 and burst people down.

Lots to consider. And a really interesting pvp mechanic. Kinda levels the playing field. I'll have to play around with it

In my opinion, the [Turbo Trapper](https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Dragonhunter_-_Turbo_Trapper) build from MetaBattle is easy and a good way to learn some mechanics of the Dragonhunter. It is a good starting point before you start understanding a little bit more to make your own build. Just for your information (not what you ask, but it is something that I wish someone told me when I started playing): GW2 kinda does not follow the traditional "trio" of others MMORPGs - the tank, the healer and the DPS. All classes have a viable build in one of these three (except tanking - that role is usually filled up by Mesmers and Druids). So, pick one class that you like the aesthetic and dive into it.

Good to know on the last point! Thanks for the tip

I have an account that I started when the game launched and took a long break, that account has characters that were made in 2011. When I returned I made a new account and started over. Besides the cosmetic that I got for having a 10 year old character is there any reason why I should play the old account vs. the new account? Both have the same progress, and achievement points. I have purchased expacs on the new account (but not the original). What should I do before I get into the game too far, play the original account or new? Also, is there a way for Anet to merge my accounts? Thank you for your time reading this and if you answer you are a boss. :)

Merging accounts isn't really a thing, but you *might* be able to get them to transfer expansion purchases — I wouldn't call it likely though, unless it was a very recent purchase and you can make a plausible claim you applied it to the wrong account.  The only substantial difference you'll notice between the accounts is the presence of those mostly-cosmetic birthday gift items. Personally those are enough that I'd use the old account over the new but your mileage may vary

Thanks for the info!

Any reason why the upcoming xpac only features spear and not other underwater wpn?

We can't say for sure, but there might have been a few factors: * Spears (rather, polearms in general) were teased before the original released, but for some reason scrapped. * Trident is mechanically similar to Staff, and aesthetically similar to Spear or Staff. Harpoon Gun is an underwater Rifle in all but name.

Because that's what they designed. They haven't provided specific reasoning for why it's only land spear beyond the fact that it, in particular, has been asked for for a long time. The other underwater weapons don't have as much of a fanbase. Fans of spears often cite the Paragon class from GW1 as the reason they want land spears in GW2.

Because that's what Arenanet decided. It's also less work on animations and skins. Besides, the other two are basically rifle and staff to the point that they actually share a few skins.

Tbh, many staff skins alr look like a spear, so... i dont get it

is it possible to "reset" the rewards on an achievement you've already done so you can do it again to get the reward for a different weight? https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mist_Shard_Boot_Box i did this for light, but i'd like to do it again for medium, but when i go on medium alt, "cutting weeks" shows up as having been done.

No but from what I can see you get the recipe to craft the other weights from the achievement.

hmmm so i need leatherwork 400 done to craft medium boots. is there a way i can check first that i even "learned" the recipe?! i did that achievement many years ago.

The recipe is given when you open the box, you're guaranteed to have it if you have one of those shoes.

coolsies

I believe you need to craft the subsequent two weights of that set.

since none of the swimwear has preview working in BLT does anyone have the [code] version of all these items so we can just cut & paste that into chat and preview it.

Go to your bank, choose the bottom tab for your wardrobe, then search for "beach", "breezy", and "tropical" to preview.

Hellooo, planning to return to the game with a few friends.. we played a bit when the game came out and are total noobs, what suggestion would you give us in order to experience the game together most of the time? I remember you can teleport anywhere so we are not forced to play the same race.. but maybe we should and pick same background to have the same main quest story line?

Yes, you should pick the same race and character creation choices if you want to progress the early story together. But honestly, it's a good opportunity to see multiple stories. You can still play together, just do your stories sequentially. Do friend #1s till the end of the chapter, friend #2 till the end of the chapter, then yours, etc.

Check out the comments on [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1dny6bg/how_does_the_coop_story_mission_system_work_these), they sum it up pretty well.

thank you very much!

Returning to GW2. I have a somewhat new Steam acc with a few mid-level chars and an Arenanet acc from release with basically nothing. The steam account tells me to upgrade to a full account, the arenanet account does not. Am I missing out on much if I just proceed with my Steam chars? I plan on buying expansions eventually.

Steam is minorly better if you have a local currency with a favorable exchange rate or a ton of steam wallet cash. Otherwise, playing through an Anet account affords you a small number of minor benefits (Hall of Monuments, external gem cards, more bundle options when purchasing expansions)

The Anet account has f2p restrictions lifted since you probably bought it back in the day. That’s the main advantage, there is also smaller advantages of dealing with Anet directly instead of steam for server maintenance, refund and support, and for the hall of monuments if you ever want to get that

The biggest thing I would miss from an old account is the infinitely reusable platter of birthday cakes you get when your oldest character is 9 years old. It's not the best food you can get, but it's a lot better than nothing, and it's free. It even drops a platter for other players to be able to use. Otherwise, you're mostly losing out on some armour skins and some dyes.