GW1 and GW2 are VERY different games. Pretty much the only thing in common is the name/lore. Do not get GW1 expecting a rougher/older version of GW2
GW1 is not open world, has no dodging, jumping, mobile combat, or personal craft disciplines. Maps are instanced for you (and your party if you have one) if you're not playing with other humans then you need to make use of NPCs. Personally I felt GW1 was also a lot harder and more punishing especially early on than GW2. However, there are some "killer combos" you can make later that make stuff a lot easier.
It may seem like I'm poo-poo'ing GW1 but I'm not, I loved GW1 and sunk a lot of time into it. It is a great game, and I definitely think it's worth playing today. Whether you'll have fun with it will depend on your ability to adjust and deal with its sometimes sharp edges. If you can get into it then it's great, the build diversity, the fun of having mobs with interesting and lethal abilities, figuring out how to adjust your build to deal those asshole mobs in a particular map.
The same mistake a bunch of us made. GW1 was amazing, I couldn't quite click with GW2!
Well, to be honest, your ADD kicks in after 5 minutes and you have to go ride bikes (In every game ever!).
Hey, shut up, I've really been into Hex.
Oh, the Destiny xpac drops tomorrow?
Pokemon what now?
I mean, all I have to do is chart our guild history together and we'll see the pattern.
It's almost as bad as PD and my adventures in gaming back in the early 2000's... and I just said that. I'm old.
Might I get an invite to the guild? Would be nice to chat while leveling going forward. Houn.5834, thanks!
Ranger hit 16, I just finished the first chunk of the Personal Story, and I'm not even done clearing the first zone. I feel like leveling is going faster this time, did they tweak the XP gains?
(I also have a scroll that can boost me to 30, but I'm not using it for now.)
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
There's a lot of rebalancing to Fractals, a new Legendary mace, Fractal GH decorations, default builds for PvP, and Leather/Cloth synergisers for WvW and for GH.
Mark Katzbach
Content Marketing Manager
09/20/2016 – September 20 Release Notes
Living World
Rising Flames
After memorializing Eir, the commander returned to Rata Novus to discover that Taimi had been hard at work digging into dragon research and performing an “interesting” experiment on a chak organ. The commander then left to meet Canach in the northern Maguuma jungle and hunt down the human minister Caudecus, who had escaped from the queen’s protective custody. Upon arriving on the scene, they were greeted with a violent explosion of one of the Bloodstones—which curiously reversed itself before taking them with it. While the commander worked to track down the culprit, Minister Caudecus revealed himself as the leader of the nefarious White Mantle, but his plans for the organization were thrown into disarray when a mursaat called Lazarus reappeared and accused him of being a heretic. The two rivals escaped, leaving only a cloud of speculation that it may have been Lazarus who soaked up the Bloodstone’s power. And the tumult on Tyria burns even hotter with the discovery that Primordus, the fire dragon, is stirring once again. Will we be consumed by the flames?
World Polish
Fields of Ruin:
Fixed a bug in which Captain Carbins dying during his conversation with Lieutenant Dorrett would prevent the “Rescue the villagers and defeat harpy kidnappers” event from beginning, blocking progress on earning the Hawke Liberator trophy.
Fireheart Rise:
Fixed a bug in which the Pact researchers’ Flame Grenade in the Icespear’s Shelf task-region kit did not cause burning.
New Legendary Mace: Eureka
A new legendary weapon is now available. Speak to Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs in Lion’s Arch to learn how to craft the new mace precursor, Endeavor, and forge the new legendary mace, Eureka.
General
Fixed several bugs and gameplay issues with the Bashing Bauxite Alchemicals event chain in Malchor’s Leap.
Targeted Alerts
There is now a new key binding under the Targeting category called “Alert Target.” Using this key binding while a target is selected will play an effect over their head that is visible to party and team members.
The default key binding is Shift + T.
Effect changes based on the state of the target:
Alive Ally
Alive Enemy
Downed Ally
Downed Enemy
When players teleport, the default behavior of the camera will now be to quickly move to its new location instead of teleporting instantly with the player. The option “Enable Camera Teleportation,” found in the Options panel, will make the camera act as it did before.
The “Mute Player Alerts” option has been added to the Sound Options tab. When this check box is enabled, UI alert sounds such as targeted alerts, map pings, and special action-button notifications will be muted.
Fractals
Mistlock Instabilities
We are making many changes to Mistlock Instabilities in order to make them more interesting and fun to play.
New Instabilities:
Toxic Trails: Enemies leave a trail of toxic sludge behind them as they move around.
Flux Bombs: You are periodically afflicted by the Anomaly’s flux bombs.
Adrenaline Rush: Enemies become enraged for a time when low on health.
Mists Convergence: The Fractals of the Mists are blurring together…
Updated Instabilities:
Social Awkwardness: Greatly reduced the radius of this instability but increased the penalty for being hit by it. Added a new visual effect to clearly show how far away players should stay from allies.
Removed Instabilities:
Lethargic
Boon Thieves
Sluggish
Toughness and Health Scaling Rebalance
Until now, as fractal scale has increased, creature toughness has also increased. Default toughness reaches as high as 2,384 at scale 100. This huge increase in toughness has made power builds much less viable than condition builds. Ideally, power builds and condition builds should be fairly equally viable at all scales.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, creatures in low-tier fractals have health and toughness that is disproportionately lower, such that parties can fly through these fractals without even having an opportunity to see many of the mechanics.
The purpose of this rebalance is to make condition and power builds viable and also increase the duration of low-tier encounters without making them any more difficult. Overall, low-tier fractals should progress at a slower, more reasonable pace, and high-tier fractals should progress a bit faster for parties of mixed composition.
Toughness scaling has been removed.
Default toughness has been slightly increased to 1,475.
Health has been slightly increased for all creatures to compensate for lost toughness.
The low end of health scaling has been increased for bosses to ensure that encounters do not progress too quickly at low tiers.
Fixed a bug in which veterans would have too much health for their archetype.
Mistlock Observatory
The Mistlock Observatory has been updated to allow room for new vendors as well as a Trading Post Representative and a Golem Banker. Additionally, there is now an instability test area where players can get accustomed to how the various instabilities work.
Added a Laurel Merchant, Golem Banker, and Trading Post Representative to the merchant area.
Added BLING-9009 to the merchant area. This vendor has many rare and exceptional items available…for a price.
Dessa’s Alchemist has received a unique merchant marker to help her stand out from her taller companions.
A Fractal Instability Trainer has been added to the test area.
This golem can turn different instabilities on and off within the Mistlock Observatory.
This golem can spawn dummy golems to be used for training purposes.
Aetherblade
Adjusted the underwater-mines segment of the fractal by disabling the mines from reappearing after exploding, reducing the trigger radius, increasing the number of mines, and providing an effect to indicate when the mines are triggered.
Captain Kiel will now revive downed players in the laser floor and spinning laser sections of the fractal.
Disabling the laser floor section is now required to be able to interact with the control panels used to disable the spinning lasers.
The control panels in the spinning laser section are now spaced farther apart.
Removed the stack spot in the cannon room and changed the encounter to use floor patterns instead of just firing shots at a random player.
Chaos Isles
Falling near journal entry 5 will now place characters back on the wall rather than at the Chaos Anomaly checkpoint.
The laser flooring during the Brazen Gladiator encounter will no longer apply confusion to pets and minions.
Once the Brazen Gladiator encounter begins, characters located at the boss checkpoint will now be teleported to the boss platform.
Molten Boss
Moved the Mistlock Singularity to a more convenient location.
Molten Furnace
Fixed two bugs that could stall the instance before the weapon chamber.
Swampland
The Onslaught Phase is now a kill count and should progress faster.
Onslaught creatures are stronger and spawn slightly faster.
Onslaught creatures and oakhearts are less likely to focus on minions, pets, and clones.
Bloomhunger will only cast Poison Rain when vulnerable.
Bloomhunger will not use Pound and Poison Rain back-to-back.
Bloomhunger’s ring attacks now properly line up with the effect.
The hit box for Bloomhunger’s charge attacks has been shrunk to more accurately match his model.
Champion oakhearts no longer have Spirit Ward.
The champion oakheart’s Thump skill now has an area-of-effect warning indicator and does more damage.
Stun duration has been doubled when breaking Bloomhunger’s defiance bar.
The frequency of some of Bloomhunger’s attacks has been slightly reduced.
The knockback from Bloomhunger’s basic swipe attack has been removed.
Bloomhunger will not become invulnerable while he is stunned from breaking his defiance bar.
The 25% massive attack phase now has a timer.
Bloomhunger will now teleport to the middle for the massive attack phase.
Massive attack charge time has been increased by 4 seconds.
Bloomhunger’s poison Shoot attack projectiles have slower velocity.
Bloomhunger’s Poison Rain projectiles have slightly slower velocity.
Increased the brightness of the center circle for Bloomhunger’s ground-pound attack.
The number of poison stacks applied by the poison blooms has been reduced, but the duration has been slightly increased.
The outer ring of blooms will only spawn during the final phase.
Traps no longer use player condition damage and duration.
The cripple scaling on traps has been reduced.
Thaumanova Reactor
Fixed an issue in which players could stand too close to the Thaumanova Anomaly.
Uncategorized
Falling off the harpy platforms will now do 75% damage to the player instead of 100% damage.
The health and toughness of the ettin and Flame Legion Shaman have been reduced.
The electric pulses at the deadly stairs will no longer hit minions, clones, or pets.
Underground Facility
The health of the two bosses has been normalized.
Volcanic
The boulder and shaman cinematics can now be skipped.
The health and toughness of the Champion Grawl Shaman has been reduced.
The health of veteran grawl pushers has been slightly increased.
Aquatic Ruins
Fixed a bug that allowed the achievement Flawless Fins Foil Foes to be completed during the dark path.
Cliffside
Fixed a bug that could cause additional hammers to lose their pick-up icon if players picked them up too fast.
General
The elementalist downed-state skill Vapor Form will no longer spawn an additional fractal avenger.
Added the Gold Fractal Master achievement, awarded for collecting all Gold Fractal weapon skins, which will award the title “Grandmaster of Golden Arms.”
Enter the new Mistlock Observatory to unlock the progress for any Gold Fractal weapon skins that players already own.
Raids
Stronghold of the Faithful
Some achievements will now allow for a player to die and still receive the achievement if the event succeeds.
Items
Legendary Weapons
The three legendary bows—the Dreamer, Kudzu, and Chuka and Champawat—have all received custom bow strings.
The Minstrel has received an update to its effects.
Howler III: Malchor’s Devotion can now be obtained from the “Protect the Cathedral of Zephyrs” event.
Hope III: Protoype—Goemm’s Lab Proximity Test: Fixed a bug that restricted the area in which players could receive this collectible.
Decorations
Added 14 new fractal guild decorations that can be crafted by scribes out of Fragments of the Solid Ocean.
Fragments of the Solid Ocean can be purchased from the Guild Decoration Trader for fractal relics.
Infusions
Removed the level restriction on +1 – 30 Agony Infusions, allowing these items to be equipped in the various crafter’s backpacks.
Other
The Amber Quantic Dipole can now drop at Fractal Scales 1 – 100 instead of only scales 1 – 25.
The Azure Denaturizing Agent can now drop at Fractal Scales 26 – 100 instead of only scales 26 – 50.
Updated the Azure Denaturizing Agent’s icon to be blue instead of yellow.
Updated the Bloodstone Capacitor to function with infused and attuned versions of the Blood Ruby Band.
Profession Skills
Thief
Fixed the sound effect of the short bow’s arrow release for all thief skills.
Structured Player vs. Player
New Conquest Map: Eternal Coliseum
The doors to the coliseum are now open! Join your teammates to fight inside the coliseum. Destroy your enemies for the applause of the crowd and the glory of victory.
This new map features the traditional Conquest 3-point gameplay along with a secondary mechanic that centers around two periodically charged artifacts within the coliseum, located on the sides of the map. Obtaining the power of the two different artifacts gives your team either an offensive boost or a defensive boost for a short duration. The player that captures the power gains an additional bonus allowing them to either call upon a reaper to finish off players they’ve downed or automatically rally when they’re downed.
Eternal Coliseum is currently available to play in Unranked and Custom arenas.
The map will be pinned to the Unranked Map Selection screen for the duration of this off-season.
Have any thoughts on the map? Perhaps you have some suggestions for improvements, or maybe you’d like to see it added to the Ranked rotation? Head on over to the PvP Forums and let us know what you think!
New, Limited-Time PvP Achievements: Eternal Coliseum
Complete a new series of limited-time, Eternal Coliseum – specific achievements to celebrate the release of the map.
These achievements will only be available from now until the end of the next PvP League season.
These achievements can only be completed in rated matches (currently only Unranked Arena—not in Custom arenas).
Default Builds
Default Builds is a new feature for PvP equipment that allows players to select from a list of preconfigured builds. Selecting a default build from the new drop-down list on the Equipment tab in the PvP Build panel will automatically swap out weapons, upgrades, skills, and traits.
Each profession has two default builds.
Each build has notes to describe strengths, weaknesses, and play style.
Weapons are equipped from the inventory if available, otherwise free weapons will be created.
Any locked runes, amulets, or sigils will be offered for purchase upon selection.
Polish
Added a red alert to the PvP Build panel icon indicating when equipment or trait slots are empty.
Added a warning upon joining PvP indicating when equipment or trait slots are empty.
World vs. World
General
Reworked the Squad UI for clarity and added new features:
Changed the text on several options to better represent what those options are.
Commanders can now change their icons while in a squad.
Added a squad message option that appears when players join a squad.
Adjusted the Gift of Battle reward track to make it more legendary themed.
Leather and cloth synthesizer nodes have been added to WvW.
Objectives now have mouse-hover UI that shows how much war score an objective is worth, how much righteous indignation is left on the objective, which guild owns the objective, and the player’s distance from an objective.
Retired the Garnet Sanctum achievement, as the Red Alpine Borderlands is no longer in play.
Fixed a bug in which the Presence of the Keep was granting magic find instead of +5 supply.
Updated ruins so that their names are now displayed on the map.
Fixed a bug in which capture points could be attacked.
If a player’s only participation is capturing ruins, their WvW participation will decay faster.
Fixed the Power of the Mists—the world bonus that is granted based on WvW score (Artisan, Energetic, etc.)—to correctly show the war score for the match and not just the skirmish.
Edge of the Mists
Adjusted the points on capture in Edge of the Mists to be the same as the rest of WvW.
Guilds
New guild-hall upgrades have been added that allow guilds to unlock a leather and cloth synthesizer node in the guild hall.
BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions
A new Mursaat Backpack and Glider Combo is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
The new Mursaat Robes outfit is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
Improvements
Revive orb use now takes a consistent 10 seconds and returns the player to 50% health. Revive sickness no longer affects health or movement but prevents leaving combat for 60 seconds. The ghostly caretaker has been replaced with a circling orb vortex, and there is now the option Consume a Revive Orb alongside the usual return-to-waypoint UI options that appear when players are defeated. Revive orbs can be found in the Special category of the Gem Store for 250 gems.
Six new exclusive hair colors have been added and are available in Total Makeover Kits and Self-Style Hair kits, found in the Services category of the Gem Store.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that caused episodes to display out of order on the Living World Season 2 package in the Gem Store.
Full notes in case the forums die or you can't see them on your device.
Might I get an invite to the guild? Would be nice to chat while leveling going forward. Houn.5834, thanks!
Ranger hit 16, I just finished the first chunk of the Personal Story, and I'm not even done clearing the first zone. I feel like leveling is going faster this time, did they tweak the XP gains?
(I also have a scroll that can boost me to 30, but I'm not using it for now.)
Hello! I am looking for a guild for not-jerks, and this appears to the one. My display name is Dragonfly.8069. Thank you for considering!
Sent! Make sure you hit both "Accept" to join and then also "Represent" if you want to get the guild buffs. Our guild hall has full gathering (or I should say, HAD, since they added new stuff today) and we also have the full selection of tavern buffs.
Make sure you read the OP for our TS info, and lots of helpful links. Also check out the MOTD for the current guild schedule.
Welcome to NICE!
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darunia106J-bob in gamesDeath MountainRegistered Userregular
Thankfully this time, E V E R Y O N E is appropriately skeptical of this idea, including the player character. This isn't GW1 "lol idk we'll trust that guy seems legit :V" this is everybody being just about ready to behead Lazarus but then going "fuck he can probably disintegrate us."
Personally, I think given both some new Mursaat lore and some of the way he says things, I think he's not 100% on the up and up. I think he doesn't give a fuck about ~lol protecting the races of tyria~ or whatever, I think he wants to survive the Elder Dragons, THEN bring back the Mursaat and kill the rest of us. He only wants to ally with us because he knows we can destroy the Dragons -- he's seen us do it, after all.
I do love the weird friendship blooming between Marjory and Lazarus though. ~FRAINDZ~
One of the major things I had wanted in Heart of Thorns was Lazarus to be found held in an Inquest facility out in Maguuma along with other oddities, only for the NPC guildies to free him and begrudgingly work with him against Mordy because honestly the enemy of my enemy sort of thing is pretty big there. I also wanted the bandit activity that kept being hinted at to turn out to be a group trying to establish a new human kingdom.
Now they've brought Lazarus back with some neat White Mantle biz? And now he's begrudgingly teaming up?? The wheel turns.
They aren't taking questions anymore but they said a lot of stuff.
Really good stuff there. Nothing new about new expansion, other than don't expect anything for a while, but kind of expected at their current rate of content development I wouldn't expect to see anything in less than two years.
Lazarus might have a fragment of a human soul inside him.
The biggest quest that Lazarus is involved in, and the reason he survives while the other Mursaat do not, is the Justiciar's End. The story is that Justiciar Naveed was once a White Mantle. Lazarus imbued Naveed and a few of his friends with shattered aspects of his own soul in order to hide from the Titans, claiming it was a blessing of power. Thing is, in order to remove those aspects and reform, Lazarus had to kill the hosts. Naveed found out, and fled in terror. After he left the Mantle, he re-examined his life and saw the Mantle for what they really were. To quote...
Justiciar Naveed: "No, this.... No, it can't be. I've come so far. I've fought long and hard, believing that if I just persevered there would be a way through this. And now I find that no matter how hard I struggle, I am bound to a fate I can't escape...like a scarecrow strung up in the carrion fields. I wonder if this is how the Chosen felt; bound upon the Bloodstone, unable to focus on anything except the axe...swinging like a pendulum, cutting their time short. Pardon me, friend. I need some time alone to think."
The Naveed enlists the help of the player character and an asura named Glayvin. Glayvin tries to remove the Aspect of Lazarus, but fails, finding that it cannot be removed. However, trying to remove it changes the aspect, somehow. See here: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Insidious_Remnants
Glayvin: "Incomprehensible... The aspect cannot be removed? Cannot, cannot.... But we have changed it, somehow. Its pattern is different. I must examine this further..."
Glayvin hypothesizes that if Lazarus reclaims the changed aspect, it will harm him, somehow. Naveed figures that he's doomed to die anyway, so he decides in the end to give up his life for the greater good of Kryta and Tyria. Thus, the plan becomes to lure Lazarus and trick him into reclaiming the altered aspect. This happens here: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Moths_to_a_Flame
The plan works. Naveed dies, Lazarus reclaims his aspect, but doing this puts him in the state he was in before GW2's Out of the Shadows and the bloodstone explosion: living some sort of half-life, between this world and the next. https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Justiciar's_End
Now, consider this: perhaps the alteration of Lazarus' aspect was that it took on aspects of Naveed's soul -- his memories, his personality, his thoughts at the time about life, Kryta, the mantle, and humans. What if what the merging did to Lazarus was to give him Naveed's human memories, forcing him to experience what Naveed went through -- terrified, fleeing from the Mantle & the Mursaat, then at peace and ready to give himself up for the greater good? Not to mention the rest of Naveed's life, life on the ground as an ordinary human among the people, all his joy and sadness and fear and hope and rage and love.
And then he'd have 250 years to ruminate on those memories and to fully absorb and consider them, for those aspects to become irreversibly part of himself.
So... maybe he isn't lying. Maybe what's happened is that these parts of an ordinary human have become part of Lazarus, and he really has changed.
Recommendations on a specialization for Ranger leveling? Just unlocked my first slot, but haven't trained any of them yet.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited September 2016
Acknowledgement of the Storm Bow, and it not being a Legendary, makes me happy. I want one and I don't want to have to go through the Legendary process again.
Oh wait it's already in the game? Teaches me for having a break.
This build allows you to pretty much do anything you want as you're working your way up. It's not going to be fantastic at any one thing, but rangers play the middle game probably better than any other class. This is a power spec, by the way, so loading up on condition damage would be a bit of a waste.
This build is another jack-of-all-trades type build, but it also has a ton of burst damage against foes that are interrupted, dazed, etc. This can be awesome in pvp/wuvwuv, and in PvE you will wreck most mobs. I run a mix of knights and berzerker's gear, so it's not all that expensive, and flesh out stats in the rings/accessories however I need.
These two builds will get you through the basics of rangers pretty well, at least until you can figure out how you want to play the class for yourself. There are plenty of builds involving being straight healers, bunkers, condition offense, etc., but just keep in mind that other than being a dedicated healer, the ranger class is not going to outperform other classes in tankiness, dps, etc. The big thing that holds us back is the inconsistencies of the pets. It's a fun class to play though, and the one I have mained since day one of release. Hope you have fun!
Ladies, gentlemen, and individuals of mysterious and indistinct gender...
I have Prototype.
But why do you have a crappy salvage kit when your Copper Fed is right there?
If it's anything like my alts, that crappy salvage kits been sitting there for a while cause it was there before the shared storage update and free storage slot from character boost.
It's worth using the crappy kit until it runs out, you already paid for it after all, but the copper salvage kit you could keep using without fear of interruption before they finally added "salvage all" to the game.
Yeah, that's one of my alt characters, so it's there because it's been there for a long time. /shrug and I just haven't gotten rid of it yet.
In other news, I realized that I hadn't bought the Gift of Battle before the change to locking it into the WvW Reward Track So I guess I need to do A LOT of WvW now...
Yeah, that's one of my alt characters, so it's there because it's been there for a long time. /shrug and I just haven't gotten rid of it yet.
In other news, I realized that I hadn't bought the Gift of Battle before the change to locking it into the WvW Reward Track So I guess I need to do A LOT of WvW now...
I recently bought Chaos Gun, annd really need to make a list of what I need to do.
Not really rushing, though - I had a quick look, and Gift of Wood is easy enough, I just need another 240 or so ancient logs.
Really wish I hadn't used a stack levelling my Weaponsmith to max, though...
On the low end of things, I 100%'d Brisban Wildlands last night.
Gotten into a decent rhythm of dropping Longbow 5 to tag a group, running in, drop Flame Trap, swap to Gratsword, 3 to blast the field, then spamming 2 every time it's up and 5 to interrupt while my pet holds all the aggro. I've solo'd a few "boss" type events doing this, things that I remember were a huge pain trying to solo on my Ele.
On the low end of things, I 100%'d Brisban Wildlands last night.
Gotten into a decent rhythm of dropping Longbow 5 to tag a group, running in, drop Flame Trap, swap to Gratsword, 3 to blast the field, then spamming 2 every time it's up and 5 to interrupt while my pet holds all the aggro. I've solo'd a few "boss" type events doing this, things that I remember were a huge pain trying to solo on my Ele.
Not sure where to go next.
WELL
Have you been to Lion's Arch yet? I'd suggest going through Gendarran Fields to get there.
On the low end of things, I 100%'d Brisban Wildlands last night.
Gotten into a decent rhythm of dropping Longbow 5 to tag a group, running in, drop Flame Trap, swap to Gratsword, 3 to blast the field, then spamming 2 every time it's up and 5 to interrupt while my pet holds all the aggro. I've solo'd a few "boss" type events doing this, things that I remember were a huge pain trying to solo on my Ele.
Not sure where to go next.
WELL
Have you been to Lion's Arch yet? I'd suggest going through Gendarran Fields to get there.
Yeah, I hopped over there via the gate in the Grove just to relax a few nights ago, it's also 100%. As is the Grove. I could go over to Gendarran, I suppose. The game seemed to want me to head to Metrica next for some reason, or I could head over in to the mountains. I'm around 26-27, so there are options, it's just a matter of choosing one, but I don't think I've had a character really leave Brisban before, not sure if there's a "logical" next place for the Sylvari personal story so I'm not warping around later.
On the low end of things, I 100%'d Brisban Wildlands last night.
Gotten into a decent rhythm of dropping Longbow 5 to tag a group, running in, drop Flame Trap, swap to Greatsword, 3 to blast the field, then spamming 2 every time it's up and 5 to interrupt while my pet holds all the aggro. I've solo'd a few "boss" type events doing this, things that I remember were a huge pain trying to solo on my Ele.
Not sure where to go next.
WELL
Have you been to Lion's Arch yet? I'd suggest going through Gendarran Fields to get there.
If you'd like a faster and less scenic route, the following are all easy ways to get to Lion's Arch:
1) Take the gate from your racial capital city
2) Since this isn't your first character, you should have both PvP and WvW unlocked. Both the PvP Lobby and the WvW maps have a portal to Lion's Arch. Every WvW map option has a portal to LA right by where you enter (even Obsidian Santcum and Edge of the Mists, although on these maps the portals aren't pink so a bit less obvious).
3) Go to our guild hall via the button in your guild panel (hit G, upper right corner), and use the portal device here:
And then hit this button:
To open this portal:
And while you're in the guild hall, you may want to first head down this bridge:
And into the tavern:
And get one these helpful buffs:
And maybe even harvest these materials:
The guild hall has some neat stuff in it, although it's tough to explore it fully without masteries (gliding mostly). But the tavern buffs are free and last for 24 in-game hours, so it's not hard to keep one running. And the gathering materials can be harvested once per day.
On the low end of things, I 100%'d Brisban Wildlands last night.
Gotten into a decent rhythm of dropping Longbow 5 to tag a group, running in, drop Flame Trap, swap to Gratsword, 3 to blast the field, then spamming 2 every time it's up and 5 to interrupt while my pet holds all the aggro. I've solo'd a few "boss" type events doing this, things that I remember were a huge pain trying to solo on my Ele.
Not sure where to go next.
WELL
Have you been to Lion's Arch yet? I'd suggest going through Gendarran Fields to get there.
Yeah, I hopped over there via the gate in the Grove just to relax a few nights ago, it's also 100%. As is the Grove. I could go over to Gendarran, I suppose. The game seemed to want me to head to Metrica next for some reason, or I could head over in to the mountains. I'm around 26-27, so there are options, it's just a matter of choosing one, but I don't think I've had a character really leave Brisban before, not sure if there's a "logical" next place for the Sylvari personal story so I'm not warping around later.
If you're looking for the next natural step for a Sylvari, I believe you'll want Kessex Hills, which is on the North East side of Brisban. It's the same level range (15 to 25?) as Brisban, and I believe there is some Sylvari story stuff that happens there. When you hit lvl30 the next story chapter will open up, and then I'd just go wherever that wants you to go.
(Also, yes, stop by the Guild Hall and grab a buff. There's no reason to not have one.)
Posts
I mean, all I have to do is chart our guild history together and we'll see the pattern.
It's almost as bad as PD and my adventures in gaming back in the early 2000's... and I just said that. I'm old.
Ranger hit 16, I just finished the first chunk of the Personal Story, and I'm not even done clearing the first zone. I feel like leveling is going faster this time, did they tweak the XP gains?
(I also have a scroll that can boost me to 30, but I'm not using it for now.)
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-September-20-2016
THERE'S A MURSAAT OUTFIT AND A GLIDER/BACKPACK COMBO and I just spent all my gold on Deldrimoor Steel for HOPE
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Content Marketing Manager
09/20/2016 – September 20 Release Notes
Living World
Rising Flames
After memorializing Eir, the commander returned to Rata Novus to discover that Taimi had been hard at work digging into dragon research and performing an “interesting” experiment on a chak organ. The commander then left to meet Canach in the northern Maguuma jungle and hunt down the human minister Caudecus, who had escaped from the queen’s protective custody. Upon arriving on the scene, they were greeted with a violent explosion of one of the Bloodstones—which curiously reversed itself before taking them with it. While the commander worked to track down the culprit, Minister Caudecus revealed himself as the leader of the nefarious White Mantle, but his plans for the organization were thrown into disarray when a mursaat called Lazarus reappeared and accused him of being a heretic. The two rivals escaped, leaving only a cloud of speculation that it may have been Lazarus who soaked up the Bloodstone’s power. And the tumult on Tyria burns even hotter with the discovery that Primordus, the fire dragon, is stirring once again. Will we be consumed by the flames?
World Polish
Fields of Ruin:
Fixed a bug in which Captain Carbins dying during his conversation with Lieutenant Dorrett would prevent the “Rescue the villagers and defeat harpy kidnappers” event from beginning, blocking progress on earning the Hawke Liberator trophy.
Fireheart Rise:
Fixed a bug in which the Pact researchers’ Flame Grenade in the Icespear’s Shelf task-region kit did not cause burning.
New Legendary Mace: Eureka
A new legendary weapon is now available. Speak to Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs in Lion’s Arch to learn how to craft the new mace precursor, Endeavor, and forge the new legendary mace, Eureka.
General
Fixed several bugs and gameplay issues with the Bashing Bauxite Alchemicals event chain in Malchor’s Leap.
Targeted Alerts
There is now a new key binding under the Targeting category called “Alert Target.” Using this key binding while a target is selected will play an effect over their head that is visible to party and team members.
The default key binding is Shift + T.
Effect changes based on the state of the target:
Alive Ally
Alive Enemy
Downed Ally
Downed Enemy
When players teleport, the default behavior of the camera will now be to quickly move to its new location instead of teleporting instantly with the player. The option “Enable Camera Teleportation,” found in the Options panel, will make the camera act as it did before.
The “Mute Player Alerts” option has been added to the Sound Options tab. When this check box is enabled, UI alert sounds such as targeted alerts, map pings, and special action-button notifications will be muted.
Fractals
Mistlock Instabilities
We are making many changes to Mistlock Instabilities in order to make them more interesting and fun to play.
New Instabilities:
Toxic Trails: Enemies leave a trail of toxic sludge behind them as they move around.
Flux Bombs: You are periodically afflicted by the Anomaly’s flux bombs.
Adrenaline Rush: Enemies become enraged for a time when low on health.
Mists Convergence: The Fractals of the Mists are blurring together…
Updated Instabilities:
Social Awkwardness: Greatly reduced the radius of this instability but increased the penalty for being hit by it. Added a new visual effect to clearly show how far away players should stay from allies.
Removed Instabilities:
Lethargic
Boon Thieves
Sluggish
Toughness and Health Scaling Rebalance
Until now, as fractal scale has increased, creature toughness has also increased. Default toughness reaches as high as 2,384 at scale 100. This huge increase in toughness has made power builds much less viable than condition builds. Ideally, power builds and condition builds should be fairly equally viable at all scales.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, creatures in low-tier fractals have health and toughness that is disproportionately lower, such that parties can fly through these fractals without even having an opportunity to see many of the mechanics.
The purpose of this rebalance is to make condition and power builds viable and also increase the duration of low-tier encounters without making them any more difficult. Overall, low-tier fractals should progress at a slower, more reasonable pace, and high-tier fractals should progress a bit faster for parties of mixed composition.
Toughness scaling has been removed.
Default toughness has been slightly increased to 1,475.
Health has been slightly increased for all creatures to compensate for lost toughness.
The low end of health scaling has been increased for bosses to ensure that encounters do not progress too quickly at low tiers.
Fixed a bug in which veterans would have too much health for their archetype.
Mistlock Observatory
The Mistlock Observatory has been updated to allow room for new vendors as well as a Trading Post Representative and a Golem Banker. Additionally, there is now an instability test area where players can get accustomed to how the various instabilities work.
Added a Laurel Merchant, Golem Banker, and Trading Post Representative to the merchant area.
Added BLING-9009 to the merchant area. This vendor has many rare and exceptional items available…for a price.
Dessa’s Alchemist has received a unique merchant marker to help her stand out from her taller companions.
A Fractal Instability Trainer has been added to the test area.
This golem can turn different instabilities on and off within the Mistlock Observatory.
This golem can spawn dummy golems to be used for training purposes.
Aetherblade
Adjusted the underwater-mines segment of the fractal by disabling the mines from reappearing after exploding, reducing the trigger radius, increasing the number of mines, and providing an effect to indicate when the mines are triggered.
Captain Kiel will now revive downed players in the laser floor and spinning laser sections of the fractal.
Disabling the laser floor section is now required to be able to interact with the control panels used to disable the spinning lasers.
The control panels in the spinning laser section are now spaced farther apart.
Removed the stack spot in the cannon room and changed the encounter to use floor patterns instead of just firing shots at a random player.
Chaos Isles
Falling near journal entry 5 will now place characters back on the wall rather than at the Chaos Anomaly checkpoint.
The laser flooring during the Brazen Gladiator encounter will no longer apply confusion to pets and minions.
Once the Brazen Gladiator encounter begins, characters located at the boss checkpoint will now be teleported to the boss platform.
Molten Boss
Moved the Mistlock Singularity to a more convenient location.
Molten Furnace
Fixed two bugs that could stall the instance before the weapon chamber.
Swampland
The Onslaught Phase is now a kill count and should progress faster.
Onslaught creatures are stronger and spawn slightly faster.
Onslaught creatures and oakhearts are less likely to focus on minions, pets, and clones.
Bloomhunger will only cast Poison Rain when vulnerable.
Bloomhunger will not use Pound and Poison Rain back-to-back.
Bloomhunger’s ring attacks now properly line up with the effect.
The hit box for Bloomhunger’s charge attacks has been shrunk to more accurately match his model.
Champion oakhearts no longer have Spirit Ward.
The champion oakheart’s Thump skill now has an area-of-effect warning indicator and does more damage.
Stun duration has been doubled when breaking Bloomhunger’s defiance bar.
The frequency of some of Bloomhunger’s attacks has been slightly reduced.
The knockback from Bloomhunger’s basic swipe attack has been removed.
Bloomhunger will not become invulnerable while he is stunned from breaking his defiance bar.
The 25% massive attack phase now has a timer.
Bloomhunger will now teleport to the middle for the massive attack phase.
Massive attack charge time has been increased by 4 seconds.
Bloomhunger’s poison Shoot attack projectiles have slower velocity.
Bloomhunger’s Poison Rain projectiles have slightly slower velocity.
Increased the brightness of the center circle for Bloomhunger’s ground-pound attack.
The number of poison stacks applied by the poison blooms has been reduced, but the duration has been slightly increased.
The outer ring of blooms will only spawn during the final phase.
Traps no longer use player condition damage and duration.
The cripple scaling on traps has been reduced.
Thaumanova Reactor
Fixed an issue in which players could stand too close to the Thaumanova Anomaly.
Uncategorized
Falling off the harpy platforms will now do 75% damage to the player instead of 100% damage.
The health and toughness of the ettin and Flame Legion Shaman have been reduced.
The electric pulses at the deadly stairs will no longer hit minions, clones, or pets.
Underground Facility
The health of the two bosses has been normalized.
Volcanic
The boulder and shaman cinematics can now be skipped.
The health and toughness of the Champion Grawl Shaman has been reduced.
The health of veteran grawl pushers has been slightly increased.
Aquatic Ruins
Fixed a bug that allowed the achievement Flawless Fins Foil Foes to be completed during the dark path.
Cliffside
Fixed a bug that could cause additional hammers to lose their pick-up icon if players picked them up too fast.
General
The elementalist downed-state skill Vapor Form will no longer spawn an additional fractal avenger.
Added the Gold Fractal Master achievement, awarded for collecting all Gold Fractal weapon skins, which will award the title “Grandmaster of Golden Arms.”
Enter the new Mistlock Observatory to unlock the progress for any Gold Fractal weapon skins that players already own.
Raids
Stronghold of the Faithful
Some achievements will now allow for a player to die and still receive the achievement if the event succeeds.
Items
Legendary Weapons
The three legendary bows—the Dreamer, Kudzu, and Chuka and Champawat—have all received custom bow strings.
The Minstrel has received an update to its effects.
Howler III: Malchor’s Devotion can now be obtained from the “Protect the Cathedral of Zephyrs” event.
Hope III: Protoype—Goemm’s Lab Proximity Test: Fixed a bug that restricted the area in which players could receive this collectible.
Decorations
Added 14 new fractal guild decorations that can be crafted by scribes out of Fragments of the Solid Ocean.
Fragments of the Solid Ocean can be purchased from the Guild Decoration Trader for fractal relics.
Infusions
Removed the level restriction on +1 – 30 Agony Infusions, allowing these items to be equipped in the various crafter’s backpacks.
Other
The Amber Quantic Dipole can now drop at Fractal Scales 1 – 100 instead of only scales 1 – 25.
The Azure Denaturizing Agent can now drop at Fractal Scales 26 – 100 instead of only scales 26 – 50.
Updated the Azure Denaturizing Agent’s icon to be blue instead of yellow.
Updated the Bloodstone Capacitor to function with infused and attuned versions of the Blood Ruby Band.
Profession Skills
Thief
Fixed the sound effect of the short bow’s arrow release for all thief skills.
Structured Player vs. Player
New Conquest Map: Eternal Coliseum
The doors to the coliseum are now open! Join your teammates to fight inside the coliseum. Destroy your enemies for the applause of the crowd and the glory of victory.
This new map features the traditional Conquest 3-point gameplay along with a secondary mechanic that centers around two periodically charged artifacts within the coliseum, located on the sides of the map. Obtaining the power of the two different artifacts gives your team either an offensive boost or a defensive boost for a short duration. The player that captures the power gains an additional bonus allowing them to either call upon a reaper to finish off players they’ve downed or automatically rally when they’re downed.
Eternal Coliseum is currently available to play in Unranked and Custom arenas.
The map will be pinned to the Unranked Map Selection screen for the duration of this off-season.
Have any thoughts on the map? Perhaps you have some suggestions for improvements, or maybe you’d like to see it added to the Ranked rotation? Head on over to the PvP Forums and let us know what you think!
New, Limited-Time PvP Achievements: Eternal Coliseum
Complete a new series of limited-time, Eternal Coliseum – specific achievements to celebrate the release of the map.
These achievements will only be available from now until the end of the next PvP League season.
These achievements can only be completed in rated matches (currently only Unranked Arena—not in Custom arenas).
Default Builds
Default Builds is a new feature for PvP equipment that allows players to select from a list of preconfigured builds. Selecting a default build from the new drop-down list on the Equipment tab in the PvP Build panel will automatically swap out weapons, upgrades, skills, and traits.
Each profession has two default builds.
Each build has notes to describe strengths, weaknesses, and play style.
Weapons are equipped from the inventory if available, otherwise free weapons will be created.
Any locked runes, amulets, or sigils will be offered for purchase upon selection.
Polish
Added a red alert to the PvP Build panel icon indicating when equipment or trait slots are empty.
Added a warning upon joining PvP indicating when equipment or trait slots are empty.
World vs. World
General
Reworked the Squad UI for clarity and added new features:
Changed the text on several options to better represent what those options are.
Commanders can now change their icons while in a squad.
Added a squad message option that appears when players join a squad.
Adjusted the Gift of Battle reward track to make it more legendary themed.
Leather and cloth synthesizer nodes have been added to WvW.
Objectives now have mouse-hover UI that shows how much war score an objective is worth, how much righteous indignation is left on the objective, which guild owns the objective, and the player’s distance from an objective.
Retired the Garnet Sanctum achievement, as the Red Alpine Borderlands is no longer in play.
Fixed a bug in which the Presence of the Keep was granting magic find instead of +5 supply.
Updated ruins so that their names are now displayed on the map.
Fixed a bug in which capture points could be attacked.
If a player’s only participation is capturing ruins, their WvW participation will decay faster.
Fixed the Power of the Mists—the world bonus that is granted based on WvW score (Artisan, Energetic, etc.)—to correctly show the war score for the match and not just the skirmish.
Edge of the Mists
Adjusted the points on capture in Edge of the Mists to be the same as the rest of WvW.
Guilds
New guild-hall upgrades have been added that allow guilds to unlock a leather and cloth synthesizer node in the guild hall.
BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions
A new Mursaat Backpack and Glider Combo is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
The new Mursaat Robes outfit is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
Improvements
Revive orb use now takes a consistent 10 seconds and returns the player to 50% health. Revive sickness no longer affects health or movement but prevents leaving combat for 60 seconds. The ghostly caretaker has been replaced with a circling orb vortex, and there is now the option Consume a Revive Orb alongside the usual return-to-waypoint UI options that appear when players are defeated. Revive orbs can be found in the Special category of the Gem Store for 250 gems.
Six new exclusive hair colors have been added and are available in Total Makeover Kits and Self-Style Hair kits, found in the Services category of the Gem Store.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that caused episodes to display out of order on the Living World Season 2 package in the Gem Store.
Full notes in case the forums die or you can't see them on your device.
I like Moot better :V But I guess this is for people who do not like fun.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Oh wow that is awfully exciting.
Sent! Welcome back!
Sent! Make sure you hit both "Accept" to join and then also "Represent" if you want to get the guild buffs. Our guild hall has full gathering (or I should say, HAD, since they added new stuff today) and we also have the full selection of tavern buffs.
Make sure you read the OP for our TS info, and lots of helpful links. Also check out the MOTD for the current guild schedule.
Welcome to NICE!
BRB dropping everything I have into these potential upgrades.
Ah, but it is for people who like SCIENCE!
Yeah I need to be home like right now. Work day end faster pls
Massive story spoilers.
Thankfully this time, E V E R Y O N E is appropriately skeptical of this idea, including the player character. This isn't GW1 "lol idk we'll trust that guy seems legit :V" this is everybody being just about ready to behead Lazarus but then going "fuck he can probably disintegrate us."
Personally, I think given both some new Mursaat lore and some of the way he says things, I think he's not 100% on the up and up. I think he doesn't give a fuck about ~lol protecting the races of tyria~ or whatever, I think he wants to survive the Elder Dragons, THEN bring back the Mursaat and kill the rest of us. He only wants to ally with us because he knows we can destroy the Dragons -- he's seen us do it, after all.
I do love the weird friendship blooming between Marjory and Lazarus though. ~FRAINDZ~
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Now they've brought Lazarus back with some neat White Mantle biz? And now he's begrudgingly teaming up?? The wheel turns.
summary here: http://dulfy.net/2016/09/20/gw2-sept-20-developer-ama-on-reddit/
They aren't taking questions anymore but they said a lot of stuff.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
That was not easy. Well played Josh Foreman, well played.
Really good stuff there. Nothing new about new expansion, other than don't expect anything for a while, but kind of expected at their current rate of content development I wouldn't expect to see anything in less than two years.
The biggest quest that Lazarus is involved in, and the reason he survives while the other Mursaat do not, is the Justiciar's End. The story is that Justiciar Naveed was once a White Mantle. Lazarus imbued Naveed and a few of his friends with shattered aspects of his own soul in order to hide from the Titans, claiming it was a blessing of power. Thing is, in order to remove those aspects and reform, Lazarus had to kill the hosts. Naveed found out, and fled in terror. After he left the Mantle, he re-examined his life and saw the Mantle for what they really were. To quote...
The Naveed enlists the help of the player character and an asura named Glayvin. Glayvin tries to remove the Aspect of Lazarus, but fails, finding that it cannot be removed. However, trying to remove it changes the aspect, somehow. See here: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Insidious_Remnants
Glayvin hypothesizes that if Lazarus reclaims the changed aspect, it will harm him, somehow. Naveed figures that he's doomed to die anyway, so he decides in the end to give up his life for the greater good of Kryta and Tyria. Thus, the plan becomes to lure Lazarus and trick him into reclaiming the altered aspect. This happens here: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Moths_to_a_Flame
The plan works. Naveed dies, Lazarus reclaims his aspect, but doing this puts him in the state he was in before GW2's Out of the Shadows and the bloodstone explosion: living some sort of half-life, between this world and the next. https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Justiciar's_End
Now, consider this: perhaps the alteration of Lazarus' aspect was that it took on aspects of Naveed's soul -- his memories, his personality, his thoughts at the time about life, Kryta, the mantle, and humans. What if what the merging did to Lazarus was to give him Naveed's human memories, forcing him to experience what Naveed went through -- terrified, fleeing from the Mantle & the Mursaat, then at peace and ready to give himself up for the greater good? Not to mention the rest of Naveed's life, life on the ground as an ordinary human among the people, all his joy and sadness and fear and hope and rage and love.
And then he'd have 250 years to ruminate on those memories and to fully absorb and consider them, for those aspects to become irreversibly part of himself.
So... maybe he isn't lying. Maybe what's happened is that these parts of an ordinary human have become part of Lazarus, and he really has changed.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Recommendations on a specialization for Ranger leveling? Just unlocked my first slot, but haven't trained any of them yet.
Oh wait it's already in the game? Teaches me for having a break.
I'd go with this while leveling:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjODbkQFKZxKWwlF4axQiQtbeBs0fAkszcnuhwJkQPu+P
This build allows you to pretty much do anything you want as you're working your way up. It's not going to be fantastic at any one thing, but rangers play the middle game probably better than any other class. This is a power spec, by the way, so loading up on condition damage would be a bit of a waste.
For when you get druid spec:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjOD7kQFokFsiVwlFgrFssIYwP1s6Xd5yFAOaNlrOwIIlew5TRB
This build is another jack-of-all-trades type build, but it also has a ton of burst damage against foes that are interrupted, dazed, etc. This can be awesome in pvp/wuvwuv, and in PvE you will wreck most mobs. I run a mix of knights and berzerker's gear, so it's not all that expensive, and flesh out stats in the rings/accessories however I need.
These two builds will get you through the basics of rangers pretty well, at least until you can figure out how you want to play the class for yourself. There are plenty of builds involving being straight healers, bunkers, condition offense, etc., but just keep in mind that other than being a dedicated healer, the ranger class is not going to outperform other classes in tankiness, dps, etc. The big thing that holds us back is the inconsistencies of the pets. It's a fun class to play though, and the one I have mained since day one of release. Hope you have fun!
I'm thinking of making the leap in the New Year, and since GW2 is going to be my main PC game for a while, I'm wondering how it scales up.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
I have Prototype.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
But why do you have a crappy salvage kit when your Copper Fed is right there?
If it's anything like my alts, that crappy salvage kits been sitting there for a while cause it was there before the shared storage update and free storage slot from character boost.
It's worth using the crappy kit until it runs out, you already paid for it after all, but the copper salvage kit you could keep using without fear of interruption before they finally added "salvage all" to the game.
In other news, I realized that I hadn't bought the Gift of Battle before the change to locking it into the WvW Reward Track
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
I recently bought Chaos Gun, annd really need to make a list of what I need to do.
Not really rushing, though - I had a quick look, and Gift of Wood is easy enough, I just need another 240 or so ancient logs.
Really wish I hadn't used a stack levelling my Weaponsmith to max, though...
Gotten into a decent rhythm of dropping Longbow 5 to tag a group, running in, drop Flame Trap, swap to Gratsword, 3 to blast the field, then spamming 2 every time it's up and 5 to interrupt while my pet holds all the aggro. I've solo'd a few "boss" type events doing this, things that I remember were a huge pain trying to solo on my Ele.
Not sure where to go next.
WELL
Have you been to Lion's Arch yet? I'd suggest going through Gendarran Fields to get there.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Yeah, I hopped over there via the gate in the Grove just to relax a few nights ago, it's also 100%. As is the Grove. I could go over to Gendarran, I suppose. The game seemed to want me to head to Metrica next for some reason, or I could head over in to the mountains. I'm around 26-27, so there are options, it's just a matter of choosing one, but I don't think I've had a character really leave Brisban before, not sure if there's a "logical" next place for the Sylvari personal story so I'm not warping around later.
If you'd like a faster and less scenic route, the following are all easy ways to get to Lion's Arch:
1) Take the gate from your racial capital city
2) Since this isn't your first character, you should have both PvP and WvW unlocked. Both the PvP Lobby and the WvW maps have a portal to Lion's Arch. Every WvW map option has a portal to LA right by where you enter (even Obsidian Santcum and Edge of the Mists, although on these maps the portals aren't pink so a bit less obvious).
3) Go to our guild hall via the button in your guild panel (hit G, upper right corner), and use the portal device here:
The guild hall has some neat stuff in it, although it's tough to explore it fully without masteries (gliding mostly). But the tavern buffs are free and last for 24 in-game hours, so it's not hard to keep one running. And the gathering materials can be harvested once per day.
If you're looking for the next natural step for a Sylvari, I believe you'll want Kessex Hills, which is on the North East side of Brisban. It's the same level range (15 to 25?) as Brisban, and I believe there is some Sylvari story stuff that happens there. When you hit lvl30 the next story chapter will open up, and then I'd just go wherever that wants you to go.
(Also, yes, stop by the Guild Hall and grab a buff. There's no reason to not have one.)