Damn, made a mistake. I made two new characters. Last night I got one of them to level 10 and did the personal story missions up to where I got a Black Lion key.
Then I got excited about the second one, got them to level 10, and then did their personal story up to when you get a black lion key.
Except, I forgot that you can only get one key a week. Wondering if I should just scrap one of these guys and remake him, then do his personal story next week.
But it took me so long to get him juuuuust right T_T
Damn, made a mistake. I made two new characters. Last night I got one of them to level 10 and did the personal story missions up to where I got a Black Lion key.
Then I got excited about the second one, got them to level 10, and then did their personal story up to when you get a black lion key.
Except, I forgot that you can only get one key a week. Wondering if I should just scrap one of these guys and remake him, then do his personal story next week.
But it took me so long to get him juuuuust right T_T
If you have spare character slots, just leave one free to keyfarm with. Use the tomes you get later on to level them up free and easy.
Otherwise, I'd only redo him if you have tonnes of free time. So uhhh.....
Announcing Project Go Big or Go Home 3! This time it's mixed!
As some of you may know, I'm not allowed to make legendaries one at a time, either need to make in a group (hi @freelancerbob and Tav) or multiple at the same time (Kittybow/Astralaria/Aurora/Raid Armour and Vision/Coalesence/Twilight so far).
After hearing about the legendary armoury, I've been slowly working on precursors for a few others, and realised I forgot to post my next insane project:
Conflux (yes, I'm wvwing, I know!),
Howler
Meteorlogicus
1+ pieces of 2nd set of raid armour (my raid groups are patchy right now, but hoping this will be 2),
I'll stick my current status in a spoiler tag to avoid spamming, cross your fingers for me on some of these! What's everyone else working on?
Conflux-specific
459/1850 Skirmish tickets (I'm doing silver most weeks, so ~82/week.. this is going to take a while)
1500/1500 Badges of Honour
750/750 Testomonies of Heroics
246/750 Memories of battle (but they can be bought if I need to)
Howler Specific
Precursor got!
I have one world completion left!
Metor
Crafted Precursor (thanks everyone who helped me with the fractals, and @freelancerbob who donated a shedload of spiritwood cooldowns)
0/1 World completion scroll.. 70% in progress
37/100 Charge Loadstones (Hopefully Drizzlewood Blood track will help with this)
Raid Armour
Precursor for first piece done
48/75 LI for second piece
General
70/261 Mystic clovers
5/7 Gift of Battle
some/lots of T3-6
I'm 4/6 on the wvw legendary light armor atm. Will be ~50 tickets short of the 5th piece this week. Just need to complete the henge achievement and two more reward track items(you can do wvw tracks instead of story mastery achievements ) for aurora. My plan is warbringer next, then the rings.
Were you going for conflux and slumbering conflux?
I'm very slowly working through getting Aurora. Just have a few more of the LS3 currencies to get, and then I'll start working on the mystic clovers and Gift of Battle/Gift of War. Someday I'd like to get into Raids for legendary armor, but my time is so random not sure if that'll ever happen. I should do some strikes too.
I don't like crafting in the first place, and this is like...Max Crafting and it makes me shudderrrrr
I just like doing sPvP and WvW and Fractals and meta events!
I'm working on going through all my character's living stories, and then deciding on one of them to go through the HoT story and the PoF story as well as Living World S4's story
Anything except Whisper and Boneskinner is bascially "don't stand in aoes and pewpew". Don't be afraid to just grab a pug. Happy to tag up for them if you're about when I am - we did after missions today!
Strikes are great, but I do prefer the single boss/single room ones vs. the story-based instances or the harder ones that serve as a mild form of raid training. I'm definitely a filthy casual in that regard.
I'm really itching to try a new profession - I've been playing mesmer/guardian for a long, long, long time, and I just keep rerolling and burning out on them. I've never quite fallen in love with Ranger as much as I want to be a healer, Rev was interesting but not my cup of tea, and I dug Engi but found it to have way too many buttons. I'm leaning towards thief or elementalist at this point. Warriors and necros have never really appealed to me. I'd really like a meaty brawler or ranged type that can survive for a while and help out the team, but I'm not sure if my narrowing above has eliminated a good candidate for that. Maybe I should reconsider warrior - it's the only profession I've never actually leveled up.
Ele has a very careful balance between murdering things vs staying alive. Full raid dps specs will struggle in open world without healers/boons to support, whereas you can happily run around virtually invincible.. but take hours to murder anything. Just bear in mind you have many, many, tricks up your sleeve!
It's possible to be kinda tanky and do decent damage in open world as elementalist. Power Tempest with Marauder and some survivability utility skills kills stuff pretty fast and let's you be relatively safe as long as you time your overloads. Weaver is super fun, but also super squishy.
But spellbreaker warrior is probably what you want @Straygatsby you get decent damage with a fair bit of support. And you can be tanky as hell if you pay attention and time your full counters right.
WoodenPotatoes is the only source I know for someone putting real effort into open-world/personal story type self-sufficient builds. He has a video series offering at least one decent option for every class. They are pushing decent power damage with maxed might and capped crit, but also sacrifice small damage boost traits for relatively large survivability ones, and have CCs and stunbreaks options that are typically absent on glass cannon raid/fractals builds.
As an example, his flamethrower scrapper melts trash faster than grenades, facetanks well, is nearly immune to CC and barely requires weapon swapping. (The traits really incentivize you to stay on flamethrower most of the time.) Its not a build you would ever arrive at from group content but it works really well for roaming PvE on your own.
Cool, thanks for the tips on some alt professions. I've never actually leveled a warrior at all before - usually not my cup of tea, but it might be worth a shot just for a fresh take.
As a heads up for folks not coming to missions - last week we ran WvW for an hour or so post-missions (originally to get the guild wvw mission), and will probably do again this week, as we have short PvE missions and another easy WvW one.
Me and Lea have been wuvving quite a lot lately, since she needs like a million tickets and I might make conflux or whatever.
It's more fun with a few bodies alongside you generally.
I often tag up, scrape a ragtag band of plucky misfits, then flip camps and towers on enemy borderlands until enough of them wake up to squash us.
Yesterday we took a T2 tower under heavy but laughably squishy and incompetent opposition, then started on a T2 keep and ran headfirst into reds doing the same.
The variable pvp element is really what makes it, IMHO.
Edit: also, on strikes. Turn up on monday or tuesday, have a decent spec and damage output that isn't absolute trash, and you can run with some very fast, efficient yet non asshole groups.
I specced into quickbrand for the first time completely out of the blue with them, since the group was filling slowly and dps spots are always easier to fill than the specialists, and was, happily, good enough to run every single strike with them in about an hour and a quarter.
So uhh I guess I can quickbrand now. Might look into healbrand too at some point I guess. Maybe.
I feel like I've read answers to this before, but how does one actually get into WvW? Is there a For Dummies version of finding a zerg? I usually join a battlegrounds (really don't quite understand the distinction between each of them), then look around for people, can't find anyone, and leave.
So how does a total noober without a warclaw find the zerg bubble to get started, and do I always just queue for Eternal Battlegrounds (or whatever it's called)?
It has always felt impenetrable to me. At least with PVP, I can queue and start getting yelled at by tryhards immediately.
If you see a tag on the map, you might want to go to it if you want to be in the big fights.
You can also go in with someone you know who is familiar with wuv wuv.
Alternatively, if alone head towards camps of enemy colours( FA is blue this week, though that might change tonight) and try to kill all the npcs there.
Have a go at the wuv wuv dailies.
EB is the "main" BG, but the others matter a lot too.
There are a couple of nice entry guides for wuv, I was looking at one yesterday
Update time! (On my current insane project of Conflux, Howler, Meteorlogicus and some more raid armour)
Mostly been doing WvW to accumulate skirmish tickets, some raids for LI and the new zone for mats! Updates highlighted in the cut
How's everyone else doing?
Conflux-specific 742/1850 Skirmish tickets (I managed Platinum last week!)
1500/1500 Badges of Honour
750/750 Testomonies of Heroics
246/750 Memories of battle (but they can be bought if I need to)
Howler Specific
Precursor got!
I have one world completion left!
Metor
Crafted Precursor (thanks everyone who helped me with the fractals, and @freelancerbob who donated a shedload of spiritwood cooldowns)
0/1 World completion scroll.. 70% in progress 100/100 Charge Loadstones (Drizzlewood + some transmutes)
Raid Armour
Precursor for first piece done 52/75 LI for second piece
Gift of Craftsmanship ready
General
85/261 Mystic clovers (or 162/~792 Mystic coins) 7/7 Gift of Battle
some/lots of T3-6
The real trick is surfing for outnumbered maps. Finished diamond this week, two more weeks to finish the last piece of legendary light armor. Aurora done, next step Vision.
The real trick is surfing for outnumbered maps. Finished diamond this week, two more weeks to finish the last piece of legendary light armor. Aurora done, next step Vision.
remember, don't talk about pip club....If you advertise your map is outnumbered, your side will flood in and you will lose it rapidly. This doesn't apply on home BL and EB, where your side needs to know this and respond to enemy attacks.
The real trick is surfing for outnumbered maps. Finished diamond this week, two more weeks to finish the last piece of legendary light armor. Aurora done, next step Vision.
remember, don't talk about pip club....If you advertise your map is outnumbered, your side will flood in and you will lose it rapidly. This doesn't apply on home BL and EB, where your side needs to know this and respond to enemy attacks.
^ This, even if your home BL is Desert. Just don't expect your reporting to make much of a difference in that case, those keeps tend to stay at T1 for a good reason
So;.. I've been doing some research to make sure I've got alts parked in the best spots, along with other shenanigans.. and found the magic spreadsheet I used has moved to this lovely site: https://fast.farming-community.eu/#/faq
Has alt park spots, spending currency advice and lots of other goodies.. .enjoy!
Project update in the cut.. travesty of Mystic clover ratios of ~8:1 means I need to get a lot more coins or clovers!
Conflux-specific 1153/1850 Skirmish tickets (I managed Platinum last week again)
1500/1500 Badges of Honour
750/750 Testomonies of Heroics
546/750 Memories of battle (but they can be bought if I need to)
Howler Specific
Precursor got!
I have one world completion left!
Meteor-Specific
Crafted Precursor
0/1 World completion scroll.. 74%
100/100 Charge Loadstones (Drizzlewood + some transmutes)
Raid Armour
Precursor for first piece done 58/75 LI for second piece
Gift of Craftsmanship ready
General 117/261 Mystic clovers (I had terrible luck on converting a lot of coins at ~8 coin per clover )
7/7 Gift of Battle
some/lots of T3-6
I zoned into EB and tooled around a bit. At one point, I saw a guardian following a Dolyak from one point to the next over and over. Did that, got some pips, ok, this is a thing. Then we took a quarry. Then a few more people showed up, and they nuked a wall, and we took a tower. Then I went back to following a Dolyak for another few ticks.
Then 60 red names razed the entire playfield for as far as I could see, and I was instantly murderized and wasn't really sure what to do since they essentially ruled the whole area I was in.
It was kinda fun. I just wish it were a little easier for me to join in with people to understand the point.
Also, I apparently have to take a keep for Warclaw, which I haven't seen yet.
I zoned into EB and tooled around a bit. At one point, I saw a guardian following a Dolyak from one point to the next over and over. Did that, got some pips, ok, this is a thing. Then we took a quarry. Then a few more people showed up, and they nuked a wall, and we took a tower. Then I went back to following a Dolyak for another few ticks.
Then 60 red names razed the entire playfield for as far as I could see, and I was instantly murderized and wasn't really sure what to do since they essentially ruled the whole area I was in.
It was kinda fun. I just wish it were a little easier for me to join in with people to understand the point.
Also, I apparently have to take a keep for Warclaw, which I haven't seen yet.
try to find a commander tag on one of the maps and join their squad. I'm pretty sure you can still click on the icon and it'll bring up an option to join. Otherwise, type /squadjoin playername to join their squad. It'll be a lot of running around, capturing locations, and the occasional large field battle. Roaming (small groups or solo players running around the maps) is great and I personally enjoy it, but it can be tough to do when just starting out.
Last I saw, the warclaw got nerfed pretty heavily, so it's not as much of a "must have" anymore, but it still NICE to get.
Finally found a tag long enough to take a keep for my Warclaw. Just need to finish out the reward track for the last piece I think. I'm not really even sure why I'm doing it - I'm not any good at PvP combat (and, more importantly, it doesn't really make me happy to play against other people), so that part of WvW feels like a real loser given that I run halfway across a map losing my participation rating on the way, and die for no benefit. I really like the siege and support elements. I'm just more of a player vs. door noob.
I keep pingponging between my Mirage, Firebrand, and a new profession that I level up then abandon. Maybe I need to take a queue from some of the folks here and channel this energy into a long term goal like a lego or map completion or something.
That's why I like roaming better than running with the zerg. Flipping camps and killing the veteran X is the easier way to keep up participation. Are you running the trailblazer mirage, and if so, which weapons? Scepter/pistol staff has a lot more passive evasion and CC than the axe/torch build currently on metabattle. The one wvw ability resets your endurance when you kill a guard, so condi mirage can clear the camps super fast while dodging forever. I just helped my brother take a keep for the warclaw (mesmer teleport ninja ftw), he still needs to finish the reward track as well.
That's why I like roaming better than running with the zerg. Flipping camps and killing the veteran X is the easier way to keep up participation. Are you running the trailblazer mirage, and if so, which weapons? Scepter/pistol staff has a lot more passive evasion and CC than the axe/torch build currently on metabattle. The one wvw ability resets your endurance when you kill a guard, so condi mirage can clear the camps super fast while dodging forever. I just helped my brother take a keep for the warclaw (mesmer teleport ninja ftw), he still needs to finish the reward track as well.
I usually run Axe/Pistol/Torch mirage, but I need to invest in some trailblazer's. It's taking a while to get used to the single endurance bubble. It's a bummer I can't easily get jewelry with those stats (I don't know if I have the energy to re-farm another set of mats from LS3/LS4). I suppose I could spin up Jewelcrafting just for kicks.
But yeah, I kinda like flipping camps, killing dolyaks, and yoinking sentry/control points a lot more than fighting over a big contested area. I can get down for small groups knocking over towers because siege is kinda neat. I think it's just the monster fights full of necro wells and 10,000 boons that I just can't make any sense of.
I wish at this point I just had a notif for when any actual new content --- even if it was just a wee side story or whatever --- went up. There are many things I like about this game, but right now I'm deffo in a "so where's the plot at" mode.
The last point in guard killer is the one that refills your endurance when killing the npcs. Sigils of energy will help as well. I was using viper for the longest time before switching over, apparently dire works as a cheaper option. This is what I've been using lately, the skill set up is closer to the pve set up, but I find it easier to use. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?Pi0AsqZlRwQYJMImJW2PdPNA-zVJYkRHfZEZBkZGI/JIc9wD-w
Posts
Then I got excited about the second one, got them to level 10, and then did their personal story up to when you get a black lion key.
Except, I forgot that you can only get one key a week. Wondering if I should just scrap one of these guys and remake him, then do his personal story next week.
But it took me so long to get him juuuuust right T_T
If you have spare character slots, just leave one free to keyfarm with. Use the tomes you get later on to level them up free and easy.
Otherwise, I'd only redo him if you have tonnes of free time. So uhhh.....
Right now I have enough slots to have one of every profession, and I like all my characters I have
Next time character slots go on sale, though, I'll probably buy a farm slot, just because I have so many chests
As some of you may know, I'm not allowed to make legendaries one at a time, either need to make in a group (hi @freelancerbob and Tav) or multiple at the same time (Kittybow/Astralaria/Aurora/Raid Armour and Vision/Coalesence/Twilight so far).
After hearing about the legendary armoury, I've been slowly working on precursors for a few others, and realised I forgot to post my next insane project:
I'll stick my current status in a spoiler tag to avoid spamming, cross your fingers for me on some of these!
What's everyone else working on?
459/1850 Skirmish tickets (I'm doing silver most weeks, so ~82/week.. this is going to take a while)
1500/1500 Badges of Honour
750/750 Testomonies of Heroics
246/750 Memories of battle (but they can be bought if I need to)
Howler Specific
Precursor got!
I have one world completion left!
Metor
Crafted Precursor (thanks everyone who helped me with the fractals, and @freelancerbob who donated a shedload of spiritwood cooldowns)
0/1 World completion scroll.. 70% in progress
37/100 Charge Loadstones (Hopefully Drizzlewood Blood track will help with this)
Raid Armour
Precursor for first piece done
48/75 LI for second piece
General
70/261 Mystic clovers
5/7 Gift of Battle
some/lots of T3-6
Were you going for conflux and slumbering conflux?
I don't like crafting in the first place, and this is like...Max Crafting and it makes me shudderrrrr
I just like doing sPvP and WvW and Fractals and meta events!
I'm working on going through all my character's living stories, and then deciding on one of them to go through the HoT story and the PoF story as well as Living World S4's story
It's been surprisingly fun!
Anything except Whisper and Boneskinner is bascially "don't stand in aoes and pewpew". Don't be afraid to just grab a pug. Happy to tag up for them if you're about when I am - we did after missions today!
I'm really itching to try a new profession - I've been playing mesmer/guardian for a long, long, long time, and I just keep rerolling and burning out on them. I've never quite fallen in love with Ranger as much as I want to be a healer, Rev was interesting but not my cup of tea, and I dug Engi but found it to have way too many buttons. I'm leaning towards thief or elementalist at this point. Warriors and necros have never really appealed to me. I'd really like a meaty brawler or ranged type that can survive for a while and help out the team, but I'm not sure if my narrowing above has eliminated a good candidate for that. Maybe I should reconsider warrior - it's the only profession I've never actually leveled up.
But spellbreaker warrior is probably what you want @Straygatsby you get decent damage with a fair bit of support. And you can be tanky as hell if you pay attention and time your full counters right.
As an example, his flamethrower scrapper melts trash faster than grenades, facetanks well, is nearly immune to CC and barely requires weapon swapping. (The traits really incentivize you to stay on flamethrower most of the time.) Its not a build you would ever arrive at from group content but it works really well for roaming PvE on your own.
It's more fun with a few bodies alongside you generally.
I often tag up, scrape a ragtag band of plucky misfits, then flip camps and towers on enemy borderlands until enough of them wake up to squash us.
Yesterday we took a T2 tower under heavy but laughably squishy and incompetent opposition, then started on a T2 keep and ran headfirst into reds doing the same.
The variable pvp element is really what makes it, IMHO.
Edit: also, on strikes. Turn up on monday or tuesday, have a decent spec and damage output that isn't absolute trash, and you can run with some very fast, efficient yet non asshole groups.
I specced into quickbrand for the first time completely out of the blue with them, since the group was filling slowly and dps spots are always easier to fill than the specialists, and was, happily, good enough to run every single strike with them in about an hour and a quarter.
So uhh I guess I can quickbrand now. Might look into healbrand too at some point I guess. Maybe.
So how does a total noober without a warclaw find the zerg bubble to get started, and do I always just queue for Eternal Battlegrounds (or whatever it's called)?
It has always felt impenetrable to me. At least with PVP, I can queue and start getting yelled at by tryhards immediately.
You can also go in with someone you know who is familiar with wuv wuv.
Alternatively, if alone head towards camps of enemy colours( FA is blue this week, though that might change tonight) and try to kill all the npcs there.
Have a go at the wuv wuv dailies.
EB is the "main" BG, but the others matter a lot too.
There are a couple of nice entry guides for wuv, I was looking at one yesterday
https://scoutwarband.com/wvw-basics/ this was pretty good at a some aspects of wuv.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World_versus_World actually has plenty of tips and advice as well as the expected "this is what pips are" sort of stuff.
https://www.vabbi.eu/ has some build advice, but your usual build sites cover wuv builds too usually. The meta will of course shift over time.
Incidentally I found this handy collection of intro links and guides for the game as a whole. We might want it in the header for the thread
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Dak393/New_player_Guide
Edit: of course, the big thing is talk!
Get on mapchat, ask what's going on and where you can be useful.
There's also Teamchat, shared across all maps. I go there too to ask where it's hottest.
FA often uses Disco now I think.
I often use mapchat to call for backup when staging attacks.
Mostly been doing WvW to accumulate skirmish tickets, some raids for LI and the new zone for mats! Updates highlighted in the cut
How's everyone else doing?
742/1850 Skirmish tickets (I managed Platinum last week!)
1500/1500 Badges of Honour
750/750 Testomonies of Heroics
246/750 Memories of battle (but they can be bought if I need to)
Howler Specific
Precursor got!
I have one world completion left!
Metor
Crafted Precursor (thanks everyone who helped me with the fractals, and @freelancerbob who donated a shedload of spiritwood cooldowns)
0/1 World completion scroll.. 70% in progress
100/100 Charge Loadstones (Drizzlewood + some transmutes)
Raid Armour
Precursor for first piece done
52/75 LI for second piece
Gift of Craftsmanship ready
General
85/261 Mystic clovers (or 162/~792 Mystic coins)
7/7 Gift of Battle
some/lots of T3-6
remember, don't talk about pip club....If you advertise your map is outnumbered, your side will flood in and you will lose it rapidly. This doesn't apply on home BL and EB, where your side needs to know this and respond to enemy attacks.
^ This, even if your home BL is Desert. Just don't expect your reporting to make much of a difference in that case, those keeps tend to stay at T1 for a good reason
In Goldy's pundom:P
So;.. I've been doing some research to make sure I've got alts parked in the best spots, along with other shenanigans.. and found the magic spreadsheet I used has moved to this lovely site: https://fast.farming-community.eu/#/faq
Has alt park spots, spending currency advice and lots of other goodies.. .enjoy!
Project update in the cut.. travesty of Mystic clover ratios of ~8:1 means I need to get a lot more coins or clovers!
1153/1850 Skirmish tickets (I managed Platinum last week again)
1500/1500 Badges of Honour
750/750 Testomonies of Heroics
546/750 Memories of battle (but they can be bought if I need to)
Howler Specific
Precursor got!
I have one world completion left!
Meteor-Specific
Crafted Precursor
0/1 World completion scroll.. 74%
100/100 Charge Loadstones (Drizzlewood + some transmutes)
Raid Armour
Precursor for first piece done
58/75 LI for second piece
Gift of Craftsmanship ready
General
117/261 Mystic clovers (I had terrible luck on converting a lot of coins at ~8 coin per clover
7/7 Gift of Battle
some/lots of T3-6
I zoned into EB and tooled around a bit. At one point, I saw a guardian following a Dolyak from one point to the next over and over. Did that, got some pips, ok, this is a thing. Then we took a quarry. Then a few more people showed up, and they nuked a wall, and we took a tower. Then I went back to following a Dolyak for another few ticks.
Then 60 red names razed the entire playfield for as far as I could see, and I was instantly murderized and wasn't really sure what to do since they essentially ruled the whole area I was in.
It was kinda fun.
Also, I apparently have to take a keep for Warclaw, which I haven't seen yet.
try to find a commander tag on one of the maps and join their squad. I'm pretty sure you can still click on the icon and it'll bring up an option to join. Otherwise, type /squadjoin playername to join their squad. It'll be a lot of running around, capturing locations, and the occasional large field battle. Roaming (small groups or solo players running around the maps) is great and I personally enjoy it, but it can be tough to do when just starting out.
Last I saw, the warclaw got nerfed pretty heavily, so it's not as much of a "must have" anymore, but it still NICE to get.
I scrounged and dug through all my junk and had all the bits lying around bar a bit of t6 already, so I crafted the Minstrel.
I didn't bind it yet, but I probably will.
My exotic focus has been with me since near the start of the game.
I was always scared I'd delete it or lose it but I never did.
I thought it was a proper 'zerker piece, but it turns out, all this time, it had toughness on it.
Go figure!
The difference between Lea's approach to the game and mine is breathtaking.
You could always give it to me to reward my diligence
I keep pingponging between my Mirage, Firebrand, and a new profession that I level up then abandon. Maybe I need to take a queue from some of the folks here and channel this energy into a long term goal like a lego or map completion or something.
I usually run Axe/Pistol/Torch mirage, but I need to invest in some trailblazer's. It's taking a while to get used to the single endurance bubble. It's a bummer I can't easily get jewelry with those stats (I don't know if I have the energy to re-farm another set of mats from LS3/LS4). I suppose I could spin up Jewelcrafting just for kicks.
But yeah, I kinda like flipping camps, killing dolyaks, and yoinking sentry/control points a lot more than fighting over a big contested area. I can get down for small groups knocking over towers because siege is kinda neat. I think it's just the monster fights full of necro wells and 10,000 boons that I just can't make any sense of.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?Pi0AsqZlRwQYJMImJW2PdPNA-zVJYkRHfZEZBkZGI/JIc9wD-w