Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Edge-]

Yo, so strikes...can be alright? Did a few last night, some really easy boss I forget and Boneskinner, which was a lot of "fun" with a pug that can't stack properly. Managed to kill it thanks to a few heroes that basically 4-manned a good chunk of teh fight (trying to res baddies is a bad idea, I learned).

Kinda wanna find a guild to try to run some more now, I doubt I'll ever really raid but strikes seem low-stress enough to be some fun with groups.

[PACOX]

Yo, so strikes...can be alright? Did a few last night, some really easy boss I forget and Boneskinner, which was a lot of "fun" with a pug that can't stack properly. Managed to kill it thanks to a few heroes that basically 4-manned a good chunk of teh fight (trying to res baddies is a bad idea, I learned).

Kinda wanna find a guild to try to run some more now, I doubt I'll ever really raid but strikes seem low-stress enough to be some fun with groups.

Wait, what Boneskinner your first strike? Its mechanic is actually overtuned so people either just cheese it with healers. Youre really experienced group stack insane amounts of DPS on it (record is like a 20 sec kill). Most people skip it because its not required for the weekly reward for strikes.

Strikes are a thing because Anet was building raids but probably 5% of the playerbase ever played them. As much as they might have enjoyed making the content, it wasn't justifable. Strikes were a way to introduce raidlike bosses to a wider audiene in hopes of cultervating a bigger audience for more challenging content like raids. Strike CMs is resulting compromise. Its what FF14 does and has worked for years. They can't tell stories throughout a entire raid how they used to but they will way to serve up challenging content that they can justify spending dev time on by their being a mode fo beginners and those who want more.

[Edge-]

Wait, what Boneskinner your first strike? Its mechanic is actually overtuned so people either just cheese it with healers. Youre really experienced group stack insane amounts of DPS on it (record is like a 20 sec kill). Most people skip it because its not required for the weekly reward for strikes.

Strikes are a thing because Anet was building raids but probably 5% of the playerbase ever played them. As much as they might have enjoyed making the content, it wasn't justifable. Strikes were a way to introduce raidlike bosses to a wider audiene in hopes of cultervating a bigger audience for more challenging content like raids. Strike CMs is resulting compromise. Its what FF14 does and has worked for years. They can't tell stories throughout a entire raid how they used to but they will way to serve up challenging content that they can justify spending dev time on by their being a mode fo beginners and those who want more.

I've done a few long ago when they were first coming out, and technically the first of the night before Boneskinner was some guy that seemed to have no mechanics and we just burned it down fairly quickly. Boneskinner was just for lulz, I wasn't expecting to down it. I was kinda bummed I was stuck as support because I was curious to see how my DPS firebrand would work.

I get that they're the replacement for raids, but I wasn't really into either. Might have to give strikes more of a look tho.

[PACOX]

3rd elite spec teaser is up. This colorized version of a colorized version. The official tweak is darkened.

[Edge-]

Party Guardian is officially my least favorite achievement ever. ALL FUCKING WEEKEND spent hoping the Drake would spawn, played through at least 20 or so events and champ spawns before it FINALLY spawned last night.

Part of me is wistful and nostalgic about spawn camping mobs and all that, it was kinda fun for a bit. But hot damn am I fuckin done with Grothmar Valley now. Meta achieve done, masteries earned, still have some other achieves I could go for but I'm sick of that place for a long while. Fuckin devourer spawns way, way, way too damned much.

[Cattleya]

Currently getting the last few of my IBS mastery points to complete all the mastery tracks and Party Guardian's actually one of the achievements I'm skipping, I'd rather just craft 4 tengu weapons and get the mastery point from that collection's tier 2 reward

Pity I have general grouping anxiety (especially in GW2 where seemingly every LFG group expects you to have a perfect meta build and kill proof) or I'd just be able to get the last points from Strikes, but I'll have to grind Drizzlewood for the Death to the Dominion/Death to the Corrupted mastery points instead

[Acidbaron]

Recently restarted this again, a few questions if anyone who is more familiar with this game can help me. I only ever completed the base game nothing else and recently worked through living story two and unlocked my mount before doing the rest in chronological order.

How do i unlock my elite spec (ex: Berserker) do i need to buy all the skills in it first?
Now with the free living story give away, do i need to be complete the first part to unlock the next one once it becomes free?
Should i do the story in chronological order or are there other things in expansions i should get first are there other large QoL improvements beyond the first mount in PoF?
I am guessing ascended gear is a musts for returning players? I have a set of exotic armour with rare weapons right now.

Finding myself a bit lost with all the systems you get introduced to as returning player

[Edge-]

How do i unlock my elite spec (ex: Berserker) do i need to buy all the skills in it first?

Those require the corresponding expansion. Each adds one elite spec for each class, and IIRC they're on sale fairly regularly (maybe now since it's anniversary time?)

Once you have the HP's to "unlock" it you can start using it, but you won't have access to the full trait line as you'll need to get enough HP's to unlock those. So functionally...not super useful until you've unlocked the full thing.

Now with the free living story give away, do i need to be complete the first part to unlock the next one once it becomes free?

You've missed S2, I think they're wrapping S3 now? It's a matter of being online when it's out for free, but you can start at any point in the story. Same as when they release new living story content, as long as you log in during the "active" period, you get it for free.

Should i do the story in chronological order or are there other things in expansions i should get first are there other large QoL improvements beyond the first mount in PoF?

If you have HoT/PoF to play through I'd normally recommend doing it chronologically so things make sense...however I can't recommend getting the raptor/hopper mounts from PoF enough. It will make getting around in HoT zones MUCH easier (and it gets more easy as you get other mounts like the gryphon), even if the story gets a bit disjointed.

I am guessing ascended gear is a musts for returning players? I have a set of exotic armour with rare weapons right now.

Not at all. It's slightly better than exotic gear, but you can get around in the world with exotic gear just fine. My power/condi sets are almost exclusively exotic gear and they work well.

Ascended is more if you're looking to dive into fractals or care about getting that bit of extra power from it.

[Acidbaron]

Those require the corresponding expansion. Each adds one elite spec for each class, and IIRC they're on sale fairly regularly (maybe now since it's anniversary time?)

Once you have the HP's to "unlock" it you can start using it, but you won't have access to the full trait line as you'll need to get enough HP's to unlock those. So functionally...not super useful until you've unlocked the full thing.



You've missed S2, I think they're wrapping S3 now? It's a matter of being online when it's out for free, but you can start at any point in the story. Same as when they release new living story content, as long as you log in during the "active" period, you get it for free.



If you have HoT/PoF to play through I'd normally recommend doing it chronologically so things make sense...however I can't recommend getting the raptor/hopper mounts from PoF enough. It will make getting around in HoT zones MUCH easier (and it gets more easy as you get other mounts like the gryphon), even if the story gets a bit disjointed.



Not at all. It's slightly better than exotic gear, but you can get around in the world with exotic gear just fine. My power/condi sets are almost exclusively exotic gear and they work well.

Ascended is more if you're looking to dive into fractals or care about getting that bit of extra power from it.

Thanks for all the answers,

I bought the entire thing, all 3 expansions and the first living story as my mind needs me to do events in chronological order.
So just need to farm the hero points to unlock it completely, just took another look and it seems i can now use what i already have from the berserker trait tree, guess i had to do the initial quest in PoF to unlock it. That is probably what confused me a bit. Time to roam the maps and get some hero points!

They are on four now so i guessed i missed three, can buy that later no big investment there. Good to know i got the entire 4 just by logging in each time an episode unlocks!

How deep into the story is the flying mount from PoF? And yes the HoT areas are a bit rough without any mount.

As for the gear part, guess it might be worth levelling my Armor smithing from 400 to 450 just to be able to craft some additional pieces. Myself i actually have quite a lot of materials from before i left.

[Poppincaps]

Currently getting the last few of my IBS mastery points to complete all the mastery tracks and Party Guardian's actually one of the achievements I'm skipping, I'd rather just craft 4 tengu weapons and get the mastery point from that collection's tier 2 reward

Pity I have general grouping anxiety (especially in GW2 where seemingly every LFG group expects you to have a perfect meta build and kill proof) or I'd just be able to get the last points from Strikes, but I'll have to grind Drizzlewood for the Death to the Dominion/Death to the Corrupted mastery points instead

I already have IBS mastery in real life, I dunno why you'd want it in GW2.

[Edge-]

So just need to farm the hero points to unlock it completely, just took another look and it seems i can now use what i already have from the berserker trait tree, guess i had to do the initial quest in PoF to unlock it. That is probably what confused me a bit. Time to roam the maps and get some hero points!

PoF HP's will be fairly easy to get, but HoT has quite a few hard to get to/group HP's. If you can luck out and find a HoT HP train I'd join along as best you can, though not having all the WP's and mounts may make keeping up more difficult.

You can just skip the PoF story bits as much as you can (cutscenes at least) and then replay it after you wrap HoT. Story replay is very nice.

They are on four now so i guessed i missed three, can buy that later no big investment there. Good to know i got the entire 4 just by logging in each time an episode unlocks!

S1 isn't for sale sadly. But S2-4 should all be available in the cash shop and aren't terribly expensive. They're still giving out free episodes right now I think so you can keep nabbing a few to free. They're usually around $2 a pop which ain't bad considering most include a zone and at least an hour or two of story content.

How deep into the story is the flying mount from PoF? And yes the HoT areas are a bit rough without any mount.

There are two - gryphon and the drake. Both are optional and I believe require you to have at least completed core PoF for the gryphon and...I forget which episode the drake comes from. They're both a bit of a grind finding collectibles and stuff all over the world, there's some time gating, and they're not exactly cheap (IIRC it's around 200G worth of mats?)

They're very much not mandatory for getting around the world at all, but if you have the time/gold/interest they're fantastic utility mounts. Gryphon is usually my "standard" mount since it's very versatile.

As for the gear part, guess it might be worth levelling my Armor smithing from 400 to 450 just to be able to craft some additional pieces. Myself i actually have quite a lot of materials from before i left.

If you want, sure. I think that's the only profession I maxed out, but you can get plenty of gear without needing to craft. I like, haven't crafted in years.

[Acidbaron]

PoF HP's will be fairly easy to get, but HoT has quite a few hard to get to/group HP's. If you can luck out and find a HoT HP train I'd join along as best you can, though not having all the WP's and mounts may make keeping up more difficult.

You can just skip the PoF story bits as much as you can (cutscenes at least) and then replay it after you wrap HoT. Story replay is very nice.



S1 isn't for sale sadly. But S2-4 should all be available in the cash shop and aren't terribly expensive. They're still giving out free episodes right now I think so you can keep nabbing a few to free. They're usually around $2 a pop which ain't bad considering most include a zone and at least an hour or two of story content.



There are two - gryphon and the drake. Both are optional and I believe require you to have at least completed core PoF for the gryphon and...I forget which episode the drake comes from. They're both a bit of a grind finding collectibles and stuff all over the world, there's some time gating, and they're not exactly cheap (IIRC it's around 200G worth of mats?)

They're very much not mandatory for getting around the world at all, but if you have the time/gold/interest they're fantastic utility mounts. Gryphon is usually my "standard" mount since it's very versatile.



If you want, sure. I think that's the only profession I maxed out, but you can get plenty of gear without needing to craft. I like, haven't crafted in years.

Guess it might be worth finishing up PoF first at least for the points, as for the gryphon i have nowhere near that gold so i guess there is no real rush. Will unlock it once i get there.
As for living world yep read that S1 is no longer available but you get a short summary of what happened so that is okay.

[Edge-]

As for living world yep read that S1 is no longer available but you get a short summary of what happened so that is okay.

They added a bit of it back in S4 in Eye of the North. There are a few missions you can do at Aurene's pool that are adapted versions of some of the S1 content. It's not much, but at least you can go back and see some of it. I barely remembered it since I ended up missing out on a lot of S1.

And gold will come as you play. I'm usually sitting between 2-400g when I play and I don't do anything to actually farm gold, and have bad luck with drops. It's just selling stuff I harvest and dismantle from events (infinite harvesting tools and the copper scrapper are bloody fantastic, and IMO borderline mandatory). Nothing sells for too much, but a day of casually doing world bosses/zone events/maybe some fractals nets a bit of profit. I'm sure there are fantastic ways to make gold, but I haven't the foggiest clue what they'd be, really.

[Acidbaron]

They added a bit of it back in S4 in Eye of the North. There are a few missions you can do at Aurene's pool that are adapted versions of some of the S1 content. It's not much, but at least you can go back and see some of it. I barely remembered it since I ended up missing out on a lot of S1.

And gold will come as you play. I'm usually sitting between 2-400g when I play and I don't do anything to actually farm gold, and have bad luck with drops. It's just selling stuff I harvest and dismantle from events (infinite harvesting tools and the copper scrapper are bloody fantastic, and IMO borderline mandatory). Nothing sells for too much, but a day of casually doing world bosses/zone events/maybe some fractals nets a bit of profit. I'm sure there are fantastic ways to make gold, but I haven't the foggiest clue what they'd be, really.

True enough and i have so much content ahead of me the gold will come eventually from just finishing those things up, the gathering tools are nice but i just bought all the expansions and some living story content so want to get some value out of that before spending another 30 something euros on an in game perk.

Do not have much use for gems other than those things so will eventually grab them, the option to buy key and packs including keys due to the Lootbox ban here.

[Cattleya]

I'm a bit disappointed by this year's anniversary sales (first weeks of 0 QoL, all cosmetics, then when the QoL does arrive the discounts are much worse than previous years), like most people i suspect they didn't want to discount the QoL stuff too much because of all the people who got 4k gems with their EoD purchase.

Still got the bank tab expansions today though, and hoping for character slot/shared inv slot discounts. Could really use some of those.

[Katchii]

PoF HP's will be fairly easy to get, but HoT has quite a few hard to get to/group HP's. If you can luck out and find a HoT HP train I'd join along as best you can, though not having all the WP's and mounts may make keeping up more difficult.

I joined one once a long time ago. If you don't already know your way around and don't have the masteries and mounts it's impossible to keep up with a steadily moving HP train in HoT zones.

It was SUPER aggravating.

Fuck HoT, the story was good, but the zones were terrible because it was so incredibly frustrating and time consuming to get around them...even on a mount because there's so many platforming game type situations where the mounts just simply don't have the movement precision necessary to navigate those areas without falling a million feet to your death...not to mention pocket raptors everywhere always dismounting you.

[Edge-]

True enough and i have so much content ahead of me the gold will come eventually from just finishing those things up, the gathering tools are nice but i just bought all the expansions and some living story content so want to get some value out of that before spending another 30 something euros on an in game perk.

Do not have much use for gems other than those things so will eventually grab them, the option to buy key and packs including keys due to the Lootbox ban here.

Yeah, you can eventually pick them up. Also, big shoutout do doing the "normal" daily mission each day since that's a free like...5g I think? (there are dailies for a ton of specific zones but also a "general" one that's fairly easy to complete the steps for). Not a ton, but it's just some extra gold to help out as you're working on other stuff.

I don't think I've ever really purchased keys/lockboxes myself, everything has been direct buys from the store (mounts, additional shared inventory space, costumes etc.) You can find the keys randomly (they're super rare) but if you're not looking for rare cosmetics you'll definitely get more bang for your buck buying directly. Also once you have plenty of gold (if ever) you can always exchange it for gems.

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Fuck HoT, the story was good, but the zones were terrible because it was so incredibly frustrating and time consuming to get around them...even on a mount because there's so many platforming game type situations where the mounts just simply don't have the movement precision necessary to navigate those areas without falling a million feet to your death...not to mention pocket raptors everywhere always dismounting you.

Eh, mounts address a LOT of the issues, especially gryphon/drake. There are ways to get around the platforming (leap off your mount and glide down, or just swap mounts). But yeah, getting around without them and/or the corresponding zone masteries is rough.

And yes, fuck pocket raptors and I'm glad they've largely kept them to HoT. Bloody awful mobs, truly terrible. Not fun, challenging, or interesting, just absurdly annoying. I kinda want to replay through the story at some point since I've forgotten most of it, but my hatred for those zones remains so strong that I can't bring myself to do much more than go for the Tarir meta or something. Too many nightmares of my character getting batted around like a chump and getting horribly lost with unclear multi-level maps.

[Acidbaron]

Yeah, you can eventually pick them up. Also, big shoutout do doing the "normal" daily mission each day since that's a free like...5g I think? (there are dailies for a ton of specific zones but also a "general" one that's fairly easy to complete the steps for). Not a ton, but it's just some extra gold to help out as you're working on other stuff.

I don't think I've ever really purchased keys/lockboxes myself, everything has been direct buys from the store (mounts, additional shared inventory space, costumes etc.) You can find the keys randomly (they're super rare) but if you're not looking for rare cosmetics you'll definitely get more bang for your buck buying directly. Also once you have plenty of gold (if ever) you can always exchange it for gems.

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Eh, mounts address a LOT of the issues, especially gryphon/drake. There are ways to get around the platforming (leap off your mount and glide down, or just swap mounts). But yeah, getting around without them and/or the corresponding zone masteries is rough.

And yes, fuck pocket raptors and I'm glad they've largely kept them to HoT. Bloody awful mobs, truly terrible. Not fun, challenging, or interesting, just absurdly annoying. I kinda want to replay through the story at some point since I've forgotten most of it, but my hatred for those zones remains so strong that I can't bring myself to do much more than go for the Tarir meta or something. Too many nightmares of my character getting batted around like a chump and getting horribly lost with unclear multi-level maps.

With normal i guess you mean the non PvP ones? Might start doing them have not really bothered with them all that much. I used to buy quite a few of keys for the boxes when the base game was current.


Luckily for the raptors as i am using a warrior axe/axe great sword setup i have enough AoE to deal with them quickly, i guess they did not want to make mounting too convenient when first introduced.

[Katchii]

Eh, mounts address a LOT of the issues, especially gryphon/drake. There are ways to get around the platforming (leap off your mount and glide down, or just swap mounts). But yeah, getting around without them and/or the corresponding zone masteries is rough.

I only have the first 3 mounts from HoT (Raptor, Hopper and Skimmer), and had only the raptor when I went through HoT zones. The Hopper with the jump mastery is quite helpful, but all the Raptor did was help me get around a little faster and not die instantly when I fell because the Raptor died when I hit the ground.

I honestly CBA to go and do all the stuff necessary to get the Gryphon or Drake. I don't like the game enough to spend that much time doing that kind of stuff, never been my thing to go achievement hunting. More power to those who do that and like it, I just don't. Seeing the story is enough for me, for the most part.

And yes, fuck pocket raptors and I'm glad they've largely kept them to HoT. Bloody awful mobs, truly terrible. Not fun, challenging, or interesting, just absurdly annoying. I kinda want to replay through the story at some point since I've forgotten most of it, but my hatred for those zones remains so strong that I can't bring myself to do much more than go for the Tarir meta or something. Too many nightmares of my character getting batted around like a chump and getting horribly lost with unclear multi-level maps.

This. The thought of going through the HoT zones again, with or without mounts and masteries is PTSD inducing. I praise the level design team for being able ot make the maps so layered and complex, and beautiful but the zones are exceedingly over the top and made even worse with the intentional placement of mobs to make traversing them as cumbersome and annoying as possible.

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Luckily for the raptors as i am using a warrior axe/axe great sword setup i have enough AoE to deal with them quickly, i guess they did not want to make mounting too convenient when first introduced.

Mounts were first introduced in PoF, well after HoT along with their devil children pocket raptors were introduced so the pocket raptors weren't specifically introduced as a mount deterrent.

[Edge-]

With normal i guess you mean the non PvP ones? Might start doing them have not really bothered with them all that much. I used to buy quite a few of keys for the boxes when the base game was current.

Well, those too. You can mix-and-match the PvE/sPvP/WvW ones depending on what you want to do, just need to complete three to get the daily "meta" achieve that rewards gold.

Luckily for the raptors as i am using a warrior axe/axe great sword setup i have enough AoE to deal with them quickly, i guess they did not want to make mounting too convenient when first introduced.

Oh...there were no mounts in HoT. These suckers were literally everywhere being a general menace to everything. And this was pre-daytime nerf (zones are less deadly during the day than they are at night) so they were even worse than you see now.

I did have a terrible build at the start of HoT, and garbage gear, but like...it worked plenty fine up to that point so it was a bit of a surprising wall to hit.