Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Edge-]

Yes, people will still drag out the old pre-release marketing stuff about how the whole game is endgame, that you can do stuff outside in the world and it's great content and yadda yadda. But that hasn't been an honest assessment for years. You can go out and kill shit in the open world, sure, just like you can in any other MMO. You'll generally get next to nothing for it, too. Just like in any other MMO.

I mean...it still very much is. I regularly do world bosses for hours and just farm lower level zones. I'm on max level alts doing atlas completion. I'm going back to older zones for dailies and sticking around for some extra events/material farming. I'm going back and re-exploring/doing events in older zones for various collection quests etc.

Is just farming random mobs or low level events going to pay out huge? No, of course not. It shouldn't, since taking a level 80 character with a decent build back to low level zones lets you absolutely shitstomp everything with ease (hell, seeing a lot of HoT events being "kill a veteran mob" that goes down easily by yourself is hilarious).

Even if it's not huge payouts, it still all tracks towards your overall progress in meaningful ways. Events etc. contribute decent chunks towards XP for mastery progress or Spirit Shards (if you're into mystic forge crafting). Lower level mats are needed to level up crafting professions and specific recipes, and still sell fairly well on the AH (usually they're actually more profitable to sell vs. the second-highest tier of mats like mithril since it's so absurdly abundant).

I've been surprised at how many collection items I've accidentally picked up while going back to older expansions or lower level zones. Been progressing my elite spec collections towards the ascended weapons on my engineer and I think I've finished like almost 70% of my scrapper collection purely on accident. And that's just a freebie ascended hammer if I ever decide to put together a scrapper support build or something.

- - - Updated - - -

Grinding for sparkly weapons.

Fasion Wars has always been the true endgame of GW2.

[Ghost of Cow]

I mean...it still very much is. I regularly do world bosses for hours and just farm lower level zones. I'm on max level alts doing atlas completion. I'm going back to older zones for dailies and sticking around for some extra events/material farming. I'm going back and re-exploring/doing events in older zones for various collection quests etc.

Is just farming random mobs or low level events going to pay out huge? No, of course not. It shouldn't, since taking a level 80 character with a decent build back to low level zones lets you absolutely shitstomp everything with ease (hell, seeing a lot of HoT events being "kill a veteran mob" that goes down easily by yourself is hilarious).

Even if it's not huge payouts, it still all tracks towards your overall progress in meaningful ways. Events etc. contribute decent chunks towards XP for mastery progress or Spirit Shards (if you're into mystic forge crafting). Lower level mats are needed to level up crafting professions and specific recipes, and still sell fairly well on the AH (usually they're actually more profitable to sell vs. the second-highest tier of mats like mithril since it's so absurdly abundant).

Sure, but the point being that it's not something unique or special to GW2. It's just...farming stuff out in the world.

I've been surprised at how many collection items I've accidentally picked up while going back to older expansions or lower level zones. Been progressing my elite spec collections towards the ascended weapons on my engineer and I think I've finished like almost 70% of my scrapper collection purely on accident. And that's just a freebie ascended hammer if I ever decide to put together a scrapper support build or something.

Not free at all considering that those collections are the, "Everything is trivial to get except this one item that costs darn near what you'd pay for an ascended item anyway." sort that I was referring to earlier.

Of course, you can probably just make your own Mystic Battlehammer at this point, but yeah. Those kind of collections are really for the skin, not for a "free item" in any way.

[Edge-]

Sure, but the point being that it's not something unique or special to GW2. It's just...farming stuff out in the world.

Except it is, both due to level scaling (which does reduce power to a point). There's more designed reward-incentives for returning to lower level zones in GW2 for mats vs. many other MMO's, for returning to do boss fights or dynamic events vs. other MMO's. There's extensive use of collections/achievements that give specific reasons to return to older zones, too. Sure your chances at getting "good" rewards in lower level zones is lower given that they're largely easy, but you're still hunting for achievements (maybe) and some rare drops on lower level bosses like Shatterer or Teq (SPOONS!)

It's not all equally rewarding, and nobody is arguing that it is. But it's still rewarding, hence why you still regularly see packed world boss fights and still fairly often see max level players running around low level zones.

Not free at all considering that those collections are the, "Everything is trivial to get except this one item that costs darn near what you'd pay for an ascended item anyway." sort that I was referring to earlier.

I mean...part of that is literally the design. It's designed to send you to various locations for lore reasons etc. and that not every step in the collection is supposed to be super cereal difficult. Especially as there are a lot of multi-step collections that frequently send you back to zones. Is this "busywork" I can see that argument and sometimes it feels like it. But there are plenty of outright challenging collections too, and variety is good.

Of course, you can probably just make your own Mystic Battlehammer at this point, but yeah. Those kind of collections are really for the skin, not for a "free item" in any way.

But that's an exotic hammer with a pretty "bleh" selection of stats?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Battlehammer

Sure I could try crafting an ascended hammer assume I have a recipe with the right stats on it, but that's also kinda expensive. Granted Fix-r-Upper doesn't include a good selection of stats for support (wanderer is bleh) but there's at least a boring zerker option. It's still a "free" ascended quality hammer I can slap zerker stats on and bank in case I want to do something like pick back up my revenant and throw hammers again.

[Ghost of Cow]

I mean...part of that is literally the design. It's designed to send you to various locations for lore reasons etc. and that not every step in the collection is supposed to be super cereal difficult. Especially as there are a lot of multi-step collections that frequently send you back to zones. Is this "busywork" I can see that argument and sometimes it feels like it. But there are plenty of outright challenging collections too, and variety is good.

But that's an exotic hammer with a pretty "bleh" selection of stats?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Battlehammer

Sure I could try crafting an ascended hammer assume I have a recipe with the right stats on it, but that's also kinda expensive. Granted Fix-r-Upper doesn't include a good selection of stats for support (wanderer is bleh) but there's at least a boring zerker option. It's still a "free" ascended quality hammer I can slap zerker stats on and bank in case I want to do something like pick back up my revenant and throw hammers again.

No, the point is that the collection requires a Mystic Battlehammer to complete. Which is a lot cheaper nowadays I think, but still an expense. (50g on the trading post now I guess)

That's the thing about a lot of those collections. It's just a bunch of trivial stuff and then one item that costs a ton. It's a lot less of "interesting way to get something" and more of just purchasing the item wrapped in a bit of a disguise.

Essentially someone telling you, "Want a free car? Bring me some pocket lint, a banana peel, some hair from your cat, and 20 ounces of gold."

[Edge-]

No, the point is that the collection requires a Mystic Battlehammer to complete. Which is a lot cheaper nowadays I think, but still an expense. (50g on the trading post now I guess)

That's the thing about a lot of those collections. It's just a bunch of trivial stuff and then one item that costs a ton. It's a lot less of "interesting way to get something" and more of just purchasing the item wrapped in a bit of a disguise.

Essentially someone telling you, "Want a free car? Bring me some pocket lint, a banana peel, some hair from your cat, and 20 ounces of gold."

The expensive part of crafting that hammer (which you can do fairly cheaply) are mystic coins, which you can get a pretty solid number without buying them off the AH. I've got over 400 just passively earned from "doing stuff" and login rewards, and that takes 30 to craft. Even if you just sold 30 for gold (which the price has gone down considerably) that's around 25G which pays for half the weapon. Definitely cheaper and less grinding than crafting an actual ascended weapon.

Yes, some collections - especially those rewarding ascended gear - do involve crafting or cost. But that's fine by me, since we're getting a pretty good item as a reward (even with stats that might be better fit for another class/build).

Plenty of other collection requests that involve no crafting and little or no gold at all while still providing cosmetic rewards, achievement points (which are good! I'm almost at 10K for the 400 gems [$5], 30G, and 10 laurels!), and other goodies.

Collections aren't for everyone and I've historically ignored them. But I'm finding a lot more fun in them nowadays as it feels more like an "RPG" and actually traveling around the world to places that I may not go to as frequently.

But to the earlier point, if low level zones/content weren't rewarding at all, you wouldn't regularly have pretty packed world boss fights in everything from the starter zones to all the mid/mid-high level zones, and even the "outdated" higher level bosses. They even buffed the drops, mechanics, and especially health (holy shit they're tanky) of some of the world bosses and are supposedly going to continue doing that. Which is great.

[PACOX]

Sure, but the point being that it's not something unique or special to GW2. It's just...farming stuff out in the world.



Not free at all considering that those collections are the, "Everything is trivial to get except this one item that costs darn near what you'd pay for an ascended item anyway." sort that I was referring to earlier.

Of course, you can probably just make your own Mystic Battlehammer at this point, but yeah. Those kind of collections are really for the skin, not for a "free item" in any way.

Sounds like you're looking at one collection and applying it to the entire game.

[Ghost of Cow]

Sounds like you're looking at one collection and applying it to the entire game.

Well no, I'm specifically referring to the collections that were being discussed. That is, the ascended weapon ones. That's why I said "those collections".

They're not all that way, obviously.

[PACOX]

Well no, I'm specifically referring to the collections that were being discussed. That is, the ascended weapon ones. That's why I said "those collections".

They're not all that way, obviously.

Also that specific collection has been ass for years. Not because they way it was designed, it was basically a free ascended weapon back in the day, but because of the economy. Specifically mystic coins.

Off the top of my, a collection without a big gold sink.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Eclipse

I don't even think gold sinks are bad, just a proof of concept.

[pahbi]

I'm level 14, I went ahead and bought the expansion.

It looks like I have 2 things to deal with, my build, and my hero points.

From what I've read hero points aren't refundable or respectable; what about my build, can I change that at will?

[Edge-]

Well no, I'm specifically referring to the collections that were being discussed. That is, the ascended weapon ones. That's why I said "those collections".

They're not all that way, obviously.

It was one example of a collection as part of a broader discussion on collections.

I've been surprised at how many collection items I've accidentally picked up while going back to older expansions or lower level zones. Been progressing my elite spec collections towards the ascended weapons on my engineer and I think I've finished like almost 70% of my scrapper collection purely on accident. And that's just a freebie ascended hammer if I ever decide to put together a scrapper support build or something.

I just mentioned because it was top of mind since I'd found a few pieces randomly last night. I've done most of the EoD collections from Arborstone, and outside of the turtle mount (which is still very cheap in terms of gold, I think I spent...10G on mats?) the rest of them cost me nothing. Sure not a lot of item rewards, lore books and XP and general items and maybe some MP's, but the point was that doing the collections themselves was fun, at least for me. The rewards were a nice bonus.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I'm level 14, I went ahead and bought the expansion.

It looks like I have 2 things to deal with, my build, and my hero points.

From what I've read hero points aren't refundable or respectable; what about my build, can I change that at will?

You can change your build at any time while out of combat.

Hero points aren't refundable but that doesn't matter until you hit level 80. Before then you can only unlock your core spec traits and abilities and by the time you hit 80 you will have unlocked them all. It's once you hit 80 and start looking to unlock elite specializations where you really want to consider what you might actually want to play as because unlocking a full elite spec costs 250 points. Expansion hero points give 10 points each, so the soonest you can fully unlock an elite spec is when you do Heart of Thorns (assuming you do the content in order). If, for example, you do HoT and then spend your hero points on unlocking Druid, and then realize you don't like it and wish you had unlocked Soulbeast or Untamed, then too bad because you will either have to wait until you reach the PoF expansion to unlock more hero points, or do the story out of order so you can get to them ASAP. You can try different elite specs before you drop the points on them for real in the PvP lobby.

[Edge-]

I'm level 14, I went ahead and bought the expansion.

It looks like I have 2 things to deal with, my build, and my hero points.

From what I've read hero points aren't refundable or respectable; what about my build, can I change that at will?

You build up HP's over time, and you'll easily have far more points than you can spend if you collect them all. Tyria HP's each grant 1 for the most part, but in expansions they all grant 10 points per HP challenge so it definitely speeds up.

Your build is changeable whenever you're out of combat. You can swap trait lines at-will, and swap which traits you allocate at-will as well. The only limitation, and this comes with elite specs, is that you can only have one elite spec trait line at once. Otherwise it's very flexible.

[Ghost of Cow]

You can change your build at any time while out of combat.

Hero points aren't refundable but that doesn't matter until you hit level 80. Before then you can only unlock your core spec traits and abilities and by the time you hit 80 you will have unlocked them all. It's once you hit 80 and start looking to unlock elite specializations where you really want to consider what you might actually want to play as because unlocking a full elite spec costs 250 points. Expansion hero points give 10 points each, so the soonest you can fully unlock an elite spec is when you do Heart of Thorns (assuming you do the content in order).

The good news is that (last I looked) HP trains were still pretty common. So you can unlock everything in pretty short order usually.

That and the WvW commendations(?) are basically 1 HP each and build up pretty fast if you're aiming for them.

[Edge-]

Expansion hero points give 10 points each, so the soonest you can fully unlock an elite spec is when you do Heart of Thorns (assuming you do the content in order).

@pahbi

Worth noting: HoT HP's are no joke. There are a handful of "commune with this place" points and some challenges that are definitely soloable, but most will require groups to be able to kill unless you're a MLG pro or something. Your best bet is keeping an eye on LFG channels and, at least once you've unlocked waypoints, joining HP trains if you can find any.

HP's in PoF/EoD are almost all very, very soloable, so if you're frustrated/struggling with HoT HP's to progress an elite spec you'll be able to backfill a lot of those points in PoF/EoD. I just finished off all three elite specs on my engineer and while I think I cheated a bit with some of the core traitline progress via boosting from free stuff, I was able to unlock all masteries using PoF/EoD HP's, plus a few EoD/core Tyria points. Very, very doable even if you can't earn most of the HP's in HoT.

Only benefit to having excess HP's (which you will, if you earn them all or even most of them) is that when the next expansion rolls around you'll be able to quickly/instantly unlock the next elite spec with what you have left over.

[PACOX]

I'm level 14, I went ahead and bought the expansion.

It looks like I have 2 things to deal with, my build, and my hero points.

From what I've read hero points aren't refundable or respectable; what about my build, can I change that at will?

At lvl 80 you automatically have enough to fill out everything for your core class. You could technically ignore hero points that are out in the open if you wanted to. Don't do that though because any extra points will go towards unlocking your elite specializations.

1-80 is just a giant tutorial. Experiment, changing your build is free. Worst thing you can do is delay being able to unlock xyz skill/trait until you get more hero points or level up.

- - - Updated - - -

You can change your build at any time while out of combat.

Hero points aren't refundable but that doesn't matter until you hit level 80. Before then you can only unlock your core spec traits and abilities and by the time you hit 80 you will have unlocked them all. It's once you hit 80 and start looking to unlock elite specializations where you really want to consider what you might actually want to play as because unlocking a full elite spec costs 250 points. Expansion hero points give 10 points each, so the soonest you can fully unlock an elite spec is when you do Heart of Thorns (assuming you do the content in order). If, for example, you do HoT and then spend your hero points on unlocking Druid, and then realize you don't like it and wish you had unlocked Soulbeast or Untamed, then too bad because you will either have to wait until you reach the PoF expansion to unlock more hero points, or do the story out of order so you can get to them ASAP. You can try different elite specs before you drop the points on them for real in the PvP lobby.

Not exactly. I only know this because I know wiki editors. You can squeeze 3 elite specs into two expacs if you wanted.


https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hero_point

Core specs cost 300 points, you get 398 just from leveling. So 98 free points assuming you don't get any HPs from maps while leveling. You can start HOT without enough points to immediately unlock an elite spec.

HPs from the map

Core Tyria - 198.
HoT - 400
POF - 290
EOD - 310

750 HPs are needed for all 3 elite specs. There's 1214 across all regions.

[Geckoo]

Yes, people will still drag out the old pre-release marketing stuff about how the whole game is endgame, that you can do stuff outside in the world and it's great content and yadda yadda. But that hasn't been an honest assessment for years. You can go out and kill shit in the open world, sure, just like you can in any other MMO. You'll generally get next to nothing for it, too. Just like in any other MMO.

No one has used that statement to defend that doing some random event in Queensdale counts as endgame, and yet, every 2 hours when the shadow behemoth spawns you'll find a lot of people doing it, most of them level 80 players. And there is nothing special about the reward.

This does not mean that doing a strike or a fractal is the same as doing a world boss from a starting zone, but both work well because the principles behind them are the same. Gw2 is a game built around the idea of having fun while farming.

There are a few unique rewards and currencies tied to certain events and content, but the bread and butter is the shared rewards from all types of content and ultimately everything is understood in terms of gold and profit. Collections, crafting, getting certain stuff to throw together at the forge or getting gems with gold... you are essentially playing the content you like while farming from it and depending on the type of content, you'll also have a chance at something else that is mostly seen as a boost to profit or simply a personal goal (like an infusion from certain meta event).

[pahbi]

@pahbi

Worth noting: HoT HP's are no joke. There are a handful of "commune with this place" points and some challenges that are definitely soloable, but most will require groups to be able to kill unless you're a MLG pro or something. Your best bet is keeping an eye on LFG channels and, at least once you've unlocked waypoints, joining HP trains if you can find any.

HP's in PoF/EoD are almost all very, very soloable, so if you're frustrated/struggling with HoT HP's to progress an elite spec you'll be able to backfill a lot of those points in PoF/EoD. I just finished off all three elite specs on my engineer and while I think I cheated a bit with some of the core traitline progress via boosting from free stuff, I was able to unlock all masteries using PoF/EoD HP's, plus a few EoD/core Tyria points. Very, very doable even if you can't earn most of the HP's in HoT.

Only benefit to having excess HP's (which you will, if you earn them all or even most of them) is that when the next expansion rolls around you'll be able to quickly/instantly unlock the next elite spec with what you have left over.

Whats an elite spec?

Its good to know I'll have plenty of hero points though, because I wasn't really thinking and put a few points into potions, whatever that does.

As an engineer, I think I should focus my points into turrets for now, though maybe it really doesn't matter much at level 15.

[Edge-]

Whats an elite spec?

Those are the new "specs" unlocked in each expansion. It's a whole new trait line, with access to a new weapon, corresponding weapon skills, set of utility skills, and often times its own slightly different mechanic.

So like guardian has its base trait lines/weapons, but HoT added dragonslayer, letting guardians use long bows and giving them a bunch of trap-skills. PoF added firebrand and changes what virtues do, which let guardians wield axes and granted a bunch of short-range AoE skills that buff/debuff/damage enemies and is super strong at condition damage or support (also changes what virtues do), and EoD added willbender allowing guardians to use offhand swords and with utility skills/replaced virtues more themed around high mobility.

Its good to know I'll have plenty of hero points though, because I wasn't really thinking and put a few points into potions, whatever that does.

I don't know much about engi builds, but potions can be kinda cool. I rock Elixer-U on my mechanist build because mechanist doesn't have any secondary uses for your utility skills (those are instead skills for your pet mech), the quickness is very excellent (it's just much faster attacking for a few seconds) and it's also a great defensive tool as it grants stability (basically CC immunity/break) and vigor (endurance regen so you can dodge more often).

As an engineer, I think I should focus my points into turrets for now, though maybe it really doesn't matter much at level 15.

For leveling, do whatever seems fun. Most of core Tyria is fairly "non-threatening" and you'll have a ton of time to experiment and find out what you enjoy/what works for you.

I'm sure there are better sites, but if you are ever looking for guides or simply some example builds to give you ideas you can check out Metabattle - https://metabattle.com/wiki/Engineer

I don't pretend to have deep mechanical knowledge of even my main class, guardian, so I usually lean pretty heavily on that site for direction and then tweak builds to suit my personal tastes from there.

But you shouldn't have to even really consider that until you're close to/at level 80, since most of it isn't really applicable to lower level players who don't have access to a lot of the trait lines/stat combinations etc.

[Geckoo]

Whats an elite spec?

Its good to know I'll have plenty of hero points though, because I wasn't really thinking and put a few points into potions, whatever that does.

As an engineer, I think I should focus my points into turrets for now, though maybe it really doesn't matter much at level 15.

Elite specs are your gameplay defining specs that you unlock with each expansion at level 80. As an engineer you have holosmith, scrapper and mechanist. Your build at max level will be 2 regular specs and 1 elite spec and in the end is all about what role you want to play and how you want to play it.

The game essentially has 2 roles: support and DPS. Now, each of these roles comes with different variations. You can be a support healer/tank or a support DPS, meaning that you'll provide some buffs while dealing good damage. On the DPS side it is usually divided between power DPS and condition DPS, one being a more bursty type of DPS and the other relying more on debuffs and dots. The cool thing is that one single elite spec has room and traits designed for more than one role and your two regular specs will also support your choice. When it comes to builds the game is very flexible, you can change everything at any time with no cost, but you'll be limited by your gear, but don't worry about that for now.

Anyway, regular specs are unlocked at level 21. What you are unlocking for now are abilities. I'll recommend getting Elixir B, grenade kit and rifle turret as soon as you can. With those 3 you'll already have a decent set of abilities, but don't be afraid to try out everything and see what works best for you. Once you have those i would focus on kit training because at level 31 you will unlock your elite skill and the mortar kit is really good. Kits are actually the most important type of ability you get as an engineer because you can't swap weapons in combat as an engineer, but kits actually work as a different weapon. Almost any engineer build for any role has at least one kit.

When you reach level 21 i would recommend going for explosives and firearms as your specs. Just to give you some context... explosives and firearms are the specs that almost any power DPS build will use and i recommend going for that kind of build because it is also the cheapest to get gear for (but don't worry about that until level 80). Again, play around with the traits and see how there is a lot of sinergy between the traits and your grenade kit for example. Oh, use a rifle. When it comes to weapons, engineer has very limited choices (guess what, it's because we have kits!) so to sum up your choices: pistol main hand is usually for condition damage, rifle for power damage.

Just know that engineer right now is the most versatile and overpowered class in the whole game, so you made a good choice , have fun and if you have any doubt i'll be glad to help.

[pahbi]

Can you change elite specs?