Guild Wars 2!

[Turalisj]

You could have just checked the wiki

[Hullabaloo]

Ive found Dulfy to be a better 'user' side guide. Facts at wiki are good, but for layout and understanding Dulfy is much easier.

@GW2LFG.COM: Its been huge for me, greatly cutting down my time looking for a party. Got a CoF and Fractals 2 group really quick today. Dont take this as a fact due to small sample size, but both my partys were the smoothest PUGs Ive had in either of those places.

[Dogmantra]

I've also taken my first dip into PvP with a very tanky condition damage based build utilising the Grenade and Bomb kits with two pistols attempt to stack as much condition damage as possible whilst laughing at them. This is so far working quite well though if anyone has any advice on pvp engineers I'd love to hear it.

my favourite build so far is this:
PvP Toolkit/Elixir Gun
15 VI
0
25 V VII
20 V IX
10 VI
weapon set is pistol/shield
your utilities are one of toolkit/elixir gun plus elixir c (sometimes swap it for throw mine), plus an escape of some sort (personal battering ram or throw mine for the most offensive, rocket boots for middley offense/defense or elixir s for super defensive), supply drop is your standard elite because supply drop, but sometimes you want elixir x and very rarely mortar

anyway, based on which kit you run, you're either super durable and team support (elixir gun) or obscenely disruptive and also kinda deepsy (tool kit)



doubly anyway I guess the big thing is that if anyone's on piken square swing by LA on saturdays at 9pm GMT for the dye quiz

[Morty]

I fired up GW2 again after a long period of not playing. Immediatey I remembered one of the reasons I'd stopped playing... crafting >.< It's such an enormous pain in the rear.

[Hullabaloo]

What dont you like about it? I found it miles better then DDO and better then WoWs. Once you get the hang of it, its very intuitive for the armor crafting professions. Artificer was a bit more confusing.

That being said, you dont have to craft once in GW2 and never miss anything. I would be a fair bit richer if I didnt craft and just sold everything...

[Morty]

It's a huge time and money sink. You have to grind in order to get it to a reasonable level, and you can't grind enough without purchasing materials in bulk.

[Hullabaloo]

Depending on how you want to play , they dont have to be. Following a Guide you can level stuff like chef for less then a gold if you like to explore and spend a few k karma. Leather working is the most expensive right now, due to the reliability rare nature of leather scraps but should still be less then 4G, if you just want to buy anything. Other professions are closer to 2G.

Time wise, if you just want to sit down and hit it, it should take you less then an hour.

With the cross server AH, there is no grind for materials. Just go play the game. Enjoy whatever you want, fractals, dungeons, exploring, Jumping, and just sell what you dont need and buy what you want. Finishing a few trips through fractals should give you more then enough gold to level Chef 1-400.

Crafting exotic sets is where the money really starts to kick in, Ectos, Tier 6 crafting stuff ect... but its in no way required for any content, short of high level fractals.

[Morty]

That's the point, though. I don't want to sit and try to figure out how to effectively grind my crafting skills. I'd really just like to ignore them, but that deprives me of good items. I really have no idea why the whole industry is so infatuated with the concept of crafting.

[Hullabaloo]

That's the point, though. I don't want to sit and try to figure out how to effectively grind my crafting skills. I'd really just like to ignore them, but that deprives me of good items. I really have no idea why the whole industry is so infatuated with the concept of crafting.

Thats my point from a post or 2 ago. You don't have to ever craft one thing to play the game well. You can buy the final product, again, outside of exotics, it wont cost you more then 50 silver for most stuff. If you take every crafting material you happen to run into (never mining, or gathering, just from loot) and sell it, you would more then cover the cost of some really nice gear. They went out of their way to have crafting be a hobby, not a requirement. No BTC or BTA products, no stat boosts.

I think I'm misunderstanding in something you are trying to say. You stopped playing because of crafting, so you must have a desire to do crafting. But you don't want to spend small amounts of time or money to explore the crafting. What games have crafting that you enjoyed, for reference?

[Morty]

Precisely none. There's never been a crafting system I didn't at least dislike and I really think the whole concept should die in a fire - which makes it all the more annoying when developers stick it everywhere. But I guess you're right - I'll just stop crafting.

[Hullabaloo]

:p. Yea, there is to much fun in the game to waste it on stuff you dont like.

That being said, if anyone feels the need for a Chef, Artificer or Tailor item, I would be happy to craft it for you if you supply the required inputs. That includes 20 slot bags (but the stone required is 10 G). The 18 slot are only 2 gold (+some mats).

[Morty]

I'm experimenting with an Asura Thief a little. I reached level 7, so it's time to decie on weapon sets. Originally I was going to go with a pair of daggers and a pair of pistols, but now I'm thinking maybe I should go dagger/pistol and pistol/dagger. Thieves get a lot of variety out of mixing and matching weapons.

[mucco]

Few things on crafting.

1) It is useless for making money, except maybe sometimes some slight profits on specific exotics. It never stops being a money sink.
2) It is entirely optional and the game is designed in such a way that you don't need it at all.
3) Bringing a craft from 0 to 400 gives you about 12 levels. It is very good for leveling.
4) With some preparation (already having materials) and a crafting booster, you can max two crafting professions in one hour.
5) Chef costs about 1-2g to max, if you know what to do. It is relatively cheap, at 1g for 12 levels in 30 minutes!
6) if you buy, never buy raw materials - components will usually cost less or the same, saving you time at least. Example: don't buy jute and copper, buy chest pieces and chest linings.
7) Use the TP to find the cheapest ways to level up!
8) Never craft the same finished product twice. You want to be discovering all the way up to 400.
9) Never craft a rare until 375. Then, only craft rares.
10) Jeweler is very easy to level up if you mine nodes regularly - gems, and metals if you didn't use them up, are usually abundant.
11) Artificer potions are very easy discoveries most of the time if your materials stash is full.

Disregard all of the above if you need a specific item, of course.

Winter(sday) is coming!

About bags: do fractals. Fractals tokens can be spent on 20 slot bags, it is extremely inexpensive (free lol). Fractals do take some skill and groups pretty much require level 80s, but they give much loot and are actually very fun to me.

[Emmerask]

most yellow+ items give you a very very slight profit margin 1 to 5s
but only if you buy the stuff needed with custom orders and don´t sell directly.
Also don´t mass produce one item produce one of each.

This is with all mats bought, if you farm and then sell you can make more money of course.

[Turalisj]

Run dungeons for money.

[Hullabaloo]

Ah Winterday, should be fun.

Video: http://youtu.be/IYJYssUoxI8

Details:

The event page for Wintersday has been updated! Here are some of the event highlights:

New Wintersday Items in the Gem Store: With festive town clothes, wintery weapon skins, and chests full of holiday treasures, The Black Lion Trading Company has everything you need to celebrate Wintersday! Check out the new items and much more in the Gem Store today!
Winter Wonderland: It’ll take more than a good pair of snow boots to get you through this Wintersday’s jumping puzzle. Speak to the Festive Youth near the snow globe in Lion’s Arch to test your luck—and your balance.
Snowball Mayhem: If you’ve got holiday spirit and a good throwing arm, visit the Festive Lionguard near the Lion’s Arch snow globe to try out the new snowball fight PvP activity!
Bell Choir: Ring in the season with this new musical activity inside the Lion’s Arch snow globe, accessed through the Bell Maestro. It doesn’t matter if you have rhythm—Wintersday is all about harmony.

Trixx's Schedule

December 15th: The Grove
December 16th: Divinity's Reach
December 17th: Black Citadel
December 18th: Hoelbrak
December 19th: Rata Sum
December 20th: Lion's Arch

[Morty]

It feels like the servers are empty these days. I made an Asura Thief recently and there's never anyone around when I try to tackle an event in the Metrica Province.

[Chromascope3D]

So, I just got it today. We have a guild, right? What server is it on?

[Turalisj]

It feels like the servers are empty these days. I made an Asura Thief recently and there's never anyone around when I try to tackle an event in the Metrica Province.

Everyone is doing the Tixx dungeon.

And depends Fallout. Do you want to join the Giant guild?

[Chromascope3D]

If we have one, sure. Why, is there more than one?

[Turalisj]

You can join as many number of Guilds as you wish, but you can only represent one of them at a time. Representing a Guild means you earn that Guild influence, which can be used to buy upgrades.

[Shadow]

You can join as many number of Guilds as you wish, but you can only represent one of them at a time. Representing a Guild means you earn that Guild influence, which can be used to buy upgrades.

Just for the record, it isn't as many as you'd like.
It's either three or four. After that, you don't see an invite for the next one.

[mucco]

Five.

Don't count on the GitP guild to be very active - I've seen it's mostly empty during US afternoon-evening. Thankfully, it's easy to find good guilds around!

On population: most of the low-level areas are empty now as max level characters prefer to play in the higher level zones or in dungeons, which give great loot. You will find tons of people once you get to that part of the game!

[Chromascope3D]

Does it matter what server you're on? For that matter, what server is the guild based in?

[Morty]

On population: most of the low-level areas are empty now as max level characters prefer to play in the higher level zones or in dungeons, which give great loot. You will find tons of people once you get to that part of the game!

That may be, but in the meantime my new starting character can't do any events.

[Shadow]

That may be, but in the meantime my new starting character can't do any events.

I'm on TC, account name Calebrus.
If you're there as well, add me. I'm more than happy to run around doing whatever with whomever when I'm on. I play to play, not to grind junk, so if I'm on hit me up and we'll do it.

[Hullabaloo]

I'm also on TC, and looking for a new guild, if anyone has suggestions. I typically play EST nights, and looking for a group of people to play with, mostly PvE. IGN either Prof Chaos or Sosrey

Switching to finishing up my guardian after getting the CoF set for my Mesmer. Still trying to figure out how the class interacts, but put together the following build to try to differ from my full support/condition Mesmer. Any imput would be welcome.

Link to build here

Burning GS with lots of Virtue of Justice. Swapping to Mace/Focus for healing/def when needed. 30/15/0/20/5

Main focus is to keep high symbol up time along with high buring up time.

Went all the way out to 30 zeal to get constant healing via GW attacking and symbols ( 20 honor) allowing me to keep buring and DPSing.

[Toastkart]

Switching to finishing up my guardian after getting the CoF set for my Mesmer. Still trying to figure out how the class interacts, but put together the following build to try to differ from my full support/condition Mesmer. Any imput would be welcome.

Link to build here

Burning GS with lots of Virtue of Justice. Swapping to Mace/Focus for healing/def when needed. 30/15/0/20/5

Main focus is to keep high symbol up time along with high buring up time.

Went all the way out to 30 zeal to get constant healing via GW attacking and symbols ( 20 honor) allowing me to keep buring and DPSing.

It's not a terrible build, but it's not exceptionally effective either. Zeal is the worst of all the guardian trait lines, because it really offers you nothing that you couldn't get through just stacking more power on your gear, and that's easy enough to come by as it is. Also, zealous blade outright sucks, healing you for a measly 25hp per hit at lvl 80, and as far as I know it is not affected by healing power.

For what you described wanting to accomplish, I'd only put 25 points in zeal.

Healing breeze is a rather subpar heal skill. The cooldown is huge and the amount it heals allies is negligible in the long run. You already have traits that give significant boosts, including healing, to your symbols. Use those to support your allies. I would use signet of resolve for the free condition removal, and I would take the signet mastery trait to make its cooldown more reasonable. Unless they changed it recently, blind exposure only adds one stack of vulnerability on blind, and your ability to apply blind is fairly limited so I wouldn't worry about losing it.

Bane signet is ok, but the passive is kind of weak (90 power is nothing to rave about), and a single knockdown isn't nearly as useful as binding blades, which you already have on the greatsword. I'd replace it with hold the line, which is the guardian's best shout. You could also replace larger symbols with better shout cooldowns, but I would suggest that you try them both out and see which suits you better.

All of the guardian elite skills kind of suck. I've never been impressed by any of them, which is why I tend to stick with hounds of balthazar, and they're not that great, either.

Now, those last 5 trait points you could either put them into valor for some extra toughness and a free aegis at 50% health. Or you could put them into virtues and get either more uptime on your spirit weapons, or a bonus to uptime and cooldown for your consecration.

If you want to take a look for comparison, my build looks like that. I find myself soloing more often than not, so I'm focused as much on keeping myself alive as I am on supporting teammates. But I also know when to switch out skills or traits, and I can relatively easily do that. If I feel I need a spirit weapon rather than purging flames, it's pretty easy to alter what I've got to accommodate.

[Hullabaloo]

THANK YOU for the info. Did not realize the zeal 30 was such a low heal. The Zeal 25 adds 10% dmg to symbols, but the actual dmg from the mace (and lesser extent GS) symbols is quite minor, and I think the main benefit are the boons and conditions, as opposed to raw dmg, so going to 20 Zeal might be a good idea.

Agree about signat of resolve, I use that most of the time and swap to breeze in specific situations. Blind Exposure gives 3 stacks for 5 seconds (AoE), and with Justice being renewed every kill, it actually is up a fair bit.

I swap between Signant of Bane and Judgement a fair bit, depending on how it goes. I was thinking of dropping Spirit weapon for "save Yourself" to be spammed as a boon adder, and the condition removal of others as a nice side effect.

Going from Mesmer [Time Warp] To Norn guardian did hurt in the elite skills. None of the Norn racials are all that good (just shapshifting), but I think tomb of courage could be useful situationally.

I ended up adding 5 to valor for Aiges and 5 to virtues for better consecrations. (can swap in sanctuary for useful situations.)

Still only 71, so some time to think about it.

Also
New WvW Maps in Feb? Also, some talk about culling in WvW.

[Hullabaloo]

Hey guys,

Just to help provide some clarity on this, we’ll be releasing within the next couple of weeks a high level summary of our big plans for the first half of 2013 to help provide more transparency into our plans with the game going forward. This will include providing more details about our goals for the game, information about the stories and features that you’ll see in the Jan/Feb/March releases.

To set expectations accordingly, the January release will be a relatively small release that sets the table for the stories and features we plan to roll out with the Feb/March releases and beyond. Also, there will be no new race, profession, or new region with these larger Feb/March releases. One of our major goals with these releases is making our existing world as strong as possible, ensuring there are reasons to go to all the locations in the world we’ve already built, and strengthening the core game we’ve provided. In saying this will be an expansions worth of stuff in these releases, we’re talking about the number of new features that will be rolled out across PvE, WvW, and PvP in early 2013, which usually you’d only find in an expansion for a traditional MMORPG.

More details and specifics to come in the next couple of weeks, but I hope that helps provide some more insight into what to expect at a very high level.

Colin Johanson

Game Director