Guild Wars 2!

[Turalisj]

Just traded in a whole bunch of old games and got this along with approximately my body weight in Magic: the Gathering boosters. Looking forward to having something to do now that I've finished Mass Effect and Kingdoms of Amalur.

Edit: Are there seriously 90MB of updates? Hell.

Edit2: 215MB? Ow.

Edit3: Okay, that was how much it had downloaded. I'm getting suspicious here; it's not trying to download the game despite having installed from a DVD, is it?

A quick check into my C: drive tells me that GW2 has 131gig as of the latest update.

[Astrella]

131? O.o

My Guild Wars folder is only 17 gigs big.

[Turalisj]

Huh, now it's telling me 15....

Either way, expect to be downloading for several hours.

I suggest joining Sanctum of Rall, it's the server I'm on and I can help you out easily there. There's guesting of course, but I haven't actually tried that.

[Astrella]

Guesting works well but requires you to be in the same region. (Europe, US, ... )

I'm in a small guild with some Gitp'ers on Piken Square (EU) myself if you happen to be in Europe.

[The Succubus]

All the cool and sexy people play on Piken Square.

[Chen]

So I haven't really played since after launch (got to 80 fairly quick, a couple weeks). At the time orange weapons/gear (exotics I think? I forget the name) were the top end gear and once you hit that there was no more gear treadmilling unless you wanted the HUGE task of making Legendary weapons and even then you got no more stats. Is this still the case? Can I come back now in full exotics and be as powerful as I was before I stopped?

[Hullabaloo]

At the time orange weapons/gear (exotics I think? I forget the name) were the top end gear and once you hit that there was no more gear treadmilling unless you wanted the HUGE task of making Legendary weapons and even then you got no more stats. Is this still the case?

There is currently accended gear from the Fractals of the Mist segment of the game. These are slightly more powerful rings, back pieces and amulets. Exotic body gear is still the most powerful. I think fractal weapons are just for the skin, and no more powerful then exotics (?)

Can I come back now in full exotics and be as powerful as I was before I stopped?

Yes you will be just as powerful. You could be a smidgen more powerful with alot of FotM play, but not enough to notice.

[Derjuin]

So I haven't really played since after launch (got to 80 fairly quick, a couple weeks). At the time orange weapons/gear (exotics I think? I forget the name) were the top end gear and once you hit that there was no more gear treadmilling unless you wanted the HUGE task of making Legendary weapons and even then you got no more stats. Is this still the case? Can I come back now in full exotics and be as powerful as I was before I stopped?

Pretty much yeah - full exotics is considered top level, with exception to the new "Ascended" level backpieces, amulets, rings and trinket/earring doodad. They're not a ton better than exotics, but some of them have really nice stat combinations, like the ring of red death.

[Dhavaer]

How easy is it to gather gems? I have some friends who also play but I can't right now find out which server they're on, and I'm wondering how restrictive the 1800 gem cost to change servers is.

[Turalisj]

If they are in your friends list, press Y. You should be able to see what server they are on from there. Then use the guesting feature to guest onto that server.

[Dhavaer]

Unless I can import my Steam friends list, they aren't.

[Maxymiuk]

Does anyone have any tips for playing a Thief or Mesmer solo? I think they have interesting mechanics and I want to like them, but at around level 20 fighting becomes an aggravating slog -- the Thief especially needs a lot of room to maneuver against the tougher enemies and this usually leads to me dragging other nearby enemies into the fight, making it even tougher. And don't talk to me about fighting in close quarters.

[BoredAshley]

When i got bored with WOW i started playing it. Everyone recommended me GW2. It's good, but for me WOW is much better.

[Badgerish]

I'm soloing happily as a lvl 30 Thief. I'm using Sword/Pistol and Shortbow.

Easy fights involve having a quick look around to make sure there are no adds, then 'port in with Steal, tap 1 to start auto-attacking, then tap 3 to interrupt their attacks.

Hard/group fights open with using shortbow-4 then shortbow-2, pulling a little back to group up the enemies and switching weapons and moving with Steal or Sword-2.

I use the default heal at 50% health (possibly before then) and I'm not afraid to run from fights.

[mistformsquirrl]

So... anyone else trying to get the Super Adventure Box shield skin and sword skin to turn an Asura into an adorably maniacal version of Link? <_< Cause that's what I've been doing. Farming Bubble Baubles from boss chests in the SAB trying to get enough.

[Astrella]

So... anyone else trying to get the Super Adventure Box shield skin and sword skin to turn an Asura into an adorably maniacal version of Link? <_< Cause that's what I've been doing. Farming Bubble Baubles from boss chests in the SAB trying to get enough.

...

That is brilliant. Darn, my only Asura is a ranger, so I can't use shields on her. ;.;

[Hullabaloo]

Does anyone have any tips for playing a Mesmer solo?

Mesmer is a slow one to get off the ground, but gets better once s/he is traited out in a specific direction. I would suggest ignorning condition dmg and go more towards power with either sword/sword or sword/pistol. Maybe with staff as your backup weapon when you want to go ranged. *EDIT* While Leveling.*/EDIT*

Personally I ignored def on him until he got to cap, and relied on not getting hit, which is good training for FotM and some of the dungeons :). Constant Chaos shield up time is fun!

[mucco]

How easy is it to gather gems? I have some friends who also play but I can't right now find out which server they're on, and I'm wondering how restrictive the 1800 gem cost to change servers is.

Getting 1800 gems can be hard. They don't drop anywhere, and there are only two ways to gather them: buy them with $, or buy them with in-game cash. To get such cash, you have to farm for about 10 hours the best gold farm in the game (CoF p1), which requires you to have a fully decked out warrior with exotics and such in the first place. Definitely problematic to do. If you want to whip out your credit card, 1600 gems go for 20$/€.

That said: you can guest to other servers quite liberally, as long as your friends are in the same region: you may not guest to Euro servers if you're NA, and vice versa. Other than that, it is easy to guest.

[Eldest]

Well, I think pretty much all mesmers rely on not getting hit, in my experience. Dodging, using the sword parry and rapid attack, as well as just swarming the enemy with tons of illusions and backing off from time to time to let them take damage while your heal recharges in iffy times. I use dual swords and a staff for when I'm playing ranged support in dungeons. One of the big things is that phantasms are great damage, and shattering when the enemy is at 1/3 health is good. Trait-wise, 5 points in Illusions is fantastic, regardless of what you use. I'd recommend getting the weapon-specific trait for whatever you use as well.

[Hullabaloo]

Well, I think pretty much all mesmers rely on not getting hit, in my experience.

While true most of the time, with 'Chaotic transference' on my condition guy, he has a ton of HP, and with very reliable Chaos Shield combs, its fun standing in the middle of Trash, and just letting them beat themselves down :)

[JSSheridan]

Does anyone have any tips for playing a Thief or Mesmer solo? I think they have interesting mechanics and I want to like them, but at around level 20 fighting becomes an aggravating slog -- the Thief especially needs a lot of room to maneuver against the tougher enemies and this usually leads to me dragging other nearby enemies into the fight, making it even tougher. And don't talk to me about fighting in close quarters.

I leveled almost entirely with a scepter/torch, so I focused on condition damage. All the reliance on condition damage turned me toward Carrion or Rampager's gear.

I used Signet of Domination, Prayer to Lyssa (human only), Phantasmal Defender, and Elite: Hounds of Balthazar (human only)

I would start out with PD and PtL, then follow up with Confusing Images, Illusionary Counter to create one clone, Ether Bolt until I could hit them with a three illusion Cry of Frustration or Mind Wrack.

If I pulled two or more, I'd use The Prestige. Mental Torment in Domination and Master of Misdirection in Illusions trait lines helped a lot.

[Togath]

I've been away a while, has the License agreement always had the clause of "and if you click agree, then this binding arbitration provision will eliminate your legal right to sue in court and/or have a jury trial with respect to any such dispute"?
Seems sort of sleezy, unless I'm missing something

[Turalisj]

It's something that any good lawyer would call bull on.

[Kesnit]

I've been away a while, has the License agreement always had the clause of "and if you click agree, then this binding arbitration provision will eliminate your legal right to sue in court and/or have a jury trial with respect to any such dispute"?
Seems sort of sleezy, unless I'm missing something

U.S. courts have found that to not be legally binding. Not all courts, but there have been some.

[mistformsquirrl]

Woohoo! Finally got my stuff for my Link cosplay <o_o>

Now I can bother you all with it >.> woo!

Spoiler

Show

Shame I can't get it more exactly, but for what it is I'm pretty pleased <^-^>

[Hullabaloo]

That has to be one of the few pictures I've seen people post where I go

/drool

Fantastic looking!

[Starwulf]

Those are some pretty awesome pics! How much time did it to take to acquire the skins necessary to do that?

[mistformsquirrl]

Thanks, both of you! <^_^>

The sword and shield weren't too awful really, but they did take a few days to do. Basically it worked like this:

I have 8 characters, and I ran each through the first two zones of the box once per day, so I'd get a total of 32 Bubble Baubles from boss chests, stuff those all in the bank. Next day I'd repeat, and have enough for a skin. By Day 4 I had enough for both; and I'd also gotten a spare Shield drop from the boss chests which netted me nearly 8 gold in itself.

Now, had I run each time relatively thoroughly it would have taken ages, but I just sprinted to the boss section each time and had little trouble doing roughly 10 minutes per character (if that).

So I'm guesstimating I spent a total of ~5 hours running the box to get both the sword and shield. More than I'd have liked, but considering this lets me have a cool theme for the lifetime of the character, I was willing to put up with it. (Though I do want my hookshot now >_>)

Just an FYI for anyone who doesn't know:

The skin drops from chests you can sell on the trading post; you CAN'T sell the skins you buy from Moto with Bubble Baubles/gold though.

*edit*

Forgot to add, just in case anyone is curious; the armor is actually very basic, it's just level 10 blue chainmail that I colored with Viridian, Maple and that off-white dye you start with (I can't remember the name) - so the armor part was incredibly easy to come by, just a few silver and a few seconds.

[Starwulf]

Definitely an impressive achievement. Your character looks amazing for sure. always nice to see something out of the ordinary :)

So, on another note, update time! I now have 5 crafts mastered: Weapon/Armorsmith, Artificer, Jeweler, and I just finished up chef. I won't be leveling anything else anytime soon though, I have a serious lack of mid-tier fine crafting materials, as well as mid-tier ores/woods. To anyone who is considering chef: Don't. Unless you have a TON of EVERY type of ingredient, just don't. None of the recipes are worth much, you get more money out of selling the ingredients by themselves, or in the mid-phase form(seasonings and what not that you craft). Full on meals sell for 1-4 copper a piece, even at 400 >< I burned through a solid 2 gold because I thought for sure I had more then enough ingredients, but I stalled around 300 and had to buy like 50 butters, plus random other ingredients(Like Sesame Seeds and Artichokes and stuff like that). Major PITA and I'm very glad It's finished.

Oh, I finally got 100% Map completion. We switched sides in WvW two nights ago and I managed to get the final 3 POIs/2Vistas I needed in Eternal Battlegrounds. So, now I"m starting up my Ranger, and I have to say, awesome intro! You have to fight a freaking dragon just to get into the initial map! Looking forward to having a character that's dedicated strictly to DPS :)

Oh, My Guardian is also finally fully outfitted in all Exotics, all crafted by myself(which makes it all the more awesome and feel more of an achievement. Even all the crafting materials were self-found, I didn't spend a dime on anything except Globs of Ectoplasm, and I got 8 of those back through salvaging my old Rare gear with Black Lion Salvage kits).

[Astrella]

Sylvari Ranger, I take then, Starwulf?

-----

I haven't really played much lately; partially because I haven't figured out how to fill out my roster yet since I'd like to have one character of each race. But I nearly have enough karma for full exotics on my main now and I have enough laurels to add an Ascended accessory to that as well.