Guild Wars 2

It appears to me that you level crafting much faster when you actively discover recipes. I was spamming leather mask recipes for Leatherworking for about a point per mask, but then I decided to discover all the recipes available to me and I gained exp much faster.

How do you discover recipes? Do the NPCs just sell them or something? Either way I'm probably going to hold off on Crafting until 80 simply because I don't want to do the remaining ~15 areas at 80 already. Honestly I think crafting gives too much character experience. I would not be surprised if you can hit 80 from 2 (because you're 2 when you finish the tutorial no matter what) purely through mastering all the crafts. I don't think that should be possible but I suppose that's a matter of perspective.

The Breached Wall was a lot of fun for me. There were a bunch of people running through it at the same time as me, and none of us really knew how to get through it, so it took some trial and error. I liked that there were ghosts to fight along the way. I had to be careful with my Thief flips and dodges to avoid falling off. I didn't have such a hard time with it, though; I think it took me about 10-15 minutes once we figured out where the stairs were.

I had several issues with that jump quest, including situations where the game thought I was in combat when there was nothing near me, resulting in me being unable to do any jumps due to the loss in speed for being in combat. I also had an issue where I made a jump just as a ghost spawned, and his spawning put me into combat and instantly slowed me down mid-jump, causing me to fall to my death. I liked the puzzle aspect of it, but currently I hate everything about Ascalonian Ghosts, for that reason and others.

I've only done 2 jump quests in Lion's Arch so far and they've both been pretty fun to do. A few friends have been saying that a certain jump quest in the sylvari place is really hard so im going to try it tonight

The Grove or Caledon Forest? I had no issues in The Grove, but in Caledon Forest there's this stupid one in the middle of the map on the river/lake/sea where you have to make perfectly precise jumps or start over every time. It was rather short though so it wasn't that big of a deal, just annoying.

Edit: disregard I'm pretty dumb...

On the other hand, just 100% completed caledon forest. God, if every zone is that long, it will take quite a while to max everything.

Edit: disregard I'm pretty dumb...

On the other hand, just 100% completed caledon forest. God, if every zone is that long, it will take quite a while to max everything.

They are, it's awesome.

IGGGGNNNNNN@@

I hate the jump quests. I only completed 5/11 of the vistas in Lion's Arch, ha ha ha.

Jarte.4780, and my friend's is ObnoxiousMax.8053, and our character names are "Braivehart" and "Artistic Integrity" respectively.

Currently trying to decide what my second set of weapon(s) should be, as I wanted to be both support and offensive. My first will always be the Greatsword, and I was originally using Sword + Torch combo, but I decided to not build my Guardian around condition damage, because building a Guardian for condition damage is very close to being pointless, considering that burning is the only damaging condition they can inflict and it doesn't even stack. I was thinking of switching out the Torch for the Focus, or just simply dropping the two altogether and switching to Staff, not sure yet.

Oh, and here's a picture of my main, Braivehart:

 Spoiler

Currently trying to decide what my second set of weapon(s) should be, as I wanted to be both support and offensive. My first will always be the Greatsword, and I was originally using Sword + Torch combo, but I decided to not build my Guardian around condition damage, because building a Guardian for condition damage is very close to being pointless, considering that burning is the only damaging condition they can inflict and it doesn't even stack. I was thinking of switching out the Torch for the Focus, or just simply dropping the two altogether and switching to Staff, not sure yet.

Burning stacks in duration but otherwise yeah.
I probably wouldn't stack condition damage either on burning alone but the duration stacking does great against Veterans and the like. Burning is still a useful tool due to that if you have another condition you can stack on while burning is taking effect. I forget what Guardians have available to them in that regard.

How do you discover recipes? Do the NPCs just sell them or something? Either way I'm probably going to hold off on Crafting until 80 simply because I don't want to do the remaining ~15 areas at 80 already. Honestly I think crafting gives too much character experience. I would not be surprised if you can hit 80 from 2 (because you're 2 when you finish the tutorial no matter what) purely through mastering all the crafts. I don't think that should be possible but I suppose that's a matter of perspective.

The top tab in the crafting menu shows all the items that can be used in undiscovered recipes. When you click on one, it'll show you the possible matches for that item. Usually the recipes will be pretty obvious, like combining an +Power insignia with a glove strap with a glove piece to make a glove with +Power. You get a bunch of bonus crafting and regular exp whenever you find a new recipe.

The top tab in the crafting menu shows all the items that can be used in undiscovered recipes. When you click on one, it'll show you the possible matches for that item. Usually the recipes will be pretty obvious, like combining an +Power insignia with a glove strap with a glove piece to make a glove with +Power. You get a bunch of bonus crafting and regular exp whenever you find a new recipe.

I see, thanks.

Oh man this dude in China tried to get into my account.

Oh man this dude in China tried to get into my account.

Happened to me too =( changed my pass tho so i should be fine. They couldn't get in because you have to validate it by email.

Oh man this dude in China tried to get into my account.

Me too.

It means that somewhere in some database there's your email and password combination sitting around, because they just went through one of those and tried to break into accounts.

I changed my password, I probably should for everywhere that I used the same one and still care about.

Not sure why they still try with that IP confirmation system in place now. Who in America/Europe is going to accept a connection attempt from Beijing? I guess they also try to break into your actual email using the same password at the same time.

HOLY SH*T that first lvl 30 dungeon is super super long and super super super hard. Holy sh*t wow. wowowow

Just did it tonight. Still easy, but not as easy as the Manor.

Boulders are my best friend.

Just did it tonight. Still easy, but not as easy as the Manor.

Boulders are my best friend.

I think the perception of whether said dungeon is easy or hard, especially low level dungeons, relies on one major factor:

Your level. Not your reduced level, but your actual level. I've read on the wiki that there's soft caps on your stats in that only the stats from your leveling are effected. So if you're using Lv.80 gear, you're still getting that attack power, that defense power, as well as that +1xx to stats. This also influences your traits, since a Lv.80 would have 50 more trait points than a Lv.30.

Dynamic level adjustment

Dynamic level adjustment is a game mechanic that automatically scales a character's base attributes to match the effective level of the current area. Attribute bonuses from equipment are unaffected, and level-based unlocks like skill slots and traits are likewise retained.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Level#Dy...adjustment

This is why I think WvW is pretty awful pre-80 PvE as well. You just get the scaling to 80, but you don't get any of the gear or traits that other people who are 80 have. WvW was probably fun for Lv.30s during head-start, but at this point there's far too many people who rushed to 80 that it's awful for people who aren't close to 80. This is my opinion, of course.

I think the perception of whether said dungeon is easy or hard, especially low level dungeons, relies on one major factor:

Your level. Not your reduced level, but your actual level. I've read on the wiki that there's soft caps on your stats in that only the stats from your leveling are effected. So if you're using Lv.80 gear, you're still getting that attack power, that defense power, as well as that +1xx to stats. This also influences your traits, since a Lv.80 would have 50 more trait points than a Lv.30.

That's true, except I've done the dungeon before in BWE and it was still about the same. My other friends have said it's taken them upwards of 3hrs to do Story Mode and I can't seem to wrap my head around that.

BWE party:
40 Engineer ― My build was focused on switching between Bomb, Flamethrower and Elixir Gun kit.
35 Ranger
40 Guardian
30 Thief
30 Elementalist

Time it took to do dungeon:
About 1.5hrs without knowing what to do. We were only warned of a certain fight, which was easier in BWE.

Last night's party:
65 Engineer ― Support focused build using kits, not elixirs. Even only having 20 traits could achieve similar effects.
45 Ranger ― DPS glass cannon build, which is hilarious because she is Australian and lagged like crazy because poopy laptop is poopy.
80 Guardian ― Support focused build.
80 Warrior ― idk what he was doing, but he only had melee stuff and never did dungeons before. He constantly downed/died.
35 Thief ― Not sure what he was doing, but I know he changed it up around a certain fight.

Time it took to do dungeon:
About 1hr. Protip: For two fights, pretty much all I did was throw boulders. I don't think my level counts for anything when doing this.

Not much of a difference in how long it took to do the dungeon considering the levels. Boons and conditions have been vastly improved since BWE ― pretty much all I was doing was laying down combo fields and rezzing people. I wish the med packs I dropped were more visible to my friends. ;-;

As for WvW, yeah, there's a bit of an ugh feeling when you're a dinky level against a higher level guy with gear in a 1v1 situation. This is why you zerg it up ― you can take over a supply/NPC camp with fewer people if no one is there. The exp is great anyway, so you'll catch up eventually. I only go into WvW to do the jump puzzle. :3

That's true, except I've done the dungeon before in BWE and it was still about the same. My other friends have said it's taken them upwards of 3hrs to do Story Mode and I can't seem to wrap my head around that.

BWE party:
40 Engineer ― My build was focused on switching between Bomb, Flamethrower and Elixir Gun kit.
35 Ranger
40 Guardian
30 Thief
30 Elementalist

Time it took to do dungeon:
About 1.5hrs without knowing what to do. We were only warned of a certain fight, which was easier in BWE.

Last night's party:
65 Engineer ― Support focused build using kits, not elixirs. Even only having 20 traits could achieve similar effects.
45 Ranger ― DPS glass cannon build, which is hilarious because she is Australian and lagged like crazy because poopy laptop is poopy.
80 Guardian ― Support focused build.
80 Warrior ― idk what he was doing, but he only had melee stuff and never did dungeons before. He constantly downed/died.
35 Thief ― Not sure what he was doing, but I know he changed it up around a certain fight.

Time it took to do dungeon:
About 1hr. Protip: For two fights, pretty much all I did was throw boulders. I don't think my level counts for anything when doing this.

Not much of a difference in how long it took to do the dungeon considering the levels. Boons and conditions have been vastly improved since BWE ― pretty much all I was doing was laying down combo fields and rezzing people. I wish the med packs I dropped were more visible to my friends. ;-;

As for WvW, yeah, there's a bit of an ugh feeling when you're a dinky level against a higher level guy with gear in a 1v1 situation. This is why you zerg it up ― you can take over a supply/NPC camp with fewer people if no one is there. The exp is great anyway, so you'll catch up eventually. I only go into WvW to do the jump puzzle. :3

How is shaving 33% of the time off not much of a difference?

Three hours is a tad much, even for myself with an unorganized group that had no idea what it was doing and had none of the right classes for a party (We had 3 Elementalists, a Hunter and a Thief >_>, some class diversion could have helped there) we still only took two hours. All Level 40 or lower in my group.

@WvW: Even if you rush to 80 from 30 purely on WvW, you're not going to have the gear. But that was always an issue with PvP, even in GW1. You'd be walking around with Minor Runes on a PvP character and everyone you're against has Superior Runes and Unique Attachments. I was never really a fan of PvP personally, so me not liking WvW that much isn't exactly a wonder. There's more than enough PvE content to keep me satisfied for a long time anyway.

I thought you did get gear from WvW.

Reached level 32 today. I'll try AC some time this weekend and share my thoughts on it, I guess.

It's harder to compare release builds with BWE builds. Boons and conditions are much better in release. Engineers were poopy in BWE1~2. Ranger pets were much worse in BWE. Thieves got powered up in release. When you take everything into account, it really is not that much of a difference. It's about how you execute the dungeon, knowing what your character can do, and being able to adapt. If there's an environmental weapon, there's a good chance that it'll be useful. Even in I think it's a lvl 60 dungeon, the boulders you could throw at the enemy would do 10k damage. :B

And it doesn't matter that you had 3 elementalists since they can spec into just about anything. The dev team did the dungeon with all engineers before they got revamped and did fine as well.

AC is very fun, don't get me wrong. It's a great way to introduce you to dungeons. I'm not trying to belittle anyone's efforts. It's just a very straight-forward dungeon with a few simple puzzles.

imho the only annoying thing in AC ***Hidden content cannot be quoted.***You can get gear via karma and badges in WvW. You get a lot of karma in WvW.... Unless it's changed, never really paid attention.

There's some balancing issues with WvW for sure. You don't make much money in it, but people who play a lot of PvE will have money to buy blueprints and whatnot since the WvW jumping puzzle is pretty intimidating if you haven't done it before. And repair bills from all the dying....

My major issue with AC as a whole was the amount of traps, and how often you were stuck in small areas unable to fight openly. At least the bosses didn't really have this issue, but on the entire path towards the bosses there were a lot of small corridors with pimento archers that liked to use traps, or just traps that were part of the map that made life miserable for your entire group. But then again that's the point of a dungeon. It's not supposed to be easy.

Having three Elementalists is both good and bad. Bad because we're so squishy in some situations. Good because of the versatility of Elementalist Combat. My entire group died on Nette, except for me, and using Staff with Water Attunement with the 5 point trait skill that gives you Regeneration Over Time, I was able to survive by myself for about 4 minutes while I waited for my team to get back. It was amazing, especially because Nette was almost dead when everyone else died, so I basically saved us another boss fight. On the reverse of that, when we were fighting the King (His name escapes me, I never liked him), the FoeFire Firestorm knockoff did so much damage that if any of us got caught in the middle for some reason it meant death in two hits. Though I'm not sure if it's just that powerful or squishyness being our enemy there. I do know that I couldn't go Dual Daggers in the dungeon at all, which sucked for me because it's my favorite moveset for Elementalist.

As for Money/Karma in WvW: I played it for three hours and I can note that: 1) You get enough money to make up for repair costs, as long as your server can hold something, since it generates events that then give you EXP, Money, and Karma. 2) The Karma is pretty low. They might have nerfed this. When I did it, I was getting like 500/20/50 EXP/Karma/Gold. It might also be my level though, I was only like 37 or 38 at the time. I will probably only do WvW monthly for the achievements, but as I said that's mostly because I'm not a big fan of PvP in the first place.

LvL 80

Congrats! Level 25, with 4 zones 100%ed (well, 4 and the grove). I still don't get how people can level so fast.