Guild Wars 2: Frequently Asked Questions

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Collection of things I quote often. These are aimed at new players learning the ropes and getting hang of the basics, and not for maximising efficiency etc.

New Player:

• The most important thing: Try things, if you're uncertain about something try it first, and then read up on things or ask questions later. You'll learn a lot more and faster that way. Nothing in the game will punish you for failing something.
• Take your time to level the first character, don't rush. Don't use the level 80 boost, save it for a later character.
• Try out all weapons you can use, and try them out, each plays different and have different strengths and weaknesses.
• Learn to use the wiki, it's fantastic. From in-game chat just type: “/wiki something” and the browser will popup and do a search on the wiki page. You can also SHIFT + mouse click items into chat to search them up this way as well.
• Learn to use the TradePost, it's one of the strongest tools in the game, sit down and explore it when you got some time. like search filters can help you find things much cheaper. Putting sell orders instead of buying instantly etc can save you money.
• Don't craft on your first character, crafting takes a lot of materials, and it will either cost a lot of time or gold, and either way you'll end up out leveling anything you can make. Instead spend your time gathering as much materials as you can, and consider crafting around the time you level your 2nd or 3rd character and already have a bunch of mats.
• Click on the gear icon at the top right of your inventory and deposit all materials often — they will be sent to a special spot in your bank
• Turn on AoE loot on interact and Autopickup in your options
• Learn to dodge — double tap to dodge is fine for now, but eventually you will want to turn that off
• You do not need a salvage kit higher than basic — the other salvage kits have a higher cost per salvage and you do not need them until after lvl 68 (type !salvage if you want the breakdown, but it'll honestly go over your head right now)

General order of easiest to pick up as new player:

1. Necromancer (Minions, deathshroud)
2. Ranger (pets)
3. Warrior
4. Guardian
5. Revenant (Slightly complex)
6. Mesmer (Slightly complex)
7. Thief (Glascannon)
8. Engineer (Complex)
9. Elementalist (Glasscannon Complex)

GW2 is a game that doesn't really have a single “best” anything, all classes are useful for something in every game mode. Every single class has a viable power-dps build for every pve mode. Though obviously some classes better at other things than others, like thief isn't a very good healer.

That said, “Healers” in GW2 is used primarly in Raids, somewhat in higher tiers Fractals, and in large scale organized WvW. No one really cares about healers for the rest of the game, including entire Story/Open-World. Game is also pretty alt friendly, so isn't that big a deal to run 2-3 different characters down the line to fill out what you want to play.

Servers only matter for:

• World vs World mode (server vs server pvp)
• Splitting EU and NA
• For everything else, servers practically doesn't exist. All servers play together.

You can view what server you're on by going to character select screen, it's listed in the bottom left next to the button to change worlds. If you're uncertain which Region (NA or EU) you're on, double check with: /wiki worlds

You can do story in any order by just activating it from the Hero Panel → Story Panel, but if you want to follow the chronological order, follow the order they're listed in or just this chart:

GW2 story Order and Difficulty:

1. Personal Story - (Level 10-80, Easy)
2. Living Story Season 1 - (No longer playable)
3. Living Story Season 2 - (Medium)
4. Heart of Thorns Expansion - (Hard)
5. Living Story Season 3 - (Medium)
6. Path of Fire Expansion - (Medium)
7. Living Story Season 4 - (Medium)
8. Living Story Season 5 - (Curent) (Medium)

LS1 was Live content directly on the maps of the game, thus when it was over it was gone and can't be played again. The game offers a tiny recap in-game after completing PS. But recommended to also go watch the longer youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d17gwV4vXOg

If you've completed Personal Story, and don't have LS2, don't jump straight into HoT, it's the single biggest difficulty jump in the game. Instead take your time and get in some practise somewhere else, for example play through these maps from LS1 and LS2, they're a middle ground of difficulty, to prepare you somewhat to enter the HoT jungle:

• Southsun
• Dry Top
• Silverwastes

Farming gold, easiest ways:

• Go to work, earn $, buy gems, transfer gems to Gold. Fastest Gold per hour.
• Google up Silverwastes RIBA farm

The stats you want to use depends on the build you want to play, but in most cases that will mean Berserker.

The main 4 stats used for PvE:

• Berserker (Main power damage: Power+, Precision, Ferocity)
• Viper (Main condi damage: Power+, Condition Damage+, Precision, Expertise)
• Harrier (Main healer stats: Power+, Healing Power, Concentration)
• Diviner (Main support stats: Power+, Concentration+, Precision, Ferocity)

Berserker is a Core stat, and can thus be easily bought on the TP, or from various other sources, just check the Wiki for how to get things. The other stats listed requires expansions to to get, and you'll have to check the wiki on how to get them.

Other stats are sometimes used to min/max a build to top specific stats, like some Assassins instead of some pieces of Berserker to max out Critical Hit chances etc. But not something you'd need to worry about to start out with.

WvW mode often run a lot more different stats than PvE, so check the relevant build.

If you want to spend some gems in the Gem-store right away, pick up the Copperfed Salvage-O-Matic, and dip into as much or as little of the rest as you want or feel comfortable with.

Gemstore:

• Recommended: Copperfed Salvage-O-Matic
• Storage: Character slot, Bank slot, Material Storage
• Story: Living Story Season 3+4, 2 if you really want it
• Convenience: Unbreakable Salvage tools, Shared Invent Slots
• Fashion: 1 Outfit, 1 Mount skin, 1 Armor skin set. Take your time and pick ones you know you'll enjoy for a long time on multiple characters, and use the gold→gem to save up to buy others later.

Salvage:

• Copperfed (or basic): Blue+Green+rest
• Mystic (or Silverfed): Yellow+Orange
• BlackLion: Anything with a rune/sigil worth keeping/selling

As long as you have PoF active on your account, you also get HoT activated. Doesn't matter where you got them. All living story is separate from buying any expansions.

The different types of “Lag”:

• FPS Low: CPU/Hardware, Change settings Character Model Quality/Limit, Shadows, Reflections to lowest.
• Ping/Latency: Network/Internet, some measures that can be taken locally, but otherwise nothing can do about due to ISP/Location.
• Skill Lag: GW2-Server/overload, happens when too many players are in the same map and tries to use skills at the same time, move to less populated map.

Looking For Guild:

• Many guilds recruit in Map-Chat, especially in Cities or Starter maps. Whisper the recruiter and ask about it.
• The in-game Looking For Group panel also has a section for Guilds.
• Go to #region-assign-botspam follow the pinned message, then go to #lfg and post there.
• There is also a reddit group dedicated to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/guildrecruitment/

Guild Wars 2 uses the same game engine that ArenaNet created for Guild Wars 1 back in 2005, which means the basic engine is very old and not optimised for modern hardware like multi-cores at all, and is still stuck on DirectX 9, and can't make use of DirectX 12 features.

Almost all problems with FPS in the game is tied to the CPU and not the GPU unlike most other modern games, because the game is almost incapable of using multiple threads to make use of the multi-core's of modern CPUs.

FPS problems is most visible when there are a lot of players gathered in the same place, examples: World Bosses, Huge map Meta events, Lions Arch, and Large scale WvW battles. Because the game needs the CPU to calculate and keep track of all those players. The same situations can also cause “skill-lag” which is something else, and not related to FPS.

Some settings you can tweak to improve FPS, these four has the largest impact:

• Character Model Limit: Lowest
• Character Model Quality: Lowest
• Shadows: None
• Reflections: None

A couple of others that can be tweaked for minor benefits:

• Animation: Low, if you want to avoid seeing some infusion effects.
• LOD Distance: Low, can make your pc draw less players on the screen.
• Effect LOD: Yes, to reduce some spell effects.

• Own the Expansion Pack: Path of Fire
• Start the PoF story in hero panel
• You get the first mount in the first story step
• Finish the story step

TIP: The story is level 80, but you can get a friend to do the mission for you that is level 80, and carry your low level character through, just to get the mount. Just stay out of the way so you don't die, while letting them handle the enemies.

No, you can only buy skins on the Gem-Store, you still need to unlock the mount the normal way in-game to be able to use those skins.

Mount skins are sold in a few different ways on the Gem-Store:

• Stand Alone Skin
• Mount License
• Mount Select License

Stand Alone Skins: are just sold separately on the Gem-Store, and are usually unique skins selling for 2000 gems. Example: [Sun Temple Gecko Springer Skin]

Mount License: Is a set of different skins for multiple different Mount types, and clicking it will use it up to give you a RANDOM mount from that set. Example: [Mount Adoption License]

Mount Select License: Is an option to pay more gems to be able to select One specific mount skin from inside one of the Mount License sets. Notably this isn't possible with the original [Mount Adoption License] only the later ones. Example: [Istani Isles Mount Select License]

Use what drops, or buy yourself a set of blue/green cheaply on the TP every 10 levels if you want to throw money at it. Gearing really isn't that important at this stage.

Your first goal when reaching level 80 should be to get a full set of Exotic armor level 80 (Exo80 for short), in the stat set that compliments the build you plan to run.

Hopefully while leveling you should have figured out roughly what kind of build you want to play, and looked around the build pages and found one you want to try. In 99% of the cases this will mean a Power DPS build of some sort.

Most Power DPS builds uses a stat set named Berserker (Power+, Precision, Ferocity) which is basically max damage, and relies on your active defences to stay alive. Berserker is a Core stat, and thus readily avilable through most of the game.

How to get full set:

• Weapon: Use the TP search function. Toggle to sort them by price, and look at the cheapest one. Make sure that the highest stat is Power and not Precision (Assassins stat set, very similar). Search for:
  • Weapon Type: (Greatsword, Longbow, Dagger, etc)
  • Level: 80-80
  • Rarity: Exotic
  • Stat: Power
  • Stat: Precision
  • Stat: Ferocity
• Armour: Use the TP search function. Toggle to sort them by price, and look at the cheapest one. Make sure that the highest stat is Power and not Precision (Assassins stat set, very similar). Search for:
  • Armour Type: (helm, shoulder, chest, gloves, legs, feet)
  • Level: 80-80
  • Rarity: Exotic
  • Stat: Power
  • Stat: Precision
  • Stat: Ferocity
• Trinkets: Only easy way to get Exo80 trinkets are through buying them from TP, there's no cheap versions of them. So just search for specific trinket and berserker exotic 80.
  • Many recommend just ignoring Exo80 trinkets and use some Rare or even Masterwork until you can get Ascended ones. Up to you.

Alternative ways of getting Exo80 Gear:

• Dungeons: each run through a dungeon gives you dungeon tokens, that you can trade in for Armour and Weapons at the Dungeon Vendor in LA.
  • Vendor WP link: [&BDAEAAA=]
  • You can get Berserker stats from these dungeons:
    • Citadel of Flame
    • Cruicible of Eternity
    • Ruined City of Arah
• Karma: The Orr maps have “Temple Events” to free the temples from Risen, if these are under players control you can buy Exo80 karma armor from them. Just do lots of events and collect up Karma in any way you like. It cost a good bunch at 252K Karma for a full set. NOTE: you can't salvage Karma gear, so if you put expensive runes like Superio Scholar into them, you can't get them back later on, so don't.
  • Berserker set found at Temple of Grenth. WP code: [&BCIDAAA=]
• Karma Trinkets: In Orr you can also buy Exo80 Trinkets for Karma, but only in Soldier stats, which isn't very popular. If you're new to the game however and struggle staying alive, they can work well if the rest of your gear is Berserker, to give you some armor and health to learn with, and replace with Berserker Ascended for example as you get better at the game, and surviving.
• Crafting is always an option, but not one I'd recommend to new players because it requires a lot of materials and will end up taking a long time gathering them all by yourself, or spending lots of Gold buying them from the TP. That said, Jewelry is probably the least popular craft in the game, and you can buy most of the materials pretty cheap since it uses a lot of materials that other crafts doesn't use. And it will allow you to make Exo80 Trinkets for your character and any Alt's you make later.

Most of the above options won't work for F2P accounts because of the restrictions on the TP. So if you're using the TP you're stuck searching for the Normal Exo80 Berserker gear which tends to be more expensive.

Other options that still works:

• Dungeons
• Karma
• Crafting

How to play together, basic guide:

• Be on the same Region (NA or EU)
• Go to the same map (start with WayPoints to all 5 starter maps)
• Can not be in an instanced area, like tutorial, story instance, dungeon etc.
• Be in a party, if you see friends Face in the party then you're on the same map.
• If not right click his portrait/name and click “Join in map”.

Priorities:

• War Gliding 1 (Enables to use)
• Warclaw Mastery 1 (Enables to use, enables the achievement to aquire)
• Provision Master 4-5 (Auto-loot, and more badges)
• Build Master 1 (Build faster, cheap)
• Repair Master 1 (Repair faster, cheap)
• Supply Master 4 (Good chance to regain some Supply on use)

After that, depends on what you want to focus on.

Roamer:

• Catapult Mastery (most used siege)
• Defence Against Guards (Good while learning)
• Guard Killer (Good while learning)
• Mercenary's Bane (Good while learning, EBG only so pick last)
• Siege Might (for taking down tower walls faster)

Zerger:

• Build Master 5
• Flame Ram Mastery 3-5 (most used siege)
• Siege Bunker 5 (You're going to stand in lots of siege rain)
• Siege Might 5 (If you use the Ram)

Avoid early on:

• Supply Capacity (Too expensive to start with, you get more from Supply Master 4 early on)
• Most Siege Mastery, unless you have a specific use for it.
• War Gliding 2+ (Generally won't have much use for it)
• Warclaw Mastery 2+ (Cost a lot of points early on, and do not put more points into it until you actually unlocked the mount first)