Category Archives: Crafty

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The most helpful advice

In the Facebook GW2 group there are a lot of newbies who transition in from WoW. Not surprising. It’s exactly what I did.
I think this is the most helpful response I’ve ever offered.

Hello to whole community. New player here, been playing World of Warcraft for years and came up to give Guild Wars a chance, I like it a lot, just don’t get it how to get gear, is it same as WoW, trough dungeons and PvE, or? Also would appreciate if you give me a YouTube link or channel who explains game for newbies. Thanks!

I did the same thing. You’re smart to ask now. I didn’t. I didn’t have a clue and got to level 80 and to the end of PoF and was naked by the time I offed Balthazar. I was so stressed/unhappy/frustrated I deleted my character. Dumb. Really dumb.

Your very best option is to craft armor for yourself. People will tell you to just struggle through with whatever drops or buy matching stats on the TP but that’s truly not your best option. Your goal isn’t to get to 80 as fast as you can, it’s to understand your class by the time you get to 80. The shock of trying to manage the level 80 content if you’re clueless is truly painful. Plus you’re going to need max level crafting to get the most out of the game so you might as well work through it as you go.

Figure out which stat set works best for the build you’re running and make it. Crafting, with the Guild Hall boost (you do know you can get free specific boosts from the bartender in the guild tavern?) for crafting will help speed along your progress. Collect mats from the guild hall daily. (If you can, get into a guild that has four guild halls that are all farmable daily.) Get into a full home instance every day (park outside a home instance and catch a full home instance offer) and farm it for mats.

You can learn all crafts on the same character and that’s the best way to manage. When you switch between crafts it costs 50 silver. You don’t lose any progress. You can switch as often as you need to. In the beginning you will only need three or four (armor, 1 or 2 weapon crafts, jeweler). As you build your stable of characters you’ll need all the crafts.

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Equipping level 80’s

I’ve joined a GW2 forum on Facebook. It’s an interesting forum and I’m enjoying it. I see a fair number of players come through saying “do I boost to 80”, “how do I equip my 80”, “I can’t keep my 80 alive” and similar noob posts. We’ve all been there. Yup, every single one of us have danced that dance.

MetaBattle gives user-developed builds that are rated by other players. It appears only the fanatical players contribute builds to Metabattle . . . with few exceptions. One exception is the “basic staff ele” and “leveling summoner” builds for elementalists. The “leveling summoner” is full of lots of super helpful information for a new ele player.

So, given how much information is provided on builds in Megabattle, here’s my two cents worth. This advice is worth EXACTLY two cents. It’s JMPO.
No matter what you play, you have to develop a build you love to play. Read MetaBattle. See what others recommend. Read the notes, play with the build, change what you aren’t comfortable with . . . do what works FOR YOU. Don’t like the way the great sword plays? Try something else. Don’t like the stats they recommend? Try something else!
Here’s my example of lessons learned.
Elementalists are glass. They die very fast. VERY fast. Blink=dead. The first character I ever leveled was an elementalist. Poof, dead. She finished a lot of battles naked because she literally had no armor left to damage. I ran my first elementalist all the way through PoF, fully dressed in the recommended gear. By the end I was so frustrated I deleted her. Gone. Just like that.

That was over a year ago. I now have two elementalists and I LOVE them. They are SO fun to play. What did I do differently? Instead of equipping them in armor that gave them great DPS, I equipped one in all soldier (80 boost, power-toughness-vitaility) and the other in all ascended Tizlak (Commander, power-precision-toughness-concentration), armor chosen to offset how easily elementalists die.

Neither of these stat sets are huge dps producers, nor are they popular/recommended on MetaBattle. Putting them in soldier and commander stat sets was a test and I think, for me, it was a winner. My elementalist STAY ALIVE while I’m killing stuff.

In case you haven’t heard, you do exactly ZERO DPS when you’re dead. The goal is to not be dead. After that, it’s all selecting what you prefer.

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Playing Guild Wars 2 for free . . . and why you should

I have two paid GW2 accounts. Yup, I bit that bullet twice. I also have a free account. Why? Because playing for free multiplies the joy. Truly!

We live in an “instant gratification” world. We want it and we want it now. But there isn’t a lot of joy in that. I’ve re-discovered the joy in building a base slowly and working smartly, and that’s where the free account comes in.

Admittedly, I’ve cheated. I’ve sent things from my paid accounts to my free account, but I’ve really worked hard to keep it within reason. Big bag (one 18 slot silk, one 18 slot invisible)? Yes. Minuscule amount of gold (10g), sure. Low level mats to buff the crafting? Sure! Cheating? Uh . . . yeah, I sent unbreakable tools and glyphs for those tools once my free character hit 80 . . . I probably shouldn’t have done that but I did. It’s done . . . moving on.

Here’s the point and my goals. I plan to do everything, all the map completion, crafting, story line, events . . . everything I can do on this free toon until I run out of things to do . . . and then, and only then, I will consider upgrading to a paid story line.

I am maximizing the fun by not getting HoT or POF until I’ve done everything else first, maximized every craft, explored every map, completed the story line . . . everything. You cannot imagine the joy of working toward a goal instead of paying to reach it.