GW2 starter guide for LotRO players

[TamX]

A few years ago, I was struggling with lotro client on my Linux/Wine. One of the suggested possible fix was trying to run lotro with GW2 wine installation. When I started it, it started to install GW2. At very first, I was about to cancel it and fix the startup settings, but then I thought "why not?" I was already so fed up with certain things with lotro that I was ready to try something else.

I have been playing GW2 since that. I have been lurking here at forums all the time, and to my surprise, last week I was finally able to install working (64-bit) lotro client again (well, store still don't work), so I am able to make some comparisons.

I got the inspiration to write short GW2 introduction for lotro players while talking with other former lotro players in GW2. Most of us agree that it would have helped a bit to read something about the game beforehand from the view of former lotro player, who can tell you the similarities and notable differences beforehand.

I decided to divide this introduction to few parts so that it will be easier to read and comment.

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Feel free to ask questions and give comments. In case you have GW2 account, you can also contact me in-game: TamX.1870

[TamX]

UPSIDES

Are you fed up with all the grind in MMOs? Are you fed up with infinite gear treadmill, constant content resets, level cap raises and such? If so, then GW2 is a game for you.

The level cap has stayed at level 80 ever since the game was launched (2012), and there is absolutely no signs it will ever raise. It is just because the entire game is designed for level 80 characters. All content added since launch are content for level capped toons, so raising the cap would probably break the game.

No content has been entirely obsoleted, so you will have vast amount of playing. When something is added to GW2, it gives something new and different. Not stronger, not weaker, but different. Unlike in lotro, starter regions are far from ghost towns. Those low level areas have achievements also to level capped toons, so you will see lots of experienced players also in those areas - in fact, in any area, just because all the regions have something the other regions do not have!

As a new player you will probably be overwhelmed at first, touching little bit everything and not knowing where to concentrate your efforts.

GW2 is a game, which is easy to come and go. It really does not matter if you take longer breaks, once you come back, you can continue where you left. In general, all your achievements will be as good as they were when you left for the break, you don't need to start grinding for new things. This is both pro and con: you will see lots of players coming and leaving all the time, players change, guilds will born and die, and so on.

GW2 can be challenging game at many levels. There is a reachable gear cap in the game you can not exceed in any ways. It puts pressure to your knowledge of the game and its mechanics, and that can be long road to travel. But don't be afraid, you don't have to know everything to enjoy playing.

GW2 is account centric game, where alting is easy and you can do the content freely with any toon you like. All currencies, crafting materials and achievements are account wide, so you basically need to do things just once. There are few exceptions to this, but they are very rare and mostly justified.

DOWNSIDES

GW2 is anything but perfect game. First, there is one aspect where LOTRO and GW2 are the opposite ends of the spectrum: Lore. While LOTRO's lore is strongest in the entire market, GW2's lore is probably one of the weakest. LOTRO has consistent world, easy to dive deep in it. On the other hand, GW2 is messy steampunk mix-up, mixing in guns, swords, tanks and fantasy creatures. Its main story gets bit better in later parts, but there is not many memorable moments in it - few, yes, but not many.

For a game with lots of players online, GW2 is surprisingly "silent". Here in LOTRO bit by bit you start to know the "usual suspects" of your server from content you run and from /world chat. GW2 PvE uses megaserver, that is, all players share the same world. The world is divided to "maps" (regions), and they are layered. So, it is very rare that you meet any random player again any time soon, and that really does not encourage people to make bonds to each other. Most landscape content meant for groups does not require teaming up and communication - some do, but not many.

There is no such thing as /world chat. There is /map chat, but it only covers one layer in one region, and people on /map chat are mostly just purely random.

You need to get yourself guilds. You can be in five guilds at once, and I recommend you to get two large and active guilds, and use later few slots for special needs (e.g. fractal guild, PvP guild and such). Most of times you can easily join and leave guilds, so you don't have to be very picky. Go in and look around, leave if you didn't like it or found better one.

While GW2 has its own drawbacks, it has its own strengths, too. It has great combat mechanics, it has very friendly update policy. It has lots of things to do, and lots of challenges to master. It is a game that is easy to start, and it is easy to return to it. It is a game where people keep coming and leaving all the time (is that a good thing, or bad thing? I don't know).

EXPANSIONS

The GW2 core game (released 2012) is free to play. Without spending any money, you have access to so called “Core Tyria” landscape PvE regions, as well as many end-game modes: fractals, PvP and WvW. What you can’t access without expansions, are landscape maps that come with expansion and their corresponding additional episodes, and AFAIK raids (which originally came with HoT expansion). Just for your information, my knowledge about free-to-play is very limited, as it was only a short period back years ago.

The core game has been extended by two expansions:

1. HoT (Heart of Thorns), released end of 2015 (free with PoF), and
2. PoF (Path of Fire), released end of 2017 ($29.99).

The most important thing in expansions is the specializations they give for classes, and if you ever play longer, you start missing them.

Nowadays, both expansions are bundled together. You can only buy PoF and with that you get HoT, too: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/g...-path-of-fire/

Additional information: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Expansion

[TamX]

ROLLING YOUR FIRST CHARACTER

If you decide to give GW2 a try, the first thing you need to do is to create a character by choosing a class and race. Choosing race is easy - it is entirely cosmetic choice, so pick the one you like the most. Choosing a class, on the other hand, is much more complex. I won’t go too deeply to the subject. I have tried to pick here few such classes, which have somewhat newcomer-friendly core builds (builds without owning expansion) for landscape PvE, but which also have nice choices to go forward if you ever buy expansions.

If you keep playing, be prepared to roll additional classes later. When you later try other game modes, you will then notice that one single class does not serve all your needs. Furthermore, classes are anything but written in stone, they receive balance patches frequently that shifts their position amongst each other. Not any class is entirely obsolete, but not all (if any) classes have good builds to all game modes and roles.

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Probably the easiest class to start with is either Ranger or Necromancer. It is really hard to put them in any order. Ranger is probably easier to understand at the beginning, on the other hand necro can serve you really far. While Ranger may have better builds for high end content, you most probably still like to chill on Necro for easier content.

Here is one post from GW2 forums: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/disc...omment_1218211

You won't make a mistake if you roll some other class instead. Some classes just have steeper learning curve, and they have differences in skill floors and ceiling. A class - or more specifically a build - can feel very squishy at the beginning before you learn how it works, and a class can have high skill ceiling that means that it takes a while before you learn to use all its potential. But all classes have solo builds - a combination of self-sustain and DPS - and all classes have some group builds. Just remember that grouping for higher end content is all about synergy between builds, so even that vast amounts of builds can be viable, because of the synergies between certain builds your team mates will want you to use certain build for certain class.

NECROMANCER

Necromancer has taken the spot as my “workhorse” from Ranger. Necromancer is very tanky by its nature and it has easy to play, self-sufficient solo builds. Necromancer shines in several fronts: because its self-sufficiency and tankiness, it is great with inexperienced groups, and it has strong builds for PvP team playing. Because at first you mostly play with inexperienced people, you will like Necro, even thought eventually you need to start to consider to take some other class to high end PvE.

HoT gives you Reaper specialization. Reaper is very strong melee AoE DPS dealer, and with Necromancer’s innate tankiness it makes it one of the best self-sufficient PvE DPSer. While certain other classes will surpass Reaper in raw numbers in experienced hands in well-formed and experienced teams, in many real situations Reapers tend to be the top DPS dealers.

PoF gives Scourge specialization. It is an interesting mix of ranged AoE DPS and team support. It is very potent in all game modes, including PvP team fights.

If necromancer lacks anything, it lacks good WvW roaming (solo) builds (and builds for high end instanced PvE content).

RANGER

So called "Bearbow Ranger" (Ranger with longbow and bear to tank) is very popular choice for new players, and for very good reasons. Ranger is an all-around DPS class with pet. While longbow is iconic Ranger weapon, do not mistake Ranger as a ranged DPS - no, Ranger is a DPS class which happen to have some ranged options, but in general, in GW2, all DPS is melee DPS. Ranger’s longbow does poor sustained damage, it has much more use at PvP front because of certain utility it gives. Even that you most probably start with longbow, you will later find greatsword and axe much better options - especially highly efficient and versatile greatsword.

There are few things - like very good sustain - that make Ranger friendly to new players, but one of the main things is pet. They tank the mobs for you and thus give you breathing room to learn the game. Do not hesitate to start with bearbow build, it is excellent for new players.

With expansion, Ranger can be changed to Soulbeast. Soulbeast is solid option for instanced PvE damage dealer, and it makes Ranger a strong 1vs1 duelist for PvP and WvW. The other specialization, Druid, used to make Ranger as instanced PvE support, strong PvP buner and WvW roamer, but sadly Druid specialization was nerfed a bit too hard in the past, and it has not yet recovered from that. Druid is still used in raiding groups, thought.

If Ranger suffers anything, it really does not have any good builds for larger scale PvP fights. Also, Ranger's high end instanced PvE builds are not amongst the easiest ones to play.

WARRIOR

I decided to take Warrior here, too. Warrior is commonly recommended as newcomer-friendly class. It is that to a certain extent. It is high-health, heavy-armored, simple and straight-forward, and once you get more used to GW2 fights it is also surprisingly sturdy. But unlike Necro and Ranger, who have minions to take pressure from yourself at first, thus giving you room to learn the game, on Warrior you are alone. Warrior does not have that much direct heals, but it has few specific synergies from traits and gears you can use to increase its sustain. It can take some serious playing time and trying other classes before you understand the greatness of a Warrior.

Why I lifted Warrior here as third possibly recommended class to start with is because Warrior has great builds for all game modes, and those builds also include core ones - that is, even if you don't have expansions, Warrior have core builds that are very useful in several game modes. I would still recommend Necro or Ranger as your first toon, but you could make a Warrior just in case you want to see the game further before investing in it.

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You won’t make a mistake if you roll Necro, Ranger and Warrior all your first toons. In long run, they complete each other. Even that I suggest these three classes to roll at first, you don’t make a big mistake if you pick something else. I here shortly list other classes and describe a bit what they do, why they can be a good pick, and why I didn’t list them as my recommendation:

GUARDIAN: Guardian is not a tanking class, instead it is sort of low-HP, heavy armored battle mage. At first look, Guardian looks like a sort-of-Warrior with some team support abilities. For former lotro players, at first it may feel sturdier than Warrior, because unlike warrior, it has options to trait & slot in direct heals. But that is just an illusion - unlike lotro, in GW2 the idea is to avoid damage, not to mitigate or heal (“facetank”) it. Although at first Guardian and Warrior may look the same, in long run they serve very different purposes. With PoF specialization, Firebrand, Guardian is one of the best PvP support classes, and nowadays strong for instanced PvE, too.

As with other classes, you won’t make a mistake by rolling a Guardian. It is very versatile and flexible class for many purposes, but not the easiest ones to play.

MESMER: Mesmer is really confusing class to play at first, and it is extra confusing class to play against. But it is very, very potent class, and definitely not as hard as some say. Mesmer playing revolves around illusions and clones that mesmer creates from her/himself, and utilizing those clones for various purposes. Once you get a bit used to class, you will find it easy, effective and forgiving class for landscape PvE.

Why I am not recommending it as a first class is not that it is great for open world, but because its roles in groups are complex. You might like it when running around the world, but you will have hard times when trying to fill the role your teammates expect you to do. You will need experience from instances before you can do any good. For that reason, I would recommend rolling a mesmer as your third or fourth class after you have already experience from the game. Many people fell in deep love with their mesmers.

ELEMENTALIST: Elementalist is as close to pure mage class as you can get in GW2. It has very flexible and versatile in-combat kit, and it is known to be complex and challenging to play. As close all fights in GW2 are done in melee range, you can understand that light-armored, low-health complex class that trusts on active defenses can be pretty overwhelming for a new player. But once you get experience from the game mechanics, it starts feeling manageable, and at some point you may fell in love with its versatility and flexibility.

REVENANT, ENGINEER, THIEF: Few words about the remaining classes. For a new player, Engineer with all its kits can be just too complex to be used efficiently. You need experience from fights to be able to figure out how to win them. The same goes with Revenant, although it is bit simpler than the other two. Thief is Thief, stealth class going around alone: it has generally more use at PvP front than at PvE side, as even if it has good DPS, it does not offer much else to teams unlike few other, more popular DPS classes.

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MY TOONS

I have one of every class, that is 9 toons. My most played toons are necromancer, warrior, ranger and guardian. From the rest of the classes, all of them are interesting and I learn to play them time to time. Just last week I played a lot my elementalist and this week I have taken closer look to revenant play.

I play necromancer mainly as hybrid scourge and I play it mostly at landscape. It is very relaxing build to go to almost everywhere without needing to retrait. My warrior and guardian are mostly for instanced PvE content, warrior as DPS and guardian as support. Ranger is an odd beast I play occasionally mainly because I know the class well and it is quite nice all-arounder with longbow and greatsword.

[TamX]

LEVELING, GEARING AND ENDGAME

I won’t talk much about your journey to level cap - it is quick process anyways and you will learn the peculiarities anyways. Free-to-play Core Tyria has something like 25-30 accessible regions, varying in level range from 1 to 80, and they take you gently and pretty quickly to level cap (at 80). If you are not rushing, it takes like 2-3 weeks to reach the cap on your first toon. Later toons you can level up much, much faster - if you are in hurry it is usually in matter of minutes.

For some time now, Metabattle has listed builds for open world, too. It still concentrates heavily on high end builds for instanced PvE, sPvP and WvW, which you can also take a look while playing. Metabattle nowadays lists so called "leveling builds", which are core builds with instructions meant for players new to the class. After you have rolled a class, take a look to the builds, they can really help you onwards:

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Open_World


GEARING

What will probably shock former lotro players is the difficulty. If higher level core Tyria maps feel difficult at first, it is just a gentle beginning. HoT expansion maps are known for their difficulty, bursting tears of frustration out of new players: not only you just keep dying, the maps are also difficult to navigate. While many story instances are just moderately difficult, there are few that feel just close impossible to be completed when you enter there first times. And we are not yet even talking about high tier instanced end-game PvE content or PvP, just landscape and story.

DO NOT add more defensive gears without knowing what you do! GW2 revolves around active defenses, not passive ones from gears! You will learn that high damage output with active defenses will make your journey much easier once you learn it.

When you start the game, it does not hurt to slot in some passive defenses to buy some time, but do not go too far with that. For level capped toon, slightly depending on your class, your defensive solo builds have something around 18 - 20,000 health and 2,300 - 2,500 armor (mitigations). Anything above that is usually an overkill, if you can't manage content with that amounts of passive defenses, getting more is not going to help you. Quite the opposite, giving up damage output is probably just making you a free punching bag, prolonging the inevitable few more seconds.

GW2 is all about knowing the class, build and encounter. Once you start to understand where your build’s sustain comes, fights start feel easier. Once you get more familiar with landscape mobs, instance mechanics and PvP tactics, you can time your actions much better and you start to feel the fights easier. Unlike people tend to say, GW2 “action” fighting is not a reaction game - it is more about being ready to act by knowing what is coming.

Just like in lotro, gears in GW2 come with different quality categories, the names are just different. But in GW2, gears and their quality play a much smaller role than what they play in lotro. The stat difference between expensive highest quality gears (ascended & legendary) to the relatively cheap second highest ones (exotic) is just 5%. You don’t feel the difference. Ascended and legendary pieces have other perks compared to Exotic than raw stats. Instead of quality, what matter more, is the stat distribution - you should know what stats are good for specific build and playstyle, and what they do.

[TamX]

OTHER NOTABLE DIFFERENCES TO LOTRO

FIGHTING AND ROLES: There is no traditional tank-healer-DPS trinity in GW2. Basically, all classes are DPS classes. But, all classes bring their own specialties to the group: there are buffs to boost the raw DPS outcome, there are buffs to decrease the taken damage, and there are heals and debuffs to put on your enemies. For this reason, there are some room for support classes, as they are called in GW2. Certain classes can be built so that they can boost the DPS of the rest of the group more than they could bring raw damage by themselves.

PvE side fighting aims to have no healers at all. This is because most of the damage comes from fight mechanics, and so you can learn to avoid them entirely. But in practice, most support classes who can boost DPS, can also dish out some protection and heals with their left hand. Furthermore, mostly only experienced groups try to go without healer, most groups will gladly accept someone to watch their backs even if that means longer runs.

PvP side fights usually use support classes which are much closer to (PvMP) healers in lotro. This is because you really can't know in advance who and how your enemies are going to focus.

ACCOUNT-CENTRIC: Unlike lotro, GW2 is account-centric game. Close everything you get is either unbound or account-bound. It is very, very rare to get anything for just one character. Many higher quality items even stay account-bound once you wear them (they are never bind), so you can move them freely between your toons. There is bank/vault like in lotro, but unlike in lotro, it is account-wide. Your character's personal belongings are in your inventory (bags): you can also have account-wide "shared inventory bag", which is very handy for certain items you need on all your toons.

When you join a group, it is your account - not character - who is in that group, which means that if you relog another toon, you will stay in the group. Currencies go to wallet (it is default thing in the game), and currencies (gold etc) are account-wide. Crafting materials go to account-wide material bank, from where they are consumed when crafting. It does not even end here: it is very rare you need to move things between vault/bank and inventory, as even many NPC vendors will directly accept things from bank/vault, without the need to move them to character inventory first. There are few exceptions to this, for example, Mystic Forge.

DOWNTIMES: When you play GW2 a bit, you will notice that downtimes are extremely rare. When client update is released and you happen to be online at that time (like today), the game gives you 2 hours time to log out. Once you restart your game, the client downloads the updates. Compared to lotro you will be surprised by the frequency of updates the game releases.

[TamX]

MISCELLANEOUS

MONETIZATION - GW2 GEM STORE

GW2 makes its money by selling expansion (bundled HoT & PoF) and by gem store. You can get expansion only by real money. Earlier, HoT and PoF were sold separately, $29.99 each, but they bundled them so that when buying PoF ($29.99) you get both, and during this change they refunded people who had bought those expansions separately.

Gem store uses gems. You can buy those gems with real money, yes, but you can also exchange in-game gold to gems (and vice versa). For exchanging gold to gems, you need in-game gold. There's two basic ways to make gold: (1) running high end content frequently, or (2) Trading Post (Auction Hall). There are existing gold farming guides and groups, and there are existing tools for tracking the prices in AH to make money by buying and selling with profit.

On the other hand, gem store sells mainly cosmetics (skins), toys and convenience items. You will do fine without those. As an example of common monetization model is gathering tools: unbreakable gathering tool is a convenience item (regular ones have charges, so you need to keep buying them from NPC trader). In addition to sell unbreakable tools, gem store sells those tools with various effects (skins).

Only if you keep playing, at some point you start to consider items like extra character slots and vault space.

Living World Seasons and Episodes: Another thing you may start to consider are Living World seasons (or single episodes). Living World episodes are content released between expansions. Current ones in chronological order: Core game - LW1(*) - LW2 - HoT - LW3 - PoF - LW4 - LW5.

(*) LW1 is not available at all. LW1 episodes changed the game world and they were made to be ran when released. I have read that originally the whole idea of LW was to alter the game world (as the name indicates), but they gave up that part to make them available also for players joining after the release of the episode.

The trick here is that you get Living World episode free, if you login while that episode is "active" (in other words, the latest one). Later, you can buy that episode with gems. For any new player this means that except for latest episode, all others are available only from gem store.

Now the question is, do you need them? Each episode has its own perk(s), that is, they are still played by many players and you don't generally waste money if you buy one. But before buying, make sure you know what the perk in the season/episode is so that it is useful for you. For example, LW3 season (6 episodes) grant you one more way to get ascended jewellery, and LW4 episode 3 grants you access to additional mount, Roller Beetle (its main use is in "rally" competitions).

Luckily they are pretty cheap. For example, complete LW3 season cost 960 gems (approx. 250 in-game gold), which is approximately as much as one glider skin.

[TamX]

SOME EXTRA TIPS TO YOUR JOURNEY

This post is reserved for extra tips you can benefit in your journey in GW2, no matter how short or long it will be.

METABATTLE

Once you start playing end game content, you get insterested in builds. There are various places to look for them, but one of the good starting place is metabattle:

https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki

Metabattle builds have been divided by profession and by game mode: Fractals (5-man PvE instances), Raids (10-man PvE instances), Conquest (structured 5vs5 PvP), WvW (open world PvP) and Open World PvE. Please notice, that WvW builds are aimed for certain purposes, mainly either for large scale battles (like 30 vs 30) or for solo/small team roaming. Open world build section is pretty new one, and the builds there are more prone to personal preferences - you can still do what I did, you can look for Conquest and WvW roaming builds and tailor them to your daily needs. Conquest/WvW roaming builds differ from PvE builds in that manner, that they are much more self-sufficient and they are designed to have counters for all sorts of surprises. Still, you need to know how the build works to make it work, those builds are not anything like automatic "I won" buttons.

New player instructions

WoodenPotatoes made a video for new players: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXGTxJAiEpA

[TamX]

Just thought to let you know, that there are currently Festival of Four Winds running in GW2. It might be interesting place to go to check even for entirely new people, but at least for people who once created a toon but have forgotten it for long. Festival is basically divided to two parts: Crown Pavilion having fight based activities, and Labyrinthe Cliffs having more peaceful activities. I personally spend this time in Queen's Gauntlet, solo fights against all sorts of more or less challenging mobs.

[TamX]

Straight after Summer Festivals, there is now special event in GW2: Champion Rush. Champions are harder landscape mobs for groups. There is quite many these kinds of bosses around, and this event only counts so called "Core Tyria" bosses, which you can access without paying anything. The thing is: there is now lots, lots of people in low level maps, so if you were thinking of making a toon, or if you have one, it could be now time to see very crowded maps for players at all levels.

[TamX]

Arenanet announced just few days ago, that for now on, the two expansions to the game are bundled together. If you buy PoF, you will get HoT, too. Arenanet is preparing for new story line, so called "Living World 5", which continues the story and (most probably) adds some new maps and such to the game. I edited the first few posts reflecting this change. More information:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/g...-path-of-fire/

Personally I feel, that this is quite dramatic change. Of course, bundling both expansions together is very reasonable choice. It will unify the player base in terms of what they are able to do (specializations, gliding, mounts), but the discount is now huge: it is now just $30 to get vast amounts of game content. I am not sure if I am personally that pleased for the "refund gift" I received by purchasing HoT years ago separately, but I can live with that - for me, it is more important that new players have easier time to get to same level as older ones.

This also tells something else. Looks like Arenanet is not going to add new specializations to classes any time soon. For me, that is a good sign, because there is still work to do to get the existing specializations (27 different at the moment) balanced to each other. I could hope that by this change, HoT and PoF specializations are brought closer to each other in terms of their viability. The balance is not that bad, but some specializations definitely dominate certain roles in certain game modes, while some other specializations do not have any role in any content. Luckily, all classes themselves have uses in different game modes, even thought they can't fill all the roles in all game modes. You just need to pick right class with right specialization to the job you want to do.

[TamX]

ArenaNet has provided a new player guide for Guild Wars 2:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/new-player-guide

I didn't want to put it on my guide nor to extra resources, as the "guide" is very, very limited. But if you start playing, you may like to take a look at it at the beginning, because it introduces some basic concepts of the playing itself, like skills, marks on map and so on.

[TamX]

Arenanet announced a few weeks ago, that Guild Wars 2 is about to come to steam for downloading. Around the same time, new expansion is about to come - this time, there is only little informed what this new expansion will contain. Before, the two expansions - HoT and PoF, that is, Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire - have contained new specializations to classes. People are very unsure if this expansion will extend classes, at least in the same manner, but at the same time, GW2 expansions in the history have contained some true game-changers.


https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/disc...oming-to-steam
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1.../Guild_Wars_2/
https://www.pcgamer.com/guild-wars-2...ing-next-year/

At the moment, there is a weeklong fractal event (fractal = 5-man team instances = 6-man instances in lotro) on-going. If you like to take part to that, you either will need a readily leveled and equip'd toon, or you need to be very, very fast leveling and gearing your newly created toon. Even that it is not impossible for new toons, it will probably not pay all the efforts to try it within a week.

[TamX]

GW2 expansion - bundled PoF and HoT - is now available at half price until December 24th. Winter festival is on-going just like in many other games.

[TamX]

I updated the first for posts to reflect better to current situation.

Also, for your information, there is currently a longer special event running. This event takes players back to the events before "Heart of Thrones" quest line, and this can be wonderful opportunity to get those regions for free for new players.

As always, if you have suggestions or questions, feel free to post them!

[TamX]

If you ever want to give GW2 a try, or if you have some toons already there, now is the time to log in once a week you really don't want to miss!

GW2 continues its returning series to earlier parts of the story, and next week it starts returning to Living World Season 3:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/r...egins-june-29/

Now why is this important to new players? Living World Season 3 has maps that are extremely convenient to get stat-selectable Ascended trinkets from landscape! Other sources for stat-selectable trinkets are much, much harder! You just need to log in while the returning season is active to get the map free - and trust me, you gonna love that later, if you decide to continue playing.

EDIT: I forgot to say, that you can not play the maps without expansion. But I still think that you will get them for free during this period.

[TamX]

GW2 just received quite ground-breaking quality-of-life improvement, Legendary Armoury:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/t...rives-july-13/
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topi...-july-13-2021/

To understand what it means, I talk a bit about GW2 gears first. At level cap, you generally use three gear quality variants: Exotic, Ascended and Legendary.

Exotic gears works somewhat similar to the gears in LOTRO: you can craft them, sell them, and once you wear an item, it becomes bound to character. They are slightly weaker stat-wise than Ascended and Legendary, but the difference is not much, in fact it is unnoticeable in many real situations (based on my experience, when switching from Exo to Asc).

Ascended gears are generally account bound when acquired (crafted, bought from vendors). The twist is that they remain account bound even when weared, so you can move ascended gears between your toons, which is absolutely fantastic. It is also possible to change the ascended gear stats, and because of these features, ascended gears are basically never useless. Either you can use them as such at another character, or you can switch stats.

Legendary gears take long to get and they are horribly expensive, because they need lots of all sorts of materials. Stat-wise Legendary gears equal to Ascended ones. The difference to ascended gears is that you can switch their stats on the fly - yes, any time you want if you are not in combat.

As legendary items are also account-bound, even so far you have been switching them from toon to toon. Now, there is Legendary Armoury, which means, that you don't have to use inventories any more to use them on your toons. No, once you get one, it is then usable on any of your toons right away!

Legendary items have already been all the worth of the pain to get them, and now they are incredibly more worth of all the pain. I don't personally have many of them yet, but this improvement really makes me want more!

[TamX]

It is very rare that GW2 is down. In fact, it is so rare, that it has happened only once (May 11, 2020) during all of my 3-4 years playing, and it is so rare that it is worth for devs to write an article about the incidence:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/i...tage-analysis/

Although new content, balance patches, fixes and such are very frequent, normally it does not involve downtimes. While you are playing, you get a message about a new build available, and few hours to log in again. When you log out, the game fetches the updates, and you can continue playing.

[TamX]

Guild Wars 2 is now nine years old:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/c...-guild-wars-2/

GW2 is preparing for its third major expansion, End of Dragons coming out February 2022. To my big surprise, this expansion íncludes new class specifications just like the previous ones (HoT & PoF). There was already a bit earlier a beta duration to try out three of them.

[TamX]

A small update what is happening at GW2 front.

I recently completed some deeds on Heart of Thorns maps and I was very pleased to see, that even that the maps are old, there are still enough people to run their meta events even without calling out players. In GW2, most landscape activity work so that you enter a map and join with people on the same map for group events. Some events are announced via LFG panel, which is generally great if you plan to do some specific things - but mostly you just tag along with random people at same map doing events.

If you ever want to give GW2 a try, or if you have some toons already there, now is the time to log in once a week you really don't want to miss!

This returning series is now close to end. This returning series demonstrates how GW2 adds new content around old content. The story line has received new achievements to be done by older rerunning the instances and landscapes. In the end, returning series will give you a legendary item. This is alone quite an incentive to go through content you did earlier. Also, as these new achievements will be available for new players, which in fact lowers the barrier for new players to catch the old ones - and no-one seems to complain about this!

What are legendary items? Especially after introducing legandary armory earlier this autumn, they are ultimate convenience gear pieces. With armory they can now be shared between characters without any hassle. If we look at the gear classes, they can be described like this:

- Exotic and lower: These are (mostly) bound to character when weared, so you cant share them between your toons. You can not change their stats, instead you need to make/buy new ones with new stats. Extracting upgrades from pieces require special tools. Stat-wise Exotic pieces are around 95% of Ascended: the difference is usually hardly noticeable.

- Ascended: These have slightly higher stats than Exotic, but the more important thing is that you can slot infusions to them, which are needed to run fractals (level 80 5-man instances). These stay bound to account, so you can move them between characters via bank/inventory. Their stats (armor and weapon pieces) can be changed with special items, so they are rarely entirely obsolete - once you have ascended pieces on your toon, you can swap their stats or swap them to another toon. Extracting upgrades require special tools.

- Legendary: Legendary items have same stats as Ascended ones. These stay bound to account and are now shared between characters via armory, that is, all legendary pieces are automatically available to all your toons. Their stats can be changed with mouse clicks, and upgrades can be extracted from them with mouse clicks. Build templates store your choices, so you don't have to go through all pieces all the time when changing stats.

There is clear gear cap at Ascended/Legendary. No armor will be stat-wise more powerful. The reason for legedaries is not better stats, but because they are convenient to use, they save lots of bank & inventory space and resources when you need to change your builds.

There is one drawback - getting Legendary items is long and expensive process, and it usually forces you to frequently run more challenging end game content (raids / pvp). Not only to get "wealth", but also to complete collections and achievements. But luckily you need to do this only once per piece, and you can be pretty sure that this work will never be obsoleted. I think I have read Arenanet to say that even if they need to make a new gear quality set between Ascended and Legendary with their own perks, Legendary will be updated to include those perks.

[TamX]

GW2 players make lots of videos. If you struggle with some achievement, or you want to learn some raid or fractal, most of times you watch a video about the subject. Now I want to link here a half hour video targeted to new players. In case you have just started the game, this might be good to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXGTxJAiEpA

I want to point few things from the video.

First, the maker of the video, WoodenPotatoes, is well known and skilled PvP/WvW player and so called 'build crafter', who examines the deep details of game mechanics. From this perspective, you can be sure that the tips given will carry you pretty far.

Second and very important thing is what he speaks around 10 min time: You need decent gears, but Exotic is just perfectly valid for end game. Even that Ascended ones are bit stronger, getting them is much harder, and it will not pay until you really need them. Eventually, you go from Exotics to Ascended to Legendary, not because Exotic are weak, but because Ascended and Legendary have their own special perks. I remind you what he says: even the veterans are still today using gears they got around 2012. You can use the same.

This video also tells the things that all the more experienced players know about getting the armor. Pay attention to the talking around 15-20 mins, where there are information about named armors, there are information about dungeon armors, and most importantly - bladed armor boxes. Those are easy to miss when you are new, but e.g. bladed armor boxes give you stat-selectable Exotic pieces, which are really, really, really nice! You get similar from other sources, too, but Verdant Brink's Bladed armor boxes are still great, after like 8 years.

And then, after Exotic and Ascended, there are Legendary gears, which will keep you busy for very, very long time (like years). They are not needed to play the content, no, but they have other things you will eventually love.