Guild Wars 2 - Hints and Tips Thread

jonneymendoza

jonneymendoza

jonneymendoza

Caporegime
Joined
7 Apr 2008
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Hi all. seeing as the other thread discusses a lot of guild politics can we keep this thread about hints and tips please?

i will go first. I have a question/issue about the WvW.

i am yet to participate in any WvW in the retail build since saturday. Is this because i am 9/10 always on the overflow server?

During the Beta weekends and stress test iw as able to login to WvW on the different server relms you can participate and try to control. i only had issues with the Eternal battlegrounds server which is the proper arena for WvW where everyone contests for areas etc while the other 3 servers are basicaly home servers for each relm/server that everyone can contest as well.

Thoughts?
 
  • Gather everything
  • Deposit all collectables to your bank from anywhere in the field by opening your inventory --> Clicking the gear in the top right --> Deposit all collectables
  • Help everyone/Do(And re-do) everything -- If you see a dynamic event, go help. If you are running past a few minutes later when you are done selling stuff and you notice the event is back, do it again. You get the same amount of xp/money/karma
  • Help your friends/guildies - You get xp and items as if you were your max level. There is seriously NO REASON to not play with your friends
  • Do what makes you happy, you will be rewarded for it all. WvW, PvE, Crafting, Gathering will all yield you XP for your character. SPVP is the only thing that does not further your characters advancement (But provides rewards in another way)
  • Take it slow. The game is flat. Many people hit 30-40 easily during BWE1+BWE2. Thats 4 days to hit level 40. People will be 80 very quickly. Dont burn out. The game is to good for that.
  • You can join many guilds
  • You can guest on other servers if your friends are separated from you
  • Use the AH to offload materials while you are out questing/pvping. You can sell or buy anything from anywhere. You can only collect the money/goods back in town.
  • By pressing H, the default hero key, and pressing the swords, you can go right to the Mists, where your PvP adventure can begin.
  • Your character has a social tab where what you are wearing changes drastically
  • In sPvP you can snag all your weapon loadouts and fully customize your character as if you already unlocked everything available for your class, technically speaking
  • In your options you can opt out of showing your helm, some of them are pretty ugly
  • There is a seven day cooldown between paid server/world transfers
  • Your home server/world is account based
  • You can participate in competitive PvP with people that do not share the same home server/world as yourself
  • Your character can have two weapon loadouts quickly accessible by pressing the tilde key that is unlocked at a very low level (level 7, thanks to Fraktyl for correcting me.)
  • Underwater combat actually isn't terrible. Don't deter away from it because of how other games have handled it, give it a try! You also get a different weapon for underwater combat, as well.
  • A beginner's guide to crafting can be found Here
  • Being in an active guild can be a rewarding experience, some of the perks for being in a guild can be found here
  • You can post almost everything into the chat by using Ctrl+click. If you prefer to change your message, use Shift+click. This will also work on point of interests and waypoints.
  • The very first vendor on your map (after you left the initial instance) will sell you salvaging and gathering tools. Memorize his location and get the gathering tools.
  • Clicking right on items, guild or party member will result in a context menu.
  • You can send depositable items to your bank via this context menu
  • You can send all depositable items at once to your bank by using the cog wheel in your inventory
  • You can target an emote to your current target by using /<emote> @
  • You can sell things instantly from your backpack in the trade post
  • You can set a custom mark on your map with Alt+Click, which can be seen by party members. You can also draw on your compass or ping by either clicking or alt+draw
  • You can create custom playlists for some occasions in order to play your favorite music
  • You can find rich ore nodes, which will provide 9 ores instead of the usual 3.
  • You don't have to worry about loot or XP, everyone who participates will get a reward.
  • You can use Asura portals in order to get into other starting zones. You'll find one in your race's main city.
  • You can't just stand somewhere and expect to be alive if you go away for 5 minutes. There are some safe regions like cities, but a dynamic event could destroy the outpost which you are currently in.
  • You can check for stalkers in your contact list. Players which added you to their contact list will be in the second tab. If you don't remember them, ask them why they've added you, if you remember them add them to your contact list.
  • If you like playing with someone add him to your contact list. If he isn't a member of a guild ask him whether he wants to join your guild. If you don't have a guild and don't want to join one where you don't know anyone, create a guild yourself and invite your friends. You can be in multiple guilds, however you can only represent one.
  • Moving to the mists also allows a quick travel to the major cities of all races (via the Lion Arch Asura Gates)
  • In the options there is a keybinding to switch ingame to your second language of choice (only for text)
  • You can set one marker by yourself within the worldmap
  • Tapping an AOE spell on the keyboard a second time will cast it at your pointer position
  • There is an option to make AOE spells always cast at your pointer position
  • In the worldmap you can see your exploring status (Renown quests, Vistas, Skill Challenges etc on the left side
  • Completing all exploring thingies rewards you with XP, gold, craft mats and rare items
  • Harvesting material nodes (trees, rocks, plants) gives nearly as much XP as killing one mob in this area. You can harvest around three times per node
  • The harvesting nodes are instanced, meaning no one can steal your stuff
  • You can move the chat window and minimap on top of the screen by click and hold on the boxes
  • By doubletapping one of the movement keys you evade / jump in that direction. You can change this behaviour in the options
  • When an enemy casts an (area) spell you see a red circle appearing on the ground - Evade that circle to mitigate damage
  • Blue circles are buffs / healing, white ones doesnt affect you
  • Check the controls in the options and assign keys to the empty commands. If I remember correctly, some commands like selecting nearest target are not bound by default. There are many useful commands that I used in GW1 as much as I used WASD. I was dissapointed they weren't in GW2 at first, but once I saw they were just unmapped, it made the game 100 times better. Bottom line, check your controls!
  • Change the dodge/evade settings - I personally feel that double tapping to evade is terrible. It's slow since it requires two key-strokes and (since there is no click to move) you'll find yourself doing fine positioning with the keyboard. Some jump puzzles will have you readjusting your character slightly, and if you use double-tap, you'll end up rolling off your platform while trying to line yourself up to the edge of something.
  • Learn to dodge properly. Don't waste your dodge when you're near enemies just to move faster. You might need it to avoid a big snare or knock-down that could get you killed.
  • Help other players who are in trouble. Many people mentioned to help everyone and join them, but I'm emphasising help for players who are in danger or dead. I find it's amazing when I get knocked out and wait a bit instead of respawning at a waypoint. Sometimes people will actively go out and revive me and help me get to a safe spot. Offer a good experience to other players and they'll help you in return.
  • Don't discrimate against different classes. This isn't a traditional MMO. Just because you already have 2 elementalists in your group, it doesn't mean you can't have a 3rd. ANet is trying hard to get rid of the scenarios where you reach a cool new place on your <insert class here> and realizing no one will play with you because you don't fit in to the cookie cutter build.
  • Equip new weapon types when you get them. The weapons could be kind of terrible, but if you use them early, you'll unlock the skills for them and learn what there is to offer with a different weapon set. This way, if/when you do get a good stat weapon, you can use it with all the skills already unlocked.
  • Fight underwater. Along the same vein as equiping new weapons, you want to get your underwater weaponset skills just to be prepared.
  • Get more/better storage bags early. I plan on focusing on increasing my storage and gathering/salvaging materials as soon as possible. It helps build wealth over time as well as materials to craft better items. The more storage you have on your character, the more you can carry without getting full and missing out on loot.
  • Don't ignore too many hearts/dynamic events. They're there to be part of your gaming experience. The object isn't to finish the storyline as soon as possible, but the do as much as possible. If you ignore them, you're going to think there's nothing to do in the game.

  • Story Quest Line - Green arrows lead you to your next story line quest objective marked on the map by a Green star or circled region.
  • Dynamic Events - Orange circled areas represent the nearby dynamic events. I’d recommend participating in all of these dynamic events that you walk past since they are overall very entertaining from what I’ve experienced thus far. Also, if you do the renown heart quests concurrently with a dynamic event in the area, it will often finish off the heart at the same time. Talking to some uniquely named NPCs in the area will sometimes start a dynamic Event.
  • Vistas - Two Red Triangles mark vistas on the map showing the general area of jumping puzzles around the map.
  • Renown Heart Quests - Unfilled hearts represent an area where objectives can be completed to fill up a completion bar for that area. This represents the closest thing to the old MMO leveling structure if you wish to level this way. However, doing only these quests will find you behind in level unless you go to multiple starting areas to level. Dynamic events are often found around these unfilled hearts. When you complete the objective bar, the heart will be filled. Each heart has the expected level requirement for the content listed next to it when you hover over it on the map. By visiting a telescope on your map it will discuss the various unfilled hearts around the area and show you the level expected for the content.
  • Skill Challenge – Marked with a light Blue upward arrow and you should complete any of these that you see on your map. These give you one skill point to use towards obtaining a new utility, healing or ultimate skill. Higher level abilities cost more than one of these points. You also gain one of these every time you level. Some of these require killing something while others are just located in difficult areas to get to.
  • Points of Interest - Are marked with a small square on your map and give a small amount of experience. Exploring all points of interest will get you an achievement which I believe also gives you some XP. Completion progress of points of interest, vistas, skill challenges, and waypoints are shown when loading into that area or on your map.

  • World vs World (WvW) – This is a giant open world battleground where you defend and capture various camps, forts and castles for your world from two other worlds. You can join WvW at any time and be bolstered to level 80. However, unlike sPvP (structured) you will only have the abilities and traits you have currently unlocked at your regular level.
  • Crafting – Gaining levels in a crafting profession will also give you regular level experience. You can have 2 different active crafting professions at any time. You can also drop either of your active professions and train a new one for a cost and your previously earned crafting level will stay the same.
  • Gathering – Gathering materials will give you experience as well. Every character has access to all the gathering professions so pick up an axe and pick whenever you’re around a crafting vendor to begin collecting materials.
  • Structured PvP (sPvP) does not give level experience. It has its only ranking system that you can level in for different looking armor and weapons. If your only interest is sPvP then there is no need to level up your character. You can just teleport straight to the mists from the sPvP tab on your Hero menu. This will bolster your character to level 80 and unlock all abilities and traits to play around with.

Leveling Tips:

  • The main tip I want to emphasize is DO NOT RUSH! There are so many different things you can do in the Guild Wars 2 that if you rush you will miss a lot of great content.
  • Try a little bit of all the above leveling activities to find out which ones you enjoy the most. Arenanet has provided us with many different ways in which to level our characters.
  • If you are unsure about which class to pick you can try out their abilities by going to the sPvP area after going through the tutorial. This unlocks all your skills and there are tutorial areas with monsters you can test the abilities on.
  • Each weapon type has different abilities related to it for each profession and you only start with one ability unlocked for each. Two handed weapons have 5 abilities while one handed main hand weapons have 3 abilities and offhand weapons have 2 abilities.
  • The available weapons for your profession are listed on your hero menu under the weapon skills tab. You can obtain these weapons through random loot from monsters, weapon vendors, or on the Black Lion Trading Company (auction house).
  • In order to unlock the new abilities on a weapon you need to kill monsters while using that weapon type. However, if you are a class that can switch between two weapon sets, you can do most of the damage to a monster with a weapon which has all its abilities unlocked and just switch to the weapon you are trying to unlock skills with to finish killing it.
  • You unlock utility skill slots on your bar at levels 5, 10 and 20. There are also three tiers of utility skills that you can unlock corresponding to each of those level ranges. However, you can use utility skills from any tier on any utility slot once you have unlocked the slot. At level 30 you can unlock your ultimate skill slot. To unlock the slots after your first utility slot you will also need skill points.
  • If you are someone who likes to level as fast as possible, look for a utility skill that grants you swiftness so you can get from one area to the next in the shortest time possible. If that doesn’t matter to you just pick a skill that sparks your interest and try it out. Each tier has about 8 skills you can choose from to unlock and you can eventually have all of them unlocked.
  • While your leveling, look for any waypoints throughout your travels and unlock them as soon as possible. You can travel to waypoints at any time by clicking on them on your map. In case you die or need to sell while you’re out leveling, you will have a much easier time getting back to where you were if you unlock waypoint locations.
  • In order to reduce the amount of times you need to go back to sell, you can store collectible items in a designated collectible storage location by clicking on the cog in your inventory and selecting store all collectible items. You can also do this by right clicking on a specific collectible item and choosing to store it. These collectible items include basic crafting materials, pets, dyes, and other items.
  • Whenever you see crafting materials out in the world it doesn’t matter if someone is already mining the node. Each crafting node is available for every character to access.
  • If you need anything from the Auction house you can buy it from anywhere. However, whenever you need to pick up any items, you need to return to a trading post to pick the items up. These are represented on your map by a yellow circle with a scale in the center.
  • Movement has a major impact in the combat system of Guild Wars 2. You should never be standing still when fighting monsters. Running circles around the monster will reduce the damage taken. You can also double tap any movement direction to dodge in that direction and avoid an upcoming attack.
  • Every profession has a healing spell so make sure you know where it is for when you get in a sticky situation. An effective tactic to getting off a heal is to dodge away from an enemy and then pop the heal.

I didn't make these btw I just copy/pasted added bold text, links and bullet points. it's from here. Still it should be helpful though :) Some will probably be posted more than once also.
 
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I have been trying to put off buying this as I dont have much free time but that list of condense info has me hovering on the buy button...
 
If GW2 launcher errors with a warning about a corrupt file in your profile (such as c:\documents and settings\username\my documents\guild wars 2 or c:\users\username\my documents\ guild wars 2) then there's a high chance that an application is using the file that it's trying to patch.

1. Restart PC and try again.
2. Check AV isn't actively scanning this folder presently - if so wait or add an exception from scanning (best just to wait though).
3. If you use Crashplan or another backup app, it's possibly trying to backup the file - as was the case with me, simply remove the GW2 folder in your user folder from the backup selection list. Job done.
 
that post makes it sound awesome, i shall pick this up for me and wife. what are the min specs tho as her pc is getting old now.
 
The most recent nVidia drivers suffer a performance hit with GW2, which can be as much as 10fps. Download their most recent beta driver to overcome this.
 
Play your own Music :D


"No matter how fantastic a game’s music is, when you hear the same music for the thousandth time, you start wanting to change things up a bit. Many players will simply turn the game music off and play their own collections. The problem is that an external music player has no context as to what’s going on in-game. Guild Wars 2 will offer a solution for this as well. We’re giving players the option of choosing external music playlists that the game’s audio engine will use as a replacement for the default in-game music. Players can choose different playlists for background ambience and battle music, for instance. Additionally, when appropriate, such as during cinematics, the game can revert back to in-game music temporarily to give the best possible cinematic experience, then resume the custom playlist when it’s done. Did you know you can replace the (awesome) music in the game and substitute it with your own? -Jim Boer
This a feature in the game that in my opinion does not recieve enough recognition.
Here's how you do it:
Go to you documents folder -> Guild Wars 2 -> Music.
Create a playlist using your favorite media player.
The music files have to be in a format that FMOD supports by default: .mp3, .ogg, .flac, .wav, .aiff, .mid, .it etc.
The playlist formats that are supported are: .wpl, .m3u, .pls, .asx, and .wax
To play your playlists you have to give it a specific name. The playlist names that are currently recognized by the game are:
Ambient
Battle
Underwater
City
MainMenu
NightTime
Crafting
BossBattle
So if you have a playlist in the Guild Wars 2 Music folder called 'City', this playlist will start to play when you are in Lion's Arch! Awesome!
Hope this little guide helps you!
Please enjoy!"

Areanet employee post ^
 
Underwater - UNDA DA SEA......

I always disable music in games, this is a nice feature but I would only put stupid tracks on and get sick of it quickly. Just like that time I substituted my GPS sounds for Arnie...."I'M A COP YOU IDIOT" for mobile cameras and "SLOW DOWNNNNNN" for fixed cameras....yeah - suffice to say after being spammed by Arnie non-stop on the M25 I muted the unit :D
 
Tune, those are awesome tips ta! For a complete noob like me (still playing Tera Online) it helps a lot as I admit I am struggling to get into the game. Just a lowly Lv9 on Gunnar's Hold at present.
 
np :) will keep updating with more, hows tera? thinking of getting it, will wait a few months to see if it goes F2P though.
 
Thanks for these tips Tune, i'll read em properly when i get home, but these look helpful :D
 
just ordered my motherboard, heatsink and case, will order the rest of my parts next month.

and this will be the first game i will play when i have built my beast.
 
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