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  1. #1
    Relic Weapons
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    Helpful Tips for New Guild Wars 2 Players

    [My post in the original Guild Wars 2 thread got buried in less than an hour. This seems worthwhile as its own thread, though, with BWE3 and launch coming up very soon. Adding a few extra tips here as well.]

    A few bits of useful information for any newcomers:

    1 — Much like when you started in FFXI, don't make the mistake of not using the "Auction House" (Trading Post). Don't vendor/NPC your drops.

    2 — Start on a craft ASAP. 8-12 slot bags of various types are a gold mine currently (lol). That won't last, but there will obviously be other in-demand items to be made.

    3 — The very best way to gain experience points, if playing solely in PVE, is your personal story. A close second is roaming the map completing Renown Hearts and stopping to take part in any Dynamic Events and Skill Challenges along the way. This will also lead to bonus XP and items for complete exploration of an area (which also requires finding all of an area's waypoints and points of interest).

    4 — Once you've reached level 10, pick up some harvesting tools. Sickles for gathering plants, hatchets for harvesting lumber and, of course, pickaxes for mining. This should all sound very familiar.

    5 — Don't neglect your other weapon set! If you aren't weapon-swapping in combat, you're not using all 15 of your available skills. Whenever 3 or more of your current weapon set's skills are on cooldown (especially if it's a long cooldown), switch to your other weapon set.

    6 — Dodge, dodge, dodge! Enemies in Guild Wars 2 telegraph their most powerful attacks. If you see something charging up, get the hell out of there!

    7 — Use those defensive abilities! Don't just stand still in the background with a ranged weapon pressing '1'. You have at least 15 skills available (and far more if you're an Engineer or Elementalist) and there's a good chance you have various block/evade skills you can use. In order to gain the attention of a standard enemy (those not labelled "Unpredictable"), all you have to do is be the closest player to that enemy. Once you have its attention, burn those defensive skills and dodge back out of there to let another player use theirs.

    8 — Finally, whenever it's time to pick up some new equipment, once again, don't neglect the Trading Post. Most players will post what they believe to be valuable or useful for very reasonable prices, I've found. I had a pretty impressive set on my level 37 Mesmer by the time the last stress test ended.

    Should about wrap it up. Others should post any other helpful tips they might have (I could use a few too, of course). See you in-game, BG.

    --Dragir(FFXI)
    --Aneirin Cadwall(GW2)

  2. #2

    A few things to add, if that's cool!

    1) You can put things up on the Trading Post directly from your inventory. It's easy and convenient, so use it!

    2) You earn a ton of exp by crafting as well as creating goods, so there's a lot of incentive to craft. In fact, if you levelled every craft on a single character you would hit the level cap without ever fighting a monster.

    3) To add onto this... the best way to play GW2, in my experience is to open your map, choose a place to go towards, and do any events that pop up along the way. Don't try and grind out DE's and RH's. Focus on exploring, and you'll level up in no time!

    4) Just going to echo my first point here. Even if you aren't using the things for crafting, you can post onto the Trading Post directly from your inventory anywhere in the world - so gather! There's also no competition for nodes, so don't worry about someone stealing it.

    5) Weapon-swapping becomes incredibly important later on, so get used to it! Later on, you'll find things that give you a 100% crit rate on weapon swap, etc.

    6) Yes. Dodge. Learn to love this mechanic. It will save your life!

    7) Don't hesitate to use your 6 (healing) skill. The vast majority of the heals assume you'll use them at half-health or higher. Another addition is to be flexible with your skills. Never write any defensive skill off as useless, because they all have their uses in some way. Expect to change your skills regularly.

    8) Make sure to check Renown Heart NPCs (They're the ones that have filled hearts over their head) once you've completed a renown heart quest. These NPCs typically sell good items for your level (or soon-to-be) level for karma.

    9) This is using my BWE experience, but the best way to farm karma currently (If there's a sweet piece of equipment you simply must have!) is to engage in WvWvW. From there, find a group (or make one!) and go assault/defend some bases or supply camps! You'll be swimming in karma in no time.

    If anyone has any questions, I would be happy to field them!

  3. #3
    Salvage Bans
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    Ramuh

    Great idea for a thread, having been playing super-casually in beta so I don't spoil too much for launch I've learnt a few things!

    The only thing I can think of immediately is to not just travel between renown hearts. Some friends of mine who were pretty caught up in the olde MMO mentality seemed to think these were the game's 'quests' and were disappointed with their experience because they thought they had to keep grinding them up and that was it.

    An extension of that would be to leave the Wow-style mmo mentality at the door, it really will make the experience less enjoyable if you try to force old perspectives on your GW2 experience it's probably going to just make it less fun.

    Oh! Also don't forget points of interest, they give a nice bit of extra xp, usually reveal something else along with it and often genuinely are interesting as the name suggests.

  4. #4
    Road Tinnies
    Sweaty Dick Punching Enthusiast

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    Great post with some good info. Definitely looking forward to giving this a go.

  5. #5

    Some tips from GW2hub:
    http://guildwars2hub.com/features/ed...a-participants

    Which weapons can your profession use? (Note that equipping different weapons will change your skills on your hotbar)


    Some profession builder tools if you want to familiarize yourself with the different skills and traits. This is mainly useful if you plan on going into structured PvP as you're automatically put at 80 with all skills and gear:

    http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code
    http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php (This one lets you choose the gear you're able to get from the PvP lobby, which is all free from the vendors, and figures up your stats for you)

    Speaking of stats, you can see what each stat means and their icon here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute

    You may also want to familiarize yourself with the various boons(buffs) and conditions(debuffs) since they play a large role in the game.

    This is all getting a bit more technical obviously, but I feel that familiarizing yourself with this stuff beforehand will allow you to approach the game a bit more tactfully. A lot of people when first playing go in and treat the combat system like an average MMO and I feel it reduces their enjoyment. It's not like other MMOs where you can go in, stand there, and just start spamming skills.

    Most of your skills all have additional effects associated with them like cripples, stuns, etc. that you'll want to use situationally to get the most benefit out of them. This is especially true for PvP. Also, like others have said, you want to be moving and dodging as often as you can. A lot of skills will outright miss you if you strafe away from them. Try rebinding your dodge and heal skills to keys that are easily accessible for you so you're able to use them better in pinch situations. Personally I have my healing skill on the F key because it's RIGHT there, and I have dodge bound to my side mouse button. Since you dodge in whichever direction you're pressing at the time, this frees up my hand to stay on the movement keys. That's all personal preference though, but the idea is to find what's comfortable for you.

    Lastly, and again this is geared more towards PvP, but if you kind of want to get an idea on builds and see a bit of skilled PvP play I recommend checking out Team Paradigms youtube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamParadigmNet/videos

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