The unjumpable wall of knowledge

Hi all,

To make this as short as possible, here's a totally hypothetical situation, and a question at the end:

1) Casual player decides it'd be more fun to have a better build & better gear so she can get a griffon.2) Casual player starts reading about Ascended gear, and runs into a dozen posts with statements like: "the fastest Arah p2 clear I ever found is a run on Thief using an edited dd power build".3) Casual player asks herself: what's an Arah clear? what's p2? Is there a p3? What's dd? What's a power build? Does edit have some special meaning? And most importantly, if I ever was able to understand all that, would it make any difference for what I want to do?4) Casual player starts asking random passers-by these questions in-game, mostly for the amusement of her friends (who are in the same situation) but partially to see if she can get any info.5) Casual player gets one person in fifty who responds with, "Why?".

Question: how did you amazing forum people who can spout this stuff ever learn it? Trial and error seems like it'd take an awfully long time and more gold & time than I'll ever have.

/wiki /subject/

80% of what I learned of game is by googlinge.g. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Ruined_City_of_Arah_(explorable)

Well i can just speak for me, first thing i play since the beginning of Gw2, so long time experience .in addition I use the wiki a lot if i have to look things upfor guides concerning achievments i often use http://dulfy.net/category/gw2/achievements/for builds https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki, https://discretize.eu/builds, https://snowcrows.com/crafting guides http://gw2crafts.net/index.html

and just to point it out, core game dungeons (e.g. arah) don't award ascended equipped

For the (hypothetical) question in the post, "arah p2 clear" refers to doing the second path of the dungeon The Ruined City of Arah.dd power build should be a dagger + dagger build with equipment using power (precision, ferocity) stats. the other kind of damage build would be condi(tion based) builds"edited" probably just means a slightly changed version of a meta build

ascended armor is available by crafting, rare drop from fractal daily chest, rare drop from wvw level chests, rare drop from reward track chest in wvw and pvp, raids, and probably some more ways

As great as it was to get an answer on p2 and dd, it's really eye-opening to take a look at the sites you both have pointed out. After looking for just a little while, I feel like I've missed out on 90% of the game in my casual play. Had no idea there were SO MANY achievements... drowning in things to do now.

Thank you both!

@"Tamur.6503" said:Hi all,

To make this as short as possible, here's a totally hypothetical situation, and a question at the end:

1) Casual player decides it'd be more fun to have a better build & better gear so she can get a griffon.2) Casual player starts reading about Ascended gear, and runs into a dozen posts with statements like: "the fastest Arah p2 clear I ever found is a run on Thief using an edited dd power build".3) Casual player asks herself: what's an Arah clear? what's p2? Is there a p3? What's dd? What's a power build? Does edit have some special meaning? And most importantly, if I ever was able to understand all that, would it make any difference for what I want to do?4) Casual player starts asking random passers-by these questions in-game, mostly for the amusement of her friends (who are in the same situation) but partially to see if she can get any info.5) Casual player gets one person in fifty who responds with, "Why?".

Question: how did you amazing forum people who can spout this stuff ever learn it? Trial and error seems like it'd take an awfully long time and more gold & time than I'll ever have.

If you ever find yourself with a goal but no idea where to begin toward achieving it, the wiki is usually the best place to start. Based on the fact that your query begins with the griffon, I'll assume that's your current goal.

This link will explain what you need to do to unlock the griffon. Note: It requires completing the PoF storyline, unlocking all of the other mounts, and then completing the "Open Skies" collections which will ultimately cost 250g.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Griffon_mount&redirect=yes

This link will show you how to complete the open skies collections with videos:

http://dulfy.net/2017/09/24/gw2-griffon-mount-collections-guide/

If you're not very good at games like this, find yourself struggling with completing basic content (e.g. the PoF storyline, PoF map completion, etc.), and you'd like a good build to get you through it without requiring a PhD in GW2, try this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQFAWnsICNohdoBWoBMrhlZjqMAutkxv+3//3sC2tWC-jByCwAC3fopyPAPAgAXAgX6AMY+zn6PQUCSKAYGtB-e

The basic concept for this build is for new players who 1) Don't have a lot of gold and 2) Don't want to waste a lot of time learning a complex playstyle. Even the most video game-challenged player in the world can win with this build! Your heal skill and utilities are all passives, there's no weapon swap, and the majority of your offense and defense comes from simply dodging and using the 1 skill. Tons of health, armor, and evasion, and you still deal more than sufficient damage for open world/storyline play!

I don't know what that's talking about myself. Fact is you don't need ascended gear to get a griffon, at all. The two things are not related.

As for learning as you go - every time you run into something you're curious about, google it. Eventually you'll know what you have to.

@Tamur.6503 said:Question: how did you amazing forum people who can spout this stuff ever learn it?

Coming to this sub-forum and leaning on the collective knowledge of the amazing people who contribute to Players Helping Players.

... which I then turn around and pawn off as my own ideas when anybody else asks. :p

Jokes aside, a lot of what I've learned in this game is through a combination of trial and error, examining gameplay videos of people that appear better than me, and chatting with those people when I get a chance.

In Guild Wars 2, copying the gear and trait setup is, at best, 20 percent of the actual build; the rest is about knowing what makes the build tick. One of my main heuristic for learning to play new professions and new builds is to understand the core concept of the build. For example, I figured that a Dagger/Dagger Thief using gear with lots of Power (aka Power build) does the majority of their damage through Backstab due to how benchmark rotations are laid out, and adjust accordingly; on the other hand, a Dagger/Dagger Thief using gear with lots of Condition Damage wants to bounce around like a lunatic with Death Blossom and to trigger Uncatchable.

Also, since you indicated a great deal of confusion regarding the various game-specific jargon, that's really something you learn through either further immersion, or asking for clarification.

@"AliamRationem.5172" thanks for the build link. That's probably the core of my problem... My build strategy tends to be "hey, pretty!" Even if I were to find some ideal group to do that terrible Corrupted Facet bounty, I'd still just die over and over. I'll give this a shot.

@"Ojimaru.8970" that is so true about "knowing what makes the build tick". I've looked at plenty of amazing builds and copied a couple, and there really wasn't much difference I could see so I stopped doing that. But I'm sure that's a failure on my part, using the skill wrong with the wrong timing. Lots to learn!

I can't speak for GW2, because I've been playing it since it was in BETA.

So instead, I'll explain how I learned that stuff for BDO, which had been around for years before I tried it.

• I started the tutorial, and learned a lot but also was very confused by a lot of details.
• I googled and found some amazing existing websites for various different parts of the games.
• I asked friends and found the official (and unofficial) BDO forums and looked up various threads.
• I found the bdo subreddit and made use of those too.

The information is out there in a variety of forms for whoever wants it.

@Tamur.6503 said:@"AliamRationem.5172" thanks for the build link. That's probably the core of my problem... My build strategy tends to be "hey, pretty!" Even if I were to find some ideal group to do that terrible Corrupted Facet bounty, I'd still just die over and over. I'll give this a shot.

@"Ojimaru.8970" that is so true about "knowing what makes the build tick". I've looked at plenty of amazing builds and copied a couple, and there really wasn't much difference I could see so I stopped doing that. But I'm sure that's a failure on my part, using the skill wrong with the wrong timing. Lots to learn!

If you're on North American servers, feel free to add me to your contact list and look me up in game if you need someone to command a Legendary Facet squad or if you decide to try the Mirage build and have any questions about that.

You might also want to check out my thread in the mesmer forum: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/30394/open-world-domination-mirage#latest

There are videos (and plenty more on my youtube channel - all out of date, unfortunately, because my potato machine can't handle recording usable video these days!), build links, and discussion there that might help you figure more out about the class. But the build I previously linked is easy enough to play without knowing anything. That should get you started!

If you want to learn about the game, use the wiki. Ive been playing on and off since release, and still use the wiki nearly every time i log on. If you just want to progress mastery/mounts/story quests, you dont really need to worry about meta builds or best in slot gear. However if you want to try out effective builds rather than make your own use the GW2metabattle site. For new players i wouldnt recommend raid or fractal builds since you will die constantly if you dont know how to use it effectively.

When veterans see new players asking how to get the best gear, or ask what the best build is, they tend to ignore them because there is a lot more to this game than that. You arent going to suddenly become an amazing player by running the meta raid build/gear, player skill means much more.

If you want to become a better player, you need to just practice your class/build. You will get the best gear long before you master your class. Thief is one of the harder classes to do open world pve content with so expect a challenge.

For me it's a combination of spending a lot of time on the forum reading all kinds of random topics so I pick things up as I'm going along and using the Wiki a lot.

When I first got to level 80 I had no idea what stats I wanted for my equipment so I started reading about them on the Wiki and discovered I didn't even know what some of them did. Back then each specialisation boosted 2 traits, and on the Ranger Marksmanship boosted precision (and something else) and Skirmishing booster Power...so I thought Power only mattered for melee weapons and Precision for ranged weapons. I kind-of new that didn't make sense if you looked at other professions specialisations, but I'd also heard that a lot of the stat combinations didn't make sense so I thought maybe that was why.

In the end I spent a few hours, over about 3 days, reading about stats and figuring out what I wanted. It was very slow at the time, but once I'd learned it figuring out builds was much easier, which has helped me a lot in the time since.

Regarding your specific question, as other people have mentioned you don't need ascended equipment to get the griffon. Good stats can be helpful, but the difference between exotic and ascended is relatively small so good stats are more about choosing ones which are useful for your character than simply getting the top tier. GW2 isn't designed to be one of the games where you can simply out level and/or out gear the content. There are some things required for the griffon which are extremely difficult to do solo (at least one or two are probably impossible to solo) but finding other people to help - even other people in full exotics - will help more than trying to upgrade your character.

Also you need to buy 10 items at 25g each for the griffon collection, so I recommend saving your gold by not getting ascended just yet.

@Tamur.6503 said:@"Ojimaru.8970" that is so true about "knowing what makes the build tick". I've looked at plenty of amazing builds and copied a couple, and there really wasn't much difference I could see so I stopped doing that. But I'm sure that's a failure on my part, using the skill wrong with the wrong timing. Lots to learn!

I wouldn't necessarily say it's entirely your fault. Many build guides written by players (even for games other than Guild Wars 2) do poorly in articulating WHY the build is good, and HOW to make the best of it; most of these are simply focused on WHAT it can do (35k DPS!) or achieve (solo 100CM!). This leaves lots of players floundering until they can find somebody who can give them more insight, if they ever find one who can in the first place.

Chin UP! Be FEARLESS! ASK questions!

@AliamRationem.5172 said:Snip.

The OP posted a hypothetical scenario. The real question is at the end.

OP, it’s a case of playing and becoming accustomed to the ins and outs of the game, spotting patterns in how some things work, trial and error, and a bit of Google/Wiki search for pretty much everything else. The only difference between new players and veterans is time after all.

@Ojimaru.8970 said:

@Tamur.6503 said:@Ojimaru.8970 that is so true about "knowing what makes the build tick". I've looked at plenty of amazing builds and copied a couple, and there really wasn't much difference I could see so I stopped doing that. But I'm sure that's a failure on my part, using the skill wrong with the wrong timing. Lots to learn!

Indeed. People write because they are passionate about their favorite build, not necessarily because they are good at teach other people how to make it sing.

I've had very good luck asking for advice in these forums (plus among guildies) about how to get a build to do x|y|z. Sometimes, they just send me to a link (and there are some really good videos, even if most are not). Some folks will also spend time in game helping, although that's rare.

As a new player, I mostly got through by experimentation, designing my own builds, and setting up my armors in a really ramshackled way. Eventually, I got curious about how far I could push a specific build to a specialty, and then learned to use Runes and Sigils. Then eventually to line up the stats of my Equipment behind my chosen purpose.

When it came to dungeons, fractals and other such, I also experimented "Let's see how this does against that encounter". I was Lucky enough to pick a condi build which minimized my direct input for damage, and let me focus on dodging and the like, and moved forward to becoming more efficient through reading wiki, and build websites to forge my own idea overtime.

As for discovering content, and collections, including the Griffon, I usually try on my own with the information given ingame, and when I'm stumped, I ask the almight Dulfy. I dont often ask question in the map chat, often enough because the map chat is ... the map chat. I mean half the time you run the risk of being answered by someone who cant stop looking down on you for even questioning yourself about such things, or you get ignored because the map chat is the scene of an immature argument. Whispers to specific players who seem to already dispense information to whoever ask however, is Something that I rarely had issues with. Most often players are kind enough to answer, and take the time to go into detail, sometime offering to party up to help out.

Everything I can't figure out by myself can be found in the wiki, google or guides like Dulfy.

Give a person a fish, and they'll eat for a day. Teach them to fish, and they'll just eat fish. Point them to the library, and they'll eat the world.

I just played. Personal story, lw2, hot, lw3 etc pp.

And the rest just worked itself out.

This thread is done, but I just had to add... LOL!!!!!If I had a gold for every acronym I had to look up since starting this game a few months back, I could afford AR for my zerk BS and wouldn't have to rely on cc from LFG in FoTM.

Muahahaha

There are a fair number of trolls in chat, but there's always in my experience at least 1 willing to give you a valid answer. It may be that it's difficult for them to articulate an explanation to your question, or to formulate a response that actually answers your question.

I would say the best resource you can find to help you learn would be to find a good guild. Mine is small but is extremely helpful and we run missions every Tuesday night. Well, they do, I selfishly usually don't partake. But if you're interested in an invite, send me mail in-game and I can get someone with recruiter ability to invite you.

All in all, if you ask a question in this game you'll generally get a valid response. Unlike WoW where you ask something simple and 20 people spam "newb" or insult you for even typing in chat.

And, it may have been mentioned before, but remember the in-game command /wiki. The wiki is pretty picky with spelling and grammer which is the main downside.

Thanks everyone, you're all so kind to answer. This was my first post, and to get such great responses to such a confused question was way beyond what I expected.

I can already tell this is totally changing the way I play. After reading up on attributes and boons/conditions yesterday, I went out last night and noticed for the first time how my scourge's conditions are flipping to boons, and then started rebuilding based on boon duration. Totally new exciting world!

@"Tamur.6503" said:Thanks everyone, you're all so kind to answer. This was my first post, and to get such great responses to such a confused question was way beyond what I expected.

I can already tell this is totally changing the way I play. After reading up on attributes and boons/conditions yesterday, I went out last night and noticed for the first time how my scourge's conditions are flipping to boons, and then started rebuilding based on boon duration. Totally new exciting world!

Don't pls, don't build scourge for boon duration.here is the good source of various builds for every game modhttps://metabattle.com/wiki/Necromancer

@"phs.6089" said:Don't pls, don't build scourge for boon duration.here is the good source of various builds for every game modhttps://metabattle.com/wiki/Necromancer

What is the point of forcing every player into metabuilds? If you cannot live without builds from that page, so be it. But if there are people who still want to try to make their own builds, let them. If they fail or feel underpowered, they can still return to the meta.

It is not fun to travel open world and watch armies of glasscannon players drop like flies on everything, because it is most efficient.

@HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

@"phs.6089" said:Don't pls, don't build scourge for boon duration.here is the good source of various builds for every game mod

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Necromancer

Point is to help new player don't waste time and mats on useless build. Scourge has nothing worth to invest into boon duration.

It is a game, not a job. Peak performance is not required in most cases.