Quite new, suggestion on what to do to have a better comprehension of the game?

[Makaveli.5370]

Hi all, as the title says I'm quite new to gw2. I played a year ago but after one month left it, and returned back some weeks ago cause this game really caught my attention. I decided to get both expansions and all leaving seasons, got my char to lv 80 and bought my first exotic gear. I joined a guild with really helpful people that gave me good advices to understand some mechanic, but I'm still a bit confused on how to understand things on this game. First of all, I'm super confused about builds: I'm a guardian, watched a bunch of videos about rotations of dps dragonhunter and quite understood how it works, but I feel that learning a class just because you follow a guide that tells you an order to use skills won't help you understanding the class. Second, I'm a bit concerned about PvE: I really want to improve on that, but as I noticed you can understand it only going into it and trying. So I tryied fractals, won some but still have no idea how them works. Last: making gold. I know you can craft all you want grinding materials but I wish I can learn how to farm some gold to get some stuff needed like bank/inventory slots etc. I just get that in this game there are a lot of things to do and to learn, just want some tips from old players on how to do things to better understand all you can here. Ofc I'll need time, but that's a good news not a problem.Thanks!

[JekthAvid.1408]

Concerning builds: you're going to have to read. A lot. Read every trait, ability, and everything else. This will help you understand every pre-made build and rotation by effectively explaining to you WHY that build is the way it is.Concerning Fractals: fractals are like a bunch of mini-dungeons accessible in lions arch. They have a special mechanic: a status effect called agony. You need infusions in ascended gear to resist the damage. Fractals get harder as they go, with levels 1-20 requiring 0 agony resistance, and level 100 requiring 150 agony resistance.Concerning gold: Actually, I'm not too good at that myself. I have no advice.

(Also, in-game if you type /wiki [something] it will bring you to the guild wars 2 wiki website. Hope this helped!)

Edit: also note that builds tend to be used primarily in high level content like raids, fractals, etc that require optimization. For normal pve you can pretty much play however you want.

[Hesione.9412]

I strongly recommend the wiki for help: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Main_Page as it provides a wealth of information about the game.

For builds, there is a synergy between your armour stats, your build, and your weapons, plus your weapon/utility skill rotations.

One main element of the game is the source of damage: condition ("condi") or power. Your defence against these two types of damage differs.

For champions, the PoF ones have quite a number of nasty attacks that aren't on either the Tyria or HoT champions. Some of them, for example require you to stand in circles with a floating see-through orb above them to cleanse a debuff. That is probably the most common mechanic I've see that will down players. So checking what other players are doing, maybe do some more group-type PvE content (e.g. world bosses) where the group protects you more should make it easy for you to try things out on your character without being downed too fast.

[Deedrick.4372]

To understand your character and how its played find a good champion in the world. There are several good ones, that are not super punishing to solo. The troll in west Gendaran Fields used to be one of my go to champs. Any class with any build should be able to solo that thing, some faster than others. Changing your traits or your gear you can tweak your build and see the differences. I fully agree you must take time to read your traits and how they interact to understand why the theory crafter built it that way. You also need to understand a less used powerful mechanic of combo fields and combos.

Other things to consider:If you insta level your characters it may be harder to understand everything being tossed together at once.If open world champs are not your thing, use the Golems in fractals or raid training instance to practice, don't get to hooked on fake buffs.Rotations only work in extended fights, don't try them on open world with higher bursting pve builds, stuff just won't last.Builds for Fractals and Raids are built around max DPS with assist on your buffs and heals, which you don't have in open world PVE learn to use active defenses.

For understanding game modes, there are always guilds recruiting that teach. You won't find a LFG group that is a teaching group on most days. You will find some people patient with those who are learning. Like others suggest /wiki is your friend. Its got a community that is driven to keep things up to date and accurate.

And lastly making gold.... There are videos and guides you can google. There are always meta events going in many maps that you can hop between ones you like and make a descent amount of gold per hour. The easiest way to make gold is with your credit card. There are also a few metas that are not on timers and a bit harder to catch, but have rare (really rare) drops worth a couple hundred gold. (Sam, Pendant of Arah)

[Nabbut.7480]

I've found that the good way to make gold is to roam open world maps gathering everything and participating in the events you run into for rare resources awards.Use cloth and leather karma tools, save for the same glyphs, salvage white blue green items to level MF, sell in bulks of 250's to save time.I make about a dozen golds per day, and most importantly I play the game and have fun, not farm and get bored.

[Cuks.8241]

Buying gems with gold can be quite expensive for a new player. If you want gem items it might be much easier to just pull out your credit card. Do you really need bank and inventory slots? Maybe just make a mule character where you transfer all the junk you are hoarding. You can get 18 or 20 slot bags from WvW cheaply.

[Hesione.9412]

@Cuks.8241 said:Buying gems with gold can be quite expensive for a new player. If you want gem items it might be much easier to just pull out your credit card. Do you really need bank and inventory slots? Maybe just make a mule character where you transfer all the junk you are hoarding. You can get 18 or 20 slot bags from WvW cheaply.

There is a conversion cost from gems to in-game gold, and from in-game gold to gems. This may affect your decision how to spend in the game.