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Really looking for a little help..HoT and PoF


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Relatively new to the game...45 days tops and I have managed to get a character up to level 80 w/out using a boost. (Human/Elementalist)So tying HoT and it's a nightmare...pocket raptors swarm all over me and take me out before I can even launch an attack.Then somebody suggests PoF..(much more fun to play)..ok the first event I do against the first she thing or what ever that is quickly becomes a disaster....even after 10 retries.

I am at a loss as to where to turn to even try to gain any entrainment value from the game at this point.

Two guilds have taken pity on me and sent me invites but I never see anybody from them and when I go to the halls there is never anybody there. I can't even figure out how to make a deposit to help out the cause.

I get that there is a learning curve but even if I find myself in much lower tier areas anytime I am up against more than one character its lights out for me.I am a casual player with a career, kids, grandkids, and two ex-wifes so not a huge amount of time but I manage to get on every day for some stress relief and after walking away from World of Tanks after 8 years I was looking for something else.

I have heard I have taken a very difficult and "squishy" choice with my player but I still don't get how I am getting smoked so quickly in a lot of areas. It's not like I am walking headfirst into a champion with trash gear but c'mon there are times I am on the ground even before I see what the hell hit me.

Yeah yeah...I can see anyone who reads this (even tyblat leftpaw) posting all of the resources for new players and all the guides and all the other stuff...if reading and research is the only way for improvement then I am willing to just let Arenanet keep my 90 bucks and walk off into the sunset.

I have always been a learn by failing sort of person but I just feel at a point where the failure is inevitable and there is nothing to gain.

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First thing is to look at your gear. What gear are you running? I believe that elementalists have the lowest HP pool of all classes so they tend to be squishy. Many players counteract this by using Mauraders stat gear which increases their vitality (HP) at the cost of lower ferocity (crit dmg), I believe. Trailblazers being roughly the condition damage equivalent.

The next thing is to look at your build. While you can generally run anything in the open world, there are some builds which perform significantly better over others. You can go to metabattle and check out the builds on there to see what interests you. Perhaps others who play elementalist in the open world will post here about what they run as well.

A lot of the mobs in HoT and PoF have mechanics. Most of these are fairly simple. For raptors, you generally want to burst them down quick as they do quite a lot of damage in a group but they all have very low HP. Enemies with break bars are ones where you want to use hard CC skills to break as they tend to take significantly more damage after this is done. All of the Djinn in PoF are good examples of this.

For that first story instance in PoF, are you avoiding her deadly attack? This would be the one that makes a telegraph field on the ground prior to the attack. Most damage fields on the ground have a red border and these are things that you want to stay out of.

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Some other "topics" as well.

Is there a "concise" guide on how to use Discord effectively....I find it a headache and I am not sure if I am using it correctly. I have gotten the initial notice from guilds..."join us at blah blah blah on discord but I don't seem to be able to remember or recreate those designations when I have discord open.

Why am I getting so much unusable gear at level 80...chest after chest or bag after bag of stuff that's worthless for me...is this just some cheap attempt at letting me sell it back for one or two silver?

Is it natural to just go through your story line and just get killed time after time after time and just keep moving on?

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@"HATORI HANZO.9562" said:Some other "topics" as well.

Is there a "concise" guide on how to use Discord effectively....I find it a headache and I am not sure if I am using it correctly. I have gotten the initial notice from guilds..."join us at blah blah blah on discord but I don't seem to be able to remember or recreate those designations when I have discord open.

They should be including referral links which will add their server to your list in Discord.

Why am I getting so much unusable gear at level 80...chest after chest or bag after bag of stuff that's worthless for me...is this just some cheap attempt at letting me sell it back for one or two silver?

It’s so players feel “rewarded”. Is usually just sell the loot bags although others open them up and salvage everything. It’s a matter of personal preference.

Is it natural to just go through your story line and just get killed time after time after time and just keep moving on?

Depends on the player. I never did and I’m not sure what other players experiences were/are so I can’t really speak on how prevalent repeatedly dying would be. Anet tends to increase difficulty by having enemies use more CC skills more often.

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First thing is to look at your gear. What gear are you running? (Somebody suggested I upgrade to something called Zhan or something like that which I did) I believe that elementalists have the lowest HP pool of all classes so they tend to be squishy. Many players counteract this by using Mauraders stat gear (NO idea what that means) which increases their vitality (HP) at the cost of lower ferocity (crit dmg), I believe. Trailblazers (huh?) being roughly the condition damage equivalent.

The next thing is to look at your build. While you can generally run anything in the open world, there are some builds which perform significantly better over others. You can go to metabattle (what is metabattle ) and check out the builds on there to see what interests you. Perhaps others who play elementalist in the open world will post here about what they run as well. I don't understand builds at all every time I feel like a change might be in order I panic when I get asked 'Do you want to override" or anything similar to that...that's why I don't throw anything away either...stuff comes up and I just choose what sounds cool or maybe helpful...I have nary a clue how they work in tandem or in combination with anythingA lot of the mobs in HoT and PoF have mechanics. (???) Most of these are fairly simple. For raptors, you generally want to burst them down quick as they do quite a lot of damage in a group but they all have very low HP. Enemies with break bars (What's a break bar) are ones where you want to use hard CC (Whats CC) skills to break as they tend to take significantly more damage after this is done. All of the Djinn (What is Djinn) in PoF are good examples of this.For that first story instance in PoF, are you avoiding her deadly attack? This would be the one that makes a telegraph field (what does that look like )on the ground prior to the attack. Most damage fields on the ground have a red border and these are things that you want to stay out of. (im too slow in most cases)

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Oh.. I remember when arriving to Tangled Depths. I went to sit by the merchant, rolled up like an Armadillo and with my back to a tree. Cried for a while and when I gathered up some courage and looked over the edge, it took only a couple of seconds before I sat down again.Then in the distance, I heard Survivor. I started to look at my gear, my specializations and skills. I needed to get faster, stronger and tougher.I started to climb the wall, did some pushups and jumped out to exercise my glider control. I could hear Flight of the Silverbird playing in the distance...

Well.. something like that.I recommend that you play along with this Build Editor, it's helpful and very popular on this forum:http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

I played along a little, never build a Weaver and have no idea how to play one. You may want to replace the Ascended gear with Exotic, probably closer to what you have at the moment.http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGxAw2ZlZwuYSsEmJOKXpvKA-zRJYsRH/IIdA-e

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im not new to the game, but im new to elemantalist, is a profession famous to be "squish". is frequent i help elementalists that can't solo a veteran hp boss on open world.

anyway whats matter, i use this meta on my elementalist, and have good survival without being squish. i didnt know how, i just made the build and seems very fine to solo lots of stuff.

is a bit expensive because of viper status, but theres alternatives like dire equipment.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Weaver_-_Condi_Weaver

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@"HATORI HANZO.9562" said:Is there a "concise" guide on how to use Discord effectively....I find it a headache and I am not sure if I am using it correctly. I have gotten the initial notice from guilds..."join us at blah blah blah on discord but I don't seem to be able to remember or recreate those designations when I have discord open.

U can ignore discord for 99% GW2 stuff, even in WvW. specially if u are good to follow instructions.

Theres some niches theres a "die hard" players that wants everything perfect and try enforce discord.if u are in only pve u almost dont need it.

for WvW is useful if u aim professional zerg play, but u can live without it too.

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@HATORI HANZO.9562 said:Yeah yeah...I can see anyone who reads this (even tyblat leftpaw) posting all of the resources for new players and all the guides and all the other stuff...if reading and research is the only way for improvement then I am willing to just let Arenanet keep my 90 bucks and walk off into the sunset.

I have always been a learn by failing sort of person but I just feel at a point where the failure is inevitable and there is nothing to gain.

There will be some level of learning curve required with this game. It has been stated by developers and parroted by the community that the average player does about 10% of the DPS potential of their profession. You don't need to be doing 100% to be successful, but given your experience of dying a lot, you may benefit from doing a bit more research into efficient builds for your profession.

A lot of players run into the roadblock you have, with the jump from Core to HoT or PoF being a big step up. Don't let it deter you, the game doesn't implicitly tell you how to use your profession efficiently.

As well, the 9 different professions lean on different mechanics creating different playstyles, and they may offer better options for how you play this game.

Now, build choices aside, one thing you can 'learn by failing' is the enemy mob actions. You have discovered the joy that is pocket raptors, next you learn how they attack and kill, then you decide how to address them given the tools your profession offers. This process is very common in GW2 as you advance through the game where learning how the mobs work will give you an advantage when facing them.

All that said, you did get to 80 with the Elementalist and enjoyed the human stories and lore along the way. There are hundreds of stories and quests to enjoy in the Core game and to immerse yourself into the lore and history. It might be to your interest and benefit to go back and try different race and profession combos to experience more of the game before pushing into the lvl 80 content.

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I edited what part of your post as you made comments within my post. I did this to make it more clear what I was addressing.

@"HATORI HANZO.9562" said:

First thing is to look at your gear. What gear are you running?

(Somebody suggested I upgrade to something called Zhan or something like that which I did)

I don't recall anything called that or with a name similar to it.

I believe that elementalists have the lowest HP pool of all classes so they tend to be squishy. Many players counteract this by using Mauraders stat gear which increases their vitality (HP) at the cost of lower ferocity (crit dmg), I believe.

(NO idea what that means)

Marauders is a stat combo with Power, Precision, Vitality, and Ferocity.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Marauder

Trailblazers being roughly the condition damage equivalent.
(huh?)

Trailblazers is a stat combo with Toughness, Condition Damage, Vitality and Expertise.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trailblazer%27s

The next thing is to look at your build. While you can generally run anything in the open world, there are some builds which perform significantly better over others. You can go to metabattle

(
what is metabattle
)

Metabattle is a popular website that provides various builds for each class for various aspects of the game. Below is a link to the elementalist builds where you're looking for builds under Open World. Keep in mind that these are not the only builds and you are not required to use them.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Elementalist

and check out the builds on there to see what interests you. Perhaps others who play elementalist in the open world will post here about what they run as well.

I don't understand builds at all every time I feel like a change might be in order I panic when I get asked 'Do you want to override" or anything similar to that...that's why I don't throw anything away either...stuff comes up and I just choose what sounds cool or maybe helpful...I have nary a clue how they work in tandem or in combination with anything

It takes experience to determine what you can freely get rid of and what you should keep. Generally, you can get rid of most things. You can use the GW2 wiki to look up an item and see whether it's something you'd need to keep.

Builds are essentially your stat choices on your equipment, armor runes, weapon sigils, and how you set up your traits and utility skills. Take your time learning about this until you get comfortable with it.

A lot of the mobs in HoT and PoF have mechanics. Most of these are fairly simple.
(???)

Mechanics is a generic term for certain things that you have to do in order to beat an enemy or to make things significantly easier. In Auric Basin (HoT expansion), there's a map-wide event to defeat the Octovines Each Octovine has a mechanic which makes it vulnerable. For East, it's dropping bombs on it. For South, it's knocking a bomb into it.

For raptors, you generally want to burst them down quick as they do quite a lot of damage in a group but they all have very low HP.

What's a break bar

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiance_bar

Enemies with break bars are ones where you want to use hard CC kills to break as they tend to take significantly more damage after this is doneWhats CC

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect

Here's a link that explains both breakbars and CC

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Guide:What_are_CC_and_Breakbars

All of the Djinn in PoF are good examples of this.What is Djinn

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Djinn

The first time you'd likely encounter them in PoF is doing the hero challenge north of the Amnoon by the quicksand.

For that first story instance in PoF, are you avoiding her deadly attack? This would be the one that makes a telegraph field (what does that look like )on the ground prior to the attack. Most damage fields on the ground have a red border and these are things that you want to stay out of. (im too slow in most cases)

The light orange field on the ground is an indicate of the attack you want to avoid. .

https://s3.amazonaws.com/dulfy.net/uploads/2017/09/gw2-hammer-and-tongs.jpg

In the image below, you'll see a bunch of blue circle attacks with a red outline. Attacks with the red outline are AoE attacks which you also want to avoid if possible.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/dulfy.net/uploads/2015/11/gw2-vale-guardian-guide-5.jpg

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I have had a little faith restored....Still don't understand build editors but I will try that link and see if I can figure it out.

Still don't understand Ascended vs Exotic.

Is there a way that somebody can see all that I have and tell me what to change out in terms of skills...I mean do I really wantot be walking around with a staff if two single handed weapons are better.

Is there a way to tell how much of the 100% damage...ooops sorry (DPS) I am doing or currently equipped for?

@Lucio.4190 I like your story about wandering into tangled depths...but the game didn't even give me a hint about the gliding nonsense, at least that I could figure out right off the bat, so there was 20 or 30 deaths before I even figured out how to get it....now I have it and it has a time limit...not good when you are 1/2mile up in the air in it craps the bed..another death.

No idea what Viper status is.

Bottom line is I think I am best suited to ranged weapons and spells that protect my group....alas and alack that does very little good when alone.

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Viper stats refers to the stat combo on your gear. You will hear Berserker, Marauder, Trailblazers tossed around which all refer to the combination of stats your gear is using.

Ascended (pink gear) is a step above exotic (orange gear). The stats on an Ascended item will be about 5% greater than Exotic items. Legendary (purple gear) has the same stat values as Ascended.

This game is balanced around players using Exotic gearing. You can technically complete any and all content and game modes in Exotic gear. Unlike other games there is no gear escalator, once you have a set of exotic lvl 80 gear you do not need to upgrade or change items unless you are changing your profession build. I have characters using the same armor for over 6 years now.

Are you on a server in NA or EU? I might be able to connect with you in game to look at what you have going on.

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Elementalist can be one of the hardest classes to play as it can be very squishy and complex. The profession also greatly benefits from elite specializations which you only get by playing Hot and Pof. Staff is also a hard weapon if you use it by any chance. I won't say it is weak but it's an artillery weapon that is hard to use while swarmed. Long cast times.Now I am not saying it is a weak profession, there are no weak professions and Elementalist is very versatile. But you will need to invest more in the profession to master it. Open world is not all about damage. Check some builds on metabattle so you will get a feeling for how people play. Or youtube. Raid builds are for raids not open world. Experiments, learn your profession.

As for the gear. Exotics (orange) are fine for now, forget about ascended (pink), it is not worth it now. You can buy great exotic gear on TP for peanuts. Runes and sigilis are important. If you don't want to spend all the gold for the best on the market, there are always cheaper alternatives. Rune sets are strong.

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I do have other characters...trying to remember off the top of my head..I have a Sylvari Ranger around level 45I have a Human Revenant level 8 or so..chubby fat basturd that can't jumpI have a Human Mesmer level 15 or so who looks promising.

What do I do with all the crap I craft....I mean how many padded leather insoles do I need....or copper filigrees or the 45 jars of mixed berry pie filling?

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@"HATORI HANZO.9562" said:Relatively new to the game...45 days tops and I have managed to get a character up to level 80 w/out using a boost. (Human/Elementalist)So tying HoT and it's a nightmare...pocket raptors swarm all over me and take me out before I can even launch an attack.Then somebody suggests PoF..(much more fun to play)..ok the first event I do against the first she thing or what ever that is quickly becomes a disaster....even after 10 retries.

I am at a loss as to where to turn to even try to gain any entrainment value from the game at this point.

Having someone else along makes most things a lot easier.

Two guilds have taken pity on me and sent me invites but I never see anybody from them and when I go to the halls there is never anybody there. I can't even figure out how to make a deposit to help out the cause.

I would recommend ignoring drive by guild invites.

I get that there is a learning curve but even if I find myself in much lower tier areas anytime I am up against more than one character its lights out for me.I am a casual player with a career, kids, grandkids, and two ex-wifes so not a huge amount of time but I manage to get on every day for some stress relief and after walking away from World of Tanks after 8 years I was looking for something else.

I have heard I have taken a very difficult and "squishy" choice with my player but I still don't get how I am getting smoked so quickly in a lot of areas. It's not like I am walking headfirst into a champion with trash gear but c'mon there are times I am on the ground even before I see what the hell hit me.

Elementalist has higher complexity than some other classes and requires more active defenses.

Yeah yeah...I can see anyone who reads this (even tyblat leftpaw) posting all of the resources for new players and all the guides and all the other stuff...if reading and research is the only way for improvement then I am willing to just let Arenanet keep my 90 bucks and walk off into the sunset.

I have always been a learn by failing sort of person but I just feel at a point where the failure is inevitable and there is nothing to gain.

There are some conflicting goals. You don't need to read any of those things but that means you will have to figure everything out yourself. That is a lot of trials and experimentation which is very time consuming. IMO that is not a particularly casual.

What you want to be doing is what I have been doing but I've played a lot and been playing since beta. I do occasionally read some stuff but that is just to make sure I haven't been ignoring an elephant in the room. I also happened to start with elementalist (along with a bit of warrior and ... well lets not discuss my altaholism) so it is entirely doable.

Using the booster on a first character is frequently not recommended because in theory you spend the leveling period learning how the class works and the game's systems. I happen to disagree with that recommendation because you can make observations and learn regardless of your character's level but you need to be actively engaged in doing. You have to be paying attention to what the enemies are doing and how that interacts with your skills. For example, pocket raptor's low HP makes single target/skills that requires a target to active a relatively poor choice because you'll have to switch targets a lot. AoE skills that doesn't require a target means you can just throw your skills in their general direction. Their frequent movement means you want to initiate combat with your ground target AoEs if using any because it will be harder to hit multiple of them once combat starts and they start running around.

I always have some form of passive or mostly passive sustain in any build I use. Soemthing beyond the healing skill. That makes most things pretty easy to tackle. I generally avoid consumables but they can be very impactful as well and one of the ways you can add constant health regen to any build.

A lot of things just comes down to knowing the enemies or specific encounters. One of the PoF story instance almost requires having a ranged weapon unless you enjoy being set on fire while fighting a boss along with an endless supply of adds.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:First thing is to look at your gear. What gear are you running? I believe that elementalists have the lowest HP pool of all classes so they tend to be squishy. Many players counteract this by using Mauraders stat gear which increases their vitality (HP) at the cost of lower ferocity (crit dmg), I believe. Trailblazers being roughly the condition damage equivalent.

It is in the lowest base HP bracket but not really the lowest since it is the same as thief and guardian

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Couple of pointers: Holding down shift and left clicking on a item will put that in your chat window. Typing /wiki XXXX in the chat will open the wiki page for whatever XXXX is. Combining the two allows you to look items up on the wiki.

If it says "trophy", it is generally just trash that you can sell to the vendor, and will NORMALLY sell automatically when you hit the "Sell Junk" button.

"Useless" gear drops all the time as rewards for completing stuff. Mostly it drops as blue, green, or yellow unidentified gear. Un-ID gear can be sold on the TP as is, salvaged as is, or it can be ID'd first and then sold or salvaged. My advice is to either sell it on the TP as is, or identify it and then salvage it. Salvaging items requires the use of a salvage kit, but, in return, you get bits of crafting materials and essences of luck that can be consumed for increased magic find. Generally speaking, use a basic salvage kit on white, blue, and green items. On yellow items, use a master salvage kit as it increases the chance for globs of ectoplasm to be salvaged.

Make sure you have guild chat enabled in your chat window. There is a little down arrow next to the name of the chat tab, click on that and you will get the option to select what "channels" you want to appear in your chat window. Make sure all 5 guild slots are selected. It could be that members of those two guild are on and chatting, but you don't have them selected to show in your chat window, so you don't see them at all.

I personally think that ele and engi are the two toughest professions to learn. The elite specs, especially the PoF elites are somewhat easier for those two than the core or HoT elite specs. Again, that's my opinion and I have played them all. I think for core elementalist, you're probably going to want to go staff to stay at distance. Some people like scepter/dagger or scepter/focus, but, I don't like the single target focus of scepter vs the AOE attacks of the staff. On my Tempest Ele I run dagger/focus, but I'm used to going toe-to-toe with things that want to kill me in GW2. Whenever possible, DO NOT STAND IN FRONT of the things attacking you, sidestep around them and attack from the flank and behind them. They may turn to face you, but, keep moving. You get hit if you are in front of them...you might get hit when behind them, but it is less frequent. If you see an orange or red area on the ground, run or dodge out of it.

Good luck.

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If you don't wish to spend long amounts of time reading through the wiki, would suggest just searching up a yt video or two about pve elementalist builds. Typically they go through everything (armor, weapons, traits, playstyle, skills, etc) one by one. Don't need to copy exactly what they have, just see if you can get something similar. Of course, youtube may not have the absolute best builds compared to websites like metabattle, but I find that just listening to someone go through how they play their character generally helps me better than reading.

By the way, if by " upgrading to Zhan", you mean using Zhed's armor, I would probably suggest trying some armor with more defensive stats, because Zhed's armor is Berserker with no vitality or toughness stats. People above already said different options (eg. maruaders). Just find some armor with vitality or toughness, and that should help.

As for your crafting question: probably would suggest gw2crafts as a way to lvl up your crafting unless you want to experience it yourself. If you are leatherworking/tailoring/armorsmithing, you likely have multiple parts to make a piece of armor (eg. you need 2 coarse boot soles and 1 coarse boot upper and a random insignia (eg. "hearty cotton insignia") to make boots (in this case "hearty leather shoes"). If you don't need em, see if you can sell on trading post or just destroy them, inventory space is precious.

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A lot to cover and already a lot to read in the answers. I played an elementalist as my main when GW2 first came out. I was terrified of veterans! Coming into Verdant Brink was very painful, and so was the first instance in the PoF story.I do not think there is one right way to solve your issues, but here are some suggestions to put you on the right path:

  • Initially, concentrate on core Tyria, i.e., no Heart of Maguuma (HoT) maps, nor Crystal Desert (PoF) maps.
  • Caveat: it is probably worth painfully progressing just far enough into the HoT and PoF storylines to unlock gliding and the raptor mount.
  • Try completing maps, mostly as a way to have a goal while getting more familiar with your toon.
  • Try to become at least competent with all elementalist weapons in all attunements.
  • Once you feel confident or adventuresome, 'graduate' to the Maguuma Wastes (Dry Top and the Silverwastes).
  • Identify all the blue, green and yellow unidentified loot. Use salvage kits to salvage all those you do not use.
  • Either deposit the salvage products in your bank or sell them on the Trading Post. You can do both from within your bag.
  • Use the resulting material to craft what you want or use the cash to buy lvl-80 exotics at the Trading Post.
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Before I start, I would like to mention that I'm not the expert here. But I will share some of what I've learned during my time in Tyria. If someone finds out that I'm a shameless liar, please correct me.I also don't want to forget an important advice: I strongly recommend that you don't try the Hero Challenges alone. These Champions are not on the same level as in Central Tyria, they require a strong group of at least three. Sometimes a lot more warriors. Feel free to ask people for help in /map (in the chat).Or you could try at least once, just to make sure I did not lie.

Your lifelineThe Glider is your best friend in the jungle, keep it close. There will be lots of travelling on different map levels, especially at Verdant Brink. With map levels, I mean the layers you see in the lower right corner of the mini map.

You'll start getting lots of Master Skill Points, if you haven't got some already. I would try maxing out the Glider first, at least getting the Advanced Glider mastery.This is when you open the Hero window, with all your skills, stats and story journal. Select the Star tab (on your left) and you'll see your Mastery Skills categorized on Central Tyria, Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire etc.Getting all Glider Masteries will allow you to glide a lot further and get a better control... or at least you'll fall gracefully. You'll be able to use the updraft winds to keep your self in the air.In particular the Advanced Glider will keep you in the air withouth losing Endurance, if you don't press on your Forward key.

You'll also need the Mastery to be able to jump on the Mushrooms, that will also be required to advance in your story and that will make it easier to reach higher grounds, sometimes a lot higher than the mounts (from Path of Fire) will take you.

Your gearYou've noticed there's different colors on your items. The armor and weapons. Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange.. and you will later get the Pink ones. The color shows how rare they are and how good bonus stats they have.The Blue and Green are useless, this is what you start with and try to get rid of early in the game.Yellow gear are okay during your first 30 levels and will give you fair bonus to your attributes, but you will try and get the Orange gear soon.

When you have the Orange gear, you will start searching for "YOUR" preferred Orange gear.Look at your build. If you want to hit really hard quick, you focus on getting a higher value on Power.If you think the fights will last a little longer, it may be a good idea to build your Elemental on Condition Damage, like burning or bleeding etc. This will deliver more damage the longer the fight get.Power and Condition Damage will also get an extra buff from other attributes, such as Expertise, Concentration, Precision etc. For example, Precision will increase your chances for a critical hit and this will add to the damage done by Power.This is why your gear is very important. You will first try and get better protection with Orange Armor, but also better damage with Orange Weapon. Second priority is to find the Orange gear that gives you bonus to the attributes that you want to base your build on.

Example: You want to build your Elemental on Power.You find the Orange (Exotic) Armor (and Weapon) that are based on the Berserker stats: Power, Precision, Ferocity.Someone else mentioned Viper: Power, Condition Damage, Precision, Expertise.

If you get a full gear for your build, you will notice a drastic change on the damage you deliver and you will also survive a lot easier. Some gear will let you select your stats, but be aware that they will be permanent for that item after you have made your decision.And last, the Ascended gear (I'll leave Legendary for someone else to explain). The Pink gear will let you select your attributes... once. These stats are also based on "Viper", "Berserk", "Minstrel" etc. But the stats are much higher than Exotic.

What about the salvaged items?Blue and Green are really good to salvage (using the Basic Salvage kit is enough, the others are a waste of money), or sell if you're not interested in crafting. I started salvaging very early and was glad I did when I started crafting.The salvaging will fill up your Inventory. Just right click on the crafting materials that shows up, Deposit everything. They will be moved to your Material Storage, which you will be able to Withdraw anytime you want when visiting the a crafting station.If it says Trophy, you will not be able to salvage it. Either you sell it or just throw it away. if it belongs to a Collection, some would like to save it and some will sell anyway.I tend to keep them, taking up space in my bank and inventory.. :anguished: ..until needed when crafting my Ascended gear.

If you get Unidentified Gear, they are salvagable too. I always identify them first. Sometimes, a green unidentified can become Rare or Exotic after being identified. This can be very time consuming, but mostly it's worth it.

Using the MapI will try not to say much about the map, but some things I've learned are when you hover over the map icons, on your top left corner. You'll see their locations flashing on the map for a second. If you're stuck and don't know where a Point of Interest or a Vista is, just hover over that particular icon on the top left corner and the map will tell you, within a flash.Another useful feature is that you can see which levels some of the maps are suited for, which also means which tier of crafting material you will be able to find there. Both as a reward for events and other drops. Some trophies are more valuable (Shiny Bauble) that others and if you need to collect some gold, I recommend you have a look at your map. It will tell you where the shinies are and where you'll be greatly rewarded for completing events.

I hope my information will contribute to your adventures, Commander. We need more heroes fighting with us against the evil that lurks (no spoilers for you) and I hope to see you with us soon.

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Honestly you sound like a normal, healthy player. Welcome to HoT and PoF. While I have not leveled an elementalist to 80 yet, I felt the same way with the first character walking into those. I hated pocket raptors, I hated vines, I hated veterans. So I went, changed my build, improved gear (exotic is fine, ascended later if you choose), joined groups on maps for metas or just jumped in until I figured out what I was doing. It gets better.

In regards to personal story, yeh it's not uncommon to die. No one can see you inside your personal instances though, so it doesn't count ;) Same thing, check build, gear, utilize your helper NPCs if there are any.

I don't use discord, some guilds require it, so you may miss out on some things if they do...like guild missions or higher level content. For open world, story, that kind of thing, there's honestly no use to it other than the social factor. Personal choice there.

Use LFG if you need to, might be surprised who shows up. Ask map if you're having difficulty in open world, people usually respond in a positive manner.

Then, go back and make those pocket raptors your kitten.

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I'm a noob that rarely gets time to play at the moment (little kids seem to be demanding all my attention lately). I was having a really hard time starting out, especially in HoT areas (I've mainly spent time in Verdant Brink and my playtime usually coincides with the "night time" meta event - always makes the area very...interesting!).

During general gameplay, I've found that as I became more familiar with my character's build and the skills available, I've become become better at dealing with the types of situations you've described - although my reaction times/reflexes aren't the best so I'm not dominant by any means. It has still made roaming a generally pleasant experience.

One thing that's probably been mentioned several times here is that you may want to consider trying out a different profession, at least initially to become more accustomed to the types of fights that you're struggling with on your Elementalist. You won't have the same skills etc so gameplay is different in that sense, but your enemies will still have the same mechanics so you will still get a feel for fighting through situations in that sense.

As an example I play on a Necromancer. I play power Reaper which has a pretty good balance of survivability and dealing damage....there's also the option of going Minionmancer - which I hear can be great for roaming especially as the minions can distract adds from you - but I've been trying to get used to a build that I'd eventually use for things like Fractals.

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I wouldn't start out in HoT areas as a new player, until you are very comfortable with your profession and its mechanics.As well, you should be at-least in full exotic gear, and your exotic gear should reflect the build you are going for. Ofc, you should also be kitted out with runes and sigils.

You should be able to run Orr open world with absolutely no difficulty (it should be trivial). IMO, that is the point at which you are probably good to go for HoT.

HoT still is a bump up though. You should be using your dodge at every given opportunity, as well as CC and active defence (block/evade) skills. If a skill is off cooldown, that means it is a useless skill - you should be using skills left and right. You do need to pay attention as well to the game (part of what I like about it, it is very engaging as opposed to the core open world in which the player doesn't really need to be engaged with the game at all) as well - if you stop paying attention to the game, that is about the point where you'll start dying.

IF you post your build that would also be helpful. I recommend the use of http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

Post your build, and some more detailed advice might be possible. While most builds are fine for the open world (even HoT), it could be that you are running something that isn't.

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@HATORI HANZO.9562 said:Relatively new to the game...45 days tops and I have managed to get a character up to level 80 w/out using a boost. (Human/Elementalist)So tying HoT and it's a nightmare...pocket raptors swarm all over me and take me out before I can even launch an attack.Then somebody suggests PoF..(much more fun to play)..ok the first event I do against the first she thing or what ever that is quickly becomes a disaster....even after 10 retries.

I am at a loss as to where to turn to even try to gain any entrainment value from the game at this point.

Since you only recently reached level 80 and have only played the game for 45 days, I suggest you do the story content chronologically. Living World Season 2 is a bit more demanding than the core content, and the Silverwastes and Dry Top might prepare you better for the expansions, which have a much higher level of difficulty than the core game, as you have noticed. Their level of difficulty is the new normal, so it's best to adjust to it step by step, because rushing in with previously having experienced only the very easy core contents makes it look extremely hard to master, when in reality it's just a matter of practice.

Don't give up! :)

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The build site is a tad unintuitive...as I have no clue about quick links or chat links after spending about 40 minutes loading what I think I have only to find I can't get it quite right...also where would this get uploaded and I don't see how to log in or save on this build site...I am sure it's right in front of me but it still continues to elude me.

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