Assorted Noob Questions

[SamuelW.2685]

Hi everyone, first post on the Forums here so be sure to tell me if anything is off with my post

I just started playing GW2 recently and so far I'm having a lot of fun, I quit FF14 a few months back and this feels way better, I'm managing on my own too, and when I need help with something the wiki or a video tends to help.

But there's a few things I'm still unsure about, classes, gathering, RP, mounts, etc, I'll let you see below

 

1. Whats the quickest way to get decent gear at level 80? I'm leveling up super fast, and I'll be level 80 before I even finish the main story at this rate
(If this is a case of "depends on build", then idk what build I'll end up going with at endgame, probably something with Bladesworn cause gun katana go brrrrrrrrr) 
 

2. Warrior is my first class, and the one I'm playing, but doing my research, I see that base Warrior is supposedly uber trash tier, is its specializations any different? They say Bladesworm is good, is Warrior viable in end game content? What about open world? PvP?
 

3. What about Ele? I love using the Natural Elements as magick in games, but I don't know anything about Ele other then it's a bit complicated
 

4. Is gathering meant to be hellish? Or am I doing something wrong? Coming from FF14, it was a slog, but it was consistent, but here, I feel like I need to spend a ton of time looking in random spots for nodes that give me almost nothing.
 

5. How difficult are dungeons? And where can I find guides for them and other content? I probably need a guide given its years old content and I don't wanna be THAT guy
 

6. Is there any way to fast track myself to getting a mount or am I stuck waiting till the expacs? I wanna complete the main map so I can get the items necessary for making Legendary Weapons, and while I wouldn't call walking about a slog, having tried the Roller Beatle rentals it seems SOOOOOOOOOOO much better 
 

7. How on God's Green Earth do I get a decent back item while leveling? I've been stuck with this dinky +1 power one for ages, I'm level 60 iirc, story is at level 30, close to entering the first dungeon
 

And last, and def least, 

8. What's RP like in GW2? It's always been something I've been interested in but I've always got cold feet when I wanna jump in, and coming from FF14, it all just seemed like it was all  E RP back there, so I never bothered. Is it all just a bunch of creepy BS in GW2 or is it something more substantial? 

yeeeeeeeeah, quite a lot to ask, just I wanna make sure I know what's up, you know? 

Edited April 30, 2022 by SamuelW.2685

[AliamRationem.5172]

Hi! Welcome to GW2!

Your first set of gear should be level 80 exotic (the orangey-yellow color gear).  Common core game stats like power/precision/ferocity (aka "berserker" stats) are generally inexpensive to purchase on the trading post.  Other stats like Trailblazer or Celestial will be more expensive.  So you may wish to plan for a build that utilizes inexpensive stats initially and then find sources for the stats you really want as you go. 

The wiki is a great resource for finding gear, but here's a tip: the Itzel vendor in the first Heart of Thorns map "Verdant Brink" sells stat-selectable exotic armor (requires Itzel language mastery).  So it might be a good idea to spend some time on that map when you reach 80.

Warrior is decent for open world.  Berserker is a bit difficult to play as it's relatively weak defensively, but it should chew through open world enemies very quickly with its high damage output.  Spellbreaker is a more defensive spec with fairly weak damage, but it could work for you if you don't mind taking your time.  Bladesworn has some ability to create builds that are somewhere in the middle (look up videos by Lord Hizen for some ideas on that).

For PvP, unfortunately, warrior is not in a great spot.  However, take that with a grain of salt because it refers to high end play (e.g. there was zero representation for warriors in recent monthly tournaments).  At the beginner level anything can work, so I wouldn't worry too much about that just yet.

Elementalist is basically going to be your hard mode class as a beginner.  It has a lot of skills that necessitate complex rotations and create a higher learning curve than most classes.  It's also not very forgiving to play, having the lowest health and armor baseline of any class.   It's also not really high in the group PvE meta and it's been that way for a long time now. 

Having said that, it's quite fun if you don't mind the complexity and for open world play it arguably has some of the best performing builds for things like boss solos.  All of its elite specs are quite capable in this regard, especially if you run celestial stats.  Just stay away from core elementalist and staff in endgame.  They're pretty much trash tier for almost everything.

On gathering, don't waste your time trying to farm a specific material.  Just do whatever gets you gold and buy what you need on the trading post.  Crafting often requires far more of a specific material than you can reasonably acquire just by playing and you'll just waste your time looking for nodes.

Dungeons are easy enough that the well-versed and skilled players can actually solo them.  However, they are old content and many are not well-versed.  So, results will vary widely.  Dungeons have lots of gimmick fights, potential skips, and puzzles to deal with.  This is why they can either be a nightmare or a solo walk in the park, depending.  You can probably google/youtube guides on them easily enough, though.

Don't worry about legendary crafting right away.  They are a huge material/gold sink that doesn't net you any stat gain over vastly cheaper ascended gear.  You'll want to map complete eventually, but mounts will only make that easier.  If you aren't stuck on doing the story in order, then the smart money is on grabbing the raptor right away.  All you have to do is start the path of fire story line and do the first few minutes of it and you'll have a raptor from level 1 for all of your characters!

Don't worry too much about stats while leveling.  The back piece grants the least stats of any piece and the core game is so easy you could do it naked.  Get to level 80, get exotic gear, and you're within 5% of the best possible stats you can have.  This game doesn't make you climb an endless ilvl ladder like many other MMOs do.

Sorry, I don't know anything about the RP community.

[SamuelW.2685]

15 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

If you aren't stuck on doing the story in order, then the smart money is on grabbing the raptor right away.  All you have to do is start the path of fire story line and do the first few minutes of it and you'll have a raptor from level 1 for all of your characters!

How would I go about getting to PoF? Can I skip to it from the main story somehow? Rather then having to do the whole story?

Edited April 30, 2022 by SamuelW.2685

[AliamRationem.5172]

13 minutes ago, SamuelW.2685 said:

How would I go about getting to PoF? Can I skip to it from the main story somehow? Rather then having to do the whole story?

I'm not sure if you can start it prior to level 80?  If not, you would have to boost a character to 80 or wait until you level up.  You could also possibly join another player's story instance, but I'm not sure if this will unlock the raptor for you.

[SamuelW.2685]

5 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

you would have to boost a character to 80

Ohhhhhhhhh its its own separate story level locked at 80 then! I was worried I'd have to complete the main story, but I can just use the level boosts I got from buying the expacs, then head back to the base game with my mount

[TheWaternymphHC.1847]

2 hours ago, SamuelW.2685 said:

I can just use the level boosts I got from buying the expacs, then head back to the base game with my mount

If you have EoD or all expansions, do that intro first.

Once you are done with the first story chapter, you instantly get the glider. After you are out of the story instance head to the northern coast and swim to the portal to New Kaineng City (it's easily visible from that little harbor NNE of the map).

Once you arrived there, follow the channels to the southern part of the city and speak to the renown hearts NPCs in the south and southeast. One grants you the Raptor free of charge, the other one grants you the Springer free of charge.

If you have only PoF/HoT, you can only unlock the Raptor in the first story mission and you also have to do the HoT intro for the glider. The Springer also costs some gold when acquired in PoF and takes some time to unlock the vendor.

[Erich.1783]

PoF story is locked behind level 80, but you will occasionally see people offering to ferry sub-80 characters through it.  Basically a level 80 character parties with a sub-80 and starts and does the instance, the low levels doing what they can, and at the end the lower level characters will get the raptor.  If you are NA and want to do this, letting you save your instant 80 until you understand the game a bit better, let me know.

[adrunkmunkey.6059]

I'll say this about elementalist. Don't be put off by how "difficult" the class is. I started as a guardian, which despite what everyone and their mother says, is not the Uber easy cheat mode class everyone seems to think it is. Sure, it's a beast in endgame, but it's also incredibly squishy and now that I have 5 total classes at 80 I can confidently say it is not a beginner friendly class. I struggled but I learned, and by the time I finished Path of Fire I finally felt like I truly learned that class.

 

My point here is, sure elementalist is squishy and there's some complexity with having to switch between 5 elements. However, you only have a handful of weapons to choose from, so you'll have one weapon with 5 different sets. By the time you're 80, you'll know which element to switch to press which button on for what situation. You'll know dodge timings and I frames better than necros (imo, the true easy mode class). 

 

If you look up online, the thief is supposedly terrible in pve stuff bc of how squishy it is and it can't put out the stupid numbers some classes can. You know what it can do though? Solo a champion, take on a group of mushroom bombers or snipers, and carry you through surprisingly tough fights because of it's insane dodge roll for the daredevil. 

 

Every class is viable, and unless you are looking for hard mode raids, top tier pvp or just to show off your dummy numbers, pick the class that seems cool and feels fun. And even in those super mega high level content stuff, every class has an elite build that's either meta or close enough too it.

[Infinity.2876]

For 4. If you really really need one kind.of material you can look up it on Google then find patches or farms of lots of that mayerial 

 

For 1 and (I think) 7. You can go to the trading post and buy some armor for yourself get the ones associated with your build and what weapon you are wielding (if you don't have traits unlocked) the armor you get from leveling should get you to 80 but after that you will immediately want to switch. for backpacks you can get them from doing the story. (That is how I got mine) you have to get to pof and hot 

Edited April 30, 2022 by Infinity.2876

[Keehra.4621]

7 hours ago, adrunkmunkey.6059 said:

I'll say this about elementalist. Don't be put off by how "difficult" the class is. 

I would definitely agree with that. I returned to the game a few months ago (after several years). I am very casual and was put off by all the comments on why Ele is difficult. I played a Necromancer back in the days so I returned to that. But I was curious about other professions so yeah - I pulled out the credit card and bought a few extra character slots just to be able so see what other professions were about without having to delete too many characters (and I'm a certified altoholic 🤣).

Anyway, I went through the typical route (warrior, hunter ... you know what I mean) and finally decided to try out an Elementalist (in a "if I don't like it, I'll delete it"-way). To be honest, a dagger-wielding "magician" was hardly what I was expecting but was pleasantly surprised. I honestly didn't grasp the class at first ... even took me quite a bit of time to understand it. In the beginning Fire was all I used 😉 . Mostly works quite well in open world but quickly falls short even in the personal story, I found.

But then the beauty of GW2, read the descriptions of the different abilities, swap weapons before fight/use different weapon combinations and - again - read the descriptions of the different abilities and it suddenly clicked. For me, this is one of the most enjoyable professions to pick up. I only got to 80 very recently so now I will start hunting my elite spec. But at the moment I'm too busy playing LW1 on a sub-optimal spec with exotic gear ... But the fun thing -> it works.

[Keehra.4621]

Just forgot to react on your mount question. Pretty simple, I leveled one character up to 80 with a boost, went through the first "episode" (is it even a complete episode) of Path of Fire to get the Raptor and a few masteries but ... that's it. It is a huge QoL-upgrade though. I still haven't got the other mounts but I'm playing through the story historically and will get them eventually.

One thing I also did, was get the gliding from HoT ... also a pretty simple thing to get but also so convenient.

[Batel.9206]

Welcome to GW2! Others have covered your questions pretty well, but I at least can chime on on the last one. 🙂

 

On 4/29/2022 at 5:30 PM, SamuelW.2685 said:

8. What's RP like in GW2? It's always been something I've been interested in but I've always got cold feet when I wanna jump in, and coming from FF14, it all just seemed like it was all  E RP back there, so I never bothered. Is it all just a bunch of creepy BS in GW2 or is it something more substantial?

Oh, there's creepy eRP in the dark corners of the community, but, honestly, you'll find that in any game ever. 🙄 Fortunately, GW2 RP tends to stay far away from it.

For the most part, the RP community in GW2 is entirely respectable. There's a wide assortment of guilds and characters, ranging from criminal enterprises to noble houses, governmental positions, norn hunters, asuran krewes, sylvari Wardens...anything, really. It depends on what you're looking for, what sort of character(s) you'd like to make. While finding RP is generally easier when you're in that guild network of connected people, don't feel like you must join a guild in order to RP - it's perfectly possible to find it outside of a guild. My characters are all guild-less for the moment, mostly because I'm rather shy. Like you, I get cold feet. Nothing wrong with that!

If you're curious, here's a forum where RP'ers can connect, list upcoming events, talk about their characters and GW2's lore, join or advertise their guilds, etc. https://www.guildwars2roleplayers.com/ Don't be afraid to ask questions if you're unsure about anything; people are pretty friendly here!

[Thon.3780]

Erm if i compare with FF14 from past experience.

answer 

war gw2 and War in FF14 are not much different. So you can speed up . For Elite, I think all are good . It is up to your favorite style. 
 

No 3.

Ele close to black mage but  it has some elemental summon . It is a bit difficult with 10 skill you need to use effectively coz  our def is low.  For elite… 

Tempest is like upgrade ver of black mage

weaver is like magic sword man .  But our def still thin

 

 

No4 gather and craft are same as FF14 , the fast way to boost level.  Same Len when you get nothing from gathering is your equipment like pickaxe level  are not suit to that area. So you will get junk.

also you can make exotic gear and ascend gear with same def as legendary gear.  So you can use till get enough material to make legendary gear. 
 

Please keep in mind  that word. “ legendary “ mean you need a lot of effort to get one. 
If you don’t have enough time , I recommend study the build you like and make ascend gear with stat suit your play style most.

[Kamsanne.8642]

On 4/29/2022 at 9:07 PM, TheWaternymphHC.1847 said:

If you have EoD or all expansions, do that intro first.

Once you are done with the first story chapter, you instantly get the glider. After you are out of the story instance head to the northern coast and swim to the portal to New Kaineng City (it's easily visible from that little harbor NNE of the map).

Once you arrived there, follow the channels to the southern part of the city and speak to the renown hearts NPCs in the south and southeast. One grants you the Raptor free of charge, the other one grants you the Springer free of charge.

If you have only PoF/HoT, you can only unlock the Raptor in the first story mission and you also have to do the HoT intro for the glider. The Springer also costs some gold when acquired in PoF and takes some time to unlock the vendor.

Thanks so much for this!

[IrishPotato.6327]

Warrior main here.

 

It's not that Core Warrior is "Uber Trash Tier", it's just that with most if not all classes their elite specs are stronger than core across the board. Some offer high utility compared to their core versions, some just pump up the damage.

 

The case of Warrior is less of a drastic change, and more of a tilt of your playstyle. Berserker really just made Warrior extra angry. Berserk mode focuses on the F1 skills of each mainhand weapon for higher damange. It also opened up the path for warriors to branch from their default POWER GREATSWORD BUILD GO BRRRR to a condition build with sword + torch/Longbow. Power Berserker is also strong with axe mainhand. You basically spam the F1 skill Decapitate, it's a very Low Intensity rotation. That's not to say you can't use other weapons, that's just the "meta" for it.

 

Spellbreaker has always been a pvp focused role, that can perform well in Open World because of it's innate defense and counter abilities, but doesn't excel in instanced endgame compared to other builds because the mechanics don't really apply to bosses.

 

Bladesworn is what you'd expect of a SAM from FF14, Midare until the cows come home. Moderate damage to build up into big hits on the Dragon Slash cast. You don't get a new mainhand, but an offhand pistol, and a gunblade attached to your build automatically. You build up your adrenaline bar into what's called Flow instead, (think SAM gauge) until it's about 50%, then you activate F2. This locks you into place and starts your Midare cast, or called here Dragon Slash. You get 3 choices, Cone hit for highest damage, Dash for moderate damage, and line aoe for moderate damange.

 

In pve endgame currently Warrior is locked into two roles, pure dps, or what you'll see called Banner Slave. Banners are unique to Warriors and apply stats to everyone in your squad. You take 2 of your utility slots for Banner of Strength and Banner of Discipline, the 3rd Utility can be whatever based on your build. They're going to be adjusted in the summer to give us more utility, and hopefully give us more purpose.

[Ashantara.8731]

On 4/30/2022 at 2:30 AM, SamuelW.2685 said:

1. Whats the quickest way to get decent gear at level 80?

2. Warrior is my first class, and the one I'm playing, but doing my research, I see that base Warrior is supposedly uber trash tier, is its specializations any different?

3. What about Ele? I love using the Natural Elements as magick in games, but I don't know anything about Ele other then it's a bit complicated

4. Is gathering meant to be hellish?

5. How difficult are dungeons?

6. Is there any way to fast track myself to getting a mount or am I stuck waiting till the expacs?

7. How on God's Green Earth do I get a decent back item while leveling?

8. What's RP like in GW2?

1. Since you are on Warrior, I recommend you buy Level 80 Berserker gear at the Trading Post. Don't type "Berserker" in the search field (those are expensive items!), instead select the Berserker stats in the filter options to the left (i.e., Power, Precision, Ferocity). You will get a much cheaper option (sort by price).

2. Warrior is not trash! In fact, the profession can deal extremely high damage. I recommend Power Beserker once you have access to that elite spec.

3. Ele takes a lot more practice than Warrior, and that's not necessarily due to its class mechanics but mostly because you will need practice to survive with that profession.

4. Get unlimited gathering tools and you will never have to worry again. There are several methods of acquisition.

5. As with everything, dungeons are a matter of practice. They are pretty difficult for new players, you won't be able to solo them.

6. The only mount you can acquire without Path of Fire would be the Warclaw, but for that you will have to play WvW.

7. With expansions and Living World seasons, it's extremely easy these days to come by an ascended back item. For exotic versions, options are truly limited. I recommend this Guild Backpack with Berserker stats.

8. No idea, but it's unpleasant that it doesn't have a separate, dedicated chat channel.
 

Edited May 4, 2022 by Ashantara.8731

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

1. Buy exotic gear from the trading post. Alternatively, just level the armorsmithing craft as you progress in levels and zones. Eventually you'll be able to craft a full set.

Farm strike missions for ascended gear (a tier above exotic). Strikes are accessed from Eye of the North (you get a free teleport item there on each character).

2-3. Both warrior and ele are viable in all modes of play, albeit warrior is somewhat more restricted when it comes to generally accepted (read: "viable") builds. Warrior is also extremely good in open world, with one of the strongest non-elite specialization performances. They're very good for solo gameplay.

Elementalist has a higher skill floor, but are more flexible and capable of filling out more roles (damage, support, hybrid). They're not quite as efficient in solo open world content, but shine in most instances and group play.

Overall, you'll learn the basics very well on warrior thanks to access to good damage, mobility, blocks and reflects, evade frames and CC. In the later stages of the game, you might find yourself preferring elementalist thanks to the variety it provides. Warrior has traditionally been difficult for Anet to balance, leading to a select few "safe and secure builds".

4. Farming nodes isn't meant to be a task in and out of itself. You do it while performing other chores, moving from point A to point B and doing events.

Later on you get the option to trade gold and other currency for every type of farm node resource. Don't stress it. Enemy drops also yield those, as does salvaging items.

5. They're soloable for experienced players, and not very difficult if you have the expansions. For core players, they can pose a challenge - but some are still soloable.

There are guides all over the wiki and Youtube, just search up the dungeon name.

6. You can complete EoD or PoF first story chapter to access raptor (and springer for EoD). Otherwise, outside rental, no.

7. Leveling your crafting (armorsmith for warrior) to 400. It allows you to craft a back piece with exotic-level stat selection.

8. There are dedicated RP guilds. From my experience they tend to recruit around starter areas.

Edited May 4, 2022 by NorthernRedStar.3054