I am obscenely out of the loop and need some direction

[MisterMagician.8614]

Haven't played in about 4 years.  Last time I did I got all classes to 80, unlocked all elite specs at the time, got the skyscale/gryphon, and maxed out the major masteries (everything universally useful except for auto loot because I hate RIBA), and that's about it.

What is a list of what is worth doing that is new since then?  Stuff like mounts, major universal features, and mastery tracks that provide some meaningful improvement to how your character plays and moves.

Also, what's the best way to get full ascended gear without having to need a guild?  I got about three accessory slots out of 6 done in my previous time in the game, and that took MONTHS.

[Linken.6345]

39 minutes ago, MisterMagician.8614 said:

Haven't played in about 4 years.  Last time I did I got all classes to 80, unlocked all elite specs at the time, got the skyscale/gryphon, and maxed out the major masteries (everything universally useful except for auto loot because I hate RIBA), and that's about it.

What is a list of what is worth doing that is new since then?  Stuff like mounts, major universal features, and mastery tracks that provide some meaningful improvement to how your character plays and moves.

Also, what's the best way to get full ascended gear without having to need a guild?  I got about three accessory slots out of 6 done in my previous time in the game, and that took MONTHS.

You can get 1 weapon and 2-3 armor parts ascended from just daily wizards vault  each 4 months now mate.

[MisterMagician.8614]

3 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

You can get 1 weapon and 2-3 armor parts ascended from just daily wizards vault  each 4 months now mate.

So would that not be one a month then?  That's as fast as it was with laurels.

For laurels I just had to log in, this time I need to do stuff I would never do just to hit engagement metrics.

Edited December 2, 2023 by MisterMagician.8614

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, MisterMagician.8614 said:

So would that not be one a month then?  That's as fast as it was with laurels.

For laurels I just had to log in, this time I need to do stuff I would never do just to hit engagement metrics.

This is a hot take. The minimal stuff you have to do takes, on most days, about 5 minutes for the daily. The weekly takes long and is probably more valuable. But the rewards you get are much much higher than before too, including certain items that were just in the cash shop before.  A decent portion of the dailies or even weeklies I get just by playing the game. There are days when the dailies are dodging, combo fields and breaking a bar. I can't remember  a day those things didn't happen.

The vast majority of the population of the game seems to like the new daily system quite a lot. There are obviously exceptions but saying that you have to do stuff you didn't do? What stuff specifically? Remember you can skip dailies on days you don't like as well.

[synk.6907]

3 hours ago, MisterMagician.8614 said:

 I got about three accessory slots out of 6 done in my previous time in the game, and that took MONTHS.

These should take days, not months, with the various LW seasonal map currencies (Seasons 3 and 4).
I would recommend taking a look at the "Return to..." achievements, as doing those will also net additional amounts of these currencies that can be used for ascended accessories. You will also get a legendary amulet by doing them all.

Months would be more aligned with Vision and Aurora, if you don't have them already, which can also in part line up/overlap with doing the Return sets. Then you wouldn't need to get at least three ascended accessories ever again.

EDIT: Also you won't need guild commendations and can select the stats on the ascended accessories bought this way, compared to the ones you may have been using ectors+laurels or laurels+guild commendations to buy.

 

As for what masteries may be a priority, perhaps that will depend on what you like to play and what content you have unlocked. If you have End of Dragons, at least unlocking Jade Bots gives you a space to increase your vitality with some other minor perks, and many people like the United Legions Waystation mastery line if you have the Icebrood Saga (may have been out when you were still playing?).

Edited December 2, 2023 by synk.6907

[evilcat.6817]

Ascended trinket:

Core - lauren shop, or fractal.

Any - could be fractal heavy grind, LW3E3 (winterberries) LW4E6(Dragongall) LW3E1 could also be ok, but winterberries are faster. Could be grind wvw. Also IBSE1 Bear achievment.

Any gear - Wizard Vault. Grind WvW PvP Full craft with buyin inscription. Yes expensive, but you can do any content for that + some fractals.

If you are returning then maybe you have unused 3 armour and 1 weapon from wizard vault. That should be fastest and chillest method.

Edited December 2, 2023 by evilcat.6817

[MisterMagician.8614]

3 hours ago, synk.6907 said:

These should take days, not months, with the various LW seasonal map currencies (Seasons 3 and 4).
I would recommend taking a look at the "Return to..." achievements, as doing those will also net additional amounts of these currencies that can be used for ascended accessories. You will also get a legendary amulet by doing them all.

Months would be more aligned with Vision and Aurora, if you don't have them already, which can also in part line up/overlap with doing the Return sets. Then you wouldn't need to get at least three ascended accessories ever again.

EDIT: Also you won't need guild commendations and can select the stats on the ascended accessories bought this way, compared to the ones you may have been using ectors+laurels or laurels+guild commendations to buy.

 

As for what masteries may be a priority, perhaps that will depend on what you like to play and what content you have unlocked. If you have End of Dragons, at least unlocking Jade Bots gives you a space to increase your vitality with some other minor perks, and many people like the United Legions Waystation mastery line if you have the Icebrood Saga (may have been out when you were still playing?).

How long do the return ones take to do?

[synk.6907]

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_Return - check them out. It will depend on how long you take to mine areas and do events and things, but nothing is difficult.

If you do not see these achievements in "Side Stories", where they were moved after their introduction, then it may be that you had to have logged in when they were initially released. If that is the case, bummer.

[Buran.3796]

8 hours ago, MisterMagician.8614 said:

What is a list of what is worth doing that is new since then?  Stuff like mounts, major universal features, and mastery tracks that provide some meaningful improvement to how your character plays and moves.

Also, what's the best way to get full ascended gear without having to need a guild?  I got about three accessory slots out of 6 done in my previous time in the game, and that took MONTHS.

   Get the ascended trinkets from the seasonal maps, specifically Bitterfrost Frontier (ring, earing, back piece and underwater respirator, extremely fast to farm: around 50 winterberries x day x character in 5 minutes). Bloodstone Fen (way harder to farm but you can re-spec the stats with a minimal cost in magic, provides amulet, ring and back piece), Bjora March (after two quest opens access to amulet and earing, very fast to farm but limited to a single character x day), Sanswept Isles (ring, earring) and Dragonfall (amulet, ring earing and one of the most lucrative Open World metas in the game).

   Example of farming map currencies in Bitterfrost Frontier:

 

   Related to other goals: unlock EoD and Soto specs, mounts and masteries and start to work in unlocking the legendary armor sets; then legendary trinkets and then weapons. Legendary gear is now shared across characters though the legendary wardrobe so you can equip those items across all compatible characters and swap stats, runes, sigils and skins at no cost so they are the ultimate quality of life convenience stuff.

[DeadlyDohnut.7052]

everyone already answered your questions just wanted to say that u can easily farm the curencies u need in the livingworld season 4 maps to buy as many trinket/jewelry sets as u could ever need. i have 31 characters and can easily get acended sets of trinkets for each of them anytime i want. with accumulating over 300k Volatic Magic and 13 million karma, and over 1000 of each map curency. i have over 2500 of them winterberries too... its a mater of days not months. and as for lurels i havent used any lurels in atleast 6years i have over 1000 just sitting in the wallet. u can make a million karma in about 2-3hrs just farming in sandswept isles. (at 50k karma per stack, 20 stacks is 1 million karma,  u only need to kill 5000 enemies. there are loads of respawning enemies and events with huge groups and swarms of enemies. aoe like crazy just gotta tag them to get kill cred.) also i use about 7 million karma each year on xmas presents...cause why not.

[MisterMagician.8614]

12 hours ago, synk.6907 said:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_Return - check them out. It will depend on how long you take to mine areas and do events and things, but nothing is difficult.

If you do not see these achievements in "Side Stories", where they were moved after their introduction, then it may be that you had to have logged in when they were initially released. If that is the case, bummer.

I'm happy to say I have all of them!  I guess since my account is old (I was in the early access for launch), I get everything.

11 hours ago, Buran.3796 said:

   Get the ascended trinkets from the seasonal maps, specifically Bitterfrost Frontier (ring, earing, back piece and underwater respirator, extremely fast to farm: around 50 winterberries x day x character in 5 minutes). Bloodstone Fen (way harder to farm but you can re-spec the stats with a minimal cost in magic, provides amulet, ring and back piece), Bjora March (after two quest opens access to amulet and earing, very fast to farm but limited to a single character x day), Sanswept Isles (ring, earring) and Dragonfall (amulet, ring earing and one of the most lucrative Open World metas in the game).

   Example of farming map currencies in Bitterfrost Frontier:

 

   Related to other goals: unlock EoD and Soto specs, mounts and masteries and start to work in unlocking the legendary armor sets; then legendary trinkets and then weapons. Legendary gear is now shared across characters though the legendary wardrobe so you can equip those items across all compatible characters and swap stats, runes, sigils and skins at no cost so they are the ultimate quality of life convenience stuff.

Are the bitterfrost accessories unique?  Or can I just outfit one character with them exclusively?

[Buran.3796]

2 hours ago, MisterMagician.8614 said:

I'm happy to say I have all of them!  I guess since my account is old (I was in the early access for launch), I get everything.

Are the bitterfrost accessories unique?  Or can I just outfit one character with them exclusively?

  You can equip two Bitterfrost rings if you attune or infuse one of them, since becomes different. But you can't do the same with the earing, so you need to get the second earing from other map.

[MisterMagician.8614]

9 minutes ago, Buran.3796 said:

  You can equip two Bitterfrost rings if you attune or infuse one of them, since becomes different. But you can't do the same with the earing, so you need to get the second earing from other map.

So they have to be different affixes for the rings?

[Linken.6345]

7 hours ago, MisterMagician.8614 said:

So they have to be different affixes for the rings?

No it have to have diffrent infusion slots so if first one have 1 the other can have 2

They can have 2/2 but then one have to be attuned the other infused.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attuned_equipment

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infused_equipment

Edited December 3, 2023 by Linken.6345

[hudisgreat.8492]

All of the above is good advice, but l would strongly suggest you work on getting autoloot. It will drastically change the game you are playing (for the better). Good luck and welcome back. 

[gousgou.5438]

On 12/2/2023 at 1:19 PM, Buran.3796 said:

   Get the ascended trinkets from the seasonal maps, specifically Bitterfrost Frontier (ring, earing, back piece and underwater respirator, extremely fast to farm: around 50 winterberries x day x character in 5 minutes).

   

There is no way in hell someone can get 5min farms as the norm. For example in the video you linked almost all the berry shrubs were unguarded, on a guardian with aegis and the AoE farm glyph was used on a Consortium Harvesting Sickle (which by itself is the fastest tool in the game). The video only missed quickness and stealth application for the ultimate cheese.

A more realistic expectation would be 10-12mins for a solid berry farm run.

Just saying so the OP doesn't think he is useless for not finishing 5min clears.

 

[Buran.3796]

2 hours ago, gousgou.5438 said:

There is no way in hell someone can get 5min farms as the norm. For example in the video you linked almost all the berry shrubs were unguarded, on a guardian with aegis and the AoE farm glyph was used on a Consortium Harvesting Sickle (which by itself is the fastest tool in the game). The video only missed quickness and stealth application for the ultimate cheese.

A more realistic expectation would be 10-12mins for a solid berry farm run.

Just saying so the OP doesn't think he is useless for not finishing 5min clears.

 

    I'm using the fastest sickle (Consortium) with the Reaper glyph (cost me ~325 gold coins at the time, paid himself in weeks, current cost ~270 gc) with a combo of upgraded mounts. Several tactics can be used to speed up the process in case of enemy foes (since not entering in combat is usually the key): Guardians benefit for a bug which grants aegis every time they mount/dismount, Thieves can abuse stealth or you can just run a glass cannon and one-two shoot everything in 3 seconds. This farming  is ultra popular and at peak times everything will be dead due concurrent players...  So yes, my farming is optimized, but an average player with a raptor and yellow gear will do it in 8 minutes, because as I said the key is just avoiding combat and farming the berries (no wood, no enemies, etc.).

 @hudisgreat.8492: I agree, people unlocking central Tyria mastery points should spent them first in unlocking the auto loot since is a quality of life ability which is free and not paid locked as in most of MMOs.

[Donari.5237]

On 12/2/2023 at 5:07 AM, MisterMagician.8614 said:

How long do the return ones take to do?

That depends.  As I recall I did each of them the day they were released, so a few hours each at most.  However, day of release meant a giant zerg of players helping with the content.  Even the Chalice of Tears jp in Ember Bay had many friendly mesmers helping people through checkpoints.  Some of the objectives might be a little harder now if you can't find some help.  The rewards are very good for the effort, though.  Especially since you already have the skyscale, so you can dedicate the shower of map currency to something else.  The legendary amulet has been very nice to have.  If I recall correctly you also get your choice of a precursor for the Aurene legendary weapons, if I'm not mixing that up with a different series of achieves from the same era.

I don't think anyone else mentioned it yet in talking about the Wizard Vault dailies/weeklies:  For 1K of the currency (Astral Acclaim) you can get a legendary weapon starter kit which does almost all of a gen 1 legendary for you.  There's only a small set of choices of weapon, and two of them repeated from the first season to this one, but if you pick one that several of your alts use and then fill in the missing mats you'll have pretty much the cheapest legendary weapon you can find.

[asket.5674]

If you play multiple characters and intend to gear them all, go straight for the legendaries. Aurora, vision and regalia. Will take 1-2 months per items if you play casually and they are account wide items and can be used on any mx lvl character in your roster.