Guild Wars 2?

[chris369]

Why would the people on the high level fractals not appreciate it? If I go in as at level 2 – stop laughing! – does it somehow drag them down? We do a fractal, I go up to level 3, and they go up to their next level. Right? Or am I misunderstanding how it works? Is there some ingame resource to figure out what the heck is going on with fractals?

Also, I joined a fractal group from gw2.lfg.com with my level 40 character under the misapprehension that the levels scaled. The dudes in the group I’d joined sort of laughed and said, “Sorry, but that’s not going to work”. Do you need level 80 characters to go in? And where do I see my fractal level?

You only advance a fractal level if you complete a fractal set at your personal level or higher. Fractals take a while, so there’s not much incentive for someone to do a fractal level lower than their personal level, particularly below fractal level 10.

At fractal level 10 or higher you get a daily chest that can drop a purple ring rarely, if you do an even numbered level fractal. That’s the daily level 10 fractal groups you see advertised sometimes. You won’t advance a fractal level, but you still get the chest.

To see your fractal level go through the asura portal in lion’s gate. It’s a little west of the laurel vendor, near the southsun cove portal.

Two other problems with being level 40 in a fractal: you’ll have 20 fewer skill points, and 40 fewer talent points than the level 80s. Matters more for some classes than others, but even weak classes like thieves can profitably assign 40 talent points.

[malkav11]

I can like an RPG - type game for a variety of reasons. Tactical combat that isn’t just a click fest, an engaging story, good FPS-type combat. I don’t like action RPGs that are like Diablo / Torchlight / Titan’s Quest very much. I’m not so much of a loot chaser, although getting cool equipment that changes up gameplay or grants a new ability is good. I enjoyed games like The Witcher 1/2, Bioware RPGs, Dragon Age Origins. I would like Skyrim a lot if the combat was better, but I can’t seem to make it past level 20 before I get bored and quit.

BL2 has a really silly but well written story, strong FPS-type combat, and while the guns don’t typically involve a new ability, per se, they do differ wildly in handling, projectiles, etc. I would describe Guild Wars 2 as being most rewarding to someone who’s in it for exploration, as the story quests are lackluster, and the loot chase doesn’t (at least at low levels) do anything but increase stats. But there are a lot of cool little vignettes and dynamic events scattered all over the landscape, skill points to find and acquire, jumping puzzles and hidden achievements, etc. And I feel like there’s a lot of robust interplay between skills in GW2 that I don’t really understand and is much more evident in group play.

[robc04]

BL2 has a really silly but well written story, strong FPS-type combat, and while the guns don’t typically involve a new ability, per se, they do differ wildly in handling, projectiles, etc. I would describe Guild Wars 2 as being most rewarding to someone who’s in it for exploration, as the story quests are lackluster, and the loot chase doesn’t (at least at low levels) do anything but increase stats. But there are a lot of cool little vignettes and dynamic events scattered all over the landscape, skill points to find and acquire, jumping puzzles and hidden achievements, etc. And I feel like there’s a lot of robust interplay between skills in GW2 that I don’t really understand and is much more evident in group play.

I just picked up The BL 2 + Season Pass + BL 1 bundle on Amazon for $22. May also pick up GW2 because that also sounds cool. I think after this set of summer sales I won’t buy another game at least until Christmas.

[triggercut]

I’m trying to get back into GW2 but honestly I’m not feeling the “It’s easy!” part.

I’ve figured my rotations out again, and I’m doing fine at even spawns…

…but honestly I feel like I’m doing content that I could always do, and it’s not getting me anywhere. My gear probably sucks. I feel like I should/could do dungeons, but then I realize just how awful my gear and how rusty my skills are and I go back to…grinding surface content that I’ve done before.

[Delta]

Two questions!

1. What’s the purpose of the crafting “collection”? And where do things I put in there go?

2. What happens when I level up my crafting ranks?

[magnet]

Two questions!

1. What’s the purpose of the crafting “collection”? And where do things I put in there go?

2. What happens when I level up my crafting ranks?

The crafting collection automatically sorts and stores your basic crafting materials, which come from loot, using a salvage kit, or refinement. The easiest way to put stuff there is by selecting the option in your inventory screen. Once there, they will not take up your scarce bag or vault space (up to 250 each). Getting them out is even easier: they are automatically available to any character that needs them when crafting. You can also drag stuff out to your inventory (e.g. to sell at the trading post).

When you level up crafting ranks, new crafting options appear. Also, the XP obtained from older recipes is reduced.

[Peter_Jones]

So I have put a few hours into this so far. Enjoying it. Would love an invite to the QT3 guild. ID is DaddyMD.2648 . Thanks.

[Ephraim]

Purchased it through the Amazon sale, downloading the Mac beta client now. Hope to see you all soon, in game! 18 gig download… My SSD is not going to be happy with me!

[Phred]

I’m trying to get back into GW2 but honestly I’m not feeling the “It’s easy!” part.

…but honestly I feel like I’m doing content that I could always do, and it’s not getting me anywhere. My gear probably sucks. I feel like I should/could do dungeons, but then I realize just how awful my gear and how rusty my skills are and I go back to…grinding surface content that I’ve done before.

From my experience with the game I found that leveling to 60 got me one piece of orange gear and tradeskills helped me afford server others. Weapons off the ah and you should be fine for a dungeon group, or my char was.

[Phred]

I think you’re right, I simply need to get over needing a “foozle” to provide that sense of purpose.

I replaced the foozle with zone completion rewards. Yes, I’m shallow that way.

[triggercut]

From my experience with the game I found that leveling to 60 got me one piece of orange gear and tradeskills helped me afford server others. Weapons off the ah and you should be fine for a dungeon group, or my char was.

Dungeons I can do and have led. My main is 80.

I just feel very lost as to what to do with a main at 80. What the heck is a fractal?

[atticuslai]

Dungeons I can do and have led. My main is 80.

I just feel very lost as to what to do with a main at 80. What the heck is a fractal?

Fractal is a special kind of dungeon (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractal)

[Gedd]

Speaking of fractals, the group I run with has gotten a lot better with most of them as we’ve gotten experience with the encounters. There’s one fractal though that we always know is going to be a long, drawn-out slog…the Underground Facility. We can get through the first part with the switches generally ok, and we can get the end boss down now somewhat reliably (although our group tends to have issues with interrupting his heals), but the two parts in between gives us a world of trouble and we’ve frequently wondered if we’re missing something.

First, the bomb hallway. You have to take bombs to the door to blow it up. Meanwhile, many many dredge constantly spawn in. What’s the best way to deal with this? We tried sticking together as a group, clearing a path through, and putting the bombs down, but the dredge respawn too fast to keep the way clear, and we end up mired halfway through and eventually overwhelmed. The only way we’ve been able to get it down is to basically ignore the dredge, run for bombs, and pray we don’t die. Typically we end up wiping two or three times, but it gets us through.

Second, Rabsovich. There’s a champion and a limited (but fairly large) number of respawning dredge. Both have to be beaten. The champion can easily one shot you if you miss the tell for his big ability. We tried going into the room, killing some of the adds while working him down, but this proved to be fairly difficult and we would have trouble getting people back up because of the adds. We looked over the wiki and worked out a strat which basically involves pulling the adds to the door. Rabsovich (and frequently the adds) will leash, but it allows you to run through the add respawns without also having to worry about the boss. The only problem is, it’s very, very slow going.

We’ve been fortunate in the Fractals that many times if we pug a spot, we get someone who is very helpful and knowledgeable and willing to talk us through the more “accepted” strats, but we haven’t had anyone like that for Underground. Any advice for these two parts? Or is UF really just a long slog?

[Balasarius]

This game frustrates me. I die. A lot. The zone I’m in is always levelling up faster than me, and soon all I’m left with is +2 (and higher) hearts. I can begrudgingly understand with my characters in the 20s that the game is telling me to go someplace else. A newbie zone or something, I guess. I don’t want to, but, whatever. But this even happens in the newbie zone with my newbies. So… I’m supposed to go to someone else’s newbie zone? Ugh. I don’t want to do that.

[rhinohelix]

This game frustrates me. I die. A lot. The zone I’m in is always levelling up faster than me, and soon all I’m left with is +2 (and higher) hearts. I can begrudgingly understand with my characters in the 20s that the game is telling me to go someplace else. A newbie zone or something, I guess. I don’t want to, but, whatever. But this even happens in the newbie zone with my newbies. So… I’m supposed to go to someone else’s newbie zone? Ugh. I don’t want to do that.

Some don’ts:
-Don’t play this like WoW; while there are paths through zones, they are really more like guidelines. The Hub-gather quests-complete-new hub doesn’t exist in the same manner in GW2 as WoW, although there is a skeleton of that there because people are just MMO-trained that way after a decade of WoW dominance.

-Don’t just do hearts; make sure to take part in the events that are happening in the areas. Earlier on in the game’s development there were no hearts but as part of the issue noted above, people needed something to help guide them around the map.

-Don’t assume that events are one-shots and run off as soon as they are over; most are part of a multi-chain sequence that continues success or failure. Always stick around to see what happens. The next event in a chain you have been just seeing one portion of could be even more fun than the last.

-Don’t worry about a zone being “newbie”; your level scales to the area, and there are multiple areas of different scaling within a zone. Sure, it will be easier if you come back to it later but one can still die if you aren’t careful, in some cases easier than one would think.

• Don’t look at it as “newbie”; its all just content, and there are a number of very interesting stories being told in the “newbie” zones. No matter where I start, I always do the norn intro zone early on. It’s a lot of fun. Some of the “end-game” achievements (100% map completion, etc.) depend on every character visiting every zone. There are skill point available to be gathered in every zone as well.

[Telefrog]

Dying in the newbie zones? Are you moving while attacking? You really can’t just stand still in this game.

[fdsaion]

Speaking of fractals, the group I run with has gotten a lot better with most of them as we’ve gotten experience with the encounters. There’s one fractal though that we always know is going to be a long, drawn-out slog…the Underground Facility. We can get through the first part with the switches generally ok, and we can get the end boss down now somewhat reliably (although our group tends to have issues with interrupting his heals), but the two parts in between gives us a world of trouble and we’ve frequently wondered if we’re missing something.

First, the bomb hallway. You have to take bombs to the door to blow it up. Meanwhile, many many dredge constantly spawn in. What’s the best way to deal with this? We tried sticking together as a group, clearing a path through, and putting the bombs down, but the dredge respawn too fast to keep the way clear, and we end up mired halfway through and eventually overwhelmed. The only way we’ve been able to get it down is to basically ignore the dredge, run for bombs, and pray we don’t die. Typically we end up wiping two or three times, but it gets us through.

Second, Rabsovich. There’s a champion and a limited (but fairly large) number of respawning dredge. Both have to be beaten. The champion can easily one shot you if you miss the tell for his big ability. We tried going into the room, killing some of the adds while working him down, but this proved to be fairly difficult and we would have trouble getting people back up because of the adds. We looked over the wiki and worked out a strat which basically involves pulling the adds to the door. Rabsovich (and frequently the adds) will leash, but it allows you to run through the add respawns without also having to worry about the boss. The only problem is, it’s very, very slow going.

We’ve been fortunate in the Fractals that many times if we pug a spot, we get someone who is very helpful and knowledgeable and willing to talk us through the more “accepted” strats, but we haven’t had anyone like that for Underground. Any advice for these two parts? Or is UF really just a long slog?

Again, haven’t run Fractals in months, so this is hearsay from the internets. Apparently many groups running high-level fractals simply restart the whole thing if they roll Dredge (apparently it’s quicker to run any three other fractals then to just do the single dredge fractal).

[LockerK]

Speaking of fractals, the group I run with has gotten a lot better with most of them as we’ve gotten experience with the encounters. There’s one fractal though that we always know is going to be a long, drawn-out slog…the Underground Facility. We can get through the first part with the switches generally ok, and we can get the end boss down now somewhat reliably (although our group tends to have issues with interrupting his heals), but the two parts in between gives us a world of trouble and we’ve frequently wondered if we’re missing something.

First, the bomb hallway. You have to take bombs to the door to blow it up. Meanwhile, many many dredge constantly spawn in. What’s the best way to deal with this? We tried sticking together as a group, clearing a path through, and putting the bombs down, but the dredge respawn too fast to keep the way clear, and we end up mired halfway through and eventually overwhelmed. The only way we’ve been able to get it down is to basically ignore the dredge, run for bombs, and pray we don’t die. Typically we end up wiping two or three times, but it gets us through.

Second, Rabsovich. There’s a champion and a limited (but fairly large) number of respawning dredge. Both have to be beaten. The champion can easily one shot you if you miss the tell for his big ability. We tried going into the room, killing some of the adds while working him down, but this proved to be fairly difficult and we would have trouble getting people back up because of the adds. We looked over the wiki and worked out a strat which basically involves pulling the adds to the door. Rabsovich (and frequently the adds) will leash, but it allows you to run through the add respawns without also having to worry about the boss. The only problem is, it’s very, very slow going.

We’ve been fortunate in the Fractals that many times if we pug a spot, we get someone who is very helpful and knowledgeable and willing to talk us through the more “accepted” strats, but we haven’t had anyone like that for Underground. Any advice for these two parts? Or is UF really just a long slog?

The dredge fractal is by far the worst in terms of time and execution. First off, for the hallway the best strategy is to get the mining laser path :). If that fails, my group likes to clear out everything up to the stairs, then have people run and dodge through the hallway one by one. Ideally your tankiest party members will go first so they can pull most of the dredge aggro. In my group, we usually have a guardian chain Aegis who goes first, then myself as an engineer, then either our squishy classes run or stay in the hall between the door and the stairs clearing a path for us to escape. I can usually make it to the door, plant, and then pop my 3 second invulnerability elixir to escape. Once the bombs are planted, run all the way down the stairs, and back to the door that starts that segment. That will clear some of the dredge out and let you pull smaller groups to repeat the above process. It usually takes us 3 or 4 rotations to clear this hallway, and a couple of deaths (usually on the squishies) are common.

Rabsovich is a fight that you can still cheese through, to my knowledge. When you enter his room, hug the left wall, and there’s a small wooden structure that you can hop up on. Hop to the second level and have everyone stack, then plink away. Generally you can avoid most of the damage, with one person taking what does come up, so be prepared to drop a ton of AOE heals or be quick on the revive. It is a slow fractal on the whole, and if my group ever gets it as the first pull, we go back to the lab for a reroll. Thankfully since hitting 20 it’s only come up once.

[Balasarius]

Dying in the newbie zones? Are you moving while attacking? You really can’t just stand still in this game.

I dodge big attacks, but what does moving do? You can only dodge twice. And yes, dying in the newbie zone when I’ve completed all the content and the only thing left to me are +2 (or higher) areas. Get an add and it’s over.

[Telefrog]

The dodge move is good, but circle-strafe works wonders for keeping the enemy in your cone of attack while making him waste his moves on empty air.

Also, are you skipping a lot of dynamic content? I don’t think I’ve ever run out of leveled stuff to do while wandering. In fact, I’m usually technically over the level for the area I’m in by the time I complete all the content.