Alright, folks. Let’s get down to business.
Which one will be your main ride?
- Raptor (dino-runner)
- Springer (giant rabbit)
- Skimmer (floating manta ray thing)
- Jackal (dust-devil wolf)
0
voters
Well, every mount has its use. If I go to Orr, for example, I’m sure I’ll use the Skimmer almost exclusively. Though the one that looks coolest to me is the Jackal, so that will be my vote (for now). ;)
Ok, so I have a “Magic Carpet” travel toy. It would be perfect to use in Elona (since my Mesmer also uses mostly Embroidered armor with a Conjurer chest piece), but with mounts, I don’t feel it will make much sense to use it, except on very specific situations. Oh welp.
Path of Fire is live now, and I won’t be able to play for at least another 8 hours or so. Sigh.
Sh!t Bonerz isn’t on this list!
One of the transfers of Tom’s recent campaigning, I must say I have been a bit disappointed before even actually creating a character: since account creation, I have been asked multiple times about regions and servers, with no clue of what this implies.
The region you choose will affect the other players you encounter. For instance, if you want people to be mostly speaking English and mostly playing when North Americans are awake, then choose North America as your region.
Each region has multiple servers. This used to matter a lot, since it was more difficult to play with friends unless they signed up for the same server. Nowadays, that’s less of a problem.
The server you choose will still affect the general density of random people playing around you. Here is a table of server populations.
If you play WvW, which is sort of a giant scale PvP, then you will always play on the same side as other people on your server. So you may want to consider server rankings, and decide if you want to play in a more competitive environment.
Finally, Tarnished Coast (NA) and Piken Square (EU) are unofficial “role-playing” servers. That doesn’t mean you need to role-play (i.e. use chat/emotes in character) but you are more likely to run into people who are doing so, which might be either charming or annoying depending on your perspective. Both servers are currently full, FWIW.
You can transfer to a different server after you choose, but it usually will cost you in-game currency.
Thank you for all the explanations!
… and here I am two months later playing a new Ranger with the PoF expansion courtesy of Tom’s Patreon giveaway.
(I’m keeping my level 80 mesmer on the shelf - I never figured out how to play it in a way I found to be fun.)
I own but haven’t played the seasonal content, so I’m thinking I’ll just run through the personal story (ignoring any attempt to clear zones or whatnot), season two, HoT, and season three, and then into the new PoF content. Is there any reason to believe that is a bad idea? Anything I should hit out of sequence - like getting the mount? I assume that is part of the PoF story line or something? It looks like I’m earning mastery points (I’ve got eleven?), but can’t spend them on anything yet - there are little lock icons next the area names.
I may jump back into this. It’s been a long time since I played it. I typically like ranged attacks and I also like pet classes. What do you folks recommend I play?
And since I will start over, do I need the expansion? Will that enhance my starting experience in any way?
It’s not a bad idea. Just keep in mind that leveling can require taking part in events and all, besides the story missions.
Mounts can’t be used inside instances like story missions and fractals, so if you’re sticking to story, you won’t miss them a lot. But if you want to go through maps and especially if you want to do map completion, you should unlock them as quickly as you can.
The first mount unlocks in the first part of the story in PoF. You can unlock the others separately, but to access their areas you basically need to unlock the third mastery in the previous mount, so it will require a lot of time in the PoF areas, and with those might come spoilers for the rest of the story you’re about to play. So it might be good to wait.
You have to select a mastery to train, but you can’t train masteries until you’re level 80. When you get to 80, any additional experience you get will go to training masteries, and when a mastery is fully trained, you can spend a number of mastery points to unlock it.
Oh, should have mentioned I took the level 80 boost for my Ranger. No leveling for me!
Ranger seems like the obvious choice, and it’s fairly easy to play too, which helps. Necromancers can have “pets”, so to speak, and they can be quite powerful and interesting to play. That said, Necromancer “pet” builds can be a bit tricky in many situations.
You don’t need them at first, no, but they are a definite improvement over the base game. Play just the base game and see if you like it now. If you do, then buy the expansions. ;)
Then you need to pick one mastery to train. You can pick one per region. Once the yellow bar in the bottom part of the screen fills up, you’ll be able to spend mastery points to unlock the mastery you were training, and then pick the next one to train.
Ah, okay! Thanks for the help!
Just keep in mind that experience for mastery training works per-region. For instance, to train Central Tyria masteries, you need to gain XP in Central Tyria. To train Heart of Maguuma masteries, you have to gain XP in the maps in that region, and so on and so forth. The mastery regions are well labeled in the masteries screen.
Do folks who just get the base game have to pay for seasons two and three? Because those are both pretty cool. Especially season three which has kept me plenty occupied without even getting into the new Path of Fire stuff yet.
-Tom
What kinds of activities keep you occupied with the seasons? Is it working your way through storyline missions or are there things to do aside from that?
I think seasons 2 and 3 need to be paid for no matter what. I have the expansions (thanks again Tom and benefactor, seriously, it’s awesome, etc), and I still see the seasons as purchasable with gems.
Yes you need to pay, unless you logged-in during the period when each episode was current.