Where to find a newbie Primer

[Sabrecat.4921]

So I just started GW2, bought the expansion packs and base game. I have enjoyed it a lot so far. The whole concept of your abilities changing based on your weapon type selected is, to me, amazing! I find myself though getting to around level 20, then deleting and starting fresh, because I just don't know what to do. I used one of my 2 level 80 tokens on a Mesmer, and she is a blast to play, but even if I knew how to get into group content, I would hesitate because 1) I have no real clue what role a mesmer plays in a group, and 2) I presume that the gear I got when I used the token is, comparatively speaking, utter crap, and don't want to inflict that on any unsuspecting players, and 3) I am relatively sure that I don't have clue one how to effectively play my class.

 

So, I have a few questions for this group.

 

1) Where could I find a FAQ, or primer, or Wikki or anything that would give me an idea of what to do when you hit level cap. Whats the End Game philosophy? Whats is there to do at end game?

 

2) Same as #1, but leveling a character from 1 - 80. What are good builds (if thats a thing...), whats a good leveling strategy. Wheres a good explanation of what role your class plays in a group? Is the concept of the "holy trinity" (Tank, DPS, Heals) a thing?

 

3) Money making strategies. How can I use my max level character to provide a, modest, amount of cash for my newbies?

 

Any information, web sites, or videos anyone cares to respond with are *greatly* appreciated!

[Hevoskuuri.3891]

Hello and welcome to Tyria!

 

I'm currently on a mobile browser, so fetching links and finding videos is not really an option, but I'm sure the thread will be filled with helpful links soon enough, so I'm just going to talk about some basics.

 

First of all, you'll want to start a character from scratch, and level up to 80 in the old-fashioned way. There's no rush there, take your time learning the game mechanics and explore the open world. If you start your journey on a boosted character, you'll have no idea about anything and all the content will simply overwhelm you and frustrate you. Take your time, seriously. Generally the leveling progress is almost always the same, some activities giving slightly more exp than others, but the best way to approach leveling is simply doing what interests you. Do hearts, explore, do crafting, find dynamic events, whatever you decide to do will give you experience. Remember to learn resource gathering and item salvaging from early on, as you'll get a decent income from that as well as free crafting ingredients if that's your thing. Also, don't worry about builds or optimal setups until you hit max level; gear is pretty much irrelevant during leveling.

 

The GW2 wiki is your best friend in all informative things. Before you start leveling, be sure to read all the profession articles and decide what profession sounds the most appealing to you. There's also information on their end-game roles and respective elite specs you'll later want to unlock. The holy trinity mentality exists here in some form, but mostly the classes are all self-sufficient enough to overcome any end-game content with any kind of team compositions (even if it's not optimal).

 

As for moneymaking, gathering (especially in the higher-level zones) and salvaging unwanted items will keep some gold rolling in, be sure to check out how it works in the wiki. Also, there are three dailies you can do every day (such as jumping puzzles, reaching a certain vista, or gathering a certain ingredient). These are visible in the achievements menu as well as in the right corner of your UI, and will reward 2 gold and 10 achievement points every day if you complete them. For max-level characters, several farms exist, but you shouldn't worry about those just yet. You'll do fine with gathering/salvaging and selling the materials on the trading post (do NOT sell to the npc mechants, you'll lose a huge amount of profit) until you're level 80 and geared in exotics.

 

Well, I hope this helped a little bit, and hopefully someone will find you links and further information to kick off your journey. Again, welcome and have fun!

 

 

[Danikat.8537]

I don't think there's a single post/video/document that covers all of that, and if there is it might be out of date.

 

The official Wiki is a good place to start - it's hosted by Anet and written by players and it's got info on pretty much everything. The links on the front page, especially under Basics, Gameplay and Exploring the World are probably a good place to start: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Main_Page

 

The other good resource is this forum, especially the Players Helping Players section. You can ask any questions you have, or you might be able to find topics that answer them already.

 

I'll post more specific answers to your questions when I'm off work, in about 3 hours (if someone else doesn't beat me to it). :)

[akenoyuki.8210]

Welcome to GW2, I hope you have great time here! :D

 

`FAQ / Wiki / Others`

- Wiki: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Main_Page

- You can go to https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/categories/players-helping-players if you have more specific question

People at Forum are really nice and will answer you most of the time :)

 

`Leveling`

- The Normal Way (I recommend this method if you're new in GW2)

Do every story and side Quest you found in game

Explore every Map and get Familiar with GW2 Gameplay Mechanic or your Class Gameplay.

 

- [World Boss](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World_boss) Train

Basically what you need to do is join a squad using the LFG tool (Default keybind to open LFG is Y).

Search for the Squad that have "World Boss / WB Train" name on it. Say hi on chat and follow the squad leader (we call it commander here) instruction.

**World Boss is Spawned at Fixed Time, using Website / Android / IOS app that have the Meta Event Timer will help you a lot.**

`Website`: [Wiki Timer](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers) | [GW2Timer.com](gw2timer.com) | [Dulfy Timer](http://dulfy.net/2014/04/23/event-timer/)

`Android`: [Guild Wars 2 Helper](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Akeno.Guild_Wars_2_Helper)

`iOS`: I'm not using iOS, but there should be some GW2 app for it if you search on App Store.

 

- Crafting

You will get experience if you craft an item.

It's a fast leveling method but I do not recommend this at all.

Its boring and since you're new, you don't have some of the required material to craft (You can buy the material but for some end-material, it's costly).

 

`Money`

There are many Method and Guide Online, but here are some of my favorites way to making gold that are not too hard.

- [Daily Quest](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Daily) (This will give you 2 gold and can be done daily)

- Heart of Thorn Meta Train and Path of Fire Palawadan Raid (How you do it is basically the same World Boss Train, join LFG and obey commander words)

- [silverwaste RIBA](https://www.guildmag.com/sand-gold-silverwastes-monetary-guide/)

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

You can access the official Wiki using the link above (top of this, and most GuildWars2.com pages) or in-game by typing /Wiki (topic of choice) in the chat window. I believe WoodenPotatoes and Bog Otter have tutorial-type videos on YouTube; I'm sure there are many others. There's a very basic guide (Online Manual) you can peruse (link below), offered by ArenaNet, as well.

 

As others have stated, it is best to level 1 or 2 characters naturally, to learn the game and the Professions' mechanics. When leveling, you can enter any map that is level-appropriate; for example, there are 5 starter zones, one for each Race. There should be a Waypoint open in each, or you can travel to each of the 5 Racial Cities through Lion's Arch. Each Racial City will have a portal to Lion's Arch. Also, make sure to pay attention to the Level-up Tutorial tips given at each level. Also, explore fully your Hero Panel and all the options on the left-hand side.

 

Dailies will be, unfortunately, set for characters L1 - L80, since you used the L80 Boost. You can check the Wiki for tips on which Dailies are easiest. Don't be afraid of entering WvW for some of the very easy, and usually safe, Dailies.

 

Welcome to Tyria, and good luck.

 

 

[Danikat.8537]

Welcome to GW2! I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. :) Here's a few things it might be helpful to know:

 

**Equipment:** As you may have heard there is no gear grind in this game, which means the gear is fairly straight-forward compared to many games. There are 2 things which affect how good equipment is: the rarity and the level requirement, and there's only 6 rarities: Common (white text), Fine (blue), Masterwork (green), Rare (yellow), Exotic (orange) and Ascended (pink). On top of that the difference between exotic and ascended rarities is very small (about 5%) and except for a few end-game areas everything is balanced for exotics, so you don't need ascended. (Which is good, because its also designed as a long-term goal so it's relatively expensive and difficult to get.) So in terms of straight stats the equipment you've got is fine for almost everything, including most end-game stuff.

 

But what does make a big difference is the stat combination. The equipment you've got has Soldier's stats - Power, Toughness and Vitality. Power increases your direct damage, Toughness increases your armour and Vitality increases your health - so that's 2/3 defensive stats. For some builds (yes they're a thing) that might be great, but if you want a damage focused build and especially if you want one using conditions (which aren't affected by power) it's not great.

 

So in short the gear you've got now is fine, and there's no reason to avoid group activities because of it, but when you have some idea of what build you want you may want to get a different stat combination.

 

You can find all the different stat combination here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute_combinations#Three_attributes

and info on where to find each one here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Equipment_acquisition_by_stats

(Importantly because only the rarity and level requirement affects how good equipment is you can choose whichever method you prefer - there's no such thing as crafted gear being better than drops or dungeon gear being better than crafted.)

 

**Builds & Roles:** There is no 'holy trinity' in GW2. It was designed so that any profession could fulfil any role, which Anet called Damage, Support and Control, because they wanted to emphasise that non-damage roles weren't simply about healing people (even now you can't play a meaningful role just by healing other players in your team, and as you might have noticed they have to have a healing skill of their own which is usually pretty good) and drawing aggro - 'tanking' in GW2 can be as much about disabling the enemy as absorbing their damage.

 

The initial result of that was basically that everyone went pure-damage and relied on killing things before they could do much in response. Later releases (like the Fractals of the Mists dungeon and raids) changed things so that doesn't work, and people do now use other roles, but it's still (mostly) true that any profession can fill any role - which one/s you want to do is up to you.

 

**Levelling:** A good strategy is to do pretty much whatever you want. A lot of people recommend levelling a character naturally even if you have the Level 80 boost because you'll learn a lot about the game that way. As you may have already noticed almost everything you can do will give you XP so a popular way of levelling is to complete open-world maps: Do all the heart quests, find Points of Interest, Vistas and Hero Points as you're going along and importantly do any Dynamic Events you come across because they give good XP.

 

What you **don't** want to do is stay in one place killing enemies over and over. That actually gives relatively little XP, it's extremely boring and there's a system called Diminishing Returns which means if you do it too long the little XP you're getting will stop coming.

 

But if you get bored with open-world maps you can also do dungeons from level 30 onwards (you may need to join a guild and ask them to do it with you or make your own LFG message as many people only do them at level 80), you can do big meta-events like defending the forts and fighting the bosses in Silverwastes (where the level 80 boost teleported you) or do World vs. World (large scale PvP) and PvP (5 vs. 5) which don't give XP directly but do give Tomes of Knowledge which give you 1 level each.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"Sabrecat.4921" said:

> So I just started GW2, bought the expansion packs and base game. I have enjoyed it a lot so far. The whole concept of your abilities changing based on your weapon type selected is, to me, amazing! I find myself though getting to around level 20, then deleting and starting fresh, because I just don't know what to do. I used one of my 2 level 80 tokens on a Mesmer, and she is a blast to play, but even if I knew how to get into group content, I would hesitate because 1) I have no real clue what role a mesmer plays in a group, and 2) I presume that the gear I got when I used the token is, comparatively speaking, utter crap, and don't want to inflict that on any unsuspecting players, and 3) I am relatively sure that I don't have clue one how to effectively play my class.

>

> So, I have a few questions for this group.

>

> 1) Where could I find a FAQ, or primer, or Wikki or anything that would give me an idea of what to do when you hit level cap. Whats the End Game philosophy? Whats is there to do at end game?

>

> 2) Same as #1, but leveling a character from 1 - 80. What are good builds (if thats a thing...), whats a good leveling strategy. Wheres a good explanation of what role your class plays in a group? Is the concept of the "holy trinity" (Tank, DPS, Heals) a thing?

>

> 3) Money making strategies. How can I use my max level character to provide a, modest, amount of cash for my newbies?

>

> Any information, web sites, or videos anyone cares to respond with are *greatly* appreciated!

 

Hi! I'm sure everyone else is going to cover the obvious like GW2 wiki, etc. But I just wanted to say that if you play on North American servers I am always glad to help new players out in game. So feel free to add me to your contact list and hit me up with any questions, if you need help with anything, or if you just want someone to run around and do events, etc. with. All I need is an excuse to play! So just give me a reason!