New Players: Welcome to Guild Wars 2!

[Cifrer.6013]

You can get some quick and easy experience by exploring the home cities for all the races, this can also give you a peek into their starting areas. If you start having difficulty with a higher leveled area or are just getting bored with the theme of a zone, it's always a good idea to just hop on over to somewhere else.

[Tsakhi.8124]

Firstly, welcome!~ <3

 

So, a few things that might help you:

 

Crafting is a good thing to learn to tide you over when you're battle weary. I'd suggest learning the chef profession; not only does it aid with the leveling up process, to some it can be relaxing. Also, remember that pretty much everything you do nets you experience, so try to experience everything you can _at your own pace_ that is the beauty of this game.

 

Also, if you have a limited amount of players slots, I suggest leveling a "class" to at least level 40, so you can get a true feel of how things work, if you still don't like the feel, delete the character and make a new one.

 

Finally, remember that there are a lot of people out there that are more than happy to lend a hand. I know that's already been said, but I figured it needed reiteration.

[Anthony.3207]

My best advice is take your time / be patient / and maked slow focused goals. Every time you get a chance to play - try to knock out a little bit of game content. Explore and experiment but also go slowly.

 

For the gem store - I bought an outfit I like as well as a glider skin and a back peices skin.

 

Best to focus on 1 skin rather than try to collect them. But if you want achievements see below_

 

Do NOT try to complete all the achievements right away. Most achievement points come from daily or gem store collections. With those 2 complete - you can hit about 25K achievement points.

 

Goodluck and be well.

[Killjoy.9213]

The best advice I can give is Praise Balthazar!

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I have several pro tips. First, learn to dodge.

 

Guild Wars 2 is an action MMO. It isn't like other MMOs where you stand in place and press buttons. It's more like Dark Souls, in that you are expected to read telegraphed animations, then use your skills to avoid their attacks. There are several ways to do this:

 

(1): Dodge. It's bound to the "V" key to start. Doing this will have your toon hilariously tumble in whatever direction your moving. But more importantly, *for 3/4ths of a second you will avoid all damage.* It's like a little immunity button. If an attack is coming, hit the immunity button.

(2): Just walk out of the way. There are a lot of attacks that are slow enough that you can just move out of the way. It is often easiest to walk through the enemy, but walking around the enemy also works.

(3): There are a lot of skills that can block, dodge, or make you invulnerable. You can use one of those as well.

(4): You can interrupt an attack with a crowd control (CC) skill. More on that later.

(5): If you inflict the blind condition on an enemy, their next attack will miss automatically. For leveling and fighting anything that doesn't have a break bar, blinds are sort of overpowered in this game.

 

Remember to watch your enemies. As you become more knowledge in the game, you'll instinctively know when to dodge and when not to.

 

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The Berserker Meta. No, not the class.

 

The game was designed PVP forward, with gear prefixes (Knight, Soldier, Rabid, Carrion, etc) meant to personalize your playstyle. At no point are you ever meant to be incapable, either in dealing damage or in receiving damage. Because of this, *there are no hard roles in the game.* If you go for full defense, you can still do enough damage to kill things. But, more importantly, even if you build for full offensive stats, you will still be capable of taking quite a few hits. This has lead to something called the PVE Berserker Meta. Named so because of the Berserker Gear Prefix, or gear that gives you power, precision, and ferocity. Really, it refers to any gear that is loaded full of offensive stats.

 

Basically, early on we figured out several things, and the game has sort of been built upon it later.. The short version is this: the best way to play the game in PVE is to go full glass cannon, no matter what class you're playing:

 

(1): You can avoid most damage in the game by dodging, blocking, blinding, interrupting, or otherwise avoiding attacks.

(2): After each fight, you'll fully heal when out of combat. Because of this, there's no worry about long-term health loss. Win by an inch or win by a mile, once the battle is won you go back to maximum.

(3): Killing things fast is always preferable to killing things slowly. The faster something is dead, the faster you get rewards, and the more overall content you can complete in a set playtime.

(4): It is really easy and free to change your traits and your skills around. But, changing your gear around is expensive and takes a relatively long time. So, if you need more defenses, you are better off changing tactics, or changing utilities, or changing traits.

(5): Glass cannon builds sort of carry themselves. Since death is the ultimate debuff, even if you can't survive many attacks, the enemy won't live long enough to give many attacks anyway.

 

In high end PVE there are some exceptions to the rule. But in general, you'll want to go for maximum damage. For power based builds, you'll want to go for *Berserker Gear*, which is Power + Precision + Ferocity. For condition based builds, you'll want to go with *Vipers*, which is Power + Condition Damage + Condition Duration + Precision. Though Vipers is available in the HoT expansion, so if you just have the base game or have Path of Fire, you'll find *Sinister* to be a decent replacement for Vipers.

 

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Break Bars and Crowd Control. Also known as CC.

 

There is an important mechanic in the game that... really isn't explained that well anywhere. This is the break bar. You may notice in some enemies, particularly the gold-emblem champions and higher, that they will have a bar underneath of their health. This bar is light blue, but turns dark orange after it runs out. This is the *Break Bar.* It is like a second health bar, except it takes damage from Crowd Control effects instead of just regular damage. This bar is important, for two reasons. First, when it runs out the enemy will be stunned for 5 seconds, in which they will take a lot of additional damage. Second, there are a lot of really big attacks that do a lot of damage, and the only way to stop those attacks is to break their bar when it appears.

 

Because of all this, it is important to know what CC is. There are two types of CC in the game, hard and soft.

 

(1)Hard CC is called such because it does a lot of break bar damage instantly. This includes stuns, dazes, push, pull, knockback, knockdown, launch, sink, float, and certain transformation skills. Basically, anything that violently throws an enemy around does hard CC. Whenever you need to break a bar fast, you'll want to use these skills.

 

(2)Soft CC is called such because it does a low amount of break bar damage over time. These include most disabling conditions. In order of effectiveness: Fear, Taunt, Immobilize, Slow, Chilled, Blinded, Weakness Crippled. Fear and Taunt are so strong that they might as well be hard CC. In general, you won't be relying on these skills to do break bar damage. But, if you are facing an enemy that has a bar up permanently, loading up a bunch of soft CC is a good way to get consistent breaks.

 

One important thing to note is that, while hard CC stacks, Soft CC doesn't stack. If you have 5 different people inflicting chill on an enemy, it is no different than having one person inflict chill on an enemy. Because of this, Hard CC is king, and Soft CC is largely trivial.

 

 

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Fight in melee range.

 

This one is really simple. You can't tab-target players with skills in this game. All of the buff and heal skills affect an area. Some are targeted to an area, but others just affect a fixed radius around you. To maximize buffs and heals, you'll want to stay in relatively close range with other players.

 

Also, in general, know that melee weapons almost always outdamage ranged ones. There is no official "ranged class" in this game, and melee weapons can hit several enemies in their arc. Because of this, while you'll instinctively want to hang back and plink away with a ranged weapon, you can do a lot more damage and be a lot more effective if you whip out a sword and start cutting it up in close range.

[nottsgman.8206]

quick tip:

when slotting/switching skills into the 6-0 places, don't try and click the tiny little arrow above the icons. just right-click the big icon instead. it does the same thing, but it's much easier to click, and less chance of accidentally activating the skill.

[juhani.5361]

Welcome to GW2! I hope you have a blast :)

 

I'm going to go really newbie for a second because it took me awhile to understand the most basic of basics:

 

1. See that tree that another player is logging? You can harvest it too! Every mining node, plant node, and tree node is available for every player to harvest. Don't feel guilty like I did racing another player for it right after I got my first farming tools ;)

2. Feel free to take a shot or two at the enemy another player is fighting. You both get experience and your own individual loot.

3. When you've cleared the map for one starting area, go visit the starting maps for other cultures instead of heading into the second chapter of your personal story. Open your map (M key), and look for the starting waypoints in the Caledon Forest (Sylvari), Metrica Province (Asura), Plains of Ashford (Charr), Wayfarer Foothills (Norn), and Queensdale (Human). Don't forget to explore each of the cultural cities, either. There's a lot of lore, fun, and beautiful scenery waiting for you.

4. When you do the hearts on the map, see if that bear trap another player just clicked is available when they're done. A lot of the areas have shared quest clickables-- something that totally blew me away coming from SWTOR.

 

Take your time and smell the roses. There's a lot of fun waiting for you!

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

> @"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

> Oh, here's something that confused the heck out of me when I was new:

> On the Dailies, you will often see tasks and events in certain areas. While the ones in a specific map are obvious, the ones in a region are totally confusing until you know the geography. So, for dailies like mining, vista viewing, etc:

>

> Maguuma Jungle: (Not to be confused with Maguuma Wastes or Heart of Maguuma) This area covers Metrica Province, Caledon Forest, Rata Sum, The Grove, Brisban Wildlands, Sparkfly Fen and Mount Maelstrom.

>

> Ascalon: Plains of Ashford, the Black Citadel, Diessa Plateau, Iron Marches, Blazeridge Steppes, Fields of Ruin and Fireheart Rise

>

> Kryta: Queensdale, Divinity's Reach, Kessex Hills, Gendarren Fields, Harathi Hinterlands, Bloodtide Coast and Southsun Cove

>

> The Shiverpeaks: Wayfarer's Foothills, Hoelbrak, Snowden Drifts, Lornar's Pass, Dredgehaunt Cliffs, Timberline Falls and Frostgorge Sound.

>

> Orr/Ruins of Orr: Straits of Devastation, Malchor's Leap, Cursed Shore.

>

> (There are also some Living Season 3 maps in each of these areas, but you won;t have access to them until you unlock (buy) and play those stories.)

>

> Anything that says Maguuma Wastes means the Living Season 2 maps of Dry Top and Silverwastes.

>

> Heart of Maguuma means the Heart of Thorns maps (Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, Tangled Depths, Dragons Stand.)

> Anything that says Desert means the Path of Fire maps, Crystal Oasis, Desert Highlands, Elonian Riverlands, The Desolation, Domain of Vabbi (or living season 3 maps)

 

Or, click the Daily Achievement in the UI which will open the Achievement Hero Panel and list all the pertinent maps for that Achievement. (A bit easier than trying to remember which maps belong to which Regions. I do that, sometimes, to this day.)

[Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365]

Let the in game music be turned on as much as possible the first time you play the game. Really beautiful music.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Oh! Here's one a lot of new players miss: Stick around a bit after a Dynamic Event ends (or follow the NPC, if applicable), as many Dynamic Events chain and continue their little 'story'.

[Solidaris.5423]

Hello and welcome to the game! Take your time to experience the game and of course don't be afraid to ask in-game map chat using /map . There will be someone who can answer a question and if not you can look it up on wiki using the /wiki command.

 

Also I volunteer as a tribute if you have a question you can /whisper me in-game (I'm on EU)

 

Good luck and have fun!

[Curunen.8729]

Buy the Copper Fed Salvage-o-matic as soon as you can from the gemstore.

 

Don't be forced into playing what's "meta" unless you intend to raid or aim for high rank pvp. Play what you enjoy thematically.

 

[sitarskee.5738]

Don't be afraid to ask for help in /map chat. People are more than often willing to help out.

 

Don't worry about the gear as you will get good enough from personal story and from drops.

 

Have fun.

[Vespian Doom.4839]

When doing meta events or champs, if it still has quite a bit of health PLEASE WAYPOINT WHEN YOU'RE DEAD. It takes much longer to resurrect from death compared to downed and the other players will thank you immensely.

 

Now if the boss is 10% or less I find it acceptable to wait for a res. I've seen many events and meta's fail due to players not waypointing even though it was right next to them, and other players were trying to res the dead instead of doing potential dps.

 

In advance, thanks to those who actually do this <3

[aspirine.6852]

Is Vayne already in this topic? If so the rest of us do not need to do anything any more ?

[Leablo.2651]

Any interesting reasons for the influx? Or just marketing doing its job?

[Solidaris.5423]

> @"Leablo.2651" said:

> Any interesting reasons for the influx? Or just marketing doing its job?

 

Bless Online came out yesterday which was hyped pretty much for a looooooong time now.

But it had a catastrophic launch which made some youtubers (like Lazy Peon) to say that he does not recommend Bless but people should come to GW2 because they now enjoy it.

[CETheLucid.3964]

Welcome to Guild Wars 2. I would only add to what everyone else has already said is: if you see people around you locally and you're trying to do an event, skill point, or whatever, don't be afraid to invite them or invite yourself to party with the UI.

 

Worst case scenario they reject it and you both move on. But it's a way of meeting people and generally getting help for what you need. I've never declined people that do this with me and very rarely have I been rejected when I pulled it with others.

 

In an open world game like this one, it's a nice change of pace to meet others and find a short-term goals to achieve together. This game rewards you for doing lots of different things and even the veteran get's something out of it.

 

Don't be a stranger. Be strange and try inviting yourself to random people. It could prove interesting. =)

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

> @"Hesacon.8735" said:

> A unique feature of how the game works is dynamic level scaling. It means you're never too high of a level for content, and the rewards for low level content are identical to higher level content. I totally missed this at first.

 

Another thing this means, it doesn't really do you any good to sneak your lower level character into a higher level map. Levels scale down to the area level, but not up. Not only will you die whenever an enemy breathes in your direction, but you will not get any XP from kills too high above your level.

 

That being said, you get MUCH more XP from doing events, hearts, exploration, etc. than you do from just random killing, so go find yourself some fun content to play instead of spawn-camping. ^^

 

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> Or, click the Daily Achievement in the UI which will open the Achievement Hero Panel and list all the pertinent maps for that Achievement. (A bit easier than trying to remember which maps belong to which Regions. I do that, sometimes, to this day.)

 

Wow, I did not know that. So many little details in this game...

[Turkeyspit.3965]

Been here for about 4 months, so that makes me a Veteranewb, and here is my advice to new players:

 

1. Click on the chat window

2. Type /m

3. Ask about anything

 

Everyone on your current map will see the question, and I'm almost 100% sure that whatever question you may have, someone on the map will be able to help you with the answer.

 

Regardless if you've come from a traditionally 'toxic' MMO, or if you've only heard stories of such, GW2 is not that game, and the players and community are incredibly kind and helpful. If you have a question, or you need help with a quest or event, don't feel shy or afraid to ask for it.

 

Welcome to Tyria!

 

[Dravis.7681]

Best advice I got as a new player was to make sure to craft your daily ascended mats once you get any of your crafting disciplines up to level 450. Specifically:

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Crafting_material#Ascended_crafting_materials

 

The mats listed under step 1 of "Ectoplasm Refinement". I had no idea what they were for, but I crafted them every day as advised. Once the time came for me to start crafting ascended gear and I started working on my first legendary weapon, I was **very** glad I had listened to that advice. :tongue:

 

Second best advice I ever got: dulfy.net

 

Runners Up: gw2efficiency.com and gw2timer.com

[Marleen.8549]

> @"CETheLucid.3964" said:

> Welcome to Guild Wars 2. I would only add to what everyone else has already said is: if you see people around you locally and you're trying to do an event, skill point, or whatever, don't be afraid to invite them or invite yourself to party with the UI.

>

> Worst case scenario they reject it and you both move on. But it's a way of meeting people and generally getting help for what you need. I've never declined people that do this with me and very rarely have I been rejected when I pulled it with others.

>

> In an open world game like this one, it's a nice change of pace to meet others and find a short-term goals to achieve together. This game rewards you for doing lots of different things and even the veteran get's something out of it.

>

> Don't be a stranger. Be strange and try inviting yourself to random people. It could prove interesting. =)

 

Don't get me wrong, I do like to help people but I really don't like ninja invites from strangers.

Since you don't need to be grouped to get credit it just feels much nicer and polite to whisper someone before inviting but this might be just me.

Exception to this probebly squadgroups at meta-events. Don't wanne make squadleaders spend there time on whispering everyone :p

 

As for tips from a relatif new player myself.

Just what so many already said. Don't rush, enjoy the journey to 80.

If your waiting around for something/someone, pay attention on npc's around you. The conversations they have are hilarious at times! :D

 

Also, don't rush off looking for the metabuilds. You don't need them to do the open world content and if you just follow a guide telling you what talents and wich buttons to press when, you'll never learn your character insideout.

[Danikat.8537]

1) Don't worry about picking the easiest or best profession - pick whichever seems the most interesting to you and maybe experiment with a few to see which one you like best. Absolutely everything in the game can be done on any profession, including completing the entire story solo, so there's no need to force yourself to play something you don't enjoy just because it's someone else's favourite (even if they're your best friend, a famous youtuber or a GW2 'expert').

 

2) Take your time. There's no benefit in rushing to level 80, there isn't some mystic 'end game' where everything is different and better - you'll basically be doing the same things you did before. The one thing which does change is you have a lot less direction - suddenly you can go anywhere, do anything and there's no set order to it or things you have to do in order to progress to other things. So you really need that experience of levelling up to learn the game and your character so you know what there is to do and how to do it.

 

3) Don't be afraid to ask if there's anything you don't know. Either in-game, on this forum or by visiting the Wiki which is written and updated by players and should have information on almost anything. Don't be offended if someone points you to the Wiki - seemingly simple questions like "what equipment should I use?" can have complicated answers and sometimes it's easier to direct you to an existing answer than to write it all out, especially in a chat box.

 

4) Have fun! I know that seems obvious but it can be easy to forget. It's a game, the whole point is to enjoy it and as I mentioned earlier there's relatively few things you have to do so if you find you're not enjoying yourself and don't really want to carry on with your current goal take a moment to consider _why_ you're doing it and if it's really worth carrying on or if you'd be better off doing something else instead.

[CETheLucid.3964]

> @"Marleen.8549" said:

> Don't get me wrong, I do like to help people but I really don't like ninja invites from strangers.

> Since you don't need to be grouped to get credit it just feels much nicer and polite to whisper someone before inviting but this might be just me.

I'm going to ninja invite you and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

 

Except decline it. You could always do that. I can take a hint. :weary:

 

[thehipone.6812]

1. Use food and [utility items](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Utility_item). Many sell for only a few copper and give bonus XP along with a stat boost. Grab something with power or condition damage, but don't worry about optimizing below max level.

2. As much as you may want to, don't build your first PvE character to be a "tank". If you're doing open world and personal story stuff it is likely just going to lead to frustration, slow killing, and things actually being more difficult. It will also build bad habits of attempting to facetank stuff instead of using dodges and active defences like block/blind/invlun, etc. You can always respec for free, so if you get to lvl 80 and understand the game better and still want to be a tank, you can go for it.

3. Unless you're in a huge rush, gather, especially in the mid-level maps with iron and platinum. These materials sell for good coin on the trading post or will be needed to level up crafting.

4. A tip for max level - there is a fair bit of named gear that is usually the cheapest way to gear up your first character. This often has the stats that you want, but can be difficult to find if you don't know the items. The list of armor is here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Named_armor and weapons are here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_named_weapons To illustrate the cost savings, let's say you want Berserker's (power/crit/crit dmg) stats for your thief. Buying a crafted lvl 80 Chestpiece costs 9.5 gold from the trading post. The named equivalent - Nika's coat is only 1.5 gold. By Ogden's Hammer, what savings!

5. If you have an enemy targeted and look at the space just below your skills you will sometimes see what looks like a red underline under the skill icon on your bar. This means that the enemy is out of range for that skill. Will save you from wasting casts on stuff that is out of range. If you move closer you will see the red underline disappear and you can fire away!