Guild Wars 2

Good Morning Friends! I have been piddling around the last few days trying to get my original GW2 main in order and see if I can salvage anything from it. Don’t get me wrong… I am still madly in love with the Necromancer Reaper but I do have some pangs of regret for never quite managing to love the Warrior. This has lead me down a bunch of paths, and one of these is to work on my build a bit. Right now it is in a state of flux but I am trying to settle in on an Axe/Axe and Rifle build. Rifle is effectively how I used to do big open world events and survive as a warrior, and seeing as I found a place I enjoy with my Guardian I am trying to make something solo work as a Warrior for shenanigans. Granted at this point I am sorta cosplaying a Revenant, but Rytlock does have a very classic look.

Part of this revitalization of the Warrior is that I pushed up Armorsmithing into the relevant 400+ range granting me access to make heavy armors as well as my existing ability to make light armor. All of the running amok I have been doing lately had mostly restocked my reserves of materials and it was pretty reasonable to grind up armorsmithing without much need to dip into the trading post. After that I had to add about 20 gold in materials but was able to bang out a full set of marauder gear to see if that improves things. I think the biggest problem with the Warrior is that I had no real design gear wise for him. He was wearing basically the cheapest exotic item that I could find in each slot, and I had no idea what I was doing and how likely that damaged his playability. Marauder is basically just higher survival Berserker gear, so I went with that and am going to be focused on a power build of some sort.

Other than this I have been spending a bunch of time working on World Completion. I find working my way through all of the old world zones to be extremely relaxing, and honestly lucrative given the number of events that I inevitably end up doing. At this point I am systematically working my way through the “Norn” zones after having burned through the “human” zones. I’ve knocked out a few other zones at random because I was just really close to finishing them already. I have a spreadsheet that I am keeping track of things in, but largely I have 16 out of 31 zones completed. I think my goal at the moment is to wrap up the Norn lands and then move on to Charr territory.

The other conundrum I am dealing with at the moment is that I seemingly won the lottery a few nights ago with a Black Lion Chest. There are a bunch of items that you can pull from these but among the rarest and I believe the most expensive is the Permanent Bank Access Contract. It is super easy to get time limited versions of this item, but the permanent version is apparently super rare. It has a theoretical face value of around 5,000 gold which is just a truly staggering amount. However due to auction house fees… I would have to have I believe 500 gold or so in order to post this. I am uncertain how direct sales work and if I really would get all of the 4,411 that it currently has as a direct sale price or if I would still get a huge chunk of gold removed from that as well. There are third party direct selling options but I am worried about fraud there, and have yet to really dive into the reddit/discord options for that.

For now the item sits in my bank account while I mull over what to do with it. I feel like it is way the hell too valuable to actually use, especially given that I already have easy bank access through the Mistlock Sanctuary pass. If I ever sell it, I am going to give a chunk of gold to Thalen to help with the needs of the Guild Hall seeing as he actually has those systems figured out and I am yet to wrap my brain around them. It seems like 5,000 gold would be “set for life” territory in a game like this where getting gold is rather challenging.

I have been attempting to play Guild Wars 2 for a very long time, and I have to be honest… there are a lot of things that I never really grasped. I feel like as far as games go, this is one that does a fairly poor job of on-boarding the player. I feel like there are some direct hooks that some players go for, especially if you have always leaned towards playing a damage dealer but always struggled getting groups. As someone who has always played tanks I have struggled because while “being tanky” and “holding aggro” are things that exist, this is a game that has completely eschewed the holy trinity. This is great if you were not a support player, but for those of us who have spent their entire “MMO career” playing some support role… the experience can feel somewhat hollow.

There are a lot of folks out there that do copious amounts of reading about a game as they start to play it. That is not really my thing. A game needs to hook me before I am willing to do much research, and then once it finally has its hooks in me… the floodgates open and I start diving for knowledge at an almost obsessive level. Since Guild Wars 2 never really hooked me until my most recent revelations, I never spent much time if any really digging for information. The game does not give it to you freely through the course of the game, and now largely realize I have been playing “wrong” for a decade. This morning I thought I would share some of the revelations that I wish I knew earlier.

Achievements ARE Quests

One of the things that I found initially alienating is that Guild Wars 2 at face value seems like it is a game without much in the way of quests. There is of course the main story but those are sprinkled few and far between as you move from zone to zone and are not really going to give you much direction. Inside each zone there are a number of “hearts” that ask you do do a specific thing for a specific faction, and filling one of these gives you some rewards and access to new vendors. However there really was not anything that felt like long progression. I have to admit I mostly ignored the Achievements section on all of my previous attempts because I am not really one to do things just to get a trophy. I am sure if someone were to look at the various games with achievements I would cause completionists a panic attack, because I am habitually one or two things away from wrapping them up.

What I did not understand at all however is that Achievements are somewhat poorly named here and instead of a bunch of useless “make points get bigger” things, they are a treasure trove of targeted things that you can work towards. Need an Ascended Weapon? Well there are achievements for that. Want to get pieces of gear that you can choose your own stats for? We have achievements for those as well. Essentially this area of the UI is chock full of long term grinds, that end up rewarding very useful things. Not to mention every 500 achievement points you unlock a chest with some gear as well as some weapon skins.

Elite Specs are not tied to Weapons

One of the key focuses of an expansion is that it grants classes entirely new elite specializations. The problem is I assumed these were associated with a given weapon. For example as a Warrior with Heart of Thorns I got access to Berserker… but the first step of that unlocked access to Torches which were not a weapon that interested me in the least. With Path of Fire Warriors got access to Spellbreaker which again unlocked the weapon Daggers… of which I am vehemently allergic to using daggers. I had it hung up in my head that the weapon that you unlocked with a specialization is the weapon you were supposed to be using with it. Granted there is some synergy with the types of things that a given weapon does, but it is not a direct correlation.

Instead I had to get myself into the mental headspace of just realizing that an elite specialization above all else gives me access to another “talent tree”. The main function of unlocking them is to give you additional tools to work with when crafting builds. There are plenty of ways to build using these new specs that do not include the weapon that they grant you. Additionally there are ways to use the new weapons that get unlocked… without using the elite specialization tree. The two are tied together but are not necessarily intrinsically linked. Instead I had to start thinking of them as being two separate actions, one which gives me access to a brand new weapon, and another that gives me access to a brand new talent tree.

You Can Self Join Commander Groups

So one of the cool things about Guild Wars 2, is that it allows players to self designate themselves as “leaders”. It is a costly process to acquire the ability to throw up a commander tag, and as a result when someone is running around the battlefield with one, players tend to just take advisement without questioning it. All of this time I have been following around commanders, never knowing that for the most part… you can right click on the tag of any commander on the mini map and choose to self join their party. Granted this requires the commander to have set the party to public, but still if someone is leading and event it is almost certain that they will have the group open. I feel like an idiot for not knowing this one sooner, but I literally found it out the other night. This has completely changed my interactions with how I do things in the game.

Living Worlds are Expansions

Guild Wars 2 technically has three expansions to the game that were sold as boxed products. However starting with season 3, one could effectively call every Living World season an expansion to the game. I did not realize this. I thought it was largely just story content that wove around existing zones, but instead I am finding out now that I have gotten into season three… that it is taking me to brand new zones. Each of these zones are completely filled with things to do and interesting events to complete. By not having unlocked these earlier, I am effectively limiting my access to a whole slew of new areas in the game. Effectively that means that Guild Wars 2 has had the equivalent of six expansions at this point and with that a whole ton of content to participate in.

Show All Usable Object Names

[UPDATE] – I am adding this one after doing the initial publish because it just popped into my head. One of the frustrating things about harvesting materials in Guild Wars 2 is that the nodes sort of blend into the background. In many maps the harvestable trees are the same exact model as the general “basepop” trees. One thing that you can do that makes it a bit easier to see where the interactables are is toggling on “Show All Usable Object Names” in general options. This will make anything you can click on, have a name tag that differentiates it from background objects. This is super helpful for harvesting but also helpful when you have one of those “find the clickable things” style interactions.

If you also are playing Guild Wars 2, what are some of the things that you wish you had known sooner? For me the biggest is that I wish I had known sooner how to enjoy this game. I spent so much time fighting against it because it did not fit into the predetermined mold I was expecting from it. Now that I opened up to it, I am enjoying myself immensely. If you have any other revelations and tips, please drop me a line below because I am sure there are even more things that I have been oblivious to.

Tonight we have a bit of an odd show to usher in sleep theft weekend.  First we talk about Bel’s descent into madness…  that is getting super engaged in Guild Wars 2.  He spent the last week chain running World Bosses and talks about how freaking fun that is.  From there we talk about some of the long grind systems and how there are multiple paths for different playstyles to reach the same ultimate goal.  From there we dust off a topic that has been sitting on the list for a long while, that was originally inspired by Warhammer 40,000 but applies to a lot of different games.  Largely we discuss how the most hardcore players represent the smallest portion of the community, but also are the ones that set the pace that everyone else is forced to live up to.  This covers a wide swath of topics from Magic the Gathering to MMO Chain Pulling to even the death of New World.  It is one wild ride  of a show.

Topics Discussed

• Bel’s further descent into Guild Wars 2
  • The Joy of Chain Running World Bosses
  • The Good Long Grinds
• Catering to the minority in games
  • How the most competitive players set the rules of the community
  • Warhammer 40,000
  • FFXIV and MMO Chain Pulling
  • Magic the Gathering
    • Netdecking
    • Missing Jank Magic
  • Destiny 2
    • Death of Skill Based Matchmaking
  • New World and how catering to a minority is killing game
  • Missing the innocence of being able to be bad

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

If you have been reading my blog lately, you will have shockingly realized that I am playing an excessive amount of Guild Wars 2 at the moment. I am having a freaking blast but I thought I would talk some about one of the elements that I think scares some folks away… the cash shop. Guild Wars 2 is financed through a combination of “buy the box” expansions and then a slew of “priced to own” cash shop doodads. I personally have zero problem spending money on a game and effectively if I am not paying a subscription for something, it becomes a heck of a lot easier to justify buying items from the cash shop, especially if they improve my overall quality of life. Given that I have been playing Guild Wars 2 for a decade now… I have accumulated quite a few baubles that improve game-play. I thought I would take a moment this morning to talk about the things that I personally find value in from the long list of things available.

Shared Inventory Storage

One of the cool features of Guild Wars 2 is the ability to acquire inventory slots that show up on every single character on your account. These are super useful for storing gadgets that I will get into later as well as any consumables you might like to have access to like teleport to friend or the ever present birthday boosters. I’ve highlighted my shared storage row at the top of my bag in green. Purchased at the cheapest rate you can get 5 slots for 2800 gems which works out to 560 per slot. However like EVERYTHING I am going to talk about today… wait for it to go on sale. The Black Lion store has a somewhat predictable cadence of sales and as such it is certain that ANYTHING you are wanting will eventually go on promotion if you wait it out. Each time you purchase an expansion you get one of these for free.

Permanent Lounge Passes

In Guild Wars 2 there are special “VIP” areas of the game that you gain access to through holding a pass. There are time limited versions of these that are pretty easy to get, but the more interesting variant grants you permanent access to teleport to this location from anywhere in the world. You can check out this run down from the wiki that lists the features that each of them have, but essentially it grants you easy access to banks, vendors, crafting machines, and the market boards. Unfortunately they are not all created equal because Armistice Bastion and Mistlock Sanctuary give you access to a wide variety of teleports as well as the ability to pop right back to the spot that you clicked your pass from. You can get “Lily of the Elon” from purchasing the Deluxe edition of Path of Fire, but I would largely hold out and pick up Mistlock Sanctuary as it seems to be the most compact and useful version. When one of these is available they are 1000 gems, but unfortunately the permanent version of the pass shows up fairly rarely.

Unbreakable Tools

I have to admit two of the most annoying things for me personally when it comes to Guild Wars 2 is the fact that Salvage Kits and Harvesting Tools are a depleting resource. These next two picks fix that, but may not be as big of a deal for you. Unfortunately with the various permanent tool options, they are not account wide which means if you want to actively be using them on all of your characters you have to shell out for MANY sets. They come in really cool cosmetic versions and also these boring plain ones that are a bit cheaper. Again with everything else… wait for them to go on sale.

Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic

You are going to spend an exceptional amount of time salvaging gear for materials. This is just part of the core loop of the game and as a result you are going to go through prodigious amounts of salvage kits. For anything green quality or lower I end up using the lowest kit possible, and with this machine you essentially pay 3 copper to destroy an item, which is a .52 copper savings per item salvaged over just buying kits. The real reason why this is worth it however is that it can be used an unlimited number of times and you never have to worry about restocking ever again. I also have a copy of the Runecrafter’s Salvage-o-Matic because it has a 100% chance of recovering upgrades.

World Boss Portal Device

This is new to my repertoire of baubles, but this item when clicked on gives you a list of every event that is just about to happen and allows you to teleport to the nearest waypoint, even if you have not unlocked it yet. This has been the source of so much joy over the last few nights because it makes running world events super seamless and simple. Money very well spent, and now it lives permanently in my shared storage so all of my characters to access these events.

Those are the items that I have personally found extremely useful. Are there any items that I missed that you personally recommend from the cash shop? Again like I said several times, don’t buy anything until it is on sale. If you are curious what is available at any time, the Wiki seems to keep an updated list.