User:Xmasreturns

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Why play GW2?[edit]

Key selling points, if I were to write them:

  • Fast-paced action combat: moment-to-moment mastery of space and movement - it's about the player, not the character
  • Highly customizable, player-defined builds: experience the game in a way that suits your playstyle
  • No subscription fee: leave and come back whenever you want
  • Vibrant and lively open world: cooperate with others that you encounter in the world, exploring never-empty maps spanning the entire history of the game
  • Uniquely large-scale player battles: wage war alongside notorious player leaders or become one yourself in open-field, roaming, or objective-based conflicts

For inspiration:

As described by internet people:

FAQs[edit]

Q1: What do you wish someone told you when you started?

A1: The rest of this page has more of my recommendations, but here are two more resources that answer exactly that:


Q2: Can I play <insert class name>, or will it suck later on?

A2: You can make every class good once you understand how builds work. At time of writing, there are multiple solid builds for every elite specialization for every profession. Expect to use different builds across PvE, WvW, and sPvP no matter what.


Q3: Are there any irreversible decisions I can make?

A3: I say this a lot, but you only get to play a game for the first time once. Account-wide progression systems and old content being relevant mean that it's incredibly easy to skip content or optimize the fun out of this game. If you want to "blind prog" through anything (e.g. exploration, instanced content, etc.), you'll need to intentionally avoid the skips that people will offer you. In some cases, it's like a metroidvania where other players will offer to open doors for you that would otherwise require something you don't have yet.


Q4: How do cosmetics/glamours work?

A4: Certain actions add a cosmetic to your wardrobe, like salvaging an item. Once something is in your wardrobe, it's available for you to apply anywhere on your account to an item of the same type.


Q5: How would you compare this to FFXIV?

A5: See User:Hyliombi, which is an entire page of info answering this. Also here's a clip from streamer sausoftheroll that describes some of the initial excitement from a longtime FFXIV player.


Q6: Are there any newbie guide videos you can link me to?

A6: Here's a few:


Q7: How does pvp work in this game?

A7: There are two game modes for pvp gameplay: Structured PvP (sPvP or colloquially PvP) and World vs World (WvW):

  • sPvP is 5v5 arena/capture point gameplay with normalized stats. Play sPvP if you want fair fights where mechanical skill and matchup knowledge are the primary variables. The main queue (conquest) is focused on capture points, and you'll be rotating around the map to take fights and control the map. Playing in unranked queue is required to unlock ranked queue, and balance/gameplay experience is typically much better in ranked.
  • WvW uses PvE gear and siege across 4 persistent large maps, with 3 large teams matchmade from guilds every month. WvW is what you make of it. It's a place that ranges from roamers and gankers looking for fights (scrappy 1v1s) all the way up to 50v50v50 battles where squads are testing each others' coordination and the game server's latency. Solo play can be hard to understand until you're familiar with the systems and know how to find (or create) action. Squad gameplay is often coordinated in voice chat by a commander driving a zerg of players. Play WvW if you want the feeling of being part of a large army, enjoy the company of others, or want to siege a castle.

Starter tips[edit]

Settings[edit]

Investigate and adjust your Settings from the F11 menu. I recommend the following:

  • General Options > User Interface > Show All Usable Object Names: Enable. This allows you to see interactable objects without constantly holding Alt.
  • General Options > User Interface > Show Target Health Percent: Enable. Some enemies have mechanics that appear at health percentage thresholds.
  • General Options > Combat/Movement > Melee Attack Assist: Disable. This prevents movement through enemies during combat.
  • General Options > Combat/Movement > Double-Tap to Evade: Disable and set/use a keybind for Dodge instead. The double-tap shortcut can mess you up during fine movement in jumping puzzles.
  • General Options > Combat/Movement > Autotargeting: Disable. This can make it difficult to stay focused on a target or to de-target an enemy when using skills intentionally without a target.
  • General Options > Combat/Movement > Lock Ground Target at Maximum Skill Range: Enable. This lets you move your mouse past the maximum distance of a skill to cast it at max distance.
  • General Options > Combat/Movement > Allow Skill Retargeting: Enable. This lets you change your target to a new target during a channeled cast.
  • General Options > Mounts > Disable Conditional Mount Movement Ability Input: Check the box. This lets you do normal jumps while mounted so you can get over small obstacles without spending stamina.
  • Control Options > Movement > Swim down: Bind this key. Although underwater combat isn't common, binding this key lets you look not-down while moving downward.
  • Control Options > Camera > Toggle Action Camera: Bind this key. Action Camera is an alternate camera control scheme that you can use to avoid holding down right click constantly while moving. It also allows you to move at full speed toward the camera while out of combat.

Chat window and /wiki[edit]

You can use chat commands in the in-game chat window to do a number of things.

For example:

  • Emotes: These make your character do something, like sit or laugh. You can get a list of available emotes by typing /emotelist
  • Chatting: I'm not gonna explain this one, but there are different chat channels for things like local area (/s), the map you're on (/m), and your active guild (/g)

You can also query the GW2 wiki by typing /wiki before your search term. Using this command in game opens a browser tab with that query/page in the GW2 wiki. Combine /wiki with item names (shift+click to link in chat directly), various things you see in the game, or things you want information about.

Some chat commands I find particularly useful:

  • /wiki et (Event timer)
  • /wiki gu (Game updates)
  • /wiki Category:Balance_updates
  • /ip (Get IP of current map instance)
  • /gg (Kill self to reset faster in instanced PvE)

(add info about chat tabs)

Notable text[edit]

One of the biggest recommendations I can give is for you to read your skills and your items. It sounds like a no-brainer, but there's truly a lot of information that's easy to skip over. This section covers some examples of things that you might skip over on accident.

As you level, you'll see level popups. Those have hover text that describe a lot of basic mechanics.

On items, keep an eye out for certain lines of text in the description:

  • Skin locked/unlocked
  • Salvage: standard/ascended/compost/research
  • Item collection
  • Soulbound/Account bound

Skills on your bar have additional indicators to help show things like distance or combo potential: https://wiki.gw2.org.cn/wiki/Skill#User_interface

Notable UI elements[edit]

(equipment/build templates, build storage) (access bank from any crafting station)

Hero window and Wardrobe[edit]

(story tracker, hero points) (wardrobe tab at the bank)

Builds and rotations[edit]

(can ignore until 80, as that's when options open up and synergies make a noticeable difference) (can also ignore red icons on items, until 80 or unless curious)

Things to ignore/avoid[edit]

Gem store "traps":

  • Boosters (e.g. experience booster)
  • Repair canisters
  • Transmutation charges
  • Revive orbs
  • Black lion keys and dye kits, unless you want to gamble

Wizard's Vault "traps":

  • Lesser essence of gold
  • Tome of knowledge
  • Revive orb
  • Black lion mastery coffer
  • Obsidian shard
  • Essence of luck
  • Large crafting bag
  • Some are OK to buy if needed: Black lion salvage kit, Upgrade extractor, Vision crystal, Transmutation charge

Stuff to do[edit]

One major note: If you've played other MMOs before, resist the temptation to try and get to endgame content. GW2 content is mostly built in a way that keeps it relevant forever, but you only get to experience things for the first time once. Feel free to skip things on future characters or once you feel like you've experienced it enough, but you're generally not chasing some mythical "endgame content" in GW2 that's gated by all sorts of stuff.

With that out of the way, here's some stuff to do for new players:

  1. Let your curiosity take you places! Focus on the open world, but don't feel compelled to do stuff you don't want to do. This usually comes up when people think of things like heart quests as "must-do" content, even though they enjoy exploring the world more.
  2. Learn what your skills do. This sounds like a dumb recommendation, but I've met too many people at max level simply not know that their skills do certain things. There's a lot of text on each skill, and knowing what your skills do will benefit you for the rest of your time in GW2.
  3. Do personal story. These quests show up every ~10 levels as green stars in the core game. This is the main story quest (MSQ), but it mostly just helps develop your character's place in the world.
  4. Level with the character adventure guide. This is an onboarding system that gives you a checklist of in-game things to do and gives you a bunch of XP for doing them. As a bonus, it shows you how achievements in GW2 give rewards and essentially act as a freeform quest log. To get to it, go to Hero window (H) > Achievements tab > Character Adventure Guide.

I made it to 80, now what?[edit]

So many options, but here are a few:

  • high level explanation of the point of gathering/crafting
  • why would high level players come to lower level zones for dailies? What incentives do they have to help newbies

Cool things to try[edit]

  • Try figuring out what combos your character can do. To activate a combo, perform a combo finisher in a combo field.
  • While exploring a map, try hovering over icons in the top-left while viewing the world map.

Managing inventory[edit]

Deposit materials, compact inventory, salvage Remember to sell junk (at vendor) regularly

Some Reddit threads that might be useful:

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