Simple Questions Thread

[Genev]

The NPCs are pretty much useless and mostly there to provide a story backgorund.
You do need a full group for storymode dungeons

[sachiel]

Story mode: Takes bout 2 hours.  Have a good group that can work well together.  Being defensive spec'd to endure fights helps a TON; glass cannons won't do well in any dungeon UNLESS they're with a well-oiled group, and even that's risky.  Some of the boss fights are pretty tough, but you have to pay attention to tells of the mob to figure out mechanics.  Most bosses' damage can be avoided or mitigated pretty easily and can be done without anyone going downed, but that takes practice which is something you're not likely going to find in story mode as most people only run a story mode on a dungeon once.  There are usually wp's along the way to save long runs.

EasyExplore Mode: Unlocked to an individual after they run story mode successfully once.  Takes 20-30 mins.  There are three paths to choose from, completely different from the story mode.  Each path has mini bosses and a final boss.  There are three chests on each path.  For running a path, you get 60 tokens and 26s.  I usually clear >50s for one path run of Ascalon's Catacombs, vendoring all blues and greens and salvaging whites.  After you run one path in a day, the next run on the same path will yield only 20 tokens, but still 26s.  Running three different paths in a day will give you 180 tokens, often enough for a piece of armor from the vendor in Lion's Arch.  The tokens, weapons and armors are dungeon specific and are level 80 exotics with good stats and runes/sigils (each dungeon has 3 flavors of exotic stats, so look them ALL over), but there are also story-mode level rares you can buy much cheaper (most people do this for looks).  

Now, the big difference in Story and Explore: experience.  Many of the pug's you'll find running explore dungeons will have at least 3 80's in it, meaning they're traited and typically geared decently.  That gives them a sizable advantage over many of the story runs with appropriately leveled people running them.  Also, the majority of the people will have run these paths before, so they know the mechanics, what traps to avoid and where to stand and what to pull.  These dungeons are cake walks because they are geared and know what they're doing to run them quickly to farm tokens/money, so don't be afraid of pick-up groups.  The hard part can be getting them to slow down or explain the mechanics.  I try to be as instructive as possible because someone on their butt in combat is useless to the group, and I don't like dying and repair bills.  Expect to die once or twice as some events are cheesed, but if you make 60s in 30 minutes, what's 4s in repairs?  This is probably the most efficient way I've found of making money, but with the recent changes in orichalcum nodes, expect those farmers to raking in the big bucks. Oh, and the most important thing in dungeons: your number one priority is making sure the downed get ressed ASAP, so do keep an eye on the health bars.  Much of the time, bosses will continue to tank a downed tank, beating them to death.  That means if you are squishy, even if you run up, you're not the target and can res safely; just watch out for signature moves or ae's.

Also, you don't need story done to run a dungeon's explore mode; only the person walking in the dungeon needs story done, so at least one in five.

[Zetor]

I've been thinking about doing a few explorables, actually (it can't be any worse than the 5-phase golem fight in SE storymode)... the main problem is that the game REALLY REALLY needs some sort of LFD tool.

Level 80 and (rare/exotic) gear also matters a TON, along with (I assume) the benefits of full trait lines. When I ran AC storymode at level 40ish with a group of 30-40s, it was a horrible slog that ended in a wipefest and the group breaking up (even though it was a 4-man guild group with me being the only pugger). When I did AC story mode at 80 with a group of three 80s and two mid-levels, it went insanely smoothly - I think the lower levels may have gotten downed once or twice, but nobody came close to actually dying. And the second group was a full pug assembled in Lion's Arch /map chat, with barely any communication in partychat (other than pointing out the gimmick for the lovers fight).

e: and one of the biggest things that is holding me off from doing explorables is that the one I'm most interested in doing (Arah tokens - remote possibility of getting the legendary staff in the next few hundred years) takes way too long and is said to have quite a few pugbreaker elements.

[sachiel]

Yeah, an inter-server dungeon finder would be a godsend.

Even if you're wearing greens at 80, spec'ing into your toughness/vitality lines will help a ton.  Spec to endure and survive, and it'll go smoothly.  I like the AC Power/Toughness/Vitality armor (or any flavor of PTV for that matter) because it's a great building block for whatever.  Find a set of runes to complement your spec and match jewelry to enhance what you've got or fill in gaps where you're deficient.  In a week (1.5 hours/day), you can earn a full set of exotic armor from AC, and enough money to buy whatever runes (and some weapons) you want.

I need to go back to AC story and try it again at 80 (finished it at 3x).  I want a rematch with that Adelbern sonuvabitch after I walked out last time in my boxers.

edit reply: I haven't tried Arah.  The shitty part is with Arah armor: there are no runes in it, but it costs the same amount of tokens.  1/2 the reason to pick up exo armor from a dungeon are the runes.  I need Arah tokens as well for the staff, but at least I won't be tempted to buy stupid, unslotted armor with them. :/

[sachiel]

Oh, one other thing about explore modes: great way to level.  One path at level 46 was getting Fordel about a level per path.

[Fordel]

Yea, I got nearly 3 levels in total from the 3 'path' runs we did or whatever. A crap load of money too, went from maybe 70-80 silver to nearly 3 gold total.



It's a different dynamic, that's for sure. The mechanics are not forgiving, but death and failure actually are. I can definitively see how all those "rez people better/faster" traits make sense now. There also seem to be a lot of "avoid this with precise timing or die instantly EXCEPT if you have X ability, then it's trivial."

Like the ghost sword boss man, that would suck everyone in with his big attack. You either had to learn the timing on when to dodge the suck in projectile thing OR you just applied stability in that window.



-edit-

The big thing is, like Sach said before, make sure everyone is on the same page on the run. Everyone following a crappy plan is superior to 5 people all executing their own 'good but different' plans. The amount of heads up required isn't much at all, but you do need that heads up on the gimmick for the fight.

[Zetor]

I've been thinking of crafting a suit of 'cleric' armor with power/+healing/toughness (yeah I know that there are no 'healers', but with my 30 arcane 30 water staff elementalist build I'm probably pretty support-y) with a full set of Dwayna runes and using that for dungeoning*. The lack of vit may be a problem with one-shot moves (though toughness should help with that), but otherwise the build does a pretty good job of refusing to die even in my glass cannon magic find set. I figure conditions are a non-issue with the dwayna 6-set bonus + regen/cond removal from water attunement + healing rain + cleansing wave on dodge. Or are one-shots so prevalent that you need at least one of your gear stats to be +vit?

* well... in a few months anyway. Right now is panda time, and in a few days it'll be muton time.  

[Ingmar]

No vit is going to get you flattened I suspect. My plan is similar to yours except instead of Dwayna runes I'm going to use Dolyak or Melandru, and probably mix in a couple pow/vit/tough pieces as well. Whatever I do has to double for PVE and WvW stuff because I'm not going to spend the money to make a bunch of different suits, though.

I'm a guardian though, of course, so have an armor/blocking advantage (no health advantage QQ).

[sachiel]

I ran a mismash of knights, zerker, clerics and valks slotted with random, mostly sapphire, jewels and a set of ruby ori jewelry.  My spec is 10 air, 10 earth, 20 water, 30 arc with a staff, so very supporty.  I'm tanky enough, healy enough and put out enough damage to make myself feel useful.  I'm getting a set of Ascalon PTV armor, and for the moment, leaving the Monk in it that comes with it for the +healing power.  I noticed a NICE difference with 10 in earth and the earth shield that pops at 50% health when I respec'd 10 points out of air.  I use glyphs (healing, elemental attun, renewal and elementals), so was using quick glyphs and boon on glyphs.  Still have quick, but damn that toughness and shield is awesome.  In dungeons, toughness is amazing, and no, most things don't oneshot you, especially if you push toughness up in traits and armor.  Warriors in full zerkers try to tank three mobs and get dropped, but my wife's warrior spec'd hard in toughness and vitality with a shield and regen can still facetank 3-4 serious mobs a time in there.  Toughness and regen are king.

I think dungeons were a PR disaster with AC being the hardest story dungeon, the first people encounter and those being only poorly geared and traited level 30's.  They tuned it for 80's; what a goddamn mistake that was, hoping that deleveling would correct, but it can't account for traiting and the skills and stats you get from it.  It's pretty much the same story with upleveling for WVW, sure you look 80, but you don't have the stats from traits, the traits themselves and exo gear pushing your level limit, and those on the other ends of the swords can tell when you're just an upleveled squib.

[ffc]

One note about dungeons: if a level 45 goes to AC wearing level 30 gear, this person will be worse off than a level 30 wearing level 30 gear.  The way scaling works is it acts as a penalty to higher level players wearing lower level gear. So make sure you are wearing level appropriate stuff.

[Lantyssa]

Yeah, did this yesterday, works great!  Only found two of those transmutes in 70 levels so...

You get 3 with every map completion, including the cities.

Black Lion chests have a chance of giving the level 80 stones.

[rk47]

Story mode: Takes bout 2 hours.

Stopped reading right there. 

[Threash]

Anyone know what the pve version of the default pvp armor is?

[Ard]

It's the guild armorer armor.  You can get it off the guild armorer guy to the right of the lion's arch bank, if your guild has it unlocked.

[amiable]

I'm considering purchasing this, but I was wondering a few things (this is from someone very familiar with MMORPG's but for one reason or another never got around to playing GW:1).

1.  Is the bat country guild active/still looking for members if I joined the server? Do F13 folks do organized PvP?
2.  Is there a more "RvR/PvP" oriented server where folks are?
3.  I tend to enjoy playing healers/support characters, what are the options available?

Thanks!

[Sky]

1.  Is the bat country guild active/still looking for members if I joined the server? Do F13 folks do organized PvP?

I'm sorry, you have too many posts to ask this question.

[amiable]

1.  Is the bat country guild active/still looking for members if I joined the server? Do F13 folks do organized PvP?

I'm sorry, you have too many posts to ask this question.

for some reason I keep hoping....

[tazelbain]

1. Not that I can tell. It was doomed from get go when we chose large pop servers to start on.  Hard get people to RvR together with a 3 hour queue.
2. SBI, JQ, IoJ, BG, CD, SoS are were most of the RVR action is.  Top guilds are stacking these servers because the current meta of 24/7 coverage > battlefield organization.  This can change week to week since free transfer allow people to move en mass.
3. Shouting warriors are great support chars.  Warriors are just plain great so if you change your mind you can just respec latter.

I am on IoJ which an awesome RvR server.  The queues are only bad on Fridays.

[Tmon]

3.  I tend to enjoy playing healers/support characters, what are the options available?

Thanks!

There isn't in the sense of pure healers/buffers.  You can focus any character class for healing/support but it's more along the lines of short term aoe buffs and heals than it is targeted healing.  You still have to fight but on the plus side you and don't become magically more squishy or move up the target chain because you are healing/buffing.  Group content is completed by the random people who show up and contribution is measured by damage delivered so playing support might help some folks live through an event but won't get you beyond the lowest level of contribution.

They have done a pretty good job of removing the trinity, so much so that I never see people spamming LFG with anything more than the number of people they need and the dungeon path they are running.  Speaking of groups, since the entire server is effectively in your group as far as sharing xp/loot/healing/rezzing goes the only time a group is necessary is for dungeon runs.  Other times being in a group comes in handy for WvW stuff and earning influence points (there's a bonus for guild members grouping and playing) for whatever guild you are representing but they aren't required.  

[amiable]

Thanks for the quick and detailed answer guys!

[Pennilenko]

I figure my question is simple so it should go here. My in-laws sent me a copy of this for my birthday. Is it possible to play effectively without ever using the in game store or what ever micro-transactions there might be? I haven't cracked the box open yet so I can still resell if I'm going to have to spend a bunch of cash on nickel and dime quality of life crap.

[Threash]

You don't need to spend a cent to play the game.  And if you ever did you can easily change in game gold to cash store currency at very reasonable rates.

[Rasix]

I figure my question is simple so it should go here. My in-laws sent me a copy of this for my birthday. Is it possible to play effectively without ever using the in game store or what ever micro-transactions there might be? I haven't cracked the box open yet so I can still resell if I'm going to have to spend a bunch of cash on nickel and dime quality of life crap.

I haven't spent a dime. I have max level character and a few moderately leveled alts.  I haven't even felt the need to spend any money.

Well, OK, that additional bag and bank slot would help.  But, I've managed so far.

[Ingmar]

Bank space is incredibly constricting if you don't buy gems one way or another, and if you want one of every class, that's another chunk of gems.

[Pennilenko]

Bank space is incredibly constricting if you don't buy gems one way or another, and if you want one of every class, that's another chunk of gems.

I'm confused by your statement, are you saying that class selection is limited unless you unlock more via micro-transactions? Do you mean character slots?

[Threash]

I'm still doing fine with the default bank space and the only reason i bought more bag slots was because it was actually cheaper in game currency terms than buying bigger bags.

[Threash]

Bank space is incredibly constricting if you don't buy gems one way or another, and if you want one of every class, that's another chunk of gems.

I'm confused by your statement, are you saying that class selection is limited unless you unlock more via micro-transactions? Do you mean character slots?

Eight total classes, five character slots.

[Ingmar]

Bank space is incredibly constricting if you don't buy gems one way or another, and if you want one of every class, that's another chunk of gems.

I'm confused by your statement, are you saying that class selection is limited unless you unlock more via micro-transactions? Do you mean character slots?

Character slots - you get 5, but there are 8 classes. Note you can buy gems with in-game gold but the exchange rate for that has been steadily trending upwards lately.

I'm still doing fine with the default bank space and the only reason i bought more bag slots was because it was actually cheaper in game currency terms than buying bigger bags.

You must not have a cook.

[Sky]

The only place I feel constricted is also the bank/inventory. Especially the bank, but during DE chains, the inventory gets clogged quickly and then it's distracting to fiddle with that rather than DESTROY. Probably doesn't help that I AE the shit out of everything and then charge through with a greatsword, so I have a dozen lootable corpses with each wave of a defense DE.

+1 for warriors. I just love longbow/greatsword and find it difficult to try any other setups.

Re: grouping. This game is amazing at non-grouping cooperative play. I'm constantly playing alongside others and I've never seen so many helpful players because the game encourages it. If a player is around, you'll probably get a rez, and if they get there in time you might only be downed. No kill stealing, it's just awesome. Really nailed how to do an mmo, I can forgive them hardcore dungeons because it's so much fun just running around checking stuff out.

[Zetor]

If you plan on making a chef, you'll need an extra bank slot at least. Those sub-components (and sometimes finished food that also acts as a subcomponent) add up.

That said, you really don't need to spend $$$ for that, exchanging gold for gems is good enough. For reference, I also have a 80 with some alts (none of them above level 50ish), have maxed four craft skills among my main+alts (which was actually a bit of a gold sink at times - and yeah, those craft skills include chef+tailor), haven't made any profit via the trading post, and I'm hovering around a comfortable ~25 gold after having bought 3400 gems' worth of bank and character slots. No farming or dungeoning either.

[Ingmar]

How are you making all that money? The only way I can see to do it other than AH shenanigans is dungeon grinding. Nothing else I do makes me much gold.

[Zetor]

That's the thing, I don't remember anything special (other than trying to do DEs whenever possible). All I did was 100% each zone, run through the personal story, run each story mode dungeon once, and gather materials whenever possible... also some wvw, but only as a zergling or an occasional keep defender / supply camp attacker. I -did- sell some things on the TP that I didn't want (like the exotic cloth pants that I got from combining the 100% reward level 71-76 exotics with a mystic forge stone that I got from a daily completion), but that's rare. I also do a lot of salvaging, but I don't actually sell the output, so yeah.

e: there was a time when I was trying to hit each of the world dragons at least once a day, but at that point I already had about 10-13 gold with all of the bank/char slot purchases behind me
e2: it goes without saying that I was pretty frugal while levelling - haven't bought anything from vendors except for some really rare pieces (rebreather), and even then only from karma vendors. I also tried to minimize stuff I bought from the TP (buying two more small claws to get to the next tier was OK, but buying 30 was not OK). I upgraded my armor from the stuff I crafted and random drops, and crafted two green/yellow sets for myself at 80: a magic find set with 5/6 pirate 1/6 explorer runes that I also crafted myself for the most part, and a mismatched power+two-of-vit/tough/heal/precision set. I also used low-end harvesting tools when possible and tried to avoid repairing until stuff started breaking, but I don't think that's a huge difference.

[Ingmar]

That sounds like pretty much exactly what I do, minus the dungeon runs. I haven't finished the personal story yet quite, and I have ~4 zones to my 100% but they're all level 25 and lower.

[murdoc]

The only place I feel constricted is also the bank/inventory. Especially the bank, but during DE chains, the inventory gets clogged quickly and then it's distracting to fiddle with that rather than DESTROY. Probably doesn't help that I AE the shit out of everything and then charge through with a greatsword, so I have a dozen lootable corpses with each wave of a defense DE.

+1 for warriors. I just love longbow/greatsword and find it difficult to try any other setups.

Re: grouping. This game is amazing at non-grouping cooperative play. I'm constantly playing alongside others and I've never seen so many helpful players because the game encourages it. If a player is around, you'll probably get a rez, and if they get there in time you might only be downed. No kill stealing, it's just awesome. Really nailed how to do an mmo, I can forgive them hardcore dungeons because it's so much fun just running around checking stuff out.

I am quite sure you know this, but you can send all your crafting mats to the bank with just a single click. I've never filled my inventory (I have 10 slot bags and didn't buy any extra slots) and I carry around pretty much a full set of various weapons in the last bag. I've never "filled" my inventory.

[Furiously]

4 dungeons will net you a gold. More for ac I believe. If I don't have DR going I can net about 5 yellows every few hours in cursed shore. At 15 silver each or more if I get lucky with ectos.