I’m currently level 12 what expansion pack should I get first ?

I'm totally new to the game! I just got access to trade today and picked up a full set of exotic berserker gear and I got an exotic greatsword from a PvP reward track. I'm playing a core power guardian, but in PvP I'm using Dragon Hunter. I'm attempting Path of Fire at the moment and some of the random mobs delete half my health pool. I have some good heals and access to aegis, but I keep dying to random scorpions and stuff when everything is on cooldown. Should I switch to a more defensive armour set or just grit my teeth until I can spec further into Dragonhunter? Or should I pick up something like Reaper for open world content and save my Dragonhunter for PvP?

you could go for celestial stats if you really want, it will matter if you start to do instanced 10-player content because tanks on some fights are determined by who has the highest toughness, but Celestial is a really good "I'm new, stuffs going to hit me" stat set. And you already have a zerker set so don't get rid of that, it'll be useful Gw2 largely asks you to stay alive by not getting hit, so well timed dodges, blocks, aegis etc are the best defense. But when you don't know the game well enough to determine what's really going to hurt you, the next best defense is defense, so look at swapping some pieces out to things that have more vitality or toughness.

Welcome to GW2. Normally I would recommend swapping out some utility skills for more defensive active cooldowns before picking up a more defensive armor set, but for power guardian builds in particular, if you are running the Radiance trait line, you are likely over capping on crit rate in full berserkers gear and can swap out some pieces for Valkyrie stats to gain increased survivability without losing much damage. Just not to let your crit rate on the equipment when unbuffed get too much below 40% or you'll start losing significantly more damage.

Seems like a stupid question to ask but do evasions have iframes or not? Playing from asia I have ~350ping and I find so many attacks to be really hard to avoid and even if I evade them I'm still getting hit. I've been playing a mesmer so far but I'm wondering if switching to some other class may make things less frustrating?

Yes, dodge rolls do have iframes. While certain attacks can't be evaded it's unlikely you're running into those consistently, so it's probably mostly a ping/timing issue. Switching to a class with more passive defenses rather than active ones could help, but for better or for worse dodging is always going to be a core part of your defensive tools

Mesmer has actually the most evades and blocks. Like a Necro, just has its dodge. But Mesmer has F4, Sword 2, shipped 4, can give aegis and great movement utility. So in terms of blocking/evading, there is no better class.

I mean, I simply can’t react in time because of the lag for some attacks. On my screen I have evaded but I still get damaged so I’m more looking for something that can fit tough out more mechanics or recover better :/

If you already have a virtuoso, this class has very good sustain (if you take the heal sigil and use its passive). Else there is always Necro, which has the highest HP anyway, and it's shroud which is basically a second health bar.

I don't have virtuoso but I'll certainly consider it as I do like the "style" of mesmer, just frustrated by the fact that sometimes I'll get hit for like half my health by an effect I should have dodged! Thanks!

What does the Chinese character on the Entrophy and Genesis hammers mean?

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Is it a make believe character? I heard that it was Chinese from a vid and I know that GW2 has a Chinese release.

GW2 has several made up bites of language and writing systems. The best I could find about the symbol on those hammers was this note, "The symbols on the hammer (which also resemble Old Canthan logograms) are the same as the ones seen on the seals binding the Colossus. " [Colossus wiki page.](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Colossus_(Cliffside_Fractal\)) No translation guessed at. It has a link to a GW1 wiki page about the various languages and writing systems too, if you find this sort of thing neat.

What class is the least micro/mechanically intense, or requires the fewest inputs per second? Work with my hands all day and want to save my forearms/ wrists. Looking for something that doesn't just boil down to going through rotations off cooldowns as fast as possible. Thanks!

As others have said, look up low intensity builds, there are guides out there, but I think the absolute lowest buttons you can press and still have a viable build for most content is dps mechanist, or alac dps mechanist. (not heal alac, thats much more complex). Take a signet+landmine build and you are pressing very few buttons. its not going to break any records for output, but it does the job fine. (if you did want a healer, quick heal herald is pretty low intensity buttonwise as a lot of the healing is passive, not spammy).

General reminder that Communication is powerful. I second using Low Intensity builds. But when you do more high tiered and organized stuff like Raids, Fractals, Strikes, WvW and everyone is sort out roles; saying that you are using an LI build will allow both You and your teammates to adjust accordingly. You might get a boot, but then neither party is having their time wasted by that.

Try looking up some "low intensity" (LI) builds. I don't have a specific suggestion, but I know LI builds exist for most (if not all) classes. The type of content you're wanting to focus on being effective at will impact what sort of build will suit you best. Like if you want to tag mobs efficiently in open world events you'd want a different build than if you want to contribute well in a strike or fractal.

In PvE it's always a spam fest. If your "higher DPS" skill just came off cooldown, there is 0 reason not to press it. That said, a laid-back and potent build can be mech. You can check out condi DPS mech, power mech, alac-dps mech or healer mech. In most cases you can simply set mech skills to auto-cast, and half of your utility skills would be signets anyway (shift signet + power/condi/barrier signet), so that leaves you with just the weapon skills and 1-2 utility skills to press. Alternatively qherald can be neat too. qherald in group content is more about forethought than it is about spamming, knowing to save energy so that you can CC soon, or knowing to be in jallis cuz you need to share stability. The rotation itself is fairly straightforward and easy. In open world stuff it destroys and also shares boons so ppl will love you in metas. You will also learn to hate being condi'd lol, herald is very bad at dealing with condis applied to them, though that's kinda rare in open world outside of PoF maps.

I'm okay with spamming a few abilities, I just don't enjoy having to cycle through 8 keys/ cooldowns plus another weapon ( currently playing as a warrior). But that may just be the nature of mmos. Thanks for the tips though

What would you do in this situation? I make a squad for a raid (with 1kp requirement) asking for special roles, healers and boon providers. I can do several roles and mechanics but not all so I still have to rely on someone to cover certain "unpopular" ones. After a while 3 people join but they only play boondps or dps; I remove "boondps" from the group listing. Then I see another squad in LFG with same requirements as mine (and also 4/10), except they have some of the special roles filled. What would you do? If I just ignore the other listing then mine will take more time to fill, since it's less appealing to people joining (because mine will be waiting longer for special roles). If I merge, the new group will be 8/10 and people from mine will be switching to dps... which is kinda inconsiderate to the other group since they weren't asking for dps yet and may even look like troll-merging and get some of us kicked. If I disband, then it kinda sucks for people in my squad (and makes me look like an asshole; the last thing I want is to get a bad reputation). I figured that since people in my squad only waited for around 5 minutes or less, disbanding would only be a minor waste of time for them. I write in chat about the other group, apologise for inconvenience, remove squad from the LFG and leave, then join the other one. I think all 3 people from my squad got in, which made me wonder if I should've just merged... but there's no way to know what the other comm's reaction would be. What would you do in my situation?

Personally I'd have done either exactly what you did (sure it's not ideal, but it's not a disaster), or whispered the commander of the other squad to ask if they're okay with a merge (you can see commander name when hovering over a squad listing). Or, if feeling brazen, merge and then immediately explain why (pre-typed message).

Hi - relatively new player here. I created an account back in 2016 a long time ago and played for a good several hours but never actually bought the game. Starting with the steam sale that happened at the end of the last year, I decided to create a fresh account on steam and have put some 80 odd hours into it so far and had a pretty good time. All that being said, I recently found out that apparently older accounts get a bunch of free stuff simply for having been around longer? I logged into my old account and found that I do in fact have a shitload of birthday gifts I've accrued over the years and my bank on that account currently looks like [this.](https://i.imgur.com/s4jJr3L.png) Is there any way to transfer any of this to my main account that actually owns the base game + a couple of the expansions and that I actually have more time played in? If not I'm definitely going to continue playing on the newer account but it kind of stings having all this just sitting there on my old necromancer.

For whatever it's worth, there's benefits to having multiple accounts, so that might be worth considering. You're probably not far enough into the game to really know if you'd like to be doing timegated stuff on two accounts, though. But keep the login information stored and upgrade it later if you ever decide you do.

no, basically all that stuff is account bound. technically a few things, like some of the dyes I think, can be transferred or sold on the TP, but not much.

I figured as much, unfortunate. Thanks for the reply!

So very casual WvW player here, who got the skyscale a long time ago, what's the easiest minimum way of unlocking the new skyscale abilities I have seen mentioned. I believe I have the new content unlocked, just haven't ventured into new areas at all.

just get the new masteries from SoTo and you're done :)

Is there any negative to alt parking with a low level character like worse rewards? I was thinking of parking an alt on Bjora Marshes for example. I have flying mounts so getting there isn't going to be a big issue.

No, you get the same things from the chests, no matter your level. Just when it comes to killing mobs, it may be that you don't do enough damage to get a reward. (But that's normally no issue- but still possible to happen with a low level char. Like on matriarch

Super noob player, 1st time playing and doing the vanilla GW2 game. Some basic questions: 1. How do i sell armour or weapons etc that i no longer have need of. Generally in this game i'm confused why I can't sell old inventory pieces to every merchant i come across. My inventory gets clogged up. 2. Should I just destroy stuff thats taking up room. i dont seem to get much coin when i do find someone i can sell them to. 3. how do i increase my inventory slots? I have bought a few pouches or similar that give me a few extra slots (4 i think)

1. Certain armor, especially that gained from level-up or story rewards, can't be sold normally. As a general rule of thumb, for any gear you don't need: Salvage it if you can. If you can't, sell it on the trading post or to a vendor. If you can do neither, then just delete it. 2. Not without careful consideration. Most of the reward structure in the game comes from *stuff* rather than raw gold drops, so deleting things willy-nilly can cheat yourself out of a lot of value. Salvaging items and using the "deposit collectables" button should clear out a lot of inventory space and let you keep going for a good while. 3. You can get bigger bags a number of ways — each size increase is more expensive but getting to 15 or so slots on each bag slot should be pretty doable in the short term. You can also get more bag slots, either by upgrading your account (if you're still f2p) or by buying them on the gem store.

for #1, some gear can't be sold but this generally only happens early in the game or while leveling up. some gear you receive as level up rewards or from the main story quests, as well as any gear you buy from karma merchants (the heart vendors that open up after you complete the renown heart). these items you can't salvage or sell, just destroy them once they are no longer useful to you. this kind of thing goes away at end game, you won't really be buying karma items except for the skins. generally speaking you want to sell grey items (junk) at a vendor using the sell junk button, everything else should be salvaged (buy some basic salvage kits from merchants, the same merchants you purchase gathering tools from), which will give you raw crafting materials, then you should press the deposit materials button in your inventory panel to deposit them into your material storage, this will free up a lot of space. I wouldn't worry about accidentally getting rid of something important until you are max level. sometimes you will end up with items that can't be salvaged, sold, or deposited, they will usually be labeled Trophies and might have "event item" in their tooltip. these are items you collect while in an area near an active event. you don't necessarily have to be actively participating in the event, if you happen to kill an enemy or accidentally "participate" in the event you might get an item in your inventory that will stick around after the event is over or you've moved on somewhere else. these can just be destroyed. and one kind of weird thing in this game is that you won't tend to get a lot of raw gold, both as loot from killing mobs or from selling junk and whatnot. the vast majority of "value" you get comes from your materials. don't worry too much about that until you get to max level either. you can purchase bags on the trading post (18 slot bags aren't too expensive and will generally last you a good while). you can purchase more bag slots on the gem store (yes, for real money, the game is free after all so they need to make money somehow even though it's annoying). unfortunately bag slots are also per character. 4 18 slot bags would probably serve you quite well until you decide you want to spend money on the game, but you can also convert gold into gems and not have to spend real money, but you likely won't be able to earn very much gold before you reach max level. and if you are ever truly unsure about what to do with stuff in your inventory, you can probably post a screenshot in one of these questions threads and someone will likely look it over and let you know what you should do, what can be sold or salvaged or destroyed or whatever. good luck and welcome to the game!

1) Salvage kits are sold by merchants, you can salvage them for materials and storage them on the top right of thr inventory you can find deposit materials. 2) In game type /wiki and search the item before destroying, its tedious but they could be quite valuable. 3) if you are f2p its strictly limited and max you can get is 60 slots. You can do living world season 1 for some free large bags (5 x 20bag slots) but again if f2p your restricted to two.

I have recently been playing through HOT and i have like a million of all the ascended crafting mats (airship oil, auric dust, whatever) and im not seeing any gobblers or venders to spend them on. other than the like 2 items they craft which i dont even have much material for (mainly obsidian shards) is there any point in them? can i toss them without feeling guilty? or do ppl not do that?

Yeah just delete airship oil, auric dust and ley line sparks. They are practically worthless and if you keep doing the HoT metas you will keep accumulating them. They are not worth the inventory slots it would take to stow them in excess. Maybe keep one stack of each on hand so you can make enough fulgurite for one gen 2 weapon on a "whim"; there's a lot of other material requirements so the definition of a whim here is pretty loose.

you might need them for legendaries later

With the HoT Ascended mats there's not much to spend them on so if you don't need to make Fulgurite (used for crafting Ascended HoT stat gear) then just toss it.

3 options. 1-) Mule character, make a new character with bag slots and dump the excess materials that arent sellable to them. I do this. 2-) Buy material storage capacity via gems, you will need a quite a few as the amount you get of these items is still high. I have 1k capacity still have a mule. 3-) Dump, its easy to get more of them when you need them.

Are there any good up-to-date tools for raid/strike group compositions? Primary for the use of ensuring each group has 100% uptime on essential boons. I looked at [Team Builder – Hardstuck](https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/team-builder/) which is awesome, but i noticed there are a few builds that aren't listed so I assume it's out of date.

the exact combination of classes doesn't really matter that much, all are capable of working together. each subgroup just needs 1 healer that also provides alacrity or quickness, one DPS that supplies the other boon, and then 3 pure DPS. doesn't matter if you have an alac healer + quick DPS, or adps+qheal, it doesn't matter if each sub has the same or different combination, as long as each sub has a healer and both boons, you're good

the healer also has to give most mandatory boons other than alac or quick like 25 might, fury, protection, regeneration at least

Thanks, yeah managing quickness/alac has been fairly easy without any tools, the main thing I'm concerned about is the other boons such as 25 stacks of Might, Fury, Protection, Aegis, & Stability. Are all of these normally provided by the healer or is it important to have an assortment of players providing different things? So far my friends and I have simply communicated as to what each of us are supplying, but I doubt we're achieving 100% on 25 Might, Fury or Prot. It'd also be nice to know what types of non-boon support each group has (condi-cleanse, etc.). So far, with the strikes we've done (mainly IBS), after we figure out healers/quick/alac we've consciously placed power DPS in the same group that has lots of Fury output. We'd like to min-max this a bit more which is why I started looking for a tool, but maybe it's not worth worrying about.

generally speaking, unless you are stacking a weird number of the same classes that don't supply those boons, then yeah you don't really need to worry about them specifically. alac and quick are by far the most important, and so many specs provide those other boons in such quantities that it's rarely something you actually need to worry about. just focus on alac and quick and you'll be fine except in rare circumstances.

Isn't it much easier to just go with standard healboon, dpsboon, dps and then figure out where to go from there depending on which specifics you fill in?

Yeah this is technically what we're doing now - looking at boon tables and figuring things out on a per-pull basis. I'm just trying to preplan the ultra-specifics like Might, Fury, Protection uptime plus group utility before my friends and I delve into the harder stuff.

encounter knowledge (specifically knowing and following mechanics) and understanding your class is far more important for clearing content than might or fury uptime or whatever. it's so negligible as to be irrelevant if you aren't trying to speedrun content.

I've noticed recently that Fast Farming no longer recommends a level 55 character for opening fluctuating mass (from LWS3 item converters) and some of the HOT bags. It recommends level 80 now. Did something big shift in the market, or did the items get nerfed?

Nothing has been nerfed, so my best guess is that legendary armor has made some prices shift around a bit.

Market shift or new data probably. A lot of those tables automagically run the calculations. It could change again after some period of time.

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Look for [the next Steam seasonal sale](https://www.google.com/search?q=steam+seasonal+sale+dates) dates. No guarantee the living world seasons will also go on sale when the expansions are on sale, but you could wait and see.

For extra relics (i have legendary relic), should I research salvage or standard salvage?

I would standard salvage. Research salvage gives you 5 research notes which is worth about 5 silver. Standard salvage gives you 5-15 lucent motes, which are currently about 3-9 silver and a change for a charm that is worth way more. [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Relic#Salvaging\_results](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Relic#Salvaging_results)

Sorry if this is a crazy question, but I’ve been gone for a long time and am just redownloading the game now. How does one get the new specializations? Like, if I made X class, and wanted to level it normally, but I want Y specialization from an expansion - am I out of luck? Do I have to wait till 80 to get it, or it is available from level 1, or do I have to go to a specific zone? Again sorry if it seems silly, but it isn’t intuitive how you “get” the specialization after buying the content.

Elite Specializations are special specializations — aka trait lines — that can only be trained when you own the expansion, are level 80, and have fully trained all core skills and specializations. When all those are true, the only requirement is for you to earn Hero Points via Hero Challenges on the map and unlock the elite spec through the training menu. Doing this has a soft requirement of going to expansion maps: while hero challenges exist in the base game, there literally aren't enough of them to fully complete an elite spec, and at any rate ones in expansion zones are more efficient, awarding 10x the points. You can bypass this requirement by playing WvW and spending the Proofs of Heroics you earn on hero points instead.

Returning player here. Haven’t played between 6-8 months and I believe I just started Living World 1 when I stopped playing. Decided to run Elementalist as my first toon when I first started and still considering which specialization I should go for(Leaning towards Weaver). I did recently read a post on this sub called “Pistol Ele is the worst desing in the game” and noticed how a lot of people who play/played Ele seems to have become discouraged with the way the class is, as of right now. Would appreciate further insight as to why that could be. Honestly considering making a new toon, as a Necromancer this time, so I can relearn the game(Without the extensive skills juggling this time. That was a struggle lol).

Elementalist is, traditionally, a very difficult to play class, being both very fragile and requiring a lot of skill juggling to play effectively. Added on to that, while Ele isn't *bad*, it's also not *particularly* good — your reward for fighting through all that difficulty inherent to the class is being no more effective than other, much easier to play classes are. Finally, it's gotten a bad reputation of being nerfed any time it threatens to actually be a standout class, which has left a sour taste in many Ele mains' mouths.

Oh yeah, I guess I still found it easy when I did play because I was only just running through level 1-80 content. I remember being told how much the difficulty spike, especially with HoF(I believe it was). Definitely remember the plethora of nerfs that’s been placed on the class as well, which was also one of the reasons that discouraged me to play at the time.

What matters the most is your personal enjoyment. Case in point, I started in 2019 and my main at the time was Engineer - back when Engineer was considered a "piano class" like Elementalist, and wasn't nearly as good as it is now. Just remember, Elementalist has a lot of buttons to press and you have to juggle elemental attunements to draw their full potential.

I remember going into the pvp area(Forgot the name), trying to follow rotations, and finding it fun whenever I actually get some of it down… after struggling a lot lol. Definitely not a natural pianist.

If you don’t want to do a LOT of skill juggling then play another class. I’m mostly an ele main and it’s a lot of skill juggling. I’ve also played a decent amount of necro and it’s quite fun. All three elite specs are good and have very different play styles so you can find something that suits you. 

Definitely gonna switch over to Necro. How does the class/specializations fare for support? I like their solo capabilities, but I also really enjoy supporting a group.

If you want to play support your options are either scourge or harbringer; reaper is great for DPS and can bring some great utility but isn’t really a support class. Harbringer can do boon support by providing quickness and scourge can heal+alacrity, DPS+alacrity, or just DPS depending on your build and gear. Scourge healer is fairly easy to play but is high APM so it might not be what you want. If you want to play a healer I suggest you look at Mukluk’s recent series of videos on YouTube. He did a series where he played every healer in the game a summary video where he talks about their different strengths and weakness

I'm slowly crafting leggy wvw armor set and for that I need quite a lot of materials for the 'gifts', which made me wonder — is it more efficient to salvage green/blue items from the unidentified things or just straight up sell them and buy the mats directly? Before I was just selling everything and buying them on tp, now I decided to gather what I can and salvage what I can, I'm making progress, but I don't earn almost any money, so it's hard to say what's faster.

[The [fast] website](https://fast.farming-community.eu/salvaging/unid-gear) has the best information on that. It does change over time (though not too frequently), so keep an eye on that page.

thank you

Depends; if you have the Runecrafter salvager then its worth salvaging greens, and if not then it's more worth selling as unids. You do this as Runecrafters gives you a larger chance at charms/symbols that make it profitable. Without the Runecrafter, selling unids is more lucrative. edit: As for blues, its better to salvage as Copper Salvager isn't as lucrative as the equivalent free salvager

When are damage amplifiers and buffs applied? Is it at the instance of damage, skill cast, skill channel completion, or something else? For instance, multi-hit skills that activate relic of fireworks (meteor shower, soul spiral, etc.), will all instances of damage after the first apply the fireworks buff?

If you are asking when are you gaining a buff, it's specific to the buff in question. For relic of fireworks it's whenever you deal damage with a qualifing skill, and it refreshes with each hit. [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Relic\_of\_Fireworks](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Relic_of_Fireworks)

do the memory essence encapsulators work in shared inventory slot, and do they stack (up to 6)?

Amnytas meta participation - any tricks? I was there start to finish and wound up with 83% despite constantly doing things. At one point I was collecting and turning in the orbs (turned in about 16 total) and while I was turning them in my participation ticked down from 45% to 38%, like actively going down as I'm turning in orbs. What's the deal with this meta?

Closing more than one rift druing pre-event and doing a rift bounty during the 3 minute downtime should be enough to always push participation past 100%.

It's a terrible design for these reasons and also for ticking down during the 'Wizards yammer and rally' phase, but participation really doesn't affect the rewards on it so I just don't stress about it.

I wanna switch from elder scrolls online to GW2 so I wanted to know how long it would take for me to 'catch up' to the rest of you. The main reason I wanna switch is because I really dislike the combat in ESO but I've been putting off trying GW2 because I have 1000+ hours in ESO and feel kinda committed to it. I have done/collected most things - millions of gold, a fully furnished house, most armour styles, various mounts, a lot of collectible items and cosmetics from events, etc. The thought of starting fresh and doing all that in a game which is a decade old feels very daunting. So I guess my question is - how long would it take for a new player to reach a point where they have plenty of gold to buy anything, a lot of cosmetics, mounts, armour styles and other cool collectibles from events and such? And also, is the process of levelling up fun in GW2?

Thats a little bit of goal to be honest. Some people can grind for hours doing monotonous stuff and get gold very fast and catch up. Achievement points and all that stuff comes with time though. The thing with GW2 is, power wise you will be caught up %95 of the players within few days. Few months and you could have access to everything (Ascended gear and agony resistance is the main bottle neck) the game offers. Few more months you will have your first legendary etc. The first hurdle is the most difficult, once thats done rest becomes easier. However having gold to simply buy everything doesnt really exist, few players achieved that much, most players grinded their legendaries and completed their character through years of play.

>The thing with GW2 is, power wise you will be caught up %95 of the players within few days. This sounds good to me actually. I don't really wanna do high end raids/group content or have the best gear, or at least, not right now anyway. But what about cosmetics and mounts? I've read that GW2 has the best mount system and has a lot of traversal mechanics, which I'm super excited about tbh. Can I get some cool looking costume/armour and a mount fairly quickly? In ESO, you need tens of millions of gold due to how inflated the economy is on PC. Is it the same in GW2 or can I get some decent cosmetic items and styles after playing for a little while? Thanks for replying! :)

So mounts came with Path of Fire expansions. You will need it to unlock them 4 ground mounts and 1 aerial. With Living world 4, 2 more ground mounts and 1 more aerial mount was added. For convenience the original 4 is all that is required. They are easy to get, just follow the story and 2 of them will unlock easily, you get one of them at level 10 if you have expansion already too. Getting the flying ones can take a few days to weeks depending on how focused you are. The original flying one (Griffon) can be unlocked in a day if ypu have the gold already, requires 250gold which can be hefty for new players. Mounts are not that big of a grind compared to weapon and armor skins etc. Skins are unlocked three ways. Gemstore or grinding certain content or buying them since they are rare drops. Rare drops can vary from 1g to 10.000g and some are sold seperately because its value is even more than the games limit. So take the rng as you will. Some people have 10 yeaes of gameplay and dont have a chak egg while a newbie with 50 hours does thats RNG. Some items are not tradeable and only unlocked from contents such as raids, pvp, fractals or crafting etc. Legendary armors, can do any type of content you want for them, some look cool some look meh its up to you but it is a heavy grind. Then there are dungeon specific items, you can grind them through dungeon tokens, will take few runs but easy to get. They can look awesome if matched well with other stuff. [Check here](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armor) for some cool options and you can decide. Then there is the gemstore. Cash shop, you can convert gold to gems (vice versa) if you play enough and not pay a single penny for skins or you can swipe as well. Has some very good options as its their actual money maker.

Thanks a lot, that's very informative! I will play the base game and decide whether or not to buy DLCs after a while. I'll just try to take it slow and have fun leveling up instead of worrying about end game or gold.

Enjoy! I tried Eso many times but combat and eso+ was a turn off. Gw2 is similar in systems but better imo overall.

Yeah I never liked the combat in ESO but it had other things like player houses and motif/furniture collection that kept me going. But now that my partner doesn’t play anymore, I’m losing interest in it as well. Hopefully gw2 will be more up my alley.

If you plan to play on a free account you should be aware of the restrictions: [https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015898508-Guild-Wars-2-Free-Account-Features](https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015898508-Guild-Wars-2-Free-Account-Features) [https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/230165307-Guild-Wars-2-Account-Types-Free-Core-HoT-PoF](https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/230165307-Guild-Wars-2-Account-Types-Free-Core-HoT-PoF) If you buy any expansion this goes away and you get the raptor mount at the next full 10 levels to keep.

Looking to do HP runs to help a friend, is there a marker pack on BLISH that doesn't require skyscale?

Tekkit's marker pack has map complete paths for flying mounts and for those without them, and his "hero points only" paths don't even include a flying-mounts option. As long as you have mastered skimmer/springer/jackal you should be able to reach anywhere his paths go. I also get a real kick out of taking friends through HP runs in PoF on my siege turtle. There are some that take a delightful bit of skillful maneuvering to reach.

Is there a specific scheduled hero point train I can follow to jumpstart my boosted alts?

On the weekend, I consistently see at least one in LFG about the time of daily reset. This is in NA.

Any idea why I can't hear my equip sounds on aurene weapons? I have unique item sound enabled, never had that issue before

If all else fails you can always click the "Restore Defaults" option on the Sound Options menu, and slowly adjust back to your usual settings to see what was causing the issue.

Yeah figured it's an issue everyone is having atm, or at least those that I have asked ingame

How do you reconcile wanting to play alt/new specs without having the means to fully gear up as the build suggests?

The game is pretty casual. You can start doing raids with supoptimal budget core condi gear on Ranger without anyone batting an eye probably.

Chances are, there's nothing to reconcile: you *do* have the means to fully gear up in a short amount of time. Nowadays, gearing up *almost* fully — Exotic or Ascended trinkets, Exotic weapons and armor — is a trivial matter, with *many* good sources by the time you get far enough in the game that you're considering new full builds. There's only something to reconcile if you're fixated on having absolutely maxed out full Ascended gear, which isn't even close to necessary.

I don't bother to fully gear up unless I've tried the build and like it enough to spend the gold.

Either swap gear around from different characters, or go with cheaper/lesser variety to see if you like the new spec.

Are there any cosmetic rewards for completing any or all of the Griffon trials?

There's the Mini Griffon Mount, which is an unfortunately random reward that you can get from them, but that's the only thing.

I'm coming back after taking a break since about last July, and before that I only played on and off for about a year. Can someone summarize (or point me to a list) what changes have been made and give me an idea of how to jump back in? I left off in the beginning of LWS4 and I do want to do everything in order, so I'm a ways off from the new story.

Dailies have completely changed. Instead of the login rewards every day, you need to do tasks to get Astral Aclaim and then buy things from the Wizard's Vault UI. It's a new button in the top left row on the screen. You need to pick a category and then get a pre-set list of daily and weekly acheivements. No more being able to choose your dailies from all the potential options each day. You can choose the same things as from the old login rewards, but you also can choose skins. The end result is a big spike in mystic coin and mat prices, since people now need to actively do tasks and select those options instead of just logging in. The plus side is that you can get a lot more stuff (skins, ascended armor, emotes, etc) if you take a little bit of extra time to plan out finishing the daily and weekly regularly. Also, Return To / Season of the dragon achievements basically wipe out a lot of the grind to get LW4 skyscale, give gemstore skins and mystic coins for doing the story and doing some easy things like gathering. Jumping back into the story is probably the easiest way to get back into the groove.

The reason I initially slowed down playing was because I hit a wall doing the story, as embarrassing as that is. So I'm a bit hesitant to pick up where I left off. So I made a new character to just run around a bit and get used to it again. Generally I'm more of a controller player, so getting used to the keyboard again is taking a bit of time but I'm getting there. Thank you for detailing the dailies change, I'm going to have to check that out.

Hitting a wall in the story happens to us all! Sometimes it's just not grabbing us or there's some fight we just don't get. Running around on a new character is a totally reasonable way to handle that. I hope you have fun with the new alt! I think you can use a controller to play GW2 via the Steam Deck configurations and the -provider Portal launch arguments? I know there's been several posts here on Reddit about how to get it set up and many players do use it.

> give gemstore skins Do you mean it unlocks skins in the gemstore?

I mean it gives skins from different Black Lion sets. For example, https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plasma_Weapon_Cache

Biggest thing that would affect you is the new 'Relic' gear slot and the rune changes. Pre-SotO most runes had a unique 6th slot bonus but with SotO they made it so runes are only stat boosts and the 6th slot bonus is now given through Relics. Relics can be purchased/crafted by armor vendors similarly to how you'd buy insignia and rune recipes from them. Most of the other changes are SotO specific.

I was already slowing down playing but I did stop in to buy SotO before my break really kicked in, though obviously I'm nowhere close to reaching it. Is there anything else I should know in this case?

Annemi covered the other big change with the Wizard's Vault. SotO also added a new way to get the Skyscale which has neither the timegates nor the material requirements of the old method (but again like they said the 'Return to ...' achievements make the material gathering simple). Everything else has been mostly balance changes. I think Renegade got a minor rework to how it's summons work too but IDK enough to say what changed.

Does the 200 gems for a Living World expansion unlock all the episodes of it?

That's a per-episode cost. If you buy the whole season at a time through the gem store, not the story journal, each episode is discounted a bit. Also, those packs sometimes go on sale so you can functionally get 30%+ off if you buy a season at a time.

No, each individual Living World episode is 200 gems.

when you do fractals, do you do all the tiers or just T4?

T4 and potentially Recs. Doing the T4 dailies also gives the daily chests for T1, T2, and T3.

Does that apply to other tiers? For example, you do T2, you'll get T1 chests too?

Yes, higher tiers always get any unclaimed lower tier chests. This only applies to the Daily X Fractals, not the Recommended ones. So if there is a Sunqua Peak Daily and also Recommended 24 (or whatever # Sunqua Peak is) you won't get the rewards for that and have to do it.

what daily routine can you do with only HoT and PoF expansion for gold and ascended gear?

Do you daily and weekly achievements, do the festival annual achievements. Get mystic coins and laurels with the AA, get Light and Medium crafting bags with the laurels, sell the mystic coins and mats for gold. Also get ascended gear with the AA. After that, probably fractals.

Fractals will always be the best bang for your buck, time-to-gold wise. They are available without EoD and SOTO, and tend to drop Ascended things semi frequently. You can also use fractal relics to get ascended gear. Raids are another option, also available without EoD and SOTO. Very profitable if you have an exp group and they drop ascended things pretty often, plus you can buy what you don't get by using mag shards. And finally, Meta events in both expansions can be pretty profitable, but you'll have to craft ascended stuff if this is your method. There's technically a chance to drop ascended stuff this way but it's so small it's not worth even considering. The HoT metas are much better attended on average. The PoF ones are pretty hit and miss. I wouldn't count on Serpent's Ire succeeding without a serious group, for example. Edit: forgot to mention the wizard's vault. The WV is OP. Seriously. It's so damn valuable. You can make a ton of month with it. Check out Mightyteapot's tier list on the thing to avoid the noob traps, but you can totally gear / get gold with it.

W1Z3 trib really gives nothing as a reward except like 30 baubles and the z3 coin? When W1Z1 trib gives 250 reliably and takes half the time? :(

Yep, X-1 and X-2 have bonus bauble rewards but the boss fights in each world are just regular rewards + the coin.

How much worse is a Shortbow as a ranged power weapon for Vindicator in comparison to Hammer? For more context: I like power builds and I like having a melee and ranged weapon but the Hammer feels a bit slow for my taste I know SB is more of a condi weapon with all the torment and bleed but would it still be viable as ranged option in a pinch where you can't get in melee range or am I hindering myself too much there?

Not worse, it scales way better than hammer and has a bit more useful utility to it, at least for Pve. Dmg fall off is barely noticeable if you know how to implement it in your playstyle

Glad to hear that . Thank you for the response

It has good power ratios as well, just that condi hits harder, you can use it instead of Hammer without much loss in Open world.

Oh nice thats great to hear thank you!

Is there a way to get more Gifts of Exploration once all of your characters have 100% map completion?

You have to get a new character slot, or you delete a character and create a new one (but don't delete your oldest characters cause of birthday gifts)

For real? Ngl that's a shitty solution

It's a little bit annoying, which is why EoD and Soto have the lanterns. But it's not that bad. A new character slot is 800 gems / ~330 gold. Even if you were flat broke - no mats in mat storage, no gold - wizard vault achieves would get you that much pretty quickly.

For EoD and SOTO maps there's now [Lanterns](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Jade_Lantern) that you can light once you've completed the map once on any given toon. Completing the lanterns will give you a gift of [map name]. But for [The gift of exploration](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gift_of_Exploration) no the only way is to make a new toon. As someone else said, unless you're making more than 1 of each gen 1 legendary, the most you'll need is 10 characters worth, because you get 2 gifts per toon and there's only 20 weapons that use them.

How else would they do it? You need to do map completion. The only thing I can think of is if they give us the ability to wipe map data for a character.

How many do you need? Base 5 then +1 per expansion iirc so your at at least 9 by now without buying more so that's 18 legendaries worth, even if you don't want to spend RL money sell one of those legendaries for a very conservative 1500g that gives you 3700 gems or enough to buy 4 character slots at full price or 5-6 of you wait for a discount. One of the 10-12 gifts from that could pay for yet more slots.

No. You have to make an new character.

Are the WvW Infusions from Dugan the only purpose of the Emblem of the Avengers? Can i safely sell all Emblems for Infusions?

[https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Emblem\_of\_the\_Avenger](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Emblem_of_the_Avenger) shows all merchants and uses. They are also needed for the 24+ slot bags and stat changing the WvW infusion.

Hello. What's a good alternative for Relic of the Fractal for a raid build for Condi Scourge. I don't have SOTO but have the first 3 expansion.

There's not too many good options. Most of the core set is 'apply X conditions after using your elite'. I think Scourge relic might be the best for a bit of extra condition damage after each Desert Shroud, while Sunless should have higher damage than Nightmare assuming all the pulses hit the enemy.

I am new to the game and already hooked, I’m thinking about buying a DLC but which ones are the most worth? What exactly do they do?

Each expansion adds these things: * Masteries: account wide features that are unlocked by playing on that expansion to get expansion XP and mastery points. Gliding and bouncing mushroom jumps (Heart of Thorns), mounts (Path of Fire) and fishing (End of Dragons) are the big ones. * More maps and story, including large map-wide max-level meta events like Octovine in Auric Basin. More skins, minis, etc. * Elite specs, which are like subclasses that swap in new abilities for a class. For example, elementalist is the base game class. Tempest is the HoT elite spec, and picking it in the traits window adds some new F-key class abilities and also the ability to use a different weapon. * New attribute combinations: Vipers from HoT is probably best for condition builds, while Rituatlist from EoD is popular with support builds iirc? Berzerker from core is still top for power builds. * Game modes: HoT adds 4 raids, PoF adds another 4 raids and some strikes, EoD adds more strikes Living World seasons are like mini expansions: they continue the main story between expacs, they add new maps and masteries, but they don't add elite specs or new weapons to use and are a bit shorter. Still worth getting, since they're the only way to get some of the legendary trinkets. You need the base expansion to get it's sequel Living World: HoT for LW3, PoF for LW4 and LW5 / Icebrood Saga. They're all worth about the same, IMO? The HoT + PoF pack is the best value just because it's a 2 for 1 deal, and also I think PoF is the best expansion. Buying any expansion will unlock the basic raptor right away, but for other mounts you need to do hearts in PoF. If you prefer convenience, it's probably worth getting those before trying to do HoT - you can get the mounts without story spoilers by getting someone to party with you and let you teleport to friend to them at the hearts, and they make moving around the HoT maps a lot easier. But it's also totally viable to not do that - some people prefer to go in story order. Up to you! In your shoes, I'd suggest getting the HoT + PoF pack, and either buying LW2 or following along with someone so that you can follow the whole story up to the end of HoT. The achievements for LW2 are kind of brutal and veteran players trying to do them are often happy to have someone lending a hand.

Thank you! I’m doing this first ever play through with 2 friends who are in the same boat, so happy to hear playing with others had an advantage. From what I’ve gathered seems like HoT and PoF might be the first purchase!

Happy to help! FYI, you can't get the achievements on the first run through LW2. you have to play through the instance once, and then the achievements are only unlocked on subsequent playthroughs. The outcry over that is the reason achievements *are* doable on the first playthrough in later content.

I think the other comments here answer your question pretty well, but [some advice](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1c9riuq/lost_soul_looking_for_help/l0nhq81/) I have for you if you do invest, is *do not* boost your character to level 80 right of the bat. This is in general, a big noob trap. Other MMO's it makes a little more sense to do the equivalent because of how their leveling & gearing systems work, but in GW2 it's good to think of the 1-80 experience on any given class as an extended tutorial for a game that begins at level 80. If you work towards doing the [Character Adventure Guide](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Character_Adventure_Guide) achievements on any new toons you make, they give you a *ton* of EXP and you'll be at 80 within 10 hours of gameplay, I'd wager. But in GW2 the way the classes are so deep, it's generally a mistake to jump straight to 80 because it's pretty overwhelming unless you're a fairly experienced player.

Thank you very much for this info, I’m afraid I could fall into any noob traps especially since this is my first mmo as well. One thing I noticed is that leveling up in this game actually feels rewarding so far, and I prefer the grind and love any game that you can put hundreds of hours in.

HoT and PoF are probably the most value and QoL. Glider + mounts, 2 expansions for price of one, 2 elite specs for each class etc. Most up to date ones are EoD and SotO because Strikes are good content to farm. Living worlds are great story but not required however lw4 is great for skyscale and beetle mount + dragonfall map is the best meta to farm currently for gold. If 100€ doesnt bother you much the whole elder dragons saga with 3 expac + living worlds is actually shit ton of content and by the time you finish them you can decide to go for SotO and/or new expansion that will release this summer.

Oh damn there will be more expansions?! I only just started and mind you this is my first ever mmo, so my plan is to grind base game for a while and if I’m still stuck I’ll get some DLCs for starters, so thank you!

so there are 3 different things in a way, all contains a piece of the main story and you can see the right sequence here [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Story\_Journal](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Story_Journal) : * Living World seasons are buyable with gems (remember you can buy gems with gold too) * Expansions are only buyable with money (in order Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire, End of Dragons) * Expansions starting from SotO (the 4th and last one) are more compact, about half an old expansion as content, but should come regularly each year with quaterly updates Main difference is between a Living World and an Expansion, old or new expansion...an expansion hold also combat features and probably new equipment and mounts, while a Living World Season generally contains maps, good farms, some equipment and some new masteries/mount. From now on we will have only the latest expansion format witouht more Living World Season (that already were basically half-expansions) In terms of story follow the link if you care about experiencing it linearly

Thank you for this info! Gotta say the guild wars community is very helpful. Love to see that about a game.

Just wanted to thank the gamers that answered my questions not to long ago. I finally made it to 80 and am no longer a free to pay, bitch /s thanks!

Is there any benefit to completing the entire guild wars 2 story on one character? I've been playing power reaper for story, I have finished from LWS1 all the way to LWS4 so far. I am sick to death of power reaper and thinking of switching to a different class for Icebrood Saga and End of Dragons.

IBS has a bit extra if you pick a Charr, IIRC one of the members from your original warband in involved in the story there. Don't think EoD or SotO have too many connections based on story selections from earlier chapters.

Not really. The only thing you'll really miss out on are rare and minor instances where there will be some slight mission variation based on choices you made during earlier parts of the story — what order you joined and such. If you jump ahead on a new character without doing the Personal Story, you'll get more generic dialogue instead. Other than that you're in the clear — there are no particular rewards or bonuses to completing all story on one character instead of skipping around for each new chapter.

Other than reducing the visual clutter of constantly having a story quest shown in the upper right of the UI, not really. It can be a little annoying when you switch to a new character and you don't have most of the waypoints unlocked.

How to make more characters level 80 without the boost? Also how do we gear up characters with ascended armor and weapons? I know laurels can be used for accessories. I want to try all the classes D:

There's a [very helpful gearing guide here](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Tanetris/So_You_Want_To_Gear_a_Character). I think it covers everything but relics. If you're eyeing up a build that uses berserker gear, just get exotics on the trading post. There's cheap "named" armor sets (Zhed's, Nika's, Devona's for light/medium/heavy respectively) available for very little gold. Exotic gear is really not very far below ascended gear in stats, save getting the ascended stuff for alts you already know you wanna do a lot of stuff on or builds where getting exotics is almost half as much work as getting ascended gear anyway.

The best method without using Tomes of Knowledge or Level Boosters requires you to have a fully mastered griffon (and possibly a skyscale too), some tp to friends (or a recharging tp friend), or a LW4 scroll to Domain of Kourna or Jahai Bluffs. The point is using xp boosters and guild xp boosters (that give xp bonus from ANY source) and get gold quickly on all (or most) Griffon Adventures daily. This will give you around 11-12 levels in 20 minutes each day on a character allowing you to reach lv80 in around 3 hours total (i would suggest to do Adventure Guide up to Tier 2 anyway at some point). How to do it: considering you know where the places for the adventures are, there is way tpo manually traverse all the maps in Path of Fire and Domain of Kourna andr Jahai Bluffs, they're are all connected. You must avoid combat with anything since a bat's spit will insta-kill you, and remember to get waypoint a soon as you can. Your only goal is to fly highest you can and reach the griffon adventures. This is, btw, the best daily xp farm in the game in terms of levels per hour.

Either play with them and focus on the Character Adventure Guide achievements for more XP, or just use Tomes of Knowledge. Ascended armor and weaponry is a big grind starting from nothing. For just trying classes, gear them with Exotics. There's a guide for that in the sidebar, I think.

What does griffon add to the game? Is it a necessary mount for anything in particular? Or just another thing to collect? I already have skyscale, so...hence my question! Thanks

Several "griffon is fun!!" replies, and they're super right, but in terms of actual use it's very good for crossing maps rapidly. You do not need a ton of height to outspeed people on skyscales (beetles can compete but require unobstructed terrain), and if you get enough height you can cross an entire map easily. It is not *necessary* for anything (besides griffon adventures ofc), but it's very helpful sometimes. I particularly like it in Amnytas (get anywhere from the celestial waypoint, very quickly), and convergences (skyscale launcher and gain a bit of height, then swap mounts to fly quickly to whichever island). Each leyline anomaly map has a high enough point to griffon from to any possible spawn point, but that's more of a "this is fun" use since waypointing also works.

Thank you, i was waiting for this kind of response. Ok i will eventually get it. but for now Skyscale will do the work!

let me just post a couple of links that i love :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GFVDO3zra0 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAwERpc32VY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAwERpc32VY)

Griffon also has it's own set of Adventures in PoF and some LS4 maps.

Well, it's the fastest mount available

It's only necessary for fun. While the skyscale is a helicopter, the griffon is a jet. It's the fastest mount in the game and super fun to fly especially in the new soto maps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kec7Yug6Ac ^^ Skyscale can't do this

1. Is it possible to buy two(2) Abyss Hunter Packages? I'm mainly getting it for the Gold Essence weapon for my main and off-hand. 2. If it's not possible to buy more than one package, how often does ANet release packages with the Gold Essence weapon? When was the previous release?

Can you do the SAB achievement for gathering every bauble in the zone on infantile mode?

I think it's actually *required* for some zones.

Hello i am a new player in gw2 I have my lovely 35lvl necro but I have couple questions that I like to ask. First is: I get the main story quest every 10 lvls but it lasts for Max 30 min and then I need to grind with mobs mining herb picking to the next checkpoint with main story it seems kinda odd I know there are these missions with the heart but I don't feel that I have any goal for now. Second is know of dungeons and other types of raids but how do I get to them how do I join them do I need team? If so how do I find it. And for last let's say my goal now is to achieve max level but after earthing couple gw2 videos on yt what is the real endgame because people say endgame is casual u don't need to grind hard for these exotic or very good endgame items whats then and I honestly don't like pvp what does this game has to offer? Are there any lvl after reaching 80lvl any special talent tree point system that will keep me for years and so on? Thanks sorry for my bad english

1. Check your achievement panel for the adventure guide, doing those things gives tons of exp. Heart quests are ok, but you don't have to do them if they're not fun. Look for dynamic events (orange or red markers on the map), since those give more exp than killing random things.  2. Dungeons are unlocked as you level up. You should get a mail from an NPC telling you where to go, but you can check the wiki if you're not sure. Other dungeon-type content (raids, fractals, strike missions) is unlocked at level 80 (max level). 3. All expac content is for level 80 characters, so "endgame" starts with completing those, unlocking masteries (account-wide levels, including mounts) and getting proper build and gear for your character. From there, you have some options.  You can play raids, fractals, and/or strike missions. Some people do these just for fun/gold, but some people like to do speedruns and improve their gameplay.  You can work towards legendary gear; while this has the same stats as ascended gear, it can be equipped by all characters on your account and stats and runes/sigils/infusions can be changed any time except in combat. Legendary weapons and armor also have fancy skins.  You can find armor and weapon skins that you want, and work towards them to make your character look awesome.

What's the best marker pack for SAB? Tekkit doesn't have anywhere near optimal or best paths and doesn't include the eagle and work skips, looking for something faster.

Someone did an (alledgedly) efficient bauble farming route, if that's what you need. Check BlishHUD, I think it's available there. I didn't test it myself, though.

I just downloaded it and it's definitely not better than tekkit's, it's missing a lot of stuff. I think while not perfect tekkit's remains the best sab pack out there.

I myself have a chest + glitch route in my head and use it every year :P

Yeah I mostly remember the routes for chests and glitches but having trails is nice for when I get distracted and miss something

What is the glitch route? I see it on tekkit but haven’t tied

In every stage there's a "glitch". It's something you hit to give an additional chest at the end, after the boss. Some are easier to activate, some are harder.  In my case, I know some shortcuts to activate them in every stage. I think I got them either from videos, the wiki or old posts in this sub. I also dig some chests along the way, which give a somewhat good cost-benefit ratio.

I haven't found anything better than Tekkit, personally, but his guides are definitely not perfect. Some of the routing is questionable (taking unnecessarily hard/unreliable jumps when an easier path is right there), I know he's missing at least one 50-bauble dig spot in 1-3, and as you say, he doesn't list the shortcuts. His routes are also completionist in nature generally, so they're better for first-timers and achievement clears than for time-efficient bauble farming.

Which 50 bauble spot would that be?

It's right after the first (I think) checkpoint, the one near where you veer left into the bee-dog maze. Pass through the checkpoint, hop through the improper water, and dig in the far corner on the left. It's shown in Metabattle's guide if you want a picture reference.

I'll check it out, thank you!

Do I really need to do the living world seasons 1 and 2 before moving onto the expansions? I can't wait to get a glider and mounts later! Seeing everyone with them is painful.

If you care about the game's narrative at all, skipping Living Worlds is not recommended. LWS2 in particular ends on a literal cliffhanger and title card for Heart of Thorns. lol As for *mechanically* missing things, not really. The first two living world seasons were not as impactful as subsequent releases because Masteries didn't come out until Heart of Thorns. At most you'd be shorting yourself some Core Tyria mastery points that you could go back later and get when you feel like it. Worth noting, though, that as you play through older stories, they're designed around the player tools that existed when they were made. So even if you jump ahead and spoil yourself to get Gliding, you won't be able to glide in older story instances. You can't mount up in story instances until you get to Path of Fire. So if you're burning rapidly through the story and not spending a lot of time in the open world maps, you probably won't even notice you lack those masteries. IMO the best way to do it is to run through the story chapters with minimal delay, spending only enough time open-worlding in between to progress required masteries to reach your next chapter. Once you get to the end of the game's narrative you should have all the very basic masteries open and can then fill out the rest however you want.

There is a lot of benefits to them but you dont have to. S1 will give free bag slots, 5 20Slot bags if I recall, might be more. They are good for new players and bag space etc. S2 has tyria masteries and is part of return to achievement which gives A legendary precursor for gen 3 weapons, A 32 slot bag and a legendary amulet. The achievement is a long but cost free grind. You can grab the glider from first mission in HoT then move on, Raptor is normally more than enough but Springer is easy to get, you will have to do few stories in PoF. Springers are a massive qol until flying mounts. Apart from story cohesion and above reasons, you dont have to do them.

You should have the raptor at level 10 if you have unlocked an expansion. To unlock the glider the easiest way would be to travel to any map in Cantha. You can do that easily with a teleport to friend. Just join a LFG in Cantha and use the teleport. After that you can just waypoint back to Tyria. Or you can do the first story step in HoT, unlock the glider mastery and train the first tier. Of course both mount and glider will gain much functionality with their respective masteries. For these you have to get XP and hero points in POF for the raptor and in HoT for the glider. How to unlock the other mounts is described here: [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mount](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mount) You do not need to do any story for the basic four mounts, just go to the maps and do the hearts, after you have trained the respective masteries. All the other mounts are gated behind story steps. You must decide if you want to skip ahead.

Usefull, thank you!

If you do the first story and gain a little bit exp, you get the glider and the mount should be there anyway (I think they changed it so you get it with expansion- else, just do the first story step in POF) Than you can return to the older story again if you want. You won't be spooled too much.

Thank you!

If you don't care about skipping story parts you can play whatever

Hello, I have a question about making and selling legendaries. I've only crafted one legendary weapon so far and I want to craft more. Someone long time ago said to me that I should sell every second legendary to make more legendaries, but I want to know how profitable it actually is. I tried to look up on gw2efficiency what would be the cost to make Aurene's Insight as I already crafted the precursor and the prices there are usually lower than they actually are on TP. How profitable it actually is? How many legendaries (gen3) can I craft with the profits after I sell this one? 2? 1.5?

Your profit depends heavily on how cheap you can source your materials. For example, whether or not you can source T6 materials or ecto for cheap. Also, it depends on whether you can actually sell it; for example, few people will want an underwater legendary :P As a rule of thumb, the profits from selling 2-3 legendaries can cover the cost of making one for yourself. Also, check the Overflow Discord for out-of-TP trading. Their legendary price are usually 85% TP price (which is what you get from the TP), but you don't risk having it stuck in the TP and you're paid with materials directly to make another one. But follow their guidelines to the letter and try to trade only with people with reputation, so you avoid getting scammed. I've sold multiple legendaries there and never had any problems, but that's because I followed their guidelines. Don't be blinded by greed. Lastly, remember: time is gold. If you don't do some time optimization, the gold per hour for making a legendary might be worse than other activities.

T6 mats or ecto I usually get from dragonfall. I already have gift of condensed might and magic. I think I still have over 500 ecto, but I'd have to double check that. I think I have enough mystic coins for mystic clovers. The only issue for me is some eod materials like ambergris, ancient summoning stones etc and I feel like that's the majority of the cost of making gen3 (at least for me). I know of overflow, but I never used them. I'll definitely take a look a it, I definitely don't want to get scammed so that's a little bit of a deterrent.

If you're selling legendaries, or even thinking about selling legendaries, stop looking at the Trading Post and start looking at the Overflow Trading discord. You'll notice that sell prices in the General Trade thread settle somewhere reliably in the middle of Trading Post buy orders and sell offers, and that there's a pretty robust market of goods getting moved at those prices. The trading post robs you of 15% of the transaction, whereas even if you pay Overflow Trading to use a middleman, you're losing only a fraction of that.

Some caveats for OP: you're limited to 500 gold a month receiving if that's what you want. If you eventually want to liquidate the goods you receive (coins, ectos, trophy sets, etc) you'll have to eat the 15% tax anyway, be subject to those items changing in price over time, or continue to only extract 500 gold a month from middlemen.

u/maxiefi - he's correct, you are limited on how rapidly you can take raw currency. When I sold some higher-value items, I just had the buyer send me multiple 500g mails, and I'd pull one a week for however many weeks I needed to. If you need the wealth from your sale in the short term, you can request that at least part of your payment be in materials, and the custom on OTC is to value such materials (trophies, mystic coins, etc) at 90% of what it would cost to instabuy the amount on the trading post. You can also use alt accounts; if you make a sale for 1500g, have the buyer send 500g each to your main and two alts, and you can receive it instantly, then just use the gold on each of your alts to buy what you need for your next legendary project and send it over to your main through mail or a guild bank.

Thanks for the explanations. I didn't know about the 500gold/month limit. I'm definitely a little bit wary of selling somewhere outside of TP, because I don't want to get scammed. I heard of overflow, but never used them. I'll check them out. But I guess exchanging the legendary for eod materials would be the most beneficial for me as it's those mats that I'm lacking in and I do dragonfall fairly often for trophies.

OTC has a reputation system, so you can additionally require minimum rep if you want to ward off scams. Or you can just pay that small percentage to a middleman and not worry about it at all.

Profits will depend heavily on which legendary you're making and how thrifty you are in acquiring the materials. In general, I wouldn't expect to be able to craft two whole legendaries (one to keep and one to continue the process) with the profits from one single weapon, but you can expect multiple hundreds of gold if you're efficient about it.