Beginner's Guide

[Tijseh]

 

The Guild Wars 2 Beginner's Guide intends to answer questions you have about the game and to generally help introduce you to GW2's quirks.

 

Character Creation 1. 

 

Unlike other MMOs, your answer to the questions asked during character creation will have an impact on your gameplay. Generally, you will be asked four questions; the first one determines your starter equipment and isn't that important. However, the next three questions are race specific and will determin

e your personal story (i.e. main story quest) for the first 30 levels. You can see a list of the questions 

 

2. UNDERSTAND WHAT A HOME WORLD MEANS

Each server in Guild Wars 2 is referred to as a "home world".  These home worlds are where your characters are stored.  All characters created on an account will be saved to this single home world.  Luckily, there is a free home world transfer option available for a limited time after launch and there is a "guesting" feature being added January 28th, 2013 which allows players to visit other worlds if they have friends there.

 

3. OVERFLOW MAP?

You will see this a lot in the first few weeks of GW2's launch. Basically, if a map on your home world is full, you are moved to the overflow map and given the option to queue for the home world map. The overflow map is identical to the home world map in all aspects. One thing to note is that an overflow map contains players form multiple worlds and there can be multiple overflow maps for the same area.

You can check to see if you are in an overflow map by pressing B and see if the WvW stats show up. If they don't, then you are in the overflow map.

If you and your party members are in the same location and can't see each other, there is a good chance that one of you is in the overflow map. You can join a party member's overflow map by right clicking on their portrait in the party UI (even if their portrait doesn't show up) and then select "join".

Keep in mind that once the queue for your home world map is up and you select the option to travel to it, you will be ported to a fixed spot in the map (not where you were in the overflow map). Make sure you unlocked the nearest waypoint before doing so. 

Traveling & Map features 4. MY CHARACTER IS A DIFFERENT RACE FROM MY FRIEND, HOW DO WE MEET UP AND QUEST TOGETHER?

Meeting up with your friend on the same home world is easy but does take a couple of steps. First of all, make sure you finish up the tutorial and get ported to your race's starter area. Once you've done that, press the'H' key to open your Hero window. On the last tab (PvP tab), there is an option to "Go to the Mists". Select that option, and you will be ported to the beginner PvP area.

Once you are at the beginner PvP area, head north towards Hall of Memories. You will want to reach the Asura gate at the top of the stairs to zone into the Hall of Memories.

Once you are in the Hall of Memories, look to your left for a purple/pink Asura gate, going through it will bring you to a city called Lion's Arch.

 

Once you are in Lion's Arch, you will land at the Asura portals in Fort Marriner. Head north and go to the set of portals in Grand Piazza. The Asura portals there will lead you to different cities. Each race has a place where you can then access that race's starting area.

5. HOW DO I QUICK TRAVEL IN GW2?

There are no mounts in GW2 so everything is done by the Waypointsystem. You will need to discover a waypoint first before you can use it.

Undiscovered Waypoint

Discovered                         

Keep in mind that with the waypoint system, you can travel pretty much from one side of the world to the other but the prices for traveling increase the further you are from the waypoint. It is free to use waypoints within a city once you are inside the city.

 

6. HEARTS & DYNAMIC EVENTS.

There are quests in GW2 but they may not be the traditional quests that you are used to. Quests in GW2 are called Hearts or Tasks. They are heart shaped symbols on the map that fill to full once you complete them.

Each heart has a specific level associated with it and once you are near the area of a heart, you will see something pop up on the right side of the window that tells you what you need to do to complete the heart.

 

Once you complete the heart, don't forget to visit the NPC with the heart, as he/she will have something to exchange for karma earned from dynamic events.

Note that Hearts serve mostly as a guide to event hotspots and doing them all in an area won't offer enough experience to advance to the next. Participating in events near the heart is an alternative and faster way to fill it, so unless you wan't to try doing the simple content of the heart you should always give priority in an event if it exists nearby.

Another thing to pay attention to are the scouts. These are NPCs scattered around the map (they show up as a telescope icon on the map) that reveal nearby hearts. 

An interesting feature is the ability to track your party member's progress if they are working on the same hearts as you. If you don't have the simple party UI option enabled, there is a small heart icon next to each party member's portrait if they are doing the same heart as you. Hovering over it will tell you their completion.

Dynamic events are spontaneous events that pop up all over the map. They are called dynamic events because they do not always occur in the same location and there may be different events going on from time to time. You will know when an event is nearby as you will see an orange circle on the map.

Some dynamic events trigger by themselves while others are triggered by players interacting with certain NPCs.

The symbol of the dynamic event on the map and above the target suggests what sort of activity is required to complete it. For example: if there is a symbol of a shield, then its suggested that you have to protect/escort that target, and if there is a symbol of a bag with an arrow above, then you'll most likelly have to gather something in the area and bring it to the target.

Dynamic events typically scale up in difficulty depending on the number of players doing them. However, some dynamic events are designed as group events and will require at least 5 people people to complete it (4 if you are well organised). These events are recognised by the Group Event note in their description.

 

7. WHAT ARE VISTAS, POINT OF INTERESTS, SKILL CHALLENGES AND MAP COMPLETION?

Point of Interest, or PoIs, are basically interesting places on the map. Some of them will also have a lore significance. They are out there for you to discover so you can finish the map completion. Below is an undiscovered PoI to the left and a discovered PoI to the right. 

Vistas are basically small and simple jumping puzzles scattered around the map. Reaching them will unlock a small cutscene that give you an overview of the surrounding area.

Skill Challenges are blue arrows located all over the map. These tend to be less frequent than other map features but reward you with a skill point. Some of the skill challenges will require you to defeat some tough monsters while others simply give you something in your inventory that you can click to gain a skill point. Skill points are used to purchase abilities once you reach level 5.

Map completion refers to getting all the PoIs, waypoints, hearts, vistas, and skill challenges within a map. If you open your map by pressing the M button, you can get a pretty good idea of your map completion status.

 

Completing a map will give you some nice rewards in the mail (some random green items, transmutation stones, large amount of XP, coins, and some crafting material). Keep in mind that map completion rewards for a city tend to be less than for a leveling zone.

8. I CAN DRAW ON THE MAP?

Yes you can ping and draw on the map for your party members to see. To ping on the map, simply shift + left click on a location on your map/ minimap. To draw on the map, simply shift + hold the left mouse button and drag it on the map/minimap. Your minimap is the map at the right corner of your screen while the map is the big map you open by pressing the M key.

You can also put a personal marker on the map for your party members to see. To do this, simply use alt + left click. Keep in mind that you can only place one marker down at a time.

Combat 9. DODGE IS THE KEY

GW2 combat involves a lot of movement and a big part of the that movement is dodging out of mobs attacks. If you have played active dodge based MMOs like TERA or TSW then this concept isn't all that foreign. There are two ways to dodge in GW2 – pressing 'V' or double tap a movement key. Some people do not like using double tap as that can lead to unwanted movement in delicate situations like jumping puzzles. You can disable double tap in options.

You cannot dodge infinitely, there is a dodge bar on top of your HP globe. This bar will allow you to dodge twice consecutively before you have to wait for it to recharge.

10. UNDERSTAND WHAT AUTOTARGET AND PROMOTE SKILL TARGET MEANS

Autotarget allow you to fire off a skill and hit a nearby enemy without having to target that enemy first. This is great when you are just soloing in a sparsely populated area as that save's you from having to target a mob first. However, this option isn't that hot in dungeons or when soloing in a mob dense area.

If you are going to have autotarget on, you might as well turn onPromote Skill Target, this option will turn the mobs you attacked (without targeting) with autotarget into targets (i.e. as if you clicked and targeted them).

Stop autoattacking on target change is a great option to have as that can help you to prevent aggroing random mobs when you have autoattack on.

11. FAST-CAST GROUND TARGETING

Normally when you cast a ground AoE, you will get this green circle that you can place on the ground. 

This is great for beginners as you know exactly where you are placing your AoEs. However, it does take time to place the circle, a luxury you may not have when you are playing in competitive PvP. Once you get used to the range of your spells, you can turn this option called Fast-cast Ground Targeting on in the options and have the AoE drop where your mouse cursor is.

12. COOLDOWN TIMERS

You can get cooldown timers to show on your abilities that are recharging. All you need to do is go to the options and click on Show skill Recharge.

Once enabled, your abilities on cooldown will have a number associated with them to indicate how many seconds before the ability can be used again.

Edited September 30, 2013 by Tijseh

[Tijseh]

13. AUTOATTACKING

If you get tired of clicking the same button to fire off a skill, you will be happy to know that there is an autoattack option. Simply ctrl +right click a skill and that skill will become your autoattack and will fire off without you having to press any buttons. Any skills you manually activate will override the autoattack skill and autoattack will resume after the manually activated skill has finished casting.  You can tell which skill is on autoattack based on the arrows on the skill.

14. HOW TO TELL IF YOUR SKILL IS OUT OF RANGE

Look for the red line under your skills, if there is a red line under a skill, that means your target is out of range. In the picture below, the top 3 skills are in range while the bottom 3 skills are out of range.

 

 

15. THE DOWNED STATE – IT ISN'T OVER

When you health goes to 0, you don't die immediately. You go into the downed state, in which you have access to four abilities (first three different depending on your profession, the fourth ability is a channeled heal that can be interrupted by damage) and a downed state healthbar. This gives time for other players to come and revive you. One important thing to note is that if you kill an enemy while in the downed state, you automatically get revived (rally). This means that if you get attack by a group of mobs, find the one with the lowest health and try to finish it off before they kill you.

Each point of downed penalty you accrue will reduce the length of your starting downed bar by one quarter. This starts with the first time you are downed and each point goes away after one minute. This means that in order to have literally no chance to rally, you would need to be downed four times within a minute.

Once you are dead, you can get back into the world by reviving at a nearby Waypoint. Other players can still revive you back to life at this point. You will take armor damage each time you die.

If you fall from a high place, you don't go into the downed state and die immediately. Something to keep in mind if you are doing jumping puzzles.

16. MY ARMOR IS BROKEN!

When you actually die, a piece of your armor gets damaged. Damaged armor doesn't have any negative effects but it serves as a warning. Once you die enough times so that all of your armor is damaged, an armor piece will break the next time you die. Once an armor is broken, it cannot be worn (the armor is no longer on your character) and provide no beneficial effects. You will see this icon next to the health globe. You will need to travel to a nearby town/outpost with a NPC that can repair your armor for some coins. The NPC you are looking for has this broken shield icon. Dungeons usually have this NPC near the entrance so you don't need to travel out of the dungeon to repair.

17. BOONS AND CONDITIONS

Boons and conditions are the equivalent of buffs and debuffs/DoTs in other MMOs. If there are multiple people applying the same boons/conditions, some of them will stack in duration while others stack in intensity. Check out this Boons and Conditions page to see a list of all the boons and conditions available in game.

18. CALL TARGET

This command is incredibly useful for dungeons/PvP and should be used at every opportunity. To call a target, target something and then pressCtrl + T. This will give party members a message that will allow them to press T to acquire your target. Only one target can be marked at a time and every marked target have a red circle above their heads. This is incredibly useful in dungeon pulls with multiple mobs or in PvP againstMesmers.

Guilds and Friends 19. CHAT, FRIEND LIST AND GUILDS ARE ALL CROSS-WORLDS

You add someone to the friend list, chat with them, or join a guild even if they are not in the same world as you. However, you won't be able to play together with them unless you transfer to their world or use the guesting feature.

20.CONTACTS

Once you add someone to the contacts (press 'Y' button), they will show up on the list no matter which character they are playing (i.e. account wide). Sometimes, this can be a bit weird getting tells from character names you never heard of until you realized who it is. You can hover your mouse cursor over their name and a tooltip should pop up to display their account name.

The contacts window has four tabs, the first tab is essentially the friend list. Here you can add/search players and also change your online status (explained below).

The third tab has a list of your followers (i.e. people that have added you to the friend list but not included in yours).

The fourth tab is the list of people you have blocked (i.e. ignored).

21. ONLINE STATUS

You can change your online status to Online, Away or Invisible (shows up as offline on other player's friend list). You can do this at the login screen or on the contacts window once you are in game. Note that you can still bump into your “friends” in the invisible mode (although you have to be incredibly unlucky for that to happen).

22. GUILDS

To create a guild, you just need 1 silver and then you can press the 'G'button and click on Create Guild (greyed out if you are already in a guild).

You can be invited to multiple guilds on your account but each character can only represent one guild at a time and earn influence for them. When you first receive a guild invitation, you have the option to either represent or leave the guild. If you choose to represent that guild, you are then given the option to Stand Down.

Whenever you do activities while representing a guild, you will earn influence. More influence can be earned if guild members gather together to do them.

Influence allow your guild to purchase upgrades such as guild banks or have a guild emblem imprinted on banners and armors. For a list of all the upgrades influence can purchase, please consult this Guilds page.

Crafting 23. GATHER EVERYTHING

One of the really nice features of GW2 is that all the gathering nodes are individualized. What this means is that other players gathering from the same node won't deplete your node and vice versa. Even if you don't plan on crafting at all, the raw material can be sold on the Trading Post for a nice sum of money and you get XP for gathering stuff (not to mention to occasional gems to upgrade your gear and complete the daily achievements).

When you first start a character, you should always go to the nearest merchant and purchase the gathering tools as soon as you have the coins. The merchant you want to look for are these ones marked on the map. They will sell you gathering tools for coins, just purchase the lowest level ones for now, you won't see the higher level ones until the next leveling zone. There are three type of tools: mining picks, logging axes, and harvesting sickles. Just buy all three, as you can equip all three at the same time. Each tool has a certain amount of use associated with them, something to watch out for. If you are afraid that all of the stuff you gathered will clutter your inventory, there is a button called Deposit all Collectibles. Using it will deposit all the stuff your gathered into your bank and free up your inventory.

• See also Crafting

24. MAXIMUM OF TWO CRAFTING DISCIPLINES

You can have a maximum of two crafting disciplines at any one time but you don't lose progress on your current crafting disciplines when you switch to a new one. All it takes is a bit of coin to switch back to an old crafting discipline (amount depends on how progressed you are in that discipline). Consult the Crafting page to see a list of crafting disciplines and what they can make.

23. ACCESS TO THE BANK WHILE CRAFTING

Previously, you had to run to the bank to grab supplies every time you want to craft. Thankfully, ArenaNet introduced the ability to access the bank while crafting. You can now access your bank tab and your collectibles tab (where all the stuff you gathered were sent to when you clicked on the Deposit all Collectible button) whenever you are at a crafting station.

24. BUY SALVAGE KITS AND USE THEM!

Don't sell off the armor you can't use, they are worth very little to NPC merchants; you can get a much bigger return by salvage them into raw materials for crafting. Even if you don't play on using the raw mats, you can still make a decent sum of coins by selling them on the Trading Post.

25. MAKE 8 SLOT BAGS ASAP

Bag spaces are a premium in GW2 and the bags you get in the beginning are 4 slots. It is therefore a great idea to create yourself some 8 slot bags.

Tailoring, Armorsmith, and Leatherwork can all make bags immediately when you pick up the respective crafting disciplines.

Tailoring will require 10 bolts of Jute (20 Jute Scrap), Armorsmith will require 10 Bronze Ingots (20 Copper Ore), and Leathwork will require 10 Stretched Rawhide Leather Square (20 Rawhide leather). 

PvP

26. Difference between sPvP and WvW

In both types of PvP, all players are automatically set to L80. Structured PvP or sPvP for short is your traditional PvP maps that you might be familiar with in other MMOs. You are given all the skills and all the PvP gear you possibly need so that everyone starts out in even grounds. It is a pure skill based PvP without any gear gap or grind. You can access sPvP by going to Hall of Memories (last tab of your Hero window opened by pressing the H button).

Once you are there, look for the PvP browser NPC.

Talking to the NPC will open up a window with a list of servers, you can either press Play Now to join a random server or chose a server and click on Join Game.

You do not earn XP while doing sPvP, you earn Glory instead, which can be used to purchase better looking (but not better stats) PvP armor.

World vs World or WvW is a more open form PvP that focuses on capturing and defending keeps and towers. All players are set to L80 but you will wear your own gear and only have access to the skills that you have unlocked. It is therefore recommended that you do not jump into WvW right away and instead level up in PvE a bit to unlock some skills.

To access WvW, you will need to find the portal to Lion's Arch in the Hall of Memories. 

Once you are in Lion's Arch, each of the Asura gates next to you will lead you to different WvW maps (Borderlands, Eternal Battlegrounds).

You will earn XP while doing WvW and there are also high level crafting materials that you can gather as well. 

• See also: In-depth description of World vs World

27. GLORY

Glory is as type of accountwide currency you earn while doing structured PvP. Earning Glory will allow you to increase your PvP rank and purchase new PvP gear that give you better looks. The first 10 ranks will require 500 glory to reach.

28. SWITCHING TO DIFFERENT WEAPONS FOR SPVP

When you port to Hall of Memories, you are given two weapons by default but they are probably not the most ideal weapons for you. Luckily, you can get other weapons and re-rune/sigil your armor/weapons by going to the PvP vendor to the right of entrance in Hall of Memories. All of the PvP weapons, armor, sigils and runes are free but they can be only used in sPvP.

Chat & GUI 29. CHAT WINDOW TRANSPARENCY

The chat window by default has a transparent background and the text on it can be a little hard to read. Luckily, this is a quick easy fix. Just click on the button to the left of the [Party].

30. LINKING ITEMS IN CHAT

Shift + left click an item to link them in the chat. Simple as that! You can also shift + left click a waypoint or skill to link them in chat.

31. CHAT TIMESTAMPS

There is nothing more embarrassing than responding to a player message only to realize that it was made hours ago. Luckily, you can avoid this embarrassment by turning on chat timestamps. To do so, simply click on the gear symbol in the top left corner of your chat window. Then click on Show Timestamps. To see timestamps in action, just look at the previous picture.

33. HOW TO HIDE YOUR HUD/GUI

Ctrl + Shift + H

34. HOW TO TAKE A SCREENSHOT WITHOUT THE UI

Shift + Printscreen

Achievements and Misc 35. DON'T IGNORE ACHIEVEMENTS, ESPECIALLY THE DAILY ONES

The daily achievements are easy to do and reward you with great XP and coins. Don't ignore it!

36. TRY JUMPING PUZZLES!

Vistas give you a taste of some of the harder jumping puzzles that exist in the game. You can find a list of the jumping puzzles under the Explorersection of the Achievements. These jumping puzzles are not only fun but also reward you with a nice chest at the end that can yield some nice rewards. There are at least three located in Lion's Arch that can be done as early as level 1.

Terminology

The original Guild Wars came out almost at the same time as the Genre defining World of Warcraft. As a result it developed a different terminology than most people are used to.

• Classes ==> Professions.
• Professions ==> Crafting disciplines
• [buffs, De-buffs, Crowd control] ==> Effects
• Buffs ==> Boons
• Debuffs ==> Conditions
• Crowd control ==> Control Effects
• Mana ==> Energy (it will no longer be used in GW2)

 

Differences from other MMOs.

With the exception of some mechanics and some Professions, Guild Wars 2 is doing many things differently from the traditional MMORPG. If we take World of Warcraft as the most basic form of an MMORPG, here are the following differences.

1. There are no Profession roles in the form of the "Holy trinity" (Tank, Healer, Damage dealer). All Professions can Heal themselves and support others, and all can revive a fallen ally, no mater what build they have. The roles are leaning instead to "Attack, Support and Control" that all Professions have access to, yet none is mandatory for a party.
2. You can't have access to many skills at the same time. Five skills are always bound to the type of weapons you are using. The sixth one is always a healing skill of your choice. The 7th, 8th and 9th skills areUtility skills of your choice. The last skill is always an overpowerd elite skill with a long cooldown. Most professions can swap their weapons they are holding with the press of a button to get a different set of skills (with the exceptions of the Elementalist and the Engineer that multiply their skills in other ways)
3. You can use all you skills while moving. At worst they will slow you down, but they rarely hinder your movement.
4. You can manually block and dodge incoming attacks. Double tapping the movement keys at any direction will cause a character of any Profession to do a dodging maneuver to that direction. Professions who can carry shields usually have a some skill that allows them to hide behind them for short periods of time.
5. If your HP depletes, you still have a chance. If an enemy beats you, you will go to a downed state, where you have to fight for your life. If you manage to kill any enemies while in that state or have an ally help you get up, you'll rally back on your feet. Falling repeatedly on the downed state will make it harder and harder to get up. In PVP you can finish-off players in the downed state with the press off a button.
6. Pressing a skill key will alway activate it whether you have targeted an enemy or not. If you haven't manually targeted something, it will attack automatically the enemy that is closest to the centre of the screen.
7. Going underwater is a different experience. Once you go underwater, you will automatically equip weapons suited for water combat and they will have their own set of skills. Also many of your other skills might have different effects or not work at all underwater. You also don't have to worry about your breath. If you go to the downed stage underwater, you can also rally your self by swimming to the surface.
8. There are no Quests in the traditional form. The main form of questing in GW2 is dynamic events that pop up intentionally or randomly on the world with easy to understand objectives. The result of a dynamic event might change the world itself, and/or trigger new dynamic events connected to that one. The events will scale up and down in difficulty in various ways depending on the number of players participating, so they'll always be challenging.
9. Going to an area that is on a lower level than your's will cause you to scale down to the level of that area, and increase the rewards to better fit you. On the other side, going to any PVP area will automatically scale you up to max level with all skills unlocked to have a chance against other people. If you attend a structured PvP, you'll be even put in a gear with the same stats as all the other players participating.
10. There is no such thing as lootstealing. If you see a reward, a loot, or a resource gathering point, then it's yours. Everyone who participated in defeating an enemy will take loot, no matter who attacked it first.
11. Everyone can disenchant. If you have a weapon or armour or even salvagable loot that you don't need, you can always get raw matterials from it using a salvage kit. Using better salvage kits will have a chance of removing certain stats from that item, allowing you to place them on another.
12. The world is designed to reward unguided exploration. If you go on your own out of the beaten path, you'll find lots of hidden stuff and events, and if you find something that looks climbable with your characters jumping ability, you will most likely find a reward at the end.

Starting Hints

• Upon creating a new character, pick your race carefully. While the various races dont have stat differences, they do have some unique skills they can learn. If you don't care about the personal story or a race's appearence you might want to take them into account. These skills will be the same no matter what profession you chose.
• All professions can support allies and heal themselves, including the Warrior. If you want to play a supportive role in your party, you can do it regardless of your profession, so feel free to choose whatever feels better.
• Don't always sell your looted equipment to vendors. They don't offer much, and the equipment can be a big source of materials for most crafting disciplines. Once you get out of the tutorial area, buy a salvage kit and start salvaging them. However, if a lot of the armor and weapons being salvaged are giving you materials easily attainable by logging/harvesting/mining (Copper Ore and Green Wood for example), it might be worth selling that equipment for the extra coin instead. Also, always sell items that are considered junk (name written in grey). As a side note, some cheap items like your starting equipment can't be salvaged.
• Using better salvage kits will have higher chance of getting a stat out of the item and then put it on the empty socket of another. If you find an item with good stats you want, then it's highly suggested that you use your best salvage kit on it.
• Collectable items used for crafting disciplines and stats extracted from salvaged equipment can be sent to the bank from wherever you are without the need to be in a City, let alone in the bank. Just press right click on the item and choose to send it to your collection. Don't let your inventory fill up with this stuff.
• Collectable items used for crafting disciplines and stats extracted from salvaged equipment don't take space on your main bank vault. You can find them on a separate place where all collectable items go. Half-finished crafted items, such as shoe soles or staff sticks are not considered collectables and they can only be stored on your main vault.
• Upon getting your hands on some gems (by paying real money or buying them from other players with gold) it's suggested that you first increase your bank space. At first glance it looks enough, but it's actually shared with all your characters.
• Once you get out of the tutorial you should buy two of the three gathering equipment (harvesting sickles, logging axes and mining picks). Gathering stuff gives you XP and it also helps with your crafting disciplines. Don't bother buying all three however, since you'll get to choose one of them as a reward in an upcoming personal story quest.
•  

Edited September 29, 2013 by Tijseh

[Vision]

Nice guide dude. I'm thinking of starting it.

Its nice game but I'm little confused with the classes all are too OP.

[Tijseh]

Nice guide dude. I'm thinking of starting it.

Its nice game but I'm little confused with the classes all are too OP.

 

Thank you it's not fully done.

But it mainly depends on how you play there ain't really an OP class.

 

I'm working on a Lvling guide and Crafting guide atm.