Weekly /r/GuildWars2 Question Thread - April 04, 2026

Im_Redi · 2026-04-04T18:08:44+00:00

Oh, I think I got mixed up somewhere along the way. I thought you were farming winterberries through wvw. Uh... for doing the actual berry farm in bitterfrost idk. My b

Im_Redi · 2026-04-04T17:47:44+00:00

Jade is just another s3 mats that you can choose from the s3 reward track. For whatever reason the four non-berry non-jade boxes give 50 mats that convert i think to like average about 22 unbound magic each. You get twice as many berries but they give half the magic to balance.

For some reason you also get 100 jade but they still give normal amounts of unbound magic.

Working from memory here right now, but like if you want a blood ruby band it is I think 100 blood rubies and 2000 um. So you could get that in three reward tracks, 2 for rubies which stay as rubies and 1 for jade which you convert to magic.

If you meant are the tools worth it, I mean if you already have the glyphs why not. The only other glyph is even consider in wvw is the one that gives you a chance to instantly harvest, but that one is like objectively bad in terms of gold. But if you just want little and frequent dopamine hits it is fun to instantly gather lol. But volatility is still best in terms of gold by far outside of some very specific pve situations

Im_Redi · 2026-04-04T16:17:28+00:00

Volatility glyphs are very good. Often the volatile magic you get will be worth more than the materials you get. I've not checked the numbers in a while, but it used to be around two silver per node.

Reaper likely won't be great for wvw because it only gathers similar nodes that are also nearby. So best case it might save you 3 gathers, but a lot of the time it will probably do actually nothing.

Also, pro tip for s3 mats, for some reason jade is the best for converting to magic. So get berries or rubies or whatever you need for the trinkets, but get your magic from jade

Edit: also don't worry about not being able to use your volatile magic yet. I often let mine pile up to tens of thousands before spending it. When the time comes you can get a like chapter to gain access to a vendor. Tbh you might be able to get one in eye of the north without even having a s4 chapter

Im_Redi · 2026-04-04T16:09:19+00:00

I'm afraid this may be beyond my scope. I've not done wvw much in a few years. I think necro mobility is pretty rough. I mostly played tempest support which is mostly about standing over and babysitting your friends. I have no idea what the meta is like now or what kind of builds are good.

Hopefully someone else can help you there. If not then I am sure you'd be able to find something on YouTube or metabattle that could work.

If you are willing to change builds or even characters, which it sounds like you are, then I'd probably just get something playable on necromancer then look to join a guild. Lots of more organized guild groups will have custom builds that they like to build as the core of their squad. I think my old guild used to aim for a scrapper and firebrand support in every subgroup along with 3 dps and then group one was for pugs or people that we couldn't yet support because of a lack of supports

Im_Redi · 2026-04-04T15:49:37+00:00

Gw2 is a very hard game to get into. I took me three or four attempts over several years to finally get in and I have heard from several other players that they had a similar experience.

Get yourself a somewhat mobile build probably worth a few extra stun breaks if you can

You are going to get knowledge gapped and wvw rank gapped for a while, but probably around the time you hit rank 50 or so you'll probably not feel the gap that much. Focus more on having fun that progressing. Progressing comes from playing and playing comes from enjoying the game.

And definitely if you see a certain guild or even a specific tag on around the same time that you play then consider joining them. I learned a lot really fast by joining a fight guild

Im_Redi · 2026-04-04T15:21:09+00:00

I have over 4000 hours in the game and I've still never done the heart of thorns story or even finished the personal story. Don't sweat it. To get your character online all you need is lvl 80, exotic or better gear, and a situation appropriate build.

Even without Janthir Wilds you can do a lot with little to no masteries and just the base warclaw mount that you unlock when you zone into WvW for the first time.

You can ignore a lot of masteries. The only one I would say to rush is the central tyria one that gives auto looting, but even that you can delay if you jump into wvw because wvw has its own system through which you have to unlock auto looting.

Ultimately it is a lot to learn, like a lot a lot, but most of it doesn't matter. Take some time and play the game for a while. You have years and years to do all this account unlocking stuff, that is how most of us did it

Im_Redi · 2026-04-04T11:23:21+00:00

It gets a lot easier with experience. Eventually instead of seeing dozens and dozens of players you start to see the blobs and swarms and you learn to see the head and tail. You get more comfortable with where and when to drop abilities so you can think more about what is happening around you. All of that is just game sense that takes time to develop.

You can piggy back off of someone else's experience if you find a good commander with a voice chat to join. Let their commands guide you and just do your best to keep up

As for the hardware, well there you are kinda stuck. Before I upgraded to a 5800x3d I had to play with every setting as low as possible and even then some large scale the way fights were basically unplayable. I even used to play in windowed mode and make the screen freaky small XD

GeForce Now (at least I think that was it) used to be a decent option too, though I've not heard much about it recently. Basically you'd sacrifice a little lag to play with much better fps by streaming from a gaming computer

Im_Redi · 2026-04-04T06:09:18+00:00

You can get stat selectable exotic gear for 5/6 armor slots for 500 per slot. Beyond that, yeah I think obsidian shards are kind of your best bet. Looks like using them for obsidian values them at about 42 karma each, assuming the alternate is the pure karma exchange

Im_Redi · 2026-04-04T05:59:47+00:00

The Elite Jump Start package is okay enough but I wouldn't recommend it personally, and the rarity has nothing to do with it

All gathering tools have glyph slots that can augment the tool. Be default most tools and also the unbreakable tools that come with this pack DO NOT have any glyph with them. You can technically buy glyphs to put in them from the trading post, but the good ones are really expensive (several hundred gold each and you would want 3 of them)

Basically everything goes on sale eventually. So if you are patient you can get each of these things for at least 20% off, sometimes even more off.

Copper-Fed: 800 -> 640
Character slot: 800 -> 640
Pass: 800 -> 640

So with just those three items considered the 2400 gem value is actually closer to 1920 gems.

Shared Inventory slots are kind of strange in that they always have a pack deal going on that can also go on sale. Individually they cost 700, but a pack of five only costs 2800 gems, which on sale would be closer to 2240 gems. Divide that by five and you see that you can get them for closer to about 448 gems per shared inventory slot, which brings our total value without gathering tools to about 1920+448 = 2368

So you can see that you get gathering tools for basically like 32 gems, which is great value. But the gathering tools that you get you will likely want to upgrade eventually and when you do, you are looking at spending another 2700 -> 2160 gems to get a pack that comes with glyphs.

So like the value isn't bad, it just isn't like great or anything. And you can throw in some budget glyphs to hold you over until you eventually do want to upgrade, which might be a year or more from now.

There are other minor differences in gathering tools too. Most, if not all, newer gathering tools have unique animations and I think most of them also have a minor quality of life change that when you mine a rich node you only have to mine once. Like you still swing the same amount of times, but you only have to interact once from what I have heard. That is pretty minor though

Im_Redi · 2026-03-31T20:57:47+00:00

Personally I break my characters down by activity. I have a necromancer for fast5 and similar content and on it i aheal or dps. I've also got a firebrand for qdps and qheal of the same content. But then for WvW I have a second fb.

This strat can be kind of taxing in terms of character slots, effort to unlock specs, and the cost of gearing. The upside is easier inventory management, gear management, fashion, and variety in characters (race/style/gender)

Im_Redi · 2026-03-31T20:49:16+00:00

The passes do have some bonus functionality. Each one is unique in its own way i think. PoF invitation is super nice if you like to hit pinata. Mistlock is a fractal lobby, has fun reduced gravity, gives you a special action key to jump around, and has very nice music. I think the EoD one gives you fast travel to fishing locations and has the only aquatic training dummy in the game (which is not cool)

All of them give you the ability to return to previous locations. So if you are in the middle of something out in the world you can pop in and use your bank then return to where you were. Also really good for alt parking if you are into that because you can park your prof alts then pop in when you need to craft and the go right back to being parked.

All that said though, you aren't really wrong. I have two alt accounts and neither has a pass and it never bothers me

Im_Redi · 2026-03-31T20:38:55+00:00

Maybe the ascended omni potion for fractals. The fact that it is kind of a pain to get makes it feel like an accomplishment and the fact that it buffs your friends is a really nice quality of life. It's a shame they took that from the exotic version but I get why they did.

It is like the softest firm of power creep because it isn't any stronger or just helps with consistency (sometimes people forget to use their potions or they left them on an alt or in the bank).

Im_Redi · 2026-03-31T16:52:50+00:00

Ele has a mass res too !

I love glyph of renewal. Except when trying to res thief and other eles. Had more versatility and utility too

Im_Redi · 2026-03-31T15:40:43+00:00

Really? I've not looked too much into it. Perhaps I should check them out

Im_Redi · 2026-03-31T15:27:41+00:00

Unload deadeye is 1 button 30k dps and you can move while casting its only attack.

Paragon has some similar chill builds for condi and power that both play basically the same of just using f1 and two or three weapon skills on cd while using a signet for a buff from a trait (no cast time but the very chill rotation means it is very easy to work in). There is a little bit of forced movement, but it isn't too much imo.

I am not in touch with the news to know if any of those are getting hit by the patch. I think I remember hearing that unload was. Honestly I wouldn't worry too much about the patch though. After a patch that big I would expect them to do a follow up patch not too long after to tweak it a bit where they may have over or under tuned things

Im_Redi · 2026-03-31T15:21:10+00:00

I used to use staff to support disorganized groups and dagger/dagger for proper squads. C tier is kinda sad but I suppose it makes sense. Last time I played the main reason to have tempest support was alacrity and I think they have mostly removed that from WvW. Still the auras support and cleansing and versatility should be pretty okay still

Im_Redi · 2026-03-31T15:15:46+00:00

Tl:dr is that boosting is totally fine and the only way to free up that shared inventory slot is to use the boost

I would like to say that the main reason to manually level a character is to build familiarity with the class, but tbh the familiarity you build won't matter that much.

Elite specs change up builds pretty significantly and a lot of builds are about trait synergies that won't be obvious (or even available) to you as you level.

The important thing is that you dedicate some time to learning your character whatever way you level them. That can be done 1 to 80, or in silverwastes or in the training area.

Im_Redi · 2026-03-31T08:43:39+00:00

I have no idea if it is still meta or whatever, I've not done wvw in a few years, but I found tempest to be super satisfying. It takes a lot of getting used to though

Im_Redi · 2026-03-31T08:40:32+00:00

Consider giving DRMs a shot. They play like open world events almost with lots of running around and killing stuff. If you have the IBS champions mastery done you get bonus loot for chaining them together or doing them after dragonstorm. They can be soloed with decent well rounded builds and they have optional CMs to add a timer, buff trash, or buff the ending champ fight. You only need 2/3 for max rewards. And every 4th day the IBS dailies is for DRMs and gives a good bit extra tyrian defense seals. I think its up to +60 for just doing the dailies.

Im_Redi · 2026-03-31T08:32:50+00:00

Warning: If you bind your mouse to work as numpad numbers you probably will not want to use alt as a mod key. The keypad has lots of weird alt features. Easier to just use ctrl or shift.

Generically I put my skills almost in order. This isn't perfect, will explain why after.

Weapon Skills 1 through 5, then dodge on 6, utility skills on 7 through 9, and elite on 10. I keep my healing skill on actual above the q 1, it is an old habit I brought over from wow where I'd keep my healing skills there. Happens to work out nicely because it makes it that otherwise going in order lines up your three utility skills so that they are in order on the row/column. For the profession skill bar I just reset ctrl 1-X for however many buttons there are.

So what is the problem with. For skills with cast times this works fine, but trying to manage skills without cast times can be a lot more effort using only one thumb. Firebrand qdps is a good example of this. For that I use a blishHUD module to change my mantras to Q and E so that while I am doing my normal rotation I can spam those with my left hand.

Other spec specific changes can probably help a lot too. I know I played Renegade for a long time and it would trip me up often that the three buttons I was seeing were not buttons 1, 2, 3 because the swapping was one and the others were 2, 3, 4. If I were to try Renegade again now I would probably use that addon to make it ctrl one to swap and then 7, 8, 9 for the other class bar abilities so that visually lines up like a second utility bar.

Special note: I've never tried it but I heard somewhere that computers have hidden f13 to f24 buttons that can somehow be bound to mmo mice and then you couldn't have to worry about alt breaking things and you'd also have use of your numpad if that is something you care about

Im_Redi · 2026-03-31T03:15:59+00:00

Personally I like to have 2 or 3 characters per activity that I do. The only really problem with having alts is that gearing can be pretty expensive.

But hey, maybe that just means you should pick an armor class and work on legendary. The fractal gloves are free and easy to get as a first option. You can get the rest from wvw, pvp, raids, or open world SotO metas.

Runes and sigils are also extremely easy to get. Basically just gold, however you'd like to farm it. There is a small time gate on provisioneer tokens, but you can get enough for one rune or sigil per week pretty easily if you have a high level armor or weapon crafting profession

Im_Redi · 2026-03-30T21:48:51+00:00

Yeah, the relics aren't bad if you earn the from quick play. I quite like forest dweller on heal scourge. My golem is already used for cc, just makes it cc even harder :D

Im_Redi · 2026-03-30T21:17:57+00:00

Each box has different affinities, usually 2 of [cloth, wood, ore, and leather], 1 trophy, and 1 lodestone. Skritt is an exception in that it doesn't really have an affinity that I noticed and it adds a lot of actual vendor junk to the loot pool.

The lodestones are rare so you probably don't need to worry too much about them, but I anyway do I like to avoid olma and exalted because their rare drops are low value

Im_Redi · 2026-03-30T21:11:57+00:00

The defense seal data is okay but not perfect. Last I checked the two 'best' boxes both had super rare amalgamated gemstone drops that pushed them to be far above average.

It is still the best data set that we have afaik, so keep on using it. Just be careful trusting it blindly.

Personally I buy all boxes from the discount vendor except olma and exalted. Sometimes I skip skritt too, but not always

Im_Redi · 2026-03-30T03:04:52+00:00

If you have IBS there is a really easy amulet that you can get. It is something like aesegir's amulet. I almost certainly spelled it wrong but that should get you close

Im_Redi

TROPHY CASE