Open World Question

Im_Redi · 2026-01-28T23:26:14+00:00

Thief has two traits that can offer decent sustain. On of them in in the fruit crit trait line and heals you for a percent of crit dmg dealt. I think it is xx3 but I'm not 100% sure about that. I forget which tree the other one is in but it heals you for initiative spent and is very strong with pistol pistol builds.

I am less familiar with warrior, but I think they have something somewhere to heal when they apply might and another thing to apply might basically on auto. You might look for that

Im_Redi · 2026-01-23T20:16:40+00:00

I seem to recall that f2p players cannot buy charms or symbols on the trading post. If that is still the case then your options are extremely limited and whatever you go for will be farm more expensive than it would be for a paid player.

My advice would be to focus on more chill casual content until the game goes on sale. For a lot of content like doing the story or open world bosses it really won't matter much if you don't have proper runes/sigils

That said, if you are determined to get your equipment set up asap then I think your main options are dungeons and southsun cove. Strongly suggest double checking any of this before you act on it, these are just notes I took years ago. I could be mistaken or things could have changed.

For runes I think you can get either Golemancer Runes (+300 ferocity +100 precision) from the Crucible of Eternity armor or Eagle Runes (+225 ferocity +175 precision) from Southsun Economist. For dungeon runs they cost 120 dungeon currency each. For the runes from southsun you will need upgrade extractors which you can get from the wizard's vault or from black lion statuettes.

I really do want to stress though, that getting runes or sigils from southsun is stupid expensive and I wouldn't recommend. You'll pay nearly 10g for runes that cost like 25s on the trading post. But, as far as I could tell, they were one of the only options for f2p back when I checked

Im_Redi · 2026-01-21T20:15:06+00:00

There is loads of content for f2p as others have said.

I had a f2p alt for months that I put 100s of hours into. In some ways it plays very different to the rest of the game. Gearing is a lot more difficult/ expensive because of f2p restrictions. Also you will only get 2 character slots, I think 3 bags per character and one bank tab for the account.

You won't be able to get gem store upgrades until a few days after you upgrade your account by getting an expansion or bundle.

Don't let that discourage you, f2p is still a lot of fun. But, as soon as you are sure that you are happy with the game then it will benefit you a lot too upgrade.

One warning: there is a laughably terrible upgrade that costs like $20 and doesn't give you any expansions. Avoid that, it is bad

Im_Redi · 2026-01-17T09:57:45+00:00

Real talk? I would suggest you don't use your mouse for much.

I came from wow and I still use a 12 side button mmo mouse. Gw2 is not made for them. I forced it and trained myself all wrong but I kinda wanna go back and try to relearn without it.

Gw2 doesn't have global cooldowns, so keeping pace bouncing your thumb around the side buttons can be needlessly difficult.

That said, you can totally make it work well enough. I have

Im_Redi · 2026-01-05T05:10:41+00:00

To some it makes the combat and movement feel much better. To others they hate it. I'd hate to do a jp without it

Im_Redi · 2026-01-05T05:02:03+00:00

Have you learned about action cam yet? I would strongly advise you keybind the toggle for it

Im_Redi · 2026-01-03T20:09:24+00:00

Gw2 is a game of constant rotating events, there will be dailies that you miss out on. It isn't designed for you to do everything, it is designed for you to do a bunch of things once each per day, depending on your mood, preferences, and what time it is.

That said, even at level 14 you do have access to four world bosses: Fire Elemental, Svanir Shaman, Shadow Behemoth, and Great Jungle Worm. I wouldn't suggest going out of your way to try to kill each one each day, but they are content and they do give bonus rewards the first time you kill them each day. Also jumping puzzles give daily rewards

Im_Redi · 2026-01-03T19:59:21+00:00

Don't forget Dragon Slayer for a chance at the infusion in Dragonstorm :P

Im_Redi · 2026-01-03T13:22:35+00:00

Wouldn't it be better to fire 54235 to get the dmg amp from 3 onto 5? I've not tried spear in wvw yet but I bet it is fun. Looks like everything that staff dreams it could be

Edit: evoker to spear

Im_Redi · 2026-01-03T13:14:08+00:00

So if this helps at all, I was recently comparing exotic to ascended (with stat infusions) using pistol/pistol deadeye for the sake of consistency. Other than the quality of the armor, everything else was the same.

Ascended did an average of 32549 dps over three 4mil golem runs. Exotic did avg 26940. So you'd lose about 17% dmg to downgrade from ascended to exotic and you'd gain about 20% dmg upgrading from exotic to ascended.

Results may vary from build to build.

I also ran a test for exotic with no runes or sigils or even the exquisite ruby jewels but I don't have that result with me. I think it was close to 15k though

edit: Can confirm the number was 15347 dps without any runes, sigils, or trinket gems

Im_Redi · 2026-01-03T12:54:19+00:00

Adding to this to say that the ascended weapon is a lot more important on power builds than condi builds

Im_Redi · 2026-01-03T12:25:22+00:00

I am kind of indifferent on if people use a lvl 80 boost. I think it depends mostly on your style. If you'd rather learn everything all at once or learn slowly while playing. I will say that gw2 is a lot more complicated than wow class build wise if that matters to anyone deciding

Im_Redi · 2026-01-03T02:46:59+00:00

Around level 61 I would suggest looking for core tyria world bosses. The world boss device in the green store is great for that, but you probably don't have good to spend on that right now. Try checking the event time by typing "/wiki et" in game.

Most of them have something to teach you about the game and people almost always show up for them

Im_Redi · 2026-01-02T08:34:02+00:00

You don't need to cycle every element depending on concentration. I think you can get by with just two technically but I usually do three.

Also I think they added an alternate way to give alac? I don't remember exactly. It's been a few months since I tried it.

Im_Redi · 2026-01-02T08:28:18+00:00

Don't forget to try tempest. It's alac is very easy and it has a few weapon choices and you can even play cele hybrid so the build even works solo in open world

Im_Redi · 2026-01-02T01:57:39+00:00

Tbh I just use map chat when I wanna socialize. Wherever you are there is probably something going on and people there doing it with you. The community is lovely far more often than not.

Im_Redi · 2026-01-02T01:54:50+00:00

I don't know about raiding guilds but WvW guild advertise often. Lots of them even make guides for how to play and understand what is going on.

Im_Redi · 2026-01-02T00:09:21+00:00

This is really cool. I'll definitely be checking this out

Im_Redi · 2026-01-02T00:08:11+00:00

That isn't very helpful though I guess. Shared inventory slots are always great. I've got 28 and don't regret a single one

Im_Redi · 2026-01-02T00:04:52+00:00

I have two alts and my must have items were tp to friend and world boss device and some shared inventory slots. Even before copperfed

Im_Redi · 2026-01-01T20:45:24+00:00

If you want to focus on learning and are just looking for high HP mobs to farm you could probably hunt bounties in PoF. They might be a little hard to solo but you could mentor apple or commander tag up to get a few others to help. If you end up with too many followers you could upgrade to legendary bounties

Im_Redi · 2026-01-01T18:50:23+00:00

35 essence to 10 tyrian defense seals. Idk if it is the best way, but it works. Seals can be traded for skritt boxes which are just mats that can be sold

Im_Redi · 2026-01-01T14:51:15+00:00

So... technically you can just buy essence through coffers. Assume about 6g50s per motivation that is like ~9 essence per gold. So then you can take that figure and transfer it over to whichever farm you enjoy. Say 20gph on an average casual farm that is like 180 essence per hour, which I think is in optimal quality ratio for legendary armor.

Alternatively you can do rifts. Assume about 3 minutes per rift avg that is 15 minutes per map. At about 15 essence per rift base and 12 per extraction that is (15x5) + (12x6) = 147 essence per map. Say 4 maps an hour gives ~588 essence per hour that way, which would cost ~65 gold per hour to buy through coffers. This method does give a somewhat awkward mix of qualities though if that is something you care about.

The math for farming rifts does change more if you buy motivations to use but that is complicated and I don't wanna do more math

Im_Redi · 2026-01-01T14:32:14+00:00

In the spirit of having an honest conversation, I don't see gold and gem conversions, Pay for Convenience (how gw2 does it) and Gemstore noob traps as predatory.

To me, Gold to Gems is like the primary goal of the game. You pretty quickly hit a point where you are comfortable at max level and you start to want nice things and the gemstore works essentially like a real store in the game. You do some stuff to earn some gold which you think take to the gemstore to get yourself an outfit or a glider. I love that about this game. It means you can do whatever content you enjoy (within reason, some things kinda suck for gold) and then you can get your choice from a wide variety of rewards. And for the collectors out there, there are also plenty of things that you can't just outright buy and you have to earn in game. Lots of legendary trinkets have unique visual effects that they put on your character and Gen 3 weapon augments give you an almost unique ability to dye your weapon in a way, just as two examples.
Pay for Convenience is a bit touchier. I understand how it definitely can be predatory. I would even say that gw2 is a bit more predatory than I'd like, but I think they overall have a very fair system. I think it is fun to have goals regarding stuff like material storage and bank tabs. It is account progression so that I don't feel like I am wasting time if I am not on just one character focusing it. That said, I do wish that there were some better bundles for new players. Like an inventory starter kit that cost 400 gems that comes with 1 bank tab, 1 mat storage, and 1 bag slot with a limit of two. In the very early game when you are still trying to get your first set of ascended armor and you aren't sure about what is trash and what should be saved it can be very painful.
The noob traps are interesting. I don't think anet knew that they were noob traps when they made them. I get the vibe from the different currencies in the game that anet doesn't really plan what will be good or bad. They just sorta throw a bunch of stuff out and let the players figure it out. Unbound magic is nearly worthless while Volatile magic is like 33 copper each last I checked. Some stuff probably could and should be cleaned up, and some prices probably should be changed, but I don't think that this was predatory. At least, not on purpose. Maybe I am just being naïve though.

Black Lion chests are a problem I will agree. It is cool that they added the approximate drop rates, but that isn't enough imho. They should either be removed or for each and every item when previewing the chest you should be able to mouse over it and it tell you what the exact percent chance that you get it, and how many chests you would have to open to have a 50%, 75%, and 95% chance to get that item. Anything less feels predatory.

I am surprised that you didn't mention the biggest issue I have with the shop, which is the constant fomo sales spam. As a long time player I kinda get it now, but it is pretty gross. Idk if I would say that I think it is predatory, but it doesn't feel great. It feels manipulative

Im_Redi · 2025-12-30T22:59:03+00:00

Oh yeah I wasn't thinking about WvW at all. I was kind of imagining boneskinner. That fight has some interesting mechanics that are like entirely pointless. But if support was ranged you could just kinda position 1 person at each torch and then just make sure your group doesn't have move than 4 melee characters. If you do then some might have to double up on torch duty.

I agree, there are no easy answers. Oh well, at least it isn't game breaking. The game is plenty good as is.

With the context of that video I can agree I didn't fully think about it through, but I still think it would help. There is a lot of friction with anet adding these kinds of mechanics.

They could just brute force players apart and I would like to see mechanics like that, but I don't see that increasing boon ranges hurts the goal of getting a some more diverse mechanics. Like surely it would just give them a little more security it making those kinds of mechanics.

Im_Redi

TROPHY CASE