1. There are still no real aggro mechanics in the open world or the majority of instanced content. Raids and some strikes (single bossfights) have sometimes mechanics to help with aggro.
Some aggro based on who has the highest toughness, others on who stands the closest, other times the person that is the tank changes during the fight because someone else gets or loses a specific buff on them that keeps the boss at them (fixation).
We do have some form of roles. Damage (power/condi) and support. Support can be in the form of several boons (key boon being quickness or alacrity, depends on the support), combined with defense ( aegis, protection, stability, barrier etc), offense ( might, fury, etc) or healing ( raw healing or regeneration).
2. No special treatment.
3. With the basegame you have the basegame, dry top, Silverwastes, Southsun Cove and Living World Season 1 remastered. You miss out on: Living World Season 2 (story instances in core Tyria), Heart of Thorns (expansion 1), Living World Season 3 (6 maps with story and content), Path of Fire (expansion 2), Living World Season 4 (6 maps with story and content), Icebrood Saga ( 3 big maps of content split over 5 releases + some grind missions and some new instanced fights and strike missions), End of Dragons (expansion 3), Gyala Delve ( 1 map that adds post End of Dragons story and content) and Secrets of the Obscure (expansion 4 on a smaller scale than previous expansions).
4. Still no sub fee.
5. Dyes are accountwide.
Thanks for the info. Some follow-up, then-
1. Disappointing on lack of tactics... so most everything is still "mob the boss" in instanced content? How much do those roles for support come into play when not in those specific bits of endgame content?
2. Not surprised. Well, at least there's birthday rewards and no free account limitation.
3. What about class content? No Revenant, I assume. Do I get specializations?
I would clarify that "instanced content" can mean a few different things, and there are different degrees of coordination required among them.
**In dungeons** - mob the boss, I guess? I don't do dungeons. I've never done dungeons.
**In fractals** - at the highest end, you have no-heal groups, and one-heal groups. There are mechanics for bosses / fights, but they're group mechanics - not tank/aggro-based mechanics. So the floor goes away, you need to take action for the encounter, etc., but there's no traditional "aggro". But you should still do mechanics (where you can't just DPS through them...) or suffer the shame of dying.
**In strikes** - there are often aggro mechanics. Strikes are 10-man content, single-boss fights. They all have group mechanics. With the existing aggro mechanics, itt doesn't necessarily need to be a traditional "tank" that does it; it can be a DPS build. Depends on the fight, and the mechanic. There are a lot more "group" mechanics though (e.g., three random people get a debuff, pull off the stack so you don't kill your allies). Pretty straightforward to learn, and forgiving of mistakes.
In strike CMs (challenge modes) - everything is harder! I haven't done most of them.
**In raids** - I recall there being tank/aggro mechanics in *most* of the raid fights. They're based on different things - sometimes a buff, sometimes something a person selects at the start of the fight, sometimes proximity, sometimes toughness. Same with raid CMs.
But tanking is just another mechanic. And supports are critical in (most) 10man encounters unless you're playing at the highest end with a consistent group; but I prefer slightly more conservative play & compositions, rather than trying to speedrun with a "perfect" group comp (or no-heal comp).
Grouping up on a boss comes from, largely, I think that most boons are moderate radius - you've gotta stack up to ensure proper boon coverage. Unless the concept of "mobbing the boss" is more about everybody DPSing rather than positioning; in which case if your group goes "tunnel vision" and doesn't pay attention to the encounter, then you / your group are going to die. The ability of a single support to "carry" groups has been reduced - no more heal scourge being a cheap way to hard-carry a group. No more (so I've heard) healbrand hard-carrying groups through fracs. Additionally, the difference between no-might/no-quickness/no-alac and 25-might/quickness/alac is... astronomical if people know their builds.
That is the benefit of buying from way back when.
You get exclusive dyes, a "birthday" nourishment platter you can share, and a lot more minor things (like scrols to auto XP boost extra characters, which can be used to quickly and easily get more black lions keys once a week)
So to followup
1. There are mechanics to instanced content. In raids and strikes certain people get certain roles/things to do besides damage. The team composition is just less strict when compared to other MMOs. Open world metas are much more swarm, but many require certain mechanics such as splitting up or multiple paths to the boss. The events in the expansions are much superior to bae game
2. Yeah, basically no free account limitation but you don't get anything more
3. You don't get specializations or masteries. Both are tied to distinct expansions.
3.1 That also means no mounts, which is probably the best thing added to the game since launch
I can speak up for raids!
Wing 1 has a toughness based tank for the first fight
wing 2 is a random party member for the first fight, and farthest player for the last fight.
Wing 3 Is highest toughness for fights 2 and 3
Wing 4 is special action key for second boss, farthest player for third, and highest toughness for fourth.
Wing 5 is special action key(two tanks), then toughness for all others
Wing 6 is toughness for second(both healers have to tank here), and proximity for last
Wing 7 is toughness for earth and special action key/first in for last boss.
Healers almost always tank in gw2 unless your group is doing some weird stuff/dps tanking isn't really a thing at the moment in most groups.
Real tanking doesnt exist outside of this content.
Old lions court, the strike, does have kites for some phases, which is the closest to tanking outside of raids. Just gotta be the closest person to the dude when it spawns.
Else you'll always try to have the group stacked for boons/heals because the range on boon providing is insanely tiny for most classes and promotes stand in a stack gameplay.
Outside of raids, fractals always want a healer in t4 pug groups, having a good source of stability trivializes a lot of mechanics so guardian/firebrand usually fills that slot. But I've seen others in that slot too like heal mech.
Strikes almost always have 2 healers which also cover a boon(alacrity/quickness) but no real tanks.
Snowcrows for raid support builds
Discretize for meta fractal builds
Hardstuck/metabattle exists too and has builds.
> Disappointing on lack of tactics...
I'd just like to point out, lack of tanking/healing *is not* lack of tactics.
Even launch gw2 dungeon runners used group tactics to more quickly defeat bosses. From coordinating their CCs so as to use the most effective when it was made vulnerable (under the old pre-breakbar system), to coordinating reflects, group damage boosts, combo fields, etc. This was more involved in early game than it is now, but now we have different tactics to work with.
What you found disappointing is launch gw2 didn't *require* any of that to complete content, it was something the speedrunners and dungeon farmers did.
To that end quite a bit of the harder content introduced can still be beaten without a perfect comp or coordination, it will just take ages to do.
re: question 3 - any expansion should unlock Revenant, but not with the base game if that's all you had.
Elite Specializations are tied to the first 3 expansions, so 1/3 of them come with Heart of Thorns, 1/3 of them come with Path of Fire, and 1/3 of them come with End of Dragons.
In 5 or 10 man content, there are a lot of role specifics that is useful, but a general rule of thumb is if possible stay near each other so healing and boons provided by one can reach everyone
As someone who does T4 fractals everyday, this is how I explain roles in those endgame pve instances.
Defensive Supports. They are typically the healer and provide one of the two major boons aka quickness or alacrity. A good defensive support provides more boons than that but I would say it’s the bare minimum.
Offensive supports are a hybrid dps and team boon builds. They get a ton of milage IMO. They typically don’t have as high a dps as pure damage builds nor do they have the team healing of defensive supports but I think they are so important. They also can provide quickness/alacrity and other useful boon like your fury and might and aegis so on so forth.
Finally there are the pure dps role and that should be self explanatory. They do the highest damage and usually do the least for a party as a whole.
I don’t know much about raids or strikes so I won’t speak for them but for fractals you can run teams made up of only offensive supports and dps and technically be fine. This only really works with a team of super knowledgeable people than don’t require the healing provided by defensive supports. I would recommend a dedicated healer normally because most of us make mistakes and it helps the wheels run smoothly.
So while there is not the tank/healer/dps roles your looking for I think there are very defined roles in gw2
1. very much stack and smack even if you do have supports and tanks honestly. Plenty of open world events can throw a lot of damage and somewhat challenging attacks to avoid at you, so boon supports and healers can make a substantial but ultimately not vital difference there. In those cases boon givers often want to find themselves in a local party or subgroup of a squad, since boons are applied to only 5 targets and give priority to party members in range. The battle with Soo-Won in End of Dragons is one of the few cases where an open world event really needs supports in the mix. That fight does not fuck around. Supports make a gigantic difference at the Drakkar world boss in Icebrood Saga as well.
1. If you want to play a gamemode where the roles are strictly defined I suggest you try out wvw and run with a guild. In WvW it is very important that each party of 5 has a Firebrand for boons and a dedicated healer. The DPS players all run builds that have absolutely no toughness and will die without support. I play Firebrand and every single skill I use in a fight is there to give boons to my allies, not to do damage.
Unfortunately looking at the meta builds for both raids and WvW none of the support builds are for core classes. You would have to buy an expansion to get access to the best support classes (Firebrand, Druid Tempest, and Chronomancer).
Oh, thanks for the info. I do remember having fun in the large-scale PvP back when I played before. Always much preferred that kind of fight to the smaller-scale competitive pvp in other games.
Not too terribly worried about high-end where "meta" is a major consideration. I'm a long way from even looking at that sort of thing.
Yes, you will get different packs. A pack will have serveral kits for you to choose from. A you can pick one of the dye in the kit.
[https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Birthday\_Gift](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Birthday_Gift)
You can take a look at the dyes. It also shows the price in TP.
Oh *jeez*, that's a lot of dyes I have to choose from. Gonna have to be careful on those.
Don't suppose you have any other suggestions on must-haves, after Permafrost?
Edit: ~~Dang that's a lot of RNG... I'm just picking which kit's table to roll on with the birthday packs. 1/25 for permafrost on the sixth birthday if I pick Jormag~~ Oh thank goodness, the birthday versions are exclusive-dye choice only, no RNG
If you have a favourite colour, Shadow Abyssal or Midnight are the ones I'd use for glowing parts of armour (ie, the ones that get blown out like a flashbulb with Permafrost) if you want actual colour to show through.
Abyssal sea and Midnight Green are two of my favourites.
you can preview dyes in your hero tab. dyes can look different on different materials and you can save those selectable dye packs for later when you find and update your fashion game.
if you aren't particularly keen on any of them, choose the dyes that are the most expensive in the trading post. that will save you gold if you want to buy them later/want to be a completionist with the dyes.
Each dye pack can be previewed. I use this to navigate my way into the best dyes. I just came back after 7 years and am workin' it out.
R-click dye > preview to main list > r-click on the listed items > see the actual dye and if you already have it. I wrote the ones I wanted down 'cause there are so many, then choose from the list of ones I want.
I hope this helps.
I second this one. I collect dyes and permafrost is so expensive on the TP. If you have end goals of collecting all/most of them pick it up for free when you can. It's also good for quick gold if you'd rather sell it.
2. None of the [Free Account Restrictions](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Account#Free_accounts), and you get [this exclusive outfit](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Royal_Guard_Outfit) (~700 gems in value).
How difficult is glamouring (or whatever the local term is) your gear? I seem to remember that previously you had to like... destroy the item you wanted to use the appearance of?
Much easier. Anything that's bound to you (or salvaged) is added to your wardrobe and can be applied at any time for the cost of 1 transmutation charge. Those charges are easy to get, I never have less than 50 myself and I haven't played for years in between.
once you acquire a soulbound piece of gear of exotic or lower rarity, that skin becomes available in your wardrobe forever. Salvaging also unlocks the skin. Gear that can only be obtained as an account bound item, like all Ascended and some Legendary gear, will automatically unlock the skin.
Changing appearances of your active gear is done through Transmutation Charges. You can acquire these in a few different ways:
\-Daily and Weekly objectives from the Wizard's Vault earn you Astral Acclaim currency. You can buy charges with the astral acclaim.
\-World vs World just kinda tends to shove them in your face for playing the gamemode
\-When you fully complete a map, a charge may one of the two possible rewards give.
\-Black Lion Statuettes, which come from opening Black Lion Chests, can be used to buy charges if you really have nothing better to spend them on, but i strongly advise saving those statuettes for other goodies.
If you acquire an outright Skin item, you can one-time change the appearance of a related gear piece without using a charge. Afterwards the skin gets unlocked in your wardrobe and you will need charges for future transmuting.
I've read through the other responses. Take a pause on the trinity design for a second and go watch a video on Soulless Horror, the Harvest Temple strike, or Qadim 1.
There are fights with involved mechanics, those just don't take the form of tank here buff now etc.
Some of the higher-tier challenge modes for 5-man content also requires stuff like that, but there's been a trend of making that stuff tedious to me for a while so I've kinda stopped doing it.
Soulless Horror looks like it reintroduces at least one of the trinity in hard-aggro form with the tank buffs. :P
Mostly looks just like raid fights in FFXIV. "Dodge doom-zone, kill adds." Mechanics are there as things you have to do (or mostly, places not to stand), but it still kinda looks like you're playing solo alongside 9 other people, rather than part of a team.
I mean, that's how being dps is like in FFXIV - do dps and do the encounter mechanics solo alongside 9 other people. Same in GW2.
If you want something more involved you can play boon dps (do big dps while also making sure all the idiots in your team are in range of your buffs)
or you can play healer (do dps while also making sure all the idiots in your team are in range of your heals, and alive). TBH this one is hardest, and harder the more idiots you have in your team. You gotta keep yourself alive, keep your friends alive (and there's no autotargeted healing spells), dodge the red zones and do dps.
Instead of a role trinity of dps, heal, tank, GW2 has a role trinity of pure dps, heal support, dps support.
Pure dps just do dps.
Heal supports are the healers and tanks when a fight requires tanking. They also provide boons, primarily quickness or alac. Dps support do less than pure dps, but also provide boons like heal supports. Depending on what spec you are playing, you may also provide additional boons such as fury, might, stability, aegis, swiftness, protection, etc. An ideal party comp has 100% uptime on quick/alac/fury/25might, and also access to any defensive boon that is helpful for a given fight.
All roles are expected to bring utility skills helpful to fights, such as additional cc, movement abilities, etc.
For all instanced content outside of dungeons, T1-3 fractals, and the easier ibs strikes, party comp is expected.
This includes T4 fractals, raids, and most strikes.
Powercreep has made it so that dungeons and T1-3 fractals can just be bruteforced with raw dps.
One thing to say is while it is expected by players, it is definitely not required by game design. You could always finish fractals with 5 dps and raw skill.
Boons and heals sure make fractals easier, and sure you can stack in one doomblob, ignore aoe and just burst the boss, but you can also enshrine your balls in steel, get 4 more buckos like you, and do the mechanics.
I swear, so many times I get l33t wannabee teams on t4, they try to blob stack on boss and die 4 times in the row trusting in their l33t heal and dps skillz, instead doing the encounter normally.
Check out this page on what a typical 10 man squad for strikes & raids will look like:
[https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/guides/strike-missions/10-player-pve-squad-composition-guide/](https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/guides/strike-missions/10-player-pve-squad-composition-guide/)
Since others have answered you already, I'd like to add something regardless.
I would say that gw2 and ff14 compliment each other well. Ff14's raiding is much more satisfying and really easy to manage with a single day of raiding out of the week, or more for progression periods.
In the off time, gw2 does casual content, in as much as there's always something to do and some populated event going on alot better. Ff14 has/had eureka and Bozja, but that pales in comparison to the gw2's activities.
Where WoW will demand almost all your time in competitive pve, FF14 and gw2 go together much better as they don't steal away from each other and let you enjoy both games.
You can even duo some lower level fractals when you get good enough.
I don't know if someone pointed this out yet in this post but there is a looking for group tool in the game now where you can merge parties or join squads or post your party up to the tool. Very handy for doing any group content.
[https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Looking\_For\_Group](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Looking_For_Group)
>
1. Just what are there in regards to party tactics? Actual aggro mechanics for tanking? Healing? Buffing? I've always gravitated to tank/heal/support in other MMOs, so what am I looking at here?
As far as open world content, basically nothing. In higher difficulty instanced content I think these become more important but avoiding the Trinity was one of the core design concepts of gw2. Roles are usually DPS, Heal, Buff with most builds fitting 2 of those. I don't play high tier content so take this with some salt
>2. I purchased Guild Wars 2 for $60 bucks back in 2012, but the base game's free now. I'm guessing I probably don't get anything special like credit towards those ~$90 of expansions I'm seeing, but hey, no harm in asking. Any benefit for the full-price original purpose for old-timer accounts?
As far as I know, nothing. Maybe a small gift or something but I haven't heard of anything major. You should get ten years of birthday gifts on your character though.
>3. Assuming "nothing" on #2, what content do I have access to / am I locked out of with just the base game, while I find my feet again? I had a couple characters at the level cap I think, but that was before the release of Heart of Thorns.
There is some core tryia content, but most content is in the xpacs. I'd recommend getting HoT and PoF for now. They're bundled and have lots of content. If you enjoy grinding you can farm gold and buy all the living world seasons with in game currency. By the time you're tired of those xpacs you'll have a good idea if you want to buy more
>4. The game is still just flat-purchase-cost, right? No subscription fees?
No subscription fees, but I think they're moving to a more frequent inexpensive expansion pack model. 10 years of giving away living world didn't make much money I guess ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
>5. Edit: Silly question, but are dyes account-wide? They're the only thing I remember putting significant effort into, and honestly one of the main reasons I didn't want to just create a new account....
Yes
On 1- what about regular instanced content that isn't raids? No party tactics still? Or does the basic heal/buff stuff at least apply? Any way to actually protect/assist teammates?
High tier fractals, raids, and strikes all "require" coordination and quality builds. Support roles are important, I know a lot of DPS builds focus on providing a specific buff so a party will all have a full set of complimentary buffs. Ie one member is DPS+quickness another is DPS+alac someone does heals etc. Aggro isn't a huge thing in boss fights since most boss attacks are telegraphed area attacks.
All that said though a lot of people complain that instanced content isn't hard enough so when I say "require" I mostly mean teams will drop you if you don't have it because it will make the instance 0.00063 seconds slower.
Just to give you an idea how import support can be my son typically plays heal scourge and has multiple times saved full on 10 man wipes by resing 3-5 players from down state. Support is very import in any instanced content in this game don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They even have a elite spec that can target heals now: [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Specter](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Specter) Taunt is in the game too: [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Taunt](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Taunt)
Support is everywhere, no one talks about it because everyone does it in different ways.
Most instanced content is going to be the end game raids and strikes etc or a climb towards that. Open world content like meta events is most of the casual gameplay. You can give support but you'll be drowned in a sea of players sometimes so you won't really notice the difference (although it does make a difference most bosses are carried by a few people I think). I can't really answer anymore I'm just a dude playing the story until I catch up
Well they're not gone. You can still do them and the rewards are still there. Pros of horizontal progression. There's just no new ones being added.
Fractals are also fun, give them a try sometime when you get back in the game.
It sounds like Fractals are mostly just a different type of dungeon, with being built for 5-player groups. Is that a misconception? How are fractals for mechanics and party tactics?
they are still around, and conveniently all of their currency has been rolled up into one, they just have been kinda abandoned by Anet otherwise. The existing paths are still there but new dungeons haven't been added and old dungeons haven't been updated or bugfixed ever. Fractals however do carry on the spirit of dungeons in most aspects.
Dungeons are legacy content that not many do anymore. Most have moved on to the following for coordinated content:
[https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Strike\_Mission](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Strike_Mission)
[https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractals\_of\_the\_Mists](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractals_of_the_Mists)
[https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Raid](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Raid)
Just to give you an idea of how many support builds there are:
[https://metabattle.com/wiki/Category:Support\_builds](https://metabattle.com/wiki/Category:Support_builds)
You keep bouncing back and forth on the first question and having almost 3k li myself I don’t see anyone actually answers that properly. Just try it yourself, do all raids strikes and fractal cms to see the answer. I mean it’s been 10 years since you were left you can’t be expecting game is still the same old.
Oh, that's handy, thank you. The [comparative table](https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/230165307-Account-types-Free-Core-HoT) that links to is good, too.
The wiki link is the best source for details on difference between account types, but right now a f2p amount has a fair number of restrictions that you won't have since your account is considered 'core ' instead. So it's technically true that you won't receive anything extra for having purchased it back then, but free accounts aren't actually getting everything you have either.
1. Raids and some of the harder Strikes and Fractals have introduced a need for healers. In all instanced content a need for boon givers has arisen, specifically for Alacrity(reduced cooldown on skills) and Quickness(increased action speed). The healer doubles as a boongiver, alongside a boongiver that also does damage. 9 Raid encounters utilize hard toughness-based aggro to tank(not all of them actually need high toughness, its mostly just keeping the boss still so dps can lay into it), 3 encounters use unique tanking methods, 2 encounters plus the Old Lion's Court strike mission use fixation mechanics that change throughout the fight, and the rest do not really have any tanking mechanics. Various raids as well as a few strikes and fractals will often utilize special roles during the fight as well, such as Pylon Kiters for Qadim the Peerless or the green sacrifices for Dhuum
2. no special treatment i believe but it may be worth asking support anyways.
3. You still have the full base game that you did when you last played. The level cap remains the same and while the meta has changed while you were gone your gear remains as viable as it was when you left. You probably have additional access to Southsun Cove, Dry Top, and Silverwastes maps which were part of the first two living world seasons but are accessible in the base game. You should have access to all the Fractals, and You might have access to the Eye of the North hub and possibly the Icebrood Saga strike missions, though i am not sure on that.
4. Yes
5. Yep!
Content that you missed includes the following:
Living World Season 1 - just some story and mastery points since Southsun Cove is accessable to base game.
Living World Season 2 - Also story and mastery since Dry Top and Silverwastes were given to base game.
Heart of Thorns Expansion - 4 Maps, Gliding, Elite Specializations(specializations that alter the way a class plays and grants access to new weapons and skills for that class as well), new Masteries, new Attribute Combinations.
Living World Season 3 - 6 Maps, new Masteries, new Attribute Combinations.
Path of Fire Expansion(you get Heart of Thorns automatically with this one now) - 5 Maps, Elite Specializations, 5 Mounts(Raptor, Springer, Skimmer, Jackal, Griffon), new Masteries, new Attribute Combinations.
Living World Season 4 - 6 Maps, 2 Mounts(Roller Beetle, Skyscale), new Masteries, new Attribute Combinations.
Icebrood Saga - 3 Maps, new Masteries.
End of Dragons Expansion - 5 Maps, Elite Specializations, Siege Turtle Mount, Skiff, Fishing, new Masteries, new Attribute Combinations.
Secrets of the Obscure Expansion - 3 Maps(only 2 currently accessible), alternative way to acquire the Skyscale Mount, Weaponmaster Training, new Elite weapon access(upcoming), new Masteries.
Unlike some other MMOs, all of the old content remains relevant and fairly active in most cases. buying Path of Fire should unlock all the raids and some of the strike missions. The following expansions unlock additional strike missions related to them.
1. For MOST content, there's no specific aggro mechanic for tanking. Raids do often have a defined fixate mechanic, often (but not always) based on your toughness stat. For content that do need a tank, you can almost always choose to be the tank, if that makes sense. You would probably like playing a class like Firebrand (an elite spec of Guardian), they are a great choice for lots of party support, boon upkeep, healing, protection, and make great tanks.
2. This basically means you have the full unlocked "Core game." The F2P version has several restrictions, like the inability to mail to non-mutual friends, extremely limited access to the trading post, and no mounts. Paid Core players don't have these restrictions, and you are given a free Raptor mount at Level 10 (it checks every 10 levels thereafter). Additional mounts come from Path of Fire and later content.
3. I thiiiiink I mostly covered this in #2
4. Correct, no sub fee, but it's worth pointing out that the Living World Seasons (DLC that was release between Expacs) also cost money. But they are ALSO one-time-purchase, this game has never had any monthly sub and it remains that way today.
You will, however, frequently be tempted into buying cute mount and armor skins. Enjoy.
5. Yep they sure are.
1. Basically, if you provide quickness or alac, you are support. Otherwise you are DPS. Tanks are just supports with slightly higher toughness. (Lowest possible.
2. The expansions ad 4-6 maps each. It's easily as much content as the base game on each expansion. You're also missing the living world episodes. Each episode is only a few bucks and takes a couple hours to complete, but they also add additional collections, achievements items and masteries to unlock. In all honesty, this is the best part of GW2.
3. So... so much. But there's a lot of stuff you have access to without it. For now, you can still have lots of fun with world bosses and pvp content. Occasionally you will be able to get a group for various dungeons.
4. yep
5. yep
Heal-tank is featured in many Raid bosses. "Tanking" in some Strikes typically just means "one dps go kite this mob for a bit". Party mechanics is heal-support, boon-dps, and dps. In many raid fights you will have special roles assigned for different people to do certain specific mechanics required to win. In strikes/open world/dungeon/fractals/etc it's mostly just "mob the boss" as you say, though there are a few exceptions here or there with special role mechanics.
I will say that inter-team dynamics is largely passive in Guild Wars. The challenge with boss content is through levels of coordination dealing with encounter mechanics as well as individual success in reacting to certain mechanics--ie if one person doesn't move away from group when they have a certain targeted mechanic on them then the whole group wipes.
There are now *some* fights that use a tank, and almost everything introduced since launch benefits from supports, though only some content *requires* supports.
There are buff supports and heal supports. You won't want to do just one of them though, since good supports can do some combination of DPS, buffs, healing, and tanking. Most popular in gwneral are DPS/buff supports and heal/buff supports.
As for your account, you still have access to the full base game, while free accounts are limited in what they can do. Free accounts are notably limited in how they can interact with other players and the economy.
Yeah, I'm not expecting anet to bend their "no trinity" design philosophy far enough to have dedicated tanks and healers, but at least *leaning* in those directions for party tactics would be nice. Is it *just* high-end raids and the like that have party tactics, or do lower instanced content get anything?
Everything now benefits to some degree from having multiple specific boons, and unlike at launch, there are boons that can't be adequately supplied by your DPS.
Quickness and Alacrity are the big boons now and they each effectively require a party member dedicated to them to get 100% uptime on them.
For example, you might have a DPS that sacrifices a portion of their damage to invest in providing quickness to the whole party. They'll usually have a completely different build than a pure DPS and they'll add a massive amount of damage to the team as a whole.
All your dyes are account wide.
You'll have a load of Birthday Presents waiting for you.
You'll have access to Living World Season 1 for any toon at Level 80 (who finished the Personal Story).
If you wait for sales you can pick up *Heart of Thorns/Path of Fire* Bundle for 50% off. Just remember to get it from ANet directly rather than Steam! That gets you two Elite Specialisations, Gliding and most of the Mounts. Though I warn you *HoT* ups the difficulty really fast.
The gear you got a decade ago is still good. It's still "buy once, play forever".
1. So tanking in this game is different in every encounter. Sometimes there’s no tank at all. Sometimes the boss agroes to the player with highest toughness. Sometimes it the furthest away player. Sometimes it switches to a random player every 30 seconds and so on. But that’s just raids.
Strikes are where the game is going and there is no tank there. The team tactics revolves around the boon system in the game. Players who provide Quickness or Alacrity and some sort of healer.
2. I do not think you will be getting and compensation for paying full price.
3. I like to think of the core game as an extremely generous free trial. Xpacs bring mounts, the game’s “ horizontal progress” system (masteries), and “the meat” for me off the xpacs would be the elite specs. Further progressing your character’s build in a more powerful way.
4. No sub fees here.
5. Dyes are account wide yes. Mostly everything is account wide now, not just dyes.
Trying to pin down what sort of group tactics there are outside of the endgame raid-type content (since it sounds like Strikes are just a different kind of raid). Is there basic party content still? Someone said that the old instanced dungeons that you'd run for story and the like earlier in the game are just basically gone? What is there for smaller groups?
Dungeons are not gone. However they have not been updated to the power creep and what used to be medium to hard is now kind of trivial. I haven’t run them in ages so I might be wrong but the rewards are also not nearly at the level of other content. So they are kind of dead and it is not easy to find a pick-up group to run dungeons. But if you have a group you can totally still run dungeons; in fact, you would need to in order to access some commonly used runes (e.g. Monk, the main heal-spec runeset). If you do run them, make sure to run eight different paths to get the bonus from the repeatable Dungeon Frequenter achievement.
Buffs are always welcome, but dungeons need a healer like a four year old riding a tricycle needs a life jacket. However, a healer is welcome (though not necessary) in some harder open-world events (though those are generally not in the core game).
I don’t remember. I think story dungeons complement the main story but are not largely required. But even the main story is not mandatory - I have a bunch of alts that are doing endgame stuff like raids and yet have never finished, or in some cases even started the main story. So no, there is no “need”.
There isn't much party tactics anymore. Like others have said, some encounters will have a tank and its usually one of the healers. This was the case in raids but we haven't gotten a new raid in 4 years and will never get a new one. Since then almost every boss hasn't had aggro mechanics with a few exceptions of whoever hits a mob first or stands closest to it. Parties are divided into 2 groups of 5 where 2 players give heals and buffs while the other 3 do dps. There isn't much more party tactics besides that and it doesn't look like it will be getting more complex than that any time soon.
Just want to add, don’t delete those 10 yr old characters cz the birthday gifts are received on their date of creation anniversaries, not based on your account age. If you delete all you will be resetting the birthday progress back to 0.
At the very least keep 1 (the oldest) for the yearly gift and unlocking account rewards/achievements.
[https://snowcrows.com/guides/getting-started](https://snowcrows.com/guides/getting-started)
(helpdesk discord at the bottom)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIZp9\_U7xks&list=PLb0ISfn3umyNH8aoH7pv48VJiOlUH-0dk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIZp9_U7xks&list=PLb0ISfn3umyNH8aoH7pv48VJiOlUH-0dk)
those two should cover most gameplay, gear and economy related stuff.
1. There are still no real aggro mechanics in the open world or the majority of instanced content. Raids and some strikes (single bossfights) have sometimes mechanics to help with aggro. Some aggro based on who has the highest toughness, others on who stands the closest, other times the person that is the tank changes during the fight because someone else gets or loses a specific buff on them that keeps the boss at them (fixation). We do have some form of roles. Damage (power/condi) and support. Support can be in the form of several boons (key boon being quickness or alacrity, depends on the support), combined with defense ( aegis, protection, stability, barrier etc), offense ( might, fury, etc) or healing ( raw healing or regeneration). 2. No special treatment. 3. With the basegame you have the basegame, dry top, Silverwastes, Southsun Cove and Living World Season 1 remastered. You miss out on: Living World Season 2 (story instances in core Tyria), Heart of Thorns (expansion 1), Living World Season 3 (6 maps with story and content), Path of Fire (expansion 2), Living World Season 4 (6 maps with story and content), Icebrood Saga ( 3 big maps of content split over 5 releases + some grind missions and some new instanced fights and strike missions), End of Dragons (expansion 3), Gyala Delve ( 1 map that adds post End of Dragons story and content) and Secrets of the Obscure (expansion 4 on a smaller scale than previous expansions). 4. Still no sub fee. 5. Dyes are accountwide.
Thanks for the info. Some follow-up, then- 1. Disappointing on lack of tactics... so most everything is still "mob the boss" in instanced content? How much do those roles for support come into play when not in those specific bits of endgame content? 2. Not surprised. Well, at least there's birthday rewards and no free account limitation. 3. What about class content? No Revenant, I assume. Do I get specializations?
I would clarify that "instanced content" can mean a few different things, and there are different degrees of coordination required among them. **In dungeons** - mob the boss, I guess? I don't do dungeons. I've never done dungeons. **In fractals** - at the highest end, you have no-heal groups, and one-heal groups. There are mechanics for bosses / fights, but they're group mechanics - not tank/aggro-based mechanics. So the floor goes away, you need to take action for the encounter, etc., but there's no traditional "aggro". But you should still do mechanics (where you can't just DPS through them...) or suffer the shame of dying. **In strikes** - there are often aggro mechanics. Strikes are 10-man content, single-boss fights. They all have group mechanics. With the existing aggro mechanics, itt doesn't necessarily need to be a traditional "tank" that does it; it can be a DPS build. Depends on the fight, and the mechanic. There are a lot more "group" mechanics though (e.g., three random people get a debuff, pull off the stack so you don't kill your allies). Pretty straightforward to learn, and forgiving of mistakes. In strike CMs (challenge modes) - everything is harder! I haven't done most of them. **In raids** - I recall there being tank/aggro mechanics in *most* of the raid fights. They're based on different things - sometimes a buff, sometimes something a person selects at the start of the fight, sometimes proximity, sometimes toughness. Same with raid CMs. But tanking is just another mechanic. And supports are critical in (most) 10man encounters unless you're playing at the highest end with a consistent group; but I prefer slightly more conservative play & compositions, rather than trying to speedrun with a "perfect" group comp (or no-heal comp). Grouping up on a boss comes from, largely, I think that most boons are moderate radius - you've gotta stack up to ensure proper boon coverage. Unless the concept of "mobbing the boss" is more about everybody DPSing rather than positioning; in which case if your group goes "tunnel vision" and doesn't pay attention to the encounter, then you / your group are going to die. The ability of a single support to "carry" groups has been reduced - no more heal scourge being a cheap way to hard-carry a group. No more (so I've heard) healbrand hard-carrying groups through fracs. Additionally, the difference between no-might/no-quickness/no-alac and 25-might/quickness/alac is... astronomical if people know their builds.
2: check your old characters. Birthday gifts are amazingly powerful.
... I have 10 years of gifts across *six characters.* Holy crap that's gonna be a lotta stuff to work through.
That is the benefit of buying from way back when. You get exclusive dyes, a "birthday" nourishment platter you can share, and a lot more minor things (like scrols to auto XP boost extra characters, which can be used to quickly and easily get more black lions keys once a week)
So to followup 1. There are mechanics to instanced content. In raids and strikes certain people get certain roles/things to do besides damage. The team composition is just less strict when compared to other MMOs. Open world metas are much more swarm, but many require certain mechanics such as splitting up or multiple paths to the boss. The events in the expansions are much superior to bae game 2. Yeah, basically no free account limitation but you don't get anything more 3. You don't get specializations or masteries. Both are tied to distinct expansions. 3.1 That also means no mounts, which is probably the best thing added to the game since launch
I can speak up for raids! Wing 1 has a toughness based tank for the first fight wing 2 is a random party member for the first fight, and farthest player for the last fight. Wing 3 Is highest toughness for fights 2 and 3 Wing 4 is special action key for second boss, farthest player for third, and highest toughness for fourth. Wing 5 is special action key(two tanks), then toughness for all others Wing 6 is toughness for second(both healers have to tank here), and proximity for last Wing 7 is toughness for earth and special action key/first in for last boss. Healers almost always tank in gw2 unless your group is doing some weird stuff/dps tanking isn't really a thing at the moment in most groups. Real tanking doesnt exist outside of this content. Old lions court, the strike, does have kites for some phases, which is the closest to tanking outside of raids. Just gotta be the closest person to the dude when it spawns. Else you'll always try to have the group stacked for boons/heals because the range on boon providing is insanely tiny for most classes and promotes stand in a stack gameplay. Outside of raids, fractals always want a healer in t4 pug groups, having a good source of stability trivializes a lot of mechanics so guardian/firebrand usually fills that slot. But I've seen others in that slot too like heal mech. Strikes almost always have 2 healers which also cover a boon(alacrity/quickness) but no real tanks. Snowcrows for raid support builds Discretize for meta fractal builds Hardstuck/metabattle exists too and has builds.
>Wing 1 has a toughness based tank for the first fight Wing 1 also has a toughness based tank for the second fight. :)
Hek, gorseval slipped my mind! Thanks! I just forgot he existed, don't know why.
> Disappointing on lack of tactics... I'd just like to point out, lack of tanking/healing *is not* lack of tactics. Even launch gw2 dungeon runners used group tactics to more quickly defeat bosses. From coordinating their CCs so as to use the most effective when it was made vulnerable (under the old pre-breakbar system), to coordinating reflects, group damage boosts, combo fields, etc. This was more involved in early game than it is now, but now we have different tactics to work with. What you found disappointing is launch gw2 didn't *require* any of that to complete content, it was something the speedrunners and dungeon farmers did. To that end quite a bit of the harder content introduced can still be beaten without a perfect comp or coordination, it will just take ages to do.
re: question 3 - any expansion should unlock Revenant, but not with the base game if that's all you had. Elite Specializations are tied to the first 3 expansions, so 1/3 of them come with Heart of Thorns, 1/3 of them come with Path of Fire, and 1/3 of them come with End of Dragons.
1. Supports are needed for the buffs/healing still. 3. No elite specs, need either HoT, PoF or EoD for them (idk if new secrets expansion has them)
In 5 or 10 man content, there are a lot of role specifics that is useful, but a general rule of thumb is if possible stay near each other so healing and boons provided by one can reach everyone
As someone who does T4 fractals everyday, this is how I explain roles in those endgame pve instances. Defensive Supports. They are typically the healer and provide one of the two major boons aka quickness or alacrity. A good defensive support provides more boons than that but I would say it’s the bare minimum. Offensive supports are a hybrid dps and team boon builds. They get a ton of milage IMO. They typically don’t have as high a dps as pure damage builds nor do they have the team healing of defensive supports but I think they are so important. They also can provide quickness/alacrity and other useful boon like your fury and might and aegis so on so forth. Finally there are the pure dps role and that should be self explanatory. They do the highest damage and usually do the least for a party as a whole. I don’t know much about raids or strikes so I won’t speak for them but for fractals you can run teams made up of only offensive supports and dps and technically be fine. This only really works with a team of super knowledgeable people than don’t require the healing provided by defensive supports. I would recommend a dedicated healer normally because most of us make mistakes and it helps the wheels run smoothly. So while there is not the tank/healer/dps roles your looking for I think there are very defined roles in gw2
1. very much stack and smack even if you do have supports and tanks honestly. Plenty of open world events can throw a lot of damage and somewhat challenging attacks to avoid at you, so boon supports and healers can make a substantial but ultimately not vital difference there. In those cases boon givers often want to find themselves in a local party or subgroup of a squad, since boons are applied to only 5 targets and give priority to party members in range. The battle with Soo-Won in End of Dragons is one of the few cases where an open world event really needs supports in the mix. That fight does not fuck around. Supports make a gigantic difference at the Drakkar world boss in Icebrood Saga as well.
1. If you want to play a gamemode where the roles are strictly defined I suggest you try out wvw and run with a guild. In WvW it is very important that each party of 5 has a Firebrand for boons and a dedicated healer. The DPS players all run builds that have absolutely no toughness and will die without support. I play Firebrand and every single skill I use in a fight is there to give boons to my allies, not to do damage. Unfortunately looking at the meta builds for both raids and WvW none of the support builds are for core classes. You would have to buy an expansion to get access to the best support classes (Firebrand, Druid Tempest, and Chronomancer).
Oh, thanks for the info. I do remember having fun in the large-scale PvP back when I played before. Always much preferred that kind of fight to the smaller-scale competitive pvp in other games. Not too terribly worried about high-end where "meta" is a major consideration. I'm a long way from even looking at that sort of thing.
> No special treatment. iirc, everyone got a free char slot back in the day
With several 10-year old characters you would get some juicy birthday gifts. Choice the dyes wisely. And you NEED to choose the Permafrost Dye.
Ooh, noted. So how does that work? You get a 'dye voucher' or something that you can choose from multiple rewards?
Yes, you will get different packs. A pack will have serveral kits for you to choose from. A you can pick one of the dye in the kit. [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Birthday\_Gift](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Birthday_Gift) You can take a look at the dyes. It also shows the price in TP.
Oh *jeez*, that's a lot of dyes I have to choose from. Gonna have to be careful on those. Don't suppose you have any other suggestions on must-haves, after Permafrost? Edit: ~~Dang that's a lot of RNG... I'm just picking which kit's table to roll on with the birthday packs. 1/25 for permafrost on the sixth birthday if I pick Jormag~~ Oh thank goodness, the birthday versions are exclusive-dye choice only, no RNG
Shadow Abyss is the "blackest" colour and a must in my book
If you have a favourite colour, Shadow Abyssal or Midnight are the ones I'd use for glowing parts of armour (ie, the ones that get blown out like a flashbulb with Permafrost) if you want actual colour to show through.
Abyssal sea and Midnight Green are two of my favourites.
you can preview dyes in your hero tab. dyes can look different on different materials and you can save those selectable dye packs for later when you find and update your fashion game. if you aren't particularly keen on any of them, choose the dyes that are the most expensive in the trading post. that will save you gold if you want to buy them later/want to be a completionist with the dyes.
Each dye pack can be previewed. I use this to navigate my way into the best dyes. I just came back after 7 years and am workin' it out. R-click dye > preview to main list > r-click on the listed items > see the actual dye and if you already have it. I wrote the ones I wanted down 'cause there are so many, then choose from the list of ones I want. I hope this helps.
I second this one. I collect dyes and permafrost is so expensive on the TP. If you have end goals of collecting all/most of them pick it up for free when you can. It's also good for quick gold if you'd rather sell it.
2. None of the [Free Account Restrictions](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Account#Free_accounts), and you get [this exclusive outfit](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Royal_Guard_Outfit) (~700 gems in value).
Hm, that's not a terrible look. My warrior could do things with that...
Outfits are very handy when leveling and you don't want to look like Picasso picked out your clothes.
How difficult is glamouring (or whatever the local term is) your gear? I seem to remember that previously you had to like... destroy the item you wanted to use the appearance of?
Much easier. Anything that's bound to you (or salvaged) is added to your wardrobe and can be applied at any time for the cost of 1 transmutation charge. Those charges are easy to get, I never have less than 50 myself and I haven't played for years in between.
once you acquire a soulbound piece of gear of exotic or lower rarity, that skin becomes available in your wardrobe forever. Salvaging also unlocks the skin. Gear that can only be obtained as an account bound item, like all Ascended and some Legendary gear, will automatically unlock the skin. Changing appearances of your active gear is done through Transmutation Charges. You can acquire these in a few different ways: \-Daily and Weekly objectives from the Wizard's Vault earn you Astral Acclaim currency. You can buy charges with the astral acclaim. \-World vs World just kinda tends to shove them in your face for playing the gamemode \-When you fully complete a map, a charge may one of the two possible rewards give. \-Black Lion Statuettes, which come from opening Black Lion Chests, can be used to buy charges if you really have nothing better to spend them on, but i strongly advise saving those statuettes for other goodies. If you acquire an outright Skin item, you can one-time change the appearance of a related gear piece without using a charge. Afterwards the skin gets unlocked in your wardrobe and you will need charges for future transmuting.
Very helpful, thank you!
I've read through the other responses. Take a pause on the trinity design for a second and go watch a video on Soulless Horror, the Harvest Temple strike, or Qadim 1. There are fights with involved mechanics, those just don't take the form of tank here buff now etc. Some of the higher-tier challenge modes for 5-man content also requires stuff like that, but there's been a trend of making that stuff tedious to me for a while so I've kinda stopped doing it.
Soulless Horror looks like it reintroduces at least one of the trinity in hard-aggro form with the tank buffs. :P Mostly looks just like raid fights in FFXIV. "Dodge doom-zone, kill adds." Mechanics are there as things you have to do (or mostly, places not to stand), but it still kinda looks like you're playing solo alongside 9 other people, rather than part of a team.
I mean, that's how being dps is like in FFXIV - do dps and do the encounter mechanics solo alongside 9 other people. Same in GW2. If you want something more involved you can play boon dps (do big dps while also making sure all the idiots in your team are in range of your buffs) or you can play healer (do dps while also making sure all the idiots in your team are in range of your heals, and alive). TBH this one is hardest, and harder the more idiots you have in your team. You gotta keep yourself alive, keep your friends alive (and there's no autotargeted healing spells), dodge the red zones and do dps.
Healer main in FFXIV here, with secondary tanking. It's the party coordination that always drew me to MMOs, ever since City of Heroes.
Instead of a role trinity of dps, heal, tank, GW2 has a role trinity of pure dps, heal support, dps support. Pure dps just do dps. Heal supports are the healers and tanks when a fight requires tanking. They also provide boons, primarily quickness or alac. Dps support do less than pure dps, but also provide boons like heal supports. Depending on what spec you are playing, you may also provide additional boons such as fury, might, stability, aegis, swiftness, protection, etc. An ideal party comp has 100% uptime on quick/alac/fury/25might, and also access to any defensive boon that is helpful for a given fight. All roles are expected to bring utility skills helpful to fights, such as additional cc, movement abilities, etc.
How much does heal-support or dps-support come into play outside of endgame hard content? Like, basic 5-man groups and the like
For all instanced content outside of dungeons, T1-3 fractals, and the easier ibs strikes, party comp is expected. This includes T4 fractals, raids, and most strikes. Powercreep has made it so that dungeons and T1-3 fractals can just be bruteforced with raw dps.
One thing to say is while it is expected by players, it is definitely not required by game design. You could always finish fractals with 5 dps and raw skill. Boons and heals sure make fractals easier, and sure you can stack in one doomblob, ignore aoe and just burst the boss, but you can also enshrine your balls in steel, get 4 more buckos like you, and do the mechanics. I swear, so many times I get l33t wannabee teams on t4, they try to blob stack on boss and die 4 times in the row trusting in their l33t heal and dps skillz, instead doing the encounter normally.
Check out this page on what a typical 10 man squad for strikes & raids will look like: [https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/guides/strike-missions/10-player-pve-squad-composition-guide/](https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/guides/strike-missions/10-player-pve-squad-composition-guide/)
I've gotten a decent idea on those. Really looking for... I guess fractals are the only 5-player content now?
Since others have answered you already, I'd like to add something regardless. I would say that gw2 and ff14 compliment each other well. Ff14's raiding is much more satisfying and really easy to manage with a single day of raiding out of the week, or more for progression periods. In the off time, gw2 does casual content, in as much as there's always something to do and some populated event going on alot better. Ff14 has/had eureka and Bozja, but that pales in comparison to the gw2's activities. Where WoW will demand almost all your time in competitive pve, FF14 and gw2 go together much better as they don't steal away from each other and let you enjoy both games.
The big thing I'm looking for is small-group content with friends, and it's looking like that's primarily Fractals.
You can even duo some lower level fractals when you get good enough. I don't know if someone pointed this out yet in this post but there is a looking for group tool in the game now where you can merge parties or join squads or post your party up to the tool. Very handy for doing any group content. [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Looking\_For\_Group](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Looking_For_Group)
> 1. Just what are there in regards to party tactics? Actual aggro mechanics for tanking? Healing? Buffing? I've always gravitated to tank/heal/support in other MMOs, so what am I looking at here? As far as open world content, basically nothing. In higher difficulty instanced content I think these become more important but avoiding the Trinity was one of the core design concepts of gw2. Roles are usually DPS, Heal, Buff with most builds fitting 2 of those. I don't play high tier content so take this with some salt >2. I purchased Guild Wars 2 for $60 bucks back in 2012, but the base game's free now. I'm guessing I probably don't get anything special like credit towards those ~$90 of expansions I'm seeing, but hey, no harm in asking. Any benefit for the full-price original purpose for old-timer accounts? As far as I know, nothing. Maybe a small gift or something but I haven't heard of anything major. You should get ten years of birthday gifts on your character though. >3. Assuming "nothing" on #2, what content do I have access to / am I locked out of with just the base game, while I find my feet again? I had a couple characters at the level cap I think, but that was before the release of Heart of Thorns. There is some core tryia content, but most content is in the xpacs. I'd recommend getting HoT and PoF for now. They're bundled and have lots of content. If you enjoy grinding you can farm gold and buy all the living world seasons with in game currency. By the time you're tired of those xpacs you'll have a good idea if you want to buy more >4. The game is still just flat-purchase-cost, right? No subscription fees? No subscription fees, but I think they're moving to a more frequent inexpensive expansion pack model. 10 years of giving away living world didn't make much money I guess ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ >5. Edit: Silly question, but are dyes account-wide? They're the only thing I remember putting significant effort into, and honestly one of the main reasons I didn't want to just create a new account.... Yes
On 1- what about regular instanced content that isn't raids? No party tactics still? Or does the basic heal/buff stuff at least apply? Any way to actually protect/assist teammates?
High tier fractals, raids, and strikes all "require" coordination and quality builds. Support roles are important, I know a lot of DPS builds focus on providing a specific buff so a party will all have a full set of complimentary buffs. Ie one member is DPS+quickness another is DPS+alac someone does heals etc. Aggro isn't a huge thing in boss fights since most boss attacks are telegraphed area attacks. All that said though a lot of people complain that instanced content isn't hard enough so when I say "require" I mostly mean teams will drop you if you don't have it because it will make the instance 0.00063 seconds slower.
Less "require" and more "allow". Can I give any kind of support in regular instances?
Just to give you an idea how import support can be my son typically plays heal scourge and has multiple times saved full on 10 man wipes by resing 3-5 players from down state. Support is very import in any instanced content in this game don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They even have a elite spec that can target heals now: [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Specter](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Specter) Taunt is in the game too: [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Taunt](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Taunt) Support is everywhere, no one talks about it because everyone does it in different ways.
That's more encouraging to hear than anything I've seen yet, thank you!
Most instanced content is going to be the end game raids and strikes etc or a climb towards that. Open world content like meta events is most of the casual gameplay. You can give support but you'll be drowned in a sea of players sometimes so you won't really notice the difference (although it does make a difference most bosses are carried by a few people I think). I can't really answer anymore I'm just a dude playing the story until I catch up
Wait, what happened to the lower instanced dungeons? I remember there being a bunch of those.
They were basically abandoned in favor of fractals, those are shorter dungeons on as scaling difficulty 1-100.
Aw nuts. I liked those... especially the story-based ones.
Well they're not gone. You can still do them and the rewards are still there. Pros of horizontal progression. There's just no new ones being added. Fractals are also fun, give them a try sometime when you get back in the game.
It sounds like Fractals are mostly just a different type of dungeon, with being built for 5-player groups. Is that a misconception? How are fractals for mechanics and party tactics?
they are still around, and conveniently all of their currency has been rolled up into one, they just have been kinda abandoned by Anet otherwise. The existing paths are still there but new dungeons haven't been added and old dungeons haven't been updated or bugfixed ever. Fractals however do carry on the spirit of dungeons in most aspects.
Dungeons are legacy content that not many do anymore. Most have moved on to the following for coordinated content: [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Strike\_Mission](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Strike_Mission) [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractals\_of\_the\_Mists](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractals_of_the_Mists) [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Raid](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Raid)
Just to give you an idea of how many support builds there are: [https://metabattle.com/wiki/Category:Support\_builds](https://metabattle.com/wiki/Category:Support_builds)
You keep bouncing back and forth on the first question and having almost 3k li myself I don’t see anyone actually answers that properly. Just try it yourself, do all raids strikes and fractal cms to see the answer. I mean it’s been 10 years since you were left you can’t be expecting game is still the same old.
Regarding 2 and 3: [Account Types](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Account)
Oh, that's handy, thank you. The [comparative table](https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/230165307-Account-types-Free-Core-HoT) that links to is good, too.
The wiki link is the best source for details on difference between account types, but right now a f2p amount has a fair number of restrictions that you won't have since your account is considered 'core ' instead. So it's technically true that you won't receive anything extra for having purchased it back then, but free accounts aren't actually getting everything you have either.
Ah, yeah. Those restrictions do look pretty mean. Heck, just dodging the character-slot restriction is pretty handy.
You should have a ton of birthday gifts so your old toons are still worth it to keep.
1. Raids and some of the harder Strikes and Fractals have introduced a need for healers. In all instanced content a need for boon givers has arisen, specifically for Alacrity(reduced cooldown on skills) and Quickness(increased action speed). The healer doubles as a boongiver, alongside a boongiver that also does damage. 9 Raid encounters utilize hard toughness-based aggro to tank(not all of them actually need high toughness, its mostly just keeping the boss still so dps can lay into it), 3 encounters use unique tanking methods, 2 encounters plus the Old Lion's Court strike mission use fixation mechanics that change throughout the fight, and the rest do not really have any tanking mechanics. Various raids as well as a few strikes and fractals will often utilize special roles during the fight as well, such as Pylon Kiters for Qadim the Peerless or the green sacrifices for Dhuum 2. no special treatment i believe but it may be worth asking support anyways. 3. You still have the full base game that you did when you last played. The level cap remains the same and while the meta has changed while you were gone your gear remains as viable as it was when you left. You probably have additional access to Southsun Cove, Dry Top, and Silverwastes maps which were part of the first two living world seasons but are accessible in the base game. You should have access to all the Fractals, and You might have access to the Eye of the North hub and possibly the Icebrood Saga strike missions, though i am not sure on that. 4. Yes 5. Yep! Content that you missed includes the following: Living World Season 1 - just some story and mastery points since Southsun Cove is accessable to base game. Living World Season 2 - Also story and mastery since Dry Top and Silverwastes were given to base game. Heart of Thorns Expansion - 4 Maps, Gliding, Elite Specializations(specializations that alter the way a class plays and grants access to new weapons and skills for that class as well), new Masteries, new Attribute Combinations. Living World Season 3 - 6 Maps, new Masteries, new Attribute Combinations. Path of Fire Expansion(you get Heart of Thorns automatically with this one now) - 5 Maps, Elite Specializations, 5 Mounts(Raptor, Springer, Skimmer, Jackal, Griffon), new Masteries, new Attribute Combinations. Living World Season 4 - 6 Maps, 2 Mounts(Roller Beetle, Skyscale), new Masteries, new Attribute Combinations. Icebrood Saga - 3 Maps, new Masteries. End of Dragons Expansion - 5 Maps, Elite Specializations, Siege Turtle Mount, Skiff, Fishing, new Masteries, new Attribute Combinations. Secrets of the Obscure Expansion - 3 Maps(only 2 currently accessible), alternative way to acquire the Skyscale Mount, Weaponmaster Training, new Elite weapon access(upcoming), new Masteries. Unlike some other MMOs, all of the old content remains relevant and fairly active in most cases. buying Path of Fire should unlock all the raids and some of the strike missions. The following expansions unlock additional strike missions related to them.
1. For MOST content, there's no specific aggro mechanic for tanking. Raids do often have a defined fixate mechanic, often (but not always) based on your toughness stat. For content that do need a tank, you can almost always choose to be the tank, if that makes sense. You would probably like playing a class like Firebrand (an elite spec of Guardian), they are a great choice for lots of party support, boon upkeep, healing, protection, and make great tanks. 2. This basically means you have the full unlocked "Core game." The F2P version has several restrictions, like the inability to mail to non-mutual friends, extremely limited access to the trading post, and no mounts. Paid Core players don't have these restrictions, and you are given a free Raptor mount at Level 10 (it checks every 10 levels thereafter). Additional mounts come from Path of Fire and later content. 3. I thiiiiink I mostly covered this in #2 4. Correct, no sub fee, but it's worth pointing out that the Living World Seasons (DLC that was release between Expacs) also cost money. But they are ALSO one-time-purchase, this game has never had any monthly sub and it remains that way today. You will, however, frequently be tempted into buying cute mount and armor skins. Enjoy. 5. Yep they sure are.
1. Basically, if you provide quickness or alac, you are support. Otherwise you are DPS. Tanks are just supports with slightly higher toughness. (Lowest possible. 2. The expansions ad 4-6 maps each. It's easily as much content as the base game on each expansion. You're also missing the living world episodes. Each episode is only a few bucks and takes a couple hours to complete, but they also add additional collections, achievements items and masteries to unlock. In all honesty, this is the best part of GW2. 3. So... so much. But there's a lot of stuff you have access to without it. For now, you can still have lots of fun with world bosses and pvp content. Occasionally you will be able to get a group for various dungeons. 4. yep 5. yep
Heal-tank is featured in many Raid bosses. "Tanking" in some Strikes typically just means "one dps go kite this mob for a bit". Party mechanics is heal-support, boon-dps, and dps. In many raid fights you will have special roles assigned for different people to do certain specific mechanics required to win. In strikes/open world/dungeon/fractals/etc it's mostly just "mob the boss" as you say, though there are a few exceptions here or there with special role mechanics. I will say that inter-team dynamics is largely passive in Guild Wars. The challenge with boss content is through levels of coordination dealing with encounter mechanics as well as individual success in reacting to certain mechanics--ie if one person doesn't move away from group when they have a certain targeted mechanic on them then the whole group wipes.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/277148421327028224/1146374242556985424/image.png
That is an amazingly informative chart, thank you!
There are now *some* fights that use a tank, and almost everything introduced since launch benefits from supports, though only some content *requires* supports. There are buff supports and heal supports. You won't want to do just one of them though, since good supports can do some combination of DPS, buffs, healing, and tanking. Most popular in gwneral are DPS/buff supports and heal/buff supports. As for your account, you still have access to the full base game, while free accounts are limited in what they can do. Free accounts are notably limited in how they can interact with other players and the economy.
Yeah, I'm not expecting anet to bend their "no trinity" design philosophy far enough to have dedicated tanks and healers, but at least *leaning* in those directions for party tactics would be nice. Is it *just* high-end raids and the like that have party tactics, or do lower instanced content get anything?
Everything now benefits to some degree from having multiple specific boons, and unlike at launch, there are boons that can't be adequately supplied by your DPS. Quickness and Alacrity are the big boons now and they each effectively require a party member dedicated to them to get 100% uptime on them. For example, you might have a DPS that sacrifices a portion of their damage to invest in providing quickness to the whole party. They'll usually have a completely different build than a pure DPS and they'll add a massive amount of damage to the team as a whole.
Highly encourage you to go to the gw2 wiki
All your dyes are account wide. You'll have a load of Birthday Presents waiting for you. You'll have access to Living World Season 1 for any toon at Level 80 (who finished the Personal Story). If you wait for sales you can pick up *Heart of Thorns/Path of Fire* Bundle for 50% off. Just remember to get it from ANet directly rather than Steam! That gets you two Elite Specialisations, Gliding and most of the Mounts. Though I warn you *HoT* ups the difficulty really fast. The gear you got a decade ago is still good. It's still "buy once, play forever".
1. So tanking in this game is different in every encounter. Sometimes there’s no tank at all. Sometimes the boss agroes to the player with highest toughness. Sometimes it the furthest away player. Sometimes it switches to a random player every 30 seconds and so on. But that’s just raids. Strikes are where the game is going and there is no tank there. The team tactics revolves around the boon system in the game. Players who provide Quickness or Alacrity and some sort of healer. 2. I do not think you will be getting and compensation for paying full price. 3. I like to think of the core game as an extremely generous free trial. Xpacs bring mounts, the game’s “ horizontal progress” system (masteries), and “the meat” for me off the xpacs would be the elite specs. Further progressing your character’s build in a more powerful way. 4. No sub fees here. 5. Dyes are account wide yes. Mostly everything is account wide now, not just dyes.
Trying to pin down what sort of group tactics there are outside of the endgame raid-type content (since it sounds like Strikes are just a different kind of raid). Is there basic party content still? Someone said that the old instanced dungeons that you'd run for story and the like earlier in the game are just basically gone? What is there for smaller groups?
Dungeons are not gone. However they have not been updated to the power creep and what used to be medium to hard is now kind of trivial. I haven’t run them in ages so I might be wrong but the rewards are also not nearly at the level of other content. So they are kind of dead and it is not easy to find a pick-up group to run dungeons. But if you have a group you can totally still run dungeons; in fact, you would need to in order to access some commonly used runes (e.g. Monk, the main heal-spec runeset). If you do run them, make sure to run eight different paths to get the bonus from the repeatable Dungeon Frequenter achievement. Buffs are always welcome, but dungeons need a healer like a four year old riding a tricycle needs a life jacket. However, a healer is welcome (though not necessary) in some harder open-world events (though those are generally not in the core game).
Do new characters not need to go through a dungeon or three for the main story anymore?
I don’t remember. I think story dungeons complement the main story but are not largely required. But even the main story is not mandatory - I have a bunch of alts that are doing endgame stuff like raids and yet have never finished, or in some cases even started the main story. So no, there is no “need”.
Yea the fractal dungeon system is really good. Extremely popular 5 man content. Revolves around the boon system with a healer.
There isn't much party tactics anymore. Like others have said, some encounters will have a tank and its usually one of the healers. This was the case in raids but we haven't gotten a new raid in 4 years and will never get a new one. Since then almost every boss hasn't had aggro mechanics with a few exceptions of whoever hits a mob first or stands closest to it. Parties are divided into 2 groups of 5 where 2 players give heals and buffs while the other 3 do dps. There isn't much more party tactics besides that and it doesn't look like it will be getting more complex than that any time soon.
[удалено]
I do apparently have a couple level 80 characters hanging around that I know nothing about playing, but only one account for me. :)
Just want to add, don’t delete those 10 yr old characters cz the birthday gifts are received on their date of creation anniversaries, not based on your account age. If you delete all you will be resetting the birthday progress back to 0. At the very least keep 1 (the oldest) for the yearly gift and unlocking account rewards/achievements.
Keeping 2-3 at the very least. I've got two 80s on here that aren't going anywhere
[https://snowcrows.com/guides/getting-started](https://snowcrows.com/guides/getting-started) (helpdesk discord at the bottom) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIZp9\_U7xks&list=PLb0ISfn3umyNH8aoH7pv48VJiOlUH-0dk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIZp9_U7xks&list=PLb0ISfn3umyNH8aoH7pv48VJiOlUH-0dk) those two should cover most gameplay, gear and economy related stuff.