Whoa- there’s a separate dodge key? Is that any different from double-tapping a movement key?
Yeah, it is ‘V’ by default. Also, if you are moving forward and hold ‘V’ and the space bar at the same time you can do a forward flip. There is a back flip as well. And I don’t mean basic rolls.
Does pressing “V” by itself actually do anything, or does it have to be pressed in conjunction with a directional movement key? I seem to recall that it’s the latter, but I’ve taken to just double-tapping the relevant WASD key, since my fingers are generally resting there anyway.
The default action is backflip, if pressed in conjunction with a movement key you dodge in that direction. I have mapped my dodge key to a thumb-mouse key - works perfect.
Dont map your dodge to the space-bar - there are a lot of jumping-puzzles in the game - even in some personal story quests you are required to jump.
I reversed the mapping, so V is now my jump/swim up key. If I have trouble with it when I get to jumping or swimming places, I’ll just map it somewhere else. I like the space bar for dodge very much; it’s a lot easier to hit in a crisis than a little key buried in the keyboard.
I also remapped the F key to T, which is more logical, more comfortable and results in far less talking to NPCs when I want to turn right. (I do wish they’d give us the option to split out the functions they assigned to F, but I can live with it.)
Here’s something I wish I had known before - keeping your weapons up to date is a must. I was lvl 39 and had a bunch of mid-20s weapons and when I upgraded them all to new ones cheaply from the trading post, my damage went up by around 50%. Now a whirlwind and a dual strike pretty much kills a mob.
Another thing that I wasn’t sure of but which is logical is that when dual wielding, the attacks you use only look at the damage of the weapon that grants them - if I have a crappy sword and awesome axe, my autoattack does jack shit but my whirlwind will hit like a truck. So a horn that only gives us warriors buff abilities isn’t that important to upgrade, but an offhand weapon is.
Still not sure if keeping armor updated is as important, and there’s so many pieces of it it would be a hassle to buy new pieces for every slot every few levels.
I think an armour and weapons check should be done every 5 levels. Not everything needs to be at the level you are, but the stuff you have should meet or exceed the stats on level armour and weapons.
Also remember, that in personal story line missions you don’t always have to kill every single enemy. Sometimes just getting to the star on the mini map is enough.
Anyone doing any of the dungeons yet?
I did the level 30 on Story mode, and it was fun and a little bit challenging. Got a great hat as a reward at the end.
Tonight, spend a couple hours doing the level 30 dungeon on Adventure mode, and holy crap, is that hard! We’re all between about levels 45-61, so we’re downleveled to 35 and we thought we had decent gear. But man, we got through one semi-boss - the Cave Troll - after getting our butts kicked by the spiders at the beginning.
After that, the Lieutenant battered us until someone said “screw this, I’m losing all my money on repairs” and logged. I think the best we got him down to was about 25%. The key seems to be dodging his crazy pull attack, but it’s REALLY hard to time it. 3 of us were on Skype and doing OK because we’d all start yelling when we saw him raise his arm and we did only OK, the other two weren’t doing well at all.
This is crazy hard! Fun, too, though. Anyone else?
That boss is the first boss in the first dungeon in the game. He is a bitch even for level 80 characters. You have to be behind a pillar or dodge 2 seconds after he lifts his arm or you will die.
Also, I came across an Asuran scout named Witt. Made me smile.
We figured out the arm thing, but as far as pillars go, hiding behind them didn’t seem to work. He pulled us right through them. I’m pretty sure we could shoot through them as well, so I’m thinking “bug.”
That said, he’s a major bitch. Can’t wait to take him down!
Well, I finally got to buy the game. I don’t really know what the hell’s going on at any given time, but I’ve killed a number of things.
I’m a Norn Guardian, I think. I’ve no idea which of my spells I should use at any given time so I just spam them randomly and it seems to work out.
It does take a while to figure out exactly what skill is best to use when, but half the fun is figuring that out. Remember to use as many different weapons to unlock their skills.
Again, no clue what I’m doing. How do I know what weapon is what type? How do I know the skill is “unlocked”?
This is what pisses me off about the lack of a real paper manual with games. I can’t really go to the wiki while I’m in the middle of a game, and the online “manual” is absolutely worthless. I’ve been navigating GW2 the same way I navigate life, through trial and error and (probably) pissing a lot of people off.
I am finally getting the hang of battle and dodging and not getting killed. Lately my greatest enemy is lag. I’ve had to quit the last 2 times I played because the lag was so bad.
Click on ‘H’ and the hero screen comes up. The first tab is equipment, where you can change your armour and weapons. This screen is also important because you can equip gathering tools here (tools generally need to be bought at a merchant). You also equip jewellery and accessories here. Weapons and armour can also be upgraded with runes and jewels here.
The next tab down is the Skills and Traits tab. You can’t unlock skills until you get skill points, but the weapon skills tab is what you want here. When you start you have a main hand weapon and only one skill unlocked on it (the others are grayed out). Under ‘weapon skills’ things are pretty clear. You will see what can be used main hand, off hand or two handed. It may take a bit to collect or buy they weapons, but when you do, I recommend going into a low level area and kill thing to unlock the skills. Offhand skills take a longer time to unlock.
I’ve always been able to fix lag by going into the display settings and choosing “best performance.” I mentioned that to another friend of mine and it fixed his lag, too, so worth giving it a try.
The kitty area especially seems laggy. I haven’t had a lot of problems other places, but definitely the kitties.
I finally settled on Guardian, as well. I primarily use 2H Sword, and occasionally switch over to Scepter-and-Shield. I’m just running the virtues for my special abilities- I like the fact that they give you passive effects when you slot 'em, while still having the bonus effects for clicking them.
I’ll give that a try. It is the kitties that are giving me fits, so I’ll have to see if I have better luck in a different area.
What’s the “kitty area”?
The Charr hometown?
Charr = kitty. It’s not just the city, it’s the parts between the city and the level 30 dungeon (Ascalonian? something like that).
I can’t speak for the other parts because I haven’t been there.