The Daily Grind: Are you playing GW in anticipation of GW2?

@belgeode hopefully sooner than that, i dont know if my poor heart could take another six months of this wait. :(

@(Unverified) Yes it is worth it to pick up Eye of the North for the stuff you get in GW2 for playing.

for a "fast track" to 30 points...

level to 20, if starting a new character start in Nightfall or factions, prophecies is too slow and you can always go back to it. Factions is the fastest, Nightfall you begin with heroes early on and can get max level armor *long* before 20.

Do the side quest to unlock Olias

go through nightfall far enough to select Master of Whispers and do his mission series to unlock him.

go to Eye of the North, start with the Asuran storyline (yes I know they throw Norn at you first but go Asura) and unlock Livia.

Now that you have triple Necromancers, you'll need to likely capture and buy skills necessary to setup a DiscordWay team: http://www.gwpvx.com/Discordway

congratulations, in normal mode and a fair chunk of hard mode your team is now nearly unbeatable. I run a team combination. Discordway with triple necro. I play a mesmer so I bring Gwen and she and I make up "Mesway" which is a twin mesmer team, Xandra for "SoSRit", and then finish out the team roster with whomever will fit... usually a smite / heal monk or whatever fits your fancy.

Discordway was designed to allow one to vanquish without help and it is *extremely* effective. There are a few areas where it's not useful though.

1) fighting Shiro Tagachi at the end of Factions. Discordway is built on the concept of enemies dying *fast* to fuel the necro energy bars... Shiro does *NOT* die fast.. and there's nothing else on the field to kill.

2) areas with *EXTREMLY* strong Hex and / or Condition removal and / or HIGH degree's of Holy Damage, such as a spot in Ragar's Menagerie that has about 5 smiting monks in a pack all of them with Beam of God.

there are other areas where you'll have to think smart and vary your team, but those are the first two that come to mind. Running GW solo with just your team can be tough, but a buddy of mine got GWAMM *before* 7 hero parties and with very little help from anyone, it won't be a cake walk, but you can at least ping 30 points in about 3 or 4 months or less if you're diligent.

@(Unverified) OHH the reason for mesmers...

almost all Mesmer damage is armor ignoring.. so if a mesmer spell does 100 points of damage, and assuming the target isn't using damage negating / cancelling buffs, then it does 100 points of damage, period. Hard mode, Normal mode. Fissure of Woe, Underworld, Great Northern Wall,... doesn't matter... up against a mesmer an enemy may as well be stark naked.

@Arkanaloth I'm looking for to get back into a guild after being away from the game for so long. You seem like a mature and knowledgeable player. Are you in a guild and if so, do you guys have a website/application process?

@(Unverified) I'm currently spending the bulk of my time in TOR these days running a static trio with my wife and brother in law. I helped them ping 30 points in the calculator about 6 months ago give or take and in the process pushed myself to 35 / 50, even got my obsidian set...

so I'm *sorta* done-ish... I still log in from time to time, especially for event weekends that mesh well with some of the easier titles I have to grind.

@Arkanaloth
Nice post!

I tried to start up GW1 purely for the unlocks in GW2, but got a bit bored / distracted before doing too much.

I might try again before release though and take a look at what you have just suggested ( and show it to post to other people who are also interested in GW2 ). Thanks.

@Mhaer np, it's a bit of an over-simplification... but that's the "core" so to speak. Once it's created and heroes have the proper HP and stat boosting mods in their gear, the DiscordWay team is *STAGGERINGLY* powerful. A friend of mine was visiting and we were talking about GuildWars and to prove the point I logged in, clicked it to hardmode, went to a zone and aggroed a group then got up from the computer and walked away and told him "They'll handle it."

I've got one of every class and have tested running discordway with all of them, some are more challenging than others.. in general martial classes (warrior, ranger, etc..) have a harder time and have to be a touch more energy minded than casters (mesmer, necro, ele...) but they *can* do it. However IMO Necromancer is *THE* best / easiest class to play with a DiscordWay team.

Like I said, it's not a "Magic Bullet". There are a times where that team will have difficulty and you'll have to get a little creative, but outside of those areas... even in hard mode... you're practically a god.

@smartstep

Same here. I never liked GW. Never felt like an MMO to me.

I installed it again and played for a couple of hours and still don't like it.

Forcing myself to play a game I don't enjoy just for a few rewards in another one..... nah.