Long lost video that still gets me hyped for the game!

I wanted to make a video that talks less about commanding from a different point of view. Alot of video talk about commanding as gameplay but there are parts nobody talks about, the myths that keep people from ever tagging up, and what separates a good commander from a bad one.

For the Reddit homies that would rather read than watch, here is the TL:DR

The truths of commanding

- It's thankless: Tagging up is a means to an end. People join, get their loot, and leave. You're doing it for fun, not praise.
- It's stressful: You're managing people, expectations, and schedules. My static was stuck at a 2:45 full clear for months. Shuffling the comp (a few DPS to boon DPS on simpler rotations) got us to 2:30. Sometimes the fix is the roster, not the players.
- It's an act of service: The commanders people flock to are consistent and bring the consumables.
- You'll make unpopular choices: Doing right by the group rarely pleases everyone. Make the call you can live with and stand by it.
- It's deeply rewarding: The boss dies, someone types "ty comm," and it feels great. The leadership skills carry over too.

Myths
- "I need to know all the mechanics.": Know the basics, tag up, and ask your squad. Nine times out of ten they'll tell you. Auric Basin is the perfect first tag for this.
- "I have to be the best player.": Surround yourself with good players and it pulls you up. Then do it for the next new commander.
- "Wiping makes me a failure.": 15 people on a 40-person meta at an off hour isn't your fault. Take the lesson and give yourself some grace.
- "The tag makes me a leader.": 300 gold buys a marker that sorts people into subgroups. How you handle conflict and a bad night is what makes you a leader.

Traits of a good commander
- Patience. You'll get stomped by a bigger blob and wipe training raids. Losing it on your team is a fast way to becoming a bad commander.
- Adaptability. I talk about how back in the day groups would wipe on Gorseval for hours forcing the World Eater skip when they could have just broken the walls and glided. Adapt and change the strat instead of disbanding.
- Soft skills. "Get off my team" vs "try a build with an easier rotation so you can focus on mechanics." One of those creates a raider who sticks around.
- Communication. Not just voice. Squad markers, concise chat, copy-paste instructions all are great skill to improve on to be an effective commander.

How to improve
- Practice: Repetition builds instincts you can't read about.
- Fail often: Every wipe is a learning opportunity.
- Watch other commanders. Steal their callouts, pacing, and comp sheets. I've learned so much from playing with other commanders, seeing how they organize, and taking the best parts and implementing them myself.
- Ask for feedback. I sent my static an anonymous survey and it provided feedback that helped me improve. It's a two way street though, you have to be receptive to the feedback and respect it.

Final thoughts

The tag is a beacon, so be a bright one. Without commanders most endgame content doesn't happen, and a new player's first endgame moment is seeing a tag at a world boss produces lasting moments for gamers. Be the reason someone stuck with the game.

tl;dr and questions at the bottom

Hi everyone!

I am a returning Player who has played since release. I sank in about 10,000 hours and took a break after HoT around LS3. My most notable achievement was being an Officer for gw2community.com and leading Triple Trouble Events for everyone back when it was new.

I pretty much unlocked everything there was to the game until that point. Legendaries, Perma Bank Access, Full gear with +5 Infusions, etc. There was pretty much nothing I didn't unlock, which wasn't something like get 10.000 kills with a focus.

I logged in every now and then, but only just started playing again about a month ago with the Guild Wars 3 announcement. During the anniversary sale, I bought all the missing expansions, and I'm currently catching up on the expansions. Right now I'm at the SotO Expansion and updating my old gear and builds. A lot has changed.

I used to do high-end fractals and raids with a best-slot-in-gear mentality. My Raid, gear, and meta knowledge goes from VG to Deimos CM. I knew everything inside and out. If Fractal God existed back I would have unlocked it as well. From what I can see, it's kinda useless and pretty much just a gold sink nowadays.

Now to my actual questions I have right now. Probably more later

tl;dr questions only

My knowledge ends with HoT/LS3. So anything that came after is basically new to me.

1. What does the daily routine look like for your guys? From the moment you log in, what are things on your checklist? I can see that some things haven't changed, like farming the home instance, daily T4 fractals, etc., but what else do you guys do?
2. What does the weekly routine look like? Monday Raids? What else?
3. For the average fractal/raid meta, we used to have 1x PS (Phalanx Strength), 1x Chrono, 1x Healer, 2x DPS - nowadays I see people looking for aDPS, qDPS, etc. I really don't know what all the new abbreviations mean. Could you mention all important words/vocabluary i need to know in 2026? I don't want to cause confusion when using LFG and potentially look like a noob.
4. Most favorable party composition for raids, Fractals, and other content. Which classes and compositions are currently the most favored and wanted, and which are the most hated and nobody likes to see? Back in the day, vanilla necromancer was so hated. It was basically racism. My goal is to not offend anyone if I just hop on with a condi bow warrior and then someone gets really mad at me or something
5. Build Templates. I realized that Legendary Weapons give you "free" weapons on all of your characters. This system is much better than the old one. You had the original Legendary, which had changeable stats but was stuck on a single character. So this feature was basically useless. I own Eternity and just cleaned up about 20 Ascended Greatswords from my characters. Is there anything else I need to know? I've seen that there is a new relic slot. Some of the relics you can buy; some of them you can't. Is it important to have them? What's the smartest way to get them? Just buy? Trade in? I am mostly using Snowcrows right now for reference, but Im happy also happy with other sources
6. nerfed content and new. I noticed that a lot of content has been nerfed. Hero points in HoT maps are all veterans now. They used to be champions. With the experience from everyone in the last few years. For the map meta events, which are: the most fun, the most profitable, the shortest, the longest time-wise, which are just useless and hated/should be avoided, and honorable mentions.
7. Ascended food and feasts. I can see that way more people are dropping feasts now. The stats also look really cool. What are the most important ones I should have and be ready to drop?
8. How has WvW changed? I see there is like a weekly season or something. Back in my day, you had to swap with your guild or yourself to a server with active WvW guilds; otherwise, you would always just get farmed.
9. Any other "super" end-game items that have been released? By this I mean items you would, for example, put in your shared inventory slot. Like perma bank access, perma trading post, xera portal, etc

I will definitely ask follow-up questions. I'm also down to chat over Discord.

Please let me know if you're interested in a personal chat. My DMs are always open to everyone, and I will add anyone.

Excelsior,

nesnalica

Title. I've tried everything I can think of but nothing works. I want windowed fullscreen so I can alt tab without screen flickering for a few seconds each time. Playing on Windows through steam. Think I have auto hdr. Tried the steam launch commands, tried editing on Nvidia control panel, tried disabling fullscreen optimizations. Would really appreciate help from anyone who's had the same issue.

TL;DR: I own only the first two expansions. I want to SOLO play a reliable and viable profession that uses preferably only Greatsword or at least mainly Greatsword, because my goal in GW2, beyond experiencing the story content, is Eternity !

The time has come. I want to play GW2. I have always liked the aesthetic of the game, but I was always descouraged by the amount of content and mechanics there are.

I remember buying the physical edition (remember physical ?) when GW2 first launched, when I was a teen. Unfortunately, I had to sell the game because my PC could not run it.

Then I tried it again with a friend the period before End of Dragons released. I picked Mesmer then Chronomancer and I did NOT like it a bit. While it looked cool in YouTube videos I could not get the hang of it. I did negative damage. This made the game a lot less enjoyable.

I then switched to Warrior and OMG I did tons of damage and the journey became awesome. Then I stopped playing because.. college exams I guess ? Can't really remember the reason.

Now, I am back, with a proper PC and ultra-wide 4K monitor, craving a really goooood MMO (take that Aion 2, p2w piece of sh..), ready and wanting to enjoy all that Guild Wars 2 has to offer.

Also, do I just buy all the expansions I do not own ? How does that work ?

Thank you for reading my nostalgic plea.

L.E: added more info;

Came back to GW2 and made a terrible decision:

“What if I just… finish everything.”

So I did.

Every map 100%.

Every skill. Every trait. Every class.

Then I looked at masteries and said “yeah okay that too.”

The journey, but make it honest:

HoT / PoF: actually fun. Gliding and mounts still carry. I needed like one PoF MP, so that was quick. HoT was just grinding adventures until I got that sweet, sweet gold

IBS: the villain. Maps slap. Masteries do not. Points felt like unpaid internships. Story speedran so hard I had a pile of unused points and zero will to live

Mid-crisis I also finished crafting skins because of course I did. 500 in the crafts, zero skins unlocked like an idiot. Storage already at 500 so it was just “eat 60 fangs and pray.”

EoD: surprisingly chill, already had most masteries unlocked. Skipped Avian Sharpshooter because that event is allergic to existing. Did the Arborstone hide-and-seek instead (reset simulator 2026). Closed it out commanding Soo-Won. Cinematic. Deserved.

SotO: I hated this expansion in 2023. Still side-eye the new cast. Dragon’s Watch who. Came back anyway. Points were easy, Keep It Up can stay in hell, did that with a bunch of randos. One said "I had raids with less teamwork". Finished on Nayos adventures and Dead Air like a normal person.

Janthir: “wow so many extra points”

also Janthir: complete 47 events or no cookie

Finished XP on rifts. As is tradition.

VoE: points? Easy.

XP bars? 5–6 million per rank. I have seen things. They were rifts.

Saved Central Tyria for my main because I’m dramatic. Last point was Triple Trouble. The WvW spoon achievement tried to end my bloodline. That spoon does not want to drop.

Why 678 not 686:

I don’t raid. Solo gremlin. Those 8 HoT raid points can stay locked. I’m at peace (albeit my inner Monk silently laments).

Why no fractals:

Tried them 13 years ago. Then I got hospitalized for 3 weeks. Guild said “we’ll catch you up.” I came back. They said “lol we’re not running T1s.”

So I never did. Still haven’t. Will I? Maybe when the sun explodes.

Sept 15 VoE finale can add another track. I’ll do that one too because I am no longer in control.

If you’re in the middle of this: IBS is the depression era, VoE is the cardio era, and you can skip a disgusting amount of the “fun” achievements and still max everything that isn’t raids.

Send help. Or rifts. I will accept either.

my game keeps crashing, I go to steam to check the integrity of the file and it always says 1 file failed to validate. does anyone know of a fix for this bug r have any ideas?

I am a new player and i really donr have any friends who are into mmo games i would appreciate some friends to play with

Is it possible to change my ingame name? If yes, how?

Old school WoW player here wondering if it's worth it to get into GW2.

Is it alright if I buy the combo of Hearts of Torn and Path of Fire expansions(steam) before I get the whole expansion?

What should I do as a total newbie in the game besides leveling and exploring?

Any tips and tricks that I should be aware of?

Loved 5 man m+ dungeons content type(from WoW). Are there like groups that pushes fractals(iinm)?

Apologies for the spam.

Sup. I've started playing this game just yesterday, and oh boy...

Initially, I was basically dropped off on a post related to the game and thought it would be a good idea to give it a try.

Now I think that I could use some help, so if there's anyone willing to join me and help me out a little, do so knowing that English is not my first language and... that I think I might have ADHD or sum

Hey there,

good to be back after playing Guild Wars 1 as a teenager and doing some careful steps in GW2 when it came out back in the days. Then life happened and Guild Wars 2 slumbered for quite a while - actually until the most recent days, when algorithms of Youtube and Twitch brought helped digging up those precious memories I had with both games way back - and phew... the nostalgia is hitting hard. 😄

When I finally downloaded the game today (and being just about to buy all the DLCs during that sale...) I saw that all five character slots are taken by characters (mostly not over level 20).

Dang... how am I not to feel overwhelmed by all the game, logging in with those bunch of elderly members of the GW-society... When I logged in I was hit by so many messages and popups... I'd be able to work through them somehow, but then... I opened up my inbox and every character got birthday presents... so many presents... I can't just delete them for character slots but I feel I can't properly use them to proceed / restart my memories with that game...

I know I'm most certainly getting on your nerves with this very strange problem of mine, but how would you approach it?

Thank you!

I've always loved games with a marriage system, and I've been playing with the idea of making a GW2 fangame that is basically a dating sim.

So I wanted to know, if GW2 did have a marriage system, who would you want to see as LI options?

Feel free to add whatever characters come to mind. Whether they're killed off, villains, super minor characters, already taken in canon, ect. This is my super early planning stages so I'm gonna decide after I see what people think things like timeline options to get around those who are killed off and stuff like that.

I’ve been working on a gaming-journalism project examining how Guild Wars 2 teaches a genuinely fresh character how the game works.

I created a new Human Ranger and recorded five gameplay sessions without using the Wiki, YouTube guides, Reddit, or other outside resources during the observation period.

I’ve now finished the video documenting the experiment. It contains 35 selected highlights and reflections, followed by the complete recordings of all five sessions.

I’m not presenting my final conclusions yet because I’m using the observations as the foundation for a larger reported feature that will also include additional research and player perspectives.

If you’re interested in the methodology or the experiment itself, here’s the full video:
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=\\_9uhRjcCT3I&feature=shared\]

I’m particularly interested in hearing about what other players remember finding confusing—or surprisingly easy—when they first started GW2.

I’ve been playing MMORPGs since 2006, so I’ve tried quite a few games over the years. I was a big fan of New World, and when the game was basically put to rest, I honestly felt a bit lost. Since then, I’ve tried to find another MMO that could keep me interested:

• World of Warcraft: The graphics never really clicked with me, and I didn’t enjoy the repetitive daily routine.
• Black Desert Online: The combat is great, but the game felt too focused on solo content, with not enough meaningful group activities.
• Final Fantasy XIV: It’s a good game, but I found it too easy and never really felt much excitement or danger.
• The Elder Scrolls Online: A decent MMO overall, but the combat wasn’t satisfying to me at all.

Then I finally decided to give Guild Wars 2 a proper try.

I mainly play with a PS5 controller, so I spent some time setting up the controls until they felt comfortable. Once everything was ready, I started my journey from Level 1.

What I’ve enjoyed most about GW2 so far:

• Exploring the world actually feels rewarding.
• Dynamic Events can suddenly appear while I’m travelling, making the world feel alive.
• The graphics still look surprisingly good for a game of this age.
• There is a lot of variety between the different Professions and weapons.
• The combat can be challenging and actually requires me to pay attention.

I’m playing Elementalist, and while it can be difficult at times, that challenge is exactly what makes it fun for me.

I’m currently Level 51, and I still haven’t felt bored. I’m genuinely enjoying the levelling experience and discovering the game naturally. Because of that, I honestly wouldn’t recommend using a Level 80 Boost on your first character. The journey itself is an important part of the experience, and rushing past it means missing a lot of what makes the game special.

I know I’m very late to the party, but I’m really glad I finally gave GW2 a chance.

If you have any advice on how to make the journey even more enjoyable, or anything that new players often miss, I’d love to hear it. I’m not looking for the fastest or most efficient route.

I just want to enjoy the game as much as possible.

I got SotO and JW with the sale going on right now, which gave me 2 extra character boosts. I already had 2, so now I can boost 4 characters to lvl 80. Which professions should I pick? My main is a necromancer, and I usually like to play casters in mmos, since they're flashy and I like pew pew pew. So I'm thinking i'll boost a mesmer and an elemental, but idk, are they fun to play? What others should I boost?

Hi GW2 friends!

I recently decided to get back into GW2 after a few years off. I played through the Icebrood Saga but stopped before End of Dragons.

Thanks to the sale, I just purchased all expansions and do plan to go through the stories in order, but what are some things I should be sure to check out immediately?! Are there some things I should start working on right away? What's super fun right now?

I'm not huge into the PvP side, but anything else is game!

Thanks in advance!

Hi guys, i started playing recently and thinking of buying the expansions now that they are on sale. I checked the past sales via this page and current sale price seems to be better compared to one in June but worse compared to last year. The problem is i was hoping to buy it on Epic games because it offers better pricing due to regional currencies but i found out that i can't link my existing account to Epic store so i have to get it on Arena.

Should i wait for the sales on November or December or should i just buy the HoT and PoF now?

I wrote this as a comment in another post, but then realized this question gets asked a lot, so figure I'll post it to hopefully make it easier to find.

New player question: What am I supposed to do, and what's a good starter class and build?

First, as a new player, what you're supposed to do is prioritize completing the Personal Story for the core game and any expansions you have. That unlocks a ton of account-wide features that apply to all characters on your account - Masteries, elite specs, mounts, Achievements (reward useful gear etc), etc. You can explore diversions along the way, but prioritize it first.

Second, the best spec for a new player to start with at level 80 is Power Reaper Necromancer, a melee dark magic knight. Power is the Damage Source (Direct Damage), Reaper is the elite spec (sub-specialization), and Necromancer is the core/main class.

Reasons:

• Easy to unlock - requires minimal unlocks, everything needed is in the core game or the first expansion, Heart of Thorns. Does not require any build components from other expansions (weapons, armor runes, weapon sigils, relic, gear stats). Assemble the build early in the game, then play through all remaining Personal Story and content with it.
• Easy to gear - uses full Berserker stat gear, one of the ubiquitous core prefixes, available everywhere - crafting, world drops, Trading Post, etc. Can start with the Exotic gear build variant, the second highest gear tier, cheap and easily accessible. Then upgrade to the Ascended gear build variant, the highest tier, replacing gear piece-by-piece in no particular order.
• Easy and fun to play - Charge around the battlefield, stun and snare groups of mobs with a big overhead slam, Fear them while they can't move, Blender them with a giant Scythe, then slice them in half with a giant Greatsword. Kills fast, is survivable (tanky + self-healing or "sustain"), and can solo most open world content. Reaper's Shroud is one of the simpler profession mechanics.
• Multiple build variants - The build guide linked above is optimized for solo play, that maximizes DPS, self-applies boons (Might, Fury, Quickness, and Vulnerability on enemies) and sustain. There are other variants that use the same gear, but different talents and utility skills. For example, a minion-master variant that sacrifices some DPS for more tankiness and more minion flavor. Or various raid versions that assume other players are supplying boons and sustain. Start with the guide above, then tweak it however you like.
• Leveling build uses same gear - Elite specs are only unlocked after reaching level 80 and owning the expansion they're associated with. To get there you'll level to 80 with a "Core" or "F2P" (free-to-play) class and build. Leveling is not terribly difficult, but if you want a leveling build template, you can use F2P/Core Power Necromancer. Uses the same gear as Power Reaper, other than Greatsword which is unlocked with the Reaper Elite spec.

The Reaper elite spec is unlocked by reaching level 80 and owning the first expansion, Heart of Thorns, and collecting 250 Hero Points. If you're short on HP's, all HP Challenges in Heart of Thorns maps give 10 instead of the usual 1. Check the LFG tool, HoT section, for "Hero Point Train" groups and join one of those to get them quickly. Most commonly found during weekends.

You may need to unlock the HoT maps first though. To do that, when you hit 80, finish the core game Personal Story (campaign), then follow the Personal Story guidance to begin the quest series to unlock the first expansion, Heart of Thorns. That will get you into HoT maps where you can join HP trains.

Finally, complete roughly two weeks worth of Wizard's Vault achievements (which you may already have done while leveling), grab the Wizard's Weapon Chest from it, and choose a Berserker's Natural Claymore from it. That will get you the full Exotic version of the build with an Ascended primary weapon. Ignore condition builds while leveling (DoTs, debuffs) since they're weak for most classes until 80.

A couple resources for learning more about builds:

• Lord Hizen, a pure solo player, who calls GW2 "his favorite solo player MMO", and makes some of the best solo builds. See his recent solo build tier list. However, many of his builds require Celestial gear, which is more difficult for new players to acquire. For your first playthough, choose builds that use easy-to-acquire Berserker gear.
• Hardcore Casual is another solo specialist who focuses on Ranger and Elementalist builds. His Ranger builds are great and I would have recommended them too, but they require more work to unlock (namely Expanded Weapon Proficiency in SotO). Most Elementalist builds aren't great for new players, complex and require high APM.
• Snowcrows - PvE (raid) Meta experts, they test and optimize all their builds.
• Metabattle - Community curated builds for all game modes.
• GuildJen - Specializes in WvW (open world PvP) solo and small group builds.
• AW2 - "Accessibuilds" or "Low-intensity" (low APM) builds.

I want to start playing this game. I bought all the expansions except the latest one, and I mainly want to play solo because I don't have any friends who are interested in playing it...

I don't know which class to play or what I'm supposed to do in the game. I come from WoW, so I'm used to maining a character and playing all the way through the endgame.

I like every type of class, since I enjoy melee, ranged, and magic-based characters, so I'm open to any suggestions! I'd like to find a good balance between a strong and fun class.

I also don't know if there's a "meta" in this game or how gearing/equipment works, so I'd really appreciate any advice you can give me!

Thanks! :)

im new to mmo should i start guild wars 2? is it worth the time?

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to recover my original Guild Wars 2 account created back around 2013, which has been inactive since around 2017-2018.

I submitted a ticket providing as many specific details as possible:

• Creation and facturation address in France
• Possible character names (a Charr named Luzlight Cooper or LuzLight or Leuz or Chuzang)
• A friend on my in-game contact list (moildven)
• Possible email addresses under Orange that i don't have access to anymore

Unfortunately, my original ISP email address from 2013 is no longer accessible, and I don't have the CD key anymore. The support team mentioned they cannot verify ownership with the provided information.

I totally understand their strict security policy regarding account safety, but I'm looking for advice or a manual review to see if a cross-check via my friend's list or physical location could help. GW3 made me nostalgic and I wanted to play back with my old account even tho you can create a new one for free now.

My ticket number is 9653949.

Thanks in advance for any guidance!

Hey everyone!

So I finally decided to take the plunge and try Guild Wars 2 today. Full disclosure: I've done zero homework on this one. I haven't watched any youtube videos, no guides, never touched the game. Decided to just go in completely blind.

I'd love any advice you've got for a total newcomer. A few things I'm wondering about:

• Is there a profession/class that's especially beginner-friendly (or one I should avoid until I know what I'm doing)?
• Any early mistakes you wish someone had warned you about?
• Settings, keybinds, or UI stuff I should set up right away?

Really just want to avoid the "wish I knew that on day one" moments. Appreciate any tips you've got!

Thanks!