Guild Wars 2 Guide for Beginners and Returnees in 2022

Guild Wars 2 remains one of the most popular MMORPGs in the West in 2022. In this guide, MeinMMO editor Alexander Leitsch reveals everything important that you need to know as a newcomer to the MMORPG.

What kind of game is it? Guild Wars 2 is a theme park MMORPG from the American developer ArenaNet. The game is mainly aimed at casual players who want to experience a hero story and explore diverse areas.

The focus of the game is on:

Personal story instances
An action-packed combat system with dodging
An open world that forgoes classic quests and instead relies on general tasks in the open world and event chains
A leveling and equipment system that has only been slightly adjusted since 2012, so you don’t have to constantly farm for new gear
Fractals (instances for 5 players), strike missions (as a precursor to raids), and raids for 10 players
PvP arenas where gear does not matter
Large battles server vs. server vs. server

To help you get started in the game, we have created this beginner’s guide. If you are interested in whether Guild Wars 2 really suits your gaming style, you will find the answer here: Is it still worth starting Guild Wars 2 in 2022?

Who created the guide? Alexander Leitsch is better known in the Guild Wars 2 community as Sputti. For almost 7 years, he operated the fansite Guildnews.de and reported daily about GW2. In-game, he has achieved over 8,000 play hours and nearly 36,000 achievement points (Top 3%). He has also invested over 10,000 play hours in the predecessor Guild Wars 1.

This article was last updated on October 9, 2022.

Account Creation and the Different Versions of Guild Wars 2

What does Guild Wars 2 cost? The base game of Guild Wars 2, as it was released in 2012, is completely free to play. You can simply visit the official website of the MMORPG and create an account there. However, this free account has some restrictions, including:

Only 2 instead of 5 character slots
Unlocking cities, PvP content, LFG tools, and chat only after a certain level
Whispering is only possible with players who have added you to their friends list or are standing next to you
No access to guild banks or raids
No access to daily login rewards
No access to the trading post and thus no possibility to trade with other players

If you want to bypass these restrictions, you can theoretically still buy old versions of the main game. However, the second expansion Path of Fire for €29.99 – which automatically includes the first expansion Heart of Thorns – or directly purchasing the standard collection is more profitable. For €49.99 you get the base game, the two already released expansions, and the upcoming expansion End of Dragons.

Have I unlocked everything with this? No, because between the expansions, Guild Wars 2 released the so-called Living World. These are small episodes that introduced new areas, new story content, and new achievements and rewards.

Currently, there are 5 seasons of the Living World with 6 to 8 episodes each. An episode was free if you logged in during the month it was released. However, currently, you have to pay 200 gems, which is equivalent to €2.50 or about 60 in-game gold per episode.

However, there are occasionally promotions where the content is reduced or even available for free for a short time.

Classes, Races, and the Server Systems

The choice of the right server: Anyone who installs Guild Wars 2 and starts with a new account has to first choose a server. For players from Germany, it makes the most sense to generally select a European world.

Some servers also have the [DE] suffix, indicating that there are mainly German players there. However, some servers are marked as “Full,” so you cannot join.

However, the choice of server does not play as big a role as one might think. Guild Wars 2 uses the so-called mega servers. These ensure that players from different servers can play together in PvE, and new versions of a map are created when too many players are present.

The mega servers sort in the following way:

You will be grouped with players from your group and guild on a map
Then players from your server are prioritized
Then players of your language
And then possibly players from other languages will join

This leads to the fact that maps in Guild Wars 2 are never empty, and you are usually always playing with German players. However, occasionally a foreign player might be mixed in.

If you end up on a different server than your group or raid teammates, you can simply right-click on the character portrait and join the map version of your teammate.

The server currently only plays a significant role in the large PvP mode World vs. World. Because there, servers fight together against other servers. If a world is marked as “full,” it specifically means that many active WvW players are present. However, this display makes no statement regarding PvE.

What does character creation look like? In Guild Wars 2, you first choose a playable race that you want to represent. You can choose from:

Humans
Norn – huge humans from the North
Sylvari – plant creatures modeled after humans
Charr – feline beings with horns that can also move on all fours
Asura – small beings with huge ears that once lived underground

The races differ in lore, size, and animations. But in the classic hitbox, which can be hit by enemies, they are all the same. Additionally, each race has its own abilities, which can only be used in PvE and are so weak in balance that no one really uses them.

What classes are there? Currently, you have a choice of 9 different classes, with the class Revenant requiring the expansion Heart of Thorns. The base game came without a classic classification into tank, healer, and DPS, as each class has its own healing skill and dodging abilities, enabling them to survive alone.

With the later expansions Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire, the so-called elite specializations were introduced. These brought the specialization Druid to the Ranger, enabling healing, or the Chronomancer to the Mesmer, which is often used as a tank in raids.

The 9 classes differ first in their armor value:

Heavy Armor (2,271 points) – Warrior, Guardian, Revenant
Medium Armor (2,118 points) – Ranger, Thief, Engineer
Light Armor (1,967 points) – Necromancer, Elementalist, Mesmer

There are also differences in hit points:

Many hit points (9,212) – Warrior, Necromancer
Medium hit points (5,922) – Engineer, Ranger, Mesmer, Revenant
Low hit points (1,654) – Guardian, Thief, Elementalist

More about mounts and how to unlock them can be found here:

General Beginner Tips

In this section, we compile general tips that have accumulated over the years:

In Guild Wars 2, the motto is: The journey is the goal. Rushing into endgame provides little advantage and destroys the story and the real cool discovery factor.
Complete 3 of the possible 10 daily quests every day. This provides 2 gold, resulting in a relaxed income.
Make sure to have enough recycling kits to disassemble items and receive materials. Alternatively, you can purchase an indestructible recycler in the real-money shop. The copper one is the better choice.
You can earn larger bags through achievements or at the trading post. Everyone needs inventory space!
Use buff food in the open world, as it grants you 10% additional experience points and useful stats. It’s best to combine this with leveling the cooking profession.
If you decide to purchase real-money items, your first choices should be a shared inventory slot, the copper indestructible recycler, and indestructible tools. They make your life easier and save a lot of gold in the long run.
If you are looking for group members, you can find someone for common activities like events in the open world, fractals or world bosses using the LFG tool. You can also search for group members in story instances, but those are harder to find randomly. You can open the tool with the “Z” key.
Which stats are right for you? If you play a character focused on Power, that is, physical damage, berserker stats will always serve you well. A character dealing damage through conditions should consider using viper stats.
It is wise not to delete your first character, as there are birthday gifts each year and achievements depend not on account age, but character age.
There is a wardrobe system through which you can visually change your gear to any skin you have owned or recycled. Changing appearance requires transmutation crystals that you can obtain through achievements, daily login rewards, or the shop.

Important Settings

When it comes to settings, the general rule is to make adjustments that suit you best. However, we would like to provide you with some tips:

Activate the content guide, as it ensures that new tasks appear on the compass when you otherwise have nothing to do.
Enable, as soon as available, Auto Loot and Loot in Range when interacting. This will automatically pick up everything that drops for you. Even chests are sometimes automatically opened.
Enable show skill cooldowns, so you can see the exact seconds of cooldowns.
In the “Combat and Movement” section, activate options to dodge with double key presses and interrupt auto-attacks when switching targets. This way, you can dodge quickly and won’t accidentally continue to attack old targets.
Activate the option to “Display Enemy Health in Percentage” – many bosses trigger special phases or attacks at 75, 50, 25% etc. It is important to keep an eye on these.
Optionally, you can activate Set Ground Target at Maximum Range. This way, you cannot accidentally use AoE effects outside of the actual range but see the exact effective radius.

What to Expect in the Endgame of Guild Wars 2

What to expect in PvE: The endgame of Guild Wars 2 includes dungeons, raids, world bosses, many achievements, and the grind for better-looking gear. Because you will quickly have the strongest ascended equipment in your hands. For many, an endgame goal is therefore to look as good as possible. There are hundreds of skins that you can collect and unlock in the wardrobe. For fun, the game is also jokingly referred to by many fans as Fashion Wars.

The MMORPG has recently placed a stronger focus on fractals in dungeons. These are different instances for 5 players, which have difficulties ranging from 1 to 100, and some even have a challenge mode. For higher levels in the fractals, you will need more Agony Resistance, which you can imbue into your ascended gear.

There are also classic 5-player dungeons that can be accessed via portals in the open world, but these have not received updates or new content in years. Nevertheless, they provide exciting background stories about the world and its history and are always accompanied by a story.

For challenge enthusiasts, raids have been available since Heart of Thorns. In these 7 instances, you will face several bosses with 10 players and earn good rewards. Coordination and especially high damage are required here.

For the casual player of the open world, world bosses mainly appear on the older maps and meta-events on the maps from Heart of Thorns and Silverwastes. Here, you face opponents with a large group of up to 100 players and receive many rewards for usually little effort.

Additionally, Guild Wars 2 places a strong emphasis on achievements. These exist for story content, hidden treasures, jumping puzzles, as well as in PvP and WvW. Each achievement awards achievement points, and there are rankings even there. For fans who want to complete everything, this MMORPG offers plenty.

What to expect in PvP: In endgame PvP, you can expect mainly arena PvP and world vs. world.

In the arenas, you play traditionally in 5-vs-5 and are tasked with being the first to reach 500 points. Points are earned from holding capture points and killing other players. Each map also has special side effects that provide buffs or additional points.

This content offers Guild Wars 2 a ranked mode with seasons and several automated tournaments a day, culminating in monthly tournaments.

Between seasons in a leaderboard, there are sometimes special events, such as a shortened 2v2 season or an experimental arena.

What is WvW? In World vs. World, three servers battle each other, attempting to capture and defend structures, towers, and camps across 4 different maps. Servers can earn points and thus win a matchup.

Matchups are reset regularly on Fridays, with new enemies assigned. There is also a leaderboard, ensuring evenly matched servers face each other. A major overhaul to the World vs. World system is also planned, transitioning to an alliance system, where guilds will fight against each other.

How do you generally find Guild Wars 2? Are you satisfied with the MMORPG? And do you have further tips that you would give to beginners? Feel free to write your comments.

The big highlight in 2022 will be the new expansion End of Dragons, which will lead players to the continent of Cantha. You can learn more about this in our extensive overview:

Guild Wars 2: Everything we know about the new expansion End of Dragons

Warriors therefore have a lot of armor and many hit points. This makes the class very beginner-friendly. The Ranger is also suitable for beginners, as they can send a tamed animal ahead and do not have to take damage as often themselves. More information on the classes can be found here:

First Steps in the Game

How does the introduction to Guild Wars 2 work? You start in the world of Tyria in a tutorial mission. This explains the basics of the game and already contains first story content. Each race has a slightly different tutorial.

After completing the tutorial, you will learn about the so-called heart quests. These differ somewhat from classic quests because you do not have to accept them, have several options for completion, and receive the reward automatically.

Such tasks include supporting an apple farm. For this, there are various options:

You can collect apples and bring them to the heart NPC
You can fight spiders
You can stomp spider egg sacks
At night, bats appear that you can also kill

Guild Wars 2 Herzchen Quest — Typical heart tasks in Guild Wars 2.

In general, most hearts also offer a “pacifist” option to complete them. For completing such a heart, you receive experience points, in-game currency, and karma. A player even explored almost the entire world as a pacifist.

Karma can be used to buy from a heart that you have completed. The NPCs usually offer you simple gear, buff food, or other useful items.

Besides the hearts, there are also other things that you can discover on the map and use for leveling:

Sightseeing spots – special places that you just need to walk over to gain XP
Waypoints – you can teleport to them at any time for a bit of in-game currency. Discovering them also provides some XP
Vistas – red flags on the map that show a small cinematic upon interaction and also grant XP
Hero points – challenges that grant you hero points and XP. Hero points are used to unlock new abilities or effects in specialization trees.

Guild Wars 2 also offers an interesting reward system for all this content. If you complete all hearts, sightseeing spots, waypoints, vistas, and hero points on a map, you receive bonus rewards. If you complete all maps in the entire world, you receive an Exploration Gift, which is later needed for legendary weapons.

However, the highlight in the open world are the dynamic events. These reappear in the world, such as when harpies suddenly attack a farmer or bandits raid a village. Some of these events even have consequences.

If a village is raided and taken over by bandits, there will be no more merchants there. Additionally, the tasks for the heart quests will change. Instead of helping with the harvest, you will suddenly have to defeat bandits.

In some areas, these dynamic events even lead to the appearance of boss monsters or, in the event of a failure, the blockade of large areas. Also, there are numerous world bosses with additional daily rewards that appear after a fixed timer. These bosses can also be found in low-level areas, which are then suddenly populated by high-level players.

But don’t worry – you can still participate in the boss fight because in Guild Wars 2, even high-end players are scaled down to the level of the area. Thus, everyone has a fair chance, whether you have played for 3 or 3,000 hours.

The Personal Story: Alongside the adventures in the open world, you will also frequently unlock story missions. A set of new missions appears every 10 levels, so at level 10, 20, 30, and so on.

You can complete the missions either alone or together with other players. If someone has to do the exact same mission, they will even receive credit for the progress. For the other players, there is only the loot that drops during the mission.

You can review your entire story afterward in your chronicle. Episodes of the personal story can, however, only be played once. Later episodes of the Living World or expansions are repeatable, also because there are some interesting achievements there.

All About the Combat System in Guild Wars 2

How does the combat system work? Guild Wars 2 uses a special combat system. While you can select an enemy using the “Tab” key or by clicking with your mouse, and keep them permanently targeted, if you are not in the range of your weapon, you will simply hit nothing.

Additionally, the MMORPG has many abilities that rely on movement and dynamics. Accordingly, dodging is also very important. During the dodge roll, you become untargetable for 3/4 of a second. You can use this to avoid strong attacks from enemies.

Really dangerous abilities have a telegraph, clearly indicating them. You should quickly move out of such fields.

Each class has access to different weapons, but not every weapon. You can see which weapons you can wield by pressing “H”.

How do I get abilities? Abilities in Guild Wars 2 are quite simply explained. The 5 abilities to the left of your hit points are determined by your weapon. The 5 abilities to the right are “utility abilities,” with the first always being a healing skill and the last always being an elite skill with a longer cooldown.

Each class also has special abilities that are usually assigned to the F1 to F2 keys but can be remapped at any time. Rangers can control their animal companions, Mesmers their clones, or Elementalists change their element.

How does the downstate work? Another special feature is the downstate, which happens when your hit points fall below 0. You will be knocked down and receive 4 new abilities:

The 1 deals damage and is the same for all classes
With the 2, you can interrupt enemies
The ability 3 is different for each class
With the 4, you can slowly regenerate hit points, but a point of damage interrupts the ability and puts it on cooldown
Ability 5 is a bonus that you unlock later through an episode of the Living World

If you manage to kill an enemy in downstate or fully refill your hit point bar, you will get back up as if nothing happened. Other players can help by walking to you and assisting you in getting back up.

It is worth mentioning that it also counts as a kill if another player defeats a monster you dealt damage to before going into downstate. If the enemy falls afterwards, you will get back up immediately. This often goes faster than helping the downed player.

This downstate exists not only in PvE but also in PvP and World vs. World.

What are combos? Another feature of combat in Guild Wars 2 are combo fields. These are usually round or elongated AoE skills that react with an ability that has combo finish in the description.

For example, if an arrow described as a combo finisher for Physical Projectile flies through a wall of flames, it will additionally inflict the condition “Burn” on the enemy, in addition to the normal effect. The following combos exist:

	Explosion	Projectile	Leap	Whirl
Aether	Chaos Armor for Allies	Attack inflicts Confusion	Chaos Armor on yourself	Attack inflicts Confusion
Lightning	Swiftness for Allies	Attack inflicts Vulnerability	Attack inflicts Stun	Attack is armor-penetrating and inflicts Vulnerability
Darkness	Attack inflicts Blindness	Attack steals health	Attack inflicts Blindness	Attack steals health
Ice	Frost Aura for Allies	Attack inflicts Chill	Frost Aura for yourself	Attack inflicts Chill
Fire	Might for Allies	Attack inflicts Burning	Fire Shield for Allies	Attack inflicts Burning
Poisons	Attack inflicts Weakness	Attack inflicts Poison	Attack inflicts Weakness	Attack inflicts Poison
Light	Revenge for Allies	Removes conditions from allies near the attack	Revenge for Allies	Attack removes conditions from allies nearby
Smoke	Stealth for Allies	Attack inflicts Blindness	Stealth on yourself	Attack inflicts Blindness
Water	Healing for Allies	Grants Regeneration	Healing for allies near the attack	Regeneration for Allies

Buffs & Debuffs or Blessings & Conditions

What are blessings? Blessings are positive effects that can be received by yourself or given to allies. In other games, they are often called buffs. Some of these blessings stack in intensity, others in duration. However, enemies may have abilities that can remove or even corrupt blessings into conditions.

These blessings stack in intensity:

Might: Each stack grants 30 power and 30 condition damage. It can contain a maximum of 25 stacks. Thus, through the blessing, you can get a total of 750 additional attributes in both values. Stacking Might is particularly important in dungeons and in PvP/WvW. The most effective way to gain Might is through fire fields combined with explosion finishers.
Stability: It can theoretically be stacked an unlimited number of times. Each stack blocks the next control effect, such as being knocked down or interrupted. Thus, if you have three stacks of Stability, you will only be affected by the fourth CC.

These blessings stack in duration:

Fury: Duration adds up. So if you already have 10 seconds of Fury and receive another 8 seconds of Fury, you will end up with 18 seconds. Fury increases critical hit chance by 20%.
Protection: Also adds up in duration. The blessing prevents 33% of incoming damage. Fall damage and condition damage are not reduced.
Resolution: The blessing reduces incoming condition damage by 33%.
Regeneration: Grants healing over time. At level 80, it is 130 + 0.125xHealing Power per second. Increased duration of regeneration thus also enhances total healing.
Aegis: Blocks the next attack that would hit us. Aegis is removed upon blocking. Unblockable attacks cannot be blocked.
Revenge: Deals damage to the attacking enemy (198 + (0.075xPower)). It counts the power value of the one who distributed the revenge.
Swiftness: Increases movement speed by 33%.
Elan: Increases the endurance regeneration (for dodging) by 50%.
Quickness: Speeds up skills and actions by 50%.
Resistance: Duration adds up. Grants the player immunity to conditions that do not deal damage to them.

What are conditions? Conditions are negative effects that regularly inflict damage on players, limit movement, reduce healing, or change a character’s accuracy (for example, through blindness). In other games, they are often referred to as DoTs (Damage over Time).

There are two types of conditions. Some stack in intensity and, for example, cause more damage per stack, while others stack in duration, holding us at a certain place for longer. Prematurely removing a condition (through skills) automatically eliminates all stacks regardless of duration or intensity. Conditions also ignore the target’s armor.

These conditions stack in intensity:

Bleeding: Causes 22 damage per second and stack. For every 100 condition damage, the damage increases by 6.
Burning: Causes 131.5 damage per second and stack. For every 100 condition damage, the damage increases by 15.5.
Poison: Causes 33.5 damage per second and stack. For every 100 condition damage, the damage increases by 6. Additionally, Poison reduces the target’s incoming healing by 33%.
Torture: Causes 15.9 damage per second and stack. For every 100 condition damage, the damage increases by 4.5. The damage is doubled if the target does not move and remains still.
Confusion: Causes 10 damage per second and stack. For every 100 condition damage, the damage increases by 3.5. Confusion also deals an additional 49.5 damage per stack when using a skill. This damage increases by 6.25 for every 100 condition damage.
Vulnerability: Inflicts a debuff on the opponent that allows 1% more damage and 1% more condition damage per stack. A maximum of 25 stacks is possible.

These conditions stack in duration:

Chill: Reduces movement speed and increases the recharge time of skills by 66%. Necromancers have a trait where Chill can inflict damage. The damage is 352 per second and increases by 96 for every 100 condition damage.
Blindness: Causes the next attack to miss. Blindness is removed upon missing.
Cripple: Reduces movement speed by 50%.
Fear: Causes the target to flee and prevents them from using skills and moving freely. Necromancers have a trait where Fear can inflict damage. The damage is 444 per second and increases by 40 for every 100 condition damage.
Weakness: Prevents critical hits and reduces regular damage by 50%. The recharge of endurance is also reduced by 50%.
Immobilize: Holds the opponent in one place.

What are Stagger Bars? The last important aspect of the combat system in Guild Wars 2 is the so-called Stagger Bars. This is a blue bar that is primarily found under the hit points of bosses.

This bar can be reduced by using CC, whether knockback, knockdown, cripple, or immobilize.

If the bar falls to 0, the opponent is weakened for a short time, often even stunned. Sometimes you also need to destroy Stagger Bars to initiate certain phases in boss fights.

Character Development

How do I develop my character further? Character development plays an important role in MMORPGs, and there are several systems for this in Guild Wars 2:

Level
Equipment with certain attributes
Specializations
Masteries

You can relatively easily level your character from level 1 to 80 in Guild Wars 2. This can be done quickly with exploration and the Personal Story.

Moreover, with each level, you receive bonus rewards and learn more about the game.

What attributes are there? Primary attributes directly increase damage or defense. They level up with you and are at 1,000 at level 80.

Power – Increases direct damage; Calculation: Power x Weapon Damage x Skill Damage / Target’s Armor
Toughness – Reduces incoming damage
Vitality – Increases hit points; 1 point = 10 health
Precision – Increases critical hit chance; 1% per 21 Precision; Condition damage cannot crit.

Secondary attributes, on the other hand, do not level up with you and provide additional bonuses:

Ferocity – Increases critical hit damage; 1% per 15 Ferocity
Condition Damage – Increases damage dealt by conditions per second; Calculation: Condition Damage x Condition Damage Coefficient x Damage of Condition.
Healing Power – Increases healing that you cause yourself. Healing from us to allies depends on our values, while healing received from allies depends on their values.
Expertise – Increases the duration of all conditions you cause. 1% per 15 Expertise
Concentration – Increases the duration of all blessings you distribute. 1% per 15 Concentration

Additionally, there are two special attributes:

Luck – Increases the chance for rarer items
Agony Resistance – Reduces incoming damage in Fractals (a specific 5-player content)

In your character menu, you’ll also find final values based on the attributes.

How does equipment work? In Guild Wars 2, you can obtain various equipment items with the rarities white (normal), blue (fine), green (masterwork), yellow (rare), orange (exotic), pink (ascended), and purple (legendary).

It is important that ascended and legendary equipment does not differ in pure values. However, legendary equipment can change its attributes at any time, allowing you to adapt it to your playstyle (tank, healer, damage, or condition damage).

For the perfect equipment, it’s sufficient to own ascended equipment. You can obtain this through achievements or crafting. Direct trading is not possible.

What are specializations? Each class in Guild Wars 2 has 5 specializations. These offer various passive bonuses, such as increased damage for certain abilities, similar to skill trees. However, you can always equip 3 of the specializations at the same time.

For example, Rangers have access to:

Marksmanship – For the bow
Combat Mastery – General combat bonuses
Survival in the Wilderness – General defensive bonuses
Nature Magic – Focused on healing
Pet Mastery – Focused on the animal companion

With Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire, elite specializations were also introduced. You can combine only one of these with 2 of the normal specializations. Elite specializations significantly change the playstyle of the class and unlock a new weapon.

What are masteries? Masteries are a new system from the Heart of Thorns expansion that allows you to further level your character, but does not earn you additional attributes, instead, you make vertical progress.

Through mastery levels, you can unlock the ability to use mounts, glide in the world, or bounce on mushrooms. New equipment or new merchants can also be hidden behind the system. However, this system has so many facets that we do not want to expand on it too much for beginners here.

Dynamic Scaling

Players entering a weaker area with a higher level in Guild Wars 2 are automatically reduced in attributes. This lowers your damage and health points. This even makes entering old content somewhat interesting and dangerous and prevents you from soloing certain world bosses. However, you are overall stronger because you have more abilities and experience than are actually intended for the content.

The scaling also works the other way around. For example, if you enter the World vs. World, you are scaled up to level 80 in terms of attributes. However, you have the disadvantage that you lack abilities and experience. There is also a restriction for free-to-play players here, who for some reason do not get scaled.

For arena PvP, however, you are also scaled up to level 80. Here, however, equipment does not matter, as you get a special PvP interface in which you can select your attributes.

Inventory, Crafting, Trade, and Currencies

What is important with inventory? Once you survive the first hearts and fights, you will notice that your inventory overflows with items. Therefore, it is important in Guild Wars 2 to have a recycling kit on hand. Because any item that you do not wish to keep can be disassembled to obtain materials.

Additionally, you can send collected materials to your storage with just one click. This keeps your inventory clean and ensures that you have plenty of materials when you want to start crafting.

As a tailor, leatherworker, and armorsmith, you can also craft larger bags or buy them directly from the trading post.

The Crafting: In Guild Wars 2, you can generally collect all materials you find in the open world. However, you need a pickaxe for ore, an axe for trees, and a sickle for plants. There are different tiers of gathering tools that you need to replace over time or alternatively obtain infinite gathering tools from the shop.

Materials spawn for every player in the same spot, and there is no need to fight over them, unlike in New World.

The collected or recycled materials can then be used for crafting. In Guild Wars 2, there are 8 self-explanatory professions:

Tailor – For light armor
Leatherworker – For medium armor
Armorsmith – For heavy armor
Weaponsmith – For iron weapons
Huntsman – For wooden weapons like bows, torches, or warhorns
Engineer – For backpacks and magical weapons like staves
Jeweler – For jewelry
Chef – For buff food

You can only have two professions at a time and skill them but do not lose progress if you suddenly learn another profession. Switching professions costs only a bit of in-game currency. Thus, theoretically, you could bring all professions to the maximum level of 500 on one character.

When using the professions, materials are automatically drawn from storage, with items in inventory being prioritized first.

The Most Important Currencies in the Game: Guild Wars 2 offers numerous – and for many players, too many – currencies that you can possess. Fortunately, they are stored in their own slot in the inventory.

We present to you the most important ones:

Gems – The real-money currency
Gold, silver, copper – The classic in-game currency, with which you pay at the trading post and with merchants
Karma – A currency mainly for hearts and events, used to buy from special NPCs
Spirit Shards – Obtained for level-ups beyond level 80 and can be used to upgrade special items
Laurels – A login reward through which you can earn materials and even special ascended gear. Laurels are exclusively received by purchased accounts, as free-to-play players do not receive login rewards
Guild Commendations – Earned for completing missions with the guild
Transmutation Charges – Used for the wardrobe to change skins
Honor Badges – Earned in WvW for various activities. They are particularly good for cheaply purchasing the first usable level 80 armor

There are numerous currencies for PvP, WvW, specific areas, raids, festivals, and much more. Overall, there are over 50 currencies that should not be a concern for you at the beginning.

How does trading work in GW2? In Guild Wars 2, there is no direct trading between players. Instead, an auction house is used that operates across towns and even across servers.

However, you can send items to other players and hope they respond with their own message and gold. But you should only do this with close friends, not with strangers. There’s always the risk of being scammed.

Mounts – Get them sooner or later?

What’s the deal with mounts? Guild Wars 2 currently offers eight different mounts:

Raptor
Springer
Skimmer
Jackal
Griffon
Roller Beetle
Warclaw
Holographic Dragon

They all differ visually but mainly in gameplay. The raptor can jump particularly far, while the springer can jump particularly high. The griffon can glide through the air, and the holographic dragon can hover like a helicopter. The roller beetle is particularly fast, but only when rolling downhill. The skimmer, on the other hand, floats over the ground or swims underwater.

The first mount, the raptor, is available theoretically when you activate the “level 80” boost that you receive when purchasing an expansion. After that, you just need to play the first mission of the Path of Fire expansion to unlock the raptor account-wide. You can then theoretically use it on a level 2 character.

This trick is often recommended to beginners, as mounts make life much faster and easier. This trick is fine, but we generally recommend that you level a character from level 1, rather than jumping right into level 80. This way, you only spoil your enjoyment of the game.

More about mounts and how to unlock them can be found here:

General Beginner Tips

In this section, we compile general tips that have accumulated over the years:

In Guild Wars 2, the motto is: The journey is the goal. Rushing into endgame provides little advantage and destroys the story and the real cool discovery factor.
Complete 3 of the possible 10 daily quests every day. This provides 2 gold, resulting in a relaxed income.
Make sure to have enough recycling kits to disassemble items and receive materials. Alternatively, you can purchase an indestructible recycler in the real-money shop. The copper one is the better choice.
You can earn larger bags through achievements or at the trading post. Everyone needs inventory space!
Use buff food in the open world, as it grants you 10% additional experience points and useful stats. It’s best to combine this with leveling the cooking profession.
If you decide to purchase real-money items, your first choices should be a shared inventory slot, the copper indestructible recycler, and indestructible tools. They make your life easier and save a lot of gold in the long run.
If you are looking for group members, you can find someone for common activities like events in the open world, fractals or world bosses using the LFG tool. You can also search for group members in story instances, but those are harder to find randomly. You can open the tool with the “Z” key.
Which stats are right for you? If you play a character focused on Power, that is, physical damage, berserker stats will always serve you well. A character dealing damage through conditions should consider using viper stats.
It is wise not to delete your first character, as there are birthday gifts each year and achievements depend not on account age, but character age.
There is a wardrobe system through which you can visually change your gear to any skin you have owned or recycled. Changing appearance requires transmutation crystals that you can obtain through achievements, daily login rewards, or the shop.

Important Settings

When it comes to settings, the general rule is to make adjustments that suit you best. However, we would like to provide you with some tips:

Activate the content guide, as it ensures that new tasks appear on the compass when you otherwise have nothing to do.
Enable, as soon as available, Auto Loot and Loot in Range when interacting. This will automatically pick up everything that drops for you. Even chests are sometimes automatically opened.
Enable show skill cooldowns, so you can see the exact seconds of cooldowns.
In the “Combat and Movement” section, activate options to dodge with double key presses and interrupt auto-attacks when switching targets. This way, you can dodge quickly and won’t accidentally continue to attack old targets.
Activate the option to “Display Enemy Health in Percentage” – many bosses trigger special phases or attacks at 75, 50, 25% etc. It is important to keep an eye on these.
Optionally, you can activate Set Ground Target at Maximum Range. This way, you cannot accidentally use AoE effects outside of the actual range but see the exact effective radius.

What to Expect in the Endgame of Guild Wars 2

What to expect in PvP: In endgame PvP, you can expect mainly arena PvP and world vs. world.

This content offers Guild Wars 2 a ranked mode with seasons and several automated tournaments a day, culminating in monthly tournaments.

Between seasons in a leaderboard, there are sometimes special events, such as a shortened 2v2 season or an experimental arena.

How do you generally find Guild Wars 2? Are you satisfied with the MMORPG? And do you have further tips that you would give to beginners? Feel free to write your comments.

The big highlight in 2022 will be the new expansion End of Dragons, which will lead players to the continent of Cantha. You can learn more about this in our extensive overview:

Guild Wars 2: Everything we know about the new expansion End of Dragons

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Guild Wars 2 Guide for Beginners and Returnees – Everything about the MMORPG in 2022

Account Creation and the Different Versions of Guild Wars 2

Classes, Races, and the Server Systems

General Beginner Tips

Important Settings

What to Expect in the Endgame of Guild Wars 2

First Steps in the Game

All About the Combat System in Guild Wars 2

Buffs & Debuffs or Blessings & Conditions

Character Development

Dynamic Scaling

Inventory, Crafting, Trade, and Currencies

Mounts – Get them sooner or later?

General Beginner Tips

Important Settings

What to Expect in the Endgame of Guild Wars 2

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