Important Mechanics
Do your dailies
Every day, you’re given a set of Daily Achievements to complete. Completing 3 achievements from PvP, WvW, and PvE gets you 2 gold, which adds up quickly. PvP dailies are quickest. Use the PvP browser to find custom arenas dedicated for completing dailies if you don’t like PvP. Here are easy spots to get some of your PvE dailies done.
Gathering Tools
Make sure your gathering tools are high-enough level to be used in the zone(s) you’re adventuring through. Gathering merchants offer material and enhanced gathering tools in exchange for karma. These can come in handy if you’re trying to stock up a particular crafting material. Unbreakable versions are available on the gem store, but are more of a quality of life feature than a necessity. Your guild may have a vendor that sells gathering tools/salvage.
Salvage - These items, along with gear that you do not wish to use/are no longer using and pieces of unidentified gear (should be identified first), can be salvaged by using a salvage kit. Please refer to the spreadsheet below to decide on which kit to use. The author states that Copper-Fed can be replaced by Basic and Silver-Fed by Mystic (best) or Masterwork. As a tip, a mystic salvage kit can be created by going to a mystic forge and throwing in a Fine (blue), Journeyman’s (green), and Master’s (Yellow) salvage kit along with 3 mystic forge stones which are easily obtainable from regular play. I do NOT recommend spending gems on stones. It has 250 uses and it should take you a while to get through one. You will likely be carrying multiple basic salvage kits with you at all times since each one is only 25 uses. If running a dungeon/fractal, you will probably want to have 2 to 3. Copper-Fed in a shared inventory slot is the best option if you’re looking to spend gems on a convenience item, but it’s not a necessity.
Defiance Bar (IMPORTANT)
You’ll find that certain enemies will not react to your crowd control abilities. If you look up at their HP bar, you’ll notice that they’ll probably have one of these blue bars:
You will need to use your crowd-control abilities to “break” the bar, resulting in a stun or sometimes it’ll have a different effect, such as the enemy taking a lot more damage. It’ll turn orange and recharge. During this time, your crowd-control abilities will have no effect on the defiance bar. You’ll need for it to turn blue again. For some enemies, the bar will be locked, which means they’re immune to CC. These enemies will sometimes have a devastating attack that will make the bar available to break (turns blue) and you will need to break it as soon as possible.
Combos
Guild Wars 2 offers a robust combo system that you and your allies will be able to use to your advantage. It helps to know what combos will be helpful in specific situations and which combos your profession is capable of playing solo. Please review the wiki for additional information or check out the brief video below by Boots.
Map Bonus Rewards
On certain maps (rotates weekly), you’ll receive bonus rewards for completing events, jumping puzzles, and mini-dungeons. This functions similarly to reward tracks in sPvP and WvW in which you’ll receive more rewards as you progress through different tiers. This is particularly helpful for players that are looking for particular crafting materials or if they’re looking to turn a profit. To see what materials sell for the most money, take a look at this handy guide on the wiki.
Ranger Pets
Please check out the wiki page on how to obtain pets OR use this interactive map on gw2timer.