Hello, and welcome to my Noobs adventure and ongoing review of Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire. Please don’t laugh at my lack of ability.
When I last left off I’d just reached the gates of Amnoon and was ready to start exploring the desert sands to see what foes I could vanquish, what loot I could find and, well try to understand what I was doing a little more…
I wondered around the city for a little while taking in the sights and getting to know my new home. Atheistically it’s very different from the cities I’d previously been to.
Distractions…
Before I could do any of the story, I immediately got caught up in some kind of public event; I noticed a fairly large group of players all rushing off in to the desert so I decided to follow them to see where they were going. “This is fine” I thought. “I’m sure this will end well for me”. We ended up having to fight some big dude called a Champion Forged Socerer and his cronies. I’m assuming he was some kind of bounty target, as I’ve noticed a board around the town offering bounties. I’m not entirely sure how many people were involved in this fight but it was a lot, and there was a lot going on. Eventually we overcame him and his forces and I got rewarded with a chest of loot, some actual proper loot!
Ok, time to head back to the City and get on with my ques… Oh wait, what’s this? A caravan of traders need escort back to the city, ok, I’ll help out. Again I was accompanied by various other players and we managed to guide the NPC’s safely back to town despite the onslaught of various hideous creatures and beasts.
Right, finally back to the city, now I can do a proper ques…. Oh wait, what’s this? The casino is holding a special event where we basically have to parkour around and collect coins? I’m in! 150 coins are needed to complete the event I manage to contribute about 20. Plus there is a bonus objective of beating up thugs around the city which we all managed to accomplish too! More loot!
Ok, seriously now, I need to get back to the main qu…. oh what, what’s this? A race around the Crystal Desert on my Raptor! Hold my beer! The crowds gathered as the timer ticked down, children mumbled who they thought might win – they were all wrong, obviously, because I was going to win! And win I did!
As you can see, I get pretty easily distracted playing Guild Wars 2, I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or not though. It’s a lot of fun takin part in all these dynamic events that pop up, but I’m not actually making any progress on the story, and I’m not getting much in the way of useful loot. But one thing it has helped with is topping up my inventory on items used for crafting, now, if I only knew how to actually craft stuff properly…
This is something that I actually love about Guild Wars 2 though, the fact that there are all these random events popping up at any given time for you to and multiple others to get involved in. Sure, it’s distracting me from actually playing through the story, but I don’t mind that. I like the freedom of being able to just wander around and do things a bit willy nilly.
Having said that, I’ve also been progressing a little bit with the story and I’m now investigating some camps to see if I can find clues on Balthazar’s whereabouts.
Mastery Points…
So, I’ve been looking in to what mastery points are a little bit more, as I said I would in the last part, it seems they’re basically your ‘above level 80 levelling’. There are different ‘Mastery tracks’ you can follow and unlock as you play by gaining master points from either XP or finding them hidden in the world. In Path of Fire you can obtain mastery points to help you unlock additional perks for your mounts. The problem I have at the moment is that most of the ones I’m finding around the crystal desert need a different mount for me to actually be able to reach them. So I’m having a little trouble unlocking the abilities for my Raptor – beyond just normal XP.
Crafting…
I’ve been picking up a lot of crafting materials from almost anything I kill, so I’m trying to get to grips with crafting items, but so far I’m not having much luck. To me – a new player at level 80, crafting feels quite confusing. You can only ‘train’ in two professions at a time from things like weapon smithing, armour smithing, jewellery and a few others. Firstly I’m not sure which one to pick for my class, what would offer me the best benefits etc… Although I think I’m going to go with Huntsman and Leatherworker. Secondly, it seems like all the materials I’m gathering I can’t actually do anything with, maybe because they require a higher skill than what I am? It doesn’t actually seem to explain it in game, unless I’ve just missed it – entirely possible. But, what I’m guessing is that because I’ve boosted to level 80 I’m now not high enough level in my crafting to actually be able to make use of the materials I’m finding.
I think I may have to spend some time grinding out some levels in order to be able to make the most of it…
More Thieves…
I’ve also been playing around with my build a little bit and switching up some of my skills to see if any others feel a bit more useful. Previously my special ability was an AOE attack where I would spin around like a mini whirlwind damaging anyone close enough. It looked cool and was good for dishing out a decent amount of damage to nearby foes. But I’ve now switched it out for a move where some shadowy thieves appear and start attacking enemies. I actually really like this attack as it takes a bit of focus off of me when I’m being surrounded.
I’ve also changed my healing move to one that heals me when I inflict damage, what I found with the previous one was that I would have to disengage from a fight cast the ability and then try and get back in to the fight, but this didn’t always work that well as some would attack with ranged attacks, so now I can stay in the fight a bit more and heal whilst I’m attacking.
So far I like the changes I’ve made!
Second Impressions…
Is that a thing? Second impressions? Well it is now.
I’m loving Path of Fire and what it has to offer to me, but I feel like I’m starting to see where my lack of playing anything previously is coming in to play. Crafting is the main area that I’m really starting to feel it, the fact that I have so many materials that I can seemingly do nothing with at the moment is a bit of a bummer. But the thing is, is I also don’t know if I actually need to start worrying about crafting, is it a vital part of the game? I don’t know…
I’ve also been noticing that I’m getting ROFLSTOMPED by a lot of enemies, mostly when I’m on my own, for example the most recent story mission that I completed Night of Fires, saw me die probably 30 times, this can’t be normal? I can’t seem to stay alive in a fight. I have a few theories for why this is happening, one, I’m not using my class correctly, two, I don’t have good enough weapons, armour etc… three, I’m just bad at the game.
Time will surely give me the answers to these questions….
What next?
Well, some Halloween event just started, so I’m going to check that out. I’m also going to try and meet some people, maybe get involved in some group activities, after all, this is an MMO.
-Will
