Guild Wars 2 Diary #14 : Extra Experience Is Godsend

So, what did you decide? After saving a village from an attack of Risen, we learn that the soldier behind this sudden surge in Risen population was spending a lot of time with a certain pirate. There’s one pretty major problem though: the pirate was killed before she could share her story. The Risen got to her, and a damn sight earlier than we even knew she existed. They’re not only organized, but it’s becoming harder and harder to work out how we’re going to stop these attacks. Read it all in the new episode of Guild Wars 2 Diary.

We left Guild Wars 2 Diary 13 with the choice between summoning the pirate’s spirit or infiltrating a pirate ship and discovering what their link to the whole thing is. In a perfect world, we’d get to pick both. This isn’t an option.

This Little Piggy

Before continuing with the story, I strongly suggest you take advantage of your higher level to finish up some of the renown heart quests, skills and events in the Kessex Hills. If you travelled to The Orders of Tyria and no further, you have a huge area to the west to explore and if you were around the 19-21 mark, there are a ton of quests and events that you’ll now stand a chance at completing. I was level 22-23 during my exploring the west of the Kessex Hills and that’s enough to do almost everything, so long as you have perseverance and a waypoint near an equipment repair shop.

My favourite renown heart quest is actually quite close to the camp in which you met the Orders of Tyria. To the Northeast, you’ll need to hunt out and find truffles. I know what you’re thinking, how are we going to find truffles without a pig? Don’t worry, the person giving the quest has a great solution: pig magic.

By the time you’ve questioned exactly what pig magic is, you find out. You’re transformed into a little pig, complete with new attacks and skills. The smell skill creates a puff of smoke in locations where truffles are hidden and the forage skill allows you to dig them up. You can also attack with deadly teeth (you cause as much damage as you would with a round of attacks), a skill that will come in handy if you want to complete this quest.

Attacking the various monsters in the area will boost your renown heart bar up faster than anything else, but finding truffles and destroying burrows is equally as effective (when you factor in the time it takes). This is a stupidly easy quest, but it feels fun and well-paced, more so than perhaps any other quest I’ve come across in Guild Wars 2.

Into the Lair of the Sea Witch

For instance, north of that particular quest, you’ll have an event that has you fighting sea monsters. These things are tough and, worse, work in large groups. If you haven’t got a friend with you – or a couple of friends if you can scrape it together – I’d probably say avoid the stretch of water between the Orders of Tyria camp and the Centaur Bridge. You might just manage to survive, but it’ll be difficult. One event has you killing eight of the beasts, but their ranged attacks and the way they patrol makes it almost guaranteed that you’ll be cornered by three or four of them.

Once you’re done with that event, head back south and you’ll come across the lair of the Sea Witch. This is an event and there’s no way you’ll manage to do it alone. You’re going to become surrounded by enemies, enemies who are quick and deadly. I managed to tag along with someone else and after several minutes of trying to survive together, we ended up defeating our first load of creatures and we backed away. We never even made it to the Sea Witch, and I suggest you’re well prepared before you even think about taking her on yourself.

The Centaur Overlord

Of course, there’s still a large area to the west of you that need exploring. As well as two or three renown heart quests, you’re going to want to take a close look at the centaur Overlord’s base. It’s a renown heart quest itself, but it’s still well worth taking a look around. Knocking the gate down will give you about 10% of the renown heart bar and it comes back when you die, so don’t worry too much about having to go to the nearby waypoint (remember to activate it before even trying to enter the centaur base). The goal is to destroy siege weapons and kill centaurs. Be careful not to get surrounded by centaurs. Instead, lure them into a quiet area and fight them one to one, on your own terms. Doing that will make this area 100 times easier and even lower levels will find they manage to get through without dying.

One word of caution though: destroying siege weapons is a lengthy job – it probably takes three times as long as the cannons you will have encountered on your first trip to the Kessex Hills. Make sure there aren’t any enemies around you, kill everything in sight before you start breaking stuff. So long as you’re sure you’re no longer surrounded, it should be perfectly safe to have a couple of minutes hitting siege weapons. Once you’re away from the wall and are in the camp itself, be very, very careful. It’s easy to come across a whole platoon on centaurs and you’re going to struggle to take them all out alone. There are bandits around as well and both the bandits and the centaurs have units that can shoot from a distance, not to mention the hugely annoying catapults that will hit you if you spend too long in a single area. The rule is to go slow, watch that renown heart gauge and get out in one piece.

As always, be sure to do every event you can. Any extra experience you gain in Guild Wars 2 will be a godsend.

This week's Guild Wars 2 Tip

Before continuing with the story, be sure to work hard on your experience points. We’re heading into a new area for the next block of the game and enemies can be above level 27 and will attack in groups. If you’re not almost at 100% for both Queensdale and Kessex Hills (and Divinity’s Reach as well if possible) don’t even consider moving forward. Preferably you want to be repeating events and helping out other players when appropriate as well, but this will just make life easier. If you want a challenge, head towards the green story marker too soon. You’ll probably end up pretty beaten down though.

Previously on Guild Wars 2 Diary