I have been doing the daily achievement pretty much every day since their laureate inception. Actually I’ve been doing it on two accounts (though not every day on both) since I picked up one for $30 on Amazon awhile back. Eventually that will be my girls account, but laurels are a good source of gold. Throughout the week there are 5 achievements pulled. Today it is one set of five, tomorrow it is another. I am going to review the individual achievements through the lens of my playtime.
Assured
Daily Kills – Of all the achievements, this one feels the most certain for nearly any active block of playtime in Guild Wars 2. Indiscriminate animals count too so make sure you have extreme prejudice against those rabbits on your daily walk in the woods.
Daily Gatherer – With the exception of dungeons, finding 7-10 resource nodes is pretty much a given on any PvE map. Finding one rich node results in about half of the achievement too.
Daily Laurel Vendor – This is a gimme. Plain and simple.
Assured Location-Dependent
Daily Kill Variety – This is not a hard achievement except when I am playing in one zone, which is unfortunately something I like to do. Then it becomes a time dependent search for those last few enemy types scattered in their small holdouts. If you move between 2-3 zones making sure to kill the local fauna, this is a very easy achievement. If you are time pressed head to Thaumanova Reactor in Metrica Province for those last few. I dislike the hunting factor if I’ve stuck around one zone, but I figure waypoint costs are mostly recouped by the daily’s 5 silver.
Daily Aquatic Kills – Once I find a lake, this just becomes a 5 minute blood bath as anything and everything is going to be sacrificed to the death god. While this is an easy achievement, it is super location dependent. Usually I try to play normally until I happen upon a mob-filled lake. Then I take a few minutes to knock this daily out, and I move on. It’s the most waylay like of achievements.
Daily Veteran Slayer – This is a weird one. In some areas I am normally playing, I just can’t find veterans. However because of this achievement I am also noticing veterans that I’ve clearly ignored before. I will say it’s patchy, but not as uncertain as the patchy, reactive achievements below. If I keep my eyes out hitting 5 veterans is not very hard. If time is pressing I usually head to an area with Oakhearts or the constant stream of Veteran Boars near the Hunter’s Lodge in Queensdale.
Daily Crafter – I don’t craft very often anymore. It is not a normal part of “end game†gameplay because it’s usually not that profitable of an activity. Still this achievement is practically a “gimme†as soon as I hit a crafting station. Just turn some raw material into something refined, like copper ore to copper ingots, and it gets checked off instantly.
Changeup Achievement
Daily Dodger – This is definitely the most difficult achievement, skill-wise, in normal gameplay. The reason for its difficulty is that there are a ton of monsters, and learning to dodge each attack is quite a learning experience. It can become a really frustrating mini-game in player responsiveness. I’ve tried really hard to incorporate this naturally in to the normal course of gameplay, but the speed of endurance regen, the speed of normal enemy death, and the amount of attacks by the enemy can make it hard.
I now treat it more like Daily Aquatic Kills. If I find an enemy that has easily dodgable attacks, like Centaur Archers or deer, I’ll usually pause there to knock out the achievement. If I am time pressed I go to Southsun Cove, where I run at a Young Karka and knock out 4-5 dodges during their ranged goop onslaught. Dodge straight at them to do this.
Reactionary Achievements
Daily Events – I’ve already spoken on daily events. When we get to choose our own daily achievements, this is not one I am going to chase. Sometimes this is easily assured if I am helping the battle in Orr or I find myself in a good event chain. Theoretically the achievement is guaranteed the longer a person plays in the field. It is still very reactionary, which I don’t like. I cannot will an event to start, usually. Even in event heavy places, sometimes it feels like I am running around for 5 minutes seeing nothing. When daily achievements become selectable, I think this one will remain a decent choice given how quickly it can be knocked out under the right circumstances, but since it is required every day, its reactionary nature is getting tiring.
Daily Healer – Just about as frustrating as waiting for events to pop is waiting for some dumb NPC to die. This daily achievement is also very reactionary and very patchy. There are some events and areas just scattered with dead NPC bodies, such as Orrian controlled forts. Other times I stand there watching the most anticlimactic battle between a Seraph and a centaur just praying for the Seraph’s quick death. Like events, I cannot just will people or NPCs to die. It gets more tedious because unlike the more certain kill-type achievements, Daily Healer gets 5/7 days.
Conclusion
I have to say that my favorite of the new bunch is Daily Aquatic Kills because it feels most like a waylay. Perhaps even a quest. Once I get to a specific point, it becomes a nice change of pace. The one I want to love most is Daily Dodger, but it is incredibly hard. It is not hard to get away from an enemy’s attack. It is hard to get that “evadeâ€. I think right now the daily is about right although I feel some numbers / frequencies could be lowered (Daily Healer). Perhaps when all daily achievements in the available set do not have to be completed ArenaNet can make more specific, waylay-type achievements. It will be interesting to see if ArenaNet opens up much more design space for a narrowed focus or keeps it as generic as possible.
–Ravious
I dislike crafting because I have no interest in crafting. It means I’m going out of my way to go into a city to do it. As it is, I’ve saved up a ton of copper and just make bars when I have to do it. I’ll drop it in a second once they let us pick.
Dodging can be annoying, I usually look for an NPC with a 2H weapon and dodge those. Grubs work decent too.
Overall for me, just seems like a lot more of running out of my way.I wonder why they didn’t add any WvW kills like they do on the monthly.
I find the new dailies are usually faster to complete, but feel less natural. Before I just used to go play around in the world and eventually my daily would be done.
Now, with things like underwater, dodge, healer, crafting…. I already have very specific strategies and places to go to get them done fast. It feels more “gamey”. I’m not sure which I prefer.
> “Before I just used to go play around in the world and eventually my daily would be done.”
I think the change is a very deliberate attempt to entice you to spread your gameplay out over more zones, making them more populated for leveling players.
It’s hard to find one zone where you can easily do all the assigned dailies, but as you point out it’s pretty trivial if you’re willing to travel a bit.
I agree that it does take you a bit out of the world, since the most efficient path doesn’t have you following the storyline or events or even just wandering around and playing the game as you find it, but has you jumping between waypoints to check off achievements.
But it’s not *too* distracting, so I knock them out quickly at the very end of regular gameplay session.
I’m doing them on two accounts and I find them all easy and enjoyable. Some tips on some of the slightly (and is only slightly) “harder” ones:
Dodge – wurms. They spit boulders with predictable, reliable, metronomic regularity and a massive wind-up you can’t possibly miss. The boulder travels so slowly it seems physics hasn’t been invented yet. Easy and fun and you’re almost bound to have someone parked in Frostgorge for the Orichalcum anyway, right?
Kill variety – When this was 15 types I am almost certain you could do it not just in Plains of Ashford but in the small 1-5 starting area alone. Now it’s 13 you definitely can. I might do a post with pictures to prove it one of these days.
Events – stay in that starting area. Events pop constantly. The devourer egg one is 2 events, so is the scrapyard, the rampaging skale is 20 yards away, then there’s the skritt cave, the armory, the bar brawl, the tar elementals… you can get 5 events in 5 minutes most days. Don’t forget you don’t need to complete them – just tag a few mobs and move to the next. So long as you stay in zone you get credit and third place is fine.
Healer – charr soldiers have paper armor and fall down in a light breeze. Any camp anywhere guarded by charr will have sick kitties strewn around like autumn leaves.
Underwater – I like to do mine in the epnymous Lake at Bluelake (or Greenlake or Redlake, whatever we are this week). A spawn of six 1hp Sockeye Salmon on a 30 second or so spawn and its hilarious to be underwater knocking out the daily with enemy players running past unaware.
Wayfarer’s is still the best place to crank out most dailies for me. Grawl archers are easy to avoid and if you’re really lucky, you can get 2 or 3 to sync and I’ve gotten multiple evades at one time. The only pain is when some well-meaning adventurer comes along and kills the Grawl you were dancing with.
Healer can be a pain, but I’ve found a spot with lots of dead NPCs that few others seem to have discovered so I just go there and get it done.
I’m a completionist so I find myself doing the dailies first as a checklist of things to do and only after I have it done do I then start to “play my way”. Probably the exact opposite of what ArenaNet wants us to do, but I feel that I just HAVE to get the rewards.
I second bhagpuss’ tip for Wurms as an easy mob to dodge from. Another tip for quickly taking care of the Dodge daily is to go to lower level areas, and just attack whatever. Being high level, you’ll most likely evade a lot of normal attacks, which does count towards the dodge daily.
While waiting for a party to get together for a dungeon or Fractals I usually throw myself off the high walkways above the Mysitc Forge in Lion’s Arch so people can get a few points in Daily Healer.
…What has this game done to me…
I think that’s much more admirable and cool than the fact that the rest of us stand around wishing for the deaths of innocent NPCs for our own benefit! I might have to start doing this too, when waiting for people in LA.
Dodger is just the WORST. I have to change my traits so that I don’t spawn clones when I dodge who immediately take aggro. I have to ask other players NOT to jump into combat with me when I’m doing this which is anti-social and the opposite of how most everything else is casual participation friendly.
I’m able to get it done now by going to a certain location that has lots of clustered mobs of the same time. I’d tell ya where but it’s annoying and takes longer when other players are their trying to do the normal objectives. :-(
I’ve also found 2 spots for max level chars where there are bodies to heal but again, if others arrive it takes much longer, so I keep it to myself.
These two objectives seem to encourage self-fish / leave me along behavior not becoming to the rest of the gaming experience. I think both need to GO!
Yesterday my daily dodge came much easier than usual, because when I logged in I thought from the start, right, try to evade stuff. That slotted it into normal play, I wasn’t so worried about how long my endurance took to regen, and it was actually one of the first dailies done instead of the last. I think it’s a matter of adjusting.
Having an alt to level is excellent for dailies. They’ll be in a different zone for kill variety, they can have an unimportant crafting discipline on the side… if normal play doesn’t do it, you can switch to your alt for twenty minutes and knock off the last things much of the time.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work so easily for all classes. Many of the Mesmer spells are designed to cast clones to take aggro. Plus I try to AVOID damage not evade it. So if you’re fast on your feet and avoid damage, you don’t get evades which makes me have to play differently…play slower to achieve the evades which makes it extremely contrived. HATE IT.
BOO for the typos in my previous comment. Was commenting while signing out of work and only half paying attention. *sigh*
One of the issues with the daily Events achievement is that it doesn’t count failed events, even though you get all of the other rewards for trying. After failing a 15-minute group event against an Orrian priest it just feels more prudent to step 50 feet outside the Grove and AoE some mosquitoes and spiders. Events were not created equal.
And is it too much to ask to treat Destroyers, Icebrood, Risen and Branded as a creature type modifier rather than a creature type on it’s own? You can kill dozens of different undead animals in Orr and have just three types checked off.
Personally, when I need event credit and get tired of failing at the temple events in Orr I just go do the Penitent Path/Shelter’s Gate defend events because I know people will be farming them. Which is exactly the problem they’re trying to solve with the new dailies- the best place to go is where everyone else is.
For the daily dodge, one really simple and quick way for Hunter to solve it, is to use the longsword and use the first attack. In the chain, their will be an “auto-evade” skill that will just pump this daily in the matter of minutes of normal playing.
For those at max level, Frostgorge Sound is my location of choice for Underwater & Healing dailies. There are two events that have near 100% uptime right next to one another, “Help the Moshpoipoi village guards defend against icebrood” and “Help the kodan castaways reach Slough of Despond.” Both involve underwater fighting and healing NPCs. Oh, and plenty of Veteran Arctic Jellyfish to reach your quota, should the Claw of Jormag not pop during your stay.
OMG don’t tell them that!! That’s where I do those. *grumble* :-)
After playing as Ele since day one… I learned hard way to evade every time it is possible. So the dodger achievement comes usually on 5-6 mob encounter. Maybe it’s easier to me, now when I’m leveling my thief (gush – still wanned to write “assassin” – old habits die hard. Almost like old hobbits) – another good profession for evading :)
For dodging, I’ve found thief to be best. They have a heal that evades, and the dual dagger attack has one too.