The most insane and overpowered build I’ve used yet on my Elementalist. Hurry before the Guild Wars 2 devs discover and nerf this!
Enjoy dominating the noobs!
Sixpack Guide for Gamers Part 1 – Introduction
This post will give you a quick introduction and orientation to the Sixpack Guide for Gamers. The intent of this post is to give you a broad overview of what it takes to achieve a lean sculpted body and will try to dispell a few myths as I go. And the best part, I’m not going to throw a bunch of BS at you to try to sell some e-book. This series is 100% free and the information is sound to the best of my knowledge, it’s all information I’ve pulled from my 10 years of research and experience.
Structure of the Guide
The guide will be built piece by piece and I’ll take you through a linear process of exposing you to the best nutrition and workout strategies to achieving sub 10% bodyfat while maintaining or even gaining some muscle mass. The end goal is to have a step-by-step resource for gamers who want to really take their fitness to the next level and achieve their dream physiques.
Abs are built in the kitchen, not in the gym
The biggest misconception beginners have is that they need some “secret” ab exercise, or they need to do a thousand situps every night in order to get defined abs. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Having visible abs is a combination of having developed abdominal muscles and then not having a bunch of excess fat that covers up those muscles. Your abdominal muscles actually have a very low threshold for growth, so you’ll never grow your abs to the point that they can be seen under 20% bodyfat(and that would make you look really weird as well, like those bodybuilders with distended guts from taking too much growth hormone).
The lower your bodyfat, the more abs you’ll see. At around 16% bodyfat(these numbers are for males, add about 4-6% for females) you should start to see your top abs appearing. At around 10% bodyfat you’ll have a visible six pack. At around 6% bodyfat you’ll have abs that make people say “wow”, and sub 6% is where you get into the territory of that elusive unicorn otherwise known as the eight pack.
The most effective and really only way to ever drop below 14-16% bodyfat is through a well-thought out and well-planned nutrition plan. Notice I don’t say diet. I hate the word diet. Diet implies that you’re going to do this temporarily and then go back to eating shit. I will not give you diets in this guide. I will give you strategies and tips to eat delicious meals that are healthy and help you reach your body composition goals, all without feeling like you’re starving or depriving yourself, because when it comes down to it the most effective diets in the world are useless if you can’t follow them for more than a week at a time.
You don’t need to do endless hours of cardio to get a sixpack
Plenty of people out there have gotten sub 6% bodyfat without ever doing a minute of cardio. If you are disciplined about what you put into your body and maintain a caloric restriction then cardio becomes completely unnecessary.
With that being said I like to incorporate cardio to the end of my sessions just because there’s a lot of general health and mood benefits to cardio, but don’t let the fear of having to spend hours on the treadmill keep you from pursuing your dream of a sixpack. Generally 15-20 minutes of cardio three times a week is more than sufficient to help boost your fat loss.
Subscribe to the newsletter(the form over to the right) to receive updates when the next segments of this guide are completed. Next up, Sixpack Guide for Gamers Part 2 – Macro-nutrients and why they’re so important.
What should I do with my life?
I would wager that the question of what a person should do with their life causes more stress and mental anguish than about any other question for our generation. This struggle can be seen empirically in the fact that 80% of incoming freshmen to college haven’t decided on a major and on average it now takes students five years to complete their bachelors and in the process they change their major three times.(source) Additionally, according to the BLS, we will change our jobs between 11 and 15 times between the ages of 18 and 44.(source)
Easy answer, do nothing!
The pressure of finding the right major, the perfect career, the ideal job… It’s a lot of stress! And I think this stress ironically leads to a tremendous amount of procrastination and time-wasting. After all if we don’t make a decision then we can’t be wrong! Right?
Shift your focus
I’m going to get a little out there for a second, so bare with me. You don’t have to believe any of the stuff I write about in the next few paragraphs, but the underlying message still applies.
I’ve been struggling myself on what I should be doing. Do I want to dedicate all of my time with the Healthy Gamer? Should I get a real job instead and do this as a hobby? Or maybe I’d rather go Active Duty and pursue SF?
This Coast to Coast AM show gave me incredible perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKN5agBV39U
Journalist and filmmaker Rich Martini discussed his incredible journey finding evidence for the afterlife, life between lives, and “soul groups.” He extensively interviewed Dr. Michael Newton, known for his pioneering work on life between lives. Newton put some 7,000 people under deep hypnosis over a 30-year period, and found a number of commonalities amongst his clients regarding reincarnation and the afterlife.
So I started reading Dr. Michael Newton’s book “Journey of Souls” http://www.thehealthygamer.com/journeyofsouls
In this book Dr. Newton describes case after case of the journey a soul takes after dying. Going through the layers of the astral plane, being greeted by spirit guides and loved ones, recounting the lessons learned from this life. It’s fascinating.
The takeaway is that each person is here with a specific set of lessons to learn. We didn’t come here with the intention of becoming CEOs, rockstars, or millionaires. We came here with a set of lessons that we wanted to learn in order to facilitate our soul’s growth. The things we do are simply actions that facilitated this learning. Because when you’re dead the only thing you can bring with you are the experiences and lessons, not the mansions or yachts.
Lessons, not accomplishments
During my meditations I asked the question “should I join Special Forces?” The answer that came back was “it doesn’t matter, you’ll learn and grow regardless.”
If we focus on the lessons we’re supposed to learn from life then it takes a lot of pressure from the decision of “what to do.” Because now it really doesn’t matter. You can’t make a “bad choice” as long as you’re consistently striving to learn and grow!
Some examples of my own lessons I need to learn this time around: balance, discipline, responsibility, independence. I could learn and improve on these in any number of life paths.
Finding your Life Lessons
It’s actually quite simple to figure out the lessons you’re supposed to learn in this life. Find a quiet place with a pad and pen and focus on your breathing for a few minutes. When your mind has settled and you’re feeling clear start reviewing your life. What are the recurring themes and patterns? I’ve struggled all my life with self-discipline. If there’s no one telling me I have to get up and do something, then, generally I’m going to sleep until noon(or later!). This tells me that one of my lessons I’m supposed to learn is discipline, and this likely explains why I’ve been pushed into this entrepreneurship role where I have no one to account to but myself and thus get the chance to develop self-discipline. So if you examine your life you’ll likely find that it consistently pushes you in certain directions and throws the same types of events at you. Examine these to figure out your life’s lessons.
Take some time, write out ideas, and then see how you feel intuitively about your list. I’ve found that the intuition is much better suited for answering questions about life lessons as opposed to experiences. Your inner self doesn’t care and doesn’t have a point of reference for doctors, lawyers, CEOs. So when you ask yourself if you should be a lawyer or a doctor, you generally get nothing. But, if you ask yourself whether you’re here to learn how to help people and learn to be more compassionate, you’re going to get a very strong and clear answer, because you’re speaking the language of the soul.
Action leads to satisfaction
I think anyone whose been through college will agree that you never truly learn something until you get to practice it. This must be one of life’s laws. Figure out your life’s lessons and then start taking action. Anxiety, stress, and discontent can only exist where there is no positive progress.
Guild Wars 2 Elementalist Scepter Dagger Leveling Build
The Elementalist, in my opinion, is one of the more challenging and complicated classes to play in Guild Wars 2. This guide is written with a beginner Elementalist in mind. The goals of the build are to give you great burst DPS against single and group targets and sustained surviveability.
Scepter/Dagger Combination:
After trying out all the different variations I found scepter/dagger to be the best compromise between range, damage, and surviveability. While dagger/dagger offers some amazing DPS it really lacks in key defensive abilities and range, and while the staff has great range it is an inefficient weapon to solo with because mobs will constantly run outside the range of your ground-targeted spells.
Scepter/dagger gives you range, good AOE burst capability, and enough defensive skills to save your bacon from the fire when things go wrong.
Full list of Elementalist skills here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_skills
Utility Skills:
Arcane Power: Your next 5 attacks will automatically crit. Used in conjunction with the skills in fire attunement this lets you put out massive burst AOE dps.
Signet of Earth: Grants you toughness and when activated immobilizes foes, can be used to set up fire attunement combos(optionally swap out for Armor of Earth)
Glyph of Lesser Elementals: Summoned elementals can be great support when facing multiple mobs. They do a great job of grabbing aggro and dishing out DPS.
Elite: Glyph of Elementals: Again great support when facing multiple or elite mobs.
Traits:
First 10 points: Put into the Fire tree and take “Internal Fire” giving you 10% more damage while in fire attunement.
Next 10 points: Put into the Air tree and take “One with Air” moving 35% faster while in air attunement will save you a ton of time in your questing.
Next 10 points: Put into the Earth tree and take “Earth’s Embrace” giving you Armor of Earth when your health reaches 50%, this can be a lifesaver and saves a utility slot.
Next 10 points: Put into the Arcane tree – Take Final Shielding – Gaining an Arcane shield when you reach 25% and being able to absorb 3 hits can really be a lifesaver.
From here you should have a good idea of how the class plays and then you can tailor the traits more for your specific item builds. I went heavy into Earth because I found toughness and condition damage to be very useful, but maybe you’ll enjoy building out for power or precision better.
List of elementalist traits: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_traits
Your Skill Rotation:
Against single targets I like to start out in air attunement. Use your #2 lightning strike to start the fight off and strafe-kite to gain some distance on the mob while your #1 arc lightning skill fires off on the mob. When your #2 lightning strike recharges cast it again, then cast #3 blind and then #4 ride the lightning and #5 updraft when the mob is within melee range of you. The #5 updraft will knock the mob down. At this point you’ll want to switch to fire attunement and immediately fire off your #2 dragon’s tooth skill as you run to the mob. Activate arcane power now so that all of your fire skills will crit. When you’re within melee range of the mob use your #4 ring of fire skill to drop a fire field and then your #3 phoenix followed by your #5 fire grab.
The #4 ring of fire skill acts as a combo area, which means that when you activate other specific skills within this ring of fire you can gain “combo bonuses.” #3 phoenix will grant you three stacks of might when it lands inside this fire field(might is a “boon” or buff that increases your damage output).
Against multiple targets I’ll still start in air attunement. You’ll want to be in air attunement when moving around(for the speed buff) so you’ll find that you start off most fights in air. If you see that your engagement will involve multiple targets fire off your #2 lightning strike and #3 blind and then switch to Earth attunement and immediately cast #5 Churning Earth. If you time it correctly the skill should finish casting as the mobs reach you. From here activate #2 for extra armor and use #3 again to blind the enemy. Then use your #4 skill to knock the enemies down and switch to fire attunement. From here you’ll cast #2 dragon’s tooth and activate arcane power immediately followed by #4 ring of fire, #3 phoenix, and #5 fire grab.
Guild Wars 2 Cooking Guide 1-400
Why you NEED to level up cooking to 400:
- It’s incredibly easy to do and CHEAP
- Maxing cooking will give you INSANE experience(I went from level 66 to 72.5 raising my cooking from 300 to 400)
- Food gives you AMAZING buffs(how does 28% magic find, 30% more gold, and 10% more experience sound?)
This guide is pulled from this thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/z2fio/spoilers_cooking_guide_1400/
UPDATED: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/56511-chef-cooking-0-400-guide/
Another amazing resource for recipes, gives you exactly what goes into each recipe in the game: http://www.gw2db.com/recipes/cook
I’ve included pictures of exactly where to find the karma vendors that sell the bulk produce and exactly where to harvest the drops you need.
Going from 1 to 400 cooking in Guild Wars 2
Leveling cooking is actually very simple because you’ll mostly use bulk foods bought from karma vendors and then ingredients bought from the cooking vendor.
I recommend buying 10 bulk packages(so 250 total) of each karma item listed here(for example, chili peppers and lemons).
The bulk produce is cheap and it will save you time later from having to go back to vendors to purchase more ingredients.
(0) Ball of Dough
Bag of Flour (80 copper per 10) – Chef crafting vendor
Stick of Butter (21 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor
Jug of Water (80 copper per 10) – Chef crafting vendor
All of these mats can be purchased straight from the chef vendor.
(25) Bottle of Simple Dressing
Jar of Vegetable Oil – Chef crafting vendor
Jar of Vinegar – Chef crafting vendor
Pile of Salt and Pepper – Created from combining salt with black peppercorns
First make some piles of salt and pepper by combining black peppercorns with salt, then make the bottle of simple dressing.
(50) Chili Pepper Popper
Cheese Wedge (21 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor
Chili Pepper (21 karma per 25) – (Renown) Milton Book, Cornucopian Fields, Gendarran Fields
Here’s a picture of where Milton Book can be found, the Gendarran Fields are directly north of Lion’s Arch and are a level 25-35 zone. Remember to buy 10 bulk packages if you can afford to spend the karma. Purchase vanilla beans as well, they will be necessary in quite a few of the later recipes.
(75) Bowl of White Frosting
Stick of Butter (21 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor
Bag of Sugar (80 copper per 10) – Chef crafting vendor
Jug of Water (80 copper per 10) – Chef crafting vendor
Vanilla Bean (21 karma per 25) – (Renown) Milton Book, Cornucopian Fields, Gendarran Fields
(100) Pile of Paprika
Bell Pepper (21 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor
Chili Pepper (21 karma per 25) – (Renown) Milton Book, Cornucopian Fields, Gendarran Fields
(125) Bowl of Chocolate Frosting
Bowl of White Frosting – Premade
Chocolate Bar (21 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor
This step is easy, everything comes straight from what you’ve already crafted or the chef vendor. Save the chocolate frosting as it will be used for later recipes.
(150) Chocolate Cherry
Chocolate Bar (21 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor
Cherry (35 karma per 25) – (Renown) Lieutenant Summers, Nightguard Beach, Harathi Hinterlands
Here’s a picture where Lieutenant Summers is, the Harathi Highlands are a level 35-45 zone north of the Gendarran Fields(the fields are directly north of Lion’s Arch). Be sure to buy 250 cherries.
(175) Cherry Tart
Stick of Butter (21 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor
Bag of Sugar (80 copper per 10) – Chef crafting vendor
Ball of Dough (premade) – Chef crafting vendor
Cherry (35 karma per 25) – (Renown) Lieutenant Summers, Nightguard Beach, Harathi Hinterlands
(200) Bowl of Chocolate Cherry Frosting
Bowl of Chocolate Frosting – Premade
Cherry (35 karma per 25) – (Renown) Lieutenant Summers, Nightguard Beach, Harathi Hinterlands
Use the chocolate frosting you made earlier along with cherries for this part.
(225) Chocolate Orange
Chocolate Bar (21 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor
Orange (35 karma per 25) – (Renown) Cesselia, Bloodtide Coast (southeast)
Oranges are found at the very southeastern tip of the Bloodtide Coast(level 45-55 zone). The bloodtide coast can be found by going directly south of Lion’s Arch. Cesselia can be found due east of the Whisperwill Waypoint in a little oasis there. Again purchase 250 as they will be used in later recipes.
(250) Orange Cake
Stick of butter – Cooking Vendor
Egg – Cooking Vendor
Bowl of Baker’s Dry Ingredients – Created
Orange (35 karma per 25) – (Renown) Cesselia, Bloodtide Coast (southeast)
You’ll have to make the bowl of baker’s dry ingredients by using karma and purchased materials from the cooking vendor. Alternatively you can make Ginger Pear Tarts but that means you’ll have to make another trip out to find the pears on a vendor. The pear vendor can be found in Champion’s Shield in the Iron Marches.
(275) Bowl of Orange Coconut Frosting
Bags of Sugar (80 copper per 10) – Chef crafting vendor
Bowl of Sour Cream (21 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor
Coconut (35 karma per 25) – (Renown) Lionscout Tunnira, Archen Foreland, Bloodtide Coast
Orange (35 karma per 25) – (Renown) Cesselia, Bloodtide Coast (southeast)
Coconuts can be found from Lionscout Tunnira. Her heart quest is right at the beginning of the Bloodtide Coast zone as you come in from Lion’s Arch.
(275) Orange Cake
Stick of Butter (21 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor
Egg (21 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor
Orange (35 karma per 25) – (Renown) Cesselia, Bloodtide Coast (southeast)
Bowl of Baker’s Dry Ingredients (320 copper per 10) – Chef crafting vendor ingredients x4
(275) Orange Coconut Cake
Orange Cake – Premade
Orange Coconut Frosting – Premade
Some different options. If you want the most experience discover and craft all three.
(300) Peach Cookie
Ball of Cookie Dough – Premade
Peach (35 karma per 25) – (Renown) Noc Chief, Fireheart Rise (west)
The peach vendor is found in the very west of Fireheart Rise. You reach Fireheart Rise through the west of the Iron Marches. And you reach the Iron Marches by going North West through the Blazeridge Steppes. While you’re here you should spend time exploring and gathering raspberries. Raspberries can be found to the north of the Noc Chief. You’ll need about 20 raspberries to progress through to 350 cooking.
(325) Raspberry Peach Compote
Bag of Sugar (80 copper per 10) – Chef crafting vendor
Raspberry – Gathering nodes in Fireheart Rise
Peach (35 karma per 25) – (Renown) Noc Chief, Fireheart Rise (west)
(350) Raspberry Peach Bar
Raspberry Peach Compote – Premade
Bowl of Baker’s Wet Ingredients (84 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor ingredients x4
Bowl of Baker’s Dry Ingredients (320 copper per 10) – Chef crafting vendor ingredients x4
Self explanatory here, now you’re starting to make food that give really nice buffs 🙂
(350) Peach Tart
Stick of Butter (21 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor
Bag of Sugar (80 copper per 10) – Chef crafting vendor
Ball of Dough – Premade
Peach (35 karma per 25) – (Renown) Noc Chief, Fireheart Rise (west)
(375) Bowl of Peach Pie Filling
Bag of Flour (80 copper per 10) – Chef crafting vendor
Stick of Butter (21 karma per 25) – Chef crafting vendor
Bag of Sugar (80 copper per 10) – Chef crafting vendor
Peach (35 karma per 25) – (Renown) Noc Chief, Fireheart Rise (west)
(375) Peach Pie
Ball of Dough – Premade
Bowl of Peach Pie Filling – Premade
CONGRATULATIONS! You are now a master chef 🙂
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