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Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Jumping puzzles in GW2 - a discussion & guide



Hey everyone, I recently completed all 37 jumping puzzles (those with achievements) and I thought I would share my experiences of them with the Reddit community as well as providing guides for each individual puzzles for those who are stuck.
What are Jumping Puzzles?
Think of them as elaborate hidden vistas - some of them are even part of certain vistas! You can find them in almost every leveling zone (there are some exceptions) and Lion's Arch. Certain zones like Caledon Forest, Diessa Plateau, Lion's Arch have more than one jumping puzzle.
There are two types of jumping puzzles: Regular jumping puzzles that provides achievements and mini jumping puzzles that do not provide any achievements (only a couple of those exist).
Completing each of those regular puzzles will reward you with an achievement, totaling 38 achievements over 37 puzzles (there is one puzzle with two achievements) under the Explorer section of your achievement menu.
Jumping puzzle difficulty
Jumping puzzles vary in difficulty and length. Some are super simple and short while others are long and feature difficult jumps. If you are just starting with jumping puzzles, it is highly recommended that you start with the easier ones rather than banging your head on the more difficult ones right away! (Save those for later). As you do more jumping puzzles, you will get better and better. Soon enough, you will be able to gauge what distances your character can and cannot jump, how to make really long jumps, and improve your finger dexterity.
If you are really bad at those jumping puzzles, don't worry! I was absolutely terrible with them myself in the beginning and would fail every other jump. With enough practice and time, I was able to complete all 37 puzzles! I have compiled a list of the jumping puzzles sorted by difficulty at the bottom of this post. Keep in mind that difficulty is arbitrary, some people will have some puzzles easier than others so your experience may not agree with my.
Jumping Puzzle list & guides
All of the regular jumping puzzles are listed below. To not take the fun out of the discovering the puzzle by yourself, I included in the beginning of every guide a map location of the puzzle and a brief description of how to start the puzzle. This should be enough to get you started in most cases if you hate spoilers.
If you like a more guided approach, all of them have videos and most of them (there are a few where I got lazy) have written walkthroughs along w/ pictures if you don't like watching videos. None of my videos have commentary or music as I personally found that a bit annoying. If you like videos w/ commentary, I have listed some below and feel free to include yours.
Here is a link with a list of them if you like something to bookmark etc.
Lion's Arch/WvW
Ascalon
  • Loreclaw Expanse - Plains of Ashford - SE corner, Loreclaw Expanse (easy to medium - some traps)
  • Crimson Plateau - Diessa Plateau - South, north of Breached Wall (easy)
  • Grendich Gamble - Diessa Plateau - Middle, Blasted Moors - Easy
  • Wall Breach Blitz - Diessa Plateau - South, part of Breached Wall Vista -Easy
  • Behem Gauntlet - Blazeridge Steppes - East end, Behem Gauntlet- Very Easy
  • Branded Mine - Fields of Ruin- NW corner, south of Varim’s Run- Medium
  • Craze's Folly - Blazeridge Steppes- NE corner, Terra Carorunda (easy to medium)
  • Chaos Crystal Cavern - Iron Marches - SW corner, Old Piken Ruins Waypoint (easy to medium)
  • Pig Iron Quarry - Fireheart Rise - SE portion, Pig Iron Mine - Easy to Medium
Kryta
Maguuma Jungle
  • Morgan's Leap - Caledon Forest - SE corner, Morgan’s Spiral- Easy to Medium
  • Dark Reverie - Caeldon Forest SE corner, Morgan’s Spiral - Medium to hard (bring a friend)
  • Spekk's Lab - Caeldon Forest - West end, Sandycove Beach -Medium (timed jumps)
  • Spelunker's Delve - Caeldon Forest - SE corner, Sleive’s Inlet- Easy
  • Goemm's Lab - Metrica Province- East end, south of Cuatl Waypoint- Medium to Hard
  • Conundrum Cubed - Mount Maelstrom - NW corner, Govoran’s Waypoint - Easy to medium
Shiverpeak Mountains
Ruins of Orr
  • Vizier's Tower-Straits of Devastation -South end, part of Vista- Easy
  • Antre of Adjournment - Malchor’s Leap - South end, east of Valley of Lyss - Easy to Medium
  • Scavenger's Chasm - Malchor’s Leap - South end, east of Valley of Lyss- Hard (lengthy)
  • Buried Archives - Cursed Shore SW corner, extension of Vista - Easy, chest hard to get
Is this on the wiki?
Yup, here is the wiki page for it. The wiki page also have mini jumping puzzles that I didn't cover.
Channels with good puzzle commentary
Here are a couple channels with good puzzle commentary and no annoying background music:

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