Guild Wars 2

I am new to the game, and since Group PvE is always my focus in MMOs, I’d like to start with a Profession that fits my group playstyle.

In MMO PvE, I like to:

• Be at range, with an overview of the battlefield
• Be in a Support-oriented role, healing / buffing / protecting / otherwise focused on keeping everyone else bolstered and strong (I play Monk in GW1, for example)

And I do not like:

• Being in the chaos of Melee range
• Being in a DPS / damage-focused role

Annnnd from everything I’ve read about GW2 PvE, it is almost entirely about:

• Fighting in Melee
• Doing max DPS

XD

That’s OK, though — I honestly don’t mind adapting to this game’s style. But I would also like to play something that matches my play personality as much as possible, without being dead-weight to groups.

What would be the best compromise for me to start with?

With a ranged support setup you will always be a deadweight. That being said, a Scepter/Staff Guardian would probably fit your playstyle or a Staff Elementalist camping Water and Earth.

A ranger would be an obvious choice in terms of ranged combat but the group support options are limited.

Inb4 kicks

Yeah Staff Elementalist might be your best bet. You can get some might stacks with fire fields, but need others to help blast them. But Staff ele is great in a support roll, with AOE heals and what not.

Be prepared for advice that will not cater to your list of likes and dislikes. With that in mind, we should probably focus on this part of your post

“What would be the best compromise for me to start with?”

We will assume you will chose to adapt to this game’s design while not being “dead-weight” to your party. Sorry to say you will not be able to support your team being far back while ranging bosses. But you can still maintain a decent dps in certian builds if you absolutely must be at range.

So you must chose 1: range, or group support.

If you must range, you have 2 options:
1. grenade engi. In the meta buidl, You can step back a little to provide vulnerability debuff and step in to do a might rotation to buff your party when you feel safe.
2. Staff Ele. Pretty much the same as above, without the vuln. Just camp fire, auto attack and cycle through the fire skills. This has better dps, if a little more boring to use.

If you would rather support and are ok with coming in for melee. Your best option is the Meta Guardian. You will still build for as much dps as you can, but you save a few things to help you “support.” This game uses active defense, so support means: timed aegis(block) right before a boss does a big hit, reflection skills on encounters with lots of reflection, etc.

Also, no such thing as support in terms if “Healing” in this game, so you might as well drop that idea now. Anyone who says otherwise didn’t read your post clearly enough, as you stated that you didn’t want to hinder your team.

For a list of meta builds and how to use them, head over to these forums: http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewforum/4280860
A great collection of information in both text and video form.

For help and hints about specific dungeon encounters: http://gw2dungeons.net/
Best guide out there for all dungeons and paths.

Looking for people to run dungeons with you, while keeping in mind of your noobness and willingness to learn encounters? Just look up in this forum: http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/dungeons/Dungeon-Mentors-Noob
The best way to find other like minded players if the thought of getting randoms in the LFG tool scares you.

GL, and hope you enjoy doing dungeons as much as we did when we started this game.

Thanks guys. ^^

I do understand you can’t play the traditional Ranged Healer type in GW2. Or, well, you can, but it’s apparently really pointless and probably causing more deaths than it prevents. :p

@Tom Yzf’s reply is more what I meant, I was curious what the best “real” playstyle would be for someone who’s used to doing the Support / Ranged role in other games.

Being an actual, useful Support is much higher priority for me than camping at range, if I have to pick.

So if I’m understanding Tom Yzf’s post correctly, you’re saying that Grenade Engi & Staff Ele are best classified as “Not Entirely Useless Ranged”, as opposed to actually being “Ranged Support”? (I know we’re being a little blunt / crass here but that’s ok, I want to learn)

Whereas Guardian is more like “Accepted Useful Playstyle with the most emphasis on Group Support out of all the usable options”. (if so that sounds about right ^^ )

When I asked someone else who plays the game (but not really with a Group emphasis), they mentioned that Thiefs running OH Pistol / Shortbow were also useful support because of their debuffs. Is that overexaggerating? :p

It really depends on how you are planning on playing these classes. Staff Ele is among the highest personal DPS in the game right now. You said you hated playing DPS classes though.
It’s really great that you already did so much research, so I’m probably not going to say anything new but: If your DPS is low you can give all the support in the world, you will still be a deadweight. There is just no way around that. You can’t outheal the hard hitting attacks. For that, blocks or in the case of projectiles, reflects are a lot better. So all you are going to do, is provide support (condition cleanses, minor healing) that a full DPS spec will still provide to a certain degree.

I would say a Staff Elementalist is your best option. You can switch to Fire attunement and stay in it quite a lot for decent DPS and then switch to Earth, Air or Water to spam whatever supporty skill you fathom. It’s the only build that combines both options (support, dps). As a Staff Guardian you are pretty much a running joke (literally, it’s a joke among the better players) and Scepter is outlandishly bad against small targets.

TL;DR: Staff Ele

One thing I would like to add: If you ever want to join speedruns, by which I mean the casual PUG speedruns, you will have to get out of your comfort zone. No one will take you if you don’t bring meta gear/builds/skills. This is just a heads up, since it’s the way it is. Not meant in a negative way.

Lovestar.2705:

Thanks guys. ^^

I do understand you can’t play the traditional Ranged Healer type in GW2. Or, well, you can, but it’s apparently really pointless and probably causing more deaths than it prevents. :p

@Tom Yzf’s reply is more what I meant, I was curious what the best “real” playstyle would be for someone who’s used to doing the Support / Ranged role in other games.

Being an actual, useful Support is much higher priority for me than camping at range, if I have to pick.

So if I’m understanding Tom Yzf’s post correctly, you’re saying that Grenade Engi & Staff Ele are best classified as “Not Entirely Useless Ranged”, as opposed to actually being “Ranged Support”? (I know we’re being a little blunt / crass here but that’s ok, I want to learn)

Whereas Guardian is more like “Accepted Useful Playstyle with the most emphasis on Group Support out of all the usable options”. (if so that sounds about right ^^ )

When I asked someone else who plays the game (but not really with a Group emphasis), they mentioned that Thiefs running OH Pistol / Shortbow were also useful support because of their debuffs. Is that overexaggerating? :p

All of us in the dungeon community are always happy to help.

As for interpreting what I said, you got it about right.

Regarding thief, in a way they are not over-exaggerating. When you’re in a dungeon, a thief is very useful when it it comes to trash mobs (non-boss encounters). They have the best access to stealth; short bow has a blast (wiki combo-fields) without any cooldowns and they have access to many smoke fields. Along with skills that can stealth players directly, a thief is the best to have around when you need to skips mobs easily, which will happen frequently in dungeons.

OH pistol 5, while more useful as a smoke field for blast finishers, also applies pulsing AoE blind. When you melee and spam OH pistol 5 over mobs that are grouped up, it pretty much negates all of their attacks (only 10% proc on bosses though). So for trash mobs it can be a great help to negate damage to your party. However, in recent patches this skill has been nerf’ed heavily to pulse and reapply the blinds less frequently, so if a mob has fast attacks it will not be as effective. Keep this in mind when you see people mention how pistol5 is OP in pve. You still have your ulitily Smoke Screen, functions in the same way with more frequent pulses

With all this said however, when it comes to boss battles, a thief really isn’t the best option for support. Blinds can’t be depended on, nor can cc(thief has a lot of this) in a non-organized group, so all you’re left with is damage.

In contrast, Guardian is by far the easiest class (if you had to pick 1) to carry a group through the dungeon, especially when played correctly. When I pug with while using my Guardian most players in the party can play passively and the dungeon will almost always go smoothly. They may not know what is actually going on, because the only person doing something active-defense is me, while all they see(if they even realize it) is they are taking zero damage from projectiles from my reflection skills, or they didn’t get cc’ed because I provided stability, or they took no damage because I applied aegis and it proc a block, or blinds at the right time, among other things.

So in terms of the traditional support role, I feel guardian is the best to transition to.

When considering the other side of support, buffs to party members that increase damage, a good option to consider is your Meta non-staff Ele. You need to be in melee but from your traits and skills you can provide fire fields (again look up combo-fields) and have many blasts to provide the two of the best buffs in the game that will make your party increase dps: Fury(permanently) and Might (maintain 18 stacks out of the 25 max).

While many players know that might stacks is good, many pugs don’t ever get to really feel or experience how powerful a party fully capped 25 might stacks can be. This is how rare it is to find a player who can stack might efficiently in pugs. So you can go this route too if you see it enticing. It is very much night and day the difference in a group damage output.

@Tom Yzf, TY for those links to DNT and the Thief explanation. It gave me a lot better context for what’s actually being played vs. all the really wrong stuff I’ve been imagining as a newbie while messing around in HOTM.

Veydar.5017:

It really depends on how you are planning on playing these classes. Staff Ele is among the highest personal DPS in the game right now. You said you hated playing DPS classes though.

“Hate” might be a little strong ^^ but I do get bored really fast with just pushing bigger DPS numbers (objectively, I don’t think doing good DPS is easy or boring, it’s just me personally — I’m too defensive / nurturing).

Like, see, it sounds like Engi helps the group a lot by stacking Vuln? But that doesn’t interest me, because it’s on monsters. But Elementalist sounds interesting because they put buffs on allies that make people feel happy and play better.

I know — I’m weird.

Veydar.5017:

One thing I would like to add: If you ever want to join speedruns, by which I mean the casual PUG speedruns, you will have to get out of your comfort zone. No one will take you if you don’t bring meta gear/builds/skills. This is just a heads up, since it’s the way it is. Not meant in a negative way.

That’s okay. This is why I asked in this forum rather than more general areas, I wanted to go into my first character with realistic expectations and not well-meaning but misleading sugarcoating.

Tom Yzf.5872:

In contrast, Guardian is by far the easiest class (if you had to pick 1) to carry a group through the dungeon, especially when played correctly. …

Ah. Ha. That sounds great — that’s me. I like being able to compensate and watch out for other players so everyone gets through alive and happy, even if they don’t quite realize why. ^^

When considering the other side of support, buffs to party members that increase damage, a good option to consider is your Meta non-staff Ele. …

After reading this, I went over the Ele guides by DNT a little more closely and I get what you’re saying — Ele sounds like the Offensive heavy-buffer counterpart to Guardian’s heavy Defensive focus.

Hmm…

I think I’ll play around in HOTM with both Guardian and Ele a little more, armed with all the builds and instructions I’ve learned today. This has been really eye-opening and helped me understand the game from a much better perspective. ^^

If you’re ready for a steep learning curve, Engi fits your criteria quite well.

You’ll be throwing grenades from anywhere, stacking vulnerability to yield higher damage for the group as a whole. Also able to do some might stacking in your damage rotation. Slip in Healing turret to toss some healing out with additional blasts. If the utility is needed/wanted you can drop some kits for Elixers that can provide stability, reflects or condi removal. And, you can stack stealth to let your group easily skip things.

In effect, Engi can do it all. But, again steep learning curve, and of course you’ll get the best results when you go all out on Damage when the utility isn’t really needed.

Support comes from melee (because support is short range, PBAOE…) so you have to be with your group to support it.
If you played monk in gw1 try out guardian, it’s like a melee Prot. Monk with Spell Breaker, Aegis, Smite Conditions and Guardian. An other support class would be mesmer (same as a prot monk).

Ranged support classes have a better place in WvW (Zerg vs. Zerg) than in the open world and instanced PvE. Staff ele and well necros are very good there (WvW).

Otherwise, I agree with everyone’s comments here. Guardian is a good start. Its nature is very close to Prot. Monk. Mesmer is at middle ground with both reflect and stealth; it also has some niche use. Thief and Engi are nice as supporters once you master the classes.

Go for thief, or thief. Maybe thief!

Sorry i think im still hangovered.. Seriously, this ^

I used to be a die-hard healer (and part-time tank) player in other MMOs, and came to this game with similar “personal restrictions” like you have stated. I never enjoyed playing dps, especially not melee (ok, I did play my hobbit warden tank in LotRO as melee dps sometimes, but at that time the class was so awfully overpowered that you could solo-clean 6-man endgame instances without thinking twice, so that doesn’t really count ).

GW2 has taught me to enjoy melee damage-oriented playstyles, but mostly because this game expects more from you than just to go through your damage rotation again and again to put out the highest dps while others take care of the rest of the fight. Every class is expected to provide support and look after their own defence as thoroughly as possible.

After getting 7 classes to 80 (all but necromancer), most of them even more than once, I find that mesmer, guardian and elementalist are the classes I enjoy to play most, because they all have an interesting toolbox of skills and utilities to support the group as well as themselves. In (near-)meta dungeon gaming, the elementalist doesn’t use the whole range of support combinations though, but outside of that, it’s definitely the class that allows for the most fun with combining builds and utilities.
thinks back fondly to a casual evening with guildies in WvW and what fun can be had with combo fields and blast finishers generated by fall damage traits

As an ele, I got scolded or frowned upon by not stacking at least 12 stacks of might (by Sandy), stacking swiftness, stealth (by Lua/Tobi), not bringing Sandstorm (by Kevin), fire field (by Saint), or lightning hammer (by Jerem), FGS (by Dub), and condi cleanse (by Leo-war). Sometimes, swirling wind is also quietly expected. That is just to say how much support an ele can bring and always need on a constant basis.

Thanks for the continued feedback everyone! I’m still reading & listening.

Just been super-busy lately, but I’m slowly squeezing in 1-2 hours each night to try out different Profs with the PvP 80 boost in HOTM. I know that’s a far cry from a real group experience, but it helps provide context to what you’re all saying. ^^

I just want to thank everyone again for the links to DNT, class guides on here, Metabattle, etc. It’s incredibly helpful to go from this deer-in-headlights feeling staring at about 100 skills that all look good, to “Oh, okay, take this this & this — so that’s the actual playstyle”.

Like, I have stopped imagining myself supporting dungeons as a Staff Guardian with Tome of Courage and now understand it’s Hammer Time™ with a touch of Greatsword. Progress!

I’ve got an impression that you like to be the guy who handles most of the mechanics and carry the heaviest burden. Like healers in most of trinity MMO’s.
GW2 offers you dungeons where virtually every class must handle with mechanics and be a support in a certain sense.
Guardian handles the active defense, as well as mesmer (mesmers have other tricks too). Thief excels at invis (party-wide, which is exciting imo) and blinds (an active defense as well). Ele gameplay is very support-heavy, you will be the one handling the most of offensive support. Warriors and rangers possess unique buffs. Engineers are great with their debuffs and when played properly are pretty hard and interesting.

All in all, here goes the philosophy behind GW2 PvE: max DPS as long as all needed support is covered.
And I’ll repeat: everyone handles the mechanics in GW2. Everyone.