Guild Wars 2

Hello tyrants and hooligans of GuildWars!
Doing DL now, having purchased the the game for $15 (prem or whatever it is)

I have too many MMO’s under my belt to go there but LotRO (8 years) and EVE Online (10 years) are my current addictions. Captain in LotRO, EVE is kind of its own beast in terms of roles.

GW2 wise, I’d like to focus on crafting in the beginning and leveling is not a concern. I still don’t have a level 100 in LotRO, my original character is only 85. If it takes me 2 years to cap, 5 years, I really don’t care, so long as there is stuff to do, crafting wise ideally.

- Question 1: Is there gear decay, a reason to make stuff more than once?

Part two. I’m a turtle player. Very tank minded so heavy armor but of course stuff needs to die to move forward, it’s the nature of games. I’m not a fan of jumping all over the place, I’d rather brick tank, high buffer and stand my ground and club stuff to death in melee combat.

- Question 2: What is the better option for stationary tank, ideally reasonable, dot melee damage but the heavy buffer tank being the important.

TY!

There are no tanks in GW2. There is no trinity. You can get a very broad overview of the game from the online manual (link above).

Welcome to Tyria, and happy adventuring.

Gear does not decay. Once made it will need repairing after you die (you speak to an NPC for that) but other then that, if you are happy with the stats then they never need to be redone.

Crafting, is kind of niche. Most don’t find a way to make gold with it. That will need research and watching the market closely. Usually crafting is something to do after hitting 80. It requires a lot of mats to get to max level, which low level chars don’t have access to the areas where they are or the gold to buy. You can either save up all crafting mats for later while leveling or sell all and buy exactly what you need when you decide to do it.

You might want to try guardian first. Very tanky and tough with the ability to heal yourself and others while attacking.

TY,
TY,
So not an organic gear/ crafting system. Kind of a bummer but not unusual. I’m sure I will try and craft gear as I go and ignore good advice, waste lots of great items on low level gear that will get dated very fast but so be it.

I sort of suspected Guardian would be the first choice in terms of tank. It was really a matter of either Guardian or Warrior. The Engineer was a maybe but I will figure out once in the game what restricts what and what doesn’t. I’m sure there is a buffer build, though it won’t make the cut in top builds it will be what I plow in to for better or worse.

OP, hope you didn’t quit your old game, cause base on your history, you may chew through this game in 3 month or less.

No gear decay and repair is free, but no meat shield tank is this game, only dps and support(not healer) in this game.

ps. there are tank gear, but even the most tanky setup have to learn dodge, tank gear generally only let you take 1~4 more hits than the most squishy build.

I’d say go whit War.
if you like buffing and suporting the party war is easyer and allways needed in a party
he is offensive buffer in most dungeons
and if you like the game and when you know a bit for the game you can go and try Gard
he is defensive buffer for the party and needs to keep the party alive

the good thing is that if u get yourself ascended (end game) gier for the War and u want to try gard you will be able to slap the gier easyly

if you want to play like a traditional MMORPG tank in GW2, you will either be squashed or be totally useless, or quite possibly both.

The closest to the captain class is probably the guardian in this game, heavy armor with abilities to buff the team in a variety of ways. While turteling isn’t exactly viable in this game (the combat system heavily relies on active defences, combat movement and dodges, stationary tanking mostly doesn’t work), a guardian has a ton of tools at hand to mitigate incoming damage (block buffs, debuffing mobs with blindness, and much more), both for themselves and the team around them.

Don’t hesitate to craft while leveling. You’ll be able to pick up a variety of crafting materials along the way and personally I found discovering new crafting levels a lot of fun in this game. You will however level fairly quickly, and at least the first (couple of) character(s) will most likely find better stuff before being able to craft on-level, since harvesting and crafting give a good amount of character experience themselves.

Welcome to Tyria! I have to admit, I sometimes miss my hobbits and the beautiful world of Middle Earth (warden and minstrel were my classes of choice, but I gave up of them when they were butchered in the class overhaul of the Helm’s Deep expansion), but to me Tyria has replaced a good many things I would’ve missed about Middle Earth if I had moved on to other games . It’s a beautiful world in its own right.

Ioci.3407:

stationary tank

Sorry Wrong game.

If you played Eve then play with a somewhat Eve mentality. Find what you want to do and do it, there is no real defined path since anything can give rewards. If you like a certain zone, then you can stick around it do the events(repeated world events), world bosses etc. Set personal goals since there really isn’t any actual endgame.

Though the PVP and being paranoid of others you can drop from your Eve mentality(outside of direct trades). PVP is gated to either WvW or SPvP, and neither have a penalty for dying, or losing.

Crafting, unfortunately, has almost no meaning in this game. It isn’t profitable due to a non consumer based economy and the orgy of loot you get at every turn. Crafting is really only beneficial to gain a few levels and to craft ascended gear and legendaries. The former isn’t needed at all unless you plan on doing Fractal based dungeons, and the latter is more a personal opinion on value. Though it isn’t a bad idea to set them as passive/long term goals.

Guardian is probably the class you are after, though try a few classes starting out to get a feel for them.

If you really want to craft from the start then you can buy GW2 game cards with real money, redeem them in the game to get gems, buy in-game gold with the gems and then use the gold to buy crafting materials on the Black Lion Trading Post. But there are a few things to keep in mind:

The experience gained toward leveling your character is not as great as it used to be so if you use an old crafting guide it may be misleading. You can still level up your character by leveling up your crafting, just not as much as originally. So I don’t think you can level your character to 80 solely by getting his chef level to 400 anymore.

You gain more crafting experience from discovering a new recipe than by making the same thing over and over again.

Do use a crafting guide because there are more efficient ways to level crafting, both time wise and cost.

Here is a link to a thread about crafting from the past that may be of some help.

Also as soon as you can get the gathering tools and a salvaging kit appropriate for the level of the maps you are in. So just starting out copper gathering tools and the cheapest salvaging kit. (Keep in mind that everyone can gather from the same node so no need to rush from fear of someone “steeling” it from you.) When determining what to do with stuff that has dropped you can salvage, sell to a vender in game or sell on the Black Lion Trading Post. I usually sell junk to an in-game vender then decide between salvaging or selling on the TP.

Edit to add: Although one character can level up all 8 crafting disciplines, they can only be active in 2 at a time. To switch will cost money so I would advise picking 4 characters – one from the soldier class (warrior or guardian) to level armor smith and weapon smith, one from the adventurer class (ranger, engineer or thief) to level leather worker and huntsman and one from the scholar class (necromancer, mesmer or elementalist) to level tailoring and artificer, and then one other to level chef and jeweler.

BrooksP.4318:

If you played Eve then play with a somewhat Eve mentality. Find what you want to do and do it, there is no real defined path since anything can give rewards. If you like a certain zone, then you can stick around it do the events(repeated world events), world bosses etc. Set personal goals since there really isn’t any actual endgame.

Though the PVP and being paranoid of others you can drop from your Eve mentality(outside of direct trades). PVP is gated to either WvW or SPvP, and neither have a penalty for dying, or losing.

Crafting, unfortunately, has almost no meaning in this game. It isn’t profitable due to a non consumer based economy and the orgy of loot you get at every turn. Crafting is really only beneficial to gain a few levels and to craft ascended gear and legendaries. The former isn’t needed at all unless you plan on doing Fractal based dungeons, and the latter is more a personal opinion on value. Though it isn’t a bad idea to set them as passive/long term goals.

Guardian is probably the class you are after, though try a few classes starting out to get a feel for them.

I was thinking EVE experience will work out somewhat here. Tank there is more about avoiding alpha damage and less about holding out under fire. (not including logi fleets) Speed and mobility to get outside optimals or under them being the real damage mitigation.
I’ve also played FF14 and that is perhaps the real one I was trying to avoid. Where you aren’t learning a class but the latency limits of your machine and connection, ducking in and out of AoE cones on .1 second variables. And I loath lobby dungeons but anyway.

The game patched and now I just need to figure out if Server matters outside NA/ Europe. They are all full or heavy pop and it doesn’t seem to be a factor.

Ioci.3407:

I just need to figure out if Server matters outside NA/ Europe. They are all full or heavy pop and it doesn’t seem to be a factor.

It matters if you want to play WvW, as you are asigned to play for your home server in that mode. Check out sites like this one to get a feel of where each server stands concerning wvw participation. Expect queues and larger groups dominating in upper tier servers, while lower tiers often give more room for roaming and have a bigger chance of immediate access to the wvw map of your choice.

Besides, if you choose an EU server, make sure to choose one with a base language you are comfortable with, because that will likely be the dominant chat language on the maps you are placed on. There are german (DE), french (FR), spanish (SP) and international (mostly english language) servers.

Rasimir.6239:

The closest to the captain class is probably the guardian in this game, heavy armor with abilities to buff the team in a variety of ways. While turteling isn’t exactly viable in this game (the combat system heavily relies on active defences, combat movement and dodges, stationary tanking mostly doesn’t work), a guardian has a ton of tools at hand to mitigate incoming damage (block buffs, debuffing mobs with blindness, and much more), both for themselves and the team around them.

Don’t hesitate to craft while leveling. You’ll be able to pick up a variety of crafting materials along the way and personally I found discovering new crafting levels a lot of fun in this game. You will however level fairly quickly, and at least the first (couple of) character(s) will most likely find better stuff before being able to craft on-level, since harvesting and crafting give a good amount of character experience themselves.

Welcome to Tyria! I have to admit, I sometimes miss my hobbits and the beautiful world of Middle Earth (warden and minstrel were my classes of choice, but I gave up of them when they were butchered in the class overhaul of the Helm’s Deep expansion), but to me Tyria has replaced a good many things I would’ve missed about Middle Earth if I had moved on to other games . It’s a beautiful world in its own right.

I will gather and I will craft. It’s not really something I can avoid. I end up doing it almost automated. Much of my 85 LotRO Captain I got from slayer deeds and just gathering hides in sandbox style game play. The hardest things I fought were over world roaming elites and I’ve used the same build throughout, never got impacted by the Helms Deep stuff as much as others I suppose.

I’ve watched several videos on this game and there really isn’t a class I couldn’t adapt to, it’s more about finding one that will grab me and keep me for more than a few months but I understand I won’t find that out in a forum.

You can “playtest” your new characters by going to the pvp area, where you can test builds and gear against dummies and bots.

You should also be aware that crafting gives you xp, so you will level just by doing crafting.

- You will most likely enjoy playing Warrior or Guardian. I find Warrior more enjoyable but if I feel like being Oprah handing out free boons to everyone then I’ll drive a Guardian instead.

- Having maxed out all crafting professions one thing I can tell you is it’s one of the fastest ways to level alts if you got the gold.

- I’m an alt-o-holic so I do tend to make multiple sets of gear (ascended-wise) and if things change then I can always test it out on another toon. Gear does not degrade; it’s always there you just need to visit a repair station and it’s free of charge if it gets damaged.

Feel free to ask any further questions and welcome to GW2.