Guild Wars 2

Hey there:
So I’ve got a friend convinced to try this game since it’s only $10. He’s pretty excited about it, but I’d like to give him a class that will keep him coming back.

I’m pretty experienced and have all classes level 80, but I wanted to get some feedback from the community.

Which class do you think would be relatively easy but also entertaining enough for a new player? He doesn’t have much experience with mmorpgs if that is relevant at all. I suggested warrior and guardian: tanky even with a zerk build with interesting and versatile skills/builds. However, I did not really enjoy leveling my warrior and got kind of bored with it.

Any ideas?

Guardian is nice for beginners, and ranger is easy enough to play as well, but has a bunch of different builds available to prevent boredom. Necro, too, but your friend might need a little explanation if he’s new to MMOs; but necros can be tanky as hell with the right build so he doesn’t die so easily and can concentrate on killing things.

In the end, race is as important as class to keep a newbie interested, since the first personal story chapters are heavily influenced by this choice. Asura are funny, charr more lore-heavy, and norn are either kitten or completely reckless, pretty cool in any case. Sylvari have less action, I suppose, but don’t require any prior knowledge at all.

I would have to go with Guardian as a suggestion to start out for someone with not much MMO experience. Decent damage, good survivability. Then once your friend gets used to the general game play they can dabble in other professions that require a little more attention and understanding of mechanics.

Interesting, I never thought about the race having an impact. I pretty much just told him to pick what he thinks looks cool but i’ll give him your advice. Thanks

As someone who started with an Ele and bailed after hitting about level 40, then coming back a year later and capping a Guardian after a few weeks, i’d agree with the Guardian I also have a Thief and Engineer that never made it out of the teens…

Guardian is a really good “jump in an whack things” class, and can take hits well enough that you’re not constantly trying to kite things.

Besides PS, race can impact the feel of gameplay. The new camera on Tuesday might change this, but for now he might want to avoid norn and charr due to issues in tight spaces. Plus norn feel slow and lumbering. Imo sylvari have the best dance and asura have the most amusing animations for emotes and skills. Whereas humans have the best starting area and home instance because there are enough buildings to make me believe a population of decent size is supported there (odd, since humans in Tyria are the beleaguered dying race, per lore).

I suggest engi. They’re crazy versatile and you’re constantly getting new gadgets as you level. Lotta fun.

I would give your friend a summary of each class and then let them choose what class or wait until they ask you what class they want after hearing what they want out of a class.

Edit: GW2 was my first MMO. I chose Elementalist. I knew full well going into it that the Elementalist was a squishy class. But I chose it for its difficulty. I would learn fewer bad habits on a squishier class than on a harder to kill class. But I also was fully aware that I was likely to die more often as a result.

The problem with a summary is you might not be interested based on one. Nothing I saw about Guardian had me interested in it until I actually leveled one a bit, for instance. I was so sure it would be my 8th choice. It turned out to be so much more fun than WoW paladins!

Still, your friend will have 5 slots and can test out a number of things before settling on his preferred main.

Hrm. Why not just let your friend try out the classes for himself? When I started playing my first MMO all those years ago I found myself gravitating towards the class that I actively played for most of my MMO time, simply because I liked the description of the class and had fun with it from the start. GW2 shouldn’t be much of a difference there.

Let him experience the game for himself. Help him when he needs help, otherwise let him make his own experiences. The first time playing an MMO is a precious thing, don’t ruin it by trying to give him too much help.

Donari.5237:

The problem with a summary is you might not be interested based on one. Nothing I saw about Guardian had me interested in it until I actually leveled one a bit, for instance. I was so sure it would be my 8th choice. It turned out to be so much more fun than WoW paladins!

Still, your friend will have 5 slots and can test out a number of things before settling on his preferred main.

But giving someone a summary of the classes and letting them decide is a much better situation than suggesting a class without having been asked. Because you may not know what type of class the person is wanting to play.

But that’s just me.

Oh, I agree. Just tell the guy that it’s hard to convey the feel of a profession especially to someone who hasn’t learned the game yet, so he should do some testing for himself.