Guild Wars 2

I had serious troubles enjoying the combat in the beginning.
What helps is to abandon the thought of “mmo-combat” and instead channel your console rpg or the like combat mindset.

What helped me with the flow:
In Options, set ground targeting to “Fast with range indicator” or “Instant”.
Bind your dodge to extra mouse button if you have one, mine is by my thumb.

Once you get used to the GW2 combat system it’s really fun.
But this will create another issue: when visiting other mmos you’re likely to be asked why you’re leaping about like a deranged WoW frostmage on your scoundrel scrapper. XD

GW2 is not “plagued” with action-oriented combat. It features action-oriented combat. I am certainly not a big fan of the game, but your judgement is solely based on your preference for old school style MMORPG combat. Apparently, you want just another average old school MMORPG in a new skin. If you stick to this mindset, you may as well stop, you will never like GW2. If you are able to enjoy a different gaming experience, you can try if GW2 is to your taste.

PS: but maybe there is hope for you. It seems Anet is possibly introducing your preferred play style now. One guy hitting toes, another going woosh-woosh in a safe spot, the rest of the gang going pew-pew from a corner. Some may even hit the back of the feet in another safe spot. Enjoy.

GUTB.8436:

So, on my first character, I am trying to find the fun in the combat system. I’m really struggling. I rolled a Charr Thief.

1. The rune/skill/weapon system in the game seems incredibly counter-intuitive. I’m sure this problem will go away when I learn the game — are there any meaningful tutorials that assumes the system makes no sense and explains everything?

2. Going by the few ability slots, rotation doesn’t seem complex. In fact, it seems extremely casual. However, the system mixes in action elements like dodging which appear to be necessary in order not to die. To me, Wildstar is a joke because it is too action-oriented — is GW2 going to be plagued with the same problem?

3. Thiefs. I understood going into this game really doesn’t have a stealth class, but so far I just don’t see how this character is going to go out ganking anything if the opponent sees you coming a mile away. Escapes seems powerful though…is Thief really just for trolling?

4. Voice acting. It’s….atrocious. Maybe my expectations have been too heavily skewed by WoW and SWTOR, but is there some way to listen to my character in battle without cringing? Do you just become desensitized to it? Are there other races with better voice acting? kitten .

This might be the wrong game for you if you aren’t enjoying the combat.

1. It could be way better to be honest its a system that hopefully they fixed in HoT or future updates afterwards. Especially with talk of legendary armors and such the current system is just dated.

2.You are bothered by action based combat but seek to play 2 action based combat mmos this wont end well for you. However if you want a more forgiving class in Gw2 play a warrior.

Thief is the most punishing class for making any little mistake on and you will taste the ground more often then not if you don’t dodge. If you are dead set on playing thief but don’t like dodging you could always use Sword/Pistol and spam pistolwhip.

3. Dagger/Pistol skill 5 stand in it and skill 2 you can do this several times if you are looking directly downward at your toon with the camera and turning it as needed. Word to the wise you should play with right mouse button held down almost all the time.

4. Steve Blum, Troy baker, Matt Mercer, Jen hale,Tara Strong, and several other of the voice actors they use are some of the best and most seasoned in the industry. Their work is actually good its the lines they have to say that are cringe worthy. See house of the dead for just god awful voice acting.

The game still has problems that i can’t and wont deny but several of these things are just hurdles you have to get used to before you can move forward in gw2. It takes some time.

GW2’s itemization vs. skills is handled exactly the same way the first game did it. Passive defenses are supplemental rather than focal. Using active abilities (dodge, block, blind, daze, positioning, etc.) are the primary defenses for every character.

If you don’t like actually having to do things for defense rather than relying on a stack of numbers, you are not going to like combat in GW2, as it is a major part of the design of the system.

GUTB.8436:

I can’t help but think that substituting actual RPG mechanics for action mechanics is console-y and actually pretty pathetic. All I’m saying is, even in it’s currently severely dumbed-down state, WoW has:

Attack Power
Spell Power
Intelligence
Stanima
Armor
Avoidance
Strength
Dexterity
Mastery
Versatility
Haste
Multistrike
Crit
Spirit
Dodge
Block
Parry

As far as I can tell, at least for my Thief, GW2 has:

Precision
Power
Armor
Vitality

In addition, I have a very simple 2-key rotation (auto-attack and heartseeker). Using the blind + heartseeker combo to get into stealth seems to be a clunky and expensive way to get a little bit of stealth. It also takes quick and accurate mouse action to accomplish in a useful manner.

WoW’s combat is based on age old games. Its only limited to stats and cooldowns which doesn’t involve much but just hitting things on rotations while you stand still.

If you end up giving gw2 more time and you become more familiar then you will start to like it. A lot of mmos now days are more about active combat. The stand still/stat based/CD based combat system is very old.

It was weird getting used to gw2s combat because I played the old cd/stat based mmos. I love gw2s combat after playing the game for so long because it has a lot of depth to it and requires the player to be good actively with their class. You have to keep moving and fighting which adds so much depth to the game. On top of that you have to manage your cooldowns and keep track of your combos, because there are so many different combos you can do that define your playstyle.

Gw2s combat gives the player their identity and shows how different players play. Sure you will see similar builds and playstyles but then the aspect of mastering that class/build come in and thats what gives the game a skill cap. Of course there are lame builds that don’t require you to think much(cheese builds) but those are in every game and aren’t easy to get rid of.

I would say just give it time and try it out. You can always go back to WoW.

GUTB.8436:

So, on my first character, I am trying to find the fun in the combat system. I’m really struggling. I rolled a Charr Thief.

1. The rune/skill/weapon system in the game seems incredibly counter-intuitive. I’m sure this problem will go away when I learn the game — are there any meaningful tutorials that assumes the system makes no sense and explains everything?

2. Going by the few ability slots, rotation doesn’t seem complex. In fact, it seems extremely casual. However, the system mixes in action elements like dodging which appear to be necessary in order not to die. To me, Wildstar is a joke because it is too action-oriented — is GW2 going to be plagued with the same problem?

3. Thiefs. I understood going into this game really doesn’t have a stealth class, but so far I just don’t see how this character is going to go out ganking anything if the opponent sees you coming a mile away. Escapes seems powerful though…is Thief really just for trolling?

4. Voice acting. It’s….atrocious. Maybe my expectations have been too heavily skewed by WoW and SWTOR, but is there some way to listen to my character in battle without cringing? Do you just become desensitized to it? Are there other races with better voice acting? kitten .

>play wow for 5 years
>superior action combat mmos come around
>"wow what a kittening trash combat system"
average 16 year old

Yeah this isn’t WoW where you stand still and your character magically dodges/blocks attacks, and having loads of skills on your bar(s) as you do in WoW doesn’t mean you actually use them all, having a bloated skill bar doesn’t make you any better of a player.

Odokuro.5049:

Yeah this isn’t WoW where you stand still and your character magically dodges/blocks attacks, and having loads of skills on your bar(s) as you do in WoW doesn’t mean you actually use them all, having a bloated skill bar doesn’t make you any better of a player.

GW2 is loaded with bloat that could very easily be condensed, though, and while GW2 players don’t stand still and magically block attacks, they do strafe relatively slowly wherever they please while under the effects of damage negation that is instantly and sometimes even passively activated.

GUTB.8436:

So, on my first character, I am trying to find the fun in the combat system. I’m really struggling. I rolled a Charr Thief.

1. The rune/skill/weapon system in the game seems incredibly counter-intuitive. I’m sure this problem will go away when I learn the game — are there any meaningful tutorials that assumes the system makes no sense and explains everything?

2. Going by the few ability slots, rotation doesn’t seem complex. In fact, it seems extremely casual. However, the system mixes in action elements like dodging which appear to be necessary in order not to die. To me, Wildstar is a joke because it is too action-oriented — is GW2 going to be plagued with the same problem?

3. Thiefs. I understood going into this game really doesn’t have a stealth class, but so far I just don’t see how this character is going to go out ganking anything if the opponent sees you coming a mile away. Escapes seems powerful though…is Thief really just for trolling?

4. Voice acting. It’s….atrocious. Maybe my expectations have been too heavily skewed by WoW and SWTOR, but is there some way to listen to my character in battle without cringing? Do you just become desensitized to it? Are there other races with better voice acting? kitten .

1.You’ll get the hang of it. I got used to it in the base game’s beta with a charr warrior when waiting for asura to be released.

2.Don’t know and subjective. I didn’t like how WoW wasn’t action oriented enough. It tried to be like an RPG action hybrid but in a way that doesn’t really work. You’d have the levels and gear ( one thing WoW has on GW2 is epics are drastically better than rares whereas ascended is only marginally better than exotics while GW2 has immersion breaking level scaling) but still have freedom of movement. Oh, if you’re clever enough to position yourself where you can’t be hit you’d run into the “evade” mechanic and vanish makes mobs get full HP back, very cheap. GW2 on the other hand has much less of the RPG cheapness and you can actually dodge when you see an attack coming.

3.Yes, thief is just for trolling…your own team that is.

4.Human male and male Jedi Councillor I noticed sounded alike.

Odokuro.5049:

Yeah this isn’t WoW where you stand still and your character magically dodges/blocks attacks, and having loads of skills on your bar(s) as you do in WoW doesn’t mean you actually use them all, having a bloated skill bar doesn’t make you any better of a player.

No but managing them and knowing when to use a rarely used skill contribute. Let’s say you have a thief in GW2, and if we could equip all our abilities we would see a very specific moment when you know using scorpion wire would be a great idea, pull something else into the big AoE combo fields. Well, too bad, you don’t have it equipped so despite having the ability you can’t equip it due to UI limitations. Same principle applies to basically anything else.

The skillsets we’re allowed to have is too simplified: five weapon abilities, one heal, three utility, and one elite. Being allowed to have more abilities would open up further scope and depth of play.

GUTB.8436:

So, on my first character, I am trying to find the fun in the combat system. I’m really struggling. I rolled a Charr Thief.

1. The rune/skill/weapon system in the game seems incredibly counter-intuitive. I’m sure this problem will go away when I learn the game — are there any meaningful tutorials that assumes the system makes no sense and explains everything?

2. Going by the few ability slots, rotation doesn’t seem complex. In fact, it seems extremely casual. However, the system mixes in action elements like dodging which appear to be necessary in order not to die. To me, Wildstar is a joke because it is too action-oriented — is GW2 going to be plagued with the same problem?

3. Thiefs. I understood going into this game really doesn’t have a stealth class, but so far I just don’t see how this character is going to go out ganking anything if the opponent sees you coming a mile away. Escapes seems powerful though…is Thief really just for trolling?

4. Voice acting. It’s….atrocious. Maybe my expectations have been too heavily skewed by WoW and SWTOR, but is there some way to listen to my character in battle without cringing? Do you just become desensitized to it? Are there other races with better voice acting? kitten .

1. Not sure how you find them counterintuitive. Need to be more specific.

2. Agreed to some extent. PvP Is much livlier than PvE and requires full use of the CC built into your weapon skills and proper selection of utility skills, but PvE is pathetically simple. I run D/D on my thief; nearly everything boils down to 5, 1 until dead with the sole exception of sticking f1 in just before 5 fires so I can blink to my target and wind up 5 before getting there. It’s stupid.

3. Thieves in this game are more about adaptability and being complete kittens. You have a ridiculous number of ways to force a target to miss you, whether by blinding them or evading attacks or by blinking elsewhere, plus cripples, stuns, etc. You harass enemies to death and have some strong burst options to go with it.

4. I rolled a female Charr engi; voice acting is disgustingly bad. Doesn’t fit the race at all. Male Charr are the opposite for me, though, it fits them rather well.

GUTB.8436:

I can’t help but think that substituting actual RPG mechanics for action mechanics is console-y and actually pretty pathetic. All I’m saying is, even in it’s currently severely dumbed-down state, WoW has:

Attack Power
Spell Power
Intelligence
Stanima
Armor
Avoidance
Strength
Dexterity
Mastery
Versatility
Haste
Multistrike
Crit
Spirit
Dodge
Block
Parry

As far as I can tell, at least for my Thief, GW2 has:

Precision
Power
Armor
Vitality

In addition, I have a very simple 2-key rotation (auto-attack and heartseeker). Using the blind + heartseeker combo to get into stealth seems to be a clunky and expensive way to get a little bit of stealth. It also takes quick and accurate mouse action to accomplish in a useful manner.

Both GW2 and WoW have many stats, just open the hero panel in GW2, equipment tab, and you’ll see lots of stats on the right side. Many of those stats you listed from WoW are incorporated in GW2, like Haste you mentioned could be the same as Quickness for instance.

It just comes down to what class you are playing, what weapon sets, gear, utility skills and traits. This determines your playstyle. In general a thief is quite squishy, and much of its traits makes up for that in evasion, like more dodge, blind debuffs to prevent you from taking hits, and stealth + your own positioning during combat to effectivise your gameplay. This “feeling” you dont get as a newcomer around here, you need to spend more time, learn every class/encounters and then you’ll see why GW2’s combat for many is superior amongst other MMORPGs.

Agemnon.4608:

Odokuro.5049:

Yeah this isn’t WoW where you stand still and your character magically dodges/blocks attacks, and having loads of skills on your bar(s) as you do in WoW doesn’t mean you actually use them all, having a bloated skill bar doesn’t make you any better of a player.

No but managing them and knowing when to use a rarely used skill contribute. Let’s say you have a thief in GW2, and if we could equip all our abilities we would see a very specific moment when you know using scorpion wire would be a great idea, pull something else into the big AoE combo fields. Well, too bad, you don’t have it equipped so despite having the ability you can’t equip it due to UI limitations. Same principle applies to basically anything else.

The skillsets we’re allowed to have is too simplified: five weapon abilities, one heal, three utility, and one elite. Being allowed to have more abilities would open up further scope and depth of play.

By that logic having 10000 skills at a time would be even better.
MOBAs have even less skills available and nobody is complaining about how these games are shallow and you don’t need any skill to play them.
Just having alot of skills available doesn’t really mean games are deeper.

pfanne.9783:

Agemnon.4608:

Odokuro.5049:

Yeah this isn’t WoW where you stand still and your character magically dodges/blocks attacks, and having loads of skills on your bar(s) as you do in WoW doesn’t mean you actually use them all, having a bloated skill bar doesn’t make you any better of a player.

No but managing them and knowing when to use a rarely used skill contribute. Let’s say you have a thief in GW2, and if we could equip all our abilities we would see a very specific moment when you know using scorpion wire would be a great idea, pull something else into the big AoE combo fields. Well, too bad, you don’t have it equipped so despite having the ability you can’t equip it due to UI limitations. Same principle applies to basically anything else.

The skillsets we’re allowed to have is too simplified: five weapon abilities, one heal, three utility, and one elite. Being allowed to have more abilities would open up further scope and depth of play.

By that logic having 10000 skills at a time would be even better.
MOBAs have even less skills available and nobody is complaining about how these games are shallow and you don’t need any skill to play them.
Just having alot of skills available doesn’t really mean games are deeper.

You’re ignoring an eventual point of diminishing returns. WoW had lots of skills, but they all served useful functions, like only a paladin having access to bubble and only a rogue having vanish and cloak of shadows for washing off DoTs as well as smoke bomb. The player himself makes a judgement call on which of the 20 abilities to use and needs to think quickly. In Alterac Valley for example I’d look at a situation where I think smokebomb would be appropriate, so I instantly press shift +B right then and there (muscle memory doesn’t take too long to develop) Then spam A for auto and F for ambush after activating shadowdance. I’d use rupture and expose armor against heavy classes.

If you’re in a situation where you see that skill X would be great in a situation you’re in then tough luck, you don’t have it binded so that places an arbitrary skill cap on the player where he’s limited by the UI limitations instead of his actual skill cap.

Blizzard specifically removed like half of each class’ skills a couple of patches/expansions ago, because they were useless and no one used them. Just as a fun fact.

The thing is taking abilities away is the cheap and easy way out. Instead of taking away they should have substituted. I left WoW because of the kitten MoP talent system and its oversimplification. If you take too much away then you may as well be playing some smart phone “game” that gets outclassed by even any console. It’s just more satisfying gameplay to have a big set of useful skills you can use at an appropriate moment rather than simply spamming direct damage. Makes it feel like your profession is an actual craft instead of some hobby where your character isn’t prepared for every situation though you know how to be anyway.

I made a thief some days ago, is level 31 now. And i found it very fun to play, a yeah you need learn how to dodge in time and resereve your invisibility skills for the right moment. But it have a lot of dodge, blink, stuns skills.

You need stop thinking in the tradional mmorpg way, so you can learn the right tactis on this game.

Thief is a pretty difficult class to handle, and very squishy. You will definitely need to pay attention and time your dodges according to the specific moments you want to avoid a hit. There is no passive stat that is going to randomly award you a free “dodge.” You can’t just stand there face-to-face with your target, taking turns punching each other.

That said, there are some behind-the-scenes “stat”-like factors you can set up. Toughness (defense, take less damage) or Vitality (more HP) can be helpful if you’re struggling. There are some traits you can take to help replenish your Endurance bar faster, which determines how often you can dodge. Certain weapon skills allow you to stun/daze targets, or avoid attacks, or function as gap openers/closers. But then, I suppose you will consider this “consoley” and “pathetic” whatever that means.

Honestly, my two main pieces of advice for you are:

1) Stop thinking this game is WoW, or needs to play like WoW. There is no “holy trinity.” You are not a DPS.

2) Try another class. Thief is one of the most difficult classes for a beginner, is very squishy, and bears only a surface-level resemblance to WoW’s “Rogue.” Warrior, Ranger, or Guardian are significantly more survivable for leveling and solo play, and may help you acclimatize to the game better. Personally, I still am not particularly comfortable with Thief myself.

I love that someone who has barely played the game is making all these assumption about the combat systems.

GW2 has the deepest combat mechanics in a mmo ever. Between gear sets, specs and the wide ranging classes there is so much depth to dive into.

I watched a WOW stream a few months ago of pvp……………LOL is all i can say. Gw2 pvp is hands down the best MMO pvp ever made and I’ve played almost every mmo made in the last 15 years.

Seriously, go watch some WOW pvp right now on Twitch. It’s pathetic.

Fyrebrand.4859:

1) Stop thinking this game is WoW, or needs to play like WoW. There is no “holy trinity.” You are not a DPS.

I beg to differ, imo every class is a DPS in GW2, with heal and support skills on the side. Think of a retri pala in WoW.

They all have different spells and mechanics, but as general gameplay they all feel like a retri pala. You pew pew 95% of the time, use heal when you’re low hp and utility when things get a little tougher.

VaLee.5102:

imo every class is a DPS in GW2, with heal and support skills on the side.

A party role only makes sense as a concept when you can contrast that role with a different role in the party.

When there is no one absorbing all the enemy aggro so that the rest of the party can survive, then there is no designated tank. We don’t say “everyone’s a tank.”

When there is no one primarily focused on healing the tank and other players over the course of each battle, then there is no designated healer. We don’t say “everyone’s the healer.”

When there is no person/people whose responsibility it is to take care of the vast majority of outgoing damage while other players take care of other roles, then there is no designated DPS. We don’t say “everyone’s a DPS.”

Imagine if GW2 had no system of light, medium, and heavy armor. There would just be no tiers for armor. We wouldn’t just pick one of those three at random and say “Everyone in GW2 wears medium armor.”

Purchased GW2 back when it first came out, then proceeded to quit many times for long periods. Pre-purchased HoT too in the hope it would revitalize my interest. Been trying so many times to like the combat, because once you get used to the gorgeous visuals its really the combat that would keep you playing or not. Especially in a supposed action combat mmorpg. Thing is Im just not feeling it, the awkward swings with melee weapons, the strange, twisting body animations. The slow motion-like running, jumping.. The writing below sums it up for me.

Guild Wars 2: Spammy, floaty combat with no resource management, dumbed down buffs/debuffs to the point of tedium, zero oomph, hilariously imbalanced towards Berserker (go berserker or get out), low skill ceiling even for mmorpg standards, no viable role outside of dps, dodge roll ends up being nothing more than a without-fail get out of jail card making the game even more shallow. The only good thing I can say about this combat system is the combo field system. I let my friend try this game and I gave him my build. Despite having never played it, he was killing everyone with ease just because he had an OP build. This has NEVER happened in any other combat centric MMORPG showing how hilariously bad the combat system is.

The thread is two months old. What were you even looking for to find this?

First of all your title is inflamatory.

Secondly yes this game is action oriented combat. It’s not about executing a dps rotation (although that does exist) it’s mainly about awareness and most importantly reacting.

You need to be aware of conditions, controls and telegraphed attacks. Those are clearly defined catagories and each have a counter which are condition removal, stun breaks and dodges respectively.

It’s a deceptively simple system but inpractice you will find it difficult to master.

pepsis.5384:

Purchased GW2 back when it first came out, then proceeded to quit many times for long periods. Pre-purchased HoT too in the hope it would revitalize my interest. Been trying so many times to like the combat, because once you get used to the gorgeous visuals its really the combat that would keep you playing or not. Especially in a supposed action combat mmorpg. Thing is Im just not feeling it, the awkward swings with melee weapons, the strange, twisting body animations. The slow motion-like running, jumping.. The writing below sums it up for me.

Guild Wars 2: Spammy, floaty combat with no resource management, dumbed down buffs/debuffs to the point of tedium, zero oomph, hilariously imbalanced towards Berserker (go berserker or get out), low skill ceiling even for mmorpg standards, no viable role outside of dps, dodge roll ends up being nothing more than a without-fail get out of jail card making the game even more shallow. The only good thing I can say about this combat system is the combo field system. I let my friend try this game and I gave him my build. Despite having never played it, he was killing everyone with ease just because he had an OP build. This has NEVER happened in any other combat centric MMORPG showing how hilariously bad the combat system is.

your mistake is continually returning after ‘proceeding to quit’ when you already knew the game is not for you. No need to be miserable in life, there’s plenty choice out there.

GUTB.8436:

So, on my first character, I am trying to find the fun in the combat system. I’m really struggling. I rolled a Charr Thief.

1. The rune/skill/weapon system in the game seems incredibly counter-intuitive. I’m sure this problem will go away when I learn the game — are there any meaningful tutorials that assumes the system makes no sense and explains everything?

2. Going by the few ability slots, rotation doesn’t seem complex. In fact, it seems extremely casual. However, the system mixes in action elements like dodging which appear to be necessary in order not to die. To me, Wildstar is a joke because it is too action-oriented — is GW2 going to be plagued with the same problem?

3. Thiefs. I understood going into this game really doesn’t have a stealth class, but so far I just don’t see how this character is going to go out ganking anything if the opponent sees you coming a mile away. Escapes seems powerful though…is Thief really just for trolling?

4. Voice acting. It’s….atrocious. Maybe my expectations have been too heavily skewed by WoW and SWTOR, but is there some way to listen to my character in battle without cringing? Do you just become desensitized to it? Are there other races with better voice acting? kitten .

First mistake: rolling a thief – you won’t have much fun with that class at the moment.

1) You’re supposed to use the same 6 runes on your armor, they give you a buff you want, so look at the buffs they give and decide which one you want.

2) Thief has got no rotation – the only class that has none as thieves have got the initative system – you’re free to use any skill you like (as long as you have initative). wildstar is hard for me as it’s not action loaden enough – it feels stiff compared to GW.
So, I guess this game is even worse for you – you can however go for Guardian (dragon hunter if you have HoT) or Ranger – they can pretty much stand in a safe spot and pew pew – not much fun though. Probably works with Revenant hammer as well (but you need HoT)

3) Thieves are a stealth class – but they have been destroyed recently, so can’t say much about them right now- maybe they will be good again, maybe they won’t. They once had the highest single target damage in game, nowadays every other class does more damage. For the damage they used to dish out them being glassy was justified, if you’re into pvp/wvw better don’t rely on stealth thanks to the reveal traits/skills which were brought into this game (without compensation = a thief is a free lootbag).

4) I play with “my voices” turned off.

Godmoney.2048:

GW2 has the deepest combat mechanics in a mmo ever. Between gear sets, specs and the wide ranging classes there is so much depth to dive into.

Old comment and subjective opinion but I’d give The Secret World that title, with GW2 honourable second place.

pepsis.5384:

Purchased GW2 back when it first came out, then proceeded to quit many times for long periods. Pre-purchased HoT too in the hope it would revitalize my interest. Been trying so many times to like the combat, because once you get used to the gorgeous visuals its really the combat that would keep you playing or not. Especially in a supposed action combat mmorpg. Thing is Im just not feeling it, the awkward swings with melee weapons, the strange, twisting body animations. The slow motion-like running, jumping.. The writing below sums it up for me.

Guild Wars 2: Spammy, floaty combat with no resource management, dumbed down buffs/debuffs to the point of tedium, zero oomph, hilariously imbalanced towards Berserker (go berserker or get out), low skill ceiling even for mmorpg standards, no viable role outside of dps, dodge roll ends up being nothing more than a without-fail get out of jail card making the game even more shallow. The only good thing I can say about this combat system is the combo field system. I let my friend try this game and I gave him my build. Despite having never played it, he was killing everyone with ease just because he had an OP build. This has NEVER happened in any other combat centric MMORPG showing how hilariously bad the combat system is.

I agree with some of that but a lot depends on class and its weapon subset. As a practical suggestion, it might be worth giving vanilla Thief gunslinger, on some tough maps, a try.

A lot of your gripes in your list really won’t apply there, and IMO it’s the most fun to be had in GW2. Best of luck to you, either way.