Guild Wars 2

Hi there everyone. My name is Pawstruck. I’m currently a 23 year old male. I am married and enrolled in a master’s program at Princeton. I have no children, so I get a breather there. However, I also really enjoy League of Legends, and play it on a daily basis.

My point is that I don’t have a lot of time to play. Not nearly as much as I’d like, although I constantly feel like I play games in general far too much for my age/profession/marital status. I probably play about 10-15 hours of GW2 per week.

I was a pre-order-early-launcher, and my first character was a thief. I fantasized about how my friends and I would be storming castles in WvWvW, I’d be stealthing around assassinating people, and etc. I would even be Sylvari; Autumn-themed, to be exact, to fit the onset of death that my character would bring. (Nerdy, amirite?)

This is before I realized thieves don’t play like Rogues/Druids on WoW. There’s no perma-stealth, and a TON of precision is required (despite what QQ on the Thief forums might indicate) to 100-0 someone. If you miss, you’re toast. It feels like you’re an assassin trying to kill someone by throwing a grain of rice down their throat to choke them. Fail it and you feel like a dumby.

My thief hit level 50… and thing started to slow way down. (Currently lvl 63).

I started an Elementalist, knowing nothing about perceived class balance. I LOVED the fighting-game-esque button-mashing playstyle. For 28 levels I facerolled my heart out. Then I realized there are really only one or two cool combos for each weapon set, and a lot of the spells are flat out underwhelming (Water Trident, lolol). So there he sits…

Tonight I took a Necromancer to the Heart of the Mists… and it felt AWESOME. Condition damage, you say?! It’s an entire CLASS fully built around buffs and debuffs. How cool is that!? I didn’t know what the heck I was doing, but MAN they seem to have some awesome spells. I particularly like the one that instantly turns all enemy boons into conditions. >:D

Annnnnd you can guess where this is going. I have a couple of RL friends who have been 80 since like week 3, and they want to play with me. They want me to be 80, and to be honest don’t play much at all since I’m not. We all usually play MMO’s and raid/PVP/etc just together, the 4 of us. So… they’re kind of depending on me (they would never admit it, it’s just how our social circle works) to get to 80 “so we can all play together.”

My problems are 1) every class has SOME minor design flaws I can see, and 2) every class looks feels AWESOME. So what do you guys suggest? It’s really actually stressing me out, and I don’t like to get stressed out over games, so I usually just don’t play at all. What do?

-Paw

P.S.: My perceived pro’s/cons

THIEF
+Cool ninja/assassin theme
+Closest to 80
+Overall tight design feel
-Often forced to use Shortbow in WvW and dungeons, which is kitten br /> -100-0 builds are nerfed, leaving.. ??? in PVP
-Weird stealth mechanic

ELEMENTALIST
+Flashy
+Fighting-game-style “keyboard piano” playstyle
+Sweet combos
+Able to do more than just damage in dungeons
+Level 28, better starting than level 1
-Community seems to warn of extreme underpowered-ness at 80
-Questionable PVP viability
-Combos get repetitive quick
-Can’t switch weapons even out of combat, which is annoying as hell because I have to manually equip them
-Many spells feel useless and flavorless; many glitch out and don’t work
-SUPER crappy elite skills.

NECROMANCER
+Awesome theme and spell effects
+Unique condition-centered gameplay
+Probably better than Ele in PVP :p
+Overall design feels good, all spells feel effective and unique
-Idk much about it
-The pets are disgusting, I’d probably rarely use any unless I had to…
-I’d be starting ALL OVER again

Ele is great in PvP last I checked, their bunker build at least.

Necro and thief are also good at SPvP, although for premade tourney play you will see less bursty thieves and more DoT roamers.

All are good choices, for SPvP it doesnt matter though since you can have any of them, for WvW it’s the same really, just preference of playstyle. Whichever one you have fun playing the most roll with it.

wrt to pvp, i think eles are better than necros if played well. for eles, on the plus side, they added the blast finisher for arcana thingy when attuned to earth. and you aren’t forced to use bow as a thief in wvw. in fact, alot of thieves in wvw i see use daggers, and do the stealth → 1combokill → stealth thing. im not very familiar with thieves.

Overall, choose the class which compliments your playstyle. Imo, try a necro =P And pets.. well.. alot of people say they’re lackluster. and most i know go into a condi-build :p

Only 10-15 hours of GW2 per week?? Unacceptable! The solution here is obvious; create one character of each class and level them all up to 80. HOP TO IT!

stares down at his feet Umm.. hello my name is Joel and Im an altoholic..

Seriously, I actually got one char of each class, 3 of which are 80 at the moment. Took me ages to get one char to 80 since I was switching between chars all the time. Necro is fun as heck though, but I dont enjoy thief or ele much.

Dude, you are not an altaholic. If you were, you wouldn’t have this problem.

Like you, I started out with a thief. But then again, I do that in every game. Xavori…ya, he was born in pen and paper D&D. Then he went to UO and I wrote some stories for him. Since then, he’s been my first character in every MMO I’ve played.

He’s level 80.

Then I have my warrior Asyntora. Back in my WoW days, she was a pally who I’d dual-box with Xavori (having a pet tank healer when you’re playing a WoW rogue is loltastic in PvP).

She’s level 80.

Next up is my ranger. She’s new to the MMO world as she’s Sylvari, and no other MMO I played had Sylvari. She’s a blast in WvW where I like sniping at defenders on walls with my longbow as well as hunting down runners with my spider, and more importantly, my spider’s web root attack.

She’s level 80.

After her I have my engineer. Another toon new to MMO’ing as no other MMO’s have Asura. My intial plan for her was to be a combat medic who’d set up a few defense turrets while running around the battlefield healing people. No dice as combat medics are pretty much useless. Instead, she likes hanging out on walls raining grenades down on attackers. Still has the turrets tho.

She’s level 80.

After that we have my elementalist. My first attempt at an elly was to recreate my ice kitten Freosana Bicce who was born in DAoC as an ice thurg. Only, you can’t really make a single element elementalist work in GW2. So I deleted her rather than put that name on a toon that used more than just ice (I need professional help). I created a brand new elementalist with a brand new name that is perfectly happy using lightning and earth even though she’s traited fire (which translates to fire which is MOAR DAMAGE). She’s also an aura build so that whole mega nerf thing…ya…she don’t care.

She’s level 80.

My necro would have been level 80 at some point tonight. However, she was killed by a bandit rifleman (who was actually a woman). Just FYI, it takes a long time for a tank necro to get killed by knockdown spam.

I fully expect my guardian (level 47) and mesmer (level 30 something) would have been 80’s before the end of the month. They’d have gotten their sooner, but I got distracted.

At that point, I’ll be a true Pokemon err Guild Wars 2 Master.

Gotta catch ’em all!

My character slots are all filled up and I am trying hard not to buy more There is just a little something I like in every professions, my thief being my highest followed closely but my ranger and my warrior. Newest alt is a necro I remade a couple of time since pre-release and I’m having a blast.

Paw, I guess best advice would be to pick what fits better with your playstyle and stick with it if you really want a level 80 quickly. Heck ask your friends to log on and team up, you’ll be able to tackle stuff some levels over yours and exp will just rain down on you! Better loot also. The beauty of this game is that levels are not an excuse to not play with a lower level friend! Do all DE you see, gather all nodes on your path and levels will come fast. really ask yourself what you would like to do in a team and make your choice from there.

Thanks for the input, everyone! It’s really interesting to hear other people’s stories.

What do you suggest as an activity a mid-level character can do with a level 80 that will be fully rewarding to both of them? Since they’ve all got 100% world completion, hearts aren’t really an option.

I’d advise dungeons or WvW. Get a fifth to have a full group. Also, they may like to level up their alts with yours.

As for classes… try all of course. Warrior is good for solo melee pve in particular, generally well done though. Mesmer and Guardian shine in group play – though as such, perhaps harder to “learn” for an alt user.

My main problem is that, playing mostly war/guardian, I get a little bit too heroic on less durable characters…>.> :P

Gotta catch ’em all! Love it…

Yeah, I’m working towards getting 8 level 80’s myself as a personal goal – got three so far (warrior, engineer, ranger) and my guardian and ele are on the way.

We had this problem in my family as my oldest son couldn’t decide on a profession, and yet we needed him to have one character he could bring to try dungeons with the rest of us. The trick is just find one that isn’t perfect but that you don’t mind playing for now, get it to 80 and then you can relax and work on the others in a more relaxed way. Thief is not a bad choice if it’s already closest to 80.

Tips for levelling – well if you haven’t already, do some crafting – you’ll get 20 levels from taking two craft skills 0-400, especially if you use a crafting booster from the gem store. Be prepared to spend a few gold on mats to get you through any sticky areas where you run out of fine materials (claws, bones etc). Worth doing and will get you a little closer to your goal.

With your friends, get them to wingman you through the highest level area you can manage and do hearts and dynamic events, which give a lot of xp; don’t forget xp boosters, maintenance oils, and foods (+10% exp each for the latter two). If you are in a group the hearts and events are likely to be easy and fun. Get to the next highest zone as soon as your level permits to keep getting the optimum xp.

Story mode dungeons give about half a level worth of xp each – good to do with friends. Good luck!

to OP. lol. u tried the weakest classes. try warrior or guardian.

I have multiple accounts, not an altoholic, it’s just the last bastion of fun in the game. Plus with multiple accounts you can bypass some of the DR. Which gives you the thought if botter have multiple accounts how does DR do anything against them…

a true altoholic keeps rolling toons and playing them until level 20-30 then rolls another.
this leads to deletion in the case of no-more-slots or the purchase of more slots to accommodate.
i myself have 9 slots now, soon to be 10 so i can play a guardian i wont delete.
so far i have 2 necros, 2 rangers and 1 each of the rest except guardian.

warrior is always a solid choice for 1st character (in any game that has them),
as it creates a handy benchmark to compare the rest to.

I have 80 ele, mesmer, warr, and thiefaltaholic myself). And I can tell you, thief can do quite well in WvW weaving through a medium sized zerg fight without only relying on SB(20 v 20ish). Any larger and you’ll be burned like marshmallows.
You should take a look at tanky condition thieves. It’s a different kind of fun compared to casters, and I enjoy mine greatly when assassinating low hp targets in the backline of enemy zerg