Guild Wars 2

Morning all,

In a few hours give or take (installing GW2 as I write this) I’ll be one of a few newbies in game. I’m a veteran of WoW raiding being a healer and dps when needed. Just a question into which profession would be best to learn the game on for currently the elementalist and Guardian professions both seem appealing to myself any advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers.

If you’re looking to learn the game from scratch, I recommend Guardian. It was the first class I made when I began, and it taught me a lot of the basics (support, combo field blasting, etc.). Your mileage may vary, though.

Honestly I’d recommend just playing each class in PvP a bit to see what sticks. Make a new toon, load into PvP and start a quick match and play around.

Go guardian, don’t expect to be a healer, more like combat support.

Elementalist works too, but is one of the (if not the) most complex class and might turn you off the game until you understand the basic mechanics a bit better.

Leveling does not take long (any where between 2 minutes to max level and maybe 2 2 days).

Welcome to Tyria!

The preference is entirely up to you – whichever class you seem most interested, give it a whirl, you can always delete it or create a new character if you feel it isn’t right for your tastes!

Personally, I would take the Elementalist out for a swing; it has some great damage, very sufficient ranged attacks and has quite a lot of favour in dungeons for some of its skills. Of course I’m biased towards it as I love magic!

I don’t play Guardian too much, so I can’t comment much on that one – hopefully someone below me can shed some light on that profession!

Either way, have a go at all of the professions that you are interested in, they are all reasonably balanced and can easily teach you how this game works, and finally, have fun!

Surely you jest Cyninja? 2minutes to hit max level oO?

You have 5 character slots. Fill all five with the names, race, looks, and professions that interest you the most then try a little bit of them.
Put down all of that “Tanks/healers/DPs” and try to understand the “active defence” mechanics. Bind dodge to a key.
The rest: take your time, dont rush and enjoy

Nulisecundus.3820:

Surely you jest Cyninja? 2minutes to hit max level oO?

That’s a very, very exaggerated time frame if you’re just starting out, don’t worry. Cyninja is most likely referring to Tomes of Knowledge (items won in PvP or gotten from rewards that level a character up by one level) or crafting (which requires a lot of gold to do). It should take, on average, around 40-50 hours of gameplay to reach max level if you start out exploring the world and doing your Personal Story. And that’s all depending on how hardcore you are about your leveling process.

Nulisecundus.3820:

Surely you jest Cyninja? 2minutes to hit max level oO?

There are in-game items that award levels. If one possesses 61 of them (2 different kinds), one can level to max as fast as one can double-click.

Welcome to Tyria, and happy adventuring.

MrWubzy.3587:

Nulisecundus.3820:

Surely you jest Cyninja? 2minutes to hit max level oO?

That’s a very, very exaggerated time frame if you’re just starting out, don’t worry. Cyninja is most likely referring to Tomes of Knowledge (items won in PvP or gotten from rewards that level a character up by one level) or crafting (which requires a lot of gold to do). It should take, on average, around 40-50 hours of gameplay to reach max level if you start out exploring the world and doing your Personal Story. And that’s all depending on how hardcore you are about your leveling process.

Oh phew was worried for a moment haha. I don’t plan on PvP until I’ve gotten a grasp of the mechanics and the profession I’ll eventually choose. Thanks for the advice everyone.

Welcome to tyria, all i can say is…
Pick a warrior, easy to learn, they dish out dmg like hell-ish.

And enjoy this vast and glorious world! You will feel like a question mark on occation, but once you start to learn, you’ll love it!

Yes, I was refering to later available methods of leveling twinks since I wanted to express my sentiment that leveling or twinking is not to be feared.

Your first character should take you about 36-48 hours (maybe a couple more) and you should really enjoy the trip. Remember also that most classes don’t come into full pre 30 or even 60 since you are lacking skill, traits, etc.

Nulisecundus.3820:

Morning all,

In a few hours give or take (installing GW2 as I write this) I’ll be one of a few newbies in game. I’m a veteran of WoW raiding being a healer and dps when needed. Just a question into which profession would be best to learn the game on for currently the elementalist and Guardian professions both seem appealing to myself any advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers.

Don’t rush to level. Just explore the world. Guardian is a good first choice because you can just button smash your way to victory without really thinking.

My greatest suggestion on any class, is once you leave the starting area into Tyria, you can always hop over to the mists (PVP). You do not have to participate in any matches, but can get a feel of the skills, traits, weapons and what not for your selected class. There are NPC golems all over to be pounded on, so you can find which class fits your play style.

Nulisecundus.3820:

Morning all,

In a few hours give or take (installing GW2 as I write this) I’ll be one of a few newbies in game. I’m a veteran of WoW raiding being a healer and dps when needed. Just a question into which profession would be best to learn the game on for currently the elementalist and Guardian professions both seem appealing to myself any advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers.

Welcome, my fellow Azerothian expat! As someone who is relatively new to Tyria let me assure you I am having a blast! I’ve leveled a Mesmer to 80 ankitten ow working on my Asura Warrior who is just a hair past 60.

Of all the advice I can give you, exploration is the most important thing! There are sweeping vistas to be discovered. Odd, out of the way little places in the world to be found and all sorts of inhabitants to helped! If you find yourself in need of assistance, or just want to talk, feel free to add me to your friends list!

Welcome to Tyria!

narwhalsbend.7059:

Don’t rush to level. Just explore the world. Guardian is a good first choice because you can just button smash your way to victory without really thinking.

There is really no reason NOT to rush to cap. The game at cap is the same as when you level, just without throw away gear and a set build.

Ok OP, I have been playing WoW since beta. I have been playing Guild Wars 2 on and off since beta as well. I often bring people over from WoW to GW2 in an attempt to show them something different they might just love. So, I also often end up having to train/explain to many of them all of the big differences. Here are the biggest two I know of, hopefully this helps your transition:

WoW Abilities vs Guild Wars 2 Skills

WoW, even after the ability pruning done in WoD has 2-4x as many key binds per character. A lot of my friends who started GW2 thought that each proffesion (class in WoW) didn’t really have as many options in combat as in WoW. This is simply not true.

The biggest difference between these two games in combat is that in GW2, skills do many different things. Their tooltips are loaded with information, a lot of which you might not even understand at first. GW2 is all about stringing together your skills with other skills (and other peoples skills) in order to get the effect you want. This is a very different mindset you have to get used to, and imo, the hardest part of getting “good” at GW2. Knowing all of the professions, their skills, and the animations that play during those skills, is ridiculously important.

I believe it is also important to note that in GW2, many of the skills have semi-long animations. They take time, and sometimes take over your movement. While WoW has some abilities like this, most are far more “responsive”. You essentially are waiting on the global cooldown in WoW, where as in GW2 you are waiting on the skill cast/animation to finish. Because of this, you should know that it is possible to queue another skill while one is already casting. For instance, as a thief you have a skill that drops a smoke field and a skill that leaps forward. If you leap through a smoke field in GW2 that combo makes you stealth a short while. You can hit both of these keybinds in order, and just wait for it all to play out.

WoW Positioning vs GW2 Positioning

WoW and GW2 combat both deal with positioning. However, even though it may seem trival at first, GW2 is far more complex. Your dodge key is extremely important, in many battles, you can avoid 90-100% of the damage by simply using dodge correctly.

It is important to note that GW2 collision is more complex as welll; it plays into positioning. In WoW, if you can cast on a target (he is in LoS and range) your target gets hit with your abilities, period. In GW2, you can use skills when you are not in LoS or range. If your target gets out of LoS/range in the middle of an attack it will be avoided. if they dodge or use evades they will avoid damage, and if a different enemy gets in from of a projectile attack they will take the damage instead of your original target.

hello and welcome
if your new to this game i say skip guardian first you have a hard time ad begin

duo to his very low health pool same as elementelist

warrior and ranger are by far the easy class to get into