Guild Wars 2

IndigoSundown.5419:

I don’t feel there is anything wrong with classes that have different learning curves and differing levels of skill to play. In Tera, classes were rated based on skill needed to master. Of course, there are no such warnings in game in GW2, but they are available on the forums if you poke around.

As to WoW’s early leveling experience being on an even keel no matter the class, that is easy to accomplish with class design where you get 1 to 2 skills starting out, and just use those. WoW skill acquisition is also glacially slow in comparison with GW2, at least on the weapon side. I’m sorry, but while the OP may have enjoyed leveling in WoW, I found the process to be so mind-numbingly boring that only the few F2P grinders were worse. So, I might be a bit inclined to view any comparisons to WoW in a negative light.

Are GW2 classes unbalanced early? Probably, since they don’t seem all that well balanced at 80. The meta will change over time, and some of those changes might filter down to the early experience.

So…you are saying imbalance is a good thing? Why exactly?

Tera is a horrible example of game design sadly.

I’d be fine with “learning curves” if all professions could do Hundred Blades-esque damage with enough practice. This is clearly not the case.

As was mentioned in another thread, a problem seems to be that PvE is designed around WoW style crawls that only work for WoW’s trinity. While in PvP, because it uses objectives like capture points, it allows for more professions to be useful.

Imagine if PvE was approached by the same philosophy. If, instead of WoW style PvE where you pull the enemy most relevant to your current goal, you took a more DotA style approach, trying to hold the line against a tide of enemies, and push friendlies forward. Thief spamming blinds could be one of the most valuable members of the team! Turret engineers might be OVERPOWERED! Necromancer durability might be an asset, rather than poor compensation for their DPS!

I hope, if there is paid DLC, or an expansion, that they really rethink PvE altogether.

I’ve trained a few characters, and recently start thief (only lvl 15 atm), but I trained an ele, ranger, and guardian to high levels. While the leveling experience is different, I’ve found leveling speed to be relatively similar. This is how it should be imo.

Dodging doesn’t necessarily mean dodge rolling, but also using evade type skills, attacking while kiting (even with melee, just run through the enemy to dodge attacks or start attacks before you’re in range to give you more time to dodge the mob’s melee)
I prefer to focus on condition damage. D/D and shortbow are my favorites vs groups because they can do spammable aoe damage while I kite around and wait for mobs to die (caltrops helps with this).
I can only see problems occurring if I run into too many ranged foes because they’re harder to kite and don’t like to ball up.

And of course it helps to keep your gear up, which is fairly cheap to do. Mastercraft gear within ~7 levels of your character is enough. (more at leeway higher levels than lower ones)

Starbird.4029:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I don’t feel there is anything wrong with classes that have different learning curves and differing levels of skill to play. In Tera, classes were rated based on skill needed to master. Of course, there are no such warnings in game in GW2, but they are available on the forums if you poke around.

As to WoW’s early leveling experience being on an even keel no matter the class, that is easy to accomplish with class design where you get 1 to 2 skills starting out, and just use those. WoW skill acquisition is also glacially slow in comparison with GW2, at least on the weapon side. I’m sorry, but while the OP may have enjoyed leveling in WoW, I found the process to be so mind-numbingly boring that only the few F2P grinders were worse. So, I might be a bit inclined to view any comparisons to WoW in a negative light.

Are GW2 classes unbalanced early? Probably, since they don’t seem all that well balanced at 80. The meta will change over time, and some of those changes might filter down to the early experience.

So…you are saying imbalance is a good thing? Why exactly?

Tera is a horrible example of game design sadly.

Tera is indeed a poor game. I mentioned it only because the character creator actually mentioned that some classes require more skill. I think that that is also true of GW2, with Warrior and Ranger being very easy to master, Elementalist and Engineer much harder, and the rest at various places on the continuum in between.

I think that some imbalance in class design is inevitable. However, I am not saying that it is good. What I do think is good is that some classes are harder to master than others. Why? Because: some people prefer simple, some prefer more complex; and because some want varying degrees of complexity depending on their mood. If I’m tired and brain dead, I trot out my warrior or durability specced necro; if I’m looking for more complex play, I load the Elementalist or Mesmer.

It might be possible to design classes that offered differing degrees of complexity so that early level play of the classes is very similar. However to do so in a quasi-action combat game like GW2 that also offers early availability of a large percentage of one’s skills is not going to be an easy, or maybe even a doable task.

RebelYell.7132:

I’d be fine with “learning curves” if all professions could do Hundred Blades-esque damage with enough practice. This is clearly not the case.

As was mentioned in another thread, a problem seems to be that PvE is designed around WoW style crawls that only work for WoW’s trinity. While in PvP, because it uses objectives like capture points, it allows for more professions to be useful.

Imagine if PvE was approached by the same philosophy. If, instead of WoW style PvE where you pull the enemy most relevant to your current goal, you took a more DotA style approach, trying to hold the line against a tide of enemies, and push friendlies forward. Thief spamming blinds could be one of the most valuable members of the team! Turret engineers might be OVERPOWERED! Necromancer durability might be an asset, rather than poor compensation for their DPS!

I hope, if there is paid DLC, or an expansion, that they really rethink PvE altogether.

I left me a rly bad taste when when you made that bear and monk tank dodging from wow comparison. But now that I know what point you were truly trying to make, I think I changed my mind about you; I like you You nailed it, and I completly agree with you.
Note: Sorry about my grammar, I’m on my iphone.

Poplolita.2638:

I left me a rly bad taste when when you made that bear and monk tank dodging from wow comparison. But now that I know what point you were truly trying to make, I think I changed my mind about you; I like you You nailed it, and I completly agree with you.
Note: Sorry about my grammar, I’m on my iphone.

I apologize. I’m aware the game is about active defense, I can be a bit.. selectively forgetful of that fact depending on my mood while posting.

So I deleted my level 30 thief today (I didn’t like her look or name anymore) and I started a new one taking into account what the OP said.

I did the tutorial fine. After the tutorial I bought a level 1 shortbow from the TP with my 70 copper I had earned and killed 1 mob at a time to open up my 5 skils. Once I had 1-4 opened I was able to take on 3 mobs at a time with ease in my starter gear by hitting number 4, and then putting number 2 on top of it, taking advantage of the combo field weakness.

Op is a sillypants.

Switched to pistol /pistol, having 0 trouble with that as well.

Some of the classes in the game are late bloomers, you just have to grit your teeth and get on with it or give up the class.

I didn’t even make it through the first page when I got fed up with the ignoramuses that often plague forums.

I completely agree with the OP. Some classes change dramatically as you go up in level while others stay consistant. Thief is a fine example of this where they have a hard time serviving against 3 enemies of the same level (I’m talk pre lvl 10 here), while others can tank through 5+ (Mace/Focus Guardian). My warrior is just as bad as the thief in pre lvl 10 and it wasn’t until I got my warrior to 14 did it go complete 180 and I can mow over the 5 mobs.

Hell, with my Guardian, I was able to solo that underground place when the ghost had it taken over. I solo’ed all 4 champs at level 22 in lvl 20 masterwork gear! I’m willing to bet that I won’t be able to beat half of them on my warrior when I get to that point.

As for learning to play the class. This issue actually prevent new players from learning to play the class. If the class you are playing will change so much from start to max level, then what you learn early is for nothing and as you will only have to relearn later.

If you read your abilities and use them correctly 3 mobs on a theif is cake. Yes I’m talking pre level 10. I just tested it out.

Snow White.9680:

If you read your abilities and use them correctly 3 mobs on a theif is cake. Yes I’m talking pre level 10. I just tested it out.

indeed,

Dagger main hand and spam death blossom. Easily kills any open world mobs from 1-80. 3-4x DB = death to whatever = perma evade. The end.

Jemmi.6058:

Dagger main hand and spam death blossom.

Or sword/dagger main hand and maintain Black Powder. Or do what Snow did and go with the Short Bow. Plenty of options available!

I will admit that my warrior does seem hardier and more lethal than my thief, but she just doesn’t have the je nais se quois of running P/D in PvE.

I found WoW to be very inconsistent as well, but perhaps they’ve smoothed it out since I left.

I’d totally disagree with the “level a Thief to 40 by crafting” theory. Get a sword and a pistol. Learn what they do (blind, evade, etc). Focus on melee mobs, think through the best way to handle ranged mobs — and when to avoid an encounter entirely. BAM, my Thief, even from fairly low levels (20’s, when I discovered S/P?) is my toughest character.

Put a shortbow as your alternative weapon and you can kite like no other.

OK. Engineer currently is my main, I love the guy, he’s just so versatile. However I found just this when leveling my Engineer. At the start I just couldn’t get him to do any kind of meaningful damage. It was like pulling teeth. A lot of the Story missions were really hard comparatively to doing them with other classes, it only really started to feel like it came into it’s own when I hit level 35 I crafted a full set of rare gear and started doing AC Explorable.

It lead to him spending the first couple of months of the game acting as a bank character. I really don’t think the first 30 levels really gave a good indication of the Engineer at level 80.

Comparatively Ranger was really easy to level, so was Warrior, Mesmer and Guardian. I can’t really say about Thief. It was my first character and everything was new, so I spent much more time running around looking at the sights, so if it was hard to level I didn’t notice it.