Guild Wars 2

Good morning everybody….

I bought GW2 when it was released but I couldn’t try it much cause I was still playing “that other game” hardcore mode …

I have finally decided to give it a try and I’d love some advice from experienced players:

1- First of all, is there any very low pop server I should avoid? or any newbie friendly server I should look at?

2- When I was reading about the game when I bought it, I was very curious about the mesmer, so that was going to be my main in this game.
I usually play support classes in all games, am i still right going mesmer?.

Thanks in advance.

Server choice,

This game doesn’t use a mechanic to grief other players, no queue for a boss or for a harvesting node. No need to tag first either.

This means that high populated servers are the best for new people and low populated servers if you don’t always want to be helped with content.

the only advice would be to avoid the top 3 ranking World versus world servers in both NA or EU. the reason is that most people play that for WvW leaving the rest of the world rather empty.

As for class. Mesmer is not really a supportive class but more a CC orientated class with high damage output. It is one of the harder classes to level cause the high damage comes at later times, and the CC is good at low level, leaving it to be a class where you kill very slowly. For end game content it is a very fun class though.

the most supportive class is Guardian (melee), followed by Ele (ranged) and engineer (ranged).

Mesmer is quite good at support, actually. They can do an AoE field that removes conditions from allies and boons from enemies and an AoE reflect (or more, if you trait focus). They also have some niche abilities such as the ability to stealth allies, portal allies across an area, and increase the attack speed of all allies in an area. If your party is well-versed in combos, their ethereal fields are excellent for providing Chaos Armor to anyone who knows how to use them. They already can remove conditions from allies by shattering and, according to the devs, will be able to apply stability and remove more conditions in groups with mantras.

That being said, Guardian is the quintessential support class, with access to as many/more antiprojectile defenses as mesmer, healing (nothing on the level of a dedicated healer, though), every defensive boon in the game, and a variety of condition removers. An elementalist can also support- though staff is the strongest group support weapon, eles using other weaponsets can support via boonsharing on attunement and healing/condition removal. Bottom line is that pretty much every class has a way of supporting- it’s just a matter of finding one whose playstyle you like.

Thanks a lot for your answers. They’ve helped me a lot even if I’m not familiar with the game mechanic yet.

I’ve been investigating and now I’m sure I’ll go either mesmer or guardian … it all depends if I enjoy more melee or ranged in this game, so I’ll guess I’ll lvl both to 10 or 20 and see which one i fall in love with.

Well you’ll find they aren’t all that different range wise Onaran. Good mesmers are most certainly not ‘ranged’ as their best weapon sets include sword main hand which is of course a melee weapon. On the other hand, sceptre on guardian is also very powerful.

Try them both, get a feeling of what you like. Generally, guardian will be far more forgiving to learn the basics like dodging and has a pretty linear effectiveness. Mesmers really spark up at level 40 and 60 because they are much more dependant on their traits.

Evans have a fair point. But there is in my opinion a subtle difference. (Most) Mesmers prefer to fight ranged and change to melee combat when the enemy comes to them, while most guardians will fight melee where possible and change to ranged when melee range is too hot.

OP, to explain this mechanic, most professions can equip two weapon sets when they are level 7 and swap them out with a hot key during battle. (you can change to any weapon you have with you when out of combat, but in combat you can only swap between the two equiped sets). It is recommended to always bring a ranged set and a melee set. melee deals more damage, but offcourse you recieve more damage too in that range. The armor level and your personal protection decides how long and good you can survive at melee range.

Server choice I would recommend, Yak’s Bend we are very nice and helpful, plenty of people to play with, and a relaxed atmosphere to chill in and enjoy.

As far as a class that is good with support, I would go Guardian/Elementalist/Engineer they all offer good support role skills and such.

Hit me up if you do choose Yak’s Bend, my character names are in my Sig and my guild would love to help you out.