Guild Wars 2

As in, I can’t dodge worth jack. I normally know how to keep aggressiveness on me in non-action MMOs, so being a tank here would be useless for the most part unless I knew what skills as a tank steal aggro from others. (So tank’s out the door mainly.)

I’ve been playing elementalist just up to the end of the starting areas for each race, and I’m no good at it really, unless I always party, every second of the game with someone, which, is out of the question, since I have sporadic playing sessions, and never have a schedule.

So I ask, what is a good class for someone who isn’t good at timing things, and can solo, moderately, well.

Keep practicing your dodge. There will come a point in the game that you dodge on time, or you fail. It’s alright if you don’t use it wisely at this point. The timing, and especially the mob indicators, are tricky to get accustomed to. But at the very least, it is imperative for you to have the habit of using your dodge.

Tanking and aggro are controllable in a general context. Proximity and defensive stat stacking do most of the work. That is to say, mobs will prioritize the nearest character with the best defenses. This doesn’t work 100% of the time, and no one has figured out the exact formula for aggro. But it certainly doesn’t rely on specific skills.

As for the appropriate class? Apple already hit the nail on the head. Ranger/Warrior/Guardian. If you really want a caster, Necro does well without needing to tweak out.

maybe a ranger so your pet can tank for you. a heavy armor class like warrior or guardian should be pretty easy too

Unfortunately, I’ll never be good at dodging, trust me. I’ve practiced it enough as a scout on TF2, and on PSO2 to know I’ll never be good at it.

This is going to sound harsh, but you should keep practicing no matter what class you play. After a certain point in the game, not dodging will lock you out from content. You could play the toughest class with the tankiest build and the best defensive gear, but you will still die again and again against many of the bosses in the dungeons if you do not dodge.

Also, I played TF2 myself and got nailed by spies/crockets/etc all the time, yet here, after months of painful learning, I dodge well enough to stay alive. Don’t sell yourself short on the basis of other games.

Hah. Well, as a TF2 Scout player myself, I promise it’s nothing at all like the scout. It’s much more cause and effect. Enemy did the charge up? Hit dodge. Stuck in an aoe? Hit dodge. Learning to see the cues that tell you when and where to dodge are a lot more difficult than making the dodge successful. You’ll be fine.

While the above posters are correct in that you really will need to learn to dodge the occasional massive attacks that certain creatures/bosses will lay out. These are usually quite obvious, with a big wind-up animation and a white kind of glowing pulsing thing on whatever weapon they are using, it’s a clear indicator to double tap in any direction away from it.

Alot of people use a dodge key so they can more accurately dodge in any direction they like, but I find this to be just to much micro-management myself, a simple double tap in any of the 4 basic directions is completely sufficient.

As far as your class goes, some people mentioned Ranger. Yes that is a good choice for general pve. But you will be forced to dodge alot in any other form of the game, dungeons, wvw, pvp. I’m going to assume you aren’t all that interested in pvp if reflexes are an issue, but dungeons are a big part of the game you shouldn’t miss out on.

From my experience the most forgiving class is Guardian. There are certain ways with a combination of Traits, weapon choice, utilities where you can facetank* (*stand there swinging away) quite easily. With the only necessary dodging being for the aforementioned big windup hits. You can do this through most of the game, but for the facetanking bosses and dungeons and such, this will likely require you to be 80 or close to it, so you can have the necessary traits/gear.

Elementalist is probably one of the worst classes you can pick for this by the way. They require immense amount of keypresses in fast sequences that make dodging seem like slow motion. Hope this helps, good luck and just practice dodging around for fun while fighting even when it’s not necessary, make yourself look like some kungkittenaction star while fighting to make it fun and it will start to become second nature.

I’m fine if I get a warning or something beforehand, like a circle AOE or something similar. But as an elementalist, even some general pve mobs will own you even if I dodge correctly (IE: Boars that just keep on running at you, skelks that just keep running right after a melee attack, etc.) Dodging is fun, but only if I can do it right. Seeing as most mobs have a VERY short melee animations, the moment I dodge, they start running at me, making me dodge again. Staff builds (Since I don’t like DPS, I prefer Burst DPS, where one hit = massive damage, rather than over time) often gets canceled by dodging, as Staff non-AOE spells require a direction, unlike wand.

If you face away from your enemy too long, the magic spell will stop auto-attacking, often, this “long” period is the two dodges I often get in immediately when a mob comes close (yeah, I use up pretty much all my energy as soon as they’re close, no joke. Seeing as I explained above the very small animation time, etc.)

Seeing as I’ve played this game a bunch, to know that in newbie areas on the servers I want to join have barely any people willing to help you if you’re stranded in the middle of no where, or came too late to get a party for a skill point boss challenge… I’d sooner go solo than rely on the community.

Thank heavens the game has no durability system besides the whole dying thing. Or else I’d probably drop it, and use it as a time-waster.

Ugh, completely missed the part where you said you played an ele. *is shamed

Not going to mince words- ele is horrible in the early levels, especially for new players. At endgame, played right and built right, you can laugh off virtually any situation, but early on, you lack the gear, traits, and utility to survive effectively.

Staff ele in particular is difficult for solo PvE, as it is primarily a group support weapon. Though the double dagger set places you closer to the enemy, you have higher damage to take them down faster and more control/evasive skills- consider looking into those. It is still by far not an easy class for beginners, so I recommend you come back to it after you’ve worked with another class.

Also, the community varies from server to server, I’ve found. Mine (Tarnished Coast) has its trolls, but an extremely nice community overall. People always lend a hand with events in the beginner area and often give advice to newcomers. You might want to consider transferring.

Thanks guys. I’ll go guardian, mainly for farming purposes for the time being. Once I get her to max or I feel confident enough, I’ll try out the others.