Guild Wars 2

So I just bought the game today and am currently waiting for the endless amount of updates to finish downloading. (3.4Gigs is only 45%!!!)

But I’ve been trying to decide on a starting Profession which would be good for a noob to MMOs like me.
(I have played Titan Quest, Diablo 2 and some DnD Online)
I would like something with an easy learning curve but that doesn’t get stale at later levels; because if I start a character I would like to finish it.
I understand Race is not so important to gameplay but rather storyline, so I think Race will still come down to my personal preference.

At the moment I am torn between Norn Guardian or Charr Mesmer.
I would pick the Norn Guardian as I always find a “Paladin/Tanky-Defender” class the best to learn with especially if I don’t have a group to play with and have to solo missions.
But on the other hand the Charr Mesmer seems interesting to me as an Illusionist Cat would be a new character I haven’t seen before. However I have heard the Mesmer learning curve is quite steep and I feel like the class has a lot of clone/illusion spells when I was hoping for more psychic abilities.

Any suggestions would be great, even if you have completely new and inventive suggestions about the Professions.
Also, I’d like to know a little more about this Mesmer professions abilities if someone can shed some light on that.

Thanks
Anonymous the Spy
(South Africa)

Disclaimer: all my characters are in their mid 40’s or below. I’m a veteran GW 1 player, and very much entirely a PVE player. I am still learning as I go.

I gave the Charr Mesmer a try and promptly deleted her… the Charr, they just don’t look good (to me).

My Mesmer vs Guardian (both Norn, I like Norns)
My Mesmer went from newly created to lvl 40 in two days
My Guardian, on the other hand is still lvl 20, and I’ve been with her for a week now

Me, I’m a ranged player. When I play a guardian, I fall into a habit of playing her like a protection Monk back in the days. When I realized the staff and wand wasn’t doing enough damage to the enemies, I switched to great sword and wand/torch. I can deal damage now, but due to the fact that I’m a ranged player, I constantly forget to have to get close to the enemy. To me, the learning curve for the guardian is huge because it isn’t my play style. I have to learn the profession and how to fight in melee range.

I am also a wanderer
The Mesmer comes with her very own 3 clone army to start with. I have been able to cheery pick my fights and have plenty of ways to escape when the fight gets tough. I find it useful to have something distracting the enemies while I take them apart. I was able to wander all over the world by myself.

You will have a learning curve regardless of the profession you choose. I suggest you pick a play style and try it out. Chances are, you will make new characters as you run out of storage room (so they can be used as “mules”). I have a lot of fun learning the mechanics of the different professions.

Welcome.

The game itself will have a fair learning curve. I often found myself bouncing between alts at low levels, largely thanks to sudden difficulty spikes (a personal problem, to be sure), and soon realized that coming back to one profession after playing another for some time had drastically improved my competence with the first. Don’t let someone steer you away from a profession that interests you just because of their experience with learning curves. The game will get tough now and then, regardless of your profession. And then it gets better, because you get better.

As for Mesmer skills (not a primary profession for me, but I do know a bit about them): you’re correct about the illusions. They’re quintessentially an expendable pets class, and many (but not all) of their core mechanics revolve around this structure. While I’m not entirely certain what you mean by “psychic abilities”, as that can be construed in many ways (an illusion, after all, is an effect of the psyche, is it not?), technically Mesmers still feel like a psychic class— they addle and confuse, misdirect and debilitate, entrance and empower— but ultimately you don’t spend a lot of time with the mechanics of psychic combat. Much of the nitty gritty combat structure comes from shaping and using Ethereal energy, and feels largely like an external, rather than internal or mental, force. It doesn’t make them feel un-psychic. Merely, not wholly psychic.

Hopefully that helps a bit.

warrior and thief are the most noob friendly, and the most boring though

I’d disagree about the thief. While you can scrape by with standard hack-n-slashing, you’ll have to learn a few complicated dances to truly make the class shine. Easy to play, difficult to master sort of situation. And in that regard can be very fun to play for the whole leveling span and beyond.

There’s an awesome series of mesmer guides here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eZ0NNd7b60

Some of the earlier videos are a little outdated in terms of numbers, but it gives you more than enough information to decide whether it’s your thing or not.

Between the two options you listed, I’d consider the guardian to be more straightforward. If I had to pick from all the classes in the game, I’d recommend warrior as being easiest to learn.

Well I decided to start with the Norn Defender. From what you guys have said I don’t think the Mesmer would be for me as a first choice. By Psychic Abilities I was looking for a assassin-like character that would use Confuse, Dazzle, Sleep etc, not a summoner which the Mesmer essentially is.
I was hoping for something a little more proactive and melee orientated so ’ll stick to the Guardian.
Thanks for the help.

The core of the Mesmer class is to confuse your opponent. :P Everything your asking for the Mesmer has! The Necromancer is the summoning class (You can have 5 minions following you around!).

Having leveled 7 characters to lvl 80 (and a ranger to lvl36) I’d say mesmer and guardian were perhaps the slowest ones. Guardians more or less lack ranged options (staff is better for group play than for solo and scepter felt very lackluster to me) and mesmers are quite slow until lvl 40 and really pick up first at lvl 60 (they feel more dependent on their traits than most other classes).

Easiest by far for me was warrior although it was kinda dull at times (go with a signet build and you’ll have 80%+ crit chance for most of the game levels 20-70).

Thieves can be quick and fun but they require a bit more risk taking. I went with a d/d condition build focusing on death blossom and caltrops while pulling several enemies at once with a short bow (since DB and caltrops are AoE).

Mesmer’s learning curve is…not what you’re looking for.

Professions,imo,in order of difficulty are(from easiest to harder)
Guardian,Warrior,Necromancer,Ranger,Thief,Mesmer,Engineer,Elementalist

hope it helps you.

P.s. the mesmer charr is the rarest combination