Guild Wars 2

I’m confused and looking for some advice…

My wife and I picked up the game and started with a Guardian and Elementalist thinking that it would be a good duo combo.

We’ve got to level 30, wearing mostly blue quality armor/weapons of quality at least 3 levels from our current level, but the following happens….

1. There is a 3 mobs that are level 13 … We die
2. There is a veteran that is 15 levels lower than us … we die
3. There is an event, that there are 5 people at … we all die
4. 2 or more mobs with hammers … they knock us down repeatedly … we die
5. There is a mob with an exploding barrel … we get knocked across the map … we die

> Wife can’t keep up with heals due to the inability to target someone…
> I can’t stand in the “Healing Zone/Cone/Area” because I have to jump around like Yoda to attempt to avoid Hammers, barrels, untelegraphed attacks

I’m very surprised with the press that this game gets. Wondering if anyone actually plays the game more than a week without getting frustrated.

For a frame of reference, we’ve played and got max level characters on TSW, EQ2, STO, Tera, Defiance, Rift, AO and EQ1. (Notice, never played WoW and happier for it) We’ve always played a tank/healer type combos

This is our rant and plea for assistance in understanding the seeming ping pong, always dying play style that seems to get this game such good press.

What are we doing wrong? (Currently assuming everything)
Why does it seem that this game is based around dying?
Why can’t someone in heavy armor take more than 4 hits?
Why does someone in heavy armor need to jump around like a scout?
Why does it seem that healing is a “self only” ability?

We’ve read all the reviews on this game, it seems to be getting a lot of good press. We’ve read a lot of build guides and play style guides, but there is obviously something we’re missing.

Frustrated enough to go play Mechwarrior Online instead …

Tashanin and Venora.

unfortunately there are no healers in this game.

Now, as for dying to low level mobs; you get downlevel on areas below your level, i have a fuly levelled ele with top notch gear and I sometimes die too.

Armor has very little say on defense, it is barely negligible, so dont bother about that. Also, eles and guardians have the lowest hp pool in the game, eles are in a really bad spot atm. All I can tell you is; keep playing, dont worry, you will get used to it, dont try to tank things or heal through them, Anet made sure those things dont exist in the game. Focus on killing stuff before it hits you too much.

/cheers

Combat is a bit different in GW2. Your priority is to avoid damage over dealing it. There are no strict healers although many professions offer healing support. You can modify your build to be more tanky or bunkerish until you get the hang of avoiding damage. Many people change the keybind of their dodge key for better control.

You can (and should!) maximize damage by utilizing combos. Here’s a good tool that will help you folks learn how to combo off each others skills:

http://mastodonte.fr/outils/tool-combo#en

Judging from your first 2 points, I am willing to hazard a guess you are not aware the game down-levels you to the zone you are in. It is not really possible t face a mob 15 levels lower then you. You are always on even footing.

The game can certainly appear harder then your average mmo. Movement is key and if you lack the faculties to do so, well unfortunately you are in some major trouble. The best think I an say really is to try and keep at it. You can not apply what you have learned from other MMOs because a TON of them took a lot of inspiration from WoW’s success. GW2 however doesn’t. This game does indeed have some balancing issues and some mobs are unusually difficult. However, sometimes there are adversaries you just aren’t meant to defeat. Use your heads to achieve victory.

You have to dodge attacks, they are not supposed to “just be healed”.
Also you can slot different utility skills outside of combat,
try and grab a skill that grants stability which makes you immune to all
kinds of disables like hammer knochdowns and launches from bombs.
Especially the guardian should have many blocks from skills and stability skills
for the whole group.

I can not emphasise enough: use dodges and blocks against attacks,
it is intended that you can’t take many hits

Tashanin.2041:

Frustrated enough to go play Mechwarrior Online instead …

That’s pretty darned frustrated.

I hate it when my characters get knocked around like pinballs. Unfortunately, GW2 all too often feels like one big kitten pinball game. Must every other mob be a paddle? Evidently so.

(Disclaimer: slight exaggeration applied for emphasis; actual game experience may vary.)

Well ignore level differences, the game will down level you if you are too high for an area. Although this may sound odd I find it a very positive addition because you can go back and do areas on a high level character without just one-hitting everything.

I think it simply comes down to a L2Play issue, I don’t want to sound harsh but the Guardian and Elementalist can both be almost unkillable if built right (admittedly it helps to be level 80 for traits). Surface mobs are generally very easy you should have no difficulty at all killing 3 on your own. It’s too easy to blame the game and I’m going to be blunt, I think the problem lies between the keyboard and the chair. When you realize it is your fault then you can improve.

Now how you can improve.

Don’t stand in red circles.

Watch the mobs carefully, if they go to do an attack that looks somewhat special it probably is. Dodge/Move.

Always try and be behind the enemy, most mob’s attacks can simply be avoided by not standing in front of them.

Try and be more defensive. Take your time killing mobs till you get the hang of dodging and mechanics. Once you learn this then you can be more aggressive.

This game is not based on dying, dying is simply a helpful feature of the game that tells you if you are bad or made a mistake.

A heavy armor class can take more than 4 hits unless hit by some special attack. I mean even my Zerk Warrior that is pure DPS can take a lot more than that.

Someone in heavy armor does have to be mobile because the best way to survive is not getting hit. I always found it odd in WoW how you can be hit by some massive 40 tonne rock and survive because you were wearing slightly thick metal.

For most professions heals are a self only ability. This is a precaution by ANET I think so the game doesn’t turn into Tank/DPS/Healer. However there are some professions that can provide excellent healing for a group. I’m not too sure myself but I believe a lot of classes, if built right can act as a proficient healer.

Maybe if you were to upload a video of you playing and your deaths we could provide more help. But when you come to the forums with very vague descriptions it is extremely hard to point you in the right direction.

Anyway, hope I helped.

Thank you for all your replies. We are both pleasantly surprised at the helpfulness of the community.

Just to be clear, what we’re hearing is:
> Armor is meaningless
> Vitality and toughness are there to give you time to get behind the mob
> Raise the power, percision and conditional damage skills by all means
> Use external tools to determine combos between different classes
> Use your stay on the run as much as possible (Rogue / The Secret World)
> Stay out of the way of red areas (The Secret World), but stay behind the mob as much as possible
> Use abilities to keep you from getting knocked down, punted, etc. There is no passive skills that help in that area. (e.g. armor, toughness, vitality)

Do I have the correct?

Edit: Yes, we both understand about the down leveling, but one would think that the armor, weapons, passives and ability that were gained during the 15 levels previous would give a distinct advantage.

I see a lot of players in GW2 who are trying to stand still and fight mobs. Most skills can be used on the move. This involves an adjustment for players used to other MMO’s.

Way back, I found the following video to be helpful.

I hope it does the trick for you as well.

Tashanin.2041:

Thank you for all your replies. We are both pleasantly surprised at the helpfulness of the community.

Just to be clear, what we’re hearing is:
> Armor is meaningless
> Vitality and toughness are there to give you time to get behind the mob
> Raise the power, percision and conditional damage skills by all means
> Use external tools to determine combos between different classes
> Use your stay on the run as much as possible (Rogue / The Secret World)
> Stay out of the way of red areas (The Secret World), but stay behind the mob as much as possible
> Use abilities to keep you from getting knocked down, punted, etc. There is no passive skills that help in that area. (e.g. armor, toughness, vitality)

Do I have the correct?

Edit: Yes, we both understand about the down leveling, but one would think that the armor, weapons, passives and ability that were gained during the 15 levels previous would give a distinct advantage.

Standing behind mobs usually only applies to large fights were you
specifically don’t have aggro but someone else.
In small fights i.e. only you two and a bunch of mobs it won’t be possible to
stay behind them as the mob will just turn around.

Also try to only specialise in either direct damage -power precision and crit dmg-
or condition damage.
You can take a few normal hits so it won’t be necessary to be on the run all the time
but watch out for special attacks; the are clearly telegraphed
with the enemy charging up or setting down an explosive or something similar.

In addition there are so called “stunbreaker” skill.
You can identify them by the “breaks stun” discription at the bottom.
If a mob stuns you (purple borders on your screen) knocks you down or back, launches you or fears you, you can use those to instantly stand up again without the need to wait for the standing up animation to finish or the stun to run out.

1) No. Go vitality and toughness to increase health or armor.
2) Getting behind the mob is not necessary – just get out of the way of the big attack.
3) Stats depend on your build which depends on the situation (dungeons & WvW play very differently)
4) Not necessary to use external tools, your tooltips show which skills are Fields and which are Finishers. (one person lays a field, the same person or another person casts a finisher in the field)
5) Move as necessary to avoid attacks.
6) For the most part stay out of red circles, but as you play you will learn what attacks you can take.
7) For the most part, yes.

Tashanin.2041:

Just to be clear, what we’re hearing is:
> Armor is meaningless
> Vitality and toughness are there to give you time to get behind the mob
> Raise the power, percision and conditional damage skills by all means

Armor is not meaningless, vitality and toughness are very useful. The above is based on a certain elitist mindset according to which you are trash unless you are a pure glass cannon.

You’ll learn combos without external utilities. In any case it will take some time before you can take full advantage of them.

Tashanin.2041:

Thank you for all your replies. We are both pleasantly surprised at the helpfulness of the community.

Just to be clear, what we’re hearing is:
> Armor is meaningless
> Vitality and toughness are there to give you time to get behind the mob
> Raise the power, percision and conditional damage skills by all means
> Use external tools to determine combos between different classes
> Use your stay on the run as much as possible (Rogue / The Secret World)
> Stay out of the way of red areas (The Secret World), but stay behind the mob as much as possible
> Use abilities to keep you from getting knocked down, punted, etc. There is no passive skills that help in that area. (e.g. armor, toughness, vitality)

Do I have the correct?

Edit: Yes, we both understand about the down leveling, but one would think that the armor, weapons, passives and ability that were gained during the 15 levels previous would give a distinct advantage.

^_^ It sounds to me that you are used to Traditional MMORPGs with the Trinity system, i.e. healer and tank roles.

As an elementalist I am assuming she is using a staff, when she lays down a healing field Water #3 or Water #5, if you are a guardian using say, hammer, you can use a Combo Blast Finisher to do Area Healing which is nice, or in fire fields to gain might to increase your damage. Using combo fields is a lot of help. If the mobs are ranged and shooting your wife (Elementalist) Earth #3 is an aura that will reflect projectiles for a short period of time. If she is being chased by a mob, Air #5 / Earth #5 will completely stop them in their tracks for a moment, whereas Earth #4 will cripple and slow them 50%. Earth #1 is also a great auto attack as it applies weakness, causing the mob to do less damage 50% of the time.

Stay mobile, if you have not edited your keybinds try V to dodge roll out of attacks. I hope you all do not give up on the game, if you need help sometimes heading to Lions Arch and asking for someone friendly to help instruct / demonstrate combo fields, they may help. However, be warned, you will get those people who are rude and unhelpful as well. Never send people gold in mail for help unless they helped you first and you feel you want to send them something.

If you’ve read a lot about the game you’d know that it doesn’t have a trinity. As such, there are no dedicated tanks and healers. This doesn’t mean that you can’t build a character for taking a lot of hits or for supporting your party, but that you can’t facetank what enemies throw at you or heal through it. You will have to move and avoid the telegraphed big hits even on tanky characters.

AntiGw.9367:

Tashanin.2041:

Just to be clear, what we’re hearing is:
> Armor is meaningless
> Vitality and toughness are there to give you time to get behind the mob
> Raise the power, percision and conditional damage skills by all means

Armor is not meaningless, vitality and toughness are very useful. The above is based on a certain elitist mindset according to which you are trash unless you are a pure glass cannon.

You’ll learn combos without external utilities. In any case it will take some time before you can take full advantage of them.

Not really. It is based on the fact that you are trading in about 1/2 of your
potential damage for the ability to survive one blow more from a boss.

Nevertheless it is useful to have a list of all fields and what finishers
can do with them. A fire field from the elementalist for example
can be combo’ed with a guard blast finisher to give area might.
Another example would be a water field and blast finisher for area
regeneration.

Thank you all again, for your continued responses.

After reading the responses and talking it over, we’ve come to the following review of GW2

1. Although staying on the move is fun; we really enjoyed it in The Secret World. This game feels like it relies on it way too much as a balancing mechanic for large over-the-top attacks.

2. The registration of “big attacks” although telegraphed, are often times to subtle and is easily lost in the overall battle. Both Tera and The Secret World seem to do better than this game in our opinion. (We both run 27" 2560×1440 monitors, so we should be able to see stuff)

3. There is a strong reliance on being “a rogue” vs. being “a hero” in our opinion. For us that’s not an enjoyable play style us. Personally, I like the trading blows feeling of a tank. My wife likes the raining hell on mobs. We don’t get that same feeling with this game.

We really wanted to like this game. It’s beautiful, we really liked the music and the world. The story line was compelling and well laid out. We just can’t get past the frustration of the combat system.

All in all, this isn’t the game for us. There are plenty of others out there. FFXIV, Wildstar, etc. that I’m hopeful they will be a better experience.

We may try this game again, after it’s had a chance to balance itself out a bit more and mature.

From looking at what’s coming, action combat MMO’s are becoming a lot more common than they used to be. Whether they will do it better or worse than GW2 remains to be seen. Regardless, good luck and have fun.

Crovax.7854:

AntiGw.9367:

Tashanin.2041:

Just to be clear, what we’re hearing is:
> Armor is meaningless
> Vitality and toughness are there to give you time to get behind the mob
> Raise the power, percision and conditional damage skills by all means

Armor is not meaningless, vitality and toughness are very useful. The above is based on a certain elitist mindset according to which you are trash unless you are a pure glass cannon.

You’ll learn combos without external utilities. In any case it will take some time before you can take full advantage of them.

Not really. It is based on the fact that you are trading in about 1/2 of your
potential damage for the ability to survive one blow more from a boss.

People say this crap all the time, but on my Thief(as an example) I run toughness and vita on my armor and berserker on my jewelry. Why? Because if I don’t, I will be on the ground a LOT. Instead, I’m the one that remains up to help my teammates up off the ground and provide more support while I still lay out huge damage.

On my guardian, I run a tanky/support build to keep the enemy’s attention focused on me instead of my team and lay out big heals to anyone close enough to buff.

But yes, on some classes, toughness/vita is fairly useless. If I’m on my mesmer, I go pure berserker because I can actually move around and use my skills effectively to stay on my feet while I dish out damage.

Fortus.6175:

unfortunately there are no healers in this game.

Now, as for dying to low level mobs; you get downlevel on areas below your level, i have a fuly levelled ele with top notch gear and I sometimes die too.

Armor has very little say on defense, it is barely negligible, so dont bother about that. Also, eles and guardians have the lowest hp pool in the game, eles are in a really bad spot atm. All I can tell you is; keep playing, dont worry, you will get used to it, dont try to tank things or heal through them, Anet made sure those things dont exist in the game. Focus on killing stuff before it hits you too much.

/cheers

This is not entirely true. All of my chars are what I call “survival” builds and I can kill things at an average rate while surviving long fights especially against groups and soloing champions even. What I would suggest for this couple is to try and build atleast 1 survival build out of the 2 chars, personally I would choose the Ele.

For a survival build you want the Toughness stat always on your gear and later down the road you probably want Toughness/Vitality. Also add runes that maximise the same stats as well as trinkets. With this setup you should survive a LOT more. You may notice you kill things slower but at lvl 65 this picks up a LOT because then you get access to Power gear along with Toughness etc.

Also it’s good you have noticed why you are dying – bombers who spam you across the map and hammer users who can constantly spam knock downs/backs. The worst part about knock down/back is not that you are down for a sec (or 5 in some cases) but that you lose access to your skills for a little bit longer due to the interrupts. In some cases this can cause perma non heals etc. What I suggest you do to counter this is to pay attention to what you are fighting and KITE these enemies. That is, use a ranged attack and move around them (circling) as best you can while avoiding their control skills.

Anywho best of luck!

Oh also I would like to give basic tips about the creatures you are fighting:

Veteran – pay extra attention, these have a lot more HP and if they have skills such as “summons” be extra careful and ALWAYS make sure to kill the vet and not what they send at you.

Champion – Be extra, extra careful if it’s just you and your wife. Some are a lot stronger than others but unless you are familiar with each certain one, consider them to be “group monsters” to kill. Wait for help or try your luck to see if you can take them.

Pay attention to mob names such as Veteran and Champion, it’s basic tips but from reading from your OP it sounded like you perhaps didn’t know the differences between the types and their strengths.

AntiGw.9367:

Tashanin.2041:

Just to be clear, what we’re hearing is:
> Armor is meaningless
> Vitality and toughness are there to give you time to get behind the mob
> Raise the power, percision and conditional damage skills by all means

Armor is not meaningless, vitality and toughness are very useful. The above is based on a certain elitist mindset according to which you are trash unless you are a pure glass cannon.

You’ll learn combos without external utilities. In any case it will take some time before you can take full advantage of them.

Armour stats generally don’t matter while leveling up since you’ll be getting rid of your gear as you level up higher (so no point investing in power/prec that you’ll bin 10 levels after) so if the OP wanted to carry on playing the game I’d say they could use whatever they wanted until they hit 80, that’s when you actually start finding builds you like and gearing for them.

The point does remain however, if you can’t handle glass cannon in this game, you’re bad. We’ve all been there at one point, the difference is you have the noobs who refuse to accept it, and the newbies who accept it and are willing to learn to use it. I mean I’m bad at beat ‘em ups, but oh well, you can’t be good at everything.

Tashanin.2041:

Thank you all again, for your continued responses.

After reading the responses and talking it over, we’ve come to the following review of GW2

1. Although staying on the move is fun; we really enjoyed it in The Secret World. This game feels like it relies on it way too much as a balancing mechanic for large over-the-top attacks.

2. The registration of “big attacks” although telegraphed, are often times to subtle and is easily lost in the overall battle. Both Tera and The Secret World seem to do better than this game in our opinion. (We both run 27" 2560×1440 monitors, so we should be able to see stuff)

3. There is a strong reliance on being “a rogue” vs. being “a hero” in our opinion. For us that’s not an enjoyable play style us. Personally, I like the trading blows feeling of a tank. My wife likes the raining hell on mobs. We don’t get that same feeling with this game.

We really wanted to like this game. It’s beautiful, we really liked the music and the world. The story line was compelling and well laid out. We just can’t get past the frustration of the combat system.

All in all, this isn’t the game for us. There are plenty of others out there. FFXIV, Wildstar, etc. that I’m hopeful they will be a better experience.

We may try this game again, after it’s had a chance to balance itself out a bit more and mature.

1. You don’t actually have to stay on the move that much. It helps a lot, but some well-timed dodges and good uses of your heal skill (6) can easily account for not moving that much. I’m not that great at this game, yet I manage to get by with a few dodges and running to the side a little. Nothing much more intense than, say, The Secret World from my minimal experience with it. Also, if you’re playing guardian, try a mace/focus, mace/shield, or sword/focus, sword/shield setup. Either the focus or the shield should help give you some extra defense, if you use their skills at the right times.

Not sure if you’re aware, but the last two skills (4 and 5) are your offhand, i.e. focus/shield/torch.

2. Eh, can’t disagree too much there, sometimes they are a bit too subtle to me too.

3. Have either of you touched the personal story at all? The open world is mostly where you play the rogue or adventurer, whichever you will, whereas the personal story is where you play more of the hero type. Also, both of you should be able to play those roles using the professions you’ve picked, for sure.

Do either of you know anything at all about traits? These are kind of like tweaking your attributes in other games, but with more additional effects. For example, every profession has the same basic attributes, toughness, vitality, precision, and power. Precision improves the odds of hitting criticals, power improves direct damage, vitality is your health, and toughness is your defense. All of these may be boosted by equipment, but it helps even more to adjust your traits to boost them.

For the guardian.
Zeal=power.
Radiance=precision.
Valor=toughness.
Honor=vitality.

Profession-specific attribute line:
Virtues=virtue recharge rate.

For the elementalist.
Fire Magic=power.
Air Magic=precision.
Earth Magic=toughness.
Water Magic=vitality.

Profession-specific attribute line:
Arcana=attunement recharge rate.

Setting up the right traits can really help you out in terms of providing some passive bonuses while also giving you some conditional bonuses that you can trigger yourself by doing certain things, which differ from profession to profession and trait to trait. I would say using certain skills, but if I’m not mistaken, I think some may trigger on weapon swapping.

Edit: Also, I haven’t seen anyone mention this one yet, but if you encounter a [Group Event] and it’s just the two of you, try it for a little bit, and if you think you’re just overwhelmed or outnumbered, don’t feel too bad. Those events are, I think, meant for at least 3 or more players to complete. Once you get a bit better, you might be able to duo some of them though.

Moving isn’t as important as dodging is. Also, a mentality very common in GW2 is “The best defense is a good offense,” since a dead mob offers no threat. To that effect, guardians using greatsword and elementalists using dagger/dagger or dagger/focus are great.

That said, it is possible to build a character to withstand significant punishment. Guardians using a hammer, mace/shield, or mace/focus are capable of surviving significant damage through active mitigation, through blocks and regeneration. Elementalists require more traits to do similar feats, but through water attunement have access to powerful healing abilities.

There is no means of being a healer per se, but that doesn’t mean support isn’t viable. Guardian shouts apply powerful boons to nearby allies, and their staff skill Empower (I want to say it’s 3 or 4) applies 12 stacks of might to nearby allies. For frame of reference, might caps out at 25, and most might-stacking characters only manage up to 15 solo. Elementalists with the staff can perform other means of utility, however I am not terribly well-versed in them so I can’t do them justice. Simply put, I am much happier when my guild leader is fighting beside me on his elementalist.

It doesn’t take 3rd party apps/databases to figure out combos; each ability that starts a combo lists the field they create in the skill tooltip, and each ability that ends a combo lists the finisher type. There is no reason not to use combos when you can, unless you’re specifically saving the finishers for a different combo. In general, any time your character launches an object of some sort its a projectile finisher, any time you spin its a whirl finisher, any time you move/change location its a leap finisher, and any time you cause an explosion its a blast finisher. Leaps tend to apply a beneficial effect to you, blasts apply the same in an AoE, projectiles usually apply a negative effect, and whirls apply the same in an AoE.

Finally, if you two do end up leaving for another game, have fun! You realized that this game isn’t for you, and reacted in a much more responsible manner than many of the residents of these forums who feel in a similar manner.

Tashanin.2041:

Thank you all again, for your continued responses.

After reading the responses and talking it over, we’ve come to the following review of GW2

1. Although staying on the move is fun; we really enjoyed it in The Secret World. This game feels like it relies on it way too much as a balancing mechanic for large over-the-top attacks.

2. The registration of “big attacks” although telegraphed, are often times to subtle and is easily lost in the overall battle. Both Tera and The Secret World seem to do better than this game in our opinion. (We both run 27" 2560×1440 monitors, so we should be able to see stuff)

3. There is a strong reliance on being “a rogue” vs. being “a hero” in our opinion. For us that’s not an enjoyable play style us. Personally, I like the trading blows feeling of a tank. My wife likes the raining hell on mobs. We don’t get that same feeling with this game.

We really wanted to like this game. It’s beautiful, we really liked the music and the world. The story line was compelling and well laid out. We just can’t get past the frustration of the combat system.

All in all, this isn’t the game for us. There are plenty of others out there. FFXIV, Wildstar, etc. that I’m hopeful they will be a better experience.

We may try this game again, after it’s had a chance to balance itself out a bit more and mature.

this is a fairly accurate assessment of the game. it will be hard for the fanboys to not respond point by point and tell you how you are wrong, but it’s obvious you see the game for what it is and decided you don’t particularly like it. it’s rare for new players to have that kind of clarity, nice job.

Dodge attacks.

As a Guardian use you’re F1-F3 abilities and there’s a few healing skills + stability for Guardian. You can also swap weapon set in combat.

As an elementalist you can do pretty much anything, depending on your situation swap F1-F4 a lot, attunements do different things like healing, CC,hard damage,movement.

Also turn off autotarget for skills that can leap or make you go forward, if you do you can click the ground or esc and use those skills to get away from mobs.

Tashanin.2041:

1. Although staying on the move is fun; we really enjoyed it in The Secret World. This game feels like it relies on it way too much as a balancing mechanic for large over-the-top attacks.

If you are in the open world you don’t need to move at all. As a Guardian and as an Elementalist with good build set-ups you can just stand still and face tank any mob you find. After you get used to making some proper builds you will be facetanking the max level mobs in Orr easily, no dodge, no movement required. The open world is actually very easy. May I ask which race you created? So I can potentially identify which mobs might be causing you problems.

2. The registration of “big attacks” although telegraphed, are often times to subtle and is easily lost in the overall battle. Both Tera and The Secret World seem to do better than this game in our opinion. (We both run 27" 2560×1440 monitors, so we should be able to see stuff)

Once more, I’d like to know which mobs have these “easily lost” attacks. Most attacks are easy to dodge, even the basic attack of mobs can be avoided.

3. There is a strong reliance on being “a rogue” vs. being “a hero” in our opinion. For us that’s not an enjoyable play style us. Personally, I like the trading blows feeling of a tank. My wife likes the raining hell on mobs. We don’t get that same feeling with this game.

So a hero is someone who stands still and takes blows? I don’t get this…

We may try this game again, after it’s had a chance to balance itself out a bit more and mature.

Don’t expect the combat system to change much, there is a group of people who enjoy this type of combat (more action-oriented) as you said there are more trinity-static games out there to play. As others mentioned, the current trend for mmorpgs is more action combat, more and more upcoming mmorpgs will focus on action and movement.

Tashanin.2041:

3. There is a strong reliance on being “a rogue” vs. being “a hero” in our opinion. For us that’s not an enjoyable play style us. Personally, I like the trading blows feeling of a tank. My wife likes the raining hell on mobs. We don’t get that same feeling with this game.

We really wanted to like this game. It’s beautiful, we really liked the music and the world. The story line was compelling and well laid out. We just can’t get past the frustration of the combat system.

All in all, this isn’t the game for us. There are plenty of others out there. FFXIV, Wildstar, etc. that I’m hopeful they will be a better experience.

We may try this game again, after it’s had a chance to balance itself out a bit more and mature.

Just a few thing, you might not even read this.

Yea not every game is for every one, but you can return anytime since its Guild Wars.
I don’t wish to insult anyone but it seems that you guys want a less interactive game, looks like you guys just want to run around together and press a few buttons mow downs some mobs and feel like your doing things together.
GW2 is more interactive, your gonna have to pay attention to special attacks, pay attention to what your hitting, when you wanna dodge and so on, it might feel like your not fully working together.

That and you get set to the appropriate level depending on the area, so there is no 1 shot farming and so on.

But if your still playing make a tank character, use shield + mace, it has tanky-ness and some healing in it, for utility mix up healing and barriers so you can protect your partner.
And for her if she want to to nuke, grab a staff and go wild. But if she wants to deal dmg and stay alive, grab daggers and foci (focus-es) for mobility.

But if nothing else go play Rifts its more like WoW so you can tank while she nukes without problems, has some interesting game mechanics too.

Tashanin.2041
“For a frame of reference, we’ve played and got max level characters on TSW, EQ2, STO, Tera, Defiance, Rift, AO and EQ1. (Notice, never played WoW and happier for it) We’ve always played a tank/healer type combos”

You’ve maxed out characters on those game and are having problems with GW2 one of the easiest MMO’s going.

As others have said GW2 is not really a healer tank kind of game, you both need to be doing damage and looking after your own healing.

Don’t get too much into the stats, toughness, vitality stuff just yet, just buy the best stuff you can afford right now, and go with stats and traits that feel right for you.

Try to dodge and avoid attacks, if it looks like your going to die, get the hell out and recover.

Personally I would advise the following:

• Make sure you both have armor that is sufficient for the level you are at. Armor does make a difference.
• Improve your toughness or vitality.
• Do not take on huge mobs. Try it one enemy at a time.
• Rely on your own healing skills, not someone elses. There is no dedicated healer class on the game. So don’t try to build one.
• Rely on your own defensive skills to avoid damage. Use blocking.
• Use control skills to keep enemies away from you. Guardians have plenty of knockdown skills with the hammer for example.
• Use blind to keep enemies from hitting you.
• If you are high level enough, start spending trait points.
• Dodge special attacks from enemies. Don’t face-tank like in other MMO’s.
• When picking skills, it is good to have one skill that removes conditions, one damage skill, and one defensive skill (or a run skill/stun breaker).
• If an enemy is marked as a veteran, he will be tough. Taking him down will take a lot of effort.
• If an enemy is marked as a champion, AVOID! You need more players to take him down.
• Do not wander into explorables that are above your own level. They will crush you instantly. If you are level 13, don’t wander into a level 15-20 zone.
• The regions of an explorable that are furthest away from the low level zones, often contain tougher enemies. The bottom part of Kessex Hills for example, has tougher foes than the upper part.
• It is okay to run away and live to fight another day. That is what running skills and escape skills are for.
• Avoid enemy patrols if you can. Not all enemies need to be fought.

I think that you are too focused on tank healer. Yes an ele makes a good healer and guard is tankier but they need to be really polished up to fill these roles.
Get green on level 30 equipment.
Look at your traits and see which ones harmonize with the others play style (eg heal on dodge or might on dodge etc).
You really don’t need to move around that much unless you are up against a champ.
The hardest bit about ele is learning to rotate through the elements (fire then stone gives a really nice finisher). If you wife is sitting in water all the time you have lost most of her effectiveness.
Staff ele is only good in my opinion in a large group. Others like dagger dagger personally I prefer sceptor dagger for ease of movement and multi-npc combat.

Shame you don’t want to stay, but my advice would have been to play solo for a while. Once you each learn to handle your own class well you will better understand how to play to complement each other. Just my opinion and I’m new but hey it’s worth a punt.

I honestly don’t get the question. I’m sure there’s something missing.

I’ve played both Ele and Guardian (and thief) all the way to 80 and I don’t think there was ever a point where I felt I was unable to cope with normal play.
Admittedly, if you bite off more than you can chew you get splatted – but that’s a given.

A lot of good advice has been given above. You seriously need to look at your gear. Blue is NOT good enough. Correct traiting is vital. There are plenty of good guides in the forum for you to take advantage of. Duo play is advanced – learn to handle yourself solo first.

My personal preference having played both is dagger/dagger for Ele. and sword/focus + greatsword for Guardian (Except in WvW where the rules change. Both go staff and Guardian can also have a greatsword or hammer)

Speaking of which, you should take a look at WvW. Apart from anything else you can get some excellent karma gear from the vendors.

Of course, if you’ve really decided to chicken out, less than a day after posting – well…

Tashanin.2041:

Thank you for all your replies. We are both pleasantly surprised at the helpfulness of the community.

Just to be clear, what we’re hearing is:
> Armor is meaningless
> Vitality and toughness are there to give you time to get behind the mob
> Raise the power, percision and conditional damage skills by all means
> Use external tools to determine combos between different classes
> Use your stay on the run as much as possible (Rogue / The Secret World)
> Stay out of the way of red areas (The Secret World), but stay behind the mob as much as possible
> Use abilities to keep you from getting knocked down, punted, etc. There is no passive skills that help in that area. (e.g. armor, toughness, vitality)

Do I have the correct?

Edit: Yes, we both understand about the down leveling, but one would think that the armor, weapons, passives and ability that were gained during the 15 levels previous would give a distinct advantage.

One other thing; healing basically IS a self only thing. While it is true that most profession can heal others, the amount of healing output is intentionally low, making ally healing more of secondary thing. There is no “healer” role in Guild Wars 2 at all. What we have in its place is the support, and that would be the guardian. Support is more based around buffing and damage negation through shields and other block/evade skills, not direct healing. Ultimately you have to be responsible for your own health bar, because if you’re relying on someone else to heal you you’re going to die every single fight.

P.S.

Read this.
http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/

Wow, some good replies and great tips. Thank you all for your responses.

Like I said, we may try the game again. For now, it seems to solo centric. We’ve been playing MMOs together, as a team for years now. Going from working as a team to working as two individuals is what seems to be the problem here.

I tried solo and the game solos decently enough, but that’s not how we want to play.

Currently, we’re playing the FFXIV open beta and loving it. We can play as a team, enjoy great content and story.

For those that love GW2, continue to love it and play it. It’s just not the game for husband/wife combos I guess.

Take care,
Tashanin & Venora

Tashanin.2041:

For those that love GW2, continue to love it and play it. It’s just not the game for husband/wife combos I guess.

I’ve been playing since beta with my fiancée and we haven’t had any problems. You just need to realize that here teamwork is more organic and realistic, rather than being the overt and forced mini-games you find in trinity based MMOs. She and I work as a team by setting up and exploiting combo fields, buffing and curing conditions on one another, using pulls, knock downs, and knock backs to position enemies and protect each other, and juggling aggro so neither of us gets overwhelmed. The game isn’t solo based, it only appears to be so if you’re, ironically, too immersed in shallow trinity based combat.

Maybe it is just me, but having played every traditional trinity role I never found my party to be a “team.” Yeah we were allegedly working together, but really we were just using each other to get rewards. They weren’t allies; they were tools. And as the original Guild Wars proved with its hero mechanic, in a trinity based system you can get by just fine with a handful of bots. You never actually needed other players at all. You just needed someone spamming heals and holding aggro, and a rudimentary AI could handle that just fine, and in some cases better, than a real person (AI controlled mesmers were far, far, far better at interrupting enemies than human players).

Here in GW2 you actually need someone who can think and react to changing combat situation and dynamically change both their tactics and overall philosophy on the fly. The simple “use healing skill X whenever my health drops below Y%” and “use taunt A if enemy B targets another party member” is not real teamwork. It is exploiting a bot, and frankly I respect my fiancée too much to demand she limit herself to a role that a cellphone could fill.

If you want more, “I shall stand still and take hit” you should have taken the necromancer class, which is oddly one of the easiest “tank” while your wife rains down arrow with a ranger that is quite neat for dps yet behind the necro. Guardian is more of timing the block and buffing group than heal or tank. Elemantalist is not like in the other MMOs, it’s a multitool class, that do everything well enought.

If you do decide to give it another shot, I would like to tag along with you guys and see just what’s going on. While you’ve tried your best to be descriptive about what’s going on, unless I’m there seeing how you react to the situations it’s pretty difficult to offer solid advice. I play all classes, have all except my warrior to max (and only because I find them mind-numbingly boring) so i have a good bit of experience in each class to offer.

Going as a duo team of ele and guardian you should be nearly unkillable which is why i’m scratching my head over it. I think I know what’s going on and how to fix it, but until I am actually there i can’t help much. Give it another shot, and if you do, give me a shout and I’ll join you. Whether you’re on NA or EU servers doesn’t matter (I have accounts in both) I can guest over. Best of luck to you and I hope you don’t give up on the game when you haven’t even seen all it has to offer yet.

Something that helps me stay alive is a good keyboard setup. make sure your dodge button is easy to hit. Also if you check out brazil’s guardian dps build he talks about elementalists working with guardians to increase might stacks. Could be useful. Also as said by some previous ppl theyre are no healers in this game and ah for guard is imo horrible. Healing is left up to players themselves. Make sure you as a guard are using skills that get rid of conditions and block projectiles (i.e. shield of reflec and then i forget what the condition removals are called).

Main point find a good dps build and dodge a bunch. I do that and i take on vets all the time. its not too bad if u just move around a bunch.

So just to add “one last note” here. The thing about not having tanks is at best half true. I just finished an event chain earlier. There are a total of 6 champions. Tanked 3 of them solo without problem and by tank I mean the traditional method. Stand in place and trade blows. Doing it that way isn’t my ideal choice but it was suitable for the circumstances. This was on a lv80 but around 2/3 of the build is possible starting at lv25.

That wasn’t even the the tankiest possible version of the setup.