Guild Wars 2

So this is the first mmorpg ive played in my entire life. Ive played many rpgs like The Elder Scrolls series, Diablo and Path of Exile, but never anything like this. Im a level 16 elementalist norn and I keep getting owned. It takes me forever to complete an objective because I keep dying, Im really in over my head here and am feeling overwhelmed. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks in advance

This is coming from someone who loves Elementalist above all other classes: Try another class.

Elementalist is a ton of fun, but the frequent attunement-swapping, low health, and low armor make for a class that’s relatively complicated to play, and more-than-usually easy to die with. If you find yourself dying a lot, you might try something a little beefier, like a Guardian, Warrior, or Ranger. If start with a class that can take a few good hits without dying, you’ll find the game a bit more forgiving of mistakes.

Other than trying out different classes to see what works best for you, here are a couple other tips:

1) Try to limit how many enemies you fight at once. It might be slow-going, but even many large groups of enemies can be whittled down by pulling away one or two at a time, luring them away from the others.

2) Learn to use dodge-roll. You can dodge-roll by double-tapping a movement key, or by pressing [v]. This is extremely important with a delicate class like Elementalist, where you need to do everything you can to limit the number of hits you take.

3) Be sure to upgrade your armor/weapons. If you’re doing renown hearts (the yellow hearts/quests on the map,) many of them will sell level-appropriate weapons/armor, and the Personal Story will feed you upgrades at a decent pace as well. You don’t have to worry about which stats you use much until later in the game, once you’ve figured out what you want to specialize in, but it’s good just to keep the numbers improving.

Good luck, and welcome to the game!

Thank you very much! I appreciate the help. I was considering switching classes but did not know there would be that much of a difference in them like you suggest. If you dont mind me asking, would the ranged character that mainly uses a bow ( i think its the ranger?) be any easier to begin with? Or do you reccomend using a high damage absorbing tank class to start off with as a beginner? Thanks again for the help!

Darkfusion.1728:

Thank you very much! I appreciate the help. I was considering switching classes but did not know there would be that much of a difference in them like you suggest. If you dont mind me asking, would the ranged character that mainly uses a bow ( i think its the ranger?) be any easier to begin with? Or do you reccomend using a high damage absorbing tank class to start off with as a beginner? Thanks again for the help!

A warrior is probably easiest. They can also use longbow.

Which weapons have you tried on the elementalist? My first character was also an elementalist. I used staff but I don’t recall having much issue with it. On the other hand it was also what I played during most of the beta so by the time it launched I was already somewhat familiar with both the combat and class so you might just need a bit more time to get used to it.

Firstly I think you’ll probably be at an advantage coming at this game from single-player RPGs rather than other MMOs. It’s different from most MMOs in some fairly important ways that seem to catch a lot of people out. Also you’re aware you’re going into something new so you’re more likely to be paying attention and learning how things work rather than assuming it’s the same as other games.

Back to your actual question I think anything, except maybe the engineer, is easier than the elementalist. They’re not a bad class, in fact at level 80 they can be very, very good (and have decent survivability) but they’re one of the harder classes to play.

But there’s a few things which apply to all classes which might help you:

• Dodge – it takes practice to time it right but if you dodge an attack you’ll take no damage from it.
• Keep moving. GW2’s combat is very movement orientated, even your best healing skills (water attunement for the ele) won’t keep you alive if you stand in red AoE circles and moving away from enemies can keep melee attacks away from you and cause some ranged attacks to miss.

I kinda disagree with the advice to switch class. Ultimatly you can do that but I would advise to stick with your class right now.

My first character was an ele and I had simular issues (even though I had MMO-experience).

The first and most important thing bout an leveling ele is what weapon to use.
There are 5 possible options and I would like to explain why some are often advised, but not good for a leveling ele.

1: Staff: The staff is awesome at dealing massive amounts off AoE damage and is very appealing. This however is strongest when playing in big groups (zergs). Consider this. If you are fighting 10 foes, each deal 10 damage/second. You would face 100 damage/second. AoE attacks will kill them all at the same time, so ALSO keeping them alive the whole time and letting them deal that 100 damage/second. Single target damage only attacks one target but takes that target down a lot quicker. one target less means that you have to deal with much less damage/second.

2: Dagger/dagger: This weaponset deals the highest ammount of damage, specially on singel targets. Thats the reason I would strongly advice against using this. The reason is that you have to be in close range, making it harder to move away from damage and cause it has not many protective skills.

3: Scepter/Focus: This is the best protective combination there is and will put you on the right distance and deals lots of single target damage. I would really advice to try this! It does lack on offisive skills a bit

4: Scepter/Dagger: This hangs a bit between dagger/dagger and Scepter/focus and has imo the best of both worlds. It has very good protection skills but also does a good amount of single target damage.

5: Dagger/focus: This is a combination very rarely used what you gain from the focus is gone by the dagger skills. The dagger mainhand is not as powerfull as the offhand, and the focus is mainly protective orientated.

Besides that also make sure you get new gear every 5 levels. While leveling I would highly recommend going for gear with toughness.

Danikat is perfectly right that you should keep moving and dodging at all time!

Last off all, it helps a lot to play with someone else.

My first char in GW1 was an Ele. My first char in GW2 is still an ele. As squishy as she is, I find it’s a lot of fun to play. It also help you learn how to survive in the harsh, dark world of scarlet.

As a 1st class in gw2 the Ele is going to be hard for you, but look on the bright side if you manage to get good with the Ele most other classes will be a walk in the park when you try them out ?
The ele is a class that its play style changes completely depending on what weapons you are using. So if you aren’t doing so well with a certain weapon try a different one. Me for example I couldn’t play Staff Ele starting off, it just didn’t work, but leveling I fell in love with D/D.

Also I have about a handful of friends that have attempted to play an ele and quit before hitting level 25 so don’t get discouraged if you have a hard time at the beginning. Also no shame in quitting for now to play a diff class and coming back to it later :P

Redenaz.8631:

This is coming from someone who loves Elementalist above all other classes: Try another class.

Elementalist is a ton of fun, but the frequent attunement-swapping, low health, and low armor make for a class that’s relatively complicated to play, and more-than-usually easy to die with. If you find yourself dying a lot, you might try something a little beefier, like a Guardian, Warrior, or Ranger. If start with a class that can take a few good hits without dying, you’ll find the game a bit more forgiving of mistakes.

Other than trying out different classes to see what works best for you, here are a couple other tips:

1) Try to limit how many enemies you fight at once. It might be slow-going, but even many large groups of enemies can be whittled down by pulling away one or two at a time, luring them away from the others.

2) Learn to use dodge-roll. You can dodge-roll by double-tapping a movement key, or by pressing [v]. This is extremely important with a delicate class like Elementalist, where you need to do everything you can to limit the number of hits you take.

3) Be sure to upgrade your armor/weapons. If you’re doing renown hearts (the yellow hearts/quests on the map,) many of them will sell level-appropriate weapons/armor, and the Personal Story will feed you upgrades at a decent pace as well. You don’t have to worry about which stats you use much until later in the game, once you’ve figured out what you want to specialize in, but it’s good just to keep the numbers improving.

Good luck, and welcome to the game!

+1

Keep your ele on the shelf until you get a little experience under you belt. I’ve played all classes and agree that Ele is the most difficult/complicated. Once you get some GW2 experience under your belt, I think it will be much more enjoyable.

Looking at the list of other games you’ve played, I’m going to recommend Ranger as a starting class. Yes, Warrior is tougher and everyone swoons for the warrior around here, and I even play warrior as my main in WvW, but I really think you will enjoy Ranger. You can stand back, command your pet to selectively aggro, start damaging with your long bow, then finish them off with an axe/warhorn.

While warrior can run up and attack anything, the ranger lets you stay back and be a bit more tactical and learn the mechanics of the game.

Again, I do like my Warrior in WvW, but I also adore my PvE ranger.

If you like the elementalist, you should look into rotations (standard attack patterns)

For example, stacking might with (for scepter / dagger) For example Fire 4 → Fire 3 → Earth 4 → Earth 5

But, IMO, the elementalist and the engineer are the toughest classes to play.

Also, get a crafting profession! My friend leveled his ele to 30 just by cooking! Of course, it was an alt, so he was able to get a lot of high level materials to keep the chef going up higher, but the point stands: crafting professions help dramatically in terms of leveling a character up. Also do your story. That helps too.
Keep with the ele! It’s rough to level, but by 80 you will be a killing machine!

Darkfusion.1728:

Thank you very much! I appreciate the help. I was considering switching classes but did not know there would be that much of a difference in them like you suggest. If you dont mind me asking, would the ranged character that mainly uses a bow ( i think its the ranger?) be any easier to begin with? Or do you reccomend using a high damage absorbing tank class to start off with as a beginner? Thanks again for the help!

Honestly, I would say to just pick the one that appeals to you, even if it’s just on flavor terms, rather than mechanical ones. Either option should be a fine choice to start out with, so it’s more important to find one you enjoy, to encourage you to keep playing it.

Even if a class is difficult, weak, or complicated, if you enjoy it and have the patience, you can eventually play well with it.

You list RPG’s but no action games. This might help:

Coming from someone who has mained elementalist from launch- ele is one of the hardest classes to play as a first class.

It has the lowest armor and health pool of all the classes. In order to survive as an elementalist, you must change your attunements constantly to adapt to the situation. It’s important to stay moving and dodge attacks on all classes, but it’s especially important on elementalist, which is essentially a kiting class- even daggers are close-range rather than melee. You must actively use your skills to slow down enemies and keep them from reaching you, to cast shields that absorb their attacks, and to blind them and cause them to miss entirely. Later on, ele also gains strong self-healing abilities and enhancements to evasion.

It’s a strong class at level 80, but difficult to play as a newcomer, so by all means try other classes if you want to. But if you like the feel of elementalist, by all means stick with it. Here are some videos of elementalist combat:

Level 12 ele soloing a level 16 veteran
Level 80 ele soloing a champion

Hopefully those videos help a bit. If you choose to play another class, my best advice is this- learn how to survive in close-quarters fighting with active defense. Even if you can soak the hits as a warrior or guardian, push yourself to dodge and strafe as much as possible. As a ranger, put your pet on standby and practice fighting up close with a sword or axe. It’s a vital skill that’s better learned sooner than later.

Best of luck in your adventures!

I’d suggest trying another profession for a bit, to learn the game mechanics a bit more and to get more understanding of what the various conditions and boons are and how they work together. You want to be able to read a tool tip on a skill and see how it will affect combat for you.

My elementalist made at launch is still just over 30 while I have 7 or 8 80’s now. I redid her with dual daggers and found that a bit better than staff, but it’s still a much more complicated class than any other. You’ve gotten to 16 — try a second character (guardian is a heck of a lot of survivability and much more fun than you might think) to learn the game a bit more, then go back to the Ele. You’ll be amazed how things slot into place for you.

I’m at 70 on my second warrior and he’s much more fun than my first one, since I know what I’m doing now. That doesn’t mean I min max, it just means I have more situational awareness and a better grasp of how to manage skill use on all professions. You’ll likely find the Ele much easier once you’ve had some comparative practice.

Forgot about the elephant in the room but luckily someone just made a post about this.

Check your keybinds for skills and movement and camera control!
The defaults are a bit lacking for GW2’s type of combat. The keybinds should be whatever you are comfortable with but avoid turning with the keyboard and clicking skills. The fast cast ground target is also nice but not as important.

Darkfusion.1728:

So this is the first mmorpg ive played in my entire life. Ive played many rpgs like The Elder Scrolls series, Diablo and Path of Exile, but never anything like this. Im a level 16 elementalist norn and I keep getting owned. It takes me forever to complete an objective because I keep dying, Im really in over my head here and am feeling overwhelmed. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks in advance

Try different weapon sets until you find one that feels good to you. Watch some videos on youtube: SamboNZ (dies a lot), Wooden Potatoes ( lots of good high level ele videos)… Don’t let dying get you down. Ele’s don’t really show their potential until they hit about level 30, so I recommend you stay with it until you get to at least level 30. Since you are a norn, I recommend wolf form as your first elite skill. It saved me many many times as I was leveling up. If you need help in the game, ask in map chat. There will usually be someone around who is willing to help.

Thanks guys this has all been really helpful, I really appreciate all the responses and willingness to help a guy out. For the questions regarding my weapon use, I use a staff in my main hand and a talisman in my off hand. It seems I really need to switch my weapons up. Again thanks for the adivice everyone, it seems the game is even deeper than I thought!

Darkfusion.1728:

I use a staff in my main hand and a talisman in my off hand.

Staff is a 2 handed weapon, and there is not a weapon called talisman. Considering your an ele I guess you mean scepter in the main hand and focus in the offhand?

yes thats it, scepter and focus, my bad im still getting the hang of this game

Hey Darkfusion.1728!!

Why dont you get on game right now!

I’ll help ya and we can level! =) yes?

Darkfusion.1728:

yes thats it, scepter and focus, my bad im still getting the hang of this game

The reason I’m asking is indeed that both are very protecting and you might lack the damage.

My personal favourite when leveling is scepter/dagger. Important for you is to study something called a rotation. Mine with scepter/dagger would be:

earth atunement
skill 2 Rockbarrier
skill 4 Earthquake
skill 5 chruning earth
Go to fire atunement
skill 4 Ring of fire
skill 5 fire grab
If you made it throught this cycle you dodge away from the foe(s) and use:
skill 3 phoenix
skill 2 dragon’s tooth
Skill 1 Flamstrike (keep spamming these 3 while moving round).

If during the first 5 skills the damage gets too high skip the dodge away and start doing phoenix and dragon’s tooth earlier

After roughly 30 seconds from the start you can repeat this whole sequence. If you use signet off healing and didnt need to heal up quickly you will have likely healed all damage cause using skills heals you too.

Best is to practise this cycle on foes that do lil damage, but have a lot off health. a good example would be ettins.

Also remember to read the fight and anticipate. If you have to do with a lot off damage, you can stun your foes or blind them using several air and earth skills not mentioned. You can also use some water skills to heal yourself or others round you.

Darkfusion.1728:

Thank you very much! I appreciate the help. I was considering switching classes but did not know there would be that much of a difference in them like you suggest. If you dont mind me asking, would the ranged character that mainly uses a bow ( i think its the ranger?) be any easier to begin with? Or do you reccomend using a high damage absorbing tank class to start off with as a beginner? Thanks again for the help!

Ranger is an extremely easy profession for a beginner – your pet can ‘tank’ a lot of damage for you/ take a lot of aggro from you (same with necromancer minions, btw – plus Necros have a huge healthpool).
You may want to take into account that elitist players dislike to take rangers along on dungeon runs though (this is more of an endgame-issue).

Warriors are supposedly faceroll easy to play and very attractive in group-play. Personally, I don’t enjoy them at all (tried up to lvl 17, then deleted the character and made a 2nd necro).

It all comes down to playstyle preference, but anything besides an ele (and perhaps a thief) makes for an easier playing experience when just learing your way around the game.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Hey Darkfusion.1728!!

Why dont you get on game right now!

I’ll help ya and we can level! =) yes?

Hey I missed this post last night sorry about that, gotta get some sleep for early morning college classes. But if you would be available tonight I wold love to do some leveling with you! Thank you for the offer!!

mercury ranique.2170:

Darkfusion.1728:

yes thats it, scepter and focus, my bad im still getting the hang of this game

The reason I’m asking is indeed that both are very protecting and you might lack the damage.

My personal favourite when leveling is scepter/dagger. Important for you is to study something called a rotation. Mine with scepter/dagger would be:

earth atunement
skill 2 Rockbarrier
skill 4 Earthquake
skill 5 chruning earth
Go to fire atunement
skill 4 Ring of fire
skill 5 fire grab
If you made it throught this cycle you dodge away from the foe(s) and use:
skill 3 phoenix
skill 2 dragon’s tooth
Skill 1 Flamstrike (keep spamming these 3 while moving round).

If during the first 5 skills the damage gets too high skip the dodge away and start doing phoenix and dragon’s tooth earlier

After roughly 30 seconds from the start you can repeat this whole sequence. If you use signet off healing and didnt need to heal up quickly you will have likely healed all damage cause using skills heals you too.

Best is to practise this cycle on foes that do lil damage, but have a lot off health. a good example would be ettins.

Also remember to read the fight and anticipate. If you have to do with a lot off damage, you can stun your foes or blind them using several air and earth skills not mentioned. You can also use some water skills to heal yourself or others round you.

This should really help out. I have just been using one attunement at a time (mainly air). I didnt know you were supposed to chain them together like this, I thought they were probably just to give you more choices on which element you could attack with in case you got tired of using fire or earth so much. Shows how much I have to learn about this game.

Frotee.2634:

Darkfusion.1728:

Thank you very much! I appreciate the help. I was considering switching classes but did not know there would be that much of a difference in them like you suggest. If you dont mind me asking, would the ranged character that mainly uses a bow ( i think its the ranger?) be any easier to begin with? Or do you reccomend using a high damage absorbing tank class to start off with as a beginner? Thanks again for the help!

Ranger is an extremely easy profession for a beginner – your pet can ‘tank’ a lot of damage for you/ take a lot of aggro from you (same with necromancer minions, btw – plus Necros have a huge healthpool).
You may want to take into account that elitist players dislike to take rangers along on dungeon runs though (this is more of an endgame-issue).

Warriors are supposedly faceroll easy to play and very attractive in group-play. Personally, I don’t enjoy them at all (tried up to lvl 17, then deleted the character and made a 2nd necro).

It all comes down to playstyle preference, but anything besides an ele (and perhaps a thief) makes for an easier playing experience when just learing your way around the game.

I haven’t even been in any dungeons yet, I have mainly been doing my story and the game objectives that are around or near my story for the experience. I mainly play by myself right now and sometimes don’t even see another player in my area for a long time. But eventually I would love to do some dungeons and get some good loot, so Ill have to keep this in mind if I decide to make a Ranger.

Darkfusion.1728:

Frotee.2634:

Darkfusion.1728:

Thank you very much! I appreciate the help. I was considering switching classes but did not know there would be that much of a difference in them like you suggest. If you dont mind me asking, would the ranged character that mainly uses a bow ( i think its the ranger?) be any easier to begin with? Or do you reccomend using a high damage absorbing tank class to start off with as a beginner? Thanks again for the help!

Ranger is an extremely easy profession for a beginner – your pet can ‘tank’ a lot of damage for you/ take a lot of aggro from you (same with necromancer minions, btw – plus Necros have a huge healthpool).
You may want to take into account that elitist players dislike to take rangers along on dungeon runs though (this is more of an endgame-issue).

Warriors are supposedly faceroll easy to play and very attractive in group-play. Personally, I don’t enjoy them at all (tried up to lvl 17, then deleted the character and made a 2nd necro).

It all comes down to playstyle preference, but anything besides an ele (and perhaps a thief) makes for an easier playing experience when just learing your way around the game.

I haven’t even been in any dungeons yet, I have mainly been doing my story and the game objectives that are around or near my story for the experience. I mainly play by myself right now and sometimes don’t even see another player in my area for a long time. But eventually I would love to do some dungeons and get some good loot, so Ill have to keep this in mind if I decide to make a Ranger.

If you stick with the Ele you can conjure a Frost bow that will make your party’s life a LOT easier in the 1st dungeon ( #4 on Frost Bow on Burrows in Pt 1 and Pt3 of Ascalonian Catacombs Explore mode….err since you havent gotten that far yet… you will know what i mean when you see it )

Oh and for attunement swapping my fav combo is for D/D

Air Attunement (f3)>Ride the Lightning(4)>Updraft(5).Fire Attunement(f1)>Burning Speed(3)

BTW Helpful things to know as an Ele that most people dont know starting off:

You can swap attunements while channeling a skill without interrupting the channel(Churning Earth, Drake Breath ETC…)
You can use most cantrips while channeling without interrupting the channel( Only one you cant is mist form). EX: Churning Earth and Lightning Flash.

Hope that Helps
~Count