Time and time again I’ve tried to come back to Guild Wars 2 only to run into a problem. The classes that I think look interesting are “no good” or can only be used in certain ways.
Staff necro?
“Lolno, here try these daggers.”
Longbow ranger?
“Only if you want to be lame and never want to do a dungeon, I don’t care what the class description said grab some axes or whatever!”
I’m confused and a bit miserable. Is it okay to try and play a class the way I want or will I be expected to conform to the current meta the instant I try and do anything endgame? Why haven’t things been balanced out a bit more? People make it seem like if you do X or Y you’ll never win or be invited to anything. Whole classes have been designated “near useless” for huge aspects of the game.
Tl;dr Should I suck it up and just roll a Warrior? What are my options here if I want a long-ranged class that can do WvW and PVE.
Warriors are no different. If you don’t have a GS or axe/mace, you’ll get laughed out too.
That said, it really only happens with pugs or speed runs. Find yourself a guild who isn’t interested in speed runs (for speed runs — maybe even high fractals, it’s unfair to everyone else if you don’t play the best/most efficient/optimum build and weapons), and just play what you like. If you find staff necro fun, play that. If you like longbow ranger, go run around with a longbow.
There are many things to do in the game that don’t require a great or max dps build. Play those instead. Find like-minded people.
Play open world .. or dungeons only with friends, and you can play whatever you like.
Also .. most classes have 2 weapon slots, so no problem to play Necro with staff AND daggers, or Ranger with Longbow AND sword
EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.
Melee is optimal for dungeons in most cases, Engineer and Elementalist being sort of an exception.
That being said, the only people who care about optimal builds in dungeons are the people who wear full berzerker gear with a “meta build” wanting only other players who wear berzerker gear with a meta build, and they specify this in their LFG’s (“dungeon x px zerk/speed/exp”). So just stay away from those parties and you can play whatever you want. C: I take my staff + scepter/axe and warhorn Necro to a dungeon and hammer/staff Guardian to a dungeon whenever I feel like it and I never get kicked.
you can play the standard game (anything aside from speedrunning, pvp tournaments, and hardcore wvw guilds) perfectly fine without doing the meta, and whoever says otherwise is taking the game way too seriously.
just do what you enjoy and ignore the jerks
I’ve been playing as a longbow/greatsword ranger ever since i started and only once has someone asked me to change it.
Druid main, 80 on all, Legendary ranked, Eternal and all that jazz (I go by Feyris in game)
I’m confused and a bit miserable. Is it okay to try and play a class the way I want or will I be expected to conform to the current meta the instant I try and do anything endgame? Why haven’t things been balanced out a bit more? People make it seem like if you do X or Y you’ll never win or be invited to anything. Whole classes have been designated “near useless” for huge aspects of the game.
Tl;dr Should I suck it up and just roll a Warrior? What are my options here if I want a long-ranged class that can do WvW and PVE.
It’s ok to play a class like ranger or necro for PvE if you absolutely want to, but they are sub-optimal for groups in general. I have neither, but I can say other classes bring a lot more group support. Thieves have stealth for trash runs, guards provide defensive boons, warriors bring the best dps support for groups, and eles can stack might/fury and are the most useful for speed runs. I usually am fine with any class in pugs though, long as they listen and stack when they need to.
btw not sure what you mean by long-ranged class, warriors can use bow with decent range (though I rarely need to). Eles I think have 1200 range with staff, which is the highest dps wep in game. you can still sit at max range with ranger if you want, but most groups in dungeons will dislike you if you do that. for instance at Lupi, one of the toughest bosses in game.. after we wiped once, me and another warrior carried at him while a ranger sat with bow at max range, downed once in phase 2 but his pet revived him, and again when boss died.. both times neither of us helped him but he survived. tbh I don’t think he rly helped much, but at least he didn’t die..
