Guild Wars 2

I’m brand new to GW2 coming from City of Heroes (which is shutting down). I’m very confused and am hoping to find some help.

I’m currently playing as a human Guardian. It’s not that much fun and perhaps not a good choice for a first character. Melee seems very involved. Is there a better ranged option I should try out?

Also I’m confused on leveling. As I gain levels, what do I do to “skill up”? I’m a little confused on this one.

Basically any general help about what I’m supposed to do in game and such would be helpful.

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

I was the same way with my first character. Confused and not having a great time with it. Made an Asuran Thief and have been having a blast. “skill up” earns skill points to drop into skills on your 7, 8, 9 keys, these can be switched if they arent working for you provided you have used skill points to unlock others. at lvl 11 you earn traits that increase power, precision, toughness, etc. one per lvl i think. you also need 10s to buy the adept training manual from the profession trainer. my thief uses a shortbow for ranged and a dual dagger for melee, these are easily swapped on the fly for different combat options. i forget what lvl you unlock weapon swapping, 7 i think. and trying new weapon combos unlocks different skills for use. hope this was helpful in some way and hope you stick around to find the right race/profession for yourself. Happy hunting

Once you get past a certain level (don’t remember the number), you gain a Trait Point each level. From your Hero Panel (“H” by default), you select the Skills & Traits tab (2nd one down, on the left) and buy skills & traits.

Skills are additional abilities that go into your 6, 7, 8, 9 slots. 6 is always for heals. Once you purchase the skills, you can select which one is active with a drop-down (actually “up”) menu from the main interface.

Traits are a little bit trickier. Before you can assign any trait points, you have to visit a trainer for your profession (Guardian) and purchase an Adept book. Once you activate this book, you add trait points with the + button beside the desired trait line on the Hero Panel.

Each trait line enables certain perks once you put 5, 10, 15 etc. points into it. You can hover over the perks to see what they are, but the 10-pointers are selectable — you get to pick specifically which perk you want from a list.

Check out the wiki for specifics:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skill
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trait

You also earn trait points as you level and this is close to what you would normally call a ‘talent tree’.

Also, if you want to “Test Drive” a higher level of your character go into your character screen “H” by default. In the PvP choose the “Go to Mist” or something like that. You go to the PvP training and staging area. Here you are bumped to level 80 with comparable leveled PvP gear… and all talents and skills unlocked. You can go challenge the PvP training NPC’s to try out a max level character.

There are a few good FAQ/Wish I had knew… type of post in the forums as well. Great tips… The biggest deal is just roaming around and finding things to do without a quest giver saying you must go here… then go there!

Have Fun!!

Dark Night.5601:

I’m brand new to GW2 coming from City of Heroes (which is shutting down). I’m very confused and am hoping to find some help.

Welcome. I played City of Heroes/Villains for a long time as well, right up until they went to “Freedom” and implemented the most blatantly exploitive cash shop possible. I quit at that point out of protest.

Dark Night.5601:

I’m currently playing as a human Guardian. It’s not that much fun and perhaps not a good choice for a first character. Melee seems very involved. Is there a better ranged option I should try out?

Combat in GW2 is pretty involved all around compared to CoH. Primarily there is no autofollow or autofollow to maximum range. However you can “auto” one ability just as you could in CoH, and this should always be your first weapon slot. This will allow you to effectively range-check a target but hitting 1 to start the auto-power and then move until it starts auto-firing. Since the ability will only auto-fire when its in hitting range this is a good indicator for when you’re in range to use your other abilities.

Other things that you’ll need to get used to are target facing (which is manual) and slow backpedalling speed. Wheras in CoH you could kite at range while facing the target, in GW2 if you want to kite effectively you’re going to have to turn around or at least turn 90 degrees from the mob to move away at full speed.

Also, make sure you bind a key to dodging and get used to watching enemy attack animations and otherwise get accustomed to knowing when is a good time to dodge as dodge not only moves you, but evades any and all attacks, making them miss you completely.

I’d encourage trying some different classes, but in general you’re going to find that timing, positioning, situational awareness are much more important in GW2 than CoH. If you’re looking for a less complex class to get the hang of things I’d suggest trying a rifle warrior. Warriors have the least complex class mechanics and the rifle skillbar for the warrior is one of the easiest to understand. In addition warriors have heavy armor and a good chunk of base health. This “ranged tank” will allow you to make quite a few more mistakes while learning the combat system. The rifle warrior even has a CoH-style “snipe” ability like what you might be used to on a blaster or corruptor as its adrenaline attack. Warrior also has a large number of weapon options so once you’re more comfortable with dodging, positioning, camera facing, and other aspects where GW2 is different you can transition to something a little more complicated or move to a melee build without leveling another character.

That said, GW2’s combat only gets more complicated as you progress to higher level zones, so while just hitting your rotation as soon as it pops up may work fine in the beginning, by the time you reach Orr you’re going to find that timing and use of all of the abilities on your bar is going to be very important to your success.

Finally, don’t give up! GW2 is a more complex and more difficult combat system than CoH, but once you get the hang of it it’s extremely rewarding.

Dark Night.5601:

Also I’m confused on leveling. As I gain levels, what do I do to “skill up”? I’m a little confused on this one.

Before level 11 you’ll only get skill points. You can spend these skill points on skills by opening your hero panel (H) and clicking the skills tab on the left (it should have a little red ! if you’ve just leveled up but haven’t purchased skills yet.)

After level 11 you’ll also get trait points which you can spend to unlock traits as well as increase various base stats in the traits tab of the same interface. You’ll need a training manual before you can do this and the lowest tier training manual costs ten silver and can be purchased from your skill trainer. To find the skill trainer look on your map for a little icon near where you originally spawned after the tutorial. To unlock the second and third tier of your traits you’ll need progressively more expensive skill books as you reach high enough levels to unlock them.

Don’t worry too much about picking the wrong skills or traits. You can reset your traits at any time by buying and using another book, and as for skills you will eventually be able to learn every skill available to your class. After that you’ll be spending those skill points on items related to the mystic forge for various things like philosopher’s stones for crafting material upgrades or even components and recipies you’ll need to craft legendary weapons!

Thanks for the info and tips! I also hope to get picked up by a good guild that’s very supportive and helps newer members. Good gaming everybody!