Guild Wars 2

I love the world of GW2. The exploration of it, the quest system (just walk up and fight), and honestly the community seems pretty live and active. But I have a very hard time trying to enjoy my class. So far I have played a warrior, ranger, and engineer but have not been able to find one that I can stick too. I am a simple person and do not like all the flexibility of all these classes.

What I am looking for is a class that succeeds in ranged combat but that is not so complicated that I am switching weapons every 5 seconds. I thought ranger would be the class for me but it seems that melee ranger is way more dps and more practical (compared to when the game launched bows felt useful and a lot of fun). Warriors were the same with me. Pretty simple to play but ranged weapons seem inferior to melee weapons. Elementalist just seems very complicated heaving to switch to 4 tabs of powers all the time.

With the new expansion, I was unable to do any beta testing due to my job and missing the weekends. I have never liked dungeons in GW2 (only played a few but wasnt happy while I was inside) but I am really looking forward to the raids. I would like to find a class that will be majority range and not be so complicated with keybinds that if feels like a chore to play. From the research that I have done, the only class that seems like it just from the description will be the druid. I don’t mind at all not doing a lot of dps if I am healing everyone and being useful but what I want to be is RANGED and useful via dps/lots of support/ or healing. I did see also that the reverent also has two weapons and one of them is all ranged (the two hander). Is this weapon onpar with the class melee or is it underpowered?

Please any guidance you have would be very helpful. I do like and WANT to get involved in the game but so far I am having a hard time loving a class that enables me to want to play often.

My second question was what is the difference between a fractal and a dungeon? Never experienced a fractal.

Any advice?:) Want to test some ideas out if anyone has any suggestions.

Ranged is almost always lower damage then melee so no class will be on par except elementalist and engi but they are probabely to many buttons considering you dont want to mash alot of em

Vicus.5841:

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what I want to be is RANGED and useful
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Engineer with Rifle, Grenades and Mortar Kit. All Ranged attacks (Rifle and Grenades are mid, 900, and Mortar is long, 1200) and all useful (fields, blasts etc.).

Vicus.5841:

My second question was what is the difference between a fractal and a dungeon? Never experienced a fractal.

Dungeon is a set themed area (i.e Crucible of Eternity is a Inquest lab themed with Inquesty goodness). Fractals are fragments of history (possibly the future?) with some different mechanics. Both are good fun and if you’d like to do some Fractals I’d be happy to run some with you.

Engineer Rifle auto and net shot have 1200 range, but the heavy hitters are all most effective at point blank range and not usable beyond 600-800 (depending on skill). And Mortar is 1500 range. Useful for fields, but you don’t want to be camping it.

No matter what you play being at range puts you at a disadvantage since you won’t be benefiting from Blasts on Fire Fields.

You should stick to a 600 range around your group so you can support each other, share boons, etc. The only two profession that fight with range weapons in PvE right now are Engineer and Elementalist. They still should stick to 600 range, but they have more movement freedom than a melee Warrior for exemple.

Dungeon is one instance that can be player in 3-5 differents ways with Story and Explorable mode. Each path will make you fight through the same instance, but on a different road and different enemies. They usually talk about Lore. For exemple, AC talk about the struggle of the Charr against the Ascalonian Ghost. CoE talk about the experimentation of the Inquest on dragon magic. They are made for different level and if you go inside one with higher level, you gonna get downlevel, which can have some weird consequence in low level dungeon. Dungeon were also balance around exotic at the launch of the game. We do now almost twice the damage that we used to do and we pretty much explode the hell out of most mobs in there.

Fractal is a group of 13 different instance. Each with their own map, story and lore. We are on the mist so all of that is not technically real. They can put you in the past, in the future, in the present, with real or completely imaginary situation (in the context of the GW2 universe). They were design with ascended in mind from the start so mobs are harder to kill there and usually more challenging. They scale in difficulty from 1 to 50 (to 100 with HoT). At level 30 you also start to have instability. Some added difficulty like, one of the boss pop up anywhere at anytime and attack you or mobs explode after they die, etc. There is also Agony with is a condition that you can’t remove. You can only try to dodge the attack that give you Agony or resist the damage with Agony Resistance that you put on your ascended armor.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQFATjUqQBL2wCWsAXLGIEqt0Dgq+Xgptn7Qo1z6SMlUA

how about these traits and skills for ranger

ranger longbow is actually pretty strong

Skyline Crash.6254:

ranger longbow is actually pretty strong

No it’s not. It’s decent, have good burst, but low dps. Especially if you want to stay in a 600 range to receive the buff from the rest of your team. It’s a nice quality of life weapon because you can stay away from your enemies and still do damage. But that doesn’t make it a strong weapon, just an easy one to use.

People that have difficulty playing the game will prefer it to a hard weapon to master like Sword or just a melee weapon like GS, but both are more powerful.

It’s still a nice burst weapon when played with a Sword/Axe. Or a Secondary weapon for pug High level fractal for some boss that pugs can’t full melee without dying.

Bottom line. People should only use it if they can’t melee something or from a opening burst.

Thanks for all the help so far. So if I want to stick to a more dps roll with support it seems mechanic is the option but just turned off by the amount of weapon swaping and keys that is required to use to be played well.

What is everyone’s thought on my druid option? I am thinking from the videos i’ve seen that it does dps from a long range but also heals people on nearly every attack (melee surrounding the mobs and players in between). I am thinking this could be a good option. DPS isn’t a factor if I am useful..if everyone else can focus on dps because I am healing them?

Thoughts?

Unless something changes drastically in HoT my thoughts are that you need to reassess how you want to approach GW2, and read up on GW2 combat (as compared to other MMOs).

Sagramor.7395:

Unless something changes drastically in HoT my thoughts are that you need to reassess how you want to approach GW2, and read up on GW2 combat (as compared to other MMOs).

(precursor…not upset but I think I am not being clear with what I am seeking so want to clear it up…hopefully) I understand the way the combat works. There is no trinity, I understand that but there is support. The group tactics are to self heal, provide buffs, and dps. This are all accomplished different ways from each class but what really happens is the content is not very hard and everyone just DPS races to the end while doing a few things to mitigate stronger attacks. Certain class are just OP on the PVE side of things and sadly these classes are NOT fun to me because they require you to be close to the mobs to push the max dps.

But your advise is correct which is the reason I posted in the first place. I reassessed how I wanted to play GW2. Playing a melee close ranged character was not enjoyable to me. I want to play a ranged class that is useful to the group (via supprt and some dps) because going pure dps as a ranged is not possible currently with the majority of builds. So I am asking for advise for how I want to enjoy the game, not how everyone thinks I should play because its just what everyone does. With the addition of raids in HOT and the fact they want to get rid of berksering all the targets, I do believe that HOT will change somethings (hopeful) but I was unable to play any beta events so looking for advise for those who did get in on some of the action. Are any of the new epic elite classes (specs) a good fit for me? Are the new raids more dynamic that require a lot more teamwork then just push max dps and that would make a more support role class important?

Hopefully that clears up what I have been looking for? The majority of the post have been helpful but they have mainly been focused on whats currently in the game and not what was played in the last several beta events. Was also looking for more info on the reverant class because I know it’s two handed weapon is mostly ranged.

So if anyone has any experience with this it would be very helpful. If there is a class that fits perfect for me that I can get started on leveling now instead of when the expansion launches I will get started.

Vicus.5841:

Thanks for all the help so far. So if I want to stick to a more dps roll with support it seems mechanic is the option but just turned off by the amount of weapon swaping and keys that is required to use to be played well.

What is everyone’s thought on my druid option? I am thinking from the videos i’ve seen that it does dps from a long range but also heals people on nearly every attack (melee surrounding the mobs and players in between). I am thinking this could be a good option. DPS isn’t a factor if I am useful..if everyone else can focus on dps because I am healing them?

Thoughts?

For Dungeon this will be useless.

For Fractal up to 50, it’s useless. But it’s nice when you trio fractal 50. Not the best way to do it, but it’s a good way.

We’ll see if it could be nice for Fractal 100 and Raids.

Vicus.5841:

Sagramor.7395:

Unless something changes drastically in HoT my thoughts are that you need to reassess how you want to approach GW2, and read up on GW2 combat (as compared to other MMOs).

(precursor…not upset but I think I am not being clear with what I am seeking so want to clear it up…hopefully)

SNIP

It wasn’t explicitly stated in the OP that you were exclusively looking to play PvE, so I’m going to suggest looking into WvW. Especially since you weren’t happy in dungeons, and since not having played betas I can’t say you won’t have the same feelings towards raids. There’s a lot more room for ranged specs there. That being said there really isn’t any profession in any game mode (short of open world PvE) that’s simple to the point where minimal weapon swaps and key-presses are effective, but at least there’s room for ranged dps.

Your request of " I want to be is RANGED and useful via dps/lots of support/ or healing." screams staff Elementalist. So if WvW isn’t out of the question give it a shot. Ele is one of the more complicated professions, but very rewarding once you’ve gotten proficient.

Vicus.5841:

What is everyone’s thought on my druid option? I am thinking from the videos i’ve seen that it does dps from a long range but also heals people on nearly every attack (melee surrounding the mobs and players in between). I am thinking this could be a good option. DPS isn’t a factor if I am useful..if everyone else can focus on dps because I am healing them?

Thoughts?

That is only really true for a specific circumstance. I would hope the designers are a bit more imaginative than to repeat the same design over and over. That aside a druid still has weapon swap and camping staff when the heal isn’t necessary would still be bad.