Guild Wars 2

I thought I would start this thread to both say hello to everyone and to also ask a few things. I brought this game the end of last year but haven’t been able to get passed character creation until now due to time constraints. This is my first mmo and I brought it mainly for confidence reasons.

I have set my character up to be a Mesmer Charr and a wanted to know:

a) What would you advice that I do first level up by collecting resources or just head the first part of my story quests?
b) Since I was thinking of using a sword for my main hand should I use a second one for my other one or in your experience regardless of character would a pistol or shield be better?

Welcome to the GW2 community, you started with the right foot in the MMO world

a) Try to diverse your gameplay since everything in GW2 gives exp. Do your Personal Story, gather everything in the map, complete the maps (vistas, PoI, hearts) even from the other races, crafting also gives good exp, and the daily quests, try to do a bit of everything and you’ll level faster than you expect w/o getting bored at all.

b) Shield isn’t an option for mesmers, I recommend sword+focus as main set and sword+sword or a greatsword as secondary set, for leveling I think it will be better to have a greatsword as a secondary set for its long range, you never know when you’ll need it.

A) ya, make a bit of everything. Try to keep up with your personnal story as much as possible. Don’t let it lag behind you level like having to do the story level 30 while you are level 60. The quest won’t be that much easier, its just that if you wait until you are level 80 to do your personal story, it became boring quickly and you won’t enjoy it as much. Same thing with map completion. Go ahead right aways, while you are exploring you get more into the universe and story.

What i would keep for latter? Dungeon and Crafting. Crafting will level up you so quickly and won’t give you much to use while leveling. It will be very useful to level up alt later when you don’t want to repeat everything to level up your 3rd or 4th character for exemple. Dungeon on the other hand can be hard to get into when you are low level and don,t know the game very well. You could end up in a speed run group that will go super quickly and leave you a bad impression. You will do A LOT of dungeon after your level 80 so better use that time at low level to explore and do quest than forcing you into dungeon just because its said that it at the same level as you are.

Yup. At least for me. Exploring, Personnal Story and doing the hearts were a lot of fun while leveling, but a lot less once I reached 80 and I had a lot more stuff to do.

B) No shield for Mesmer. Sword/Focus, Sword/Sword and Sword/Pistol are the best set of weapon for mesmer. You also have Greatsword that is less good, but give you some range option when you need it (you’ll probably need it when you start the game, melee can be a bit more difficult when you start playing).

Read THIS: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/OMG-If-you-only-knew-this-tips-for-new-players/page/5#post3331753

Best information available on this game (even if you are a Veteran).

This is a GREAT general combat guide as well: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/GW2-Combat-system-101-Guide/page/4#post3394799

Thaddeus.4891:

A) ya, make a bit of everything. Try to keep up with your personnal story as much as possible. Don’t let it lag behind you level like having to do the story level 30 while you are level 60. The quest won’t be that much easier, its just that if you wait until you are level 80 to do your personal story, it became boring quickly and you won’t enjoy it as much. Same thing with map completion. Go ahead right aways, while you are exploring you get more into the universe and story.

What i would keep for latter? Dungeon and Crafting. Crafting will level up you so quickly and won’t give you much to use while leveling. It will be very useful to level up alt later when you don’t want to repeat everything to level up your 3rd or 4th character for exemple. Dungeon on the other hand can be hard to get into when you are low level and don,t know the game very well. You could end up in a speed run group that will go super quickly and leave you a bad impression. You will do A LOT of dungeon after your level 80 so better use that time at low level to explore and do quest than forcing you into dungeon just because its said that it at the same level as you are.

Yup. At least for me. Exploring, Personnal Story and doing the hearts were a lot of fun while leveling, but a lot less once I reached 80 and I had a lot more stuff to do.

B) No shield for Mesmer. Sword/Focus, Sword/Sword and Sword/Pistol are the best set of weapon for mesmer. You also have Greatsword that is less good, but give you some range option when you need it (you’ll probably need it when you start the game, melee can be a bit more difficult when you start playing).

Thank you and yes upon re reading the instructions I realize that a shield isn’t possible now. I have just got passed the tutorial and a bit of worm killing I guess. The hardest thing for me at the moment is getting used to the controls. I think heart completion will be my main aim since my combat consists of spamming my clones at the moment xD.

I think I will try and use a great sword to start with then and go sword/pistol for my main combo later. I need to find them first anyway.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Read THIS: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/OMG-If-you-only-knew-this-tips-for-new-players/page/5#post3331753

Best information available on this game (even if you are a Veteran).

This is a GREAT general combat guide as well: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/GW2-Combat-system-101-Guide/page/4#post3394799

Thank you will do. And thank you everyone for the advice so far.

A few miscellaneous tips:

*If you get loot that you can’t or don’t want to use and that you don’t want to salvage for luck and materials, sell it on the TP. Even low-level gear can get you a few silvers per item, depending on what it is, and regardless, virtually everything you get at low levels will be worth much more on the TP than it would if you vendored it.

*As a mesmer, you’ll eventually be faced with a choice as to how you want to use your illusions: keep them up as long as possible to distract and deal damage, or generate them as fast as possible so you can Mind Wrack enemies to smithereens? While you’re working towards level 30, the first point at which you can use traits, figure out how you use the illusions, and base your build around that.

*Experiment with ALL the weapons! Each of them has advantages and drawbacks. Definitely keep at least one 1200 range weapon set handy for when you have to attack from a distance.

*While you’re doing hearts, be sure to explore. Talk to NPCs to learn more about the world. Investigate whatever looks cool. “Fill in” the map as you go along so you don’t have to backtrack later. If you see NPCs running around asking for help or purposefully walking towards some destination, talk to them and follow them because you might find some interesting events to do. If you need a change of scenery, try going to the other races’ cities and starter zones.

Have fun!

^
What they said.

Take a look at the guides posted, as they may just save your life. Also as a mesmer check out:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-Lyssa-s-Grimoire-The-Mesmer-Handbook/first

This will also give you A LOT of helpful information on playing a mesmer. Welcome and good luck out there!!!

Thank you again everyone. I am slowly putting this all to good use. I even managed to make it so the camera allowed me to look up. Yay I can see the sky again xD. (My mouse is wireless and runs off batteries. They were getting low).

The first thing I did when playing this game is to find the best keybindings.
Since it’s an action-oriented game, it is important to make your fingers comfortable.