Guild Wars 2

Hey all, long time MMO fan (started off playing muds, then Anarchy Online & DAoC) and just recently got into GW2.

My work/family schedule is such that my playing time is limited, but when I play I take the game seriously. I don’t know if that’s casual or hardcore or what.

I feel like I need to find a guild to make the most of the game, and would like to find one that is a good fit for the above.

CLASSES:

I’ve spent some time playing warrior and ranger. I generally like tanks and DPS, though I generally find leveling up easier/more fun on DPS. I thought about guardian but was worried it might have the age old “slow leveling tank” problem. But that Dragonhunter specialization looks amazing. I’m leaning toward ranger at the moment but that druid spec doesn’t look as awesome.

Are all the classes pretty well balanced and all good?

Thanks,

Starting to worry the ranger is less a ranged class and that the pet management will be annoying.

Is it wiser to go guardian and then eventually pick up dragonhunter if I want to do ranged play?

Is warrior→berserker even more fun for pve?

Basically, I am looking for something fun for PvE to get my first character leveled up, range or melee is fine, not obnoxious or super micro to play is good also since I am learning the game.

There are no dedicated ranged or melee classes in this game, and no dedicated DPS, tanks or healers. All of them can do all of the above, but in slightly different ways.

From what you’ve said I’d recommend either a warrior or guardian. Both are fairly simple to pick up and never get to the point where they require a lot of micromanagement, and both have decent DPS builds (either ranged or melee or a mix of both once you unlock weapon swapping).

I think a warrior using banners needs some management but otherwise it’s pretty straightforward.

For straight out fun, though, you might want to try Necromancer→Reaper. You want a tank that can lay down the DPS? Reaper is a monster. I know that coming from other MMO’s one doesn’t think of cloth classes at tanky, but GW2 upends that quite a bit.

Reaper is a bit slow to tag things at times, not a problem in HoT maps full of mobs, but using a staff for occasional ranged work lets you drop aoe to get your credit for the kills. Really, I can’t sing Reaper praises enough, mine has become my PvE main other than fractals as I already kitted out my Mesmer/Chronomancer in Ascended with AR for that.

That said, every profession in GW2 has people who think it’s the best and people who think it’s the worst. Try a few things out — you can make a junk character to take to the PvP lobby where you will be 80 with all traits, and beat up golems to get a sense of what the skills and traits do for you, then delete and reuse the slot for another profession until you find one that feels fun. It isn’t the same as open-world fighting and watching how fast other people skewer mobs compared to yourself, but it can give you indications.

First things first and something you need to understand with this game. There are no dedicated tanks and there are no dedicated healers. So all classes are dps and some classes are better at support then other and some are better at damage mittigation, but this do not mean you can tank. So forget everything you ever done in a mmo, and forget about the extra +2 attackpower that will give you 5 more dps. This is not how GW2 works.
What you need to focus on is learning your skills and what they really do. What is pure dps, what is cc (huge thing in this game) what is your combofields, what buffs you can share and what debuffs you have and how do you stay alive (you manage your own health noone manage it for you).

So when you pick a class rather consider what you like to play. All classes have weapon switch in combat (except for ele and engy who do switch but not weapons) so you can be both ranged and melee.

If you are used to how it worked in other mmo’s then you might take a while to get used to it, but when you have you will realize how much better this way is and can never go back

Ok, thanks for all the info. Much appreciated.

So if I’d rather not do pet stuff, then I probably should stay away from ranger, right? Since I can do ranged stuff on other classes anyway?

That then pushes me more towards warrior and guardian. What’s the difference in playstyle? I have to admit that dragonhunter specialization sounds super cool.

dont shy against rangers cuz of the pets, they aren’t hard to manage and are alot of fun to collect, and use. been playing since beta so i have every class maxed but i use for diff things..

ranger – is my main, love her, and use for everything from general pve, guild missions, fractals, farming, world boss hunting, and end game meta events. you can make their playstyle as complicated as u want with melee or condi, or go lazy mode longbow event farm. tiger/smokescale/bristleback pets are my fav. Druid is fine as long as u dont expect to be a 100% healer class, i run longbow and staff for events. the staff is good for crowd control, light heals, mobility and mob tagging…

warrior – i dont play warrior anymore but it is a dps might stacking monster. i just find it too simple to use and i get bored with the skill rotation.. greatsword/axe mace,

guardian – dragonhunter is very nice. can use in all game modes, the traps are a general PVE heavy hitter, plus you have tons of blocks blinds heals damage mitigation plus party wide boons buffs.. only downside is mobility. only class that doesnt have a perma swiftness and thats just me i have a need for speed when goin places u can run staff and stack the symbol for swiftness but ur stopping every 12 sec to charge for 4 sec, or drop a skill to use “retreat” which if general roaming, u can do just remember to switch skill out b4 u enter combat. . the BOW skills are fun tho , and Greatsword and sword focus are pro.

Necro. - depending on how u look at the game, unless u want to be the “hero” in a story or a warrior/paladin class good guy blah blah type. this i think is where u want to be… speed, insane dmg, reaper is a MONSTER in pve. this is my 2nd main. but you have to like the whole dark/death concept. minions can tank and dmg for u, or u can run a chillbot and just shutdown and melt everything. dagger/horn is optimal at the moment, greatsword hits like a truck, and reaper shroud is just lawnmower 2.0 on sterioids..

elementalist is also amazing, takes a little more attention to stay alive since ur squishy running full DPS gear, but insane dmg, AND ALOT OF FUN, im currently addicted to ele at the moment.

as far as guilds, send me a msg in game, good group of ppl. relaxed and always willin to help..

Necros don’t have to be doom and gloom. It’s canon in this game that death energy is just another magic source, so a necro isn’t any creepier than, say, a county coroner or a mortician in our world. Of my three necros, one is Asura and works on recycling tissue matter to combine with crystalmancy for extended shelf life, one is Human and very philosophical as well as handy to have around to cure toxic effects and blood circulation issues (and she dresses in bright autumn hues, helps run a family general store, and is full of optimistic common sense), and one is Sylvari; she researches decay and rot in order to arrest their progress, primarily in plants. Oh, I have a Norn one that I haven’t RP’d yet and she is darker, vengeance driven, and very cold-based in her chilling magic.

Of course, as stated above I am highly biased towards Reaper.

Dragonhunter has one disconnect for me, which is that its signature weapon is long range while its signature utilities drop at its feet. Not that you have to use both traps and bow, but you’ll have to think things through a little more to get a good build.

I recommend Engineer. For leveling bombs make short work of the whole game and for end game despite a complex rotation option you can also just press 1 with a number of kits and win. They are flexible enough that you can use almost any of their skills and not feel kitten. You can actually use all of their traitlines as well the same; iirc they are the only class in which the two main weapons are contained in the same trait line (firearms) and have little to nothing going for them so no worries of picking wrong.

Although Reaper is super tanky, to play it effectively requires minion management, and while you can play Reaper without minions, they are a major support to the profession. Guardian is the most straightforward high damage dealing class that also tanks. If you are looking for something that can deal damage without dying every 5 minutes they are probably your best bet. I do not enjoy my Guardian personally, perhaps she is too straightforward for my tastes, but she is really powerful even at the low levels of play

From what you have written I would just take both warrior and guardian out and play with them in the open world. Personally warrior and guardian are fairly flat for me just didn’t get a lot of joy from them, the elites of both are fun though. The Revenant so much more fun than either warrior or guardian that I would personally take it instead.
Necro I hated until I found builds to completely remove minions, they are more trouble the way I play than help. The elite Reaper is amazing.
Mesmer I loved from the start and still one of my favourites, greatsword is the ranged option if you want to try it.
Ranger is also one of my favourites, don’t know why but I can take on things I can’t scratch with some other characters.
Hated thief, love daredevil took a while to get a handle on staff but man it is fun.
Ele is fun with or without elite spec, very squishy so takes time to get the hang of.

You have 5 character slots, if you don’t like something either delete it or use up another slot. Also the price of buying a new slot is 800 gems which can be bought with in game gold, they also go on sale about 4x a year.

If you don’t have the time to level all the different classes, just go to the sPvP lobby. You’ll be up-scaled to max level and be able to use all the skills and traits. There are also training opponents that you can fight.

Hey There,
I personally went in at Mesmer, but i had played Mesmer in GW1 so had the experience and wanted to keep playing. The only class i have not tried yet is the engineer, warrior i found to be very straight forward bashing. However the Guardian and Revenant i’ve found to be the better ones for me, depending on how you set them up depends on how you play them etc both can be DPS, Tank or even Healer, there are a lot of forum posts about the best builds for each class and it may be worth looking into them to see how others play theirs. There is not really a slow leveller, it all depends on usage of food and utility boosts, xp boosts and what you do in game whether you just do PvP, WvW or PvE or a complete mix, crafting helps with levelling too. My best advice though would be to look through the forums and get an idea of how the other classes are played, or just try them out as others have said you can always delete and restart, my Mesmer is played on a spec i thought worked best from playing the game, it just comes with experience.
Hope this helps!

I actually love playing as a ranger. Its really fun and im near unkillable in PvE
Rangers do massive damage when you consider your pet is also a weapon and counts as an extention of yourself. So for example i hit for 1k and my pet hits for 1.2k every hit i do 2.3k. Pets can also revive you and always gain agro from NPCs buying me time to trap, heal and escape. As long as im alive the pet will continue to be a target. I can also heal myself and the pet.
The pet aslo has MUCH more health than i do. Ive seen bears go toe to toe with warriors in PVP and stall for ages. (Didnt win but seemed to be a huge pain in the warriors kitten
In pvp players focus on me and not the pet so i manage the pet for taking out clones and engineers abilities while i constantly keep them busy. I am quick enough to kite soldier based classes and tougher enough to take hits from a thief in 1v1.5
I most of my skills heal me and evades.

Overall the ranger ia the most versatile class and has the most flexibility. Sure it doesnt excel at any one task bit it does many tasks well

Hello all. I have a few questions and this thread actually helped some. I did previously make a post asking about a more supportive role but u guys pretty much answered that in saying their is no dedicated role for that option. So imagine ask a question as well, revised. So I main thief. I have several 80s. I enjoy the fast paced complex skill. But I don’t seem to feel the team play of it so I am looking for a new class. I have been gone for awhile but now that I’m back i don’t seem to be enjoying my thief as much. But I do want a class I can play with great team play and more survivability with being a more viable member of a team. I have put so much focus on thief that I haven’t given much learning in other classes. I did recent make a guardian which I am enjoying but how is late game and is it a good class overall for all aspects that gw2 has to offer. I don’t mind it being a dull class if I am team viable. I don’t see myself enjoying necromancer or ele much and haven’t given much thought to others. How is the Druid and what’s main roll of one?

Rebel.5387:

Hello all. I have a few questions and this thread actually helped some. I did previously make a post asking about a more supportive role but u guys pretty much answered that in saying their is no dedicated role for that option. So imagine ask a question as well, revised. So I main thief. I have several 80s. I enjoy the fast paced complex skill. But I don’t seem to feel the team play of it so I am looking for a new class. I have been gone for awhile but now that I’m back i don’t seem to be enjoying my thief as much. But I do want a class I can play with great team play and more survivability with being a more viable member of a team. I have put so much focus on thief that I haven’t given much learning in other classes. I did recent make a guardian which I am enjoying but how is late game and is it a good class overall for all aspects that gw2 has to offer. I don’t mind it being a dull class if I am team viable. I don’t see myself enjoying necromancer or ele much and haven’t given much thought to others. How is the Druid and what’s main roll of one?

You might want to check out mesmer/chronomancer. Druid while I love ranger I have not even given a chance so can’t say. Many people find it useful especially if you are interested in raids.

Guardinas elite spec is not as much about boonsharing as the old guard is. You can still play old guard and the support they have with boonsharing if this is what you want to focus on. Elite guard is about traps and you still have a bit of support to give, but not in the way the old guard do.

Revenants are the new boonmachines and they also have some healing to give out through the Centaur legend. Revenants is overall a good class with a lot of choices.

Medium classes i would say go for ranger. Their elite spec druid is very supportive with heal, cleanse and also ress downed by pulling them to you which is very useful at points when someone goes down in a bad spot.

I believe engy can also be supportive, and they do have a heal kit that should give support, but tbh i have not seen many of this and most use the dispenser instead and i guess there is a reason for it. I have never played with the heal kit either so can’t say more about it.

Elementalist are also a good support class and can provide heal, protection and cleanse and on top of that they also have good cc and awsome dps. Ele can be hard to play if you are not the sort of person that can keep 20 cooldowns in your head and knowing when to switch attunament and rotate it well to keep boons up. Ele do also have auras they share that is very nice.

Messmers can be played as support, but not in a heal/cleanse kind of way, but more supports as in reducing cooldowns, boonshare and cc.

In the end it all depends on were you are using your class. There are more then pve raids in gw2. Infact there have been raids in gw2 for years but all the pve people seem to have missed that part. WvW raids are just as exciting and challenging.
All classes above also works fine in open world and in dungeons. In the end it is all about who is driving the class and how well they know their skills and traits.