Guild Wars 2

Okay. So. I have many passions in this game. First off, is the graphics. Second, is the cool spell effects. Lastly is World PvP (there are more but i’ll talk about those later)

I have a 23 Guardian
A 19 Elementalist

I’ve been playing these characters forever, but for the life of me I cannot level! Guardian, as I found out, is terrible in WPvP. No Ranged = Bad.

Elementalist get hits so incredibly hard I find it near impossible to level.

Can someone tell me

A) The fastest way to level
B) How I can level my elementalist better
C) Tricks for leveling a Thief
D) The best class for WPvP.
E) How to level a mesmer.

A) Crafting.
B) Try WvW with a zerg and Staff to tag a lot of targets.
C)Not sure about this 1.
D)Elementalist, Guardian, Necromancer, Engineer, Mesmer. All these are best for it imo.
E) Same as B.

Crafting is good. I just don’t have the gold to do so.
I like guardian, but I also really like being able to do a lot of damage. The Scepter spam in WvW that almost always fizzles is discouraging.

Guardian was my first class, was deciding between that and the Elementalist, actually had the same issue in the original guild wars (though it was warrior at the time), this time I went the opposite and took the Guardian through, was really fun though I found it played better going survivability over brute force damage, greatsword and shouts were the skills I used and it made it easier, though I had to clear all the zones I was in, mainly to stay ahead on levels, all I can recommend if you don’t fancy spending gold on levelling crafting (which is the fastest, and boring way).

Elementalist was my 2nd class, found it really hard to level this character, couldn’t take many hits and was really quite frustrating, in the end I took the crafting route for this character, even in full exotics, some of the zones still posed a bit of a challenge, esp with the high mob density and fast spawn rates in near empty zones… was really tough, at times I regretted creating this character……

The all around answer to your questions is, crafting… it’s the easiest, fastest and most efficient (time wise) way to levelling, less pain in the long run.

Leveling can be very fast … but WvW is not a great place for fast leveling. There is typically too much down time.

You will generally die more often in WvW which means time wasted running back to your enemy. Even if you die at the same frequency in PvE there will still be less downtime(but more expensive since you have to pay for WP) since there are more waypoints(unless your server controls the whole map or certain PvE maps have terrible wp placements).

In PvE you can pretty much kill non-stop. In WvW … generally not unless you are defending something and the enemy REALLY wants it.

Being in a zerg doesn’t really help since now you run the risk of not being able to tag the enemies before they are killed. This is especially true if you don’t have decent options for range/AoE!

A) The fastest way to level
Crafting 1-400 of any proffession will give you 10 levels (unless you start from level 1, in which case it will give you 14)
Personal story quests give huge amounts of exp
Explorable path dailys (level 35+) give large amounts of exp

B) How I can level my elementalist better
Dual dagger build, dont do content a higher level than you, theirs no harm in doing lower zones to get some levels up.

C) Tricks for leveling a Thief
use the AoE stealth to cap skill points

D) The best class for WPvP.
Thief is considered the best ‘roamer’ due to its huge amounts of escapes, however if you are just going to play with the zerg it really doesnt matter what you are playing.

E) How to level a mesmer.
Greatsword + staff, get 3 phantasms/illusions up, press f1, repeat.

Why can’t you level? Is it because you ran out of quests? Try visiting other races’ area to get more heart quests. Do your personal story. There are plenty of XP. I generally use the follow wiki page to help me see where are the zones I can go for quests at my level.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zone

Leveling with Guardian the natural way (quests, gathering) should be easy.

I play a guardian casually, like 1 hour per day leveling her up by doing events, heart quests and personal story. She’s level 40 now after about 2 weeks and I’m liking my progress and I do not craft at all. Not sure about how you couldn’t level up.

Fastest leveling is a combination of personal story quests, events, and dailies. Crafting is such a boring way to get 10 levels, but considering you are new to the game, every one who suggested you level your crafts to 400 is an idiot that assumes you have the access to money to buy materials.

A new player will NOT have the money to buy the materials to level crafting to 400, let alone 2 crafts. So your best bet is what I suggest. The story mode dungeons as well as explorable dailies are GREAT XP, combine that with personal story, events whenever you come across them, hearts, and the regular daily and you will be leveling 2-3 times a day easy.

Also: Guardian with scepter/torch makes a pretty nice solo ranged class. In WvW you are definitely at a disadvantage against actual ranged DPSers, but considering it’s like impossible to die as a Guardian, you should be able to use your scepter to immobilize, then swap to GS and wail on them. Tends to do the trick unless you’re outnumbered.

Also don’t waste your time fighting Thieves as a Guardian, just run away. They will try to burst you down, and when they fail they run and hide. Your time is best served immobilizing them and running away because odds are you won’t win in the long run, and if you come close to winning they just escape.

Be a roaming Guardian in WvW. You can be very effective bunkering and 1v1. You don’t need ranged.

Also, storyline quests give lots of XP and dungeons give you huge XP. A single run will probably give you an entire level.

Crafting is fast but it’s not playing the game and it’s expensive. Do DEs, explore, gather everything you see. You will amass XP quite quickly. I took my ranger all over Tyria just hunting down all the pets to tame. I got like 3+ levels just from the exploration & gathering as I went.

Get some cheap food & crystals/potions from the TP (or craft em) and use them always. +20%XP is nothing to sneeze at.

Seras.5702:

Crafting is fast but it’s not playing the game and it’s expensive. Do DEs, explore, gather everything you see. You will amass XP quite quickly. I took my ranger all over Tyria just hunting down all the pets to tame. I got like 3+ levels just from the exploration & gathering as I went.

Crafting is more for alts and if you like to farm money now an then. Because at some point you can say : ok crafting 30 levels with artificer, jeweler and chief cost me maybe 7-8g, but if i farm gold in the time where i would have normally leveled that character, i have much more gold in the end.

Camman.2984:

Crafting is good. I just don’t have the gold to do so.
I like guardian, but I also really like being able to do a lot of damage. The Scepter spam in WvW that almost always fizzles is discouraging.

Before you experience more content you’re best to avoid trying to craft specifically to level (but by all means use it to have fun making stuff to use). The fastest way to level without crafting is by doing Renown Hearts, preferably while a dynamic event is going on at the same time. Experiment with your characters doing damage and whatnot in the Hearts for more than one starter area (Queensdale, Plains of Ashford, Wayfarer Foothills, Caldeon Forest, Metrica Province) and you’ll probably be level ~30’ish by then. I learned my characters’ abilities in the combat-related Hearts – start with one enemy at a time, then 2, 3, 4, etc.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Renown_hearts
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dynamic_event

For WvW with a Guardian I found it a lot more fun playing in small squads assaulting camps rather than taking on large enemy groups (a.k.a. zergs). Try to take down veteran guards, single players, caravans, or camps, preferably with a friend because it’ll be hard to solo without all your traits unlocked. You can get some burst damage from a “zerg” with Smite on the scepter, although you still can’t count on sustained damage at range because of those slow projectiles.