Guild Wars 2

Ok so im a brand new player to GW2, never played the first one either. Although I have played many mmo’s in the past from EQ to WoW and everything in between. Took about a year off from online gaming and am excited to get back into it. But what profession should I start with?

I tend to solo while lvling up, and at endgame mostly pvp. Usually solo or in small groups with friends. I love being able to AoE during PVE, and have always liked kiting as well. With PvP I either like playing a class where im off on my own killing people, or playing support in small groups. I also typically prefer casters.

Suggestions?

Taking into account everything you said you would probably enjoy ranger the most. (great solo build to 80 and they are great pvp’ers)

However if you really want to play a “caster” there is only one true option… elementalist. Necro and mesmer are so off the regular beat and path that I wouldn’t call either of them a caster.

I’ll be honest though you really need to throw out everything you knew previously from mmo’s because ANET has changed how i see professions in general, you are no longer stuck in a role once you hit 80 there are so many build options you will never get bored.

Happy leveling.

-Killacam

I’d like to second Ranger. It souns like the bet fit for what you described, but I could see engineer, elementalist, and necromancer filling that role too.

I’m also going to second unlearning what you have learned. Quick run-down of why:

In EQ, only the chosen few could kite. This is not the case in GW2. Everyone can, even warriors—even guardiancs, and they have the worst ranged damage capabilities.

In EQ, soloing was similarly restricted to a few classes. In WoW, soling was possible by all classes, but only when using certain builds. In GW2, these things don’t matter—you can solo as any class, as any build.

The “end game” notion goes back a long ways, when players ran out of things to do to challenge themselves at the level cap. EQ added massive quests and endless farming of world raid zones, relying on a trickle-down effect to spread the player base over the last several expansions of content. WoW added a series of dungeons and a gear treadmill that was designed to be available to everybody. GW2 doesn’t work this way. Do you like dungeons? You can start them at level 30 (when you unlock your last skill slot). Do you like killing world bosses in massive raids? Your tutorial will end with one (it is a tutorial, so don’t expect a significant challenge) and most zones have a nice boss fight in them (even at 80, I go out of my way to fight the wurm boss in Caledon forest when he is up).
In other MMOs, there was a different game that you played at the level cap—having endured the rite of passage that was grinding levels, you were allowed to play the fun game. That philosophy is the exact opposite of GW2’s. When you take your decked-out 80 and start going to PvP, you’ll find yourself on equal footing with a fresh-from-the-tutorial new player, because PvP is a completely separate branch of the game. You don’t even get to bring your gear in with you, there is a separate set of PvP armor to level the playing field. In WoW I used to love Deadmines, and hated when I leveled so much that it was too easy to be fun. Thanks to downscaling your level, while you might get stronger, content is always difficult enough to pose enough of a challenge to be fun, and thanks to loot scaling, you will get level-appropriate rewards no matter what content you choose to do. You’re not roped into following a developer’s concept of progress, you’re simply invited to have fun, at whatever pace you want, doing the type of content you want.

I remember hearing that the current record for making it to 80 was 21 hours. I can believe this. In 21 hours of EQ, you were lucky to make 10% of a level… GW2 is not about reaching your destination, it is about the journey.

So welcome, I hope you have a lot of fun.

Edit: I suppose that wasn’t so quick after all. Sorry x.x

Excellent replies guys, thank you. It definitely seems like things are far different than what I had expected, and that seems a good thing thus far. The scaling sounds like a cool idea, being able to run dungeons at any level. And I LOVE the point you make about not being able to bring your gear into PvP with you. That completely levels the playing field, and makes it about skill instead of hours of grinding to get the better gear just to be able to compete.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Elementalists are the best AOE imo but they don’t really kite as niether does any class really. I kite on my engineer simply with cripple and bind but thats really situational. For solo play I’d suggest warrior, ranger or thief since they have the easiest things to keep you alive while not having to be overleveled to do any of the story.