Guild Wars 2

So i really love the game and want to make it my dedicated MMO but here is the thing, i usually dont play MMO’s that are so “big” and im having trouble learning everything,

Im level 12 ranger and i want to do my story quest but i gotta be level 16 ( i tried to do it but im too weak ) anyways i did a lot of the heart quests but are there more all over and i just have to find them or what?

so what is the best way to level ( with out spending money ( might later ) )

thanks!

For a new player, doing hearts and the events is the best way to level, along with story.

Depending on your race, you started in a certain beginner area (wayfarer=norn, caledon forest=sylvari, etc). There is a big purple circle on your map that will take you to lions arch, from your main town (hoelbrak=norn, the grove=sylvari, etc) which will allow you to get to the other starting areas to do those hearts (lvl 1-15). You’ll still get good XP, even if the heart is a little low for your level.

Add me in game if you need help and I’ll show you the portals.

Side-note: A lot of people hate rangers. They are the joke of Tyria. If you like to play it, great for you, but just be ready to live a hard life as a ranger.

Ethics.4519:

For a new player, doing hearts and the events is the best way to level, along with story.

Depending on your race, you started in a certain beginner area (wayfarer=norn, caledon forest=sylvari, etc). There is a big purple circle on your map that will take you to lions arch, from your main town (hoelbrak=norn, the grove=sylvari, etc) which will allow you to get to the other starting areas to do those hearts (lvl 1-15). You’ll still get good XP, even if the heart is a little low for your level.

Add me in game if you need help and I’ll show you the portals.

Side-note: A lot of people hate rangers. They are the joke of Tyria. If you like to play it, great for you, but just be ready to live a hard life as a ranger.

Hey thanks for the help, and i will add you (:

Why do people hate rangers? are they weaker?

Rangers are notorious for drawing in bad players. There’s a term that floats on the forums as “wrongbow” or “bearbow” which is a ranger that has a long bow with a bear pet. This is the least amount of damage but maximum safety. There are some very good rangers, but they tend to use sword/GS and stay in melee range (however the sword has a weird root on the auto chain since day 1 and has yet to be fixed)

Rangers tend to provide little to group comps, that aren’t better provided by a different class. If you want utility, bring a mesmer. If you want support/damage break a guardian, if you want all damage bring a warrior. Eles and thieves also provide some niche utilities and damage.

Rangers offer spirits and that’s about it. The damage is mediocre at best and spirits die quickly. The healing spring is nice if a thief can blast it with sbow for group heals, however most wrongbow rangers use the healing spring 1500 away from where the rest of the group is meleeing and stacked.

Edit: also depends on what you will be focusing on game wise. If you like dungeons/PvE I HIGHLY suggest not rolling a ranger. If you stick to WvW a lot, rangers are okay. If you spvp, rangers are actually decent for off-point capping/holding.

Ethics.4519:

Rangers are notorious for drawing in bad players. There’s a term that floats on the forums as “wrongbow” or “bearbow” which is a ranger that has a long bow with a bear pet. This is the least amount of damage but maximum safety. There are some very good rangers, but they tend to use sword/GS and stay in melee range (however the sword has a weird root on the auto chain since day 1 and has yet to be fixed)

Rangers tend to provide little to group comps, that aren’t better provided by a different class. If you want utility, bring a mesmer. If you want support/damage break a guardian, if you want all damage bring a warrior. Eles and thieves also provide some niche utilities and damage.

Rangers offer spirits and that’s about it. The damage is mediocre at best and spirits die quickly. The healing spring is nice if a thief can blast it with sbow for group heals, however most wrongbow rangers use the healing spring 1500 away from where the rest of the group is meleeing and stacked.

Edit: also depends on what you will be focusing on game wise. If you like dungeons/PvE I HIGHLY suggest not rolling a ranger. If you stick to WvW a lot, rangers are okay. If you spvp, rangers are actually decent for off-point capping/holding.

i see.. i have noticed that the damage is bad.. even the defense is bad too.. but i really dont want to grind another :/ , id like to just have fun though tbh, why i need ways to level

Level 12 is a good time to start over. Just make a new toon and see how it plays. I’m not going to tell you to switch classes, especially since some people really enjoy ranger. I’m just saying maybe think about it now, before you invest too much time/money into a toon that you find out nobody wants to bring to dungeons/parties.

My first toon was a ranger that I max leveled and geared out, I have all professions (6 of them 80) and ranger is hands down my least favorite.

Ethics.4519:

Level 12 is a good time to start over. Just make a new toon and see how it plays. I’m not going to tell you to switch classes, especially since some people really enjoy ranger. I’m just saying maybe think about it now, before you invest too much time/money into a toon that you find out nobody wants to bring to dungeons/parties.

My first toon was a ranger that I max leveled and geared out, I have all professions (6 of them 80) and ranger is hands down my least favorite.

Hmm ill think about it but im liking it, its just the leveling.. and finding quests is so new/hard right now for me that it makes me rage quit )

The nice thing about the game is you are rewarded with exp while doing just about anything. As mentioned, hit a new starter level and ‘map complete’ that zone… all points of interest, hearts, waypoints and vistas. Kill everything you encounter and harvest all nodes. You’ll hit your share of events in the process. You’ll jump your 4 levels quickly, and then can continue your story if that’s what interests you.

If you have the patience for some monotony, you can always join the ‘Champ Train’ in Queensdale… the group continuously loops a run that takes out half a dozen champion level monsters in succession. It gets tedious, but certainly a quick way to level, and the rewards are decent as well. Ask for the ‘zerg location’ in map chat and join the slaughter.

Garrison Storm.3046:

The nice thing about the game is you are rewarded with exp while doing just about anything. As mentioned, hit a new starter level and ‘map complete’ that zone… all points of interest, hearts, waypoints and vistas. Kill everything you encounter and harvest all nodes. You’ll hit your share of events in the process. You’ll jump your 4 levels quickly, and then can continue your story if that’s what interests you.

If you have the patience for some monotony, you can always join the ‘Champ Train’ in Queensdale… the group continuously loops a run that takes out half a dozen champion level monsters in succession. It gets tedious, but certainly a quick way to level, and the rewards are decent as well. Ask for the ‘zerg location’ in map chat and join the slaughter.

thanks (: i will try to find this, the map/world so big and idk what everythign means ( icons )

AtsuiPanda.1942:

Garrison Storm.3046:

The nice thing about the game is you are rewarded with exp while doing just about anything. As mentioned, hit a new starter level and ‘map complete’ that zone… all points of interest, hearts, waypoints and vistas. Kill everything you encounter and harvest all nodes. You’ll hit your share of events in the process. You’ll jump your 4 levels quickly, and then can continue your story if that’s what interests you.

If you have the patience for some monotony, you can always join the ‘Champ Train’ in Queensdale… the group continuously loops a run that takes out half a dozen champion level monsters in succession. It gets tedious, but certainly a quick way to level, and the rewards are decent as well. Ask for the ‘zerg location’ in map chat and join the slaughter.

thanks (: i will try to find this, the map/world so big and idk what everythign means ( icons )

Queensdale is the human start zone, south of divinity’ reach (the human starter city). You’ll want to run around and get most of the WPs (waypoints) before joining the champ train, as they WP to most of the spots.

POIs (point of interests) are little squares that turn yellow when you discover them
Vistas are the red triangles that fill in red when you press f on the spot (usually in a high or low spot, as it’s a visual thing)
Hearts are the ‘quests’ area
Waypoints (WPs) are the blue diamonds that unlock and you can then instantly travel to that location.
Skill challenges are the blue up arrow that, once you complete, gives you one skill point to use on skills (or recipes in the future, for now, just focus on skills)

Skill challenges will either be 1) fighting something 2) Answering questions 3) Picking something up and using it in your inventory

My best tip for leveling up is, if you are doing a heart and you can start an event (an NPC with a yellow circle of his/her head) or there is one going on, do it. It will almost always give you credit towards the heart, and you’ll get the xp for the event as well.

Ethics if you are reading this, I have to wait 2 days to reply to PMs it seems.. But to answer your question , im a Norn , and im not on right now but i will hop on now and try and PM you, im on dragonbrand

Ethics.4519:

AtsuiPanda.1942:

Garrison Storm.3046:

The nice thing about the game is you are rewarded with exp while doing just about anything. As mentioned, hit a new starter level and ‘map complete’ that zone… all points of interest, hearts, waypoints and vistas. Kill everything you encounter and harvest all nodes. You’ll hit your share of events in the process. You’ll jump your 4 levels quickly, and then can continue your story if that’s what interests you.

If you have the patience for some monotony, you can always join the ‘Champ Train’ in Queensdale… the group continuously loops a run that takes out half a dozen champion level monsters in succession. It gets tedious, but certainly a quick way to level, and the rewards are decent as well. Ask for the ‘zerg location’ in map chat and join the slaughter.

thanks (: i will try to find this, the map/world so big and idk what everythign means ( icons )

Queensdale is the human start zone, south of divinity’ reach (the human starter city). You’ll want to run around and get most of the WPs (waypoints) before joining the champ train, as they WP to most of the spots.

POIs (point of interests) are little squares that turn yellow when you discover them
Vistas are the red triangles that fill in red when you press f on the spot (usually in a high or low spot, as it’s a visual thing)
Hearts are the ‘quests’ area
Waypoints (WPs) are the blue diamonds that unlock and you can then instantly travel to that location.
Skill challenges are the blue up arrow that, once you complete, gives you one skill point to use on skills (or recipes in the future, for now, just focus on skills)

Skill challenges will either be 1) fighting something 2) Answering questions 3) Picking something up and using it in your inventory

My best tip for leveling up is, if you are doing a heart and you can start an event (an NPC with a yellow circle of his/her head) or there is one going on, do it. It will almost always give you credit towards the heart, and you’ll get the xp for the event as well.

Said you was not online :/ . do you have a skype?

Ethics.4519:

Rangers are notorious for drawing in bad players. There’s a term that floats on the forums as “wrongbow” or “bearbow” which is a ranger that has a long bow with a bear pet. This is the least amount of damage but maximum safety. There are some very good rangers, but they tend to use sword/GS and stay in melee range (however the sword has a weird root on the auto chain since day 1 and has yet to be fixed)

Rangers tend to provide little to group comps, that aren’t better provided by a different class. If you want utility, bring a mesmer. If you want support/damage break a guardian, if you want all damage bring a warrior. Eles and thieves also provide some niche utilities and damage.

Rangers offer spirits and that’s about it. The damage is mediocre at best and spirits die quickly. The healing spring is nice if a thief can blast it with sbow for group heals, however most wrongbow rangers use the healing spring 1500 away from where the rest of the group is meleeing and stacked.

Edit: also depends on what you will be focusing on game wise. If you like dungeons/PvE I HIGHLY suggest not rolling a ranger. If you stick to WvW a lot, rangers are okay. If you spvp, rangers are actually decent for off-point capping/holding.

The Ranger play you describe is no more of a joke than some of the other Class cliche’ builds that are popular around in the game. Bad players do not make the Class bad (tho you are correct that it is a very safe build in Open World PvE).

The only real Ranger issue is that Pets cannot survive in heavy hitting / heavy AoE areas (and most Dungeon & End Game content contains this type of damage).

Honestly i would work on map completion of Wayfarers and Queensdale as they are the 2 easiest maps to complete for a newbie. They also both have Meta Events which are large events with big rewards at the end of them ( Shadow Behemoth or SB for short and Maw ). If you see either one called out while in the zone its worth a visit .

Hey sorry, no i’m not online right now and won’t be till later today.

@brother. Yes, but even those builds you mention still can contribute something. The other notrious build that you may be eluding too would be a staff/scepter camping guardian. They still provide some healing and aegis, along with some dps, even though it’s lazy.

The difference is the Guardian CAN have amazing builds. The ranger can have some mediocore builds, and that’s only if you’re really good.

I did mention that rangers can excel in spvp. So if that’s what you’re getting at, I already agreed.

Overall rangers are disliked in most dungeons/fractals.
The most wanted in a list goes:
1. Warrior
2. Mesmer
3. Elementalist/Guardian
4. Thief/Engineer
5. Ranger
6. Necromancer
Unless you like WvW I suggest either starting an alt or start over.

Honestly, most people aren’t going to care what class you play as long as you play it well (e.g. for ranger, don’t sit at max range autoattacking with longbow). Try out all the classes, and if it turns out that one of the “hotter” classes is the class of your dreams, play it, and more power to you. But by no means force yourself to play a class you find boring or annoying just because some arbitrary stranger on the Internet said you should. You’ll only make yourself miserable and a poorer player in the end.

I was told many times to play a guardian instead of an ele at launch. I ignored them, and learned to play ele better than anyone else around me. I did things they said eles couldn’t do. I outlived every other class in dungeons and soloed down the bosses of several explorable paths while the rest of my party lay dead on the ground. I found uses and synergies for skills they said were useless, discovered a meta build independently months before anything was written about it.

Eventually, I did get curious and rolled a guardian. I hated it- how slow and dull and lifeless it was- and though I’ve brought myself to understand it somewhat more and found my own take on the class, it’s still my least favorite of my alts and usually collects dust while I play my eles.

I probably could have been a decent guardian, and there were some things it provided that I wish my ele had (party stability, for one). But I was extremely unmotivated to progress beyond “decent” to “great,” to the point that the entire game started feeling dull and I considered a hiatus. Only when I played ele again did I get my energy and love for GW2 back.

tl;dr play a class that you love, that excites you and makes you want to master it. For me, it’s ele. For my best friend, it’s warrior. For some other people, it’s guardian (I won’t claim that because I dislike a class, everyone should dislike it) or engi or mesmer or necro. If none of the classes light a fire, then at least play one that you enjoy enough to play well rather than half-heartedly spamming skills.

I agree in finding that one class you truely love! ?.? Guildwars2 is also my first mmo and I have almost been playing this for a year now. I have only one character and I love her to bits cause I also try and make myself into the games I play ^-^ Im a engi from Sea of sorrows!! so if your ever in SoS, feel free to come say hi! Im a comander so on everyones map there will be a blue arrow on my head and I mostly hang out in front of the bank in lions arch with my sis ^^

Good luck on your adventure!!

Sarahfull (although you can call me sarah)

@Falunel, yes and no. I agree that you shouldn’t play a class that you’re miserable with, but until you play all professions, you don’t really know. Considering this is a brand new player, it’s better to provide how things are up front.

“Honestly, most people aren’t going to care what class you play as long as you play it well” As much as I wish this were true, it’s 100% wrong. If you’re doing a lvl 48 fotm and you have the option of bringing two rangers or two guardians, you would be extremely masochistic to bring two rangers.

Again, I agree you shouldn’t play a class that you don’t like, but you should try out all the classes. And just keep in mind that you’ll have a much different experience getting dungeon groups with a guard/warrior than a ranger.

The general census on classes (PvE/dungeons):
Tier A: Guardian, Warrior, Mesmers (Mesmers you really only need 1 per group)
Tier B: Thieves, Elementalists, Necros
Tier C: Engineers, Rangers

You can argue each one a little, but overall I think this is the PUG mentality.

Also FYI, you can take any level character to the heart of the mists and spvp. They are automatically level 80, and you can freely get max gear, weapons, etc with all your traits. Although overwhelming at first, it allows you to try out what your profession will be like end game, without actually leveling to 80.