Guild Wars 2

Hiya!

I’m a completely new player – the game is in fact downloading as I type this post – and I am in need of a wee bit of handholding. I’m a veteran gamer, and a competetive one at that.

From what I’ve seen, the Elementalist class appeals the most to me. I’ve always been a fan of magic users: especially ones that wield the power of the elements. (See: WoW Mage, Path of Exile Witch, Diablo 2 Sorceress, Diablo 3 Wizard etc.) Is the Elementalist a viable class when it comes to top end PvP and PvE?

As well as that, is there one or perhaps a couple of servers in particular that outshine the others in term of activity and PvP/PvE rankings as well as the difficulty with which a new player can find an okay guild?

As a last thing, is there anything I really should know before venturing into the land of Gw2?

Thank you ever so much in advance for your answers guys. It truly is appreciated.

~Kira.

Elementalist is an overpowered WvW and PvE class. Meaning real WvW, not the cheesy perma-stealth thief variety. Eles have access to an amazing array of skills too, it’s definitely a fun class to play in GW2.

As for tips, always gather herb nodes (chance to drop expensive dyes), don’t hesitate to spend money or karma on upgrades every 5-10 levels or so. Always use food items, having two of them at once gives you a 20% experience bonus (see wiki or my sig).

If it’s purely for the +xp gain. The halloween food offer a +15% exp instead of +10%, the lowest level item is lv5.

What AntiGw said.
I main an Asura ele and I love it immensely. I do some amateurish PvP, WvW, but I’m mainly a high level fractal and dungeon runner. It’s all fun with an ele!
Ele was tough to level for me, but as it was my first that may have been the problem. Nourishments are super handy, and if you can get your hands on some EXP boosts or killstreak EXP boosts you can level very quick in low level areas. Also, always gather and mine and chop wood. Revive NPCs. All these things give EXP.
As Anti said, use nourishments! When I start a toon I always use applesauce and rough sharpening stones, and use that extra +20 exp, not sure if it speeds it up that much, but it must help somewhat!

Thank you very much for the tips so far guys. It is very much appreciated.

What about servers? I’d hate to pick one of the less populated ones as I enjoy having full cities and generally just quite a lot of people running around in the world.

You can see each server’s WvW ranking, which should give you an idea of their population. Servers at the top of the list tend to have higher overall population.

Depending on your preferred playstyle, you might want to avoid the highest or lowest servers. High tier WvW gets very hectic and zergy, while low-pop WvW involves more strategy.

As for PvE, it doesn’t really matter what server you are on, because you can guest on other servers whenever you like (that is on two servers each day).

How long does a ‘guest’ last for? Can I guest another server until I log off or is it two instanced dungeons?

Kira.4019:

How long does a ‘guest’ last for? Can I guest another server until I log off or is it two instanced dungeons?

The two guest servers you choose becme locked until the daily server reset, at which point you can choose the same or a new pair of servers. You can visit your locked servers as many times as you like.

Another thing to be aware of is multi-guilding. You can join up to 4 guilds at the same time, and switch between representing any of them. Depending on your preferences, you might want to ask if a guild allows you to do that, because some of them want you to represent them always. That tends to cause a lot of drama.

I see. That’s a clever system. It’s nice to hear that I’ll be able to hop to other servers from time to time – that’s one of the things I was worrying a littlebit about.

Now if only the game would finish downloading… I just moved to a new apartment yesterday and haven’t got any decent internet connection running yet so it’s downloading at a heartwrenching 150 kb/s. >_<

Can’t wait to get started out as a Human Elementalist. I just hope I’ll be able to find a guild that’s nice and sociable from the get-go.

I am personally not too familiar with playing/levelling an ele, but they do tend to be in high demand in structured world versus world groups. If you’re into that sort of gameplay you might want to pick a server on its WvW performance, which in my opinion is a nice measure of the popularity of that type of gameplay on a particular server. (https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/na/wvw)

I cannot really give any tips and tricks for elementalists in particular, but I’m sure the folks over at the elementalist subforum can help with that. So some general things about playing that I discovered too late and would have been extremely helpful in hindsight:
1) Nourishments, as mentioned above. Decent exp boost, and helpful stat boosts.
2) Crafting gives experience, levelling any crafting profession to 400 will level your character for 10 levels. (For guides on how to level crafts most efficiently I normally use http://gw2crafts.net/ )
3) GW2 encourages going off the beaten path and exploring in general by adding an exploration bonus to kills, and rewarding you for exploring.
4) Don’t skip resource nodes if you can avoid it, they are to a large extent ‘free’ cash.
5) PvP and PvE are completely separate in this game, everyone has the same level in PvP and has access to the same gear with the same stats. No vertical progression is offered in terms of getting better stats by playing more/playing better. All rewards in PvP are purely cosmetic. This makes for a balanced/fun experience. (A very basic PvP guide can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FGTYRnMkLk)
6) Doing ‘hearts’ (the GW2 icon for a standard quest) is rewarded with the NPC you helped selling you items for karma. Karma is a separate currency from the normal gold, and is obtained by helping NPCs/doing events ingame.
If you stay in zones appropriate to your level, most of your gear can come from these vendors, and you’ll be able to stay geared at a minimum cost.
7) You can join multiple guilds, a lot of guilds are specialized in either PvP, PvE or WvW. You can only represent one at a time though.

The final piece of advice I’d like to give is that other MMOs may have conditioned you to look at levelling up as a goal. In gw2 I have noticed that levelling up is extremely linear (1->10 will take roughly the same amount of time as 70->80), and the process of getting to the level cap will take less than 2-3 weeks with casual play.
So I would therefore encourage you to look at levelling up as a side effect of just having fun ingame.

Waikd.4632:

So I would therefore encourage you to look at levelling up as a side effect of just having fun ingame.

This here I absolutely agree with. It took me, 2 months of casual play to get to 80, but that’s ultra casual play of my elementalist. It was a really fun time, exploration and learning the game is likely what got me hooked in the first place (along with a great guild!).

Edit: As for servers, all servers have their upsides. Anvil Rock iirc is mainly a PvP server, Tarnished Coast is the unofficial RP server, and Sanctum of Rall, Black Gate, Jade Quarry are all excellent WvW servers (Though I do love my Tarnished Coast WvW )

THERE IS one thing you need to absolutely know:
there is a little icon on the top-right corner of your inventory,you can store all collectibles in your back with it.
you’ll find this immensely useful.

Oh leveling is something I find interesting in MMOs. I don’t enjoy it as much as I do in, say, ARPGs where I enjoy hitting very high levels/high ladder spots immensly, but it does provide great insight into the classes. I shall take your tips to heart – especially the one where you advice me to go off the natural path at times.

Perhaps I’ll get to play it tomorrow evening. The download has been on for 7 hours so far and it’s only at 19%. Sigh. If only I’d done this before moving.